Rat Race

Chapter Thirteen

The Duke’s manservant was as pleasant as his voice: a short, assured, slightly pop-eyed man in his later forties with a good deal of the Duke’s natural benevolence in his manner. The house he presided over opened to the public, a notice read, every day between 1st March and 30th November. The Duke, I discovered, lived privately in the upper third of the south-west wing.

‘The Duke is expecting you, sir. Will you come this way?’

I followed. The distance I followed accounted for the length of time I had waited for the Duke to come to the telephone and also his breathlessness when he got there. We went up three floors, along a two furlong straight, and up again, to the attics. The attics in eighteenth century stately homes were a long way from the front hall.

The manservant opened a white-painted door and gravely showed me in.

‘Mr Shore, your Grace.’

‘Come in, come in, my dear chap,’ said the Duke.

I went in, and smiled with instant, spontaneous delight. The square low-ceilinged room contained a vast toy electric train set laid out on an irregular ring of wide green-covered trestle tables. A terminus, sidings, two small towns, a branch line, tunnels, gradients, viaducts, the Duke had the lot. In the centre of the ring, he and his nephew Matthew stood behind a large control table pressing the switches which sent about six different trains clanking on different courses round the complex.

The Duke nudged his nephew. ‘There you are, what did we say? He likes it.’

Young Matthew gave me a fleeting glance and went back to some complicated point changing. ‘He was bound to. He’s got the right sort of face.’

The Duke said, ‘You can crawl in here best under that table with the signal box and level crossing.’ He pointed, so I went down on hands and knees and made the indicated journey. Stood up in the centre. Looked around at the rows of lines and remembered the hopeless passion I’d felt in toy shops as a child: my father had been an underpaid schoolmaster who had spent his money on books.

The two enthusiasts showed me where the lines crossed and how the trains could be switched without crashing. Their voices were filled with contentment, their eyes shining, their faces intent.

‘Built this lot up gradually, of course,’ the Duke said. ‘Started when I was a boy. Then for years I never came up here. Not until young Matthew got old enough. Now, as I expect you can see, we have great times.’

‘We’re thinking of running a branch line right through that wall over there into the next attic,’ Matthew said. ‘There isn’t much room in here.’

The Duke nodded. ‘Next week, perhaps. For your birthday.’

Young Matthew gave him a huge grin and deftly let a pullman cross three seconds in front of a chugging goods. ‘It’s getting dark,’ he observed. ‘Lighting up time.’

‘So it is,’ agreed the Duke.

Matthew with a flourish pressed a switch, and they both watched my face. All round the track, and on all the stations and signal boxes and in the signals themselves, tiny electric lights suddenly shone out. The effect, to my eyes, was enchanting.

‘There you are,’ said the Duke. ‘He likes it.’

‘Bound to,’ young Matthew said.

They played with the trains for another whole hour, because they had worked out a timetable and they wanted to see if they could keep to it before they pinned it up on the notice board in the terminal. The Duke apologised, not very apologetically, for keeping me waiting, but it was, he explained, Matthew’s first evening out of school, and they had been waiting all through the term for this occasion.

At twenty to eleven the last shuttle service stopped at the buffers in the terminal and Matthew yawned. With the satisfaction of a job well done the two railwaymen unfolded several large dustsheets and laid them carefully over the silent tracks, and then we all three crawled back under the table which held the level crossing.

The Duke led the way down the first flight and along the two furlongs, and we were then, it appeared, in his living quarters.

‘You’d better cut along to bed, now, Matthew,’ he said to his nephew. ‘See you in the morning. Eight o’clock sharp, out in the stables.’

‘Sure thing,’ Matthew said. ‘And after that, the races.’ He sighed with utter content. ‘Better than school,’ he said.

The Duke showed me into a smallish white-painted sitting-room furnished with Persian rugs, leather armchairs, and endless sporting prints.

‘A drink?’ he suggested, indicating a tray.

I looked at the bottles. ‘Whisky, please.’

He nodded, poured two, added water, gave me the glass and waved me to an armchair.

‘Now, my dear chap...?’

It suddenly seemed difficult, what I had come to ask him, and what to explain. He was so transparently honest, so incapable of double dealing: I wondered if he could comprehend villainy at all.

‘I was talking to Annie Villars about your horse Rudiments,’ I said.

A slight frown lowered his eyebrows. ‘She was annoyed with me for letting her friend Rupert Tyderman advise me... I do so dislike upsetting Annie, but I’d promised... Anyway, she has sorted it all out splendidly, I believe, and now that her friend has turned out to be so extraordinary, with that bomb, I mean, I don’t expect he will want to advise me about Rudiments any more.’

‘Did he, sir, introduce to you any friend of his?’

‘Do you mean Eric Goldenberg? Yes, he did. Can’t say I really liked the follow, though. Didn’t trust him, you know. Young Matthew didn’t like him, either.’

‘Did Goldenberg ever talk to you about insurance?’

‘Insurance?’ he repeated. ‘No, I can’t remember especially that he did.’

I frowned. It had to be insurance.

It had to be.

‘It was his other friend,’ said the Duke, ‘who arranged the insurance.’

I stared at him. ‘Which other friend?’

‘Charles Carthy-Todd.’

I blinked. ‘Who?’

‘Charles Carthy-Todd,’ he repeated patiently. ‘He was an acquaintance of Rupert Tyderman. Tyderman introduced us one day. At Newmarket races, I think it was. Anyway, it was Charles who suggested the insurance. Very good scheme, I thought it was. Sound. Very much needed. An absolute boon to a great many people.’

‘The Racegoers’ Accident Fund,’ I said. ‘Of which you are Patron.’

‘That’s right.’ He smiled contentedly. ‘So many people have complimented me on giving it my name. A splendid undertaking altogether.’

‘Could you tell me a little more about how it was set up?’

‘Are you interested in insurance, my dear chap? I could get you an introduction at Lloyd’s... but...’

I smiled. To become an underwriter at Lloyd’s one had to think of a stake of a hundred thousand pounds as loose change. The Duke, in his quiet good natured way, was a very rich man indeed.

‘No sir. It’s just the Accident Fund I’m interested in. How it was set up, and how it is run.’

‘Charles sees to it all, my dear chap. I can’t seem to get the hang of these things at all, you know. Technicalities, and all that. Much prefer horses, don’t you see?’

‘Yes, sir, I do see. Could you perhaps, then, tell me about Mr Carthy-Todd? What he’s like, and so on.’

‘He’s about your height but much heavier and he has dark hair and wears spectacles. I think he has a moustache... yes, that’s right, a moustache.’

I was jolted. The Duke’s description of Charles Carthy-Todd fitted almost exactly the impression Nancy had had of Tyderman’s companion. Dozens of men around, though, with dark hair, moustache, glasses...

‘I really meant, sir, his... er... character.’

‘My dear chap. Sound. Very sound. A thoroughly good fellow. An expert in insurance, spent years with a big firm in the city.’

‘And... his background?’ I suggested.

‘Went to Rugby. Then straight into an office. Good family, of course.’

‘You’ve met them?’

He looked surprised at the question. ‘Not actually, no. Business connection, that’s what I have with Charles. His family came from Herefordshire, I think. There are photographs in our office... land, horses, dogs, wife and children, that sort of thing. Why do you ask?’

I hesitated. ‘Did he come to you with the Accident Scheme complete?’

He shook his fine head. ‘No, no, my dear chap. It arose out of conversation. We were saying how sad it was for the family of that small steeplechase trainer who was drowned on holiday and what a pity it was that there wasn’t some scheme which covered everyone engaged in racing, not just the jockeys. Then of course when we really went into it we broadened it to include the racing public as well. Charles explained that the more premiums we collected the more we could pay out in compensation.’

‘I see.’

‘We have done a great deal of good already.’ He smiled happily. ‘Charles was telling me the other day that we have settled three claims for injuries so far, and that those clients are so pleased that they are telling everyone else to join in.’

I nodded. ‘I’ve met one of them. He’d broken his ankle and received a thousand pounds.’

He beamed. ‘There you are, then.’

‘When did the scheme actually start?’

‘Let me see. In May, I should think. Towards the end of May. About two months ago. It took a little while to organise, of course, after we’d decided to go ahead.’

‘Charles did the organising?’

‘My dear chap, of course.’

‘Did you take advice from any of your friends at Lloyd’s?’

‘No need, you know. Charles is an expert himself. He drew up all the papers. I just signed them.’

‘But you read them first?’

‘Oh yes,’ he said reassuringly, then smiled like a child, ‘Didn’t understand them much, of course.’

‘And you yourself guaranteed the money?’ Since the collapse of cut-price car insurance firms, I’d read somewhere, privately run insurance schemes had to show a minimum backing of fifty thousand pounds before the Board of Trade would give them permission to exist.

‘That’s right.’

‘Fifty thousand pounds?’

‘We thought a hundred thousand might be better. Gives the scheme better standing, more weight, don’t you see?’

‘Charles said so?’

‘He knows about such things.’

‘Yes.’

‘But of course I’ll never have to find that money. It’s only a guarantee of good faith, and to comply with the law. The premiums will cover the compensation and Charles’ salary and all the costs. Charles worked it all out. And I told him right at the beginning that I didn’t want any profit out of it, just for lending it my name. I really don’t need any profit. I told him just to add my share into the paying out fund, and he thought that was a most sensible suggestion. Our whole purpose, you see, is to do good.’

‘You’re a singularly kind, thoughtful and generous man,’ I said.

It made him uncomfortable. ‘My dear chap...’

‘And after tonight’s news, I think several widows in Newmarket will bless you.’

‘What news?’

I told him about the accident in which Kitch and Ambrose and the three stable lads had died. He was horrified.

‘Oh, the poor fellows. The poor fellows. One can only hope that you are right, and that they had joined our scheme.’

‘Will the premiums you have already collected be enough to cover many large claims all at once?’

He wasn’t troubled. ‘I expect so. Charles will have seen to all that. But even if they don’t, I will make up the difference. No one will suffer. That’s what guaranteeing means, do you see?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Kitch and Ambrose,’ he said. ‘The poor fellows.’

‘And Kenny Bayst is in hospital, badly hurt.’

‘Oh dear.’ His distress was genuine. He really cared.

‘I know that Kenny Bayst was insured with you. At least, he told me he was going to be. And after this I should think you would be flooded with more applications.’

‘I expect you’re right. You seem to understand things, just like Charles does.’

‘Did Charles have any plans for giving the scheme a quick boost to begin with?’

‘I don’t follow you, my dear chap.’

‘What happened to the Accident Fund,’ I asked casually, ‘After that bomb exploded in the aeroplane which had been carrying Colin Ross?’

He looked enthusiastic. ‘Do you know, a lot of people told me they would join. It made them think, they said. I asked Charles if they had really done anything about it, and he said yes, quite a few enquiries had come in. I said that as no one had been hurt, the bomb seemed to have done the Fund a lot of good, and Charles was surprised and said so it had.’

Charles had met the Duke through Rupert Tyderman. Rupert Tyderman had set off the bomb. If ever there was a stone cold certainty, it was that Charles Carthy-Todd was the least surprised on earth that cash had followed combustion. He had reckoned it would. He had reckoned right.

‘Charles sent out a pamphlet urging everyone to insure against bombs on the way home,’ I said.

The Duke smiled. ‘Yes, that’s right. I believe it was very effective. We thought, do you see, that as no one had been hurt, there would be no harm in it.’

‘And as it was Colin Ross who was on board, the bomb incident was extensively covered on television and in the newspapers... and had a greater impact on your Fund than had it been anyone else.’

The Duke’s forehead wrinkled. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’

‘Never mind, sir. I was just thinking aloud.’

‘Very easy habit to fall into. Do it myself, you know, all the time.’

Carthy-Todd and Tyderman’s second sabotage, I thought to myself, hadn’t been as good. Certainly by attacking Colin they’d achieved the same impact and national coverage, but I would have thought it was too obviously slanted at one person to have had much universal effect. Could be wrong, though...

‘This has been the most interesting chat,’ said the Duke, ‘But my dear fellow, the evening is passing. What was it that you wanted to see me about?’

‘Er...’ I cleared my throat. ‘Do you know, sir, I’d very much like to meet Mr Carthy-Todd. He sounds a most go-ahead, enterprising man.’

The Duke nodded warmly.

‘Do you know where I could find him?’

‘Tonight, do you mean?’ He was puzzled.

‘No, sir. Tomorrow will do.’

‘I suppose you might find him at our office. He’s sure to be there, because he knows I will be calling in myself. Warwick races, do you see?’

‘The Accident Fund office... is in Warwick?’

‘Of course.’

‘Silly of me,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know.’

The Duke twinkled at me. ‘I see you haven’t joined the Fund.’

‘I’ll join tomorrow. I’ll go to the office. I’ll be at Warwick too, for the races.’

‘Great,’ he said. ‘Great. The office is only a few hundred yards from the racecourse.’ He put two fingers into an inside pocket and brought out a visiting card. ‘There you are, my dear chap. The address. And if you’re there about an hour before the first race, I’ll be there too, and you can meet Charles. You’ll like him, I’m sure of that.’

‘I’ll look forward to it,’ I said. I finished my whisky and stood up. ‘It was kind of you to let me come... and I think your trains are absolutely splendid...’

His face brightened. He escorted me all the way down to the front door, talking about young Matthew and the plans they had for the holidays. Would I fix Matthew’s flight for Thursday, he asked. Thursday was Matthew’s birthday. He would be eleven.

‘Thursday it is,’ I agreed. ‘I’ll do it in the evening, if there’s a charter fixed for that day.’

‘Most good of you, my dear chap.’

I looked at the kind, distinguished, uncomprehending face. I knew that if his partner Charles Carthy-Todd skipped with the accumulated premiums before paying out the Newmarket widows, as I was privately certain he would, the honourable Duke of Wessex would meet every penny out of his own coffers. In all probability he could afford it, but that wasn’t the point. He would be hurt and bewildered and impossibly distressed at having been tangled up in a fraud, and it seemed to me especially vicious that anyone should take advantage of his vulnerable simplicity and goodness.

Charles Carthy-Todd was engaged in taking candy from a mentally retarded child and then making it look as though the child had stolen it in the first place. One couldn’t help but feel protective. One couldn’t help but want to stop it.

I said impulsively, ‘Take care of yourself, sir.’

‘My dear chap... I will.’

I walked down the steps from his front door towards Honey’s Mini waiting in the drive, and looked back to where he stood in the yellow oblong of light. He waved a hand gently and slowly closed the door, and I saw from his benign slightly puzzled expression that he was still not quite sure why I had come.

It was after one o’clock when I got back to the caravan. Tired, hungry, miserable about Nancy, I still couldn’t stay asleep. Three o’clock, I was awake again, tangling the sheets as if in fever. I got up and splashed my itching eyes with cold water: lay down, got up, went for a walk across the airfield. The cool starry night came through my shirt and quietened my skin but didn’t do much for the hopeless ache between my ears.

At eight in the morning I went to fetch Honey, filling her tank with the promised petrol at the nearest garage. She had made a gallon or two on the deal, I calculated. Fair enough.

What was not fair enough, however, was the news with which she greeted me.

‘Colin Ross wants you to ring him up. He rang yesterday evening about half an hour after you’d buzzed off.’

‘Did he say... what about?’

‘He did ask me to write you a message, but honestly, I forgot. I was up in the tower until nine, and then Uncle was impatient to get home, and I just went off with him and forgot all about coming down here with the message... and anyway, what difference would a few hours make?’

‘What was the message?’

‘He said to tell you his sister didn’t meet anyone called Chanter at Liverpool. Something about a strike, and this Chanter not being there. I don’t know... there were two aircraft in the circuit and I wasn’t paying all that much attention. Come to think of it, he did seem pretty anxious I should give you the message last night, but like I said, I forgot. Sorry, and all that. Was it important?’

I took a deep breath. Thinking about the past night, I could cheerfully have strangled her. ‘Thanks for telling me.’

She gave me a sharp glance. ‘You look bushed. Have you been making love all night? You don’t look fit to fly.’

‘Seldom felt better,’ I said with truth. ‘And no, I haven’t.’

‘Save yourself for me,’

‘Don’t bank on it.’

‘Louse.’

When I rang Colin’s number from the telephone in the lounge it was Midge who answered. The relief in her voice was as overwhelming as my own.

‘Matt...!’ I could hear her gulp, and knew she was fighting against tears. ‘Oh, Matt... I’m so glad you’ve rung. She didn’t go after Chanter. She didn’t. It’s all right. Oh dear... just a minute...’ She sniffed and paused, and when she spoke again she had her voice under control. ‘She rang yesterday evening and we talked to her for a long time. She said she was sorry if she had upset us, she had really left because she was so angry with herself, so humiliated at having made up such silly dreams about you... she said it was all her own fault, that you hadn’t deceived her in any way, she had deceived herself... she wanted to tell us that it wasn’t because she was angry with you that she ran out, but because she felt she had made such a fool of herself... Anyway, she said she had cooled off a good deal by the time her train got to Liverpool and she was simply miserable by then, and then when she found Chanter had gone away because of the strike she said she was relieved, really. Chanter’s landlady told Nancy where he had gone... somewhere in Manchester, to do a painting of industrial chimneys, she thought... but Nancy decided it wasn’t Chanter she wanted... and she didn’t know what to do, she still felt muddled... and then outside the art school she met a girl who had been a student with us in London. She was setting off for a camping holiday near Stratford and... well... Nancy decided to go with her. She said a few days’ peace and some landscape painting would put her right... so she rang up here and it was our cleaning woman who answered... Nancy swears she told her it was Jill she was with, and not Chanter, but of course we never got that part of the message...’ She stopped, and when I didn’t answer immediately she said anxiously, ‘Matt, are you still there?’

‘Yes.’

‘You were so quiet.’

‘I was thinking about the last four days.’

Four wretched, dragging days. Four endless grinding nights. All unnecessary. She hadn’t been with Chanter at all. If she’d suffered about what she’d imagined about me, so had I from what I’d imagined about her. Which made us, I guessed, about quits.

‘Colin told her she should have asked you about that court case instead of jumping to conclusions,’ Midge said.

‘She didn’t jump, she was pushed.’

‘Yes. She knows that now. She’s pretty upset. She doesn’t really want to face you at Warwick... after making such a mess of things...’

‘I shan’t actually slaughter her.’

She half laughed. ‘I’ll defend her. I’m driving over with Colin. I’ll see you there too.’

‘That’s marvellous.’

‘Colin’s out on the gallops just now. We’re setting off after he’s come in and had something to eat.’

‘Tell him to drive carefully. Tell him to think of Ambrose.’

‘Yes... Isn’t it awful about that crash?’

‘Have you heard what happened, exactly?’

‘Apparently Ambrose tried to pass a slow lorry on a bend and there was another one coming the other way... he ran into it head on and one of the lorries overturned and crushed another car with three stable lads in it. There’s quite a lot about it in today’s Sporting Life.’

‘I expect I’ll see it. And Midge... thank Colin for his message last night.’

‘I will. He said he didn’t want you to worry any longer. He seemed to think you were almost as worried about her as we were.’

‘Almost,’ I agreed wryly. ‘See you at Warwick.’