The Eddie Malloy Series

by Joe McNally

We?

  ‘God help them,’ I said.

  ‘If there was a God, He would’ve helped them before their daddy got shot, don’t you think?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Maybe?’

  I said, ‘Lisa, if you want to be mad at someone, go ahead, I owe you one.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to snap.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  Calm again, she said, ‘Listen, did you hear any rumours about Tommy, about the murder?’

  ‘Not a thing. All anybody could say was that he was a nice guy. I don’t think anyone even knew him that well.’

  ‘I heard it might have been something to do with someone trying to stop the horse running, because there’d been a big ante-post gamble.’

  I considered it, knowing that ante-post bets, those placed prior to the day of the race, were lost if the horse didn’t run.

  ‘A bit drastic, I’d have thought,’ I said. ‘It would have been easier to get at the horse than kill the jockey.’

  ‘Did you know the horse had been under a twenty-four-hour guard for weeks?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. But they tell me it’s not uncommon these days with fancied horses. And Cragrock’s owner, Loretta Whitehead, treats the horse like a, well, like a baby.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t read too much into that?’

  ‘Personally, no. Others might, I suppose.’

  ‘I’m going to tell the police about it anyway.’

  ‘Have the police been to talk to, uh...?’

  ‘Susan? They wanted to but I told them she was unfit. They’re coming in the morning.’

  ‘Best tell them then,’ I said lamely.

  ‘Yes. But will you keep your ear to the ground for me, let me know if you hear anything?’

  ‘Sure,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, I’ll give you my number here and my number at home. You’ll catch me at one or the other if we don’t meet on the racecourse.’

  I picked up a pen.

  ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘you know in the Enquiry today when Claude Beckman said the video wasn’t available?’

  ‘Yeah, technical problems.’

  ‘Not when I saw it there weren’t.’

  ‘You saw the tape?’

  ‘I saw Beckman watching it before the stewards arrived. He hadn’t heard me come in, and as soon as he realized I was there, he switched the VCR off and muttered something about a faulty tape.’

  ‘Did he tell the stewards beforehand it was faulty?’

  ‘I didn’t hear him.’

  ‘He must have. They didn’t look surprised when he told me, though you did.’

  ‘I know.’

  I said, ‘Could it have been faulty in places you didn’t see?’

  ‘I doubt it. I think Beckman’s got it in for you in a big way. He was really having a go before you came in, trying to convince the panel you were to blame and should be disqualified. And when you were cleared he was absolutely fuming.’

  ‘Any idea why? Why he’s got it in for me, I mean.’

  ‘I thought you might know.’

  ‘Haven’t a clue. Hardly know the guy.’

  ‘Well, you’d better watch out.’

  ‘I will, thanks.’

  ‘Okay, ring me if you hear anything, will you?’

  ‘Sure, and Lisa, thanks for today. For pushing me toward Barber.’

  ‘That’s all right.’

  ‘No, I mean it. I wouldn’t have done it myself. Confidence was gone. Shot to shit.’

  Lisa said, ‘You’ve had a few bad breaks, you just needed a boost.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Look, Eddie, I’ve got to go the baby’s crying.’

  ‘Okay. Good night.’

  She hung up.

  When I realized I’d written her phone numbers on Jackie’s goodbye note, I felt a sudden pang of guilt, of unfaithfulness.

  It took me ten minutes to finish my drink. Nine of them were filled with thoughts of Lisa and what she’d said. Jackie crowded back in for the last one, and as the wind picked up outside, I imagined her wandering in the darkness or huddled miserably in the corner of some bus shelter.

  After a restless dream-filled night, I was looking forward to hot coffee and some good publicity in the papers, though I knew Tommy’s murder would take the headlines.

  I jogged along the big hall. Approaching the foot of the stairs, I noticed an envelope on the mat. Unless the Royal Mail had started a Sunday service, someone must have delivered it by hand.

  Perhaps it was from Jackie.

  ‘Malloy’ was written on the front in neat block letters, and I ripped it open as I walked to the kitchen. Inside was a thin racing diary. Tucked between its pages were two pieces of paper: one was a cutting from a morning newspaper headlined, Champion Jockey Murdered. A section of the text had been highlighted in bright yellow: ‘Malloy said that the killer must be a lunatic.’

  The other piece was plain white; printed in block letters was: ‘The lunatics have taken over the asylum.’

  Below that was: ‘Numbers 32:23.’

  I opened the diary. It was Tommy Gilmour’s.

  8

  My first thought was that it was a sick joke. Layton maybe, still mad from yesterday. But how the hell would he have got hold of Tommy’s diary? Was it Tommy’s? It would be easy enough to fake a diary.

  How did this guy know where I lived?

  The note was obviously meant to be either a warning or a threat. If it was genuine then for my sake as much as Tommy Gilmour’s, I had to call the police.

  If I reported it and it turned out to be Layton or someone winding me up, then I’d be laughed out of the weighing room. So what? It wouldn’t be the first time I’d been made to look foolish.

  I didn’t want to over-react. I would ask McCarthy’s advice. He worked for The Jockey Club Security Department. We’d helped each other in the past. I found his number. He was out. I left a message.

  Sipping coffee, I scanned the newspapers. The racing writers mourned Tommy and wrote warm obituaries, while the tabloid hacks speculated on the motive. A police spokesman said forensics were taking Gilmour’s hotel room apart and stripping his car. They appealed for anyone who thought they could help.

  If the note had come from the killer, there would be a chance he’d also left one at the murder scene. It would give the police corroboration. If the diary wasn’t a fake it could be a vital clue. I picked up the phone.

  An hour later DS Latimer from the local CID turned up at my door; slightly built with thinning sandy hair, his sheepskin coat bulked him out a bit, but his neck was scrawny, his wrists thin.

  ‘Well tucked away here, aren’t you?’ he said, wiping his feet on the mat. ‘I was beginning to think somebody was winding me up.’

  I made coffee. He gulped it noisily, Adam’s apple bouncing, as he took my statement, and then gave me a receipt for the diary and the note. ‘Any thoughts?’ I asked, as he rose to go.

  He shrugged and smiled. ‘Glad it’s not ours. The City boys can add it to their pile.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The Manchester plods, or possibly Merseyside. Haydock racecourse comes into this new Greater Northern Police Area. You’ll get a Manc or a Scouser on it.’

  ‘I’ll wait to hear from them then.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath. They’ll hate this one. Nobody wants fruitloops like this guy. Too unpredictable.’

  ‘You’re filling me with confidence.’

  He smiled and opened the door. ‘If it was this bloke who delivered the note and he’s got a grudge, I can offer you a bit of off the record advice, kind of, with my experience but don’t quote me, if you know what I mean?’

  I nodded, waiting.

  ‘Get yourself the fuck out of here. Find a small flat in a big city. You’ll be much harder to track down.’

  ‘Eh, thanks, but my name’s in the racing section of the papers every day telling the whole world where I’m riding.’

  He looked at me with a m
ixture of pity and curiosity. ‘Anything else you’re good at?’ he asked.

  ‘I can drink a fair amount of whiskey before I fall over.’

  He smiled and buttoned his coat. ‘That qualifies you for the CID. Straight in at DS level.’

  I walked with him to his car. He said, ‘I gave you a tip, got any for me?’

  ‘I’ll give you a double...Be Wise and Don’t Bet.’

  ‘Ha! Very good.’ He got in and wound the window down. ‘Seriously Mister Malloy, get yourself out of there. This place is far too remote with shit like this going on. You got a family?’

  ‘Just a girlfriend.’

  ‘She live with you?’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  He shook his head. ‘Get out until they catch this guy.’

  I nodded. He drove off. I stood for a while listening, watching the fog, trying to quell my instincts to hurry inside and barricade the doors. The phone rang, giving me an excuse and I hurried in, hoping it was Jackie. Young, pretty, feisty, determined Jackie. She of the auburn hair and hazel eyes, the freckles and the squint-toothed smile.

  But it turned out to be the old, white-haired, lame Hubert Barber, asking me to ride two at Hereford for him next day and three at Sedgefield on Tuesday.

  I hung up knowing I’d now need to adjust to trainers calling me rather than the other way round. And maybe I’d have to adjust to Jackie not being here too.

  I lay awake wondering where she was.

  9

  I travelled home from Sedgefield on Tuesday with a winner and a third to add to my two winners at Hereford the previous day. Barber’s stable was in cracking form, and I’d got in at the right time. Apart from missing Jackie, I was happier than I’d been for years and finding it tough to feel guilty about it.

  Maybe if I’d known Tommy better I’d have felt worse, but his death had given me a break, a new chance. I had to snap it up without agonising, but maybe I was making too good a job of that because people were shunning me.

  A few jockeys who would normally have passed the time of day had cold-shouldered me at Sedgefield. I could live with that, but on the way to the car park, four potential sources of rides, three owners and a trainer, had walked straight past, ignoring my greeting.

  I knew some were pissed off about me getting Gilmour’s rides, but these reactions just didn’t tie up. Race-riding’s a hazardous occupation. If a jockey gets injured someone else takes over. That person could easily break his neck the following week, letting in another substitute. It’s a tough game and racing folk accept that. Somebody had to take Tommy’s rides. These people were acting as if I’d murdered him myself.

  I still hadn’t spoken to McCarthy, The Racecourse Security Services man, about the note and the diary. We kept missing each other, leaving messages.

  It was dark when I reached the Lodge. I switched on the lamps, built a fire, and pushed a packet meal into the microwave. Despite being five-foot-ten, I could eat what I wanted. I rarely had weight problems, and I found the microwave meals palatable and convenient.

  I closed the curtains and poured a drink. When the oven bleeped, I emptied lasagne onto a plate, turned on the big 1950’s Bush radio in the corner and sat down to listen to the news as I ate.

  I slung a few more logs on the fire, and started going through the next day’s runners at Southwell. Chris Brytham had booked me to ride two and, after Saturday’s big win, there had to be a chance of landing the odd spare ride too. Things were looking up. I felt comfortable and relaxed.

  I must have dozed off. I woke convinced I’d heard a noise outside. Sudden thoughts of Tommy Gilmour, the note, and the policeman’s warning stirred a surge in my gut. In stockinged feet, I moved quietly toward the window and listened.

  Through the crackle of burning logs, I heard a car pull up. A few seconds later the door-knocker fell, pounding an echo along the hall.

  Hanging from the coat stand was a metal baseball bat. I’d bought it the day after DS Latimer had advised me to move out. Unhooking it, I moved behind the door as the knocker fell again. ‘Who is it? I asked.

  ‘Eddie? It’s Mac.’

  It didn’t sound like him. McCarthy had played a big part in my comeback. Almost six years ago I’d been Champion Jockey, until I’d lost my licence after being falsely implicated in a doping ring. I’d served a five-year ban, then McCarthy recruited me to help him nail the guy who’d framed me. We caught him, I got my licence back, and McCarthy won promotion. Maybe I was still drowsy but I wasn’t sure it was Mac on the other side of that door.

  ‘Come on, Eddie, stop messing about, it’s bloody freezing out here. Let me in.’

  That was Mac.

  Wearing coat and scarf, he sat by the fire. The glow haloed his dark curly hair. Pulling a small container from his pocket he grimaced as he dropped sweeteners into his mug of coffee. ‘Hate these damn things,’ he said. ‘Always leave a bitter taste.’

  ‘How’s the diet going?’

  ‘Lost seventeen pounds but it’s killing me. Jean won’t give me a break. Not even at weekends.’

  ‘Good for her.’ Jean was his wife who’d recently decided that after fifteen years of marriage to a slob, it was time to sort him out. McCarthy’s boss was retiring soon and Jean was determined Mac would get the post when it came up. She had set about decreasing his waistline and improving his appearance.

  McCarthy was forty-one, six foot two, fifty pounds overweight and bloody good at his job. It was Mac who’d persuaded his bosses I could help them break the doping case, though his motives at the outset were not selfless; I took the chances, he got the glory.

  Sipping coffee, he glanced around the room. ‘Nice place,’ he said.

  ‘Cold place. You ought to try sleeping in it.’

  ‘Buy yourself a hot-water bottle from Saturday’s prize money.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’

  Mac was silent for a while, shifting in his seat and generally looking awkward.

  ‘What’s up?’ I asked.

  ‘Kello gave me the Gilmour case.’

  Kello was his boss. I suspected he was putting Mac through a final test as his potential successor. ‘And?’ I asked.

  ‘I wondered-’

  ‘Wonder all you like, Mac, but leave me out of any little scam you’re planning. I’ve told the cops what I know, done my duty as a citizen and all that.’

  He played the wounded look. ‘Eddie, I appreciate you want to get on with your career, there’s no way I’d ask you to get involved in anything that didn’t concern you.’

  ‘Good. What can I do for you then?’

  ‘Relax! I just wanted to ask you a few questions since you were indirectly involved.’

  I bristled. ‘How do you work that out?’

  ‘Well, you got Gilmour’s ride in the Greenalls, didn’t you?’

  ‘What the hell is that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Take it easy, I’m not accusing you of anything.’

  ‘What are you doing, then?’

  ‘I’m only stating a fact. When Gilmour disappeared, you rode the horse.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Who offered you the ride?’

  ‘Nobody. I asked for it. I asked Hubert Barber if I could ride.’

  ‘When did you speak to him?’

  ‘Just before the first race.’

  ‘Did he mention that the owner initially wanted to withdraw?’

  ‘Mac, how is all this relevant?’

  He half sighed, half blew on his coffee. ‘It probably isn’t, but I have to start somewhere. I’ve got nothing.’

  I said, ‘Okay, Barber did say that Loretta Whitehead was thinking of withdrawing the horse, but her husband and Barber persuaded her to run. They’d had a few quid on ante-post.’

  McCarthy, pudgy cheeks reddening now from the fire’s heat, looked troubled. ‘That’s the only possible motive I can think of, the betting side, someone trying to stop the horse running, but it seems a bit desperate.’

  ‘I think you’re right. Ki
lling the jockey wouldn’t have guaranteed anything. It’s too easy to get someone else to ride.’

  ‘But maybe they planned on that. Knowing Cragrock was such a difficult ride, perhaps they didn’t care who rode him so long as it wasn’t Gilmour. Every time Cragrock won this season the papers were full of how nobody but Gilmour could have won on him.’

  ‘Yeah, the press boys did Tommy a favour there, eh?’

  McCarthy shook his head slowly. ‘Poor bastard. I hear his wife’s taking it really bad.’

  ‘Been to see her?’

  He stared at the flames. ‘Haven’t been able to pluck up the courage. I must do it soon.’

  I nodded in sympathy. ‘You checked out the betting side?’ I asked.

  ‘All the way back. No bookmaker was offering Cragrock at a significantly higher price than his competitors, and nobody had huge liabilities. Barber and his owner had some chunky bets but they’d already told us that. There’s nothing to support the betting side as a motive.’

  ‘Just as well you’ve been up there before, Mac, you’re going to need the experience.’

  Puzzled, he looked at me. ‘Up where?’

  ‘Shit creek without a paddle.’ I went to get a drink.

  He called after me, ‘I might not be the only one in the canoe, Eddie.’

  I returned, ice cubes swimming in my whiskey, and sat across from him.

  ‘What about Saturday’s race,’ he asked, ‘I heard you got a rough ride?’

  I nodded. ‘Con Layton and one of his cronies. Nothing I couldn’t handle.’ I told him about our confrontation in the changing room and how the Irishman had lied at the Enquiry.

  ‘You want to watch Layton,’ he said, ‘he’s your original nasty piece of work.’

  ‘So they tell me.’

  ‘His party trick is biting the necks off beer bottles and swallowing lit cigarettes.’

  ‘That kind of sums up his mentality then, doesn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Maybe, but he’s a wily bastard. We’ve been watching him for the past two years, trying to catch him at one of his dodges. He can be smart when he wants to.’

  ‘As long as he’s smart with someone else and not me, I won’t be too bothered. I’ll be happy to be left alone to pick up my career.’