Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [56]
“Changed your mind then, lover boy?” she said quietly as she came up close to me.
“No,” I said. But had I?
“Pity,” she replied. “Are you sure you won’t come over to my place for a ride?”
“I told you I couldn’t. I can’t take the chance with my neck.”
“Not that sort of ride, silly.” She smiled. “I’d give you a ride where it wouldn’t be your neck that would have to take its chances.” She leaned forward suggestively over the paddock rail, rubbing her bottom up against my leg.
“Jan, behave yourself!” I said.
“Why should I?” she asked, laughing. “I’m a rich divorcée, remember? By definition, we’re not meant to behave ourselves. Fancy a fuck?”
“Jan!” I said. “Please stop it.”
“My,” she said, abruptly standing bolt upright next to me. “I do believe you’re embarrassed. What an old-fashioned, strange boy you are.”
I was certainly old-fashioned, but was I really strange?
Maybe I was, but did that mean I wanted Jan as a lover?
No, I suddenly decided, it did not.
I wanted Claudia.
My real reason for coming to Sandown had been to see Jolyon Roberts.
According to the morning paper, one of the horses running in the third race was owned by Viscount Shenington, and I hoped it was one of those he co-owned with his brother.
I looked out for Colonel Roberts on the grandstands during the first and second races but, not surprisingly, I couldn’t see him. The fine weather had helped to bring out a good Saturday crowd at Sandown for one of the very few mixed meetings of the year, that is where both flat and jumping contests were scheduled side by side on the eight-race program. Indeed, the first event of the day was a special one-mile flat race where jockeys from both codes raced against one another in a sort of Flat V Jump championship.
I went down to the parade ring before the third race and, sure enough, Jolyon Roberts was there, standing on the grass in the center with a group of three men and two ladies, none of whom I recognized.
I maneuvered myself next to a gap in the rails, through which I assumed the Roberts party would eventually need to pass, and waited.
He saw me when he was about five strides away and, if he was shocked or surprised, he didn’t show it. However, I did detect a very slight shake of the head as he looked me square in the eye.
As a true gentleman, he stepped to the side to allow the others in his party to pass through the exit first.
“Chasers Bar after the sixth,” Jolyon Roberts said quietly but distinctly, and straight at me, as he went through the gap, not breaking his Guard’s step. I stood still and watched as he caught up to one of the ladies and took her arm. He didn’t look back at me. His words may have been softly spoken, but his message had been crystal clear: “Don’t stop me now, I’ll speak with you later in private.”
I was in the Chasers Bar well ahead of him. In fact, I watched the sixth race on one of the wall-mounted television sets so as to ensure I could get a table discreetly situated in the corner farthest from the door, and away from the bar.
I sat, watching the entrance, with two glasses of wine in front of me, one red and one white.
Jolyon Roberts appeared, stopped briefly to look around, then strode purposefully over and sat down opposite me.
“Sorry about this, sir,” I said. “But I had no other way of contacting you.”
“What do you have to tell me?” he said.
“Drink?” I asked, indicating the wine.
“No thank you,” he said. “I don’t. Never have.”
“Something soft?” I asked.
“No, nothing, thank you.”
“What a shame about your horse,” I said.
It had fallen at the second hurdle and broken a leg.
“These things happen,” he said. “My wife was more upset about it than me. To be honest, it solved the problem of what to do with the damn thing. It couldn’t have won the race if it’d started yesterday.” He chuckled at his own joke, a habit I found slightly irritating. “Now, tell me what you’ve found.”
“Nothing much, I’m afraid,” I said, taking a large sip of the white wine. “Except that if it is a fraud,