For Your Sins: previously published as Joseph's Mansions

by Richard Pitman

  ‘Right, fine. But how does the Hot Harrow work?’ asked Graham.

  ‘Simple, the tractor’s dragging the harrow. You harness the heat from the tractor engine and feed it to the metal on the harrow so it not only breaks up the frost with force, it melts it too, and that makes the whole thing much quicker.’

  Graham nodded. ‘How do you harness the heat?’

  ‘Well, that’s the bit I’m still working on,’ said Billy, less confident now.

  ‘The hardest bit,’ Graham said.

  ‘Not that hard, Dad. I just need to think about it a bit more.’

  ‘Good. It’s a good idea, Billy. Keep working on it.’

  Billy smiled at the praise from his father then turned to his mother. ‘What do you think, Mum? Are you in?’

  ‘I think it’s a good idea too. You solve the heat-harnessing problem and, er, get back to me. Isn’t that what they say in the business world?’

  Billy nodded, still smiling widely.

  His sister Jane sat opposite him at the oval yew table. She could never remember a day when that table had not been there. Jane was certain she had memories of sitting at it in a high chair with a bowl of soggy mush on the plastic tray in front. She sat here now almost fifteen years later, a very pretty girl, small for her age, smaller than any of her friends, but with shining auburn hair, blue-green eyes and traces of summer freckles still spread across her delicate, slightly upturned nose onto her cheeks. Unlike most of her friends she wore no make-up or jewellery, had no piercings for studs and no intentions of letting anyone ‘punch holes in her’. Her skin was smooth, blemish-free and her family were proud of her prettiness. Jane feigned indifference to her own looks but in her heart, she was proud of being different.

  She swallowed some of her pasta and said to Maggie, ‘Congratulations Mum. Were you expecting a cheque for that much?’

  ‘No, God, no! Nothing like that much.’

  Jane’s eyes showed a tiny spark of triumph. ‘Then why don’t you give half of it to my Banish Blindness fund?’

  Billy pretended he was choking on his food. ‘Half of it! You’re kidding! That’s almost thirty grand!’

  Maggie knew she wasn’t kidding and she was stunned by both the request and the deviousness of her daughter’s first question. And she was confused. She didn’t know what to say in reply and Jane was looking at her, waiting coolly for that reply. Jane’s fund-raising activities were something Maggie and Graham had always supported. The girl was tireless, had been since she was twelve and saw a TV programme about famine in Africa. And now she’d just proved she was also wily and a bit ruthless, and Maggie was suddenly seeing a new side to the first child she’d borne, and her mind and her emotions weren’t quite coping. She looked at her husband. He raised his eyebrows in a way that said, “I can’t help. Over to you.”

  She looked at Jane and said, ‘Of course I’ll make a contribution to your fund.’

  ‘A half?’

  Billy spluttered again. Maggie felt anger showing in her eyes and hoped that it would make Jane back off. But Jane stayed cool, waiting. Maggie didn’t know if her daughter felt in any way uncomfortable at such an obvious confrontation, one she had cunningly engineered. What she did know was that Jane would be thinking that the end justified the means. Those people in Africa blinded by cataracts could be easily and cheaply treated, and twenty-eight thousand pounds would give an awful lot of people their sight back. If achieving this meant making her mother feel uncomfortable and embarrassed, then Maggie knew that Jane would be able to live with that. She made a decision. ‘How much have you raised so far?’

  ‘Just over six hundred and sixty pounds. Mum, this would make such a difference.’ And her face softened and Maggie saw her daughter again, saw that pleading look which told how deeply she really felt about this.

  Maggie nodded. ‘And when does this particular campaign end?’

  ‘I wanted to send the money off just before Christmas. Just think what a gift it would be for those poor people to know they were going into the New Year with the hope of being able to see again. To see their families.’

  Maggie had been going to say that she would match the final total but now that seemed mean and paltry. She said, ‘Whatever your final total is, I’ll multiply it by ten and write you a cheque.’ She suddenly had a quick flashback to Jane’s devious setup question. There was no telling of what manipulations her daughter might get into to jack up the final total, so she added, ‘Up to a maximum of ten thousand pounds.’

  Jane smiled and Maggie was relieved to know she wasn’t going to argue with that. Not right away, at least. Billy said, ‘Oh, Mum! That’s twice the cost of a patent application, that’s not fair.’

  Jane turned to her brother. ‘The Hot Harrow isn’t going to make anyone see again, is it?’

  Billy was lost for words and blurted out. ‘OK, maybe it won’t, but it could help people over there once they can see to grow crops and stuff! ‘

  Jane said, ‘And when was the last time there was frost in Africa?’

  Billy went redder, mad at his sister, too clever for him yet again. ‘Well, just a normal harrow then. I could help pay for those through sales of my Hot Harrow! Couldn’t I Dad?’

  Graham said, ‘You could, I’m sure you could, but I think it’s time we all calmed down and finished eating. There’s evening stables to be done yet. You’ll all need something hot inside you before we go back out into the cold.’

  Billy groaned. Jane flashed a triumphant smile. Maggie found she couldn’t finish her meal and got up from the table. ‘I’ll wash up.’

  Jane scooped the last of her pasta into her mouth and through it said, ‘I’ll dry, Mum! ‘

  Maggie turned to her. ‘It’s OK. I’ll wash and dry.’ She took Jane’s plate. Their eyes met, and Maggie knew in that moment that her relationship with her daughter would never be quite the same again.

  When the family came out into the half-lit yard to complete the ritual of checking the horses and giving them their last feed, Monroe could see their breaths pluming in the night air. He was crouching by the fence in the bare-treed orchard, the darkness offering all the cover he needed. The three square lights on the walls of the stables sent beams through the mist, making the Cassidy family look like ghosts as they separated and drifted away from each other to disappear into the shadowy boxes.

  20

  When Stonebanks asked Frankie if he’d mind covering Ascot for him on the Saturday before Christmas, Frankie was relieved and glad to accept. It rescued him from the seemingly inescapable assault of the coming festivities, and also gave him a solid excuse to decline Bobby Cranfield’s invitation to have lunch and spend the day in his private box.

  He’d thanked Bobby for the invite but had already said that he thought it was now inappropriate to be his guest at racemeetings. Bobby was PR director for the Jockey Club and Frankie was an employee. Nepotism was rife in racing. Without it, the game would probably grind to a halt. But now that he was getting into the job properly, Frankie was keen to prove himself through his own hard work; whatever he was to achieve, he didn’t want people thinking it would be on the coat tails of one of the directors. Anyway, Bobby also owned quite a few horses now and Frankie had laughingly said to him, ‘What if I end up investigating you or one of your trainers or jockeys sometime? I need to be seen to be acting absolutely independently.’

  Bobby had laughed it off too and tried to persuade Frankie to come for lunch at the very least. But Frankie won the debate and Bobby, good-naturedly as ever, conceded. His parting shot was, ‘Well Frankie, you’re not allowed to have a bet so you wouldn’t have been able to take advantage of my big tip for Saturday. My trainer reckons Arctic Actor is a certainty in the handicap hurdle. When you see me in the winners’ enclosure, you can at least shake my hand! ‘

  Frankie promised he would.

  Despite his failure to make any headway in the case of the kidnapping and death of Ulysses, Frankie was sharpening his skills and his confiden
ce was growing. Few people on the racecourse knew who he was. He blended into the background wearing casual clothes, greens and greys and browns. He had a variety of sweaters and trousers that he wore in cycles, trying not to dress the same two days running. He had bought two new coats and now had five in all.

  He felt it was important that none of the regulars began to notice the same man appearing frequently on the southern racecourses on weekdays as well as weekends, drifting around the betting ring, the paddock, the Tote windows, the stables area. Anyone who had noticed him wouldn’t have seen much. He never approached a bookmaker or had a bet on the Tote. They wouldn’t have known that he had a small but high-quality camera in his coat pocket. Nobody so far, Frankie was certain, had seen him taking pictures of ‘interesting’ people and who those people were talking to or drinking beside, or betting with. Sooner or later, they would twig him and find out exactly who he was, but until that time, he had an advantage, which he intended to keep for as long as possible.

  At Ascot Frankie spent the first two races wandering around the betting ring; wherever he was in that noisy gathering he could always hear the braying voice of Compton Breslin, the well-known bookie.

  Frankie couldn’t pass him without smiling. Like himself, Breslin never wore the same clothes two days running but whereas Frankie dressed for anonymity, Breslin wore the most outrageously bright and stagey clothes imaginable. Frankie knew that this and his brashness, his sometimes personal and loud-mouthed challenges to circling individuals clutching cash, were all a carefully planned part of Breslin’s strategy. Bookmakers were already the natural enemies of punters; if one gave cause for personal dislike as well, then all the more reason to try and take his money. And Frankie knew, as most did, that Breslin was the only winner in the long run. The fat bookie drove a gold Rolls Royce, of all things. From the moment he parked it and got out, he’d be shooting his mouth off at racegoers approaching the entrances, handing out gold-edged business cards to them, inviting them to come and take him on.

  In the betting ring before the start of the handicap hurdle, Frankie had to concede that Breslin did at least put his money where his mouth was. Bobby Cranfield’s horse Arctic Actor was a hot favourite with most bookies at six-to-four. Breslin called thirteen-to-eight and seven-to-four and was taking all the business on the favourite without reducing the price as most of them did to try and balance their books. Breslin just kept shouting the odds, coining in more and more cash while his colleagues looked on sour-faced. Frankie knew they’d all love to see the favourite win now so Breslin would be crucified.

  Then he stopped and wondered at his use of that word, and felt almost as though he should apologize silently to Jesus.

  He moved away to watch the race from the stands. If Bobby was right about Arctic Actor being a certainty, then Breslin would be taking a very cold bath indeed. Frankie made a mental note to go back into the ring after the race, just to see if Breslin could maintain the same confident demeanour when paying out.

  But there was never any danger of the money bet on Arctic Actor going anywhere except into Breslin’s bank account. An unconsidered outsider called Colonialize led from the tape, went well clear early and was never caught. Frankie watched him gallop past the post to an almost silent reception from the crowd. One of the things that had attracted him to racing many years ago had been the sheer passion of the spectators as they cheered their horse on; close finishes involving fancied horses were particularly atmospheric. But when twenty-to-one shots finished well clear of the others, things tended to be more funereal. Frankie smiled wryly; that’s racing, he thought. He felt a twinge of sympathy for his friend Bobby Cranfield, but he knew there’d be no serious damage to the man’s wallet. Still, Bobby would be embarrassed at tipping the horse to his friends. It had finished second, but not for a moment had it looked like catching Colonialize.

  Three hours after winning the race, the tall narrow chestnut Colonialize was led shivering to Peter Culling’s operating theatre, and the lad who looked after him was sent away. Culling injected the horse and stood watching as the shivers visibly slowed as though some internal battery was running down, then eventually stopped. He led the horse to a box and started rubbing him dry with some straw.

  Back to the house then for a couple of hours in front of the TV before calling the trainer to report that the horse hadn’t made it. Next, he rang Gerry Monroe and asked him to pick up the horse in the morning.

  ‘I’m busy in the morning. I’ll do it in the afternoon,’ Monroe said.

  Culling paused, trying to keep his temper. Since giving in to Monroe that night, the whole business had become fraught to the point where he couldn’t manage the stress. He knew what it must be doing to his heart. He was nailed between the power Monroe now had and the dread of being caught by the authorities, a fate which grew more likely the longer the horses stayed on his premises. Culling had two assistants. Part of his strategy of doing his doping on Saturdays was that only he was on the premises on Saturday nights and Sunday mornings.

  ‘It has to be in the morning, Gerry,’ he said nervously.

  Monroe’s voice hardened. ‘It doesn’t have to be anything other than what I say, Mister Culling!’

  ‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that. It’s just that, well, if things don’t work out as planned, I won’t be able to provide any more horses for you.’

  ‘So? I’m sure there are some more bent vets around.’

  Culling’s face went red. His grip on the receiver tightened and he knew he had to get off the phone before his blood pressure rose any higher. ‘Do it when you can make it then. The horse will be in the usual place. Goodbye.’ He hung up and made himself walk away slowly to the conservatory to practise deep breathing.

  Monroe had planned to spend one final evening up north to do a last recce on the Cassidy place.

  Still, he already had a pretty good handle on procedure in the yard. On two days that week, they’d had runners. Graham Cassidy had driven the box so it was a fair assumption that when they had a runner, the boss would be away leaving just Mrs Cassidy and one groom. There were only eight horses in the yard and that didn’t merit a head lad, which made Monroe’s task easier.

  He’d considered going on a raceday and simply leading Angel Gabriel across the fields to where he’d park a trailer. Mrs Cassidy seemed to go out very little and Monroe reckoned she locked herself away somewhere to work on her writing, but in the end, he’d decided not to take the risk. There appeared to be no form of burglar alarm. Three security lights came on if anyone approached after dark, but he’d noticed them do so when no one was around and suspected that small animals also triggered the beams.

  The Cassidys had a couple of dogs who seemed to live inside most of the time. He’d yet to hear them bark. He was sure he could sneak in during the early hours of the morning and damp the big horse’s hooves with rubber boots normally used for horses with foot problems. He had half-considered going in tonight, Saturday, but Culling’s call had made his mind up for him. He’d head south again, pick this horse up from the vet’s and take it to Hewitt’s place.

  He decided he’d steal Angel Gabriel in the early hours of Christmas Day, and as he made his way back across the fields toward his car, he congratulated himself on the irony of his timing. He smiled as he tried to recall the line from school lessons. He said it aloud: ‘And the Angel Gabriel said to Mary, “You are with child.” And Gerry Monroe said to the Cassidys, “You are without horse.’” And he laughed at his cleverness and said, ‘Shit, that’s brilliant.’

  21

  Frankie couldn’t face Christmas in Winterfold Cottage. He moved out on the Saturday night. His first impulse had been to find a hotel in London and book in for a week, but the intensity of Christmas, or at least the commercial side of it, would be even more acute in the capital. He recalled seeing an ad in the newspaper and he scanned through until he found the ‘hideaway for those who hate Christmas!’ It was a country house hotel in Builth Wells over
the Welsh border, remote enough to lose himself for a few days but not that far from civilization. If needed he could be back in London quite quickly. He’d worked every week, already had a day off booked for Monday and racing stopped for three days on the run-up to Christmas. If he could have Tuesday off, that would give him a week away from everything; work, the cottage, Christmas.

  As he drove west, he thought about where he’d really like to be going - to a monastery somewhere for a week-long retreat. He felt the need of God, of his comfort, much more at that moment than he ever had, but it was denied him because of what he had done. He’d convinced himself of this. There was no road back, especially for the hypocrite. He had a yearning too for his mother, for her forgiveness, her love. But he knew she despised him, was certain that if he knocked on her door she would turn him away.

  At the hotel, he was relieved at the complete absence of Christmas paraphernalia and at the calm, professional welcome he received. The hotel was baronial, inside and the sound of his footsteps reminded him of the echo in the grand churches. His room was spacious and tastefully decorated, the big bed supremely comfortable. He’d arrived too late for dinner but had no appetite anyway, and he hung up his clothes and climbed in between the cool sheets.

  He lay a while luxuriating in the softness as the bed seemed to envelop him, hold him tenderly, almost as though it were human and knew of his sorrow. And he slept.

  Sixty miles north of Frankie, Maggie Cassidy lay awake beside her sleeping husband. Her mind had been in turmoil since she’d taken a call the previous afternoon from her agent. He told her with delight that the auction for her next three books had brought a winning bid of half a million pounds. The news stunned Maggie to the extent that, while she was saying to her agent how wonderful it was, she imagined that it was happening to someone else.

  Maggie agonized for hours, then decided she would keep the news secret, deposit the cheque quietly in her bank and get on with life. That would be best for everyone, definitely.