'We're out,' I said; but Chico went and answered it.

Rosemary Caspar swept past him, through the hall and into the sitting room, advancing in the old fawn raincoat and a fulminating rage. No scarf, no false curls, and no loving kindness.

'So there you are,' she said forcefully. 'I knew you'd be here, skulking out of sight. Your friend kept telling me when I telephoned that you weren't here, but I knew he was lying.'

'I wasn't here,' I said. As well try damming the St Lawrence with a twig. 'You weren't where I paid you to be, which was up in Newmarket. And I told you from the beginning that George wasn't to find out you were asking questions, and he did, and we've been having one God-awful bloody row ever since, and now Tri-Nitro has disgraced us unbearably and it's all your bloody fault.'

Chico raised his eyebrows comically. 'Sid didn't ride it… or train it.'

She glared at him with transferred hatred. 'And he didn't keep him safe, either.'

'Er, no,' Chico said. 'Granted.'

'As for you,' she said, swinging back to me. 'You're a useless bloody humbug. It's all rubbish, this detecting. Why don't you grow up and stop playing games? All you did was stir up trouble, and I want my money back.'

'Will a cheque do?' I said. 'You're not arguing, then?'

'No,' I said.

'Do you mean you admit that you failed?'

After a small pause, I said, 'Yes.'

'Oh.' She sounded as if I had unexpectedly deprived her of a good deal of what she had come to say, but while I wrote out a cheque for her she went on complaining sharply enough.

'All your ideas about changing the routine, they were useless. I've been on and on at George about security and taking care, and he says he couldn't have done any more, no one could, and he's in absolute despair- and I'd hoped, I'd really hoped, what a laugh, that somehow or other you would work a miracle, and that Tri-Nitro would win, because I was so sure, so sure… and I was right.'

I finished writing. 'Why were you always so sure?' I said.

'I don't know. I just knew. I've been afraid of it for weeks… otherwise I would not have been so desperate as to try you, in the first place. And I might as well not have bothered… it's caused so much trouble, and I can't bear it. I can't bear it. Yesterday was terrible. He should have won… I knew he wouldn't. I felt ill. I still feel ill.'

She was trembling again. The pain in her face was acute. So many hopes, so much work had gone into Tri-Nitro, such anxiety and such care. Winning races was to a trainer like a film to a film maker. If you got it right, they applauded: wrong, and they booed. And either way you'd poured your soul into it, and your thoughts and your skill and weeks of worry. I understood what the lost race meant to George, and to Rosemary equally, because she cared so much.

'Rosemary…' I said, in useless sympathy.

'It's pointless Brothersmith saying he must have had an infection,' she said. 'He's always saying things like that. He's so wet, I can't stand him, always looking over his shoulder, I've never liked him. And it was his job anyway to check Tri-Nitro and he did, over and over, and there was nothing wrong with him, nothing. He went down to the post looking beautiful, and in the parade ring before that, there was nothing wrong, nothing. And then in the race, he just went backwards, and he finished… he came back… exhausted.' There was a glitter of tears for a moment, but she visibly willed them from overwhelming her.

'They've done dope tests, I suppose,' Chico said.

It angered her again. 'Dope tests! Of course they have. What do you expect? Blood tests, urine tests, saliva tests, dozens of bloody tests. They gave George duplicate samples, and that's why we're down here, he's trying to fix up with some private lab… but they won't be positive. It will be like before… absolutely nothing.'

I tore out the cheque and gave it to her, and she glanced at it blindly. 'I wish I'd never come here. My God, I wish I hadn't. You're only a jockey. I should have known better. I don't want to talk to you again. Don't talk to me at the races, do you understand.' I nodded. I did understand.

She turned abruptly to go away. 'And for God's sake don't speak to George, either.' She went alone out of the room, and out of the flat, and slammed the door.

Chico clicked his tongue and shrugged. 'You can't win them all,' he said. 'What could you do that her husband couldn't, not to mention a private police force and half a dozen guard dogs?' He was excusing me, and we both knew it.

I didn't answer.

'Sid?' 'I don't know that I'm going on with it,' I said. 'This sort of job.'

'You don't want to take any notice of what she said,' he protested. 'You can't give it up. You're too good at it. Look at the awful messes you've put right. Just because of one that's gone wrong…'

I stared hollowly at a lot of unseen things.

'You're a big boy now,' he said. And he was seven years younger than I, near enough. 'You want to cry on Daddy's shoulder?' He paused. 'Look, Sid mate, you've got to snap out of it. Whatever's happened it can't be as bad as when that horse sliced your hand up, nothing could. This is no time to die inside, we've got about five other jobs lined up. The insurance, and the guard job, and Lucas Wainwright's syndicates…'

'No,' I said. I felt leaden and useless. 'Not now, honestly, Chico.'

I got up and went into the bedroom. Shut the door. Went purposelessly to the window and looked out at the scenery of roofs and chimney pots, glistening in the beginnings of rain. The pots were still there, though the chimneys underneath were blocked off and the fires long dead. I felt at one with the chimney pots. When fires went out, one froze.

The door opened.

'Sid,' Chico said.

I said resignedly, 'Remind me to put a lock on that door.'

'You've got another visitor.'

'Tell him to go away.'

'It's a girl. Louise somebody.'

I rubbed my hand over my face and head and down to the back of my neck. Eased the muscles. Turned from the window.

'Louise Mclnnes?'

'That's right.'

'She shares the flat with Jenny,' I said.

'Oh, that one. Well then, Sid, if that's all for today I'll be off. And… er… be here tomorrow, won't you?'

'Yeah.'

He nodded. We left everything else unsaid. The amusement, mockery, friendship and stifled anxiety were all there in his face and his voice… Maybe he read the same in mine. At any rate he gave me a widening grin as he departed, and I went into the sitting room thinking that some debts couldn't be paid.

Louise was standing in the middle of things, looking around her in the way I had, in Jenny's flat. Through her eyes I saw my own room afresh: its irregular shape, high-ceilinged, not modern; and the tan leather sofa, the table with drinks by the window, the shelves with books, the prints framed and hung, and on the floor, leaning against the wall, the big painting of racing horses which I'd somehow never bothered to hang up. There were coffee cups and glasses scattered about, and full ashtrays, and the piles of letters on the coffee table and everywhere else.

Louise herself looked different: the full production, not the Sunday morning tumble out of bed. A brown velvet jacket, a blazing white sweater, a soft mottled brown skirt with a wide leather belt round an untroubled waist. Fair hair washed and shining, rose petal make-up on the English rose skin. A detachment in the eyes which said that all this honey was not chiefly there for the attracting of bees.

'Mr Halley.'

'You could try Sid,' I said. 'You know me quite well, by proxy.'

Her smile reached half-way.

'Sid.'

'Louise.'

'Jenny says Sid is a plumber's mate's sort of name.'

'Very good people, plumbers' mates.'

'Did you know,' she said, looking away and continuing the visual tour of inspection, 'that in Arabic "Sid" means "lord"?'