Part 27 (2/2)

I wondered idly how many virgins he had personally introduced to frigging: there was something about him that suggested it.

Tremayne said to me, 'This is Sam Yaeger, our jockey.' To Sam Yaeger he explained my presence and said I'd been riding out.

Sam Yaeger nodded to me, visibly a.s.sessing what threat or benefit I might represent to him, running a glance over my jodhpurs and measuring my height. I imagined that because of my six feet alone he might put away fears that I could annex any of his racing territory.

He himself wore jodhpurs also, along with a brilliant yellow sweats.h.i.+rt. A multi-coloured anorak, twin of Gareth's, hung over the back of his chair, and he had brought his own helmet, bright turquoise, with YAEGER painted large in red on the front. Nothing shy or retiring about Sam.

Dee-Dee, appearing for her coffee, brightened by fifty watts at the sight of him.

'Morning, Lover-boy,' she said.

Lover-boy made a stab at pinching her bottom as she pa.s.sed behind him, which she seemed not to mind. Well, well, well, I thought, there was a veritable p.u.s.s.ycat lurking somewhere inside that self-contained, touch-me-not secretarial exterior. She made her coffee and sat at the table beside the jockey, not overtly flirting but very aware of him.

I made the toast, which had become my accepted job, and put out the juice, b.u.t.ter, marmalade and so on. Sam Yaeger watched with comically raised eyebrows.

'Didn't Tremayne say you were a writer?' he asked.

'Most of the time. Want some toast?'

'One piece, light brown. You don't look like a sodding writer.'

'So many people aren't.'

'Aren't what?'

'What they look like,' I said. 'Sodding or not.'

'What do I look like?' he demanded, but with, I thought, genuine curiosity.

'Like someone who won the Grand National among eighty-nine other races last year and finished third on the jockeys' list.'

'You've been peeking,' he said, surprised.

'I'll be interviewing you soon for your views on your boss as a trainer.'

Tremayne said with mock severity, 'And they'd better be respectful.'

'They b.l.o.o.d.y well would be, wouldn't they?'

'If you have any sense,' Tremayne agreed, nodding.

I dealt out the toast and made some more. Sam's extremely physical presence dominated breakfast throughout and I wondered briefly how he got on with Nolan, the dark side of the same coin.

I asked Dee-Dee that question after Sam and Tremayne had gone out with the second lot; asked her in the office while I checked some facts in old formbooks.

'Get on?' she repeated ironically. 'No, they do not.' She paused, considered whether to tell me more, shrugged and continued. 'Sam doesn't like Nolan riding so many of the stable's horses. Nolan rides most of Fiona's runners, he accepts that, but Tremayne runs more horses in amateur races than most trainers do. Wins more, too, of course. The owners who bet, they like it, because whatever else you can say about Nolan, no one denies he's a brilliant jockey. He's been top of the amateurs' list for years.'

<script>