Wild Horses Part 12

I called down to Ed on our walkie-talkie system, told him to stick to schedule, had the shot numbered as always by the clapper board operator and watched while the string was filmed streaming uphill at a fast canter. I called up the out-of-sight camera over the brow of the hill to start rolling, but perfection was an elusive quality and it was only after I'd ridden over the hill myself to organise things from up there, only after some huffing and puffing and two retakes, that I got my flourish of trumpets.

With the crowd shots at last in the can; everyone on horseback milled around waiting for clearance and instructions. Ivan was still importantly riding Nash's horse, but a little apart, and I myself was now down on foot conferring with Moncrieff, eyes concentrating on his records of exposed footage.

I didn't see what happened. I heard an indignant shout from Ivan and a clamour from other voices. I sensed and felt a lot of startled movement among the riders, but at first I a.s.sumed it to be the sort of everyday commotion when one in a company of horses lets fly with his heels at another.

Ivan, swearing, was picking himself up off the ground. One horse with its rider detached itself from the group and raced off over the hill in the direction of Newmarket town. I thought with irritation that I'd need to rap a knuckle or two and grudged the waste of time.

Ivan came storming up to me with his complaint.

'That madman madman,' he said furiously, 'came at me with a knife!'

'He can't have done.'

'Look, then.' He raised his left arm so that I could see his jacket, the tweed coat identical to that usually worn in the training scenes by Nash. At about waist level the cloth was cut open for seven or eight inches from front to back.

'I'm telling you!' Ivan was rigid with fear on top of indignation. 'He had a knife knife.'

Convinced and enormously alarmed, I glanced instinctively to find the horse I'd been riding, but he was being led around a good way off. Nearest in the matter of transport stood one of the camera trucks, though pointing in the wrong direction. I scrambled behind its steering wheel, made a stunt-worthy threepoint turn and raced across the turf in the direction of Newmarket, coming into view of the fleeing horseman in the distance as soon as I was over the hilltop.

He was too far ahead for me to have a realistic chance of catching up with him. Over gra.s.s, a horse was as fast as the truck; and he had only to reach the town and to slow to a walk to become instantly invisible, as Newmarket was threaded through and through with special paths known as horse-walks which had been purpose-laid to allow strings of horses to transfer to the gallops on the Heath from their stables in the town without having to disrupt traffic on the roads. Any rider moving slowly on a horse-walk became an unremarkable part of the general scenery, even on a Sunday morning.

It crossed my mind that I should perhaps try to catch him on film, but the camera on the truck was bolted to face backwards, as normally it was driven along in front of its subject, filming advancing cars, people or horses. If I stopped to turn the truck and change places to operate the camera my quarry would be too far off even for blow-ups, if not entirely out of sight.

I was just about to give up when the distant horse was suddenly and violently reined to a halt, the rider reversing his direction and starting back towards me. The truck's engine raced. His head came up. He seemed to see me speeding down the hill towards him. He whirled his horse round again and galloped towards Newmarket at an even faster pace than before.

Even though the distance between us had closed, he'd travelled too far towards safety. It was already hard to distinguish his outline against the buildings ahead. I had to admit to myself that I wasn't going to catch him, and if so I would settle for second best and try to discover what had made him stop and reverse.

I braked the truck to a standstill as near as I could judge to the place where he'd turned, then jumped out onto the gra.s.s, trying to see what he might have seen, that could have been important enough to interrupt his flight.

He'd been facing the town. I looked that way and could see nothing to alarm him. There seemed no reason for him to have doubled back, but no one escaping at that pace would have stopped unless he had to.

If I were filming it... why might he stop?

Because he'd dropped dropped something. something.

The uphill stretch of well-gra.s.sed exercise ground was as wide as an airport runway and almost as long. I couldn't be sure I was in the right place. If the rider had dropped something small I could search all day. If he had dropped something insignificant I wouldn't see any importance in anything I might come across. Yet he had stopped. stopped.

I took a few irresolute strides. There was simply too much s.p.a.ce. Gra.s.s all round; miles of it. I looked up the hill, to the brow, and saw all the film horses and riders standing there, like Indians appearing on the skyline in an old pioneer movie. The sun was rising behind them.

I'd dropped my walkie-talkie up there in my hurry. I decided to drive the truck back up the hill, having left a mark where I was currently standing, and get all the lads to walk down in that strung-out sideways fas.h.i.+on, to see if they could find anything odd on the ground.

I marked the spot by taking off my light blue sweater and dropping it in a heap: anything smaller couldn't be seen. I walked back to climb into the truck.

The sun rose brilliantly over the hill, and in the gra.s.s twenty paces ahead of me, something glinted glinted.

I went on foot to see what it was, as nothing should glint where racehorses worked; and I stood transfixed and breathless.

The escaping rider had dropped his knife knife.

No wonder he'd tried to retrieve it. I stared down at the thing which lay on the turf in front of my toes, and felt both awed and repelled. It was no ordinary knife. It had a wide double-edged blade about eight inches long, joined to a handle consisting of a bar with four finger holes like substantial rings attached to one side of it. The blade was steel and the grip yellowish, like dulled bra.s.s. Overall the knife, about a foot long, was thick, strong, frightening and infinitely deadly.

I looked up the hill. The lads still stood there, awaiting instructions.

One behaves as one is, I suppose. I returned to the truck, climbed into it and drove it round until it stood over the knife, so that no one could pick up that weapon or dislodge it; so that no horse could step on it and get cut.

Then I hopped into the back of the truck, set the camera rolling, and filmed the line of hors.e.m.e.n standing black against the risen sun.

Even though I was again staring unemployment in its implacable face, it seemed a shame to waste such a shot.

CHAPTER 7.

I rearranged the day.

Everyone returned to the stable yard except Moncrieff, whom I left stationed behind the steering wheel of the camera truck with strict instructions not to move the wheels even if it were demanded of him by irate men whose job it was to keep vehicles off the Heath. I had transgressed appallingly, I told him, by driving on the hallowed gallops. He was not to budge the truck an inch.

'Why not?'

I explained why not.

'Knife?' he said disbelievingly.

'Someone really did mean harm to Nash.'

'Impossible!' Moncrieff exclaimed, though more in protest than disbelief.

'Tennis players, skaters, John Lennon,' I said. 'Who's safe?'

's.h.i.+t.'

Without choice, though reluctantly, I phoned the police, headlines bannering themselves in my head 'Jinx strikes Newmarket film again'. s.h.i.+t s.h.i.+t, indeed. I met them in the stable yard where all the lads were waiting in groups and Ivan had come to grandiose terms with his possible nearness to injury.

The policemen who presently arrived were different from those who had come to attend Dorothea. I wondered how odd it would strike the force eventually to have been called to two knife incidents within twenty-four hours, however unconnected the events might appear. I wondered if they would realise I'd been on the scene of both.

Nash, beseeched by Ed, came out of the house in costume and make-up and stood side by side with Ivan. The policemen looked from one to the other and came, as we all had, to the only possible conclusion. In carefully matched riding breeches, tweed jacket and large buckled crash helmet, they looked from ten paces identical. Only the slash along the side of Ivan's jacket distinguished them easily.

I said to Nash, 'This may put paid to the film.' may put paid to the film.'

'No one is hurt.'

'Someone was out to get you.'

'They didn't manage it,' he said.

'You're pretty calm.'

'Thomas, I've lived through years of danger of this sort. We all do. The world's full of crazy fanatics. If you let it worry you, you'd never go out.' He looked across to where the police were writing down what the lads were telling them. 'Are we going on with today's work?'

I hesitated. 'How will Silva react?'

'Tough.'

I smothered a smile. 'Do you want to come out on the Heath and see what someone intended to stick into you? And do you realise that from now on you have to have a bodyguard?'

'No. I never have a bodyguard.'

'No bodyguard, no film. Very likely, no film anyway, once Hollywood gets to hear of this.'

He looked at his watch. 'It's the middle of the night over there.'

'You'll go on, then?'

'Yes, I will.'

'In that case, as soon as we can,' I said gratefully.

Ed came across and said the police wanted to speak to the person really in charge. I went over: they were both older than I and seemed to be looking around for a father figure to relate to. I was not, it appeared, their idea of authority. O'Hara would have fitted their bill.

The lads had told them that an extra horseman had joined their group while they were haphazardly circling after their third canter over the hill. They'd thought nothing much of it, as with film-making the normal routine of training-stable life was not adhered to. The newcomer, dressed in jeans, anorak and crash helmet, had blended in with themselves. It was only when Ivan's horse had reared away, and Ivan himself had shouted and fallen off, that they'd thought anything was wrong. No one seemed to have seen the slash of the blade.

They couldn't do much towards describing the extra man. Crash helmets with heavy chin straps effectively hid half the face. The newcomer also, they remembered, had been wearing jockeys' goggles, as many of them frequently did themselves to s.h.i.+eld their eyes from dust and kicked up debris. They thought he might have been wearing gloves: nothing unusual in that, either.

Had I anything to add, the police wanted to know.

'He could ride well,' I said.

They seemed to find that unimportant, being used to the many skills of Newmarket, though I thought it significant.

'He wasn't a jockey,' I said. 'He was too heavy. Too thickset.'

Description of features? I shook my head. I hadn't seen his face, only his back view galloping away.

I waited until they had let the lads and the camera crew disperse out of earshot before I told them about the knife.

We drove up the road to get as near as possible to the camera truck which still stuck out like an illegal sore thumb. Thanks only to its being Sunday, I guessed, no groundsmen were hopping up and down in rage. Leading the police vehicle, I took Nash with me in my car, breaking all the film company's rigid insurance instructions. What with one thing and another, who cared?

Moncrieff backed the camera truck ten feet. The police peered in silence at the revealed peril. Moncrieff looked shocked. Nash grew still.

'He dropped it,' I explained. 'He turned to come back for it. Then he saw me chasing him and decided on flight.'

Nash said, 'He lunged at Ivan with that that?'

I nodded. 'You'll have a bodyguard from now on.'

He looked at me and made no further protest. One of the policemen produced a large paper bag and with care not to smudge possible fingerprints lifted the knife from the gra.s.s.

'There weren't any touts,' I remarked.

'What?' asked Nash.

'Every day except Sunday there are watchers down there on the edge of the town, with binoculars.' I pointed. 'Information is their trade. They know every horse on the Heath. They pa.s.s t.i.tbits of training progress to newspapermen and to bookmakers. If they'd only been here today, our knifeman wouldn't have been able to vanish so easily.'

One of the policemen nodded. 'So who knew, sir, that Mr Rourke would be out here this Sunday morning?'

'About sixty people,' I said. 'Everyone working on the film knows the shooting schedule a couple of days in advance.' I paused. 'There were were a few people out watching, as there always are with film-making, but we have staff moving them away as far as possible if we don't want them in shot. Then, too, we started work today before sunrise.' I looked round the Heath. Despite our activity, few people were about. Cars went past us on the road without slowing. The Heath looked wide and peaceful, the last place for death. a few people out watching, as there always are with film-making, but we have staff moving them away as far as possible if we don't want them in shot. Then, too, we started work today before sunrise.' I looked round the Heath. Despite our activity, few people were about. Cars went past us on the road without slowing. The Heath looked wide and peaceful, the last place for death.

As Nash had pointed out, no one had been hurt. The police took their notes, the knife and their possible theories back into Newmarket and, with a feeling of imminent doom sitting like vultures on our shoulders, I summoned the camera crews back to work and made the magical initial meeting of Nash and Silva come to life.

It was nearly three in the afternoon by the time we'd finished on the Heath. Just as I returned to the stables four large motor horseboxes arrived to transport to Huntingdon racecourse all the horses, their saddles, bridles, rugs and other gear and their feed and bedding, besides the lads and their own travel bags. Our horsemaster seemed to be managing fine. Despite the early morning upset everyone involved seemed to hum in a holiday mood.

O'Hara banished the temporary euphoria, arriving in the yard by car and scrambling out angrily to demand of me loudly, 'What in h.e.l.l's teeth's going on?'

'Going to Huntingdon,' I said.

'Thomas. I'm not talking about G.o.ddam Huntingdon. It's on the car radio that some maniac attacked Nash with a knife. VC hat in b.u.g.g.e.ry happened?'

I tried to tell him but he was too agitated to listen.

'Where's Nash?' he demanded.

'In the house getting his make-up off.'

He strode impatiently away and through the house's rear door, leaving me to re-start the transportation and set the wagon-train rolling, even though the pioneers no longer sang.

Moncrieff was supposed to be having a rare afternoon off. I told him he deserved it and to scarper, which he rapidly did, hoping O'Hara wouldn't reappear too soon.

Alone for a change, I leaned against the bottom half of a stable door, listening to the unaccustomed silence and thinking of knives. Valentine's old voice murmured in my head... 'I left the knife with Derry...'

The world was full of knives.

Who was Derry?

O'Hara and Nash came out of the house together looking more cheerful than I'd feared.

'I spent half the night talking to Hollywood,' O'Hara announced. 'I reminded them that yanking the director in mid-film almost inevitably led to critical disaster, as reviewers always latch onto that fact firstly and spend most of their column speculating on how much better it would have been to have left things alone.'

'However untrue,' Nash commented dryly.

'In this case,' O'Hara told him firmly, 'you said, if I remember, that if they sacked Thomas they sacked you too.'

'Yeah. Crazy.'

O'Hara nodded. 'Anyway, I'll be plugging the line that the attack on the stuntman is positive positive publicity, not bad. By the time this movie gets to distribution, the public will be fired up to see it.' publicity, not bad. By the time this movie gets to distribution, the public will be fired up to see it.'