The Horse With My Name

by Bateman

  ‘Talking of fruit,’ I said quietly, ‘the only two with nothing to gain from all of this are Derek and Eric.’

  Geordie, unprepared to speak with his mouth full, crunched at his own pace, then said, ‘I know.’

  We watched through the sliding doors as first Derek, then Eric, entered the lounge carrying little wicker baskets filled with crisps and other nibbles, although they still took care to hang on to their shotguns. Jimmy the Chicken, Oil Paintings and Dry Cleaner were already gleefully working their way through the crate of Charger and bottles of VAT 19 they’d discovered in the kitchen.

  ‘So, uhm, why would they put their lives on the line for you?’

  ‘Loyalty. I gather it’s not a concept you’re overly familiar with.’

  ‘That’s rich coming from someone who’s selling his daughter out.’

  ‘I’m not selling her out. I’m selling her horse.’

  ‘Well, you know what they say about horses.’

  ‘No. Please tell me.’

  I blinked at him. ‘Horses for courses.’

  It was completely and utterly meaningless in this context. I knew it, he knew it, Derek in the doorway knew it, but ignored it. He said, ‘Cheese puff, boss?’

  Geordie nodded and Derek slid the wicker basket across the table to him.

  ‘Starkey here,’ said Geordie, ‘was just doubting your loyalty.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ I said, ‘I was just admiring it, given the circumstances.’

  ‘What circumstances?’ asked Derek.

  ‘That you’ve nothing to gain from saving your boss from this den of vipers.’

  Derek’s brow furrowed. ‘Don’t you mean den of iniquity?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And isn’t it nest of vipers?’

  ‘Yes. We’re getting away from the point.’

  ‘The point, my friend, is that when Eric and I got thrown out of the force, Mr McClean gave us a roof over our heads, no questions asked. He pays us extremely well, we enjoy our work, we travel, we meet important people, we have fun, we have a clothing allowance, we like the man and understand the business he’s in. It’s not a question of what we have to gain, it’s a question of what we have to lose if something happens to him? Understand?’

  ‘Understand.’

  ‘Now, cheese puff?’

  I took a cheese puff. Eric rapped on the glass divider. ‘Race starting in five minutes.’

  I stood and slid the door open. I looked back at Geordie. ‘Coming?’

  He shook his head. I stood in the doorway. The Chinese were squashed on to a beige leather sofa on the left, three on the cushions and one on each arm rest. Their guns were down, but handy. Jimmy and Oil Paintings, to the right of the television, had an armchair each while Dry Cleaner leaned against the windowsill. Derek stood in the doorway, shotgun clasped under his arm. Eric busied himself arranging the nibbles on a glass coffee table.

  ‘There’s our boy,’ said Dry Cleaner, pointing at the screen.

  There was a flurry of excited jabber from both sides of the room as we caught our first glimpse of Dan the Man, nostrils flared, head erect. A caption underneath gave his number, his weight, the handicap, the odds, the colours, the owner (G. McClean) and finally the name of the jockey, although that seemed almost an afterthought. The camera only dwelt on her for a moment, and that from the back. She was wearing green and white silks. Her cap was pulled down low. The camera swiftly moved on to the next horse. There were over forty horses in the parade ring and they all had to be covered.

  Jimmy snapped out, ‘Turn the friggin’ sound up, someone,’ over the chatter and there followed several minutes of confusion while they tried to decide which of several instruments sitting on top of the television controlled the volume: there was one for the DVD player, one for a video, one for a cable transcriber, one for a Playstation and one for a music centre. ‘It’s like fucking mission control in here,’ Oil Paintings whinged. By the time they’d settled on the right control and the volume was finally up to required levels, the horses had left the parade ring and commenced their initial gallop along the course. I tried to pick Mandy’s colours out of the crowd, and failed.

  There were two joint favourites, Emperor of the South and Talisman, and the rivalry between them seemed to have been built up to the point where they were continually being picked out by the cameras at the expense of the other horses. Still, I’m sure the horses weren’t worried. They were all about to face the race of their lives and the very real prospect of death over what the commentator described as the toughest course in the world. The Chair, Beecher’s Brook. Fences which have entered the English language as synonyms for big fences horses die jumping over. Dan the Man was described as an outsider. ‘But then aren’t they all really, in this race.’ The live pictures were replaced for several minutes by computer-generated shots of the course from the point of view of a horse going over the jumps, and they were realistic enough to make me feel a little queasy; that or Derek had slipped something into the cheese puffs.

  The cameras went live again, and this time I caught the briefest glimpse of Dan the Man galloping towards the start, with Mandy sitting forward in the saddle, her bottom lifted several inches off it, a bottom that seemed larger than I remembered, and I suffered another little twinge, this time of guilt at the memory of the whiskey and bacon and Starbursts I’d forced upon her over the past few days. The camera never lies, but it does distort and exaggerate. But in her profession, a couple of ounces could make all the difference between victory and defeat – and on this day, life and death.

  I knelt by the coffee table and snapped up some Twiglets. Eric smiled at me and said, ‘I always eat when I’m nervous.’

  ‘I’m not nervous,’ I said, ‘I’m petrified.’

  ‘Take a wee drink,’ he said, pointing. The bottles and cans were ranged around the feet of Jimmy the Chicken and his comrades. I gave a little snort of surprise. All this upset around me, and the first time I’d thought about taking a drink. Maybe it wasn’t that big an addiction. If I could just stick to murder and mayhem I’d be able to leave the sauce alone. But just a little one for now, seeing as how we’re all nearly friends. I moved across the carpet on my knees, and lifted one of the bottles of VAT 19. I raised it to my lips and took a slug. Jimmy the Chicken tapped his gun against the glass, and I lowered it. His smile was not warm, and his eyes were colder still.

  ‘Don’t think I’ve forgotten you,’ he hissed. ‘When this is sorted out, you’re a dead baby.’

  I blinked at him. His choice of words was, I thought later, purely coincidental. But something snapped the moment he said them. Without thinking I dropped the bottle and grabbed him by the throat. I pulled him off his chair and the two of us tumbled around the floor for a few moments like primary school wrestlers until we were pulled apart. I was pinned down, breathing hard, a dribble of alcohol on my chin and one third of a Twiglet sticking out of my mouth.

  Jimmy, held back by Dry Cleaner and Oil Paintings, glared at me, then shrugged his way out of his friends’ restraints. ‘You’re a fucking lunatic, Starkey,’ he said as he lifted his gun and pointed it at me. I don’t really think he was going to shoot me, but the threat of it was enough to encourage the leading Chinese to raise his own gun and aim it at Jimmy. ‘No,’ the Chinese said simply.

  Oil Paintings and Dry Cleaner eased their own guns around towards the Chinese.

  Eric’s shotgun was out of reach beneath the coffee table.

  Derek’s was already off his shoulder and shifting from party to party. There was a crunch from the dining room as Geordie bit into his apple.

  ‘What do you mean, no?’ Jimmy the Chicken snapped. ‘He tried to fucking kill me.’

  ‘I mean,’ the Chinese said, ‘that he is ours. He killed my three brothers in Ireland. When the time comes, we will kill him.’

  Jimmy the Chicken almost smiled, but he kept it in. He glanced at me immediately, and I raised an eyebrow. He had a way out, and he wasn’t going
to waste it. He snapped his eyes back to the Chinese. ‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I understand. You have him. But if you take my advice, you’ll finish him sooner than later.’

  The Chinese gave a little bow. ‘Thank you. But we keep him until later. Then we take our time, okay?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Jimmy, and everyone relaxed. Even me. It wasn’t the time for a slanging match. That would only lead to more mayhem. I’d lost my temper and risked everything, now I had to claw it back; if it meant taking the blame for the deaths of the Chinese, then fair enough. It was buying me time. I retreated slowly to the coffee table. As I did there was a roar from the television and all eyes turned to the start of the greatest race on earth.

  All bar mine. I took a handful of Twiglets. Eric, eyes never leaving the screen, said, ‘If you’re thinking about going for the shotgun, forget it, I’d have your head off quicker than Quavers.’

  I nodded. The shotgun was tantalisingly close. But I hadn’t even thought about it. I had had one of my rare moments of clarity, and realised that there was a plan swinging into action, a plan that would bring all this to a tidy conclusion. I couldn’t quite work out what it was, or who exactly was involved, but there had been a clue up there on the screen that had been plain to me, and must also have been plain to . . .

  I glanced around, through the sliding doors to where Geordie sat. He was biting into his third apple. The two previous cores sat browning together in front of him. His eyes were fixed on the screen. He was calm. He was focused. But had he noticed? I looked at Eric. Was he in on it too? And Derek?

  No one was giving anything away.

  It’s Emperor of the South, from Malinga Boy, with Terracotta, Lemon Popsicle, Queen for a Day, Snoopy’s Progress, Talisman, Prep School and Dan the Man as they come to Beecher’s for the first time . . .

  They were edging forward in their seats. Cans of beer were at half-mast.

  There had already been half a dozen fallers, but this was their first big challenge. There was an audible intake of breath as the leading pack jumped.

  And Prep School is a faller! He’s taken joint favourite Talisman down with him! There’s still a long way to go, but it’s Emperor of the South from Malinga Boy, Terracotta, Lemon Popsicle, then Dan the Man, Snoopy’s Progress . . .

  ‘Come on, Dan the Man!’ yelled Dry Cleaner.

  ‘Ride that fucker!’ shouted Oil Paintings.

  The Chinese were on their feet, screaming.

  Then Jimmy the Chicken and Oil Paintings and Dry Cleaner were on theirs. Both sides were together in the middle of the floor. Derek, then Eric and finally Geordie McClean, his view from the dining room now blocked, crowded into the lounge as well.

  Every fence was claiming victims. Horses were crashing into the sodden ground, crushing their riders. The roar from the crowd began to intensify. The director gave us a shot back up the course to show the riderless horses standing stunned or lying still on the ground, like the aftermath of some ancient battle. And ancient it was.

  It was man and beast versus each other and nature.

  Only the strongest, only the best would survive. It wasn’t just getting over the fences, it was picking their way through the vanquished, placed like mines to destroy their chances of glory.

  There, then, the money didn’t matter. There was no owner.

  There was only the race.

  Only the victory.

  And Dan the Man was moving up the field.

  Emperor of the South, Malinga Boy, then two lengths back it’s Dan the Man, Terracotta, Lemon Popsicle’s a faller . . .

  ‘Come on you, beauty!’ screamed Oil Paintings.

  ‘Come on, Mandy!’ yelled Derek.

  Geordie’s fists were bunched and beating into his legs with every stride the horse took. His brow was furrowed and sweating, his eyes narrowed and intense. ‘Go! Go! Go!’ he yelled, and I knew that he didn’t know. That none of them did.

  I knew. But didn’t know what to do. How to deal with it, because I didn’t know what it was.

  Jesus.

  They were on their second and final circuit of the course. They were coming up to the Chair for the second time. The commentator was reaching a high pitch of excitement which was only matched by the yelping of the Chinese.

  Emperor of the South is over safely! Malinga Boy clips the . . . Malinga Boy is down . . . he falls in the path of . . . no, Dan the Man’s okay and gaining on Emperor of the South, a tremendous ride by . . . Snoopy’s Progress is another faller at Beecher’s . . .

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘Catch him!’

  ‘Catch that fucking horse!’

  ‘Come on, you bastard!’

  ‘Fall!’

  ‘Fall!’

  ‘Fall!’

  And as if by magic.

  . . . and it’s Emperor of the South, from Dan the Man as they approach the third from home, it’s . . . Emperor of the South’s a faller, a faller, three from home and Emperor goes down, it’s Dan the Man and Mandy McClean on course to be the first female jockey to win the National . . .

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Go!’

  ‘Go!’

  Just two fences to go . . . way back, way back it’s Sultan’s Charm, Echo Beach, Primo Levi, then Milton Keynes, Barbarossa . . . I think that’s it . . . Aintree has taken its victims again this year but for the moment it’s Dan the Man with an unassailable lead as he approaches the second from home . . . and he’s . . .

  Silence.

  Over!

  Geordie was jumping up and down, still thumping his legs.

  The Chinese were shaking with nervous excitement. Jimmy was screaming, the veins standing out from his throat.

  I moved, quietly, backwards. Nobody was watching. This was the time to get out. It might be my only chance. I stood in the doorway. Down the hall and out. They wouldn’t know until I was halfway down the lane.

  Maybe they wouldn’t care. They’d be millionaires all, at least in their own minds.

  But I stayed where I was.

  Always a sucker.

  Dan the Man.

  Dan the Man just has to get over the last fence to win the Grand National! What a race! What a ride! The National always throws up a hero! This year, for the first time, it’s a heroine! Here she comes, no one else in sight, just the final fence . . .

  She jumps . . .

  Almost slow motion.

  And she’s . . .

  So slow. All the gangsters, like one big gangster, mouth open, drooling, sweating, eyeballs on stalks, so tangled up in greed that they couldn’t see the wood for the trees.

  And still I couldn’t move from the door. Escape, live. Stay, die.

  But still.

  And she’s over!

  Over the final fence in the Grand National! Dan the Man’s into the home straight and galloping towards the history books!

  They were jumping, hugging each other, screaming at the tops of their voices, brothers together.

  Fifty yards, and Dan the Man slows almost to a canter, all the hard work is done!

  Dancing in the front room, throwing their heads back and whooping in delight. Geordie in amongst them, with the most to lose of all of them, impervious.

  But wait a minute!

  I don’t . . . I don’t understand this! She’s pulling him up! Dan the Man is stopping! He’s twenty yards short of the finish! What’s . . . I don’t believe this! The crowd is going mad! She’s pulled him up! He doesn’t appear to be injured . . .

  It spread around the room like a virus. They stared stunned as Dan the Man sat quite calmly, yards from the line . . . and then stunned turned to anger, and the anger to fury . . .

  ‘What the fuck . . .!’

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘What the fuck’s the matter!’

  ‘Please!’

  ‘Do it . . . he’s going to catch . . .!’

  But it was too late. Sultan’s Charm galloped past the stationary beas
t to victory in the Grand National.

  All bets were off.

  Now! Go! Run!

  I turned. I was about to put my hand on the handle when the door was blown off its hinges, flattening me. I blinked up through the dust and splinters of wood and there was a split second while I lay stunned, looking at the police outside, and they at me, and then they charged into the house, trampling all over me. All around there was the sound of glass breaking, of urgent shouts and screams. One of them stopped for long enough to bash me with a truncheon, then slipped cuffs over my wrists.

  I lay, face down, and listened to the sounds of fighting. But no gunfire.

  After several minutes of staring at the floor, stunned, dizzy, I was dragged to my feet and propelled out through the door and into the arms of a waiting policeman. I blinked in the bright afternoon light. There were half a dozen police cars with flashing lights. There were transit vans with blacked-out windows. There was Mandy, arms folded across her chest, looking pensive.

  I was being dragged towards the closest transit when Mandy spotted me and tried to get them to let me go, but they weren’t having it.

  ‘Not until we get this sorted out,’ the one holding me snapped. ‘Everyone goes down to the fucking station.’

  Mandy stepped back. Her father was being dragged out by two cops, struggling furiously. Jimmy the Chicken, on the other hand, though cuffed and sporting an already closing left eye, almost sauntered out. The Chinese came out relatively meekly. Derek and Eric came out last, just managing to touch fingers as they were separated and led to different transits.

  Mandy looked up at me as I sat in the back of the van.

  ‘Did you know?’ she asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Bosco’s arse isn’t as nice as yours, that’s how.’ I sighed. I was alive. Mandy was alive. ‘They’ll never let you ride in another National,’ I said.