Decider by Dick Francis

Author:Dick Francis
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Individual Architect, England, Mystery & Detective, Horse racing, Architects, General, Suspense, Architecture, Thrillers, Mystery fiction, Fiction
ISBN: 9780425222706
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2008-05-15T19:10:28.293726+00:00

CHAPTER 10

The work went on.

Electric cables snaked everywhere and were gradually assimilated invisibly into the canvas. Lighting grew, looking as if it belonged there anyway. White silently whirling fans hung beneath roof vents, to get rid of smells and used air. Henry himself understood tent management and crowd comfort in a way that sweltering guests in sunbaked marquees had never imagined, and as I too put climate control near the top of all living priorities, the Stratton Park racegoers were going to breathe easily without knowing why.

The nineteenth-century chimney-born updraughts in houses had created a boom then in footstools, winged chairs and screens; twentieth-century wind tunnels meant gale-ridden city street corners.

Air pressure, air movement, air temperature; dust removal, mite reduction, dehumidification: all were not just a matter of soft self-indulgence indoors, but of positive no-allergy health and the deterrence of rot, rust, fungus and mildew. The Lazarus act on old buildings began, in my no doubt obsessional mind, with the provision of clean dry air, unobtrusively circulating.

We fed everyone from the Mayflower’s kitchen. My sons fetched and carried, acted as waiters, willingly collected rubbish and generally behaved as they never did normally unless bullied.

Roger and I consulted the racecourse’s water-main maps, and his men laid a branch pipe to the side-tents’ catering areas, with a twiglet off to the female jockeys’ changing room especially for Rebecca. Cold water, of course, but perhaps better than none. Persistent telephoning finally wrung out a promise of one Portaloo van and, from Ivan, Roger bravely cajoled a truckload of garden centre potplants.

‘He says it’s one of the top selling days in his year,’ Roger commented, putting down the receiver. ‘He says the racecourse must pay for what he sends.’

‘Charming.’

We discussed a few more arrangements before Roger bustled away, leaving me in the office. I’d begun in the past hour to find walking easier but on the other hand I felt weary across the shoulders and glad of a chance to perch a rump on the desk, avoiding the worst winces but resting arms and legs. I thought of the admonition card back home in my workshop, given me in happier times by Amanda, which read, ‘If everything is going well you have obviously overlooked something’, and idly wondered what hadn’t occurred to Roger and Henry and me that could become a hopeless disaster on the morrow.

The door opened abruptly to reveal Forsyth Stratton striding over the threshold. None of the Strattons seemed capable of entering a room slowly.

‘What are you doing in here?’ he demanded.

‘Thinking,’ I said. Thinking in fact that I was not pleased to see him, particularly if he had similar ideas to Hannah and Keith. It appeared, however, and somewhat to my relief, that his attack would be verbal, not physical.

He said with rage, ‘You’ve no right to take charge here.’

‘The Colonel’s in charge,’ I replied mildly.

‘The Colonel consults you before he does anything.’ His dark eyes glittered in the same way as Rebecca’s, and I wondered fleetingly whether either or both of them wore contact lenses.

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