“For God’s sake, look what you’re doing,” said her companion.

“Oh, hell,” said Billy, “I’m dreadfully sorry.”

The girl burst out laughing. “It really doesn’t matter; it’ll dry in a sec. It’s so hot, it’s nice to have an impromptu shower.”

Billy looked into her face and his heart skipped several beats. She was certainly one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen. She had a smooth brown skin with a touch of pink on each high cheekbone, slanting dark brown eyes, a turned-up nose, a mane of streaky tortoiseshell hair, and a big mouth as smooth and as crimson as a fuchsia bud. Her pink dress showed at least three inches of slim brown thigh and a marvelous Rift valley of cleavage.

Billy couldn’t tear his eyes away. “I’m most awfully sorry,” he repeated in a daze.

“It couldn’t matter less,” said the girl, highly delighted at the effect she was having on him.

Billy pulled himself together. Getting out one of Rupert’s blue silk handkerchiefs, he started to wipe away the ash, but it all smeared into the tonic.

“Oh, dear, that’s much worse. Look, let me buy you another dress.”

“There’s no need for that,” snapped her companion. He was about thirty-five, with a pale sweating face that was even more rumpled than his gray suit.

“Then let me buy you a drink — both of you. What would you like?”

“You’ve caused quite enough trouble already,” the man said. “Why don’t you buzz off?”

“Don’t be beastly, Victor,” said the girl, in her soft husky voice. “We’d love a drink.”

The man looked at his watch. “We’ll be late. The table’s booked for nine and they don’t like to be kept waiting.”

“They’ll wait for me,” said the girl blandly.

“Anyone would,” said Billy. “Have a quick one.”

But the man had got to his feet. “No, thank you very much,” he said huffily.

“I must have a pee,” said the girl. “You go and get a taxi, Vic.”

There was a great deal of ally-ooping and badinage from the rest of the riders, as Billy waited for her to come out. What would Rupert do in the circumstances? he wondered. Probably accost her and get her telephone number, but he couldn’t do that with the frightful Victor hovering.

As she came out he caught a heady new waft of scent. She’d teased her tortoiseshell hair more wildly and applied more crimson lipstick. He wanted to kiss it all off. Perhaps that luscious mouth would pop like a fuchsia bud. He took a deep breath. “I don’t mean to be presumptuous, but you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s nice,” she said.

“My name’s Billy Lloyd-Foxe.”

“The great show jumper,” she said mockingly. “I know. You won the King’s Cup yesterday.”

He blushed scarlet. “I’d adore to see you again.”

As she smiled, he noticed the gap in the white, slightly uneven teeth, the raspberry pink tongue of the good digestion.

“You will.” She patted his cheek with her hand. “I promise you. Oh, look, Victor’s managed to get a taxi. How extraordinary.” She ran out into the street and he hadn’t even asked her name. Nil out of ten for initiative. If Rupert had been here he would have lynched him. On the other hand, if Rupert had been here, the girl would have gone off with Rupert instead.

Billy spent the rest of the week at the International, feeling horribly restless, praying the girl from the Golden Lion might turn up. After Lavinia, he’d vowed he’d never let another girl get under his skin, and here he was, moping around again. Even in the excitement of setting out for Colombia, he was unable to get her out of his mind.

In the weeks leading to the Olympics, Jake Lovell sank into deep depression. Then, unable to face the razzmatazz and hysterical chauvinism of the actual event, he flew off to the Middle East to try and find Macaulay. He had located the sheik, but when he got there, after a lot of prevarication, he discovered that Macaulay had indeed blotted his copy book by savaging the sheik himself, and had been sold on less than six weeks before to a dealer who kept no records and couldn’t or probably didn’t want to remember where Macaulay had gone.

Jake went to the British Embassy, who were very unhelpful. With a big oil deal going through, they didn’t want to rock the boat. After repeated nagging, they sent Jake to Miss Blenkinsop, who ran a horse rescue center in the capital, and, as far as Jake could see, was a constant thorn in the authorities’ flesh, as she waged a one-woman battle against appalling Middle Eastern cruelty and insensitivity towards animals.

Miss Blenkinsop was a gaunt, sinewy woman in her late fifties, totally without sentimentality, and with the brusque, rather de-sexed manner of someone who has always cared for animals more than people.

She gave Jake a list of sixty-odd addresses where he might find the horse.

“Hope your nerves are strong. You’ll see some harrowing sights. Arabs think it’s unlucky to put down a horse, so they work them till they drop dead, and they don’t believe in feeding and watering them much either. Horse has probably been sold upcountry. You’ve as much chance of finding him as a needle in a haystack, but here are all the riding schools and the quarries, the most likely spots within five miles of the city. I’ll lend you one of my boys as interpreter. He’s a shifty little beast, but he speaks good English, and you can borrow my car, if you like.”

For Jake it was utter crucifixion. He was in a bad way emotionally anyway, and he had never seen such cruelty. Like some hideous travesty of Brook Farm Riding School, he watched skeletons, lame, often blind, frantic with thirst, shuffling around riding school rings, or tugging impossibly heavy loads in the street or in the quarries, being beaten until they collapsed, and then being beaten until they got up again.

For five days he went to every address Miss Blenkinsop had given him, bribing, wheedling, cajoling for information about a huge black horse with a white face, and one long white sock. No one had seen him. Sickened and shattered, he returned every night to his cheap hotel where there was no air-conditioning, the floors crawled with cockroaches, and drink was totally prohibited. As the coup-de-grâce, on the fifth night, he couldn’t resist watching the Olympic individual competition on the useless black and white hotel television. As Billy rode in, the picture went around and around, but sadistically, it held still for Rupert and Revenge, who produced two heroic rounds to win the Bronze. Ludwig got the gold on his great Hanoverian mare, Clara; Carol Kennedy, the American number one male rider, got the silver.

Black with despair and hatred, Jake went up to his cauldron of a room and lay on his bed smoking until dawn. He had nearly run out of money and addresses. Today he must go home empty-handed. Around seven, he must have dozed off. He was woken by the telephone.

It was Miss Blenkinsop. “Don’t get too excited, but I may have found your horse. He’s been causing a lot of trouble down at the stone quarries.” She gave him the address.

“If it is him, don’t bid for him yourself. They’ll guess something’s up and whack up the price. Give me a ring and I’ll come and do the haggling.”

At first Jake wasn’t sure. The big muzzled gelding was so pitifully thin and so covered in a thick layer of white dust as he staggered one step forward, one step back, trying to shift a massive cartload of stone, that it was impossible to distinguish his white face or his one white sock. Then the Arab brought his whip down five times on the sunken quarters, five black stripes appeared and with a squeal of rage, Macaulay turned and lunged at the driver, showing the white eye on the other side.

That’s my boy, thought Jake with a surge of excitement. They’ll break his back before they break his spirit.

Miss Blenkinsop had a hard time making the Arab owner of the quarry part with Macaulay. Although vicious, he was the strongest horse they’d ever had and probably still had six months’ hard labor in him, but the price the hideously ugly Englishwoman was offering was too much for him to refuse. He could buy a dozen broken-down wrecks for that.

When Jake took Miss Blenkinsop’s trailer to collect him, Macaulay was too tall to fit in. So Jake led him very slowly back through the rush-hour traffic.

Macaulay twice clattered to the ground with exhaustion, and several times they narrowly missed death as the oil-rich Arabs hurtled by in their huge limousines. But Macaulay displayed no fear, he was beyond that now, and most touchingly, he seemed to remember Jake from the time he’d treated his lacerations after Rupert’s beating-up in Madrid. When Jake came to fetch him, his lackluster eyes brightened for a second and he gave a half-whicker of welcome.

That night, after he had made the horse as comfortable as possible, Jake had supper with Miss Blenkinsop. She drew the curtains and produced an ancient bottle of Madeira. After two glasses, Jake realized he was absolutely plastered. After Arab food, the macaroni cheese she gave him seemed the best thing he had ever eaten.

Jake always found it difficult to express gratitude, in case it was construed as weakness.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” he finally mumbled.

“Don’t bother,” said Miss Blenkinsop. “Do something about it. Spread the word when you get back to England. We need cash, not sympathy, and a law banning the exporting of all horses to the Middle East.”

“If I can get Macaulay back on the circuit,” said Jake, “the publicity for you will be so fantastic, the money’ll start flooding in.”

“He’s in a very bad way. Think you’ll be able to do it?”

Jake shrugged. “He’s young. My grandmother cured a mare with a broken leg once, bound it in comfrey and she went on to win four races. I’m going to have a bloody good try.”