However, with my short-term future now decided, I did need to start planning where I would go and what I would do when I finally made it out of Granby Manor into the wider world.
I’d already done some research online and the only place I could find in England with no connection whatsoever to horseracing was the Isle of Wight. So I resolved to go there, in spite of its remote location and the distance away from Rachel.
‘The Isle of Wight!’ My ex-City-trader escape-committee friend was horrified when I told him. ‘You cannot be serious. It must be the most boring place in the whole world.’
But that was just what I needed. No stress.
‘I’m sure it’s not that bad,’ I said. ‘There must be some excitement.’
He looked at me as if I was unhinged, which, of course, I was.
‘I suppose you could always ride donkeys on the beach.’
‘No,’ I said emphatically. ‘No animal riding of any sort.’
‘But you’re always telling me you miss the adrenalin rush of racing.’
‘Maybe I do, but I value my mental health more.’
‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘The most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life is go down the Cresta Run. That gives you a massive adrenalin rush.’
‘The Cresta Run?’
‘It’s in Switzerland. You go down head-first on the ice, lying on a glorified tea tray, and there’s not a horse in sight. It’s scarily dangerous but far more fun than anything else you’ll ever do with your clothes on. You should try it.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I might just do that.’
37
‘Well?’ I say. ‘Speak to me.’
Jerry and I are sitting in his snug with the door closed.
‘What about?’ he asks.
‘You know damn well what about. Why did Cliveden Proposal run at White Turf carrying so much extra weight?’
He stares at me and I think for a moment that he isn’t going to answer. But I am wrong.
‘Obviously because I didn’t want him to win,’ he says.
‘Why not?’
He sits there again without saying anything.
‘Come on,’ I urge.
He looks away from me.
‘Was it because you bet against him?’
He turns back and stares at me again.
‘Did you?’ I ask.
‘If you say so.’
‘I thought that was against the rules.’
‘Depends how you do it. I didn’t lay the horse on an internet betting exchange site or anything like that. That would have been really stupid because I’d have been found out. I simply backed another horse to win instead.’
‘Foscote Boy.’
‘Yeah, well, no. I didn’t expect him to win either.’
I almost laughed. But not quite.
‘But he wasn’t carrying any extra weight,’ I said. ‘I know, because it was me who saddled him. Not unless he also had chain-mail wrapped round his legs.’
‘No, he didn’t, but I wish he had. I thought the colonel’s horse was a shoo-in with Cliveden out of the running.’
‘So you bet on that?’
‘Big time. It cost me a packet when Foscote Boy won that bloody race. But my share of the purse made up for some of it.’
‘But surely that’s the point. Doesn’t the prize money count?’
‘You must be joking. Almost all of it goes to the owner. Less than six per cent comes to the trainer even though I do all the work. That’s peanuts. At least that White Turf race had a decent purse. In this country, most jump races are worth less than ten grand, many of them under five, some even under three – you know that. Well, do the maths. I could end up with less than two hundred quid in prize money for training a winner. That doesn’t go very far. It hardly pays for the fuel to get the damn horse to the racecourse in the first place. Hence, I bet to survive.’
‘But the owners must pay you training fees.’
‘Those barely cover my overheads. Do you know how much it costs to train a racehorse? What with staff wages, bedding, feed and hay, to say nothing of ulcer powders, farrier fees, vets’ bills and everything else, I make next to nothing to live on. On top of that, it costs me more than a grand every month just to get the bloody muckheap cleared. So, of course I bet.’
‘But you were cheating.’
‘Don’t be so fucking self-righteous. I can’t afford the luxury.’
I am taken aback by his dismissive attitude to the Rules of Racing, and to fair play.
‘So have you done this before?’ I ask.
‘Get your phone out.’
‘What?’
‘You heard. Get your phone out. I want to check that you’re not recording this conversation.’
‘I’m not,’ I assure him – but perhaps I should be.
‘I still want to see your phone.’
‘Why?’
‘Because your phone listens to you even when it’s not being used.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘I am not. How else do you think you get all those appropriate ads? Simply mention around your phone that you are thinking of going on holiday to Japan and, the next thing you know, pop-up ads appear for cheap flights to Tokyo. I tell you, your phone listens to what you say all the time. Unless it’s physically switched off. So do that now.’
I remove my phone from my pocket and Jerry takes it from me, switches it off, and then takes it out and leaves it in the hall for good measure, closing the door as he comes back into the snug.
‘If the advertising companies can hear you, then you can bet your life that the security services can too, maybe even the BHA. And I’m not taking any chances that just switching it off is enough.’ He sits down again. ‘Now, where were we?’
‘I was asking if you had done this extra-weight thing before. But I have already worked out the answer. Wisden. Runs over and over like a carthorse carrying loads of extra weight to get his handicap down and his odds up. Then one day he runs at Huntingdon without the weight and sprints to victory like he has springs in his shoes – when you had gambled heavily on him to win. And Gasfitter too, but I cocked that up for you at Market Rasen by missing the start and he gets beaten by a nose. No wonder you were so cross.’
Jerry says nothing.
‘And all those other losers I rode, performing so much below their expectations. They never had a chance, did they? And, all the time, I’m thinking it’s my fault and you did nothing to change that. Have you any idea what that did to my confidence? To my self-esteem? To my mental health? To say nothing of how it destroyed my riding career.’
I’m very angry and he knows it.
‘Then, on Monday, on top of all that, you tried to kill me.’
‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous,’ he responds quickly, but I can tell that he’s rattled.
‘It was you who dropped a bag of cement onto the Cresta Run when you knew I would be coming down at high speed.’
‘You’re crazy. How could I have possibly known where you’d be?’
‘Because Susi Ashcroft told you when you had breakfast with her at the Kulm earlier that morning.’
‘What utter claptrap.’
‘It’s not claptrap. Susi told me you asked her if she knew where I was. She must have mentioned the Cresta. She also said you were particularly insistent that she remember everything we’d spoken about over dinner on Sunday night. You wanted to make sure I hadn’t mentioned anything to her about the weighted breast girth and the chain-mail. What would you have done if I had? Try to kill her too?’
He shifts uneasily on the sofa.
‘And, anyway, you’ve just proved to me that it was you.’
‘How?’
I stared across at him.
‘You haven’t asked me why I’m sitting here with my arm in a sling.’
He stares back, saying nothing.
‘That’s because you already know why. You’re the one who’s responsible for it.’
‘
You’re madder than I thought you were.’ He starts to stand up. ‘I’ve had enough of this fucking nonsense.’ He may be trying to bluster his way out but there are beads of nervous sweat on his forehead.
‘Sit down!’ I snap. ‘I’m not finished with you yet.’
He hesitates but then sits slowly back down. He forces a smile across at me. If bluster won’t work, perhaps charm will.
‘Miles, my dear fellow, you’re wrong. Totally wrong. Why on earth would I do such a thing?’
‘To prevent us from having this conversation. You knew that, after what I discovered at White Turf, I would work it all out. I would realise that what you did to Cliveden Proposal last Sunday was exactly what you’d done to all those horses I rode that lost so badly. All of them wearing nice fluffy sheepskin breast girths – the Dickinson trademark. Except that the sheepskin was full of lead weights so we had no chance of winning. And then you allowed the blame for their failures to rest on me. You sat back and did nothing to quell the vindictive and destructive press reports. You simply went on doing it, adding to my mental agony, just so you could cheat the system and win your bets, with absolutely no regard to the damage you were causing.’
He sits there in silence and makes no attempt to deny it.
‘You can’t prove it,’ he says eventually. ‘It would simply be your word against mine.’
I laugh. ‘I don’t need to prove it. All I have to do is go to the newspapers and tell them about Cliveden Proposal running at White Turf with an overweight sheepskin breast girth and chain-mail boots. I took photos of them.’
He stares across at me but I’m still not finished with him.
‘And the records of all those other races I rode in still exist. Any journalist worth their salt will find the bookmakers you bet with and match up the dates of your big wins to when your horses exceeded expectations, especially if I point them in the right direction.
‘The papers will print it all. Everyone will then understand why your horses sometimes performed so much above their previous form, and why at other times they didn’t. And the racecourse stewards will realise that they have been made to look foolish. All those post-race enquiries where they could do nothing more than order the horse to be routinely dope-tested. Of course, the results were negative. No dope test will be positive just because a horse is carrying excess baggage.’
I look across at him and suddenly he appears so much smaller.
‘You’ll be finished,’ I go on. ‘Your reputation will be in tatters. Even if you aren’t banned from racing for life, your owners will desert you. And then they’ll sue you for breach of your duty of care towards them and their horses. You’ll lose everything – this house, your stables – the lot.’
He continues to stare back at me. No longer the confident and arrogant trainer in total command of his life. More like an empty shell. And maybe his eyes are not actually focused on me at all but on the dark abyss opening up in front of him.
‘And, even if I can’t prove in a court of law that you fixed all those races, I can prove you tried to kill me.’
‘How?’ It’s barely more than a whisper.
‘Your mobile phone – that of which you are so wary. I’m sure you had it with you on Monday – we all carry them with us everywhere. Location-finders can determine where your phone has been to within a few feet, and when. I’m sure the Swiss police will find it most revealing. It will show that you were on that bridge in St Moritz at exactly the moment the bag was thrown onto the ice.’
‘I’ll dispose of it.’
‘It’s too late for that. They don’t need the phone itself. I only have to give them your number and the digital records will show everything.’
I don’t know whether that’s true or not but he’s not to know it either.
‘Then why haven’t you told them already?’
It’s a good question. Partly because I didn’t work it all out until after I had left St Moritz – all that thinking on the train and on the flight home had its uses. But also largely because of what it would do to Sabrina.
I arrived here early today, when I knew Jerry would be on the gallops, to find out. I’d even suggested she leave him but that, it seems, was not an option.
Don’t be bloody silly, Miles. I love the old bugger.
So bringing him down would bring her down too. And I couldn’t do that. Not after all she had done for me, in spite of it being largely her husband’s fault that I’d been so ill in the first place.
I just need Jerry to admit it all, at least to me, and also to stop it happening to any other young conditional jockey he may be responsible for.
‘What do you want for your silence?’ he asks quietly.
‘Silence about what? The fixing of the races or you trying to kill me?’
‘Both.’
‘So you admit it was you who put the bag of cement on the Cresta Run?’
He is silent for a moment.
‘I’m sorry.’
It is as much of an admission as I can hope for. But it’s enough.
‘So what do you want,’ he asks again. ‘How much?’
‘I don’t want your dirty money.’
‘What then?’
I think back to what Sabrina had said to me.
‘You will retire from racing. Sell this house and the stables. And move somewhere by the sea.’
38
I take the train back to London from Lambourn but instead of going straight back to the hotel from Paddington, I go to St John’s Wood, specifically to a quiet residential street just behind Lord’s Cricket Ground, which is lined with expensive mansions occupied by multimillionaire rock musicians and captains of industry.
I ring the bell of number 5.
The blue front door is opened by an elderly lady, smartly dressed in a green tweed suit.
‘Hello, Brenda,’ I say. ‘Do you remember me?’
‘Of course I do,’ Brenda Fenton replies curtly, but she doesn’t seem very pleased to see me, and she doesn’t invite me in. ‘If this is about my grandsons accosting you in the streets of St Moritz, I have nothing to say on the matter.’
‘So they told you about that?’
‘Of course. Now excuse me, I have other things to do.’
She starts to close the door.
‘Did they also tell you about beating up your trainer? They put him in hospital.’
The door opens again, and a slight tightening around her eyes gives me the impression that the boys had left out that part of the story. And I can see her looking closely at my arm in the sling and wondering if that, too, is down to her relations.
‘My grandsons can be rather impulsive at times. But I still have nothing to say to you.’
She begins to close the door again.
‘Don’t you want to know why your horse ran so badly in that race at White Turf? To know why it didn’t win?’
Once more the door opens slightly.
‘And do you know why?’ she asks through the gap.
‘I certainly do.’
The door opens fully.
‘Then you’d better come in.’
‘Are your grandsons at home?’
I have no wish to step into a lions’ den with the lions in residence.
‘They’re out shopping,’ Brenda says.
Terrorising someone else, no doubt.
So, with trepidation, I walk through her front door and follow her across the hallway into her kitchen.
‘How did you find me?’ she asks.
‘The internet. Seems you have a bit of a reputation in these parts.’
She laughs. ‘Concerning a planning dispute with my next-door neighbour. Bad news travels fast. But what’s all this about my horse at White Turf? Tell me why it didn’t win.’
I realise that there is a risk in telling her, a chance that Sabrina might be damaged by any investigation, but it is a risk that I calculate is necessary.
Brenda would not have a case without my co-operation, even if s
he wanted to pursue one, which I doubt. Other than Jerry himself, I am the only witness. I can always refuse to help or claim indecision and confusion if forced to give testimony in court, and I am quite sure Jerry will have disposed of the physical evidence just as soon as I left him, if he hadn’t done so before.
So why should I tell her?
Indeed, why have I come here in the first place?
Perhaps I believe that if she takes her considerable string of horses away from the Dickinson stable, it might hasten Jerry’s decision to retire from the sport. But have I misjudged the situation?
Time to find out.
‘Cliveden Proposal didn’t win at White Turf,’ I say, ‘because he was carrying things he didn’t need to.’
I tell her about the weighted breast girth and the chain-mail boots. I even show her the pictures of them on my phone.
She is shocked. ‘But that’s outrageous. Why?’
‘Because Jerry Dickinson didn’t want your horse to win.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘Because he’d bet on another.’
‘Susi bloody Ashcroft’s,’ she says angrily.
‘Actually, no. She had absolutely nothing to do with it.’
I explain that Jerry hadn’t expected Susi’s horse to win either and he’d lost a lot of money as a result.
She laughs again. ‘Serves him bloody right. But why are you telling me this? Were you in on it too?’
‘No, I was not. The first I knew of it was after the race when I unsaddled your horse and found the extra weight.’
‘So why tell me now?’
‘I thought you should know.’
‘And what do you expect me to do about it? Jerry Dickinson has trained me lots of winners over the past five years. I am certainly not going to complain to the racing authorities, or to the police, if that’s what you think,’ she says with conviction. ‘That would simply make me appear as Jerry’s patsy and everyone would laugh at me, as I suggest you might be doing right now. Is that why you’ve come here? To have a good laugh at my expense?’
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