Part 31 (1/2)

'What's that?' she asked, setting the tray down on a table.

'Yes, what is this ”marbling”?' implored Bernard.

Toby looked at Caroline and he seemed a bit embarra.s.sed.

'It's placing a large gla.s.s marble in the uterus of a mare to simulate a pregnancy.'

'But why would anyone do that?' asked Caroline.

'To stop her coming into season,' said Toby.

'Sorry,' said Bernard. 'You've lost me.'

'Suppose you don't want a filly or a mare coming into season at a certain time,' said Toby. 'You place a large marble or two through her cervix and into the uterus. The fact that there is something in the uterus already seems somehow to fool the animal into thinking that she is pregnant so she doesn't ovulate, come into season or go on heat.'

'Why would that be a problem anyway?' I asked.

'Well, sometimes it may be that you want the mare in season at an exact moment, say for breeding on a specific day to a stallion, so you could marble the mare for a few weeks, then remove the marbles and, hey presto, the mare comes on heat almost immediately. I don't know it all; you'd have to ask a vet. But I do know it's done a lot. Some show jumpers are kept off heat for major compet.i.tions. Otherwise they can go all moody and don't behave properly. Just like a woman.' He laughed, and Sally playfully smacked his knee.

'Or a polo pony,' I said. 'You probably wouldn't want a female polo pony to be in season during a match, especially if there were some male ponies playing as well.'

'Certainly not if any of them were full horses,' said Toby.

'Full horses?' asked Bernard, munching on a biscuit.

'Stallions,' said Toby. 'As opposed to geldings.'

Bernard seemed to wince a little, and he pressed his knees tightly together.

'So you think this ball could be used instead of a gla.s.s marble?' I asked.

'I don't know,' he said. 'They're about the same size. But it would have to be sterilised. At least on the outside.'

'How many did you say could be inserted?' I asked.

'One or two is normal, I think,' he said. 'But I do know that at least three have been used. Maybe more. You would have to ask a vet.'

'Wouldn't they just fall out?' asked Caroline, amused.

'No,' said Toby. 'You need to give the mare an injection to open the cervix to get them in. The marbles are placed in the uterus through a tube that looks like a short piece of plastic drainpipe. When the injection wears off, the cervix closes and keeps them in. Easy. I've seen it done.'

'But how do you get them out again?' I asked.

'I've never actually seen them come out,' he said, 'but I think you just give the mare the cervix-opening injection and the marbles are pushed out naturally.'

'But surely this ball wouldn't be big enough to smuggle drugs,' said Bernard. 'In horses or otherwise.'

'I was told that Peter Komarov imports horses by the jumbo-jetful,' I said. 'How many horses could you get on a jumbo?'

'I'll try and find out,' said Toby, and he went out of the drawing room.

'We shall a.s.sume that each horse would have a minimum of three b.a.l.l.s placed in it,' I said.

'Only the female horses,' said Caroline.

'True,' I said. 'But wouldn't they all be females if that is what he wanted?'

'Wouldn't it depend on which horses were due to be imported?' said Sally.

'Not if Komarov owned the horses as well,' I said.

Toby came back. 'According to LRT, the transport people who take and collect horses from Gatwick and Luton, there can be up to eighty horses on a jumbo.'

'Phew,' I said. 'That's a lot of horseflesh.'

'Eighty horses times three b.a.l.l.s each,' said Caroline. 'Two hundred and forty b.a.l.l.s' worth. How much is that?'

I remembered from school that the formula for the volume of a sphere was r r3. The b.a.l.l.s were about four centimetres across. I did a quick mental calculation. The volume of a ball was about thirty cubic centimetres: 30CC per ball 240 b.a.l.l.s = 7,200CC.

'Just over seven litres,' I said.

'And just how much is that?' asked Bernard. 'I don't work in litres.'

I did another rough calculation. 'It would fill a bit more than twelve pint beer gla.s.ses.'

'And how much would that volume of cocaine be worth?' he asked.

'I've no idea of the price of cocaine,' I said.

'I expect it will say on the Internet,' said Toby. 'I'll go and ask Google.' He disappeared again.

We sat and waited for him. I drank my tea, and Bernard sneaked his fourth chocolate biscuit.

Toby came back. 'According to the Internet, cocaine is worth about forty pounds per gram as a sort of wholesale price,' he said.

'And how many grams are there in a pint mug?' asked Bernard, holding out his chubby hands with the palms up.

I laughed. 'My brain hurts. If it was water there would be a thousand grams in each litre. So there would be seven thousand grams in all. I don't know whether cocaine powder is more or less dense than water. Does it float?'

'It can't be much different,' said Bernard. 'Say seven thousand grams at forty pounds a time is,' he paused, 'two hundred and eighty thousand pounds. Not bad. But not that much for all the risks involved.'

'But that's not the half of it,' said Caroline. 'For a start, you probably import cocaine at ioo per cent purity, and then you ”cut” it, that is you add baking soda or vitamin C powder, or even sugar. At least a third, and sometimes as much as two thirds or three quarters of what is sold on the street is the cut.'

I looked at her in shocked surprise. She smiled. 'I once had a crackhead as a boyfriend. It lasted for a week or two, until I found out about his habit. But we stayed friends for a while longer and he told me all about buying c.o.ke, as he called it. I sers mostly buy it as a twist of powder or a rock of crack. That's just enough for a single dose. A twist of cocaine powder may only contain fifty milligrams of pure cocaine. So you can get at least twenty twists from a single gram. That puts the potential street value of each gram hugely higher. In all, a jumbo-jet-load would be worth millions, and how many jumbo-jetfuls are there?'

'Plus, of course, the profit from the sale of the horses,' I said.