by Ian Taylor
"Mebbe I'll race that grye one day on Prince of Thieves," Luke commented thoughtfully.
"That's not a good idea," Sy cautioned. "He's a dodgy fella, Phil Yates. My advice to you would be to keep away from that mush." He showed Luke an ugly raised scar on the back of his arm. "Horse deal years back that didn't go his way. He accused me of cheating him, said I'd given the grye a stimulant to make him seem more lively."
"And had you?" Luke asked.
Sy laughed. "Never dream of such a thing! But out comes his blade." He gave Luke a warning frown. "Phil Yates don't like losing! Whatcha want with him anyway?"
"I know all about his T'ang horses." Luke tapped the side of his nose and smiled mysteriously.
"That so?"
"Some mush wants to get that across to him."
7
Phil Yates and his companions watched the horses flowing gracefully around the fenced-off circuit on the gallops.
Phil turned to Harry. "What a sight, Harry, eh! If there's a god he's a horse, you know that?"
The four horses picked up to a full gallop. A glossy chestnut stallion with a distinctive white blaze moved a length clear of the rest.
Phil beamed with admiration. "Good Times is looking sharp, Harry."
Harry nodded. "Sure, Phil. You could put your life savings on him."
"But you're not, are you, Harry?" Phil looked up at the big man reproachfully.
"He ain't a gambling man!" Hirst smiled sardonically.
Harry, impassive, soaked up their laughter. "Mebbe, if I was, I'd stake my life on him."
"Your life did you say, or your wife?" Hirst grinned.
Harry joined reluctantly in the fresh round of laughter. Did Hirst know he was having problems with Maureen, the bonny lass from Kilkenny he'd met in Liverpool and who he'd left his family and his circus strongman act to marry? She had abandoned her tinker past and had urged him to settle down. But he couldn't.
He had met Phil Yates at a horse fair, and they'd gotten on well. He missed the circus and the travelling life, but Phil offered the next best thing: the horse fairs and the professional racing circuit. His boxing venture provided an introduction to an alternative society. They made a healthy living buying and selling gypsy vanners. Then Phil entered the shady world of race fixing. He began to make big money and to buy racehorses. They bet heavily but discreetly on guaranteed winners, and Phil's own horses, with Clive Fawcett's involvement, soon became winners themselves. He would never have made this kind of money if he had stayed in the circus.
While Phil stuck mostly to the world of racing, he discovered a hidden talent for buying up failing businesses and ruthlessly turning them around. They bought into each other’s financial activities, and their accountants disappeared the profits offshore.
But the more money he made, the unhappier Maureen became. He couldn't understand it. Over the past decade, he had watched her slipping slowly away from him, as if she was floating steadily out to sea until he lost sight of her. She accused him of becoming a stranger, but the fault was hers. How could they be a unified couple if she had no interest in his new business life?
What he did know for certain was that he was impotent. Ever since his fight with the Irish lad his sex life had started to go wrong. Was it simply his humiliation, or something deeper, some kind of punishment? Did the cause of it go back even further? He was baffled. But, as always, he kept his feelings hidden, even from Phil. He had good reason to distrust the man.
Ten minutes later Harry and Phil left the car park, Harry at the wheel of Phil's Mercedes. Phil had never been happy behind the wheel of a motor, preferring to travel on foot or on horseback. It was one of the many old-fashioned quirks in the man's nature.
"Found us a stud yet, Harry?" Phil's manner towards the big man was, as usual, slightly patronising.
"I might have."
"Come on Harry," Phil said, exasperated by his companion's reticence. "Loosen up. It ain't gonna kill you to tell me!" What was happening to him, Phil wondered. Why had their one-time lively relationship become so cool? Had Harry started to suspect him of betrayal?
Harry enjoyed annoying Phil these days. It gave him pleasure to watch the little guy squirm. He had enough business interests of his own not to need him any more and Phil knew it. But they were co-owners of a portfolio of property that would be a hellish task to sort out. One day soon, though, he would have to face it and get a life back he could call his own. Perhaps, too, he could revive his sex life, but not with Maureen…
He waited another minute while the tension between them rose, then he relented. "It's a small farm called Cuckoo Nest. I've got the paperwork on me, as a matter of fact. Drew it up last night."
"Nice one, Harry! You've been keeping me in the dark."
So I have, Harry thought. And it serves you right, you two-faced twat. "Early days, Phil. I wouldn't put any money on this one, either. At least not yet."
"Who's the owner?"
"Catherine Scaife. Husband's deceased."
Phil reflected. "I know the name, but I can't put a face to it. Any debts? Any
dependants?"
"200K to the bank. One sixteen-year-old daughter."
"Profit?"
Harry smiled. He took pleasure too in showing off his thorough due diligence, courtesy of his resourceful accountant. "Hardly covers the loan interest. In my opinion they're too diverse. Should put the whole place down to cash crops. But I'm not going to tell 'em!"
"You've done a good job, Harry," Phil replied with apparent sincerity. "Means we've got some leverage. Why don't we take a look?"
"I've looked. It's promising."
"But I haven't seen it, Harry, have I?" A hint of menace crept into Phil's tone. "It's my money that'll buy it."
"It's you who wants a stud, not me."
"Okay. You've made your point. Let's just take a quick look."
The balance of power between the two men was entirely in Harry's favour. He relented.
"Fair enough. I've a spare couple of hours."
Harry swung the Mercedes around and drove back the opposite way. Half an hour later, the car was pulled up on the road bridge that spanned the intercity railway lines that ran beneath. A long goods train rumbled slowly past on one of the down lines. The road over the bridge was never busy. It was little more than a lane that connected the nearby farms, a recent descendant of the original bridge that had been built when the lines were first laid.
Phil and Harry leaned on the stone parapet, scanning the farm buildings and the
land surrounding them in their field glasses. Harry guessed his companion was interested from the length of time he was taking looking at the place.
"Good brick ranges. Paddocks and a big barn. Harry—I like it!" Phil exclaimed. "How many acres?"
"One-ninety. Bit on the small side for these days, unless you've a contract for broiler birds or with a distillery. Crop fields are let out to neighbours who grow taties and carrots to secure their supermarket contracts, but they don't bring in enough rent to produce a surplus when you take in the bank debt. Place is getting rundown. There's nothing spare to keep up with repairs and renewals."
Phil didn't ask how Harry had found all this out. His colleague's contacts in the world of local finance were obviously happy to accept his backhanders, or one of the East European escort girls he had started running as a sideline. "Let's take a closer look."
They drove across the bridge and down the rough track that led to the farm, parking
the Mercedes in the stackyard. They approached the farmhouse, a rambling brick-built place that dated from the time of the parliamentary enclosures. It was obvious at a glance that the building had seen better days. Tufts of couch grass sprouted from the guttering, and the windows on the first and second floors were in urgent need of repair. The brick ranges were no better, with broken gutters and missing roof tiles.
"Looks like they're on the way down," Phil remarked with undisguised optimism.
Harry studi
ed the house and buildings. "Nothing a bit of routine maintenance won't
sort. The structures seem basically sound. They're obviously short of cash."
Before they could knock on the door, it was flung wide open and two angry females burst out into the yard.
Phil studied them: the older woman in her thirties, attractive, with short dark hair; the younger version, which must be the daughter, with her long brown hair in a pony tail. Both of them dressed in work clothes. The women stared at their visitors in hostile surprise.
"Who the hell are you?" the older one asked. "Can't you read the sign by the drive? NO HAWKERS. NO SCRAP LADS."
Phil smiled coldly. "We're not hawking or looking for scrap, and we're not people to
be shouted at. I'm Phil Yates. This is Harry Rooke, my business associate. I assume I'm addressing Catherine Scaife?"
Cath tried to suppress the sudden fear that swept through her as she recognised the man in the check jacket. "What d'you want with me? There's another sign out there
that says CALLERS BY APPOINTMENT ONLY. It gives a phone number if you want to speak with me."
Phil ignored her frosty tone. His mind was focused on one purpose only. "Nice paddocks you've got here, Mrs Scaife. Bit on the rank side mebbe. They need sweetening up. I see they're empty now, but I'd like to put a few of my horses in. I'll pay you well, of course."
Cath recovered her self-possession. "I'm not interested, Mr Yates. Why don't you advertise for grazing in the local paper? Or ask Charlie Gibb at the sawmill yonder? He knows all the landowners hereabouts."
"You haven't seen our offer yet, Mrs Scaife." Phil glanced at Harry.
The big man handed Cath a folder of papers. "It's all in there. You'll find we're making an offer it would be in your best interests to accept. Read it through. Check it out with your legal people. They'll see it's a very generous proposition. Sign it and send it back to Birch Hall in the reply-paid envelope."
Harry's manner was detached, as impersonal as a debt collector. But his tone, coupled with his size, made his presence very intimidating.
"You'll benefit as much as we will. It's a win-win for us all, Mrs Scaife," Phil stated confidently. "We look forward to hearing from you. Have a good day now."
Without another word, the two men returned to the Mercedes and drove out of the yard.
The women returned to the kitchen where they had been packing eggs for the local
village shop, a well-stocked store that was still managing to survive because it was also the only post office for miles around.
Cath felt cold. It was an inner chill and numbness that began in her feet and rose until it filled her entire body, as if she had suddenly been told she had only months left to live.
Her daughter, Angelica, known to everyone as Angie, divined her mother's mood. "What's up, Mam? What is it with this Yates guy?"
The shock of the unexpected visit had left Cath speechless. She struggled to find her voice. "I'm not exaggerating if I said this is the third worst day of my life," she managed at last. "The first was when Matt died."
"Sure," Angie agreed. "And the second?"
"You don't want to know," was the enigmatic but firm reply.
Angie had never seen her mother like this. When Matt's tragic sudden death had happened it was a shock and subsequent grief that the two of them had shared. This was different. Her mother was suffering a personal crisis that appeared to have no explanation. "So what's the problem with this Phil Yates?"
Cath took a deep breath. "He's one of those poisonous guys who preys on the weak. He wants what he sees and usually gets what he wants. He never gives up. Folks who've had him on their backs say it's like they've been singled out for torment by a demon. He bought Birch Hall for half its real value because its owner had been driven to despair by lawsuits. Phil Yates had him in a corner, and, so I was reliably told, he gave the man a financial thrashing."
Angie was stunned by her mother's words. Her dominant emotion of outrage came
to her rescue. "To hell with 'em, Mam! They're a pair of bloody jumped-up nowts! They've absolutely no business coming down here waving their bits o' paper!"
Cath had great respect for her daughter's fighting spirit. It had been largely Angie's bloody-mindedness that had kept them on their land after her husband's death. The last thing she wanted was to undermine her daughter's efforts, but there was no obvious cure for their financial situation. She sighed. "We've no business down here either if we can't pay the bank."
Angie tried to reassure her. "We'll find a way. We're farmers. Farmers are used to dealing with problems. Our accountant might come up with some ideas."
He might, if he wasn't already in Harry Rooke's pay, Cath thought. But she kept her gloomy ideas to herself. "Let's finish the eggs. That's cash and not declarable! We don't want the Revenue men getting fat at our expense now, do we?"
Hooray for the Cragg Vale coiners, Angie thought. "No, we definitely do not!"
* * *
Five hundred yards away, high up in the loft of his sawmill, wall-eyed Charlie Gibb had been watching the two women with his telescope clapped to his good eye. He spoke to himself, as was usual in his solitary life.
"Ah, Cath Scaife, the vultures are circling. There's only one way you'll get free of 'em now, and that's to do business with Charlie!" He swung his lean six-foot-three-inch frame through the web of roof timbers in the top of the mill, emitting his eerie high-pitched
laugh as he went. "You'll have to learn a hard lesson, oh yes! You'll have to get down on your knees before Charlie Gibb!"
He swung himself down to the first floor and descended the stairs to his office, talking to himself as he went. "When I do a deal with Cath Scaife I'll be a farmer. I'll own land and I'll have respect!" It wasn't his fault that he was an albino. It wasn't his fault that folk thought he was weird. He cursed his father for not leaving him a farm and only a sawmill.
But he'd be changing that and soon. He'd be a farmer. He'd own a piece of the
planet! Then when Phil Yates came a-calling it would be him, Charlie Gibb, who'd be saying what was what.
* * *
Twenty miles southeast from Cuckoo Nest, Harry's Mercedes was approaching the imposing stone gateposts of a small country estate close to the motorway. As the Mercedes turned on to the long private drive the name Birch Hall could be clearly seen, carved on the gateposts and picked out in black paint against the pale local sandstone.
The main building was Jacobean, with smaller eighteenth-century extensions on each side. The entire place was the same colour as the gateposts, except for the stonework surrounding the main entrance, which was a tasteful contrast of much harder old red sandstone, carted in at considerable cost by the hall's original owner, a friend and supporter of King Charles the Second.
Phil loved the place. One of his deepest pleasures was to stand on his front lawn, stare at the imposing southern elevation of the house…and gloat. He, Phil Yates, was the owner of this eight-bedroom country house, which he liked to think of—not strictly accurately—as a mansion. He, Phil Yates, born the son of an itinerant farrier, who had spent the first twenty years of his life in a horse-drawn Open-lot! No wonder they had nicknamed him Lucky on the horse-racing circuit.
But it wasn't just luck. It was having a good team. Harry had arrived with his shrewd business brain and a killer instinct equal to his own. Over the years, sometimes separately, sometimes together, they had bought cheap and sold high: asset-stripping failing businesses, buying properties and horses. And DI Nigel Hirst had stood guard over many of their more slippery deals. Occasionally together, sometimes apart, they had pressured, bribed and blackmailed their way to the top, not to mention a bit of race fixing on the way. Between them they owned houses, including several HMOs, and an expanding stock of fine racehorses, with Good Times the pinnacle of their achievement.
What was actually his and what was Harry's was a moot point. But what did that matter? Truth be told, he owned Harry as well;
the man rarely made moves on his own without approaching him for co-investment. He even owned twenty-five percent of Harry's escort girls, though Harry liked to think of them as all his own. Ah, well, he had to humour the man. When it came to physical intimidation, Harry was the best and indispensable.
But Phil was troubled. He was the poor boy made good. Envied by those with less nous and ambition, despised by the old-money horsey aristocracy, he occupied an uncomfortable middle ground: affluent but with no landed pedigree. And his money was undoubtedly dirtier than most. The irony of his rags-to-riches journey was that it had left him beset by a chronic anxiety he could never shake off. Any day, any one of his questionable deals could come back to threaten his precarious security. And there were other deeds too dark to countenance that had to be buried in the deepest abyss of his memory…
Brian and Steve, two muscular minders, exercised a pair of Dobermans on the wide front lawn. They waved to Phil and Harry as their bosses got out of the Mercedes to ascend the long flight of steps to the front entrance. Only Harry condescended to wave back.
When Phil and Harry stepped into the panelled dining room, they found Dot, Phil's wife and Harry's younger sister, sitting with Maureen eating a late breakfast the non-resident cook had prepared. Dot had secretly poured brandy into her glass of orange juice. She raised the glass as the two men walked in.
"Here's to husbands. May they remember who we are!"
Phil and Harry ignored her, both of them hoping she wasn't about to create a scene. They helped themselves from the hostess trolley.
"I've got a good feeling about Cuckoo Nest," Harry remarked as he spooned large
quantities of mushrooms and tomatoes onto his plate.
"So have I," Phil replied. "You know, I've always wanted a stud. It's been a dream of mine since I was a boy." He didn't know if his claim was strictly true, but he liked to pretend that it was.
Dot stared sourly at Phil over her orange juice. "What am I then—the rude awakening?"