14

‘I feel so desperately sorry for Tim,’ Isabel said. She was walking with Richard down to the paddock to see the horses before the last race. Her arm was through his, and they were able to pass through much more easily; some of the crowd had thinned out and only the enthusiasts were making the long trek down to the paddock at the end of the day. Isabel had wanted to get away from people and out of the stuffy champagne bar; the sense of frozen disappointment was changing to positive regret for Nigel and for Tim. ‘He’s lost that money Charles left him,’ she said. ‘It’s a dreadful blow to him.’

‘I’d forgotten about that,’ Richard said. He squeezed her arm against his side. She had behaved with admirable restraint after the Falcon’s defeat; there was no sign of low spirits when people commiserated. She had shown generosity and good sportsmanship, and without any prompting, had come up publicly to congratulate Charles St George, Prince of Padua’s owner.

Such gestures are noted in the racing world; she and the Falcon would get a very good press the next day. Richard had never been more proud of her or admired her more. He had wanted the Falcon to win for her, but as he said, it was a defeat without disgrace. The horse had earned himself a place in the history of the great race, by a performance of breath-taking courage which had almost won him the crown.

‘If you’re worried about Tim,’ he said, ‘maybe we could do something.’

‘He wouldn’t take a penny,’ Isabel said. ‘I tried that before. He was going to restore the house and put his father back into it. It was so mean of Charles to have left the money like that – he should have given it to him!’

‘Typical Charles,’ Richard said. ‘He would have called it an incentive. Don’t worry, darling. We’ll think of something. The house is for sale, isn’t it?’ She nodded. ‘Well, maybe we could buy it. That would give him the money anyway. As my life is going to be one long trip from racecourse to racecourse, we might as well have somewhere in Ireland.’

Isabel stopped and looked up at him. ‘Richard, that’s a wonderful idea! Because there’s something I’ve been meaning to say to you. I don’t want to live at Beaumont.’

He walked her slowly forward; they came to the paddock rails and stopped. The horses walked past them.

‘Neither do I,’ he said slowly. ‘I wondered how to suggest it to you. I never want to see the place again. We could transfer most of the horses to Ireland and sell off the stock we don’t want. And get right out the States. Personally, I don’t want to have a place there.’

The owners, trainers and jockeys were entering the ring. It was strangely muted, a pale copy of the high drama which had taken place earlier that afternoon.

‘We’ll talk to him about it,’ Isabel said. She turned to Richard and smiled. ‘I’m so relieved,’ she said. ‘I’ve wanted to get rid of Beaumont ever since Charles died, and I didn’t know how to admit it. And we can help Tim and his family too – without hurting his pride. I’m sorry about the Falcon, but it isn’t the end of the world. Either we’ll go on running him as a four-year-old or he can retire to stud. We can bring the best of the brood mares and the stallions over and start breeding in Ireland – darling, you really are wonderful – are you sure you’re not going to hate every minute of it?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Richard said. ‘I shall have my own interests. I shall drink and gamble and run after women; but maybe not for the first twenty years – let’s go back and watch this race. I fancy no. 7. Nice-looking sort, rather like your chestnut. By the way, you haven’t given him a name yet.…’

‘You think of one,’ Isabel said. ‘And that scraggy animal isn’t anything like him – you can lose your money on him if you like!’

They watched the race from the stands; it was won by Richard’s choice. Isabel found Tim coming towards them. He smiled, but it was obviously an effort. ‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he said to her.

‘Richard’s just backed another winner,’ she said. ‘He’s the only one who’s had any luck today.’

‘I’ll go and collect it,’ Richard said. ‘Take care of Isabel for me; I’ll meet you both in the owners’ bar. We’ll have a bottle together, and get Nigel and Sally to join us. They need cheering up.’ He turned away, making for the Tote. Tim watched him go.

‘Nigel wants you to come and see the Falcon,’ he said. ‘Phil and Harry would appreciate it. He’ll be loaded up pretty soon now.’ Isabel nodded. ‘Of course I’ll come. I’d like to see them and thank them. How is the Falcon?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Tim said slowly. ‘It’s certainly taken the stuffing out of him. Let’s go this way, we can dodge some of the crowds coming out.’

He took her arm briefly, steering her to the exit nearest the stable entrance, guiding her through the cars which were beginning to stream out onto the road. She wouldn’t thank him for what he was doing; she might even turn round and walk away when she saw Andrew Graham. He would probably lose his job when Richard heard what he had done. But he didn’t care. He had lost everything himself, and seen his horse defeated. He thought of the Falcon as his, as much as anyone’s: he had nurtured the foal through his first year of life, watched over him as a yearling, and planned his victorious two-year-old campaign. He had shared Charles Schriber’s hopes every day for three years, seeing the dream come nearer to reality, seeing, in that codicil, a new life for himself and a bright future. Now there was only disillusion and disappointment left. From the time he was a boy, and he had realized that so much depended upon him, Tim Ryan had suppressed and disciplined his emotions. He had prided himself on being a cool, hard-headed Irishman. Now his nature was in revolt; bitterness and frustration had overcome his caution and innate shrewdness when the Falcon lost the Derby, beaten by one he had so easily defeated when they met at Longchamp on equal terms.

And he had lost Isabel too. If she could somehow be dragged back from marrying Richard Schriber, then he could perhaps hope that one day.…

‘Here we are,’ he said. ‘Last race, and they send the security boys home. We can just walk in.’

Andrew Graham had timed it perfectly. He too had crossed the road but earlier, loitering near enough to the stable gates to go through as soon as the guards went off duty. He walked through into the big yard, unchallenged by anyone. There were horseboxes inside, and a lot of bustle; horses were being loaded up, engines started to rev up and a giant blue-painted horsebox loomed in front of him, making for the open gateway. He stepped aside, bumping into a stable lad carrying a travelling rug. Andrew shouted at him.

‘I’m looking for the Silver Falcon’s box – you know where it is?’

The lad called back as he hurried away. ‘Down on the right –’

Andrew quickened his pace; he asked again at the start of the row of loose boxes, some with their doors wide open, and someone pointed to a box at the very end of the line. He thanked him, but they had gone back inside their box, tending the horse hidden from view. Andrew was smiling. Right at the end of the line. He would have a perfect view of her when she came along. And of Ryan. There was so much activity about, and noise. It would be so easy – so quickly done, and then he could slip away – twenty million dollars, the house and the stud, the horses.…

He raised his left elbow and unfastened the race-glasses case. He had reached the end box; the door was closed, and he looked inside.

A man was crouching beside the Falcon, tying the ends of the last bandage on his foreleg. He straightened up as Andrew spoke to him.

Andrew had dealt with stablemen all his life. He had a natural authority.

‘Your boss is looking for you,’ he said. ‘He wants you up at the main gate right away. Mrs Schriber’s on her way over.’

The lower door opened and Phil came out. ‘Thanks very much, sir.’ He strode off in search of Nigel Foster. Andrew slipped off the race-glasses case and opened it. MacNeil’s gun was inside, fully loaded. He turned aside slightly and slipped it into his right pocket; then he adjusted the empty case back on his shoulder. His heart had begun to beat faster, but not too fast. His hand was steady, and dry; he felt as he had done the night he waited outside the drawing room door at Coolbridge, with the spanner in his grasp. Calm, almost detached, possessed of unnatural strength and nerve. It would look as if someone with a racing grudge had killed them. Them. He couldn’t let Ryan live, of course. Nobody would ever know of the arrangement they had made to bring Isabel to the stables. It would be a real mystery. His plane ticket was in his wallet; he would be on his way back to the States while they were still in the first stage of investigation. And with so much noise and activity, the sound of the two shots wouldn’t be noticed. He would be out of the gates while everyone else was running towards Isabel and Ryan.… He looked up and then he saw Nigel Foster. The trainer was half turned away from him, talking to someone else. Andrew went stiff. Foster had seen him when he called at Kresswell House. And again that afternoon when he came up to Tim Ryan. He hadn’t bothered to acknowledge him then, but if he saw him again, just before the killings, he would be certain to remember. If he turned fully round and saw him, his whole plan was at risk. Andrew didn’t hesitate. He swung round, unbolted the Falcon’s door and slipped inside.

Isabel and Tim came through the gates; they paused, as Andrew had done, stepping aside to let a transport through. Phil came up to them. ‘Afternoon, Madam. Bad luck our feller didn’t win – he ran a great race though –’

‘Yes,’ Isabel said. ‘He did.’ She opened her handbag and took out a clip of notes. Phil saw it coming and pretended not to; she pressed the tip into his hand, and he saluted.

‘Thank you, Madam. Thank you very much. Have you seen the guvnor? He wants me –’

‘No,’ Tim spoke impatiently. ‘He’s sure to be here somewhere.’ He took Isabel’s arm and led her through and into the yard. He couldn’t see Andrew anywhere, and it was just as well. He must be keeping in the background. They had planned exactly what to do. He would bring her to the Falcon’s box, show her the horse, and Andrew would come up and speak to her. After that it was up to him to make her stay and listen to him. Tim would have played his part; he intended to slip away and leave them alone. Andrew said he had the copy of the death certificate, showing that Richard Schriber’s father had died in the mental institution.

‘This way,’ Tim said to her. ‘He’s in the last box up here.’

The inside of the Falcon’s box was dim. Andrew stood pressed against the side of the upper door, where he could see out. The grey horse hadn’t moved. He was standing at the back, and Andrew had soothed him quietly as he came inside. His head had raised for a moment at the intruder and then lowered. Man, the enemy was close to him. But not too close. His quarters stung from the cuts of the whip and there was pain and stiffness in his body from the tremendous physical strain it had endured. Andrew glanced back at him briefly, and then looked sideways out of the open door. Isabel and Tim Ryan were walking directly towards him, Ryan a little in front of her on the nearside. Andrew took the gun out of his pocket, balanced his left arm on the edge of the door, rested his gun arm on it and took careful aim. One shot; he was aiming at her head, and he had been a first-class marksman with both a rifle and a pistol since he was a young man. Right through the middle of the forehead, so conveniently exposed by the close-fitting hat. And then Ryan. One. Two. Two seconds and it would all be over.

He slipped the safety catch.

It was pure chance that he killed Tim Ryan first. Pure chance that Nigel Foster broke off his conversation with a fellow trainer and called out to them as he saw them walking along the line of boxes.

‘Isabel! Hang on a minute –’ She heard him and stopped, half turning as she did so. Tim Ryan swung round with her. In the split second when Andrew Graham squeezed the trigger, it was Tim who came into range. For the next two or three seconds his body masked Isabel, the bullet had hit him in the side of the head, his hat went spinning off, and he began to sag quite slowly. Andrew had lost the sighting necessary to get a lethal shot at Isabel. He heard her scream as Ryan collapsed; for a moment she stood upright, paralysed, and he steadied his wrist again to take aim.

There was a rustle behind him but he didn’t hear it.

The noise of the gunshot had exploded in the Falcon’s ear. Suddenly the lethargy, the instinct that knew he had been beaten, vanished with that sudden assault upon his nerves. His ears went flat; hate boiled up in him, imperious rage at the presence of the human enemy. He sensed danger, and his reaction was instantaneous. He reared up and launched himself. Andrew Graham fired a second time, but the bullet sang its way past Isabel, as she dropped to her knees by Tim Ryan.

There were people shouting, and running, converging on the stricken man and the woman trying to support him. The crowd hid them from view; a horse began to plunge and rear with fright on the end of its rope, refusing to go up the ramp of a waiting horsebox, infected by the panic in the yard. Somebody running towards the scene heard a terrible scream coming from one of the boxes, but only remembered it afterwards.

The full weight of the horse struck Andrew Graham from behind; the hooves crashed into his back, knocking him to his knees; he shrieked with pain and terror, and the Falcon, maddened with rage and panic by the noise, rose up and crashed down upon him again. It was the classic fight to the death in the colt’s mind. He reared and trampled, reared and trampled as he would have done to a fallen contender to his title for leadership of the herd. With his teeth he savaged the crumpled body in the straw and turning contemptuously on it, lashed out with his hind feet. He sensed death and neighed in triumph. He had forgotten how his heart had burst in vain on the racecourse, forgotten the humiliation of spirit as he was passed by his rival, in spite of all his savage striving. He had killed the enemy. He stood still at last, trembling in the quarters and the forelegs, breathing hard. Then he turned away and pulled a few wisps from the hay in the rack above his head.

It was a long time before anybody opened the box.

It was an afternoon of sudden showers and brilliant sun; the sky was a patchwork of prussian blue and rolling rain clouds. Ireland in late summer, with the trees dropping water on the walkers underneath whenever the wind blew. The driveway was smooth, its edges clipped and the surface gleaming with new gravel; the house waited for Isabel and Richard at the end of it, framed in the clouds, with the sun striking off its grey slate roof and the unshuttered windows, splendid with glass. Richard drove slowly; it was the second time they had been to see it since Tim Ryan’s funeral. His father was waiting there to welcome them. It was nearly three months since they had bought the house; he had taken her away on a honeymoon that was as far from recent places and events as his imagination could devise. They had got married after Tim Ryan was brought back to Ireland and buried in the cemetery near his home. And Richard had known that what Isabel needed was change and time. He took her to Sicily, and they wandered through the ruins of the Arab and Greek civilizations, and from there to North Africa until the heat drove them back to Europe, and finally he decided that the peace and beauty of the Loire valley would complete the process of healing before they came back to England. And then on to Ireland, where they were to make their home. Beaumont was sold in the high summer; he didn’t even show her the cable telling her the record price it had fetched. They were in Taormina at the time, staying in a villa perched on a hill, where the flaring magnificence of Etna provided the backcloth to their nights.

It was she who decided when they should return. She put her arms round him one evening, when they had come back from a long, lazy stroll through the French countryside, and said quietly, ‘Darling, I think it’s time we went home.’ Richard booked on a flight two days later.

He had bought the Ryans’ family home and given it to her as a wedding present. And they had gone to see Tim’s father together and asked him how he wanted the money to be distributed. He had taken some time to answer; his son’s death had made him hesitant, the shock was too recent to be absorbed. He wanted very little for himself – Tim had two young nephews that he had been devoted to – it was such a lot of money. When Richard and Isabel asked if he would leave its disposition to them, he had merely nodded, anxious to avoid decisions. But time had healed him too; he had written to them reporting progress on the house, and asking if he might go there and meet them when they arrived from England. To welcome them, the letter said, on behalf of his son Timothy. And his grandsons, who’d been so handsomely endowed. As they stopped in front of the entrance, Richard held her hand. Her face was fuller, with a healthy colour from hot suns; being loved by him had made her beautiful, and there was no longer any shadow in her eyes. Instead there was a new serenity, a spirit strengthened by absolute trust and love. He thought suddenly how different she looked, and couldn’t quite see why.

The crumbling plaster façade had been renewed; the walls were a soft pink, the stucco pillars splendidly white, and the steps led up to a handsome mahogany door. They walked up together, and for a moment he felt Isabel hesitate.

‘I did exactly this with Tim,’ she said. ‘It was the same sort of day.’ And then the door opened and Frederick Ryan was waiting for them. He took Isabel’s hand, and she bent forward and kissed him.

‘Welcome, my dear,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

The interior was light, with delicate Georgian colouring, and the beautiful double cube room, with its painted ceiling, was completely restored. There was no furniture, or carpets, just the smooth shell of the house, waiting to be made into a home.

Frederick Ryan paused. ‘It’s looking as beautiful as it did when I brought my wife here, forty years ago. I know you’re going to be very happy.’

‘We are,’ Richard said. ‘It’s a new start for us, Mr Ryan. And we both need it.’

‘You’re young enough,’ the old man said. ‘You can overcome the evil in the world. I used to pray that my son’s children would grow up here one day. Now it’s your children I hope I shall see. And because of your generosity, my family has a chance to start again. My daughter’s sons.… Tim would be so happy about what you’ve done for them.’

Isabel looked at him. ‘He loved this house so much,’ she said. ‘And the horses. I felt he was quite near when we arrived.’

The old man smiled, ‘You’re sounding very Irish, Mrs Schriber,’ he said. ‘But why shouldn’t you be right? He loved the house and he loved his horses. That grey colt of yours – and you. You don’t mind me saying that, Mr Schriber – my son loved your wife very much.…’

‘I know,’ Richard said, ‘and I don’t mind.’

They walked through the rooms together; Frederick Ryan pointed out the view from the main bedroom on the first floor. ‘I was born here,’ he said. ‘And my father and grandfather before that. And all my children. I have a few things in store which belong here. I would like you to have them.’

‘Thank you,’ Isabel said gently. ‘We’d love to have them.’

They paused by the window; the view was magnificent, rolling green fields with a background of low hills, veiled in purple clouds.

‘Your stallion boxes are all finished,’ the old man said. ‘And they’re well ahead with the foaling boxes and the rest – it’s looking splendid. I hope you’ll invite me over to see the horses.’

‘As soon as they arrive,’ Richard promised.

‘Will the Silver Falcon be standing here?’ He turned to look at them. Isabel hesitated.

‘He’s killed one man, and nearly killed another. You can’t pass that temperament on.’

Frederick Ryan looked at her and then at Richard. ‘He saved your wife’s life,’ he said. ‘He killed my son’s murderer. Horses have more sense than men. Are you telling me he’s dead?’

‘No,’ Isabel said. ‘We were advised to do it, but I couldn’t.… I wanted time before I made up my mind.’

‘Race him, if he’ll train on,’ Tim’s father said. ‘That’s what he’s bred for. Let him fight his own kind on the racecourse.’

‘Nigel wants to try for the Arc de Triomphe,’ Richard said.

The old man nodded. ‘He’ll win it for you. Tim wrote to me once and said that he believed he could take that prize as well as the Derby. I’ll leave you now, and let you wander round your new home by yourselves.

They shook hands and he kissed Isabel. ‘Goodbye, my dear,’ he said. ‘And God bless you. Be happy.’

Richard put his arms round her; they stood together in silence for some moments. ‘He’s a wonderful old man,’ Richard said. ‘I’d forgotten there were people like that left.’

‘I think we’re going to love it here,’ Isabel said. She looked round the bedroom; there was a magnificent marble fireplace, decorated with vines and flowers in different coloured marbles. The same decoration had been copied by the plasterers who moulded the cornices round the ceiling.

‘I love this room,’ she said. ‘I think we’ll carry on the tradition and have our first child here.’ She saw the look of surprise on his face and she smiled.

‘In about seven months’ time,’ she said.