by Joe McNally
‘So we just stand aside? Where does that leave us? Where does it leave the world if everybody just says that’s how it is?’
‘Fair point.’
‘Think about it, Mac. If Buley gets away with this, who’ll be next? Who’ll be the next Peter McCarthy in his sights?’
Mac straightened and nodded slowly.
‘Good,’ Eddie said.
‘What?’
‘Your jaw muscles clenched when I said that.’
‘They did?’
‘Hard. There’s life in you yet, old man. Let’s get together and get Buley.’
Eddie stood. Mac looked up at him. ‘Let me think about it.’
‘You do that. Think about Buley’s next innocent victim.’
Mac walked out with Eddie and raised a hand as he drove away. Then he looked down the valley, and beyond, to the churchyard where his wife lay.
14
When Eddie arrived home, he noticed Mave had pinged him on their secure PC link. He pinged her back. ‘Sonny had an idea,’ she said.
‘I’m listening.’
‘Give Nina Raine the next six tips live.’
‘Raine…I guess she went back to her maiden name after the Turkish guy left her?’
‘She’d never changed it, according to Sonny.’
‘I think our Sonny has a soft spot for this Nina Raine.’
‘In a fatherly way, I’m sure. Oddly enough, he’s been using the Stourport site for a few weeks now. Always goes back there, and I needn’t tell you it’s not a million miles away from the house they took him to.’
‘Jeez. I hope he’s not developed one of these captive captor relationships, what do you call them?’
‘Stockholm syndrome.’
‘That’s the one.’
‘I doubt it. He was only there for forty-eight hours. I think he just feels for her with the loss of her son.’
‘Maybe. I’ll reserve judgement, I think. Anyway, go on, what’s the plan?’
‘I link to her PC next time I’m running the software, and let her see it make the selection live, so she knows for certain you’re not involved.’
‘And Sonny does the talking, so she doesn’t know it’s you who’s behind it?’
‘You got it.’
‘And if she gets half a dozen winners, she can pay to get her son back?’
‘I believe that was part of Sonny’s thinking,’ Mave said.
‘Big softy, right enough.’
She smiled. ‘Huh, listen to you!’
‘So we prove to her and Jonty that I had nothing to do with the selections and none of the races was fixed, and come publication time, they speak up for me?’
‘Correct. And I record and date every online session. And I then offer the BHA the same opportunity, to see the system working.’
They watched each other through the webcams. ‘Well?’ Mave asked.
‘Worth a try. Want me to make contact?’
‘Better if Sonny does it. You shouldn’t be seen to be trying to influence them if they’re going to be witnesses on your behalf.’
‘Witnesses I wouldn’t have needed if they hadn’t set me up. Something tells me the world has suddenly turned upside down, Mave.’
‘Well, we need to play the cards we’re dealt.’
‘True. Too late to call for a new deck, I suppose.’
‘You’d still have ended up with the joker.’
Sonny phoned Eddie next morning and told him that Nina Raine had wept ‘sore and long’ with relief when he’d made her the offer. Nina had been preparing to make the trip to Turkey to search for Zeki.
The thought that something good would come of all this raised Eddie’s spirits and he was in a better frame of mind as he drove to Stratford.
On his second ride, on the favourite in the handicap ‘chase, Eddie smiled as they galloped toward the last fence. He had led all the way and was still ten lengths clear. His mount had jumped perfectly throughout giving him a rare experience: a flawless round in the late August sunshine doing the thing he loved above all.
His mount landed well balanced at the last and got away from the fence still galloping. Then Eddie saw a loose horse coming straight at him on the run-in. The animal had lost its rider on the first circuit, and rather than stay with the field, as most loose horses do, he’d become confused on getting to his feet and set off in the opposite direction.
Now he was on a collision course.
Eddie’s horse was tiring. Eddie eased him toward the rail to try and keep him straight and give the other one the width of the track.
The loose horse would have missed them but for the collective gasp of shock from the stands spooking the chestnut who half ducked, half tried to turn, and cannoned into the bay gelding. Eddie came off in a sideways somersault and dropped right on top of the plastic rail just where it was strengthened by a vertical support. Eddie heard the snap of his collarbone and felt the stab of pain at the same time.
The ambulance driver was old enough to remember concrete posts and thick wooden rails on racetracks, and he left Eddie in no doubt he was a lucky man to be riding in these days of health and safety. Eddie consoled myself with that, plus the bonus of the break having happened before the proper winter season. He’d be back in the saddle well before then.
And in Newmarket, a boy who was dear to him would be eking out the last of his school holidays.
15
The Malloy family tree was tangled and scarred. A couple of years after Eddie had been banished at sixteen by a father who’d hoped he’d never see him again, Eddie’s schoolgirl sister Marie, had borne a child.
Twelve years later, she’d been forced to tell Eddie about it. The shame. The birth. The adoption. The wiping of everything from family history. And last year Eddie had found her son and brought him ‘home’.
But Marie did not want the boy.
At the time, she was nursing their mother, who was grieving for her dead husband. Caught in a tightening vise between two generations, Marie had chosen the one she’d known all her twenty-seven years.
So her son Kim had stayed with Eddie and ‘Aunt’ Laura for a year at Laura’s racing yard on the north east coast of England. And life had been good through that spring and summer.
Eddie had thought Laura was ‘the one’. After many false starts, he believed he’d found his partner. That promise held for a few months. But Laura was too big a character for Eddie Malloy. She was all confidence and independence and certainty as she blasted through life. ‘They should have named a hurricane after you,’ Eddie had told her.
She turned out to be Eddie’s earthquake.
Living with her exposed his fault lines, and on their wildest days those cracks in Eddie’s personality widened. In the calm periods, the fissures showed no signs of closing, of healing. Laura could live with them. Eddie couldn’t. Eddie’s fragility could not withstand the burden of expectation.
But Laura had never tired of the project that was Eddie Malloy. Eddie, as always, slunk away seeking sanctuary. Isolation. And that withdrawal was made easier, practically and emotionally, by the death of his mother. Her legacy provided the money for Eddie to build a house, a den, a retreat in a place of relative safety. And Eddie’s nephew, Kim, had the option of moving to Lambourn to live with Eddie, or to move in with his birth mother, and try to rebuild his life and hers.
For Kim, duty came first, and he chose Marie, his mother, newly bereft of her own mother. Alone. Eddie promised to help them. He never shirked from healing others. So long as the emotional stethoscope was measuring the shortcomings of someone else, Eddie could cope just fine.
A year had passed since then. In that time, Eddie had been careful not to intrude too often, to give Kim and his mother a chance to build their relationship. If things worked out in the coming days, this would be the longest period he’d have spent with them as a family.
Eddie knew jockeys who had ridden with a broken collar bone, so driving with one, supported by a figure of eight
brace, was nothing to complain about.
Kim sat astride the front wall waiting for him, the boy’s smile and his black hair gleaming in the afternoon sun. Eddie rolled the window down as he slowed, and he saw an old saddle beneath Kim, the stuffing squeezing out through tattered leather. ‘Is that attached to you or the wall?’
‘Well, I’ve been here for an hour and my bum got too sore just sitting on the wall.’
‘We need to toughen you up.’
Kim slid out of the saddle and walked alongside the car as Eddie steered into the drive and parked. Kim was thirteen and, Eddie thought, at that horribly awkward stage of wanting to do the adult thing. He held out his hand. Eddie shook it then grabbed him, intent on swinging him around, but the bolt of pain reminded him of the broken clavicle. Eddie settled for a hug and lowered Kim gently as the front door opened. Marie. Smiling. Smiling effortlessly…the first time Eddie could recall her doing that since she’d been a child.
She went to him. ‘Will that collarbone stand another hug?’ Eddie opened his arms as far as the brace would allow.
Kim and Eddie went for a long ride together. The boy’s heart was set on being a jockey. He knew his uncle would help when the time came. They rode along the Devil’s Ditch in the quiet of late afternoon, surrounded by hundreds of acres of Newmarket heath. After an hour spent talking about horses, Eddie asked how things were with his mother. Kim smiled across at him as they went at a steady walk. ‘Marie, you mean? That’s what she told me to call her.’
‘Since when?’
‘Just last week,’
‘How do you feel about that?’
‘I’m not sure. She said she knows how much I loved my adoptive mother, and she’d always felt awkward when I called her mum. But I’ve been wondering if she kind of wants to keep some distance between us.’
‘Do you want me to speak to her about it? ‘
‘No, thanks. It’ll work its own way out. I’d rather talk to her about my real father than about what I call her, but she just says we’ll talk about that "in good time", whatever that means. You never knew him, did you?’
‘Never did. I was up and away by the time your mother met him. I guess she’s told you about that part of the family history, me leaving home?’
Kim nodded, quiet again then said, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
Eddie looked at him, realizing the boy was uncomfortable with the subject but wanted to give Eddie the chance to unburden himself. And Eddie loved him all the more for it. ‘Not now,’ Eddie said, ‘But thanks for asking. I’ve never really talked to anyone about it. Someday I will. And watch out, it might just be you.’
Kim smiled. ‘I don’t mind. It must have been a horrible thing for you. When I think about it, my stomach flips and I feel I might be sick.’
‘It was a horrible thing for all of us, and it affected everybody in different ways. Your mother, too. It can’t have been easy for you since you decided to try and make a go of things with her. Though it looks to me you’re both doing pretty well on it.’
‘We are. It’s been much harder for her. She’s been carrying a ton of guilt for years. It’s been easier for me, I think.’ Eddie felt an odd mixture of sadness, happiness and admiration for him then. His mother had effectively rejected him twice and here he was trying to heal her wounds as well as his own.
Eddie looked across at him as they held that steady walking pace in the heart of a wide empty land. ‘I’m proud of you, Kim. Proud just to know you, never mind to be your uncle.’ Kim blushed and shrugged and looked away, then said, ‘I’ll race you to that big tree at the end of the row!’
Eddie smiled. ‘Okay.’
‘And don’t be letting me win. Try your hardest.’
‘I always do. Always.’
‘Ready? ‘
Eddie kicked his horse and yelled and got the drop on his nephew, leading him by a couple of lengths as they galloped west toward the sun.
16
That night, Eddie sat with his sister in the kitchen, the only room where Eddie felt comfortable. The dark formal sitting rooms, gloomy stairway and the four bedrooms upstairs held no warmth for him. He remembered his first visit when his parents were still alive. Eddie had been a reluctant caller on what he’d thought a mission of mercy. There had been no prodigal son moment, only resentment from Eddie’s father, and a cool reception from his mother, who never dared cross her husband.
Now they were gone, but their spirits remained.
Eddie looked across the wide pine table at Marie, her dark hair tied back, eyes a vivid blue with more life in them than Eddie had ever seen. He was struck by how pretty she was. Family troubles had separated them for fifteen years. When Eddie had first met her again as an adult, she’d been surly and defensive. Since Kim had come back into her life, she’d bloomed. The furrows had gone from her brow, the cynicism from her eyes, and Eddie saw much more of her fine teeth in frequent smiles.
She sipped white wine and nodded toward the strapping on Eddie’s injury. ‘Your collarbone survived a gallop with Kim, okay?’
‘Ahh, I’m soft compared with some of the lads. They’d ride with broken legs if the doc would let them.’
‘You’re his one and only, you know, Eddie. You’re the best in his eyes.’
‘He’s a great kid. I wish I could see more of him.’
‘You’re welcome here, anytime. You know that.’
‘I do. But I need to make sure Kim, and you, are kept out of the scrapes I keep getting myself into. We almost lost Kim once before.’
‘Those scrapes, as you call them, seem to go with the sport. You won’t be free of them until you retire. And knowing you, you’ll still find ways of getting mixed up with other people’s problems. You’re a natural-born angry young man…well maybe not so young these days.’ She smiled and drank again.
Eddie raised his glass of water, ‘Cheers, Sis.’ He told her about the pictures and about Mave and Sonny and Nina Raine, and the chances of him being made to look like a cheat by the media, feeling lousy as her old frown gradually returned. ‘Sorry, Marie.’
‘You were only trying to help’, she said quietly as she rested her chin on her hands and stared at the table.
Eddie said, ‘I don’t know if I should tell Kim.’
She looked up sharply. ‘He wouldn’t believe a bad word against you, no matter how many newspapers printed it.’
‘I know. I’m more afraid of him losing his temper and wanting to pitch in to help.’
‘It sounds like you’ve got a good plan together already.’
Eddie nodded, then reached across and rested his hand on hers. He said, ‘I’d best tell him. The plan could easily go wrong. I’d rather he was prepared, especially with all the shit he’ll get from other kids.’
She slid her hand from under his and picked up her wine glass and drank, then nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘He’ll still be awake, won’t he?’
‘He reads himself to sleep. Been through the whole Dick Francis series.’
‘Could be worse. Might be Playboy.’
‘That was your favourite at that age, was it? I doubt they even do it anymore.’
‘You’re probably right.’
‘Anyway. Kim finds racing a lot more exciting than women.’
Eddie got up and pushed the chair in. ‘It won’t last. Trust me.’
She smiled and said, ‘And that’s when life’s real troubles start.’
Eddie went upstairs.
17
Broc Lisle sat watching his father. This was the first time Lisle had visited and found him seated in his room. The staff told Lisle that his father’s endless walking was finally taking a toll on his energy levels. He was resting more often.
‘Getting tired, father?’ Lisle said, smiling and leaning forward to put himself directly in his father’s eyeline. That was the only time he had a chance of getting a response of some kind. Occasionally, the old man even raised a smile or managed a few intelligible words. Although
dementia had set in, Lisle senior had come into the home as a result of a brain injury.
Waiting to cross a London street on his mobility scooter, a kindly driver had stopped to wave him across. Seething behind this kindly driver was an impatient one who was cursing this fool for stopping in the middle of the road for no apparent reason.
He swung his car out and stamped on the pedal for maximum noise and speed to show this moron how to use the roads.
That’s when Lisle senior’s scooter emerged into his path.
A £500 fine and a six-month driving ban for a man whose impatience had ruined the life of another. But it did not alter Broc Lisle’s world view. He had seen many bad things done to people, few of them deserved, and quite a number driven by bloodlust and cruelty.
Why me? Why him? Why us? Pointless questions, Lisle knew. Pointless.
Broc Lisle lightly kissed his father’s head. ‘I’ll see you on Friday. Less walking, more rest. You hear?’
Lisle left Manor Park underground and waited for a break in the traffic. His ‘encounter counter’ antenna was still working, and he checked those passing in vehicles as well as the pedestrians on the other side of the crossing. Since he’d taken this BHA job, his mental encounter graph was on a steady downslope. It was important to him that he acknowledged this, otherwise, what was the point of keeping figures? Where was the pleasure in celebrating highs?
He crossed and turned west toward his flat. Light from the setting sun highlighted the roof from behind, and Lisle slowly shook his head. ‘I need a big sky,’ he muttered.
He locked the door behind him, undressed and showered.
Wearing a clean white shirt and soft twill trousers, he sat by his telephone and searched for Cynthia’s number. This job was not working out as he’d hoped. Mister Buley had been making himself less accessible. Jordan Ivory’s name was coming up with increasing frequency as the Old Bailey case was slipping. Lisle needed more information on both.