Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [115]
Jasper’s thoughts pendulumed from self-loathing to self-justification, from belief in Lilyglit to a vision of poverty. He’d never in his life earned even a bus fare – he rarely went on a bus – and he’d had no training in anything. How could he provide for a wife and four children? And how deep ran his belief in his own honour when at the first test it had crumbled? When his first solution to financial heartbreak had been to bribe a jockey?
On the multiple silent screens the Cloister runners lined up and set off, with Lilyglit fast away and setting the pace as usual.
Nothing bad would happen, Jasper told himself. Lilyglit would stay in front all the way. He watched the close-up of his favourite crossing the winning line first time round, and saw him set off round the top bend, only his rump-end clearly showing.
The television camera operator, focusing on Lilyglit, missed Vernon Arkwright’s swerve towards Storm Cone but, with a wild swing of his lens caught the moment when Moggie Reilly, unbalanced, flew out of his saddle. Mostly hidden though he was by white rails, by Storm Cone himself, and by other horses, Moggie Reilly, in his scarlet and orange silks, could be glimpsed struggling, and finally with help, winning his fight against gravity. The banks of screens showed him jumping the next flight of hurdles without control of reins or stirrups and then, immediate story over, swung back to the leader, to Lilyglit, now far and by many lengths established in the lead.
Jasper’s whole body went cold with sweat. His mind refused to accept what his eyes had seen. He couldn’t… he couldn’t have offered to pay to have Moggie Reilly put in danger of hideous injury… it was impossible.
And Moggie Reilly was still there, on his horse, without his feet in the stirrups, but still trying to make up lost ground, still trying to catch the five or six runners ahead, but with no hope of winning.
Vernon Arkwright had dropped back out of television sight, his task accomplished. The screens all switched to Lilyglit galloping alone, uncatchable now and stretching with long sweeping strides towards the last hurdle.
I’ve won, Jasper thought, and felt little joy in it.
Lilyglit fell.
Lilyglit lay inert on the green turf.
The television picture switched to the finish. Storm Cone’s violent colours flashed there inconclusively, and after a moment the focus was back on Lilyglit, still unmoving, looking dead.
Jasper Billington Innes all but fainted in the shop
Somewhere in the depth of the store a control button, pressed, changed the racing programme to a children’s tea-time frolic. Three walls full of identical cartoon characters wobbled about simultaneously, uttering unheard squeaks and platitudes. They drew in a laughing audience (which the racing had not) but the thump-thump deafening background music drummed on and on.
Jasper walked dizzily out of the store and on jerky uncoordinated legs made his way back towards the multi-storey park where he’d left his car when he’d decided where to go to watch the Cloister.
He unlocked the car door and in mental agony sat in the driver’s seat listing again his dreadful woes.
Lilyglit – he couldn’t bear it – was dead. Dead, uninsured, worth nothing: and he was now heavily in debt to Percy Driffield for his last desperate bet.
Vernon Arkwright, hauled before the stewards, would testify that Jasper had bribed him to put Moggie Reilly’s life in danger.