by Joe McNally
One to jump. Three in front of them, all wandering across the track, almost exhausted, their jockeys rousting and roaring and swinging whips, but none took the last cleanly…the chestnut almost fell. Eddie could crouch now, and draw his whip and cut them down, but there was no need, and the jeers from the crowd on the previous circuit were fresh in Eddie’s mind, so he sat as still as he’d done then, and fifty yards from the line eased past the final rival.
Grey Heron hardly knew he’d been in a race and he galloped on, round the bend. As he began pulling him up, Eddie had a surprising urge to keep going. This might be his last big race win for an awful long time if Scolder had his way, and Eddie became a child again, with visions of jumping the white rails next, and galloping off, heading north through the countryside, north and away, away, away.
28
After racing, Eddie set off on the long drive to Newmarket to see Kim and Marie. They had arrived home from Cumbria the night before. Eddie had called Marie, and she knew what to expect. She asked him to stay over with them for some family support on Sunday. He’d have preferred being alone, or with Mave, but family had been a word seldom used in Eddie’s life and it touched him. Kim would want to comfort him too.
An hour into the trip, with daylight almost gone, Mac called. ‘Eddie, Lisle just rang to tell me Scolder’s been onto the BHA. He rang Buley for a comment for this story tomorrow.’
‘So?’
‘So, Buley’s in a panic.’
‘Good.’
‘Eddie, he needs to be able to give some sort of informed response.’
‘That’ll make a change. Tell him to dip into his buzzword bingo box and haul out six yards of the usual bullshit he talks. He can feed that to Scolder. Why are they ringing you, anyway?’
‘To see if I could shed any light on it.’
‘To see if you thought I was guilty, you mean?’
‘Look, whatever way you take it, Lisle is going to want to talk to you. I’d have thought you’d want to cooperate.’
‘I’m happy to cooperate. They should have called me, not you. No offence.’
‘I’ll tell him that.’
‘Please do. By the way, they’ll suspend me tomorrow, I expect, so you and I can go fishing or something.’
‘I’ve never fished in my life. Neither have you.’
‘True. We can walk the garden paths instead.’
‘Eddie, why do you always get flippant at times like these? Your career’s on the line.’
‘I don’t know, Mac. Maybe it’s to hear you use words like flippant. Macabre is another one of yours I like. And belligerent. And litany.’
‘I give up.’
‘See you next week.’
‘Call me when you’ve spoken to Lisle.’
‘I will.’
When Eddie hung up, there was a voicemail waiting from Broc Lisle. Eddie pulled into a service station and rang him. They agreed to meet in the morning near Newmarket. Eddie called Mac to update him, then set off again for Marie’s place and some peace and quiet and sanity.
Kim’s curly hair shone like liquorice under the wide light above the kitchen table. His summer tan remained, making his sparkling smile look like something from a TV ad. Eddie had buoyed myself to come into the house bright and happy, as though the clock hands weren’t steadily chipping the edges from his life.
‘You should sue this guy Scolder, as well as his paper,’ Kim said. ‘That would make him think twice before picking on anybody again.’
‘I might just do that.’
Marie said, ‘You’d think their legal department would have told them to leave well alone, given all these press hacking stories and court cases.’
‘Scolder seems a hard man to say no to,’ Eddie said.
‘Have you met him?’ Kim asked.
‘Not yet…but I will.’ Eddie smiled, and Kim did too.
Eddie told them as much as he could without giving away Mave’s secrets.
‘So this Jonty guy,’ Kim said, ‘if you can’t find him, they won’t be able to find him either, so he can’t back up their story.’
‘Unless the reason we can’t find him is that they have him locked away in a hotel somewhere.’
He nodded, curls bouncing. ‘True.’
‘But you’re right. They’ve got a signed statement from him saying the pictures are genuine, but I don’t know what else that statement says.’
Marie said, ‘How can they convince a court or a judge the statement is actually from him, no matter what it says, if he’s not there to confirm it?’
‘Good point,’ Eddie said. ‘I’m glad I came here, now!’
Kim looked up at him. ‘Will they take away your licence until all this comes to court?’
‘I’ll probably find out in the morning. I’m meeting their head of integrity, a guy called Lisle.’
‘Does he like you?’ Kim said.
Eddie smiled. ‘We’ve never met.’
‘Meeting on a Sunday? You going to London?’ Marie asked.
‘Lisle’s coming here. Not here to the house, to Newmarket. I’m meeting him at some business place, owned by a friend of his. He assured me it’s deserted on Sundays.
‘Newmarket’s hardly the best place for you to be, with your picture all over the Sunday papers.’
Eddie smiled. ‘Marginally better than Lambourn. I won’t be parading around town anyway. I’m seeing him at ten. I should be back here for lunch, then a ride out on the heath with Kim.’
‘It’s okay. We can give that a miss if you want,’ Kim said.
‘No way. It’s the main reason I came.’
Kim smiled and Marie threw a mock scowl. Eddie reached to touch her arm. ‘And to see my lovely sister, of course!’
‘Just as well you added that,’ she said. ‘You’d be getting sent to bed without dinner.’
When Eddie did get to bed, he considered switching off his phone and leaving it off until this time tomorrow. As soon as those pictures appeared, he’d be blitzed with calls, mostly from reporters but many of the lads Eddie rode with would want to offer a kind word. Eddie stared at the phone…no point in an innocent man going into hiding. Eddie left it on.
29
Kim was up at dawn and out for the papers. He bought them all, but only The Sunday Report, Scolder’s paper had the story. And Scolder had blinked first. Or maybe his lawyers had. The article concentrated on the ‘farcical’ case against Blackaby, Sampson and Kellagher, under the headline Who are the Villains? Pictures showed Eddie taking cash from Sonny, and Sonny collecting cash from bookies. There was a quote from Jonty Saroyan claiming he’d had them ‘under surveillance’ for weeks and could conclude nothing else except that Eddie Malloy was getting Sonny to place bets on Eddie’s behalf, which was against the rules of racing.
Scolder quoted Eddie correctly: “I was helping a friend and had no knowledge of the cash amounts or the horses”. The quote from Nic Buley was non-committal: “In light of possible disciplinary action, it would be unfair of me to comment on Mister Malloy’s future.” Eddie thought it an unusually bullshit-free statement for Buley.
Scolder’s final paragraph: “You can decide for yourself if pictures speak louder than words.”
By the time Eddie left to meet Lisle, he’d taken more than thirty calls, giving time to every journalist and telling friends he’d ring back when things cooled down.
Lisle had given Eddie latitude and longitude data to put in his satnav, assuring him he’d need it to find the meeting place. The satnav woman ordered him to head northeast, giving a forecast journey time of twenty minutes.
Lisle had been right about the difficulty of finding the place. It was in a vast forest adjoining RAF Lakenheath. Eddie stopped at the tall wire mesh gates and rang Lisle. ‘Come in,’ he said, ‘park in bay 17, please. I’ll meet you there.’ The gates swung slowly open.
There must have been thirty parking bays. Only one was taken by what Eddie assumed was Lisle’s silver BMW. What the hell did it matter
if he parked in any bay? Why 17? But Eddie did as he was told, and as he stepped out of the car, he saw Lisle striding toward him along the length of the single-story dark green building. He seemed to keep dead on track as he walked, five yards out from the wall of the windowless building.
Eddie had seen him a number of times on TV, but mostly just head and shoulders. He looked less imposing in the flesh, Eddie thought, though obviously fit. His brown suit and brogues were impeccable, and Eddie felt like an urchin. This man took serious care of his appearance. The white shirt collar sat stiff and perfectly symmetrical against a shining, clean-shaven throat.
Eddie reckoned Lisle’s face had been set in officer mode so long, he’d be unable to smile. But everything went to the At Ease position when he reached Eddie and smiled warmly, holding out his hand. Eddie judged the smile genuine as they shook hands. His instinct gave Lisle a split-second shakedown and pronounced him trustworthy. Mac had been right.
Lisle had a presence that was more than physical and Eddie suspected he was a good deal more savvy than many thought. The ex-soldier had become adept at looking the part, but Eddie sensed it wasn’t the real him.
‘Sorry for this Secret Service crap,’ Lisle said, ‘we’re not having a great time at the moment, you’ll appreciate. We can go inside to a dark room that smells of old boots and sweat, or we can walk a couple of circuits in the sunshine.’
‘I get enough of old boots and sweat in the changing room. A walk suits fine.’
The building was laid out in a large T shape, all single story, all green: no windows. Lisle told him it was used for training and evaluation of personnel, and that he’d been an advisor "in a previous life" to the company running it.
He finished the brief history as though it had been a duty, and they walked on, like prisoners in a concentration camp, birdsong the only sound until Lisle spoke again.
‘Tough morning for you,’ he said.
‘I’ve had better.’
‘What’s the story?’
‘Exactly what’s printed. I was helping a friend who was placing bets. I didn’t know what the horses were or how much the stakes were, and I had nothing to do with getting the money on.’
‘Your friend have a name?’
‘Yes.’
They walked a dozen paces without looking at each other, though a smile developed on Lisle’s face as Eddie held out. ‘Where do we go from here?’ Lisle asked.
‘That’s for you to decide.’
‘You’ll be up in front of the disciplinary panel. You know that?’
‘On what charge?’
‘That hasn’t been decided yet.’
‘Do I keep my licence in the meantime?’
‘Depends,’
‘On what?’
‘On how cooperative you want to be.’
‘I just told you all there is to tell.’
‘On your side.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘What do you know about Blackaby, Sampson and Kellagher?’
‘Other than they’re now free to resume riding?’
He looked at Eddie. ‘You know they’re bent.’
‘I wouldn’t-’
He stopped and put a hand on Eddie’s arm, his head completely still. ‘You know they’re crooks. I know they’re crooks. Everybody in the weighing room knows they’re crooks.’
‘Didn’t a highly respected judge just decide they weren’t?’
‘They’ve been fixing races for years. You can’t deny that.’
‘I concentrate on the races I ride in. Nobody’s fixed any of them.’
They walked again.
‘Know anything about Jordan Ivory?’ Lisle asked.
‘He’s a bookie, and he must be very smart, and he’s probably also very pissed off.’
‘Why?’
‘Because everyone seems to have decided he’s the only man who ever tried arranging fixed races.’
‘He’s running those three jockeys, anyway, isn’t he?’
‘I haven’t a clue, Mister Lisle. All I know is that he’s never done me any harm.’
‘I think you’ll find the harm is happening through collateral damage. People will lose faith in the sport, no?
‘Punters enjoy the skulduggery stories as much as anyone else. It gives them an excuse for backing the wrong horse.’
‘Skulduggery. A euphemism, Mister Malloy. Ivory is a crook. Kellagher, Sampson and Blackaby are crooks. What they’ve been doing constitutes fraud.’
‘Well, the BHA should have done a better job in prosecuting.’
‘We’d have had them if somebody hadn’t leaked that police payment to the press.’
‘Maybe. The real reason the case failed was Buley’s ego. He wanted that nice one-year anniversary present.’
Lisle nodded and they walked on in silence, Lisle easing out of his proud stride to put his hands behind his back and stroll head down, like a priest.
‘What do you want, Mister Malloy?’
‘Fair treatment.’
‘I mean what do you want to help us out here?’
‘There’s no help I can give you.’
‘You helped us quickly enough when the chance came up to get your licence back all those years ago.’
‘Only because your department was so incompetent they took my licence away. Wrongly, as it happens.’
‘But you put everything into it back then, didn’t you, when your friend McCarthy asked for help?’
‘The situation was different.’
‘People were doping horses to make money. They were infecting your sport, same as these guys are doing, but because they’re not bothering you, you don’t care.’
‘It’s not my job, Mister Lisle.’
He stopped and looked at Eddie. ‘That doesn’t absolve you though, does it?’
Eddie couldn’t find an answer. Lisle out-stared him then said, ‘We’re organizing a special sitting of the disciplinary panel for noon tomorrow at High Holborn. Do you intend to have legal representation?’
‘Not much point until I find out what I’m being charged with.’
‘Who said you’ll be charged with anything?’
Eddie raised his eyebrows… ‘Best wait and see, then, eh?’
Lisle chaperoned Eddie to his car. Eddie held out his hand. ‘See you tomorrow, Mister Lisle.’
30
On their afternoon ride, Kim and Eddie went steadily among a network of quiet tree-lined roads, never far from falling leaves. The rain that had been threatening all day held off, but the wind was rising. They rode side by side, chatting and listening for traffic.
‘Who is this Sonny Beltrami, the man in the pictures with you?’ Kim said.
‘He’s a friend. Well, mostly a friend of a friend really.’
‘Won’t he speak for you?’
‘He’s in Turkey. In love. And he’s working on something more important.’
Kim watched him.
‘Sonny’s trying to track down a boy who’s supposed to have been kidnapped by his father.’
‘Why would a father kidnap his own son?’
‘One of these domestic disputes. A marriage gone wrong. A British judge says one thing, a Turkish judge another and you end up with a long distance tug of war.’
‘Is it a religious thing?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Is the boy in any danger?’
‘I don’t know, Kim. But Sonny’s a good man and he’s head over heels with Keki’s mother, so he’ll be doing his best to find him.’
‘Keki. I guess that’s Turkish?’
‘I think so.’
‘How big is Turkey?’
‘Twice the size of chicken.’
He smiled.
‘Hiding my ignorance, mate. I don’t know. Was never much good at geography. My final school report card on the subject said "does well to find his way home".’
Kim laughed and his grey horse flicked its ears back.
‘Would Sonny come home
if you had to go to court over all this?’
‘I suppose he would, but I doubt it’d make much difference. He was more involved than I was and he got a fair commission from each bet. They’d class him an unreliable witness.’
‘So you need to find this man Jonty, then?’
‘I’m not even sure now if that will do any good. He’s an alcoholic, and a thief by all accounts. He’d be an even more unreliable witness.’
‘Well that works both ways, doesn’t it? If he’s unreliable for you, then he must be unreliable for this Barney Scolder and whatever he’s told him. Especially if Scolder paid him.’
Eddie looked at him. ‘I hadn’t thought of that. Want to be my lawyer?’
He smiled. ‘I’m going to be a jockey.’
‘I know you are.’
They trotted on between high green banks thick with trees, listening to the short echo of the hoof beats. ‘Does Laura ever call you?’ Kim asked.
That caught Eddie unawares. She’d been like a favourite aunt to Kim when they had been together. He’d lived with her and her horses for months up on the northeast coast. ‘No, I haven’t heard from her in a year. She still calls you, doesn’t she?’
‘Once a week, usually. Sometimes she says she misses you.’
‘Sometimes I miss those days by the sea, when you were safe and happy and I was in love.’
‘I’m safe and happy now. Don’t worry.’
Eddie turned to him. ‘As happy as you were at Laura’s?’
His head and shoulders moved to the rhythm of his horse, and the wind stirred the black curls hanging from the side of his helmet. ‘Not always.’
‘You could go back, you know. Your mother would understand.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m too far down the adjustment line. Too many days in the bank to lose them.’
Eddie was about to tell him how proud he was of his mature attitude and his philosophy, when Eddie realized it would be patronizing. Eddie just nodded and said, ‘I know the feeling well.’
Kim said, ‘And Marie seems to be coming out of her shell. Not so many bad days now. We’ve had a good summer.’