Decider. Part 3

They ate through the sixth race. They all went to the gents. The crowds were pouring homewards out of the gates when we made our way to the Clerk of the Course's office beside the weighing room.

The boys entered quietly behind me, unusually subdued and giving a misleading impression of habitual good behaviour. Oliver Wells, sitting at a busy-looking desk, eyed the children vaguely and went on speaking into a walkie-talkie. Roger Gardner, racecourse manager, was also in attendance, sitting with one hip on the desk, one foot swinging. The colonel's worry-level had if anything intensified during the week, lines having deepened across his forehead. Civilised habits of behaviour would see him through, though, I thought, even if he rose to full height at our entrance, looking as if he had expected Lee Morris but not five smaller clones.

'Come in,' Oliver said, putting down his instrument. 'Now, what shall we do with these boys?' The question seemed to be merely rhetorical as he had recourse again to his walkie-talkie, pressing b.u.t.tons. 'Jenkins? To my office, please.' He switched off again. 'Jenkins will see to them.'

An official knocked briefly on an inner door and came in without waiting for a summons: a middle-aged messenger in a belted navy raincoat, with a slightly stodgy expression and slow-moving rea.s.suring bulk.

'Jenkins,' Oliver said, 'take these boys into the jockeys' changing rooms and let them collect autographs.'

'Won't they be a nuisance?' I asked, as parents do.

'Jockeys are quite good with children,' Oliver said, making shooing motions to my sons. 'Go with Jenkins, boys, I want to talk to your father.'

'Take them, Christopher,' I encouraged, and all five of them went cheerfully with the safe escort.

'Sit down,' Oliver invited, and I pulled up a chair and sat round the desk with the two of them. 'We're not going to get five minutes without interruptions,' Oliver said, 'so we'll come straight to the point.' The walkie-talkie crackled. Oliver picked it up, pressed a switch and listened.

A voice said brusquely, 'Oliver, get up here, p.r.o.nto. The sponsors want a word.'

Oliver said reasonably, 'I'm writing my report of the fourth race.'

'Now, Oliver.' The domineering voice switched itself off, severing argument.

Oliver groaned. 'Mr Morris... can you wait?' He rose and departed, whether I could wait or not.

'That,' Roger explained neutrally, 'was a summons from Conrad Darlington Stratton, the fourth baron.'

I made no comment.

'Things have changed since we saw you on Sunday,' Roger said. 'For the worse, if possible. I wanted to go and see you again, but Oliver thought it useless. And now... well, here you are! Why are you here?'

'Curiosity. But with what the boys saw at that fence today, I shouldn't have come.'

'Terrible mix up.' He nodded. 'A horse killed. It does racing no good.'

'What about the spectators? My son Toby thought one of them, too, was dead.'

Roger said disgustedly, 'A hundred dead spectators wouldn't raise marches against cruel sports. The stands could collapse and kill a hundred, but racing would go on. Dead people people are irrelevant, don't you know.' are irrelevant, don't you know.'

'So... the man was was dead?' dead?'

'Did you see him?'

'Only with a dressing covering his face.'

Roger said gloomily, 'It'll be in the papers. The horse came through the wing into him and slashed him across the eyes with a foreleg those racing plates on their hooves cut like swords it was gruesome, Oliver said. But the man died of a snapped neck. Died instantly under half a ton of horse. Best that can be said.'

'My son Toby saw the man's face,' I said.

Roger looked at me. 'Which is Toby?'

'The second one. He's twelve. The boy who rode his bike into the house.'

'I remember. Poor little b.u.g.g.e.r. Nightmares ahead, I shouldn't wonder.'

Toby was anyway the one I most worried about, and this wouldn't help. He'd been born rebellious, grown into a cantankerous toddler and had never since been easy to persuade. I had a sad feeling that in four years' time he would develop, despite my best efforts, into a sullen world-hating youth, alienated and miserable. I could sense that it would happen and I ached for it not to, but I'd seen too many other suffering families where a much loved son or daughter had grown destructively angry in the mid-teens, despising attempts to help.

Rebecca Stratton, I surmised, might have been like that, ten years earlier. She came into Oliver's office now like a whirlwind, smas.h.i.+ng the door open until it hit the wall, bringing in with her a swirl of cold outside air and a towering attack of fury.

'Where's that b.l.o.o.d.y Oliver?' she loudly demanded, looking round.

'With your father...'

She didn't listen. She still wore breeches and boots, but with a tan sweater in place of her racing colours. Her eyes glittered, her body looked rigid, she seemed half-way demented. 'Do you know what that stupid b.l.o.o.d.y doctor's done? He's stood me down from racing for four four days. Four days! I ask you. He says I'm concussed. Concussed, my a.r.s.e. Where's Oliver? He's got to tell that b.l.o.o.d.y man I'm going to ride on Monday. Where is he?' days. Four days! I ask you. He says I'm concussed. Concussed, my a.r.s.e. Where's Oliver? He's got to tell that b.l.o.o.d.y man I'm going to ride on Monday. Where is he?'

Rebecca spun on her heel and strode out with the same energy expenditure as on the way in.

I said, closing the door after her, 'She's concussed to high heaven, I'd have said.'

'Yes, but she's always a bit like that. If I were the doctor I'd stand her down for life.'

'She's not your favourite Stratton, I gather.'

Caution returned to Roger with a rush, 'I never said...'

'Of course not.' I paused. 'So what has changed since last Sunday?'

He consulted the light cream walls, the framed print of Arkle, the big calendar with days crossed off, a large clock (accurate) and his own shoes, and finally said, 'Mrs Binsham came out of the woodwork.'

'Is that so momentous?'

'You know who she is is?' He was curious, a little surprised.

'The old Lord's sister.'

'I thought you didn't know anything about the family.'

'I said I had no contact with them, and I don't. But my mother talked about them. Like I told you, she was once married to the old man's son.'

'Do you mean Conrad? Or Keith? Or... Ivan?'

'Keith,' I said. 'Conrad's twin.'

'Fraternal twins,' Roger said. 'The younger one.'

I agreed. 'Twenty-five minutes younger, and apparently never got over it.'

'It does make a difference, I suppose.'

It made the difference between inheriting a barony, and not. Inheriting the family mansion, and not. Inheriting a fortune, and not. Keith's jealousy of his twenty-five minute elder brother had been one but only one, according to my mother of the habitual rancours poisoning her ex-husband's psyche.

I had my mother's photographs of her Stratton wedding day, the bridegroom tall, light-haired, smiling, strikingly good looking, all the promise of a splendid life ahead in the pride and tenderness of his manner towards her. She had that day been exploding with bliss, she'd told me; with an indescribable floating feeling of happiness.

Within six months he'd broken her arm in a fight and punched out two of her front teeth.

'Mrs Binsham,' Roger Gardner said, 'has insisted on a shareholders' meeting next week. She's a dragon, they say. She's Conrad's aunt, of course, and apparently she's the only living creature who makes him quake.'

Forty years back she had implacably forced her brother, the third baron, to behave harshly in public to my mother. Even then Mrs Binsham had been the dynamo of the family, the manipulator, the one who laid down the programme of action and forced the rest to follow.

'She never gave up,' my mother said. 'She would simply wear down any opposition until you would do what she wanted just to get some peace. In her own eyes, you see, she was always right right, so she was always certain that what she wanted was best best.'

I asked Roger, 'Do you know Mrs Binsham yourself?'

'Yes, but not well. She's an impressive old lady, very upright. She comes to the races here quite often with Lord Stratton er, not Conrad, but the old Lord but I've never had any really private conversations with her. Oliver knows her better. Or at least,' he faintly grinned, 'Oliver has obeyed her instructions from time to time.'

'Perhaps she'll sort out the present squabbles and quieten things down,' I said.

Roger shook his head. 'What she says might go with Conrad and Keith and Ivan, but the younger generation may rebel, especially since they're all coming into some shares of their own.'

'You're sure?'

'Certain.'

'So now you have an informant in the nest?'

His face grew still; wary almost, 'I never said that.'

'No.'

Oliver returned. 'The sponsors are unhappy about the dead horse, bless their little hearts. Bad publicity. Not what they pay for. They'll have to reconsider before next year, they say.' He sounded dispirited, 'I'd framed that race well, you know,' he told me. 'Ten runners in a three-mile 'chase. That's good, you know. Often you'll only attract five or six, or even less. If the sponsor pulls out, it'll be a poorer affair altogether, next year.'

I made sympathetic noises.

'If there is is a next year,' he said. 'There's a shareholders' meeting next week... did they tell you?' a next year,' he said. 'There's a shareholders' meeting next week... did they tell you?'

'Yes.'

'They're holding it here on the racecourse, in the Strattons' private dining room,' he said. 'Conrad hasn't moved into the big house yet, and anyway this is less personal, he says. Will you be coming?' It was less a question, I thought, than an entreaty.

'I haven't decided,' I said.

'I do hope you will. I mean, they need an outside outside view, do you see? They're all too view, do you see? They're all too involved involved.'

'They wouldn't want me there.'

'All the more reason for going.'

I doubted that, but didn't bother to argue. I suggested collecting the boys, and found them 'helping' the valets pack the jockeys' saddles and other gear into large laundry hampers while eating fruit cake.

They'd been no trouble, I was told, and hoped I could believe it. I thanked everyone. Thanked Roger. 'Vote your shares,' he said anxiously. Thanked Jenkins. 'Well-behaved little sods,' he said helpfully. 'Bring them again.'

'We called everyone "sir",' Neil confided to me as we left.

'We called Jenkins "sir",' Alan said. 'He got us the cake.'

We reached the mini-van and climbed in, and they showed me all the jockeys' autographs in their racecards. They'd had a good time in the changing room, it seemed.

'Was that man dead?' Toby asked, reverting to what was most on his mind.

'I'm afraid so.'

'I thought he was. I've never seen anyone dead before.'

'You've seen dogs,' Alan said.

'That's not the same, plank-head.'

Christopher asked, 'What did the colonel mean about voting your shares?'

'Huh?'

'He said "Vote your shares." He looked pretty upset, didn't he?'

'Well,' I said, 'do you know what shares are?'

'Pieces of cake,' Neil guessed. 'One each.'

'Say you had a chessboard,' I said, 'there would be sixty-four squares, OK? Say you called each square a share. There would be sixty-four shares.'

The young faces told me I wasn't getting the idea across.

'OK,' I said, 'say you have a floor made of tiles.'

They nodded at once. As a builder's children they knew all about tiles.

'Say you lay ten tiles across and ten tiles down, and fill in the square.'

'A hundred tiles,' Christopher nodded.

'Yes. Now call each tile a share, a hundredth part of the whole square. A hundred shares. OK?'

They nodded.

'What about voting?' Christopher asked.

I hesitated. 'Say you owned some of the tiles, you could vote to have yours blue... or red... whatever you'd like.'

'How many could you you vote on?' vote on?'