by Joe McNally
Melling spun and faced me. He was an ugly sod with an uncommonly large head covered with more hair than a man his age should have.
‘What is it?’
He was still shouting but concentrating on me now and not the boy, who took the opportunity and made a swift exit.
‘Holidays,’ I said. His scowl had been pretty bleak but he dug hard and came up with another wrinkle on his forehead, ‘What?’
‘Holidays, Mister Melling.’
‘What about them?’
‘I’d like some.’
‘Don’t be daft,’ he turned, looking for the boy. ‘Benny!’ he yelled.
The only reply he got was a slight echo from an open box at the bottom of the yard, ‘Benny! Do not you show your face back here without that filly!’
He grunted and started walking toward the house. I fell into step with him, ‘About the holidays, Mister Melling…’
He didn’t stop, ‘I don’t pay you to take holidays, son.’
‘I need a month off.’
‘I can’t afford to give it to you and you can’t afford to take it.’
‘What does that mean?’
Stopping on the doorstep, he turned to look at me, ‘It means, Malloy, that the first day you don’t show in this yard for work, you pack up your troubles in your old kitbag and get your arse out of my caravan.’
He smiled and went into the house, slamming the door in my face.
Leaving in the morning would be a pleasure.
Reading the file didn’t take up much of my evening. The evidence against Kruger was far from conclusive. It relied on my allegations of his connection with my case five years ago, a reported sighting of one of his henchmen speaking to Danny Gordon a month before he died, and a rumour Kruger had been in Austria for the past two years (his son, who worked for a large drug company, controlled a research lab in Vienna).
A report confirmed Kruger hadn’t been seen in England for two years, that the henchman had disappeared since last seen talking to Danny Gordon, and that neither the crippled Bergmark nor the blinded Rask would answer ‘relevant’ questions. On the two suspected murderers, there was little information; brief physical descriptions, which, in essence, said, both big, fit, white and English. The only recent clue to their whereabouts was an unconfirmed report about them leaving Sandown races three weeks ago with a jockey named Alan Harle.
I knew Harle; he’d been a journeyman jockey when I’d been riding. Racecourse Security Services had not yet interviewed him, so he looked the most promising lead. The rest of the file consisted of reports on the assaults on Bergmark and Rask and the murder of Danny Gordon. There was a photograph of his body.
Staring at it reminded me of how I felt that day, and made me think a grand a month plus expenses was crazier than Russian roulette with five bullets.
At ten o’clock, I walked to the pub and phoned McCarthy.
‘Eddie. Been through the file?’
‘Yep.’
‘Any questions?’
‘Yes. Am I mad?’
‘No, just desperate.’
He was right. ‘If I end up dead, scatter my ashes at Cheltenham.’
‘Don’t be morbid.’
‘Tell that to Danny Gordon.’
He tried to change the subject. ‘The car’ll be there in the morning.’
‘What about the cottage?’
‘I’ll tell you about it…’
7
McCarthy had said the place was isolated, and he wasn’t kidding. It lay in the heart of a thick wood, the track leading to it barely wide enough for the silver Rover he’d hired for me.
The cottage had grey stone walls and a small garden, one bedroom, one kitchen, one living-room all furnished and decorated in greens, browns and greys. Faded cushions covered the slate seats of a deep inglenook fireplace.
A handwritten note lay on the mantelpiece. ‘Firelighters in kitchen cupboard. Logs in shed outside. Chimney may need swept.’
The next few days were spent organizing. The phone needed reconnecting and the chimney was thick with soot. I bought more wood for the fire, food, some new clothes and footwear. When everything was done I looked for more to do, more mundane necessities. I was just putting off the moment when I’d have to do some ’investigating’, but I didn’t know where or how to start.
I recalled how I’d tracked down Kruger last time, driven by a manic need to kick the shit out of him for framing me. I’d just been running around crazed with revenge, asking, begging, bribing, threatening until I got what I needed. I couldn’t work that way with this.
I sat down to think. It was dusk, windless, and cold. I built a fire and the clean chimney sucked at the firelighter flames and wrapped them round the ash logs. I washed the paraffin film from my fingers, poured a large whiskey, with ice, and settled by the hearth.
I drank and tried to plan. The only links at the moment apart from Harle were Bergmark and Rask.
They hadn’t volunteered anything to McCarthy’s people and there was no reason for them to treat me differently, but I had to try. I’d learnt from the file that Bergmark lived with his widowed sister, near Nottingham. I would visit him tomorrow then go to Kent the day after to see Rask.
Even if I came up with nothing, at least I’d have made a start. I drank some more and thought some more and wondered about what was to come. The fire burned hot and comforting and I eased off my shoes and closed my eyes.
8
I found Bergmark at a run-down house on the outskirts of Nottingham. The broken gate swung both ways as I pushed through. Bergmark watched me from his wheelchair at the front door, a heavy coat and flat cap protecting him from the cold, an old blanket covering his footless legs. Allowing for his three or four days’ beard growth, he looked to be in his mid-forties.
As I went along the path toward him his sister came out carrying washing in a red plastic basket with a vertical split in one side, which opened and closed like a fish’s mouth as she walked down the short ramp.
When she saw me, she stepped in front of her brother’s wheelchair, shielding him. ‘What do you want?’
I stopped a few yards from her, ‘Is it okay if I have a word with Mister Bergmark?’
‘No, he’s not seeing anybody,’ she was big and serious, maybe five years older than her brother.
‘It won’t take long. I’ve come all the way up from London,’ I lied.
‘Well just turn round and go all the way back,’ she said. Bergmark spoke, ‘It’s okay, let him in.’ His fingers touched her hip, easing her aside. She scowled and stamped into the house. I offered my hand, ‘Eddie Malloy.’
He shook it, ‘Thought I recognized the face.’
A trace of a foreign accent, ‘Walter, isn’t it?’
‘That’s right.’
‘How have you been?’ I asked.
‘I remember you. You were a fair jock.’
‘Thank you. Look, I’m doing a favour for a friend and-’
‘Used to ride Sandown well, as I recall.’
‘Yes, thanks… Listen, Walter, I-’
‘You got sent down, didn’t you?’ he stared into the distance, and hadn’t looked at me once.
‘That’s right,’ I said.
‘Got you in the end, eh?’
He was miles away. I might as well not have been there, ‘Walter, do you remember the man who did this to you?’
‘I landed a real nice touch on your horse at Sandown once, Whitbread day it was.’
I sat on the ramp beside his wheelchair. Our eyes were on the same level, ‘Look Walter, I’m trying to help catch these guys, I need-’
‘Wasn’t it the big race? You finished second, didn’t you? Got it on an objection?’ I spent another five minutes on similar lines with no result. Either he was putting on a hell of a good act or they’d screwed the guy’s mind up. He rambled on as I walked away. ‘They’d give her a gallop too many, too, by mistake and she still won easing up. Funny old game, eh?’
Yes,
Mister Bergmark, a funny old game.
I decided to drive to Kent and find out if Kristar Rask would be any more helpful, pointless putting it off until tomorrow. The time with Bergmark had been a washout and I didn’t want to waste any more.
It was a long drive down the eastern side of England. Rask lived right on the shore. I arrived just after 7 p.m. It was dark and the wind blew cold off the sea as I approached the unlit cottage, the curtains drawn on the front windows. The doorbell was a mechanical pull type, the chimes slow and hollow. I waited.
I rang again. Nothing. I went round the back. The rear windows were heavily curtained too. I sought gaps, looking for light, and quietly cursing this wasted day.
I was surprised Rask wasn’t at home. From what I'd learned, he lived alone with his new guide dog. Mac’s file said Rask had become a recluse since being blinded. He’d dropped what friends he’d had and if he went out at all, it was to walk with the dog on the nearby beach.
I decided to find a pub and pass a couple of hours before returning to check again.
The landlord of the Ancient Mariner had enough time on his hands to be throwing darts at the board in the corner. He had no opponent. Two other men were in the bar; one slumped in a chair by the gas-fire, either asleep or dead, and the other eating nuts and reading The Times. The owner put down the darts to pour me a whiskey, fold the fiver I gave him into a wad in his pocket, and give me change. He returned to my side and resumed his mechanical throwing.
‘Fancy a game?’ he asked.
‘Don’t play,’ I said.
He threw, ‘Pity,’ he said, recovering the darts.
‘Mmm.’
He threw again, ‘We’ve got a good pub team here, y’know,’ he said, dropping a dart as he pulled them out.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yep.’
Six more darts.
‘On holiday?’ he asked, throwing again.
‘Visiting a friend,’ I said.
‘Local?’
‘A mile or so down the front, Kristar Rask.’
‘A close friend?’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘He killed himself yesterday morning.’
9
The woman who’d been training Rask’s guide dog had found the Labrador whining below his dangling feet as he hung by its chain lead from the doorway.
She told the police Rask had become depressed since his ‘accident’ and they said they would not be seeking anyone else in connection with Rask’s death. No suicide note was found.
Rask was dead. Bergmark had a mental block. The only lead left was the jockey, Alan Harle, who’d been seen with the two men I was looking for. I hadn’t wanted to approach Harle so early, in case he was involved. I had little choice now. I would just have to be careful.
I tried to contact him through a mutual jockey-friend who said Harle was in France, looking after some horses for his guv’nor and that he’d be home for the Champion Hurdle at Cheltenham in eleven days’ time.
Eleven days with nothing to do but contemplate what it would be like to set foot on a racecourse again, Cheltenham, the track I’d loved above all others, back among the people I’d known so well. I wondered how I’d handle it, how I’d cope, how many would recognize me and turn away. I’d been an outcast since my teens, but racing welcomed my type. It had opened up and drawn me in and succoured me, or should that be suckered me?
I’d just turned twenty, heading for my first Champion Jockey title thinking I owned the world, believing I was King of Life.
Some of the old hands had warned me of the company I was keeping.
I’d laughed. Be careful? Why? Everybody loves me! I’m a champion! I’m breaking no laws, what’s the problem?
The problem was me. It was youth and inexperience and arrogance, and together they courted me away from caution, dissuaded me from defences, and Mister Kruger stepped right in through the widest of gaps and wounded me, mortally, it had seemed.
Until now.
10
At last, the Cheltenham festival came round. I got there early and went to the Arkle bar. I found a space by the window and unfolded the Racing Post. The headline said: ‘Spartan Sandal to Trample Rivals’. Their tip for the Champion Hurdle, the biggest race of the season for two-mile hurdlers. There had been a time when I’d have known every runner’s form by heart.
I read on: ‘Spartan Sandal looks to have a favourite’s chance, in what appears a sub-standard Champion Hurdle, of landing the prize for the Essex stable of Jim Arlott.’
A piece near the end of the page took my attention. ‘Castle Douglas, a long-shot, will be a first runner in the race for second season trainer, Basil Roscoe, who enjoys the exclusive patronage of the mysterious Louis Perlman, with whose horses he’s done so well this year. A first Champion Hurdle ride for Alan Harle, Castle Douglas would have to show mighty improvement to figure here.
‘Still, if the miracle happened, surely Mr. Perlman would at last come out of hiding to receive the trophy from the Queen Mother. Despite twenty-three winners this season, Perlman has not yet been seen on a racecourse, or anywhere else for that matter.’
I’d never heard of Perlman or his trainer, Roscoe. When I’d been riding, Harle wouldn’t have had a mount in the Champion Hurdle. He hadn’t been getting fifty rides a season back then.
Drifting around, I saw some old acquaintances. A couple of them stopped to talk; a few more nodded, embarrassed, and a handful ignored me. An owner I used to ride for asked if I’d be getting my licence back. I told him I doubted that very much and he touched my arm and looked sympathetic. Pity riled me, but I appreciated the gesture.
Twenty minutes before the off of the Champion Hurdle I bagged a good viewing spot in the stand. Spartan Sandal and Kiri jumped the last together and had a hell of a tussle until halfway up the hill, when Alan Harle swept through on Castle Douglas. Harle rode as though the devil hung on his tail, and he drove his mount past the battling pair and won going away.
Twenty-to-one winners of the Champion Hurdle are seldom greeted with cheers. He galloped past the post to cries of ‘What the hell’s that?’ and walked back in to just a smattering of applause. Raising my binoculars, I focused on Harle’s face. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and smiled, leant forward, slapped the horse three times on the neck and ruffled the delighted groom’s hair.
People hurried to see the winner being unsaddled. I went against the flow, climbing to the top to look down on the paddock from the rear of the grandstand.
Harle dismounted to congratulations from a camel-coated man and a slim blonde in a tight black skirt. He was probably the trainer, Roscoe. The woman would be either his wife or girlfriend. I raised my binoculars. Roscoe looked fairly young, early thirties, and, from his styled hair to his brown Gucci shoes, impeccably dressed. Arms out of the sleeves, he wore his coat like a cloak.
A handful of pressmen surrounded him and the blonde, who looked older, maybe forty. I tilted the glasses slowly: good legs…good figure…good dentist. The MC picked up the microphone. ‘Your Royal Highness, ladies and gentlemen, unfortunately the winning owner, Mister Louis Perlman, cannot be here today and so I now call on Mrs. Basil Roscoe to receive the Champion Hurdle Challenge Cup on his behalf.’
The blonde minced forward, her stiletto heels murdering a few worms as she crossed the lawn. Her husband watched, smiling smugly, and I wondered what kind of owner Louis Perlman was and what pleasure he took from his horses if he never came to see them run.
And what was Roscoe’s history? He was a new one on me. The press bar was on the floor below so I put my binoculars away and went looking for some information.
11
Approaching the press bar entrance, I saw Joe Lagota come out, head down, looking at his racecard. I quickened and bumped him and he dropped his card. I picked it up and smiled as I handed it to him, ‘You’ll be too old for bending down now,’ I said.
He grunted and took the card, ‘I heard you were back,’ he said, ‘never th
ought I’d see you on a racecourse again. What’s the story?’
‘What do you mean, what’s the story?’
He pointed the red plastic tip of his pen at my face, ‘Eddie, I know a desperado when I see one. I’d have bet a million that nobody could have hauled you back onto a racetrack when your ban was up unless it was to ride a horse.’
I hadn’t reckoned on this. When I’d been riding, Joe was just one of the press pack, someone who’d gladly write another piece about the boy wonder.
He said, ‘Come in and have a drink.’
I hesitated, but saying no would only confirm his suspicions.
He found us a quiet corner and ordered coffee and biscuits, and he spent ten minutes working me over, looking for an opening, trying to find out why I was putting myself through the torture of watching other men ride winners at Cheltenham.
I laughed, ’Torture? Come on, Joe. I was a kid when I was riding. Things change when you get older, you know that.’
He straightened, staring at me as though trying to find a way into my skull, ‘You’re telling me one thing and my sniffer is telling me something else, Eddie.’
I opened my arms: nothing to hide, ‘Joe, I don’t know how many different ways there are to say this, I’m here for a day out, for old time’s sake. Okay, if I bump into some rich owner who wants to offer me a nice office job, I’d jump at it.’
His head went back and he frowned as though he’d suddenly smelled something bad, ‘Office job, my arse! Now I know you’re winding me up!’
I laughed. Joe said, ‘Look, all I ask is that if you’re working toward something, some kind of comeback or protest or campaign to get your licence back, give me a call first, will you?’
‘Joe, that’s crazy, but if that’s what you need to put your mind at rest, then, yes, of course I’ll call you.’
He nodded, short and sharp as if confirming to himself he’d been right, and he bit hard into a biscuit.