Crisis

20

I presented myself at the Tattersalls’ main reception at eleven o’clock precisely, having walked down from the Bedford Lodge Hotel.

There was much activity at Castleton House Stables as I passed, and I stood in the gateway for a few moments watching the proceedings.

The police had obviously completed their physical examination of the scene and there was now a collection of bulldozers, diggers and lorries taking away the remains of the burned-out stable block, and its dead equine residents. At Oliver’s expense, no doubt, or that of his insurer.

I walked on down the High Street and past the Jockey Club buildings before turning left onto The Avenue and then in through the entrance to the sales complex.

Today, being a non-sale day, the car park was almost empty but, as on every day, it was dominated by a massive limestone classical arch with huge pillars topped by a pediment, complete with moulded frieze. It would not have looked out of place as the ceremonial entrance to a royal palace. How odd, I thought, to have built it here.

‘Welcome to Tattersalls, Mr Foster,’ said the receptionist. ‘We have been expecting you. Please take a seat for a moment.’ She indicated towards some comfy upholstered upright chairs. ‘I’ll just inform the chairman that you’re here.’

I don’t know what Kate had told them but they did everything for me short of actually rolling out a red carpet.

I was thankful that I’d worn my suit.

Presently a tall lean man appeared, also in a suit, and walked purposefully over towards me.

‘Mr Foster?’ he said, outstretching his hand. ‘Welcome to Tattersalls. I’m Geoffrey Atherton, chairman and chief auctioneer.’

I shook his hand warmly.

‘Thank you for inviting me,’ I said. ‘I had no idea that buying horses was such a grand affair. That’s quite a structure you have in the car park.’

‘The Tattersall Arch,’ he said, nodding. ‘It used to be the entrance to the auction house when we were situated in London during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. We moved it here in the 1960s.’

‘Quite a feat,’ I said.

‘Indeed, the original building was earmarked for demolition so it was a way of preserving what had been a symbol of Tattersalls for almost a century.’

‘The company goes back a long way, then,’ I said.

‘Since 1766. It was started by Richard Tattersall selling dogs on Hyde Park Corner.’

‘Dogs?’

‘Hounds, to be precise. For hunting. But at the end of each day’s hound sale, Richard would also sell a few horses, hacks and hunters mostly. However, it wasn’t long before he realised there was more profit in selling the horses than the dogs, although we went on selling foxhounds right up to the outbreak of the First World War, and we sold horses for hunting until well after that. But, nowadays, we are exclusively a Thoroughbred sales organisation. Racehorses.’

As he’d been talking he had led the way back outside and we walked together across the perfectly tended grass lawns to a point where we could see clearly into one of the stable yards.

‘We have eight separate yards here, with over eight hundred boxes,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Horses have to be available for inspection before the auction starts. The sales catalogue tells prospective buyers where to find each lot and gives a full listing of its pedigree back at least three generations.’

‘How many do you sell in a day?’ I asked.

‘Up to two hundred and fifty. Some days less, especially on the big days like the October Book One sale. Then we might only sell a hundred and twenty on each of the three days.’

‘But they’re the most expensive?’

‘We think they’re going to be, but quite a few in Books Two and Three always outsell some of those in Book One. The price depends solely on what people will pay for them at the auction. The deal is done only when the hammer drops.’

We walked on towards the sales paddock.

‘This is where the lots parade just before going into the sales ring.’

Like the waiting room at the dentist, I thought. But in this case it wouldn’t be the horse that was nervous, more likely the seller, intensely hoping their lot will fetch a good price, and more than the cost of producing it in the first place.

At this point Kate came trotting across the grass to join us.

‘Ah, there you are, Mrs Williams.’ Geoffrey turned to me. ‘I believe you met Mrs Williams at the races last evening.’

‘Yes,’ I said, trying hard not to laugh. ‘Mrs Williams was most accommodating. She invited me into your private box for a drink.’

‘Excellent,’ he said.

Mrs Williams, indeed. Good job I hadn’t had to ask for her by name.

I smiled at her. She was wearing her Tattersalls uniform with its embroidered rotunda logos.

‘There’s the rotunda I told you about,’ Kate said, as if reading my mind. She pointed at a twenty-foot-high round domed structure with pillars, standing nearby. It had a human bust on the very top and a fox standing on a pedestal at its centre.

‘In the 1700s it was situated at the corner of Hyde Park,’ Geoffrey said. ‘It was used by Richard Tattersall as his auctioneer’s podium. The bust on the top is George IV.’

‘Why the fox?’ I asked.

‘Foxes are part of our heritage, through our connection with selling foxhounds. Huntsmen have always been very fond of foxes.’

But clearly not fond enough of them to stop chasing them to death across the countryside. It was a strange world. I wonder if the Pied Piper liked rats?

We walked on through to the sales-ring building itself, an octagonal amphitheatre with steeply raked seating and high-up lantern-style windows, all of it dedicated to the promotion of Thoroughbred horseflesh as the greatest saleable commodity on earth.

‘It looks a bit bland now,’ Kate said as we walked in, ‘but it’s really exciting on sale days, especially for Book One, when there’s not a spare seat to be found. Latecomers have to sit in the gangways.’

The ring itself at the centre was not round but an oval and the whole place was a lot smarter than I had imagined. But I suppose, if you’re going to pay four million guineas for an untested racehorse, you’d want a comfortable seat to sit in as you do it.

‘Never mind that yellow shiny stuff you dig out of the ground,’ Geoffrey said, ‘Frankel was the highest-rated racehorse that has ever been and he was valued at a hundred million pounds, some fourteen times his own weight in gold, when he was retired to stud after an unbeaten fourteen-race career.’

‘Did you sell him here as a yearling?’ I asked.

‘Sadly not. He was bred by his owner, but we have sold some of his progeny.’

And, I thought, prospective buyers would flock to this place to bid on Frankel’s offspring in the hope that lightning would strike the same place twice and they, too, might buy a world-beater that would repay their investment many, many times over in the future. And, in bloodstock terms, the future was never too far away, with champion racehorses usually retiring to stud aged just three or four.

‘The horses come in from the sales paddock and are then walked around while the bidding takes place above them,’ Geoffrey explained. ‘Then, when the auctioneer’s hammer falls, they are led out the other side and back to their box. It then becomes the new owner’s responsibility to collect them from there.’

‘After they’ve paid,’ I said.

‘Oh yes,’ Geoffrey said with a laugh. ‘But they can’t even bid unless they have good credit. We see to that first.’

‘Very wise.’

‘But I can assure you that we consider Sheikh Karim’s credit to be excellent.’

It was a reminder that I wasn’t being shown round by the chairman just for my entertainment. Little did he realise that I didn’t represent the Sheikh’s racing concerns, only his media reputation. But I wasn’t going to say so if Kate hadn’t.

‘Now, will you excuse me, Mr Foster?’ he said. ‘Mrs Williams will complete the tour. I’m afraid I have some meetings I need to attend to.’

‘Of course, Geoffrey,’ I said. ‘Thank you so much for your time.’

We shook hands.

‘I look forward to seeing you at one of our sales,’ he said. ‘Yes, indeed.’

He turned and walked out of the sales ring, no doubt back to his office and his meetings, leaving Kate and me standing there alone.

‘Mrs Williams?’ I said. ‘What’s all that about?’

‘I am Mrs Williams,’ she said. ‘I never reverted to my maiden name when I got divorced.’

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘Laziness, I suppose. Having gone to all the trouble to convert everything to Williams in the first place, I couldn’t be bothered to turn it all back. And I was never that keen on Logan anyway. I was always being told by people to run, after the film, and they called me Loganberry at school. I hated it.’ She paused. ‘Also, it makes getting rid of unwanted men easier if I’m a Mrs.’

‘Does that happen often?’ I asked.

‘Quite often.’

‘You didn’t tell me that you were a Mrs.’

‘That’s because you’re not unwanted.’

I smiled at her. ‘Good. Now, what’s left of the tour?’

‘Nothing much, this is it really. Everything of interest happens in this space. This is where the big bucks get spent. During the sale I stand behind the rostrum over there.’

She pointed at a raised box on the edge of the ring.

‘When the hammer drops, the auctioneer hands me the purchase confirmation form and it’s my job to get the successful bidder’s signature on it before he or she leaves the building. I keep the white top copy and give the yellow one to the buyer as a receipt. But I have to keep my wits about me as some of them seem to bid without moving more than an eyelid, and others hide in the stairways up the back there so no one else can see them.’

‘Why?’

‘God knows. Perhaps they think the price will go higher if someone sees them bidding. And they might be right if it was Sheikh Karim.’

‘Don’t you start,’ I said. ‘I’m embarrassed enough already. Fancy getting the chairman to show me round.’

She laughed. ‘It was his idea, not mine.’

‘But you could have stopped it.’

She looked at me. ‘Now why would I want to do that?’

Kate and I went inside the main administration building to visit the ‘girls at Tatts’, her work colleagues, some of whom I had met in the box at the races.

As we moved from desk to desk, I realised that she was showing me off as her own personal VIP, one who the chairman himself had taken the time to show round. All the girls knew about that, sure enough. And why not, I thought. If Kate had visited Simpson White, I’d have shown her off too.

‘You must come again on a sale day,’ Kate said. ‘The whole place comes alive. Chauffeurs fight for a spot in the car park, the restaurant is booked out for weeks in advance, and the thrill of seeing rich men bidding against each other is electric. I have friends who come every day just to watch. It’s the best theatre in town, and with no admission charge. But what makes it really exciting is that it’s not a game, it’s deadly serious. Fortunes and reputations are made and lost here.’

‘You should be on the marketing team,’ I said with a laugh.

‘I am.’