Longshot. Part 11

'Right,' I said.

He nodded briefly and as I turned to go on the errand he reached into a pocket and produced a few horse-feed cubes which he held out to the runaway, speaking to him directly.

'Come on, now, fella. Nice and easy. Come along now, you must be hungry-' His voice was calm and cajoling, absolutely without threat.

I walked away without haste and retrieved the rope from the cab, and by the time I cautiously returned over the brow into Tremayne's sight he was standing close to the horse feeding him cubes with his left hand and holding a bunch of mane with his right.

I stopped, then went forward again slowly. The horse quivered, his head turning my way, his alarm transmitting like electricity. With small movements I made a big loop in one end of the supple old rope and tied a running bowline, then went slowly forward holding the rope open, not in a small circle that might frighten the horse more but in a big loop drooping almost to my knees.

Tremayne watched and continued to talk soothingly, feeding horse cubes one by one. I walked cautiously forward suppressing anything that could seem like doubt or anxiety and paused again a step or two away from the horse.

'There's a good fella,' Tremayne said to him, and to me in the same tone, 'If you can put the rope over his head, do it.'

I took the last two paces and without stopping walked alongside the horse on the far side from Tremayne so that the horse's head came as if naturally into and through the dangling loop. Tremayne moved his hand with the horse cubes away from the black muzzle just long enough for the rope to pa.s.s, and then still without abruptness I pulled the slack through the bowline until the noose was snug but not tight round the horse's neck.

'Good,' Tremayne said. 'Give me the rope. I'll walk him down to my yard. Can you drive the tractor?'

'Yes.'

'Wait until I'm out of sight at the bottom. We don't want him bolting from fright. I couldn't hold him if he did.'

'Right.'

Tremayne fished a few more cubes out of his pocket and offered them as before but tugged gently on the rope at the same time. Almost as if making up his mind, as if settling for food and captivity, the great creature moved off with him peacefully, and the two of them trailed down to the dark strip of wood chips and plodded towards home.

Food and warmth, I thought. Maybe I had a lot in common with that horse. What had I settled for, but a form of captivity?

I shrugged. What was done was done, as Tremayne would say. I went down to the tractor and in due course drove it back and parked it where it had been before we started out.

In the now sunlit kitchen Tremayne was standing by the table talking crossly into a telephone.

'You'd have thought someone would have noticed by now that they're missing a horse?' He listened a bit, then said, 'Well, I've one here that's surplus to requirements, so let me know.' He put the receiver down with destructive force. 'No one's told the police, would you believe it?'

He took off his coat, scarf and cap and hung them on a single peg, revealing a big diamond-patterned golfing sweater over a boldly checked open-necked s.h.i.+rt. The same eye-clutter as in the family room; same taste.

'Coffee?' he said, going towards the Aga. 'You won't mind getting your own breakfast, will you? Look around, take anything you want.' He slid the heavy kettle on to the hotplate and went along to a refrigerator which disgorged sliced bread, a tub of yellowish spread and a pot of marmalade. 'Toast?' he said, putting two slices in a wire mesh holder which he slid under the second hotplate lid of the cooker. 'There's cornflakes, if you'd rather. Or cook an egg.'

Toast would be fine, I said, and found myself delegated to making sure it didn't burn while he put through two more phone calls, both fairly incomprehensible to my ears.

'Plates,' he said, pointing to a cupboard, and I found those and mugs also and, in a drawer, knives, forks and spoons. 'Hang your jacket in the cloakroom, next door.'

He went on talking; positive, decisive. I hung my jacket, made the coffee and more toast. He put the receiver down with another crash and went out into the hall.

'Dee-Dee,' he shouted. 'Coffee.'

He came back and sat down to eat, waving to me to join him, which I did, and presently in the doorway appeared a slight brown-haired woman who wore jeans and a huge grey sweater reaching to her knees.

'Dee-Dee,' Tremayne said round a mouthful of toast, 'this is John Kendall, my writer.' To me he added, 'Dee-Dee's my secretary.'

I stood up politely and she told me unsmilingly to sit down. My first impression of her as she went across to the Aga to make her own coffee was that she was like a cat, ultra soft-footed, fluid in movement and totally self-contained.

Tremayne watched me watching her and smiled with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'You'll get used to Dee-Dee,' he said. 'I couldn't manage without her.'

She took the compliment without acknowledgement and sat half on a chair as if temporarily, as if about to retreat.

'Phone up a few people to see if they've lost a horse,' Tremayne told her. 'If anyone's panicking, he's here. Unhurt. We've given him water and feed. He was out all night on the Downs, it seems. Someone's in for a b.o.l.l.o.c.king.'

Dee-Dee nodded.

'The jeep's in a ditch on the south road to the A34. Skidded last evening with Mackie. No one hurt. Get the garage to fish it out.'

Dee-Dee nodded.

'John, here, will be working in the dining-room. Anything he wants, give it to him. Anything he wants to know, tell him.'

Dee-Dee nodded.

'Get the blacksmith over for two of the string who lost shoes on the gallop this morning. The lads found the shoes, we don't need new ones.'

Dee-Dee nodded.

'If I'm not here when the vet comes, ask him to take a look at Waterbourne after he's cut the colt. She's got some heat in her near-fore fetlock.'

Dee-Dee nodded.

'Check that the haulage people will be on time delivering the hay. We're running low. Don't take snow for an answer.'

Dee-Dee smiled, which in a triangular way looked feline also, although far from kittenish. I wondered fleetingly about claws.

Tremayne ate his toast and went on giving sporadic instructions which Dee-Dee seemed to have no trouble remembering. When the spate slowed she stood, picked up her mug and said she would finish her coffee in the office while she got on with things.

'Utterly reliable,' Tremayne remarked to her departing back. 'There's always ten d.a.m.ned trainers trying to poach her.' He lowered his voice. 'A s.h.i.+t of an amateur jockey treated her like muck. She's not over it yet. I make allowances. If you find her crying, that's it.'

I was amazed by his compa.s.sion and felt I should have recognised earlier how many unexpected layers there were to Tremayne below the loud executive exterior: not just his love of horses, not just his need to be recorded, not even just his disguised delight in Gareth, but other, secret, unrevealed privacies which maybe I would come to in time, and maybe not.

He spent the next half-hour on the telephone both making and receiving calls: it was the time of day, I later discovered, when trainers could most reliably be found at home. Toast eaten, coffee drunk, he reached for a cigarette from a packet on the table and brought a throw-away lighter out of his pocket.

'Do you smoke?' he asked, pus.h.i.+ng the pack my way.

'Never started,' I said.

'Good for the nerves,' he commented, inhaling deeply. 'I hope you're not an anti fanatic.'

'I quite like the smell.'

'Good.' He seemed pleased enough. 'We'll get on well.'

He told me that at ten o'clock, by which time the first lot would have been given hay and water and the lads would have had their own breakfasts, he would drive the tractor back to the gallops to watch his second lot work. He said I needn't bother with that: I could set things up in the dining-room, arrange things however I liked working. As all racing was off from frost he could, if I agreed, spend the afternoon telling me about his childhood. When racing began again, he wouldn't have so much time.