Flying finish / Бурный финиш. Книга для чтения на английском языке

It wasn’t called Yardman Transport then, of course. Belonged to a family, the Mayhews, but they were dying out… nephews weren’t interested, that sort of thing. Yardman had taken it over by the time I got there; don’t know how really, come to think of it, but he’s a bright lad, there’s no doubt of that. Take switching to air, for instance. That was him. He was pressing the advantages of air travel for horses whilst all the other transport agencies were going entirely by sea.’

�Even though the office itself is on a wharf,’ I remarked.

�Yes. Very handy once. It isn’t used much at all now since they clamped down on exporting horses to the Continent for meat.’

�Yardman was in that?’

�Shipping agent,’ he nodded. �There’s a big warehouse down the other end of the wharf where we used to collect them. They’d start being brought in three days before the ship came. Once a fortnight, on average. I can’t say I’m sorry it’s finished. It was a lot of work and a lot of mess and noise, and not much profit, Yardman said.

’

�It didn’t worry you, though, that they were going to be slaughtered?’

�No more than cattle or pigs.’ He finished his beer. �Why should it? Everything dies sometime.’ He smiled cheerfully and gestured to the glasses. �Another?’ He had one, I didn’t.

�Has anyone heard any more of Peters?’ I asked.

He shook his head. �Not a murmur.[39 - Not a murmur. – (разг.) Ни звука; ни словечка.

]’

�How about his cards?’

�Still in the office, as far as I know.’

�It’s a bit odd, isn’t it?’

Simon shrugged. �You never know, he might have wanted to duck someone[40 - he might have wanted to duck someone – (разг.) может, он хотел от кого-то спрятаться], and did it thoroughly’.

�But did anyone ever come looking for him?’

�Nope. No police, no unpaid bookies, no rampaging females, no one.’

�He just went to Italy and didn’t come back?’

�That’s the size of it[41 - That’s the size of it – (разг.

) Ну, в общем, да]’, Simon agreed. �He went with some brood mares to Milan and he should have come back the same day. But there was some trouble over an engine or something, and the pilot ran out of time and said he’d be in dead trouble if he worked too many hours. So they stayed there overnight and in the morning Peters didn’t turn up.