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    Proof
    Proof
    Proof
    Ebook361 pages5 hours

    Proof

    By Dick Francis

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Incomparable New York Times bestselling author Dick Francis offers a compelling tale of fine living, fast horses, and shattering suspense...

    Wine merchant Tony Beach has expertly catered his latest society soiree, but the fun’s over when a team of hit men crash the party...literally. The event leaves Tony with a bitter aftertaste of suspicion—and sets off a mystery that’s an intoxicating blend of deception, intrigue, and murder.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Publishing Group
    Release dateJul 5, 2005
    ISBN9781101464717

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    Reviews for Proof

    4/5

    304 ratings16 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Tony Beach is a 32-uear-old widower who is a wine merchant with an in with the horsey crowd because his father was a famous amateur jockey and his mother rides in the local hunt. Because of his connections, he's hired to supply the liquor for a party hosted by one of the local trainers. He sees a horrible accident when a loaded horse trailer rumbles down a hill and crashes into the outdoor tent where the party is being held. He and some of the other guests do their best to rescue many trapped in the collapsed tent. Even so, the guest of honor, a sheik, some of his entourage, one of the trainer's best customers Larry Trent, and a few other people die in the accident.

      The trainer breaks a leg, and his secretary is also severely injured, but not before he has a conversation with Tony about some whiskey he had at the Trent's supper club. He is convinced that the whiskey wasn't what the bottle's label says it was. This conversation makes its way through the trainer's wife to Gerrard McGregor who helped Tony free people during the accident and who works for an investigative agency.

      Gerrard recruits Tony to be his expert for his current case which concerns the theft of trucks filled with whiskey, Gerrard's company has been hired to find out how the thefts are happening because the company won't be able to stay in business if the thefts continue.

      Meanwhile, the local police also need Tony's expertise because they have numerous complaints about alcohol being sold in local pubs that isn't what it is supposed to be. Trent's supper club is on the list and Tony quickly identifies that the whiskey and some of the wines are being misrepresented. While they are there, a man from the home office appears and seems surprised about the liquor. Shortly thereafter the wine manager at Trent's is found murdered by having his head wrapped in plaster of Paris.

      As Tony and Gerrard investigate, they begin to find connections between the two investigations and the tension mounts as they get closer to a solution and also closer to a killer.

      This is one of my favorite stories by Dick Francis. I really enjoy that the hero has self-doubts about his courage and fear that he won't be able to live up to the heroics of his father and grandfather. I also like that he isn't afraid to be grieving for the death of his young wife. I also like that he is happy in his career.

      The narration was expertly done by Simon Prebble who managed a variety of accents to distinguish the various characters without making the accents incomprehensible to my American ears. He also did a great job conveying the various emotions of the characters and the rising tensions in the story.
    • 4/5
      Plot not as good as some of his others, but still a solid read. I always enjoy Francis's heroes. And this one was particularly enjoyable. Tony Beach is witty, smart, capable and brave when push comes to shove. Other than the villain who was a little too broadly drawn, the other characters were nicely written. The cameo by one memorable female bar owner was a nice addition to the cast.
    • 4/5
      Wine merchant, Tony Beach, is delivering wine to a party of racing enthusiasts when a horse trailer breaks loose and kills several people in the party tent. The police question him about who he saw around the trailer and they are impressed with his ability to remember things. Eventually the police ask for his expert help in following up on complaints about false labeling on some of the Scotches and wines provided to local bars and restaurants. That then leads to him being asked to assist private detective Gerard McGregor in finding out who is responsible for a series of whiskey bottling trucks being hijacked.

      I've never been much of a Dick Francis fan because I just don't have any interest in horses and that's normally what he writes about. I'm still nursing a grudge from a nasty horse I met about forty years ago. I do love wine and this book is filled with interesting tidbits about wine, as well as Scotch whiskey. I also loved the characters in this story. Tony Beach is a widower who is devastated by grief for his recently deceased wife. He's also the son of a military hero and knows he doesn't live up to the expectations his family had for him.

      There were plenty of twists and turns and the ending was incredibly tense. It definitely wasn't predictable and even though the villain was already known to the reader, it was a very compelling novel. I really enjoyed this book, especially the character of Tony Beach and his slow realization of what sort of man he really is. I may have to reconsider Dick Francis books, even the ones that deal with horses.
    • 5/5
      There are times when I want to read a stand-alone mystery. There's no mental commitment to reading a whole series of books and no trying to remember what came before. For that sort of book, Dick Francis comes to mind. Usually there's at least a tangential link to horses and I feel like I will learn something new.

      This time the industry is the wine/spirit industry. Wine merchant Tony Beach is the focus and "proof" has more to do than with spirits. Is there a decent life after the sudden death of a dearly loved spouse? Will Tony find courage? Can the hero prove who the villain is? Early in the book we find out there is indeed a bad guy, but who is he? How does everything tie together? The reader and the hero take this path together.

      This is an excellent traditional mystery.
    • 4/5
      Over the years, I've read every one of Dick Francis' mysteries set in the world of English horse-racing. I remember how much fun I had scouring used bookstores looking for the ones that were missing from my collection, and how exciting it was to find a new one I hadn't read yet. But in my ongoing efforts to downsize my possessions, I've donated all those print copies to my library's fund-raising book sales, so I haven't actually picked up and read one these old favorites for a long time.

      I found Proof available in an ebook sale and didn't think twice about grabbing it, as it had always been one of my favorites. The story is narrated by Tony Beach, wine merchant in a small English town (village? I'm not sure how such designations work in the UK) smack dab in the middle of horse-racing country. Many of his customers are in the racing biz, so when he sets off one Sunday afternoon to cater an end-of-season party at a local trainer's stables, he expects just another routine business event. A terrible accident sweeps away all that's familiar in an instant and begins the slow unraveling of a tale of business fraud and murder that finds Beach having to call on reserves of courage that he isn't sure he has.
    • 4/5
      I can't say anything bad about this book. It had all the qualities for a good mystery... deception, intrigue, and murder. I guess the thing I had the most problem with was the combination of the liquor, horse racing, and the murder at the beginning of the book. When you go back and take it all in I have to admit that it was a very complex plot. The author did a commendable job of almost tying all the loose ends up and offering some excitement at the end that the book had mostly lacked throughout. If you like mysteries a little on the cozy side...you should really like this book.
    • 4/5
      Finished Proof which was quite a complex story as you tried to work out how the horse disappearing, the alcohol and the attack killing a group of people all fitted together. It was an enjoyable enough story but didn’t think it was quite as good as other Dick Francis books I read. Plenty of mystery bit this one did tend to a bit of a cosy.
    • 4/5
      At times it was slow, but overall it was a good mystery that certainly had me stumped for most of it. I learned a lot about liquor forgeries, which was interesting. I recommend, especially down those that lean more towards cozy mysteries.
    • 4/5
      Tony Beach drifted into the work of a wine merchant because he didn’t have his family’s interest in the military or horse racing and he did have the ability to identify wines and spirits based on smell and taste. He never felt he lived up to his father’s expectations of him as a leader and his fear of acting in a pressure situation. In Proof his experience with wine and spirits helps him track down stolen tankers of whiskey and in doing so he proves to himself that he can overcome the fear of acting just as his father did.

      I am seeing different threads as I reread Dick Francis this time. Upfront there is the story, the entertainment, always a horse or two somewhere, a little violence, sometimes romance, right versus wrong. Behind that is a theme sometimes of family, often a conflict between father and son, or the strength of friendship and what it means when the bond is broken. Interesting.
    • 4/5
      i liked the character, i liked the info about scotch(i must buy some) and wine, i liked the plot about switching but the actual chase i found boring and hard to follow.
    • 3/5
      This is a review of the audio edition with Nigel Havers playing the part of the protagonist, Tony Beach.

      The adapters did a good job here. The book moves right along and the discussion of whiskey and wine manufacturing and distribution is quite interesting. The sound effects are well done; scenes at the racecourses have a very open-air kind of feeling, the bottling factory is nice and echoey, etc. The voice talents are good. The book is marred by Francis's usual trite moralizing; but when the protagonist turns a hose full of cheap wine on the villain the events have a surreal quality that is surprising and not so formulaic as some of Francis's other efforts.
    • 4/5
      Wine merchant Tony Beech had life all figured out when his world caved in. Now he's marking time, selling wine and grieving the death of his young wife and unborn child. But when a routine wine delivery ends in disaster, Beech finds himself playing a deadly game of cat and mouse.

      Good, solid Francis - break out the wine and cheese and curl up with it today.
    • 4/5
      This was my first Dick Francis story and it started my enchantment with his characters. Tony is just an ordinary business man so how did he get into this mess and how does he get out?
    • 3/5
      Another paperback I inherited from my dad. I'd never read Dick Francis before ... this was pretty good. I'd read more. It's part of the "Horseracing Mystery Series", but it really didn't have much to do with horseracing.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite Francis books. I like Beach - I could almost imagine being him and easily imagine knowing him. Also, only a few nasties and not a lot of time spent with them - most of the book time was spent building relationships between the good guys. I don't like it when a book spends all its time either following the bad guys around and dwelling lovingly on their actions or having the good guys deal with the bad ones (ok, relates mostly to mysteries, where good guy/bad guy is a reasonably accurate distinction in most of them). One reason I like Francis is that he does spend time developing his good guys, even the ones (the vast majority) who only appear in one book.
    • 5/5
      Another of Francis's masterful mysteries. This one starts with a terrible accident as a horse-box crashes into a marquee full of people, and continues in a tale of finding courage and tasting wine, full of twists and edge of the seat moments of tension. An enjoyable and satisfying page-turner.

    Book preview

    Proof - Dick Francis

    001

    "A VINTAGE BLEND ...

    Proof can be savored with pleasure."

    —Chicago Tribune

    "THE BEST WRITER IN THE MYSTERY GENRE ...

    You will be involved from page one."

    —Larry King, USA Today

    PROOF

    With Proof, the incomparable New York Times bestselling author offers a compelling tale of fine living, fast horses, and shattering suspense.

    Wine merchant Tony Beach has expertly catered his latest society soiree, but the fun’s over when a team of hit men crashes the party ... literally. The event leaves Tony with a bitter aftertaste of suspicion — and sets off a mystery that’s an intoxicating blend of deception, intrigue, and murder...

    A MAINLINE FIX FOR FRANCIS ADDICTS ... The novel is proof that the master has not lost his touch.

    —The Nashville Banner

    [A] STUNNING CLIMAX ... It’s a corker.

    —Publishers Weekly

    RAVE REVIEWS FOR DICK FRANCIS

    "[THE] MASTER OF CRIME FICTION

    AND EQUINE THRILLS."

    —Newsday

    "It’s either hard or impossible to read Mr. Francis without growing pleased with yourself: not only the thrill of vicarious competence imparted by the company of his heroes, but also the lore you collect as you go, feel like a field trip with the perfect guide."

    —The New York Times Book Review

    One of the most reliable mystery writers working today ... Francis’s secret weapons are his protagonists. They are the kind of people you want for friends.

    —Detroit News and Free Press

    [Francis] has the uncanny ability to turn out simply plotted yet charmingly addictive mysteries.

    —The Wall Street Journal

    A rare and magical talent ... who never writes the same story twice ... Few writers have maintained such a high standard of excellence for as long as Dick Francis.

    —The San Diego Union-Tribune

    Few things are more convincing than Dick Francis at a full gallop.

    —Chicago Tribune

    Francis just gets better and better ... It can’t be as easy as he makes it look, or all mystery writers would be as addictive.

    —The Charlotte Observer

    After writing dozens of thrillers, Dick Francis always retains a first-novel freshness.

    —The Indianapolis Star

    He writes about the basic building blocks of life—obligation, honor, love, courage, and pleasure. Those discussions come disguised in adventure novels so gripping that they cry out to be read in one gulp—then quickly reread to savor the details skipped in the first gallop through the pages.

    —Houston Chronicle

    Dick Francis stands head and shoulders above the rest.

    —Ottawa Citizen

    FICTION BY DICK FRANCIS & FELIX FRANCIS

    Dead Heat

    FICTION BY DICK FRANCIS

    001

    ANTHOLOGY

    Win, Place, or Show

    NONFICTION

    A Jockey’s Life

    The Sport of Queens

    002

    THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP

    Published by the Penguin Group

    Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

    375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

    Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada

    (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

    Penguin Books Ltd., 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

    Penguin Group Ireland, 25 St. Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd.)

    Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

    (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty. Ltd.)

    Penguin Books India Pvt. Ltd., 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi—110 017, India

    Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, North Shore 0632, New Zealand

    (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd.)

    Penguin Books (SouthAfrica) (Pty.) Ltd., 24 SturdeeAvenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196,

    South Africa

    Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R ORL, England

    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

    PROOF

    A Berkley Book/ published by arrangement with the author

    Copyright © 1985 by Dick Francis.

    All rights reserved.

    No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

    For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,

    a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

    375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

    ISBN: 978-1-101-46471-7

    BERKLEY®

    Berkley Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,

    a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

    375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.

    BERKLEY® is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

    The B design is a trademark belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

    penguinrandomhouse.com

    Version_6

    My thanks to

    MARGARET GILES

    of

    PANGBOURNE WINES,

    who taught me her business

    and to

    BARRY MACKANESS

    and

    my brother-in-law

    DICKYORKE,

    wineshippers

    and to

    LEN LIVINGSTONE-LEARMONTH,

    long-time friend.

    Table of Contents

    Title Page

    Copyright Page

    Dedication

    ONE

    TWO

    THREE

    FOUR

    FIVE

    SIX

    SEVEN

    EIGHT

    NINE

    TEN

    ELEVEN

    TWELVE

    THIRTEEN

    FOURTEEN

    FIFTEEN

    SIXTEEN

    SEVENTEEN

    EIGHTEEN

    NINETEEN

    TWENTY

    TWENTY-ONE

    TWENTY-TWO

    ONE

    AGONY IS SOCIALLY UNACCEPTABLE. ONE IS NOT SUPPOSED to weep. Particularly is one not supposed to weep when one is moderately presentable and thirty-two. When one’s wife has been dead six months and everyone else has done grieving.

    Ah well, they say: He’ll get over it. There’s always another pretty lady. Time’s a great healer, they say. He’ll marry again one day, they say.

    No doubt they’re right.

    But oh dear God ... the emptiness in my house. The devastating, weary, ultimate loneliness. The silence where there used to be laughter, the cold hearth that used to leap with fire for my return, the permanent blank in my bed.

    Six months into unremitting ache I felt that my own immediate death would be no great disaster. Half of myself had gone; the fulfilled joyful investment of six years’ loving, gone into darkness. What was left simply suffered ... and looked normal.

    Habit kept me checking both ways when I crossed the road; and meanwhile I tended my shop and sold my wines, and smiled and smiled and smiled at the customers.

    TWO

    CUSTOMERS CAME IN ALL POSSIBLE SHAPES. FROM THE schoolchildren who bought potato chips and cola because I was near the bus stop, to the sergeants’ mess of the local barracks: from pensioners saving for apologetic half bottles of gin to the knowledgeably lavish laying down port. Customers came once a year and daily, with ignorance and expertise, for happiness and comfort, in gloom and insobriety. Customers ranged from syrup to bitters, like their drinks.

    My foremost customer, one Sunday morning that cold October, was a racehorse trainer splashing unstinted fizz over a hundred or so guests in his more or less annual celebration of the Flat races his stable had won during the passing season. Each autumn as his name came high on the winners’ list he gave thanks by inviting his owners, his jockeys, his ramifications of friends to share his satisfaction for joys past and to look forward and make plans for starting all over again the following spring.

    Each September he would telephone in his perpetual state of rush. Tony? Three weeks on Sunday, right? Just the usual, in the tent. You’ll do the glasses? And sale or return, of course, right?

    Right, I would say, and he’d be gone before I could draw breath. It would be his wife, Flora, who later came to the shop smilingly with details.

    Accordingly on that Sunday I drove to his place at ten o’clock and parked as close as I could to the large once-white marquee rising tautly from his back lawn. He came bustling out of his house the moment I stopped, as if he’d been looking out for me, which perhaps he had: Jack Hawthorn, maybe sixty, short, plump and shrewd.

    Tony. Well done. He patted me lightly on the shoulder, his usual greeting, as he habitually avoided the social custom of shaking hands. Not, as I had originally guessed, because he feared to catch other people’s contagious germs but because, as an avid racing lady had enlightened me, he had a grip like a defrosting jellyfish and hated to see people rub their palms on their clothes after touching him.

    A good day for it, I said.

    He glanced briefly at the clear sky. We need rain. The ground’s like concrete. Racehorse trainers, like farmers, were never satisfied with the weather. Did you bring any soft drinks? The Sheik’s coming, with his whole teetotaling entourage. Forgot to tell you.

    I nodded. Champagne, soft drinks and a box of oddments.

    Good. Right. I’ll leave you to it. The waitresses will be here at eleven, guests at twelve. And you’ll stay yourself, of course? My guest, naturally. I take it for granted.

    Your secretary sent me an invitation.

    Did he? Good heavens. How efficient. Right then. Anything you want, come and find me.

    I nodded and he hurried away, taking his life as usual at a trot. Notwithstanding the secretary, a somewhat languid man with a supercilious nose and an indefatigable capacity for accurate detailed work, Jack never quite caught up with what he wanted to do. Flora, his placid wife, had told me, It’s Jimmy (the secretary) who enters the horses for the races, Jimmy who sends out the bills, Jimmy who runs all the paperwork single-handed, and Jack never so much as has to pick up a postage stamp. It’s habit, all this rushing. Just habit. But she’d spoken fondly, as everyone did, more or less, of Jack Hawthorn: and maybe it was actually the staccato energy of the man that communicated to his horses and set them winning.

    He always invited me to his celebrations, either formally or not, partly no doubt so that I should be on the spot to solve any booze-flow problems immediately, but also because I had myself been born into a section of the racing world and was still considered part of it, despite my inexplicable defection into retail liquor.

    Not his father’s son, was how the uncharitable put it. Or more plainly, Lacks the family guts.

    My father, a soldier, had won both the Distinguished Service Order and the Military Gold Cup, dashing as valiantly into steeplechase fences as he had into enemy territory. His bravery on all battlefields had been awe-inspiring, and he died from a broken neck on Sandown Park racecourse when I was eleven, and watching.

    He had been forty-seven at the time and remained, of course, at that age in the racing world’s memory, a tall, straight, laughing, reckless man, untouched, it still seemed to me, by the world’s woes. No matter that he was not an ideal shape for jockeyship, he had resolutely followed in the wake of his own father, my grandfather, a distant Titan who had finished second one year in the Grand National before covering himself with military glory in World War I. My grandfather’s Victoria Cross lay beside my father’s D.S.O. in the display case I had inherited. It was their dash, their flair, their daredevilment that they had not passed on.

    Are you going to grow up like your father, then? had been said to me in friendly, expectant fashion countless times through my childhood, and it had only slowly dawned on everyone, as on me, that no, I wasn’t. I learned to ride, but without distinction. I went to Wellington, the school for soldiers’ sons, but not in turn to Sandhurst to put on uniform myself. My mother too often said Never mind, dear, suffering many disappointments nobly; and I developed deep powerful feelings of inferiority, which still lingered, defying common sense.

    Only with Emma had they retreated to insignificance, but now that she had gone, faint but persistent, they were back. A discarded habit of mind insidiously creeping into unguarded corners. Miserable.

    Jimmy, the secretary, never helped. He sauntered out of the house, hands in pockets, and watched as I lugged three galvanized washtubs from the rear of my van.

    What are those for? he said. He couldn’t help looking down that nose, I supposed, as he topped six feet four. It was just that his tone of voice matched.

    Ice, I said.

    He said, Oh, or rather Ay-oh, as a diphthong.

    I carried the tubs into the tent, which contained a row of trestle tables with tablecloths near one end and clusters of potted chrysanthemums round the bases of the two main supporting poles. The living grass of the lawn had been covered with serviceable fawn matting, and bunches of red and gold ribbons decorated the streaky grayish canvas walls at regular intervals. In one far corner stood a blower-heater, unlit. The day was marginally not cold enough. The tent was almost festive. Almost. Jack and Flora, and who could blame them, never wasted good cash on unnecessaries.

    There was no tremble in the air. No shudder. No premonition at all of the horror soon to happen there. All was quiet and peaceful; expectant certainly, but benign. I remembered it particularly, after.

    Jimmy continued to watch while I carted in a case of champagne and unpacked the bottles, standing them upright in one of the tubs on the floor by the tent wall behind the tables. I didn’t actually have to do this part of the job, but for Jack Hawthorn, somehow, it was easy to give service beyond contract.

    I was working in shirtsleeves, warmed by a pale blue V-necked sleeveless pullover (typical racing world clothes) with my jacket waiting in the van for the metamorphosis to guest. Jimmy was understatedly resplendent in thin fawn polo-necked sweater under a navy-blue blazer; plain brass buttons, no crests, no pretensions. That was the trouble. If he’d had any pretensions I could perhaps have despised him instead of suspecting it was the other way round.

    I fetched a second box of champagne and began unpacking it. Jimmy bent from his great height and picked up one of the bottles, staring at the foil and the label as if he’d never seen such things before.

    What’s this muck‘? he said. Never heard of it.

    It’s the real thing, I said mildly. It comes from Epernay.

    So I see.

    Flora’s choice, I said.

    He said Ay-oh in complete understanding and put the bottle back. I fetched ice cubes in large black plastic bags and poured them over and round the standing bottles.

    Did you bring any scotch? he asked.

    Front seat of the van.

    He strolled off on the search and came back with an unopened bottle.

    Glass? he inquired.

    For reply I went out to the van and fetched a box containing sixty.

    Help yourself.

    Without comment he opened the box, which I’d set on a table, and removed one of the all-purpose goblets.

    Is this ice drinkable? he said dubiously.

    Pure tap water.

    He put ice and whisky in the glass and sipped the result.

    Very prickly this morning, aren’t you, he said.

    I glanced at him, surprised. Sorry.

    Someone knocked off a whole load of this stuff in Scotland yesterday, did you know?

    Champagne?

    No. Scotch.

    I shrugged. Well ... it happens.

    I fetched a third case and unpacked the bottles. Jimmy watched, clinking his ice.

    How much do you know about whisky, Tony? he said.

    Well ... some.

    Would you know one from another?

    I’m better at wine. I straightened from filling the second tub. Why?

    Would you know for certain, he said with a bad stab at casualness, if you asked for a malt and got sold an ordinary standard, like this? He raised his glass, nodding to it.

    They taste quite different.

    He relaxed slightly, betraying an inner tension I hadn’t until then been aware of. Could you tell one malt from another?

    I looked at him assessingly. What’s this all about?

    Could you? He was insistent.

    No, I said. Not this morning. Not to name them. I’d have to practice. Maybe then. Maybe not.

    But ... if you learned one particular taste, could you pick it out again from a row of samples? Or say if it wasn’t there?

    Perhaps, I said. I looked at him, waiting, but he was taking his own troubled time, consulting some inner opinion. Shrugging, I went to fetch more ice, pouring it into the second tub, and then carried in and ripped open the fourth case of champagne.

    It’s very awkward, he said suddenly.

    What is?

    I wish you’d stop fiddling with those bottles and listen to me.

    His voice was a mixture of petulance and anxiety, and I slowly straightened from putting bottles into the third tub and took notice.

    Tell me, then, I said.

    He was older than me by a few years, and our acquaintanceship had mostly been limited to my visits to the Hawthorn house, both as drinks supplier and as occasional guest. His usual manner to me had been fairly civil but without warmth, as no doubt mine to him. He was the third son of the fourth son of a racehorse-owning earl, which gave him an aristocratic name but no fortune, and his job with Jack Hawthorn resulted directly, it was said, from lack of enough brain to excel in the City. It was a judgment I would have been content to accept were it not for Flora’s admiration of him, but I hadn’t cared enough one way or the other to give it much thought.

    One of Jack’s owners has a restaurant, he said. The Silver Moondance, near Reading. Not aimed at top class. Dinner dances. A singer sometimes. Mass market. His voice was fastidious but without scorn: stating a fact, not an attitude.

    I waited noncommittally.

    He invited Jack and Flora and myself to dinner there last week.

    Decent of him, I said.

    Yes. Jimmy looked at me down the nose. Quite. He paused slightly. The food was all right, but the drinks ... Look, Tony, Larry Trent is one of Jack’s good owners. He has five horses here. Pays his bills on the nail. I don’t want to upset him, but what it says on the label of at least one of the bottles in his restaurant is not what they pour out of it.

    He spoke with pained disgust, at which I almost smiled.

    That’s not actually unusual, I said.

    But it’s illegal. He was indignant.

    Sure it’s illegal. Are you certain?

    Yes. Well yes, I think so. But I wondered if perhaps, before I said anything to Larry Trent, you could taste their stuff? I mean, suppose his staff are ripping him off? I mean, er ... he could be prosecuted, couldn’t he?

    I said, Why didn’t you mention it to him that evening, while you were there?

    Jimmy looked startled. But we were his guests! It would have been terribly bad form. Surely you can see that.

    Hm, I said dryly. Then why don’t you just tell him now, and privately, what you thought about his drinks? He might be grateful. He would certainly be warned. Anyway, I can’t see him whisking his five horses away in a huff.

    Jimmy made a pained noise and drank some scotch. I mentioned this to Jack. He said I must be mistaken. But I’m not, you know. I’m pretty sure I’m not.

    I considered him.

    Why does it bother you so much? I asked.

    What? He was surprised. Well, I say, a fraud’s a fraud, isn’t it? It annoys one.

    Yes. I sighed. What were these drinks supposed to be?

    I thought the wine wasn’t much, considering its label, but you know how it is, you don’t suspect anything ... but there was the Laphroaig.

    I frowned. The malt from Islay?

    That’s right, Jimmy said. Heavy malt whisky. My grandfather liked it. He used to give me sips when I was small, much to my mother’s fury. Funny how you never forget tastes you learn as a child ... and of course I’ve had it since ... so there it was, on the trolley of drinks they rolled round with the coffee, and I thought I would have some. Nostalgia, and all that.

    And it wasn’t Laphroaig?

    Nor.

    What was it?

    He looked uncertain. I thought that you, actually, might know. If you drank some, I mean.

    I shook my head. You’d need a proper expert.

    He looked unhappy. I thought myself, you see, that it was just an ordinary blend, just ordinary, not even pure malt.

    You’d better tell Mr. Trent, I said. Let him deal with it himself.

    He said doubtfully, He’ll be here this morning.

    Easy, I said.

    I don’t suppose ... er ... that you yourself ... er ... could have a word with him?

    No, I certainly couldn’t, I said positively. From you it could be a friendly warning, from me it would be a deadly insult. Sorry, Jimmy, but honestly, no.

    With resignation he said, I thought you wouldn’t. But worth a try. He poured himself more scotch and again put ice into it, and I thought in passing that true whisky aficionados thought ice an abomination, and wondered about the trustworthiness of his perception of Laphroaig.

    Flora, rotund and happy in cherry-red wool, came into the tent, looking around and nodding in satisfaction.

    Looks quite bright, doesn’t it, Tony dear?

    Splendid, I said.

    When it’s filled with guests ...

    Yes, I agreed.

    She was conventional, well-intentioned and cozy, mother of three children (not Jack’s) who telephoned her regularly. She liked to talk about them on her occasional visits to my shop and tended to place larger orders when the news of them was good. Jack was her second husband, mellowing still under her wing but reportedly jealous of her offspring. Amazing the things people told their wine merchants. I knew a great deal about a lot of people’s lives.

    Flora peered into the tubs. Four cases on ice?

    I nodded. More in the van, if you need it.

    Let’s hope not. She smiled sweetly. But my dear, I wouldn’t bet on it. Jimmy love, you don’t need to drink whisky. Open some champagne. I’d like a quick glass before everyone swamps us.

    Jimmy obliged with languid grace, easing out the cork without explosion, containing the force in his hand. Flora smilingly watched the plume of released gas float from the bottle and tilted a glass forward to catch the first bubbles. At her insistence both Jimmy and I drank also, but from Jimmy’s expression it didn’t go well with his scotch.

    Lovely! Flora said appreciatively, sipping; and I thought the wine as usual a bit too thin and fizzy, but sensible enough for those quantities. I sold a great deal of it for weddings.

    Flora took her glass and wandered down the marquee to the entrance through which the guests would come, the entrance that faced away from the house, toward the field where the cars would be parked. Jack Hawthorn’s house and stableyard were built in a hollow high on the eastern end of the Berkshire Downs, in a place surrounded by hills, invisible until one was close. Most people would arrive by the main road over the hill that faced the rear of the house, parking in the field, and continuing the downward journey on foot through a gate in the low-growing rose hedge, and onto the lawn. After several such parties, Flora had brought crowd control to a fine art: and besides, this way, no one upset the horses.

    Flora suddenly exclaimed loudly and came hurrying back.

    It’s really too bad of him. The Sheik is here already. His car’s coming over the hill. Jimmy, run and meet him. Jack’s still changing. Take the Sheik round the yard. Anything. Really, it’s too bad. Tell Jack he’s here.

    Jimmy nodded, put down his glass without haste and ambled off to intercept the oil-rich prince and his retinue. Flora hovered indecisively, not following, talking crossly with maximum indiscretion.

    I don’t like that particular Sheik. I can’t help it. He’s fat and horrible and he behaves as if he owns the place, which he doesn’t. And I don’t like the way he looks at me with those half-shut eyes, as if I were of no account ... and Tony, dear, I haven’t said any of those things, you understand ? I don’t like the way Arabs treat women.

    And his horses win races, I said.

    Yes, Flora sighed. It’s not all sweetness and light being a trainer’s wife. Some of the owners make me sick. She gave me a brief half-smile and went away to the house, and I finished the unloading with things like orange juice and cola.

    Up on the hill the uniformed chauffeur parked the elongated black-windowed Mercedes, which was so identifiably the Sheik’s, with its nose pointing to the marquee, and gradually more cars arrived to swell the row there, bringing waitresses and other helpers, and finally, in a steady stream, the hundred-and-something guests.

    They came by Rolls, by Range Rover, by Mini and by Ford. One couple arrived in a horse trailer, another by motorcycle. Some brought children, some brought dogs, most of which were left with the cars. In cashmere and cords, in checked shirts and tweeds, in elegance and pearls they walked chatteringly down the grassy slope, through the gate in the rose hedge, across a few steps of lawn, into the beckoning tent. A promising Sunday morning jollification ahead, most troubles left behind.

    As always with racing-world parties, everyone there knew somebody else. The decibel count rose rapidly to ear-aching levels and only round the very walls could one talk without shouting. The Sheik, dressed in full Arab robes and flanked by his wary-eyed entourage, was one, I noticed, who stood resolutely with his back to the canvas, holding his orange juice before him and surveying the crush with his half-shut eyes. Jimmy was doing his noble best to amuse, rewarded by unsmiling nods, and gradually and separately other guests stopped to talk to the solid figure in the banded white headgear, but none of them with complete naturalness, and none of them women.

    Jimmy after a while detached himself and I found him at my elbow.

    Sticky going, the Sheik? I said.

    He’s not such a bad fellow, Jimmy said loyally. No social graces in Western gatherings and absolutely paranoid about being assassinated. Never even sits in the dentist’s chair, I’m told, without all those bodyguards being right there in the surgery, but he does know about horses. Loves them. You should have seen him just now, going round the yard, those bored eyes came right to life. He looked round the gathering and suddenly exclaimed, See that man talking to Flora? That’s Larry Trent.

    Of the absent Laphroaig?

    Jimmy nodded, wrinkled his brow in indecision and moved off in another direction altogether, and I for a few moments watched the man with Flora, a middle-aged, dark-haired man with a moustache, one of the few people wearing a suit, in his case a navy pinstripe with the coat buttoned, a line of silk handkerchief showing in the top pocket. The crowd shifted and I lost sight of him, and I talked, as one does, to a succession of familiar half-known people, seen once a year or less, with whom one took on as one had left off, as if time hadn’t existed in between. It was

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