The water was warm, there’d be no problems surviving the temperature if I could get clear of the pull, the swirling bubbling arms trying to draw me in and down.
For a few seconds I felt I might not make it but I kicked and swam hard upwards, breath burning my lungs. Eyes open I saw the watery stars and let go the searing breath six inches below the surface, blowing like a whale.
Burst through. Suck air. Cool. Fresh. Sweet. Life.
Waves just gentle. Get my bearings. Shore lights through the dusk to my left. No lifeboat. No horses.
I heard splashing. I swam toward the sound. It was one of the horses. He was swimming out to sea. I went after him, caught up and managed to grab his headcollar. It was Old Nick. He was one of the most consistent horses I’d ever come across, always trouble.
Though thin-legged, horses’ wide rib cages hold plenty of air. If I could just guide him, we’d both make it ashore. I couldn’t see or hear the other two.
I pulled Old Nick’s head around. I’d forgotten about his injury and recoiled in shock at the slimy seaweed hanging from his eye socket. Recovering quickly I scooped the stuff out only for a wave to wash into the cavity.
Turning him toward shore, I struck out as best I could, one hand gripping his headcollar. His legs caught mine as he paddled forward. The only safe swimming place was behind, clinging to his tail, but that would have meant no direction up front. I resolved that if he fought, if he turned even once from the shore I’d let him go.
He kept going.
The darkness was almost total and I wondered where the lifeboat was, why they weren’t looking for me. Where was the coastguard, the rescue services? Surely, the crew had alerted them?
I checked the lights again. We were drifting off course. I hauled at his head, ‘Come on you bastard or I’ll leave you!’ And he came round.
I was certain we were swimming straight, moving forward, but those tiny glowing pinpoints of safety never seemed to come nearer.
I swam with closed eyes stopping myself from looking at the lights till I’d counted to a hundred.
Around nine hundred they started coming closer. At eleven hundred, I knew we would make it. At twelve hundred Old Nick turned again trying to swim at right angles to the shore. I cursed him, hauled at him but he was determined and I was on the brink of letting him swim to his death when I had an idea.
Pulling off my T-shirt I reached up and forced it down over his eyes or his one remaining eye blinding him.
He stayed with me but his strokes grew laboured, he was finding it harder to keep his head above the surface and it was a long exhausting final hundred yards or so before our feet touched sand.
The lights I’d seen were way above us now on the cliffs. The moonlight showed we’d landed in a cove. I let the horse go and sank exhausted onto the white beach.
Suddenly I heard a soft thud and felt the ground vibrate as Old Nick went down just yards from me. On hands and knees, I crawled to his side. His breathing was heavy. I eased my T-shirt from his head and patted his neck, ‘You’re just tired, you’ll be okay.’
Forcing myself to stand I trudged toward the cliffs hoping the moon would pick out a path upwards but I could find nothing. The cliffs were like a huge jaw around the bite of sand and in my exhausted state, there was no safe way of negotiating the climb in the dark.
But the night was warm, sleeping out would prove no hardship so I went and lay close to Old Nick whose breathing seemed to have settled a bit. I had plenty to occupy my thoughts but sleep must have come quickly.
The next thing I remember was waking up in the blindingly bright sunshine lying beside a corpse.
Old Nick lay on his side stiff-legged like a fairground horse fallen from a carousel. Small crabs scuttled across his body and black flies feasted in his empty eye socket. At first, I thought he’d simply died of exhaustion but I found a long gash in his thigh that he must have got during the sinking. He’d performed miracles even to reach the shore. Poor bastard.
I looked out to sea: no sign of Old Nick’s travelling companions. I hoped they’d made it ashore somewhere else but I doubted it.
The cliffs enclosing the cove were over a hundred feet high but I could see a path leading up.
I scooped my yellow T-shirt from the hot sand. The morning sun had dried it and I shook it clean, put it on and headed up the cliff path. At the top, I turned again to look out over the blue water: nothing but a few boats.
A ten-minute walk brought me to a main road where I hitched a lift to Bridgetown in an old truck carrying coconuts, which drummed and rattled so loudly I could hardly hear the driver speak. His English was so heavily accented I struggled to understand him explain where he was going.
I tried to find out if he knew of Broga’s estate but we kept getting crossed wires and I just settled back to see where I’d end up.
Men of all ages, mostly black, clustered around the numerous rum shops drinking and playing dominoes in the shade. Kids threw a basketball at a ring nailed to a telegraph pole. People moved slowly. From brilliantly coloured wooden shacks no bigger than a one-car garage smiling women and children waved as we passed.
Approaching the capital the houses grew more opulent, the traffic increased, horns sounded constantly, all different tones like a mad mechanized orchestra. There were blue buses and yellow minibuses. A huge Rastafarian drove a donkey cart loaded with fruit.
The atmosphere made me smile, and set me thinking how tiny a world my day-to-day routine had fixed me in; my life’s core till now had been deeply set in stables and winter racetracks. I knew nowhere else, thought of nothing but my so-called career and the next winner and I realized I was a fool who’d thought he was smart.
The coconut man dropped me at a taxi rank and I thanked him and told him I was a jockey and that he should look me up if he was at the next racemeeting.
He smiled, humouring me, ‘Sho thing, Mistah!’
I was half-tempted to make my first stop the local police station but decided it would be better to go straight to Broga’s estate. A talkative taxi driver drove me on the twenty-minute trip to Headlands.
After climbing for about two miles, we swung into the estate through buff coloured pillars bearing a brass plaque with Headlands on it in six inch lettering.
It was just past noon when we pulled up in front of the big white house. Insects buzzed and chirruped among the pink and yellow shrubs in the garden that stretched a couple of hundred yards on all sides to borders of colourful bushes.
Behind these in the corners loomed groves of coconut trees.
The area between the lawns and the house was block-paved in silver grey with a darker grey path leading to the high entrance arch.
As the taxi stopped, the door of the house opened and Broga Cates came out, his face breaking into a wide smile when he saw me. He even applauded lightly.
‘Small world,’ I said.
He laughed, teeth gleaming in the sunshine. He wore floral shorts and a baggy lemon T-shirt. ‘Any money in those shorts?’ I asked, ‘Mine is floating somewhere off the coast.’
He hurried inside and returned with twenty dollars that he insisted the delighted driver keep.
An arm around my shoulder he led me into the cool tiled hall, through the house onto a long terrace overlooking the garden giving me brief hugs all the way and offering variations of, ‘Thank God, I thought you were dead’.
We sat at a black cast-iron table in the garden and Broga introduced me to Letitia, the maid, a wiry witchy woman whose age I couldn’t tell. She stooped but moved quickly as she worked, chivvying us aside in her insistence that a clean tablecloth of blue and yellow check be neatly laid before pouring drinks for us.
My nerves wanted alcohol, my body wanted rehydration and I settled for a cocktail of fruit juice and ice.
Broga was leaning across the table still staring at me as if I was Lazarus. ‘What happened?’
I told him.
‘Sorry about the horses. Did my best.’
‘When did you arrive?’
‘Came in on the dawn flight.’
‘Any news on Clemence?’ I asked.
‘Not a lot. I heard he skipped the trip and I know he flew back here last Friday.’
‘What day’s this?’
‘Tuesday.’
‘The whatth?’
‘The fourteenth.’
I nodded, rubbed my stubbly chin and drank some more, trying to adjust to the sunlight and the powerfully sweet smells from the garden below us. ‘When did you hear about the sinking?’
‘Not long after I got here. I knew the boat should have docked yesterday evening. I rang the port authorities.’
‘So one of the crew did report it?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘But nobody sent out the rescue services?’
‘Nope.’ He looked apprehensive now, maybe wondering if I’d had enough.
‘D’you think it was an accident?’ I asked.
‘I very much doubt it but whether we can convince the police is another matter.’ He reached across to the drinks trolley and poured more juice.
I said, ‘I suppose it depends on the cause. If a boiler blew or an engine or something . . .’
‘The boat was carrying explosives.’
I sat forward. ‘Pardon?’
‘Explosives. Part of the official cargo.’
‘For who?’
‘They were for underwater work on Martinique. A new harbour’s being built there.’
‘I’m not trying to be wise after the event here, Broga, but with your recent record wasn’t that just a little bit dangerous?’
‘I didn’t know till this morning we were carrying it. Clemence handled all the orders.’
‘Well that explains it, then.’
Broga told me the explosives should have been in a safe container, should have been bombproof. He also told me the reason for his sudden visit: Carroway, his trainer had quit and moved out.
‘When?’
‘Saturday, the day after Clemence got back here.’
‘Another phone threat?’
‘Backed up this time by burning four of my horses to death.’
I stared at him. ‘When?’
‘Friday night. Come on, I’ll show you.’
38
He led me into the L shaped yard of white slatted wooden boxes, with shiny blue doors. A dozen curious equine heads watched us. At the top right stood the blackened remains of a short row of boxes, a burnt shell standing just a couple of feet high.
Their close neighbours were charred but sound. ‘How’d they save the others?’
‘Lots of fire extinguishers and brave lads.’
‘So why couldn’t they rescue the horses?’
‘Somebody had shoved padlocks through the bolts in each door.’
‘Dirty bastards.’
We stood staring at it. Broga told me the police had interviewed everyone in the yard. ‘Did you mention Clemence to the police?’
‘Not yet. There’s nothing we can pin him down to just now and I was thinking he might be more useful if he was still in circulation.’
‘How much longer can you afford to have him in circulation?’
‘Not for long, the insurance people are already shitting themselves.’
‘You insure all your stuff with the same company?’
‘Uhuh. Well, all my racing stuff and everything over here.’ I pulled a painful face. Broga grimaced, ‘The no-claims bonus is long gone.’
We were about to go back inside when we heard hoofbeats. Broga said, ‘Second lot coming in. Want to see them?’
‘Sure.’
Within minutes they appeared by the burnt boxes and wound their way in to spread out in the yard, their lads dismounting, not a white face among them, no smiles, just riders going through the motions.
‘Who’s running things now then?’
Broga pointed to a little bloke in khaki breeches and an orange sweatshirt. ‘Amory, he’s the head lad.’
‘Will he cope?’
‘I don’t know. I’ll watch him over the next few days.’
As Amory led the others past us, circling to cool the horses, he nodded, forcing a smile, not looking particularly confident.
Suddenly we heard a shout and a girl came running into the top end of the yard, black as an ebony chess queen, dreadlocks bouncing as she tucked a pink T shirt into tight green breeches. She sounded angry, ‘Hey, Endell yuh bastard! Yuh promise yuh wake me! Yuh said you mek sure I ride second lot! Yuh didn’ knock mah do’!’
She stopped in front of a youngster a few inches taller than she was at around five six, walking a lanky chestnut. ‘Endell, yuh heah what I sayin?’ He smiled, impish and the other lads and girls cheered up and chuckled.
Broga was smiling too. He said, ‘The amazing Kari Parsons.’
The closer she came as they walked toward us the more clearly I saw her. Older than I’d first thought, early twenties, very attractive despite a large square scar on her cheek. Lithe, athletic and, it seemed, quite wild. I was entranced by her skin. Her face looked fiercely regal, her blackness so deep and pure it made me think of a fruit, a gleaming plum
Broga said, ‘That’s her brother she’s yelling at, Endell.’
It was only when she raised her fists to try and punch her brother that I noticed her hands were bandaged. It obviously hurt her to use them so she tried elbowing him instead. He laughed and the others shouted encouragement. Some of the horses got jumpy, rolling their eyes till the whites showed.
Broga gave Amory a minute or so to intervene but he just walked round sheepishly so Broga called her over. She marched across and stood in front of him as though she saw Broga every day.
I thought her beautiful, more so in her anger, big bright eyes burning indignantly, chin thrust upwards, the scar on her left cheek almost proudly displayed.
‘What’s wrong, Kari?’
‘That bast . . . that Endell he tol’ me las’ nigh’ he call me this mo’nin tuh ride out. He nevuh call me, he lie, he knew muh pills mek I sleep.’
‘Let me see your hands.’
She stuck them under her arms. ‘They okay, Mistah Cates.’ He held his own hands out and slowly she offered hers. They were bandaged from wrist to just below her fingertips where it looked like they’d been deliberately peeled open. Tiny islands of blisters could be seen. Broga pointed them out and said that maybe she should wait another day or so.
‘I okay Mistah Cates, tough skin!’
‘Can we maybe talk about it later, Kari, I’ve got a few things to sort out?’
She considered it, still displeased but simmering down gradually since it was the boss. She glanced at me. Her spirit alone would have put me on her side but I thought I’d better offer no more than a non-committal smile. For now.
Broga said, ‘This is Eddie Malloy, my jockey from England, you’ve heard me talk about him.’
‘I’m gonna be a jockey,’ she declared.
‘We could use some of your spirit,’ I said.
The compliment took some of the fierceness out of her glare. Broga said, ‘Can we see how you are in the morning, see if you can ride then?’
She nodded. ‘I be okay.’
‘We’ll see.’
‘I will,’ she said turning away, determined to have the last word then marching past the rest of them with her nose in the air.
We walked toward the house. Broga said, ‘What do you think of Miss Kari Parsons?’
‘They should name a hurricane after her,’ I said. ‘What happened to her hands?’
‘Got them burned trying to save those horses on Friday night. She had to be held back from climbing into the boxes, was sure she could persuade them to jump the locked doors.’
Jeez, a hurricane right
enough.
Broga soon realized that Amory wasn’t up to running the place and returned him to his head lad duties. Amory seemed relieved. Broga said that with the exception of two short trips to Europe he intended to remain on the island until the police sorted things out.
I agreed to stay and help but with the provision that I had to be in England for the start of the new season in six weeks. I wasn’t as confident as Broga in the abilities of the police to nail the saboteurs. I wanted to know a lot more about the agent, Clemence.
I also wanted to know who had reported the sinking of the Archangel and why he hadn’t mentioned that one person and three horses were missing.
Broga offered me the choice of a room in the big house or a cottage in the grounds. I chose the cottage, which was spacious, with white clapboard walls and a covered terrace on all four sides decorated with plants and hanging baskets.
Inside it was painted lime green with cool polished wooden floors, rush mats, air conditioning, brass ceiling fans, a wide pink Jacuzzi bath and a four poster bed covered by an elaborate canopy hung with lace curtains.
Broga smiled as I took it in. ‘It was meant as the honeymoon suite. I’ve got a dozen cottages. My intention at the start was to run a holiday place here, just haven’t got round to it yet.’
‘So who’s using them?’
‘Stable staff mostly.’
‘Beats the hell out of a hostel.’
He handed me a key. ‘As soon as you’re settled I’ll drive you into town and get you some new clothes.’
‘It won’t take much settling, it’s not as if I’ve anything to unpack.’ I thought ruefully of my kit bag and the two bottles of fine malt that had probably helped depth charge it to the seabed.
‘You want to go now, then?’
‘Why not?’
In Bridgetown, I bought what clothes I needed on Broga’s credit card. He hired me a blue Mazda that was the best car they had. Then we went to the police station where Broga introduced me to the guy in charge of the investigations into his recent accidents, Detective Sergeant Jerome Handler.
Handler said he hoped I had better luck than Berman Carroway. I explained I wasn’t the replacement trainer, just there to help for a few weeks. Handler hadn’t checked any details on the sinking at the harbour master’s office but said he’d do so that afternoon. I suggested to Broga that we visit the harbour master ourselves. Broga wanted to visit Clemence’s office so we agreed to split and meet up in half an hour.
Running Scared (The Eddie Malloy series Book 4) Page 14