Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [108]
Moggie Reilly knew all about Lilyglit, having followed the bright chestnut twice past the winning post on other occasions. He doubted that Storm Cone would ever beat Lilyglit, but had more tact than to say so. He ate dry toast to keep his weight down and let John Chester’s wishful thinking roll over his head.
*
Sarah Driffield drove Moggie Reilly’s car back to park it outside The Stag, as he’d asked, and hid its key out of sight in a magnetic box.
As it was daylight she took the shorter path home across fields that she had shunned the previous midnight, and was sitting in the kitchen, showered, changed and eating breakfast when her father returned from seeing his horses gallop.
Percy Driffield, shedding jacket and helmet, merely asked if she’d had a good time at the birthday party.
‘Yes, thank you,’ she answered. ‘Moggie Reilly very kindly-drove me home.’
Her father frowned. ‘Don’t encourage him.’
‘No.’
Tequila Slammer, she thought. A pinch of salt on the tongue, toss back a jigger of neat tequila, suck a slice of lime. She had felt liberated. Sleeping with Moggie Reilly had become a fun and ‘why not?’ thing to do. She searched her conscience for guilt and came up with only a smile.
Percy Driffield talked compulsively about Lilyglit. ‘Damn fool owner wants to sell him. I’ve told him he needs to insure him, but he keeps putting it off. Why don’t very rich people insure things? Valuations invite crooks, he says. Jasper Billington Innes, nice enough, but daft. You’ve met him often, of course. I told him Lilyglit is a Champion Hurdle prospect, given another year. I can’t think what’s got into the man. He sounded panic-stricken on the phone yesterday evening, telling me to find a buyer at once. At least wait until after he wins the Cloister Hurdle, I said, but he’s afraid of Storm Cone, at better weights in the handicap. He seemed to think I could make some sort of suggestion to Storm Cone’s jockey. Not a chance. I told him to try it himself.’
His daughter raised her eyebrows over her cornflakes. If Moggie took a bribe she had finished with him, she thought.
*
Moggie ‘the cat’ Reilly, like many other jockeys, kept fit by regular running, and many, also, left their cars outside the pubs at night rather than be done for drink-driving, so no one paid any attention when Moggie jogged to The Stag, plucked his keys from their magnetic box and drove himself home.
When he walked through his door, the telephone began ringing: he picked up the receiver hoping the call would be short. He felt chilled, the warm jog ebbing. He wanted a hot shower and to sit in a warm woollen lumberjack sweater while he drank more coffee and read the newspapers.
A. high nervous hurried voice in his ear said, ‘I want to speak to Reilly. It’s Billington Innes here. Jasper… er… Billington Innes. I own Lilyglit… er… do you know who I mean?’
Moggie Reilly knew well. He said he was Reilly.
Yes. Well… er… I’m selling my horse.’ Billington Innes took a slow deep breath and tried to speak more slowly. ‘I’ve arranged a sale… top price of course… really an excellent sale…’
Moggie Reilly said briefly, ‘Congratulations.’
‘Yes, but, well, do you see, it’s a conditional sale.’
‘Mm?’ Moggie Reilly murmured, ‘Conditional on whatV
‘Well… actually, conditional on his winning this afternoon. Winning the Cloister Hurdle, to be precise…’
‘I see,’ Moggie said with calm, and indeed he did see.
Yes… well, Percy Driffield refused to approach you with this proposition, but…’ he spoke faster, ‘this is not a bribe I’m offering you, not at all. I wouldn’t do that, absolutely not.’
‘No,’ Moggie said.
‘What I’m offering, do you see,’ Jasper Billington Innes continued, coming awkwardly to the point, ‘is in the nature of commission. If my horse Lilyglit wins the Cloister Hurdle, I can finalise the sale on better terms, and… er, well, if you and Storm Cone could have assisted the result in any way, then you would have earned a commission, don’t you see?’
What I see, Moggie Reilly thought to himself,