by Joe McNally
‘You ever hear him mention a guy called Perlman?’
‘Nope. You think these people have got something against him?’
I sighed, ‘I don’t know.’
‘What are you going to do now then?’
‘Try and find out where Fuck’ em Farm is.’
For the first time, she smiled. ‘You’re serious?’
I shrugged. ‘I’ve got nothing else to do, especially if this deal falls through.’
‘So you think Alan will still be at this Fuck ‘em Farm, eh? Like, mucking out the whores or something?’
It was my turn to smile. ‘Maybe.’
‘Good luck with that and do let me know if you find him so I can twist his little balls off,’ she got up.
I looked at her. ‘I thought you were worried?’
Hoisting her bag strap on the shoulder of the red leather jacket, she looked down at me and said, ‘Life’s too short.’
22
Fuck ‘em Farm. A nickname for some brothel perhaps? If Harle knew it by that name, other jocks would too. Most jockeys are highly sexed. Psychologists will tell you it’s all linked to the danger and adrenaline and the ‘today-could-be-my-last’ culture. I rang three riders that I knew had the same appetite for women as Harle did. None of them had heard of the place.
I sat back and did some physical and mental head scratching. Supposing Harle had been abducted. I had to assume it was by the two men who’d smashed up Bergmark, blinded Rask, and maybe killed Danny Gordon.
Harle was last seen at Cheltenham races. If these guys wanted to get him, they’d have known they could intercept him on the way home from the racecourse. Harle lived in Lambourn but would have intended to stay over in Cheltenham for the three-day race meeting. I knew he hadn’t because the receptionist had told me he’d checked out of his hotel on the Wednesday morning, the second day of the meeting.
Whatever spooked him must have happened at the party on the Tuesday night, or after it.
Assuming he ran for home after leaving the hotel, he’d have travelled southwest toward Lambourn. The area around Cheltenham had its share of quiet country roads and most jockeys knew the shortcuts. I needed a map to try to figure out his route. I headed for Cheltenham to buy one.
Driving into town, I saw the Library sign and quickly turned left. They’d have maps, and parking spaces. The smiling young man at the desk said they didn’t have ‘your standard road map’, but the reference section did have ordnance survey maps for the UK.
Juggling a plastic cup of very hot coffee from the machine, I sat with OS Map 163, Cheltenham and Cirencester. I smoothed out the area to the southwest: the OS map charted every road, right down to a pig track. From the centre of town, I searched the possible routes Harle would have taken if he’d planned to go home. Three cups of coffee later I was bleary-eyed and no wiser, and I chided myself on the basis that I hadn’t a bloody clue what I was doing.
They could have grabbed Harle anywhere; stepping into the car at The Duke’s Hotel, arriving home at his remote place in Lambourn, or any point in between. I got up and began folding the map to hand it back when something caught my eye, an area to the east of Cheltenham coloured green on the map, shaped like a pair of thin legs wearing different size boots - Puckham Woods. Slowly, I sat down keeping my eyes fixed on the spot in case I lost it. Opening the map again, I traced with my finger a narrow dead-end road on the North West side of Puckham Woods. Where the road finished lay some small closely grouped buildings with the name Puckham Farm.
From the throat of a desperate man to the ear of an angry woman, how easily misheard? I noted the road numbers and directions and hurried to the car.
It was half an hour’s drive away. Just after two o’clock, I drove through the last village on the map and out into open country. The road climbed and the surface worsened. Bushes on the overgrown verges scratched at the Rover as we sped along. In those twenty minutes, a blue van passed me going in the opposite direction, the only vehicle I saw.
It began to rain.
I turned at the no-through-road sign, knowing the farm should be at the end of it. The track dipped in the first fifty yards. It ran between trees and broken rusted barbed wire fencing. The tyres sloshed through the rain-softened surface.
The fields on either side lay empty. The woods grew denser the farther I went until I seemed to be in a tunnel. I broke out into daylight and a farmyard, so suddenly that I ran past and had to reverse to a point where I faced what looked like the main house.
I sat watching for signs of life. The yard, rutted and puddled, was about the size of two tennis courts and seemed to envelop the house in a grasping semi-circle of black muck.
The dark grey stone walls were pitted and dirty. Mustard-coloured curtains sagged in tatters behind the two windows, one of which had a smashed pane. The other was badly cracked. What remained of the glass was filthy.
Broken guttering channeled a thick rainwater stream onto the soil, pushing up a little active volcano of mud. Enough grey tiles were missing to make the roof look like a big wet crossword puzzle.
As I left the car, the wind snatched at my collar and rain peppered my face. I hurried toward the house, hands deep in pockets, gathering my jacket close around me. I stood at the door. The dark green surface was cracked and blistered, tiny pools overflowing from the open paint bubbles.
I knocked hard.
Nobody came.
I tried the handle. It turned just half an inch.
Going to the window, I squatted to look through the hole in the pane, but the dirty curtains did their job. In the glass I caught the reflection of something moving quickly behind me. There was a slapping, rustling sound. I spun to see a plastic rubbish sack blowing across the yard.
I realized I was holding my breath.
My pulse pounded.
The black muck sucked at my boots as I skirted the side of the building, trying to be cautious. I’d adopt the lost tourist routine if anyone was around but it wouldn’t fit with the way I slunk along, so I straightened and strode out boldly till I reached the yard behind the house.
A barn-type block with a huge brown door joined the house at the far side. The door was fixed on runners top and bottom and I grasped the handle and leaned hard, pulling. It wouldn’t budge. Using both hands, I tried again: solid. For a derelict property, things seemed pretty secure. I turned away, wondering what to do next, when I heard a noise. I stopped…it came again…moaning, like an animal, long and low and guttural.
Whatever was making the noise was behind the sliding door. I looked up at two small windows, too high to reach.
Along the wall beneath a broken drainpipe, a metal beer barrel lay in the gutter. I hauled it out, rolled it through the oozing soil toward the big door.
By the time I got the barrel across the yard, I was mud-splattered and soaked. My hair clung flat and rivers of water ran down my face and neck, inside my collar. My clothes and hands were filthy, and though my jacket was waterproof, the rain streamed from it onto my thighs till my trousers stuck to my skin.
I climbed up on the barrel with the thought that whatever was in here would get the fright of its life when it saw me. It also occurred to me that if anyone came out of the house now it was going to be tough pleading the lost tourist routine.
My hands clasped the ledge and I looked in…three stalls. Metal bars ran from the ceiling into the front wall of each. From the bars of the middle stall hung a cobwebbed hay net.
The moan again, long and painful and, I decided, human. I jumped down, arcs of mud splashing from my feet as I landed.
I looked more closely at the lock. The keyhole was large and empty. I ran to the car for the lockpicks.
The mechanism, though heavy, was crude and it clicked open in a few seconds.
Leaning back on my heels I pulled at the handle and the door trundled on its runners, noisy as a train in a tunnel. I took an anxious look round the yard before going inside.
The smell.
It grew worse
as I left the fresh air, old and stale and dank. I followed the stench to the end box where my awareness of bad smells ceased, where my breathing stopped in shock and my eyelids forgot to blink, where, on a foul bed of straw, I found what remained of Alan Harle.
23
He lay curled up against the inside of the wall below a torn hay net, naked, his flesh filthy with smeared shit. His knees were pulled up to his chin and his head lay in a patch of stale vomit and dirty straw which clung to his face and hair. From the bars above him hung a heavy dog chain, fastened around his neck. He moaned.
Kneeling beside him I reached to tilt his head toward me and what little light there was. The shock was fading, my senses regrouping and I gagged at the stench and turned away quickly, thinking I was going to be sick, but I held it down. He felt my hands on his shoulders and tried weakly to resist, drawing himself closer to the wall. I eased his head up and he whimpered. Small islands of flaked whitewash stuck to his forehead and a stream of saliva ran from the corner of his mouth down his chin. His eyes stayed closed.
‘Alan!’ I whispered it and didn’t know why. No response. I slowly lifted the heavy links. He flinched.
The flesh was a raw ring. I supported his head with my left hand while my fingers followed the links to the nape of his neck. I found a small padlock below his left ear.
Easing the chain round as best I could without hurting him further, I picked the lock. The chain end slid from his neck and lay in the straw. I thumbed his eyelids open and saw the eyes of a sick waxwork dummy; pinhead pupils, the whites gone yellowish green. A sore festered in the corner of his right eye so I couldn’t open it fully.
His knees were still drawn up and I turned him gently to try to straighten his legs. The movement released a potent puff of that rancid smell and I had to hurry to the door to suck fresh air.
His right thigh and lower left leg were badly scarred, but they were old wounds from pin and plate insertions after fractures. Shuffling through the straw, I manipulated his legs and feet one by one, watching his face for signs of pain. There was none, his joints moved freely. I worked back up checking arms and wrists.
The skin on the inside of his left arm at the elbow joint was black with bruising and needle punctures, some of which had scabbed.
His ribs were in one piece, which was easy to see because they lay like a toast rack. I doubted if he’d been fed anything but heroin since his capture.
So, no bones broken, but he was in a bad way. I decided to get him to hospital and worry on the journey about the story I would tell. I checked the yard; the last thing I wanted with my hands full of invalid was to walk into the men who’d done this to him.
The place was deserted. I opened the rear door of the car and went back for Alan.
I scooped him up and tried to support his head as I walked to the door but it hung over the crook of my elbow. His lower legs dangled and swung. I stopped and looked out again before going into the yard. It was raining so hard I could barely see the car.
Wading through mud, I tried cradling him from the worst but the big drops pelted his flesh and ran in rivers through the stinking brown smears, streaming down the vee shape of his rib cage and gathering in his crotch till a pool formed, covering his pubic hair.
When I arrived at the Casualty Department of Cheltenham General Hospital, steam rose from my clothes and the rank smell filled the car.
I spoke to the receptionist. Two orderlies came with me and slid Harle onto a stretcher, grimacing as they did so. They covered him with a blanket and hurried inside.
The triage nurse wanted particulars. I told her his name was Jim Malloy and that he was my brother, a heroin addict who’d been taking treatment at home but had disappeared weeks ago. I said I’d been searching for him and had just found him in a filthy squat, deserted by his friends.
She offered sympathy and said they’d do their best for him, but they’d have to inform the police of his condition. I told her to save herself a call as I was going to the police station next to update them, having originally reported him missing. She believed me.
I promised to visit next day, and I assured the nurse I would bathe and change, as she suggested, as soon as I got home.
DESPITE THE STINK in the car and my filthy, wet clothes, I felt a reassuring sense of achievement as I drove home. I had done what I’d been hired to do, or had at least partly done it, I’d tracked a man down. So, where did Kruger’s men go next? Could Roscoe help me find them or should I put my name about as the one who rescued Harle and let them come straight for me?
The prospect of being the fox to their hounds didn’t enthrall me, but it didn’t petrify me either. They’d had the advantage of surprise over past victims but I would know they were coming. I was also angry that those two could go around maiming and killing without fear of retribution. They were due a little of what they’d been dishing out.
I decided to let slip on the grapevine what I’d done and take my chances when they came looking.
A visit to Roscoe’s might prove fruitful though, especially if I called when he wasn’t at home. I would have to plan it.
But first, I decided, a chat with Danny Gordon’s widow might throw up something. I’d go and see her next morning.
24
I called the hospital before leaving for Newmarket and learned Harle had suffered “a restless night”. Not half as restless as his previous three or four, I’d bet. I rang McCarthy and told him about Harle.
‘That’s fantastic!’ McCarthy said.
‘Fantastic?’
‘Well, you know what I mean. It’s bloody grim what they did to him, appalling. But it looks like we have a proper breakthrough at last, doesn’t it?’
‘Well, we’ve got a man who was seen once with the pair that you think did Danny Gordon in. The cops would call it circumstantial, but it’s all we’ve got it.’
‘Talking of the police, did the hospital contact them?’
‘I asked them not to,’ I said.
‘Why?’
‘Because they’ll drag things out for months or years. Look at Danny Gordon’s death, are they any further along with that?’
‘It’s only been three months, Eddie.’
‘I’ll tell Mrs. Gordon that, shall I? I’m heading down to see her.’
He sighed. ‘Look, the less the police get involved, the better for us too. We don’t want the publicity. But we’ve got a relationship to maintain with them so we need to strike a balance.’
‘You think Harle is going to tell on these guys? Did Bergmark? Did Rask? Come on Mac.’
‘I know but, still-’
‘Listen, would it be easier for you if I just didn’t call you till I’ve definitely got something?’ I asked.
‘No. I need to be on top of what’s happening. Just, well, just be a bit more circumspect.’
‘What does that mean Mac, circumspect?’
‘Er, discreet.’
‘Why didn’t you say discreet? I understand most short words. I’m only an ex-jockey, two syllables is my limit.’
‘You’re a lot smarter than you make out, Mister Malloy.’
‘I hope you’re right. Now can you find Mrs. Gordon’s address for me?’
MRS. GORDON LIVED in an upstairs flat off the High Street, but either she was out or she wasn’t answering the door to strangers. I turned to go down the stairs just as a plain, tired looking woman began climbing them.
She stopped and stared up at me, pulling her coat closed over what looked like a track suit. ‘Morning,’ I said, ‘I’m looking for Mrs. Gordon.’
‘I’m Mrs. Gordon.’
I walked down to where she stood and held out my hand. ‘My name’s Eddie Malloy. I wondered if you’d mind answering a few questions about Danny.’
She stared, frowning, unsure. I continued, ‘I think the people who killed him are trying to do the same to a friend of mine.’
Still holding her coat closed, she reached out tentatively with the other hand and shoo
k mine. ‘Did you say your name was Malloy?’
I nodded, ‘Eddie Malloy.’
‘Are you the man who found Danny?’
My thoughts returned to that freezing morning. ‘That’s right.’
The frown disappeared, but she seemed to stoop as a long sigh deflated her. ‘Come upstairs,’ she said.
Mrs. Gordon put the kettle on a beat-up old stove, then moved around silently, picking up kids’ clothes and toys and sweet wrappers. I sat in a chair by the unlit gas fire, on top of which was a half-empty Valium bottle.
‘Milk and sugar?’
‘Just black, please.’
She brought two mugs. Mine had a greasy smudge on the rim and I turned it and drank from the other side. Mrs. Gordon sat opposite me, still in her coat, and pushed the light brown hair from her face. She wore no make-up and sipped her coffee carefully to avoid a cold-sore on her top lip. Her hazel eyes should have been her best feature, but they looked lifeless.
‘I’m sorry about Danny.’ I said quietly.
She nodded, but said nothing. ‘It takes a lot of getting over.’ I said, feeling awkward and ashamed that I didn’t want to be there.
‘What was he like when you found him?’
I shifted, uncomfortable, uncertain.
She said, ‘I never went to see him, to see his body. I wanted to, but they said it would be best if his father identified him. I lie awake now knowing I should have seen him…to say goodbye…I miss him.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
‘Tell me what he was like?’ she persisted. Her eyes were vacant. I didn’t know if her thoughts were on that frozen golf course or if the Valium had dulled her mind. And I didn't know how to answer.
‘He was…’ I began. ‘It was very cold that morning…He was…white. The frost made him look peaceful.’ I waited. She stared, but looked less tense. ‘There wasn’t much blood, was there?’ she asked.
If I painted too bland a picture, she might berate herself more for not going to see the body. But I couldn’t describe to her the real horror of it. ‘No, there was very little,’ I said, which was no lie as nearly all the blood had drained onto the frosty ground.