Part 27 (1/2)

'What do they all do during the interval?' I asked, as we watched them go.

'Same as the audience, I expect,' she said. 'Some have a cup of tea. There's usually some waiting for us in the dressing room. Others have something a little stronger, although they're not supposed to. One or two go outside for a smoke. Relieve it or not, some sit and go to sleep for fifteen minutes.'

'What do you normally do?' I asked, taking her hand.

'All of the above.' She laughed.

'Do you want to go and have your tea then?'

'No. I want to stay here. I share a dressing room with twelve other women and I'd much rather be here with you.'

Good. I would much rather it too.

'I'm going back to Delafield tomorrow,' I said. 'I'm going to have a snoop around the Lake Country Polo Club. Rolf Schumann was a vice-president of the club and one of those killed by the bomb at Newmarket was the president.'

'But I can't come with you,' she said miserably. 'There are some changes to the programme for tomorrow night and I have rehearsals at eleven and at three.'

'How about on Sat.u.r.day?' I asked.

'We have a matinee on Sat.u.r.day at two thirty as well as the evening performance,' she said. 'You go tomorrow without me, but be careful. Remember, someone tried to kill Rolf Schumann and that same person may have tried to kill you twice already.'

'You don't need to remind me,' I said.

The Lake Country Polo Club was a very grand affair with rows and rows of white-painted stables with brown roofs alongside four or five polo fields and a ma.s.s of club facilities. There were also dozens of horses in white-railed paddocks, their heads down as they chewed the spring gra.s.s. This was clearly a busy place, but also one where everything oozed money, and lots of it.

I pulled the Buick nose-first into the visitors' car park beside the club offices and walked in where it said RECEPTION RECEPTION on the door. There was a woman in a white roll-neck sweats.h.i.+rt and jeans sitting at a desk typing on a computer. She looked up. on the door. There was a woman in a white roll-neck sweats.h.i.+rt and jeans sitting at a desk typing on a computer. She looked up.

'Can I help you?' she said.

'I wondered if Mr Komarov is anywhere about?' I asked.

'No,' she said. 'I'm afraid he won't be back here now until next month at the earliest. For the Delafield Cup, I expect. He's usually here for that.'

So they knew Mr Komarov. In fact, they seemed to know him quite well.

'So he doesn't own this club, then?' I asked her, feigning surprise.

'Oh no,' she said. 'But he does own most of the ponies. His pony man is here if you'd like to see him?' I wasn't sure whether I did, but, before I could stop her, she lifted a phone and pushed some b.u.t.tons. 'What did you say your name was?' she asked me.

I hadn't in fact said anything about my name. 'Mr Buck,' I replied, looking out at my car. I very nearly said Buick.

Someone answered at the other end. 'Kurt,' said the woman. 'I have a Mr Buck here asking after Mr Komarov. He wants to know when he will be coming back to the club. Can you help?' She listened for a moment and then said, 'Hold on, I'll ask him.' She looked up at me. 'Kurt says to ask you how you know Mr Komarov.'

'I don't,' I said. 'But I want to ask him about something that happened in England.'

She relayed the message and then listened briefly. 'Where in England?' she asked me.

'Newmarket,' I said loudly.

She didn't say anything but listened a while longer. 'Fine, I'll tell him.' She hung up. 'Kurt is coming over to see you,' she said to me. 'Kurt's in charge of all Mr Komarov's ponies.'

'Thank you,' I said. 'I'll wait for him outside.'

Why were the hairs on the back of my neck standing on end and signalling danger, danger? Perhaps it would be safer to get back in the car and leave immediately. Instead, I went for a stroll and walked through a horse pa.s.sageway beneath the empty grandstand and out on to the polo pitch beyond.

It put the Guards Polo Club in the shade. While it was true that there wasn't a Royal Box, the rest of the facilities for watching were outstanding, with covered stands and hundreds of padded armchair-like seats for maximum comfort. The playing area had been set up for what the man at the Guards Club had called arena polo, but it could obviously be converted into a larger field for the real thing by removal of the boundary boards. There was plenty enough of the well-tended gra.s.s for even the biggest polo pitch.

I was standing looking at the grandstand when a man called out to me.

'Mr Buck?' he shouted, as he came through the pa.s.sageway. Kurt, I presumed, and he wasn't alone. A second man was with him and he made me feel decidedly uncomfortable. Whereas Kurt was small and jockey-like in stature, his sidekick was tall and wide. And he carried a five-foot-long polo mallet across his chest like a soldier might carry a gun. I was left in no doubt that it was there to intimidate. It worked. I was very intimidated. Why hadn't I got in the car and gone away when I had had the opportunity?

I was standing in the middle of the gra.s.s polo arena and my exit route was on the other side of the grandstand. I had no choice but to brazen it out.

'What do you want?' Kurt asked brusquely. No word of welcome. But there wouldn't be. His body language said it all. I wasn't welcome one little bit.

I smiled, tying to relax. 'I understand,' I said cheerfully, 'that you know Mr Komarov. Is that right?'

'It might be,' he said. 'Depends on who wants to know.'

'I was hoping Mr Komarov might be able to help me identify something,' I said.

'What?' he said.

'It's in my car,' I said. I set off quickly past him towards the pa.s.sageway.

'What is it?' he asked again.

'I'll show you,' I said, over my shoulder without breaking step. He wasn't to know that the item was, in fact, in my trouser pocket, but I had no intention of getting it out here. I thought I would be safer at the car, but that might only be illusory.

Kurt didn't seem happy and snorted down his nose, but he followed and, sadly, so did his shadow. I walked ahead of them and, while I didn't actually run, they would have had to in order to overtake me. The larger man was unfit and, by the time I reached my car, he was some way back and blowing hard.

But I hadn't driven all this way for nothing. I still wanted to find out what I had come here for in the first place. I opened the car door and reached inside as if I was finding something, but I was actually getting it out of my pocket. I turned round and held the s.h.i.+ny steel ball out to Kurt in my open palm, as if giving a piece of sugar to a horse.

He was dumbstruck. He stared at the ball and then at my face, as if searching for words.

'Where the f.u.c.k did you get that?' he said. He made a grab for it but I closed my hand and easily beat his grasp.

'Tell me what it is, and I'll tell you where I found it,' I said.

'You give me that back, right now,' he said, winding himself into a rage.

'You can have it back if you tell me what it is,' I said, sounding like a teacher who has confiscated some type of electronic gadget from a miscreant schoolboy, but doesn't know what it is.

Without warning the big guy swung the polo mallet and struck me on the forearm. He was partially behind me and I didn't see the mallet coming until the very last millisecond. I had no time to avoid it, but thankfully I had time to relax as he hit me, otherwise I think he would have broken my arm completely in two. As it was, it wasn't great. The mallet caught me just above my right wrist. There was a sharp crack and my arm went instantly numb. I dropped the s.h.i.+ny metal ball. It rolled away towards Kurt. As he stooped to pick it up, I dived into the car, slammed the door and pushed the central-locking b.u.t.ton.

My right arm wouldn't work. I couldn't get the key in the ignition which was on the right side of the steering column. I spent valuable seconds trying and failing before leaning completely over to my right and getting the key into the lock using my left hand. I turned the key, started the car and threw the automatic gear lever into reverse, also left-handed. The rear window of the Buick disintegrated behind me. I ignored it. I looked through the s.p.a.ce where the gla.s.s had been and gunned the engine. The car leapt backwards towards the mallet-wielding maniac behind me. He surprisingly deftly sidestepped the car and swung the mallet again in my direction. The pa.s.senger-door window shattered, showering me with tiny squares of gla.s.s. Kurt was at the driver's door banging on the window and hauling on the door handle but he had no mallet and his fist was no match for the toughened gla.s.s.