Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [1]
We drew lightheartedly. To be honest, we thought we’d want to fiddle around with the result. But to our amazement it came out pretty well as we would have chosen, so we left it unchanged.
The stories appear in Field of 13 exactly in the order that their titles came out of the champagne cooler… and yes, after that, we put champagne into the cooler… and drank to the Draw… what else would one expect?
THE DRAW
RAID AT KINGDOM HILL
DEAD ON RED
SONG FOR MONA
BRIGHT WHITE STAR
COLLISION COURSE
NIGHTMARE
CARROT FOR A CHESTNUT
THE GIFT
SPRING FEVER
BLIND CHANCE
CORKSCREW
THE DAY OF THE LOSERS
HAIG’S DEATH
RAID AT KINGDOM HILL
Time has an uncanny way of laughing at fiction. The goings-on of a bomb-scare at Kingdom Hill – an imaginary racecourse – were invented for the summer entertainment of readers of The Times newspaper in 1975. Years later the major fantasy was put into fact: a bomb hoax halted the running of the 1997 Grand National Steeplechase at Aintree.
There has been a great change in security and the value of money since Tricksy Wilcox had his brainwave. At Kingdom Hill and throughout Field Of 13, money and usages have been millenniumised.
Thursday afternoon, Tricksy Wilcox scratched his armpit absent-mindedly and decided Claypits wasn’t worth backing in the 2.30. Tricksy Wilcox sprawled in the sagging armchair with a half-drunk can of beer within comforting reach and a huge colour television bringing him the blow-by-blow from the opening race of the three-day meeting at Kingdom Hill. Only mugs, he reflected complacently, would be putting in a nine to five stint in the sort of July heatwave that would have done justice to the Sahara. Sensible guys like himself sat around at home with the windows open and their shirts off, letting their beards grow while the sticky afternoon waned towards evening.
In winter Tricksy was of the opinion that only mugs struggled to travel to work through snow and sleet, while sensible guys stayed warm in front of the TV, betting on the jumpers; and in spring there was rain, and in the autumn, fog. Tricksy at thirty-four had brought unemployment to a fine art and considered the idea of a full honest day’s work to be a joke. It was Tricksy’s wife who went out in all weathers to her job in the supermarket, Tricksy’s wife who paid the rent on the council flat and left the exact money for the milkman. Eleven years of Tricksy had left her cheerful, unresentful, and practical. She had waited without emotion through his two nine-month spells in prison and accepted that one day would find him back there. Her dad had been in and out all her childhood. She felt at home with the minor criminal mind.
Tricksy watched Claypits win the 2.30 with insulting ease and drank down his dented self-esteem with the last of the beer. Nothing he bloody touched, he thought gloomily, was any bloody good these days. He was distinctly short of the readies and had once or twice had to cut down on necessities like drink and fags. What he wanted, now, was a nice little wheeze, a nice little tickle, to con a lot of unsuspecting mugs into opening their wallets. The scarce ticket racket, now that had done him proud for years, until the coppers nicked him with a stack of forged duplicates in his pocket at Wimbledon. And tourists were too fly by half these days, you couldn’t sell them subscriptions to non-existent porn magazines, let alone London Bridge.
He could never afterwards work out exactly what gave him the great Bandwagon idea. One minute he was peacefully watching the 3 o’clock at Kingdom Hill, and the next he was flooded with a breathtaking, wild and unholy glee.
He laughed aloud. He slapped his thigh. He stood up and jigged about, unable to bear the audacity of his thoughts sitting down. ‘Oh Moses,’ he said, gulping for air. ‘Money for old rope. Kingdom Hill, here I come.’
Tricksy Wilcox was not the most intelligent of men.
Friday morning, Major Kevin Cawdor-Jones, Manager of Kingdom Hill Racecourse, took his briefcase to the