by Joe McNally
He moved close. I could hear him breathe in his nostrils, ‘And you won’t ever be an acquaintance of this lady either, you randy little bastard!’ The grey in his eyes darkened and I felt like saying, I’ve got news for you, mate.
Charmain clutched his sleeve, ‘Howard, please come and introduce me to some of your friends!’ He hesitated, glaring at me for another five seconds, and then he grabbed her arm and turned away. She didn’t look at me as she followed him. I called out, ‘Very nice meeting you, Mister Stoke.’
He turned and snarled, ‘Up yours.’
‘Likewise,’ I smiled. They went into the throng and I watched his head bob away across the room as he dragged Charmain behind him. Beauty and the beast. How the hell had she got tied up with him?
Taking another glass of champagne, I went looking for Alan Harle and saw him standing by the entrance. When I was half a dozen steps away, he opened the door and left. I followed him.
14
Six paces ahead and weaving unsteadily along the corridor, Harle stopped and pushed against a door. It swung open and he went in. I reached the door: Gentlemen, the sign said.
I was one of those.
The door of the middle cubicle was closed. Harle was behind it. I stood by the sink nearest the drier and waited. A minute passed. There had been no sound.
The door opened and Harle, fiddling with his jacket collar, took two paces out. He caught his breath in surprise when he saw me and, turning, flushed the toilet. When he came out again he looked calm and so pleased to see me you’d have thought I was his dinner date.
He walked up close and shook hands, ‘Eddie! They told me you were back. Great news, eh? How’ve you been doing?’
I smiled. He was small, even for a jump jockey; about five three, but he had what bodybuilders called good symmetry. His face was chipped in places from racing falls and a crescent-shaped thick pink scar showed through his dark thinning hair.
‘I’ve been doing okay,’ I said, ‘but not riding Champion Hurdle winners.’
‘Magic, eh?’ he beamed, drunk but looking lively.
‘Fantastic,’ I said, ‘but no more than you deserve after all the dogs you’ve ridden in the past.’
He turned to the mirror, still smiling, and drew a comb from his pocket. Only the reflection of his head and shoulders showed as he combed his sparse hair. ‘Yeah, you can say that again. And you won’t see me on no dogs in the future either. It’s going to be all top quality stuff from here on in.’
‘Yes, I heard you’d landed a good retainer with whaddyacall’im?’
The comb moved in useless sweeps. ‘Roscoe,’ he said, ‘Basil Roscoe.’
‘That’s right. I couldn’t remember the name. He’s a newcomer, isn’t he?’
‘After your time anyway, Eddie.’
‘Yes, I’ve been out of touch.’
The comb stopped. Harle pushed it into his pocket, admiring its work. I turned and our reflections carried on the conversation.
‘Any more like Castle Douglas tucked away?’ I asked.
‘We’ve got a couple of cracking novices. One runs in the Triumph on Thursday, Tourist Attraction, he’s called.’
‘Fancy him?’
‘He’ll skate up. Don’t miss him.’
‘I won’t. Who owns him?’
He hesitated. ‘Same owner as Castle Douglas.’
‘Lucky man. Who is he?’ I tried to appear open-faced and innocent. I don’t know if he bought it because he paused again before answering and gave me a glance that said, is this guy kidding?
‘Mister Perlman, he’s Roscoe’s biggest owner.’ He straightened his tie, leaving the top shirt button loose.
‘Perlman? Never heard of him either,’ I said.
‘He’s only come into the game recently.’
I shook my head. ‘Boy, I can’t get moving for overnight success stories since I came back.’
Turning from the mirror, he glared at me. I smiled in apology and grabbed his arm. ‘Hell! I don’t mean you, Alan. You deserve every winner you get! You’ve worked hard for your success.’ He seemed placated.
I followed up, ‘But if you’re honest, doesn’t it make you sick when guys like Roscoe and Perlman flash a few quid around and suddenly they’ve got a Champion Hurdler when they haven’t been in the game five minutes?’
He shrugged. ‘That’s the way it is, Eddie, money talks.’
‘Where did Perlman make his fortune then?’
‘Nobody knows,’ he fished in his pockets. ‘Any smokes?’ he asked.
‘Go in and ask Perlman for a Havana, I’m sure he can afford it.’
‘I would if I knew what he looked like.’
‘What are you talking about?’
He smiled.
I thought I heard the door open. Harle spoke. ‘What I could tell you about Perlman…’
A squeak from the door spring…no footsteps on the tiled floor but Harle became alert. He gave a follow-me nod and turned to leave. Whoever had come in stayed behind the dividing wall. As we moved he began walking in and almost collided with us. He was short, neatly dressed and apparently stone-cold sober, and wearing thick glasses.
He looked surprised. ‘Oh sorry!’ he said and stepped aside to let us pass. ‘Have to be getting the old eyes tested again, Alan.’
Harle nodded at him and smiled. We went out into the corridor.
‘Friend of yours?’ I asked.
‘I’ve seen him around the racecourse. I didn’t know he was here.’
We walked. ‘Anyway, what were you saying about Perlman?’ I asked.
We reached the door of the Directors Suite. ‘Some other time, Eddie, eh?
‘Sure. What about Thursday, after racing?’
‘Fine, yeah, great.’
His eyes told me his mind was elsewhere. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’ll meet you by the weighing room.’
‘Definitely. Look forward to it.’
I headed along the corridor and returned to the toilet. All three cubicle doors lay open. In the one Harle had used, I found a plastic bag containing an empty glass phial and a syringe. It had been taped to the base of the cistern
Carefully, I put the bag in my jacket pocket, then I had second thoughts and I taped it back where I’d found it, just in case Harle developed a suspicion that our meeting had not been an accident.
I made my way to the car thinking there might just be a buzz playing amateur detective. It didn’t deliver the thrills of my riding days, but it would do for now.
15
All morning, McCarthy’s office number rang out. At last, at noon he answered the phone himself.
‘Can’t you afford a secretary?’ I asked.
‘Who is this?’
‘Malloy.’
He wasn’t pleased. ‘What do you want?’
‘Some information.’
‘On what? Is it important?’
‘It is to me.’
‘Look, Eddie, I’m under severe pressure over yesterday’s Champion Hurdle. The Jockey Club wants a report by one o’clock today. There’s no way -’
‘What about the Champion Hurdle?’
‘Well, nothing…nothing about the race itself anyway. But heads will be rolling because the Queen Mum was embarrassed at the presentation when the owner failed to turn up. She didn’t complain, but the executive saw it as a deliberate insult by this guy Perlman. I told you last night there was big meeting about it.’
‘You did. But you didn’t seem half so worried last night. What’s happened?’
‘What do you mean, what’s happened? Nothing’s bloody happened!’
‘Mac, you’re blustering away like an old turkey. How am I supposed to help you if you won’t be straight with me?’
I pictured his face deflating slowly as he considered. He said, ‘You must not repeat what I’m going to tell you.’
‘Mac. I’m not a schoolboy. Out with it.’
He sighed long and low then said, ‘We sent someone to interview Perlman this m
orning. He can’t be found. His house, or at least the address we have registered, is empty and has been for a while according to the locals who also say they’ve never heard of Perlman.’
‘Wasn’t he checked through the normal procedures before your people cleared him as an owner?’
‘Of course he was! Couldn’t have been more impressive. A million quid’s worth of country house in Wiltshire, Rolls in the drive, we even sent the same guy this morning who interviewed him initially. The place is deserted.’
‘What happens now?’ I asked.
‘Arses get kicked, our clearance procedure gets tightened and we keep looking for Perlman.’
‘Have you called Roscoe, his trainer?’
‘Yes. He claims he’s never met Perlman nor spoken to him. He communicates with the stable only by email and pays his bills prompt on the eighth of every month. Obviously we’ll be looking further into that but we’re under the cosh.’
‘If Perlman actually exists, then I know someone who might tell me a few things about him if I buy enough champagne.’
‘What do you mean “if he actually exists”?’
‘Oh, come on, Mac, how many owners don’t turn up when they win the Champion? How many have never met their trainer? The name’s got to be an alias, maybe somebody who’s been warned off in the past.’
‘For what?’
‘How would I know? But whatever it was, he might be doing it again in the name of Perlman.’
There was silence at the other end. I went on, ‘Anyway, I’ll see if I can find anything out from Alan Harle.’
‘Roscoe’s jockey?’
‘More like Perlman’s jockey. Can you remember if Roscoe took Harle on at the same time Perlman appeared on the scene?’
‘No, but I can find out. Call me here this evening.’
‘Listen, I said. ‘I’ll see Harle at Cheltenham today and ask if he wants to go partying tonight. You find out what you can about him and Roscoe and I’ll try to ring you around ten.’
‘Right.’
16
I missed the first three races that afternoon, and despite the melancholy it had caused the previous day, I forced myself to watch the fourth from the infield. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right?
There wasn’t a single space in the crowd lining the rails at the last fence so I wandered down to the starting gate as the big field of novices lined up.
Harle was booked to ride Craven King for Roscoe and I tried to pick him out as the jockeys pulled goggles down on tense faces. The horses pricked their ears and strained at clinking bits, some rolling their eyes till the whites showed.
In a moment of almost eerie silence, I panned and turned the wheel on my binoculars to focus on the packed stands and twenty thousand pairs of glinting lenses looked back at me.
‘Come on!’ yelled the starter, breaking the spell. The tape snapped up, the riders let out an inch of rein and the ground shook as nineteen novice ‘chasers set off to prove who was champion.
I walked toward the centre of the course away from the commentary, away from people. That feeling of desolation was creeping back and I was determined to fight it. I decided to concentrate on Harle and Craven King in Louis Perlman’s pea-green colours. They travelled well for the first circuit but began to tire as they approached the top of the hill for the last time.
Harle wasn’t hard on the horse, but Craven King repaid him by taking a crashing fall at the third last. I kept my binoculars on them to see if Harle would rise but he didn’t. Nor did the horse. I was a couple of hundred yards from the fence. I ran.
Two medics stooped over Harle, looking back and waving anxiously for the ambulance, which sped toward us along with the vet’s Land Rover and the horse ambulance. Craven King lay on his side panting as one of the groundsmen crouched by his head murmuring words of comfort.
I ducked under the rails. ‘Is he okay?’ I asked as I reached Harle.
‘Concussed, we think,’ said one of the ambulance-men as the other undid Harle’s chin strap and raised his goggles. I looked down at the unconscious figure. A stranger.
‘That’s not Alan Harle,’ I said rather stupidly. One of the medics glanced up at me but didn’t reply. I checked the weight-cloth on the prostrate horse: number 6. I opened my racecard: Craven King, trained by Roscoe and due to be ridden by Alan Harle.
The doctor and the vet arrived at the same time. I hunkered beside the doctor as he eased the jockey’s helmet off, ‘Is he going to be all right?’
His fingers explored the base of the skull as he lifted the boy’s head and turned it gently. ‘I think so. Just concussed.’
‘Who is he?’
‘Greene, Philip Greene,’ the doctor said as he signaled for the stretcher.
They loaded Greene into the ambulance and it trundled off toward the stands. I turned, hoping the horse was okay, only to see them erecting screens to protect the sensibilities of racegoers as the vet put a pistol to Craven King’s head and squeezed the trigger. The horse shuddered briefly and lay still.
A man in overalls pulled a length of chain from the interior of the horse ambulance and looped it round the horse’s neck. He pressed a button to start the winch and the chain clattered and heaved as it hauled the body across the muddy hoofprints in the grass and up the ramp into the darkness.
I felt an old sorrow, knowing that Craven King’s tearful groom would be walking to the horse-box with nothing but a bridle to hang in an empty stall.
The vet hurried toward the Land Rover, pushing the pistol into a pouch as he went and talking to a man I recognized as Mr. Skinner, also a vet.
Skinner was thermometer-thin from smoking too much and eating too little. Dark-haired, maybe forty-five, Skinner had the blue face of a twice-a-day shaver. He’d been renowned as a compulsive gambler when I’d been riding and it had cost him his job. He’d been a racecourse vet until the Jockey Club decided his obsession with betting was not in their best interests. How the hell had he got back into racing?
I fell into step beside him. He glanced across and didn’t look pleased to see me. ‘What was wrong with him?’ I asked.
‘Broken shoulder.’
‘It’s a tough business.’
‘You should know,’ he said sarcastically, still walking.
‘Wasn’t Alan Harle down to ride him?’
‘I’m not the bloody starter,’ he said as he climbed into the passenger seat. The driver revved the engine.
‘Any chance of a lift?’ I asked, but the only acknowledgement was a cloud of blue smoke from the exhaust as they pulled away.
17
Back in the stands, I made my way through the betting ring to where the reps for SiS were based. SiS is the racing news service, which relays information and live pictures from the racecourse to betting shops.
One person stood in the booth, a pleasant-looking bloke with brown hair and a moustache. He was speaking on the phone. When he finished I introduced myself.
‘Eddie, I remember you well. Good to see you back. I’m Grenville Riley’
‘Thanks, Grenville. I’m sorry, have we met before?’
‘No, but I know a lot of people who don’t know me.’
I smiled and clutched his arm, ‘Then you’re the man I’m looking for.’
He smiled, ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Do you know if Alan Harle has a mount today?’
He didn’t have to consult any papers. ‘No, he’s not riding today or tomorrow. He was booked for two today and three tomorrow, but his trainer told me he wouldn’t be riding for the rest of the meeting.’
‘Roscoe?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Did he say why?’
‘Said he had a bad case of flu.’
Bad case of a hangover, I thought. ‘When did he tell you?’
‘About an hour before the first.’
‘Did he say who’d be replacing him?’
‘Young Phil Greene. The poor bugger just got buried in t
he last.’
‘I know. He’s all right. I’ve spoken to the doctor.’
He nodded. ‘Didn’t look too good for the horse though,’ he said.
‘Broke his shoulder. He’s been put down.’
He frowned and shook his head.
‘I don’t suppose you know any of the vets?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, most of them,’ he pulled a box of small cigars from his coat pocket.
‘Skinner isn’t back on the Jockey Club payroll, is he?’
‘You kidding? With his reputation?’
‘Exactly, but he was out there with the vet when he put Craven King down.’
‘I heard he works for Roscoe now.’
‘Skinner does?’
‘Yeah, private vet to the yard so they say. If Roscoe’s got any brains he’ll be watching what Skinner jabs those horses with.’
I smiled. Many a true word…
‘Smoke?’ he offered.
‘No, thanks.’
‘My only vice,’ he smiled, clicking his lighter.
‘You’re lucky. Listen, is Greene Roscoe’s usual standby?’
‘Not really. I’ve noticed he’s been riding one or two in the last few weeks for him but before that Roscoe used anyone who was available.’
His phone rang. I slapped his shoulder lightly. ‘Thanks a lot, Grenville, you’ve been very helpful.’
He smiled, ‘Anytime, Eddie, anytime.’
I considered going to the trainer’s bar and asking Roscoe how my pal Alan was, but thought better of it; Roscoe might be smarter than he looked. A phone call to Harle’s hotel could pay dividends.
‘Can you put me through to Mister Alan Harle’s room, please?’
‘Do you know the room number, sir?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t.’
‘Hold on please.’
I held on.
‘Hello, sir, I’m afraid Mister Harle left this morning.’
‘When do you expect him back?’
‘We don’t sir.’
I hesitated. ‘Did you see him leave?’ I realized it would seem a strange question from her point of view. She stayed non-committal. ‘I didn’t start till three o’clock, sir.’