The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Was he? I wouldn’t remember.’

  Cassie noticed Mattie drop his eyes, as if he did remember but didn’t wish to talk about it. It was only then she realized how deep his own hurt ran.

  ‘OK, so if you haven’t read Gulliver’s Travels you should do, particularly the Voyage to the Houyhnhms. The Houyhnhms are horses and they’re the gentle, philosophical ones. And man is an ape called a Yahoo. Society is reversed and the horses are the higher breed and the apes are the lower.’

  ‘And Dad believed that? Or rather that that’s how it should be?’

  ‘Let’s say it amused him no end. By and large he greatly preferred the company of horses. He found no difficulty in seeing why so often they’ve been worshipped as gods. Did you see that look in Nightie’s eye today as we were saddling him up? It was as if he could see things, as if he knew things that we’d never know. He suddenly cocked his head as Fred was fixing his girth and looked out over my shoulder. I couldn’t help turning to see what it was he was looking at. I thought it must be the crowd, or another horse going by. But he wasn’t looking at anything like that. He was looking up into the sky.’

  Erin was at hand as always to welcome Cassie back to Claremore, greeting her as if Cassie had been away for a month rather than a day.

  ‘I don’t want to hear a word out of you until you’ve settled in your chair in Mr Tyrone’s study, the way you always do,’ she ordered, and after hurrying out of the room she shortly hurried back in again followed by young Padraig and bearing with her a tray holding small snacks, some glasses, and a bottle of red wine freshly opened which she placed on the table by Cassie.

  ‘Padraig – sit there on the little stool, there’s a good boy,’ she said, picking the child up and placing him on a footstool. ‘You be a good boy and eat your biscuits while we listen to what happened at the races today.’

  The little boy smiled up at Cassie as she handed him down a plate of animal crackers and as he smiled Cassie saw in him the image of his father, their former parish priest, the handsome and intellectual Father Patrick. He was lost somewhere now in South America, last heard of working among the poorest of the poor, trying to bring love and comfort to people in places where life was lived at its lowest ebb. He would perhaps be astonished if he could see his son for, even at an age when all children look like one parent one moment and the other the next, Padraig was the priest’s living image. The smile that started in the eyes, the over-solemn expression when about to talk, even the very way he clasped his hands carefully across his stomach sometimes when he listened.

  ‘So Himself won doing handsprings, so I hear,’ Erin said, pouring out the wine.

  ‘He did, Erin, he won handsomely,’ Cassie replied, ‘but then he had no real opposition.’

  ‘Ah, but that wasn’t the point of the race now, was it?’ Erin corrected her. ‘The whole point of the exercise was to see if Himself was as good as he was last year and if not better. And be all the accounts carried into my kitchen, and from what I gathered from my wireless, if anything Himself would seem to have improved irretrievably.’

  ‘Let’s just say he did everything that was hoped for,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘And so he should, for didn’t we say enough Hail Marys this morning to last Himself the season.’

  As Erin bent over to wipe some crumbs off her son’s face Cassie smiled and turned to wind back the tape on the answering machine attached to her private line. There were over a dozen messages waiting to be replayed.

  ‘Mattie said Liam said he’s half a stone better than last year,’ Erin said, picking Padraig up and putting him on her knee to keep him from fidgeting. ‘Whatever that means, because it’s double Dutch to me.’

  ‘Now, Erin, you know as well as I do what that means,’ Cassie said, pulling a notepad and pencil towards her as she sat down at the desk. ‘You’ve been listening to the double Dutch of horse racing even longer than I have and you speak it fluently. But although it wasn’t much of a contest, the horse that was third has won five half-decent races, and the second horse won the Larkspur Stakes as a two-year-old and the Great Voltigeur at three. In an ordinary year they’d both have been given a favourite’s chance and Nightie beat them out of sight, so yes – he probably is half a stone better.’

  ‘They’re saying there’s not a horse anywhere to beat him,’ Erin said. ‘And do you know what else they’re saying? Or haven’t you heard?’

  ‘I can’t tell you that unless you tell me what they’re saying, Erin, can I?’

  ‘Ah sure everyone who knows the horse and who knows you is saying Himself is Mr Rosse come back, that’s what they say,’ Erin said as if relating the most ordinary piece of gossip. ‘What they all do say is that the horse is a reincarnation of none other than your late husband himself, may God rest his soul.’

  By the time Cassie had regained her senses Erin was on her feet with her son swung up on her hip, smiling at her before wandering off back out of the room and down the corridor singing softly to her child, back to her kitchen and her preparations for dinner and to her good-natured bullying of poor amiable Dick, Cassie’s handyman and Erin’s dogsbody. As Cassie looked after her still with a look of astonishment on her face the telephone rang beside her. Before she could reach out and pick up the receiver the caller was intercepted by the answering machine which Cassie had left still operative. A message for Mrs Rosse, a quiet and accentless male voice said. We were not too concerned with the horse’s appearance today because a public schooling exercise at odds of twenty to one don’t really count. But if you do decide to race your horse in earnest this year just be reminded that it really will be the most regrettable decision you will make in your entire life.

  Three

  The decision whether to run or not was taken out of Cassie’s hands the next morning when Liam pulled The Nightingale out from his box and discovered the horse was slightly lame, having somehow managed to give one of his knees a good knock during the night.

  ‘That’s Epsom and the Coronation Cup out, boss,’ Liam said after he’d trotted the horse up for Cassie. ‘Given that he had no sort of a race yesterday we’ll need a good two weeks to get him back on the road fully wound up.’

  ‘It’s probably a good thing, Liam,’ Cassie admitted. ‘I’d actually rather go straight for the Eclipse anyway. The Coronation Cup could well be all but another walk-over for him but it’s never been one of my favourite races, while the Eclipse is in my top six. Besides, it’s usually a better race than the Epsom one and I’d rather see Nightie race against good horses than hack up against animals only running for the place money. So I’m sure would all his fans.’

  ‘Ah well – sweet are the uses of adversity, as old Tomas was forever saying,’ Liam returned. ‘For aren’t they often the famous great blessings in disguise.’

  So it was with no great regret that Cassie returned to her office to compose a press release saying that her horse had sustained a slight injury and consequently would not take his place in the line-up for the Coronation Cup. She stressed the damage was only very minor but that with the unseasonal heatwave showing no signs of abating she thought it wiser to hope for rain before the Eclipse, which had always been one of the horse’s main targets.

  * * *

  The following morning a black and gold painted van drew up in front of the house and delivered two dozen of the finest orchids Cassie had ever seen.

  ‘Who in the hell sent those?’ Mattie asked his mother after Erin had brought them into the drawing room. ‘I mean, for God’s sake what sort of rich lunatic sends orchids in this economically dismal day and age?’

  ‘Read the card and find out,’ Cassie said, without understanding quite why she already had a sinking feeling of despair in the pit of her stomach.

  Mattie took the card and read it, then looked up at his mother. ‘It just says From a Grateful Wellwisher.’

  ‘I thought it might say something like that,’ Cassie said, taking the card and shredding it.

  �
�Is there something you’re not telling me?’ Mattie wondered. ‘Most women would freak out getting flowers like these.’

  ‘Not if they were from someone who might be intent on frightening you off,’ Cassie replied. ‘Now call Erin back and send these flowers straight to the hospital. I certainly don’t want them in the house, thank you.’

  After Erin had removed the unwanted flowers, muttering that she had always thought that orchids were a very superfluous kind of a flower anyway, Mattie poured his mother and himself a cup of coffee and started to flick idly through the latest copy of Pacemaker.

  ‘By frightening you off, I take it you mean frightening you off running Nightie,’ he said. ‘But you’ve always had these sorts of threats and they’ve never really bothered you before.’

  ‘There’s something particular about this one, Mattie,’ Cassie replied. ‘I don’t know what exactly. Maybe it’s because there’s so much more at stake now. Or maybe it’s the feeling you have when you own a horse like this that there’s someone out there watching your every move, someone intent on making you dance to their tune.’

  ‘The only reason someone would warn you off is because that someone stands to lose a lot of money.’

  ‘Or make a lot, Mattie. Bookmakers aren’t always the villains of the piece.’

  ‘I don’t see who else would have a good reason.’

  Cassie finished her coffee and put her cup down beside her. ‘Oh, I do,’ she said. ‘I can think of one or two.’

  Leonora seemed to be the obvious choice. Cassie had every reason to believe that her old enemy, having failed to buy into The Nightingale, was now mounting yet another campaign of attrition. Leonora would reckon that if she tried to frighten Cassie out of running her horse early on in the season Cassie would see the folly of her ways, take the horse out of training and send him off to stud, even though the covering season was practically over. More important, she would then reconsider her decision about selling a major share in the horse to Leonora and her mother. It all made good sense, knowing both how determined and how malicious Leonora could be, and yet it made no sense at all. For even should she succeed in this, it still would not guarantee that her wretched mother would be able to buy into The Nightingale syndicate. But then that to Cassie was Leonora all over, illogical, reckless and more than anything else determined not to be outdone.

  Particularly since what Leonora wanted Leonora always tried her utmost to get, and if she didn’t achieve all her aims she then ran a high-profile spoiling campaign. That was how it had been in the battle over Tyrone. When her pretence at an affaire between herself and Tyrone had blown up in her face, she had attempted a coup de grâce by endeavouring to make out that Mattie was Tyrone’s illegitimate son.

  So although she had given up nicotine and alcohol the chances of Leonora’s undergoing a really serious character reformation were to Cassie’s way of thinking extremely slim. Moreover, given Leonora’s new husband’s wealth, let alone the continual gifts of money her mother bestowed on her, it would be well within her powers to organize such an operation. Not that a couple of telephone calls and a few expensive blooms amounted to much of a strategy, but then they were still only in the early stages of what Cassie imagined might well be one of her arch-rival’s more grandiose schemes. Better than anybody she knew there were no limits to Leonora’s Machiavellian ambitions once she had set her mind on something.

  Having decided more for her own convenience than anything else that Leonora was behind the warnings not to run The Nightingale, Cassie decided to ignore them and continue with her horse’s four-year-old career just as planned. It was not that she took the threats lightly, because she knew from the past that once Leonora was thwarted she was capable of doing anything, but thinking she knew who was behind the intimidation somehow seemed to lessen the danger. Whatever happened she was determined that The Nightingale should be allowed to realize his full potential as a four-year-old in the hope that by the end of the season his achievements would confirm the evergrowing belief that this was the greatest horse of the century, if not of all time.

  None the less Cassie was not fool enough to disregard the threats altogether, and hardly were the unwanted orchids exiled from her house than she set about reviewing all the existing security arrangements before summoning Liam, Mattie and Dexter to her office to listen to any further suggestions they might have for improvement.

  With good reason, Claremore was considered to be among the best-protected raceyards in Europe, and while it had cost Cassie a small fortune she considered it money well spent even if the lads had renamed it Fort Claremore. The main yard was safely self-enclosed behind a perimeter wall topped with razor wire, gated with twelve-foot solid oak doors which were kept permanently shut once the day’s exercise programmes were over, and monitored twenty-four hours a day by closed circuit television cameras. There were only two other entrances to the yard, one used by the lads to come and go between work and their hostel and another which gave direct access only to the muck heap, also enclosed within the perimeter walls so that the muck could only be taken away by a tractor and trailer coming in through the main gates and along the roadway which ran between the back of the boxes and the outside walls. Both these entrances were monitored day and night by security guards, as were the main doors into the yard and the gates into Claremore itself. The boundaries of the estate were patrolled by two more guards with four dogs, the men having been instructed never to follow the same daily routine nor cover the same area of ground. Within the grounds there were more closed circuit cameras which recorded the ingress of every visitor who arrived on wheels, horseback or foot, and at night the entire stable complex was safeguarded by a highly sophisticated alarm system which was triggered by the body heat of any incomer who got within fifty feet of a complex of concealed magic eyes.

  ‘I have an idea,’ Mattie said to open the meeting. ‘It springs out of what we were talking about before, namely that horses are at their most vulnerable when they leave the yard for exercise. Now although it’s all but impossible – or so we think – to get at them while they’re being ridden, it isn’t altogether impossible. I’m not saying that the bushes are going to be crawling with villains armed with state of the art lasers or some such weaponry, but if you remember I did see a couple of fellas lurking at the top of the home gallops only last week and it looked as though they were armed with some sort of gun. And since we don’t know exactly what sorts of tricks these guys can get up to nowadays, what I suggest is this. We exercise the horses as they always have been exercised, with this difference. Every horse wears exercise hoods, sheets and bandages so that no-one can recognize which horse is which by any distinguishing marks. All the lads wear the same sort of lightweight black top and the same-coloured pompoms on their helmets. We don’t want anyone knowing who is who and from a distance this way there’ll be no telling. Secondly, move the lads around from horse to horse much as we have been doing, except don’t let anyone know what he’s going to ride in advance.’

  ‘Including me?’ Dexter wondered with a grin.

  ‘You’re the fly in the ointment, Dex, because everyone in the know knows you’re the only bloke who rides Nightie,’ Mattie replied. ‘Which brings me to my next point. If they’re going to be shooting at anyone, so to speak, it’s going to be The Nightingale. So he has to be the most secure horse in the yard and in the string. Therefore he can’t be allowed to walk up to the gallops any more. We’re going to have to box him up.’

  ‘Two objections to that, Mattie,’ Cassie said, tapping her pencil on the table. ‘One – the horse needs to be walked, and two – as soon as he’s seen getting out of the box he can be targeted. Anyone watching will know at once which horse is Nightie.’

  ‘I’ve thought this one through, believe it or not,’ Mattie said. ‘First, at this stage of the season any walking the horse needs can be done on the horsewalker or inside the perimeter walls if needs be. Second, when we unbox him on the gallops we screen him from view w
ith all the other horses. Dex will also be riding in the same anonymous black anorak and hat, so as soon as he’s up and among the other animals it’ll be impossible to spot which one he is.’

  ‘We don’t have that many black horses,’ Dexter said. ‘How many, Cassie?’

  ‘Five including Nightie, but three of them are really only very dark bays. They’re not quite as black as Nightie and none of them are quite his size.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ Mattie said confidently. ‘There’s no way anyone whatever they’re armed with can get at horses on the move. Not with any degree of precision. I mean, suppose they were using some advanced form of laser, OK? Which I don’t believe for one moment they are. But just suppose they were. To penetrate tissue accurately you’d need to line up the sight on the right target and hope that the said target will stand still for at least – shall we say five seconds? So we keep the horses on the move the whole time. Walking, trotting, cantering, galloping, and at all times we keep Nightie covered up. Particularly getting him in and out of the horsebox.’

  ‘I don’t really think this is necessary,’ Cassie said with a sigh.

  ‘It’s necessary, believe me,’ Mattie returned. ‘Every single bit of it.’

  ‘Matt’s right,’ Dexter said with a nod. ‘We have to take every possible precaution. Look, whoever’s making these threats might not even being doing it for money, you know. It might be someone really sick. Like the nut who shot John Lennon. Someone who sees a chance for fame whatever the price.’

  ‘That changes it, doesn’t it?’ Mattie asked, seeking the look on his mother’s face.

  ‘I guess it does,’ Cassie agreed, with a look at Dexter. ‘I hadn’t considered that possibility. But I guess a horse of Nightie’s growing fame—’

  ‘You bet,’ Dexter said. ‘No-one’s ever assassinated a world-famous horse before. And if some crazyhead did manage it, he’d be guaranteed more than his allotted fifteen minutes of fame.’