by Joe McNally
It was after midnight by the time I reached a garage. I called my mother and told her I’d been delayed with the lads, and she said she had been worried, which cheered me. My next call was to Johnny Westmead, a jock I’d spoken to that day at Exeter. He lived in Barnstaple, which, the kid in the garage assured me, was only half an hour away by car.
Sleepy as he was, Johnny agreed to come and pick me up and give me a bed for the night. I spun him a tale about picking up a girl at the races and bringing her to the cliff top, only to have her steal my car while I was dozing in the grass. He laughed; he’d get plenty of mileage out of it whenever my name came up.
Next morning I rang the police and reported my car stolen from Exeter races, that I’d left it there overnight when I’d gone for a drink. They told me it had been found abandoned on the slip road exit of Taunton Deane services on the M5, and that my keys and kitbag were in the possession of the Taunton police.
Johnny agreed to drive me there, and after completing a surprisingly small amount of paperwork, I was heading northeast for Newmarket. On the long journey, I had plenty to occupy my mind.
Whoever Dark Hair and his friend were working for was being extremely patient with me. Okay, last night had been scary, but that was all.
Was the cliffhanging episode really engineered by the same guy who’d had Brian Kincaid and Alex Dunn killed? If so, then why go easy on me?
More interestingly, why hadn’t they used the much more potent threat of publication? Could it be that my father’s hopeful guess had been right, and that Dunn had indeed kept the story to himself?
No, that didn’t make sense, not if he’d been killed. In that case, the killer had laid the envelope out for me to find, knowing I was going to be there to meet Dunn. The killer must have known Dunn personally or he wouldn’t have had that information.
Even if it had been suicide, Dunn knew I’d be the only one on the scene. If he’d never meant to expose the secret to anyone then why leave it for me, knowing I was already too well aware of everything in it?
Someone else had to know, and if it was the person controlling Dark Hair and partner, then why hadn’t he simply used it? A phone call would have been all that was needed, rather than a trip to the Devon coast.
It made no sense.
Unless the person in charge specifically didn’t want me hurt, in which case he or she must know me pretty well. The only lead I had on these guys, apart from my first meeting with them at Dunn’s place, was seeing Dark Hair with Candy at Sandown. I’d like to have thought that Candy felt some bond with me, we’d been pretty good mates in his riding days. I knew him well and that was the trouble: I simply couldn’t see him being involved in mayhem and murder.
As the noon radio news came on, I was ten miles along the M4. My mobile rang. It was Martin. ‘Eddie! I need to see you! We’re in bad trouble!’
He sounded panic-stricken. ‘Martin, calm down. What’s wrong?’
‘Eddie! Eddie!’ He broke down, sobbing.
‘Martin! Listen, are you at home?’
Incoherent noises in reply.
‘Hold on, Martin. I’ll be with you soon.’
I had to assume he was at the stud. I reckoned I was less than an hour away.
I’d risked speeding on the motorway, which made it very frustrating having to slow down for the speed bumps on the driveway to the stud. But that caused me to roll quietly up to the cottage rather than arrive in a cloud of dust and burning rubber.
As I hurried toward the front step, I heard raised voices through the open door. Fiona first. ‘It won’t do you any good, you know that! You admitted it yourself!’
Then Martin. ‘Look, fuck off and leave me alone!’
‘They won’t have to kill you, Martin, you’re killing yourself!’
‘Leave me alone, you bitch!’
Fiona began sobbing. ‘Martin, please, for God’s sake!’ Her voice was softer, trying not to upset him further. She said, ‘Tell Malloy. He’ll help us. Tell him about Dunn. Let me tell him.’
‘No. Tell him nothing. I’m out of this now. He can do it on his own. He can have the stud. And he can have you! And Caroline! He can have the whole fucking lot of you!’
I heard breaking glass, furniture moving, and then Martin came blundering out carrying a half-full bottle, almost knocking me over. He stank of whisky. He was clean-shaven for once, but a fresh bruise was rising on his right cheek and on his left jawbone was a crescent-shaped ridge of weeping blisters.
He stared at me, rage draining from his eyes as he realized I might have heard what he’d just said. Fiona appeared in the doorway, red-faced and sullen. When she saw us, she turned and went back in. Martin’s hangdog expression drew the last of the anger from him and he sat on the step and swigged from the bottle.
I sat beside him. ‘What’s happened?’
He was washing the whisky around his mouth, staring at the sky. He swallowed it and said, ‘Somebody took the pictures off me. And the cameras.’
‘The pictures we shot at Ascot?’
He nodded.
‘When?’
‘Early this morning.’ He drank again. ‘He caught me as I went down to feed the horses.’
He swallowed a lump in his throat. A tear bulged at the corner of his left eye. I waited a few seconds before asking any more questions. Between swigs and tears and nervous swallows, Martin told me that a man with a gun had demanded the pictures and negatives he’d had developed yesterday. Then he’d taken Martin to the forge, made him fire it up, heated a horseshoe and branded him lightly on the jaw, threatening the full treatment if he continued ‘following people around’. That was the same message I’d had from Dark Hair, but I bore no scars. Martin’s description of the guy didn’t match either of the heavies I’d chauffeured to the seaside.
Before leaving, the man had knocked him unconscious and locked him in the forge, which was in a small building well away from the main yard. Fiona only heard his shouts because she was out looking for him.
When he finished his story, he sat staring at the ground, his bottle two-thirds empty. ‘Was that full when you started?’ I asked.
He nodded. Still gazing at the ground, he said quietly, ‘I’m finished, Eddie.’
I watched him.
‘I’m scared,’ he said, voice breaking.
I moved closer to him and put an arm around his shoulder, and he slumped against me and started crying, softly at first then the floodgates opened and Fiona came and helped me get him inside and into bed. He lay, eyes closed, gripping her hand as she dried his glistening cheeks. Gradually his breathing leveled out and I left them together and went to the kitchen.
Ten minutes later Fiona came in alone. She filled the kettle and washed two mugs. ‘He’s asleep,’ she said calmly. I was revising my opinion of her. For all Martin’s problems and booze now looked a serious one, she’d stood by him. He was nothing more than a child inside and here was she, twenty-five years younger, looking after him, carrying his baby.
She brought mugs of coffee to the table and, business-like, unfolded the Racing Post. There was a big colour photo of Alex Dunn above a story about the coroner’s report whose verdict was suicide by self-administration of prostaglandin.
Fiona said, ‘I’m sure Dunn came here about two weeks before Town Crier started firing blanks.’
‘Go on.’
She smoothed the paper. ‘He came here one day when Martin was out. I recognized him from this picture. He told me he was an RSPCA man come to check the horses.’
‘And did he?’
She nodded.
‘Did he say what he expected to find?’
‘He said someone had reported that they weren’t being fed properly.’
‘And did he check them all?’
‘Yes.’
She looked slightly doubtful. ‘Did you go round with him?’ I asked.
‘Most of them.’
‘What did he do?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Took
a few tests, temperature, blood, that sort of thing.’
‘Did he show you any ID?’
‘He showed me a card or something, I think.’
‘You certain it was him?’ I indicated Dunn’s picture.
‘Almost. I think it was.’
‘Apart from his looks, is there anything else you remember about him?’
‘He was tall. Very tall and thin.’
‘Did you tell Martin at the time?’
‘I think I did but he was probably drunk. The man left saying everything was in order, so it didn’t seem all that important.’
So, Dunn had been here and he’d had pretty much free access at my parents’ place. Fiona found the list Martin had compiled of the other studs where we suspected one of their stallions was suffering from the same loss of fertility as Town Crier and my father’s Heraklion. We had to try to find out if Dunn had visited those studs too. Fiona watched me pondering. I came close to asking her to help me further, but she had enough on her plate and it would only cause more friction with Martin, whose heart was no longer in it. I told her to look after him and not to worry. I said I’d make sure he was kept out of it in future and gave her my telephone numbers, making her promise to call me if she needed help.
She looked surprised when I kissed her goodbye.
35
On my journey home, I wondered if my mother would agree to ring round the five studs posing as an RSPCA employee and saying something like, ‘We’ve heard that a bogus vet is visiting studs, and wanted to warn you and to check with you in case he’s actually been.’
It was worth a try.
Mother was in the kitchen mixing tuna and mayonnaise and chopping salad vegetables. A pungent mixture of smells filtered down the hall. She turned to look at me but couldn’t quite manage a smile. ‘You haven’t shaved.’
‘I know. Things were a bit hectic this morning.’
She sliced carrot lengthwise with smooth sweeps. ‘When men reach a certain age they should never miss shaving. And they should always wear a tie.’
I smiled. ‘And you think I’ve reached that age?’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘Okay.’
‘Don’t humour me.’
‘I’m not. I mean it.’
We were quiet for a while, listening to the rhythm of the knife on the chopping board. ‘How’s Father?’ I asked.
‘Still unwell. Quite ill, I’m afraid.’
Sick of facing the world and his responsibilities, I thought. ‘We need to talk later,’ I said, ‘all three of us.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘It’ll move us another step forward, Mum.’
She turned slowly to look at me. ‘We’ll see.’
I left her and lay for half an hour in a hot bath, noting the renewed colour in the old bruises on my ribs like a part-refilled artist’s palette. Gazing at the steam-sheened brass taps, I turned over the new developments in my mind.
Our trailing of Candy and Capshaw at Ascot must have activated the visits from the heavy mob, but why had Martin been assaulted?
Because he’d been the one with the pictures? How had they known that? Why hadn’t Dark Hair mentioned pictures to me when dangling me over that cliff?
Whatever the answers, at least we knew we were on the right track. Pity Martin had taken it so badly. Terror could be tough to deal with. I couldn’t condemn him for wanting out.
The news of Dunn’s RSPCA venture also added a very strong flavour. Again, there came that frustrating feeling of just having to shake everything up the right way for things to fall into place. I knew it wasn’t far off.
That evening I ate alone again. My parents took their meals in Father’s bedroom, and I realized I was still just a stranger in their house.
Next morning, after much canvassing by my mother, Father agreed to grant me another audience. I told them both about Dunn’s deception in posing as an RSPCA man. Mother checked the diary and found that Heraklion’s fertility had started failing a fortnight after one of Dunn’s visits.
Most mares stay on at a stud after being covered, and are scanned within a few days of the mating to see if an egg has been fertilized.
Mother sat by the bed, the book open in her lap, and glanced at my father, his face pale in the curtained gloom. He wheezed breathing out, but there was some brightness in his eyes as he turned to me. ‘Do you think Alex was doing something to those stallions?’
‘It seems possible.’ I was wary of condemning Dunn immediately, my father’s friendship with him making me cautious. ‘I think he was being forced into it somehow, possibly blackmailed.’
Father looked puzzled. ‘Why? Who profits from knocking half a dozen small studs out of business?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t think that’s the objective. If these people had a grudge against the studs in particular, then why not just burn the buggers down?’
At the word ‘buggers’, my mother glanced up sharply at me as though I were still seven. I smiled but her expression didn’t soften. Father said, ‘Then why are they doing it, and who are they?’
‘The sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,’ I said. ‘But if we can find the answer then we’ll have the people who left those papers with Alex Dunn’s body.’ Father’s mouth straightened to a thin line as he clenched his jaw. Mother reached for his hand again. All three of us spent the next twenty minutes discussing how Dunn could have ‘got at’ the stallions. If he’d been responsible for their fertility loss, how had he done it, why, and how could we cure them?
Father brooded throughout most of it, throwing in only the occasional remark, but Mother had been anxious to grasp the lifeline, to explore any option. But there were few and the room was soon silent again.
Father shifted uncomfortably and tried to clear his throat, which brought on a coughing fit. Mother propped him up on his pillows and he reached to squeeze her hand, the first time I’d noticed him initiate any affection. She knew he was going to speak. He looked at me and said, ‘When I first met Alex Dunn, I remember he was very enthusiastic about chemical castration.’
Two words that came together like scissor blades cutting through all the supposition and speculation. My senses were suddenly sharp. He said, ‘Alex was convinced that colts could be made much easier to handle when still in training by injecting chemicals on a regular basis.’
‘Something temporary?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘When they were finished racing and were ready for stud, the injections would be discontinued.’
I almost held my breath before asking, ‘What was the chemical? Do you know?’
He shook his head slowly and I thought I saw just a trace of satisfaction in his eyes, a glimmer of spiteful pleasure that I was still going to have to work very hard to save this. But maybe it was the poor light.
We talked a while longer then Father glanced at Mother and closed his eyes, effectively dismissing me. She looked up and mouthed the words, ‘He’s tired.’ I nodded. Before leaving, I said goodbye to him. He raised both eyebrows but didn’t open his eyes nor speak.
I went to my room and found Martin’s list of studs. When Mother came back, I explained what I needed, and she set to immediately, scanning the list as she picked up the phone. I felt like making a few calls too but was conscious of the risk of exposing myself, especially after the events of last night. How did they fit into the puzzle?
The more I thought about it, the more it bugged me. It made no sense. Why hadn’t they simply threatened me with publishing the papers? I sat on the bed, Dunn’s betting records spread out in front of me. I doodled lightly in pencil in the narrow margin of one of the printouts.
What had Dark Hair said to me? ‘Stop following people. Stay out of this.’ The message to Martin had been the same, albeit more forcefully delivered. Capshaw and Candy. Candy again cropping up with Dark Hair, his Sandown travelling companion.
Okay, assumption time. No hard evidence, so some speculation might prove worthwhile.
Candy
sent the heavies after us. The first confrontation, at Dunn’s place, had come with a friendly violence-free warning. The second was to scare the shit out of me but leave me unhurt. Martin hadn’t had the protection of an old friendship to rely on, or maybe they had to frighten him more as they had no blackmail hold over him as they did me.
Could it be Candy was taking a similarly ‘sympathetic’ view with the papers, knowing what publication would do to my parents and me? Possibly, but that shouldn’t have stopped him using them as a threat.
So did someone else have the papers? Were we up against two different groups? What was Candy’s interest in Dunn’s activities? Supposing he knew Dunn had been scuppering those stallions? Supposing he knew about Dunn dabbling in chemical castration? But what would that be to Candy? His boss had the top vets, the best of everything for his horses…something gnawed at my memory, something that hadn’t rung true with me… Candy’s party at Ascot the other day. How strained they’d all seemed, from the Sheikh downwards. Candy, in particular, had looked under pressure. The same Candy who’d reacted just slightly oddly, just a little out of character, when I’d met him in Newmarket and told him about the stallion fertility problem.
The Sheikh.
What makes a fabulously rich, high-powered businessman unhappy?
A poorly performing business?
The Sheikh’s racing empire was huge, probably the biggest in the world. What had started ten years ago as a hobby had developed into an obsession, some said, a desire to dominate racing the world over. The building blocks for that, the very foundations, were the Sheikh’s luxurious studs, the largest of which was in Newmarket. He had most of the top stallions and many of the best mares. Although that didn’t guarantee success, it went a long way toward seriously reducing the odds against failure.
His worst nightmare would have to be losing his stallions. Or the stallions losing their fertility. Maybe Alex Dunn’s stallion-sabotage programme hadn’t been confined to small studs.
No wonder Candy didn’t want me blowing it wide open. If Martin Corish was petrified of breeders getting to know about Town Crier’s infertility, how must the Sheikh feel if some of his stallions were also infertile?