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them were in transit, horses bought on spec for resale, some acquired in the hopes of high performance, quickly assessed and found wanting, and passed along as hunt horses, junior prospects or pleasure mounts. Like most horsemen Roch was a mixture of impulsiveness and astuteness in his purchases. He usually broke even or made a small profit at the end of the year. Occasionally he won big. He rarely lost big. The fun of it, the gamble, was as important as the money.
    Three of the horses were extremely valuable. They were Michel’s potential and current Grand Prix mounts. The youngest and rawest of them, Maestro, had recently been purchased in Switzerland for $50,000, not by Roch, of course, but by one of Michel’s sponsors.
    Beside Maestro were Aur, a bay stallion, and Amadeus, a glossy brown gelding, shaved in January to cope with the Florida heat, now thickly rugged to ward off the chill. They were owned by a consortium of businessmen, fiercely nationalistic, whose pride in Michel as a québécois sports hero had driven them to the outer fringes of speculative fever in the high stakes of modern equestrian one–upmanship. They had sent Michel and Roch to Europe–European warmbloods were as a rule the only serious contenders for international glory–on a carte blanche spending spree.
    At a small stud farm near Aachen, the Laurins found one of what they were looking for: Aur, a nine–year old Hanoverian, winning consistently at Intermediate, considered a reasonable buy at $250,000. In France they found Amadeus, already a big Grand Prix winner, but difficult. His former owner, an amateur, had paid $1,000,000 for him, then found himself out of his depth. The horse developed a bad reputation for stopping, and the Laurins got him at the bargain basement price of $350,000. Relentless in his demands, Michel had brought the horse back to winning form, and had taken over $100,000 in prize money on the Palm Beach circuit, a promising beginning.
    Liam checked on these horses compulsively whenever Michel and Jocelyne were away for more than a few hours. Today he only peeked in routinely. Jocelyne would be back after lunch. No problem. The three huge creatures, dwarfing the thoroughbreds around them, dozed quietly, gently puffing warm vapour through their pink–lined nostrils and humidifying the air, offering no hint of the dynamism and explosive power they could display under saddle.
    The barn was clean. The overhead fans whirred gently, freshening the air. The cold gray concrete floor, installed to support the weight of steel–reinforced stalls and 1500 pound horses, as well as to repel moisture, had been watered down, was now swept and dry. The covering anti–slip rubber matting was washed and down again. No shavings crept out from under stall doors, no bits of hay, grain or manure. The blankets hanging on the outside bars of each stall were clean and uniformly folded. The wash stall hoses were coiled and stowed. The tack was scrubbed. Bridles hung neatly in the prescribed order, saddles were ranged on their racks, fragrant with saddle soap, supple and gleaming, stirrups tucked up and polished. Grooming gear was methodically tidied away.
    Liam was satisfied. Roch liked his barn ship–shape. Michel, on the other hand, was meticulous in what Liam considered a fanatical degree. Neither would have anything to complain of today. That was important. If they were pleased with his work, they would not think about him, they would take him for granted. He would not be an object of suspicion.
    Liam was hungry, but lunchtime was the only hour of the day when everyone else was out of the barn, including Roch’s secretary, Marie–France. She generally took her lunch in the complex’s restaurant, coyly named ‘ De Trot’ (a play on words lost on the impenitently unilingual Liam). And she was a slave to routine. She would never enter the barn on her hour off. So now was when he was free to slip into his cubby, flip the hook and eye catch