Dick Francis's Refusal Read Free Page B

table.
    Sassy unbuttoned my shirt cuff and pulled my sleeve up above my elbow. She had great fun explaining to Annabel everything about my myoelectric marvel.
    â€œThis is the battery,” she said, pointing to a rectangular block, about three inches by one, clipped into the fiberglass forearm. “That’s what makes it work.”
    â€œWhat does it do?” Annabel asked.
    â€œCome on, Daddy,” Sassy said bossily, “open up.”
    I sent the nerve impulses, and, as if by magic, and accompanied by a barely audible whirring noise, the artificial fingers and thumb uncurled and the plastic hand opened.
    â€œWow!” said Annabel. “That’s cool.”
    Cool
was not a term I would have used.
    Sensors in the plastic arm picked up the nerve impulses from my skin and caused tiny hidden motors to move the latex-covered steel digits.
    It was certainly clever, but it was not cool.
    In fact, it was a bore, and one that I was beginning to increasingly detest. Some days I didn’t even put the thing on, but I knew that Marina felt it was better for Saskia to have a “normal-looking” father.
    Nowadays, I did everything almost exclusively right-handed.
    It hadn’t always been that way. Once I’d had two hands, and I had used them to good effect to be champion steeplechase jockey on four occasions. Then a racing fall had put paid to both my career and to the use of my left hand. A poker-wielding, sadistic villain had then finished off what the fall had started, and I’d lost the hand completely. That had been some fourteen years ago, but I’d never got properly used to it, nor would I.
    I still had two hands in my dreams.
    â€œNow close it again,” Sassy said.
    I sent more impulses, and the fingers closed. It may have looked and moved quite like the real thing, but it couldn’t
feel
. I couldn’t tell when, or how strongly, I was gripping something. Wineglasses could either slip from my grasp or be crushed to fragments, and I would be none the wiser.
    â€œCan I have a go?” Annabel asked.
    â€œDon’t be silly,” Sassy said to her. “You’d have to have your arm chopped off first.” She made a chopping motion with her right hand on her left forearm.
    The disappointed look on Annabel’s face implied that it might be worth it just to have a go with the plastic arm.
    â€œGo on, now, you two,” I said, pulling my sleeve down again to my wrist and rebuttoning the cuff, using the dexterous set of fingers on my right hand. “Off you go into the garden. I’ve got some work to do.”
    I stood by the kitchen sink for a while, looking out at them through the window. They were on the lawn, throwing a tennis ball back and forth, the dogs rushing from one to the other, hoping desperately that they would drop it, as they did continually.
    I smiled.
    What joy children brought.
    â€¢Â Â Â â€¢Â Â Â â€¢
    I RANG Sir Richard Stewart’s home number at five o’clock.
    â€œI’ve looked at your lists,” I said.
    â€œThat was quick,” he replied. “And what do you think?”
    â€œI can see why you think there may be some betting irregularities, perhaps with large winning bets being placed on the Tote, but I don’t see why you think that means the results must have been manipulated. There may have been other large Tote bets that lost.”
    â€œBut there are patterns,” he persisted. “Major racing days, for example.”
    â€œLots of punters go racing only on the big-race days,” I said. “Perhaps our Tote big bettor is one of them. And how do you think the results have been fixed?”
    â€œI don’t know,” he said.
    â€œI presume all the horses were tested.”
    â€œYes, the first three were routinely dope-tested and all were negative.”
    â€œHow about the others?” I asked.
    â€œThere is occasionally some random testing on other