by Joe McNally
53
JCR went ahead with the announcement next morning. Their CEO, Tim Arango, battled his way through questions from reporters in admirable fashion. When the bonds issue came up, he was asked who’d be most affected if the police could not catch whoever had mounted this vendetta, and JCR were unable to honour their liabilities. He got political then and did everything but answer the question. But the squirming was obvious, and Eddie thought that reading between the lines would never be easier.
Jack Shawcross was quoted on behalf of the Professional Jockeys’ Association: "We consider this a courageous and pragmatic step by Jockey Club Racecourses. It’s refreshing to find an organization which cares about the welfare of all its stakeholders. Our members will miss riding at JCR tracks, but we applaud this directive as its primary aims encompass the protection of jockeys."
Eddie knew that was another political statement. The truth was that most in the changing room were pissed off at the potential loss of opportunities and maybe prize money too. The JCR fixtures were to be auctioned among other tracks, but none needed to provide the JCR level of prize money for each race.
Marcus Shear’s statement on behalf of the BHA was sympathetic and conciliatory. Eddie had expected some gloating given the public hammering the BHA had taken over the balls-up in the Old Bailey trial. But Shear was a different character altogether from Nic Buley. That thought set Eddie wondering again about Buley’s disappearance, and the motives of whoever was behind all this.
Eddie had a winnerless day at Uttoxeter, and by the time he got home, Mave had chosen her last three horses and sent them to Sonny. ‘Two at Doncaster, one at Kelso,’ she told Eddie. ‘Last day of the year.’ Eddie crossed his fingers and held them up. She smiled. ‘Soon be over,’ Eddie said.
Mave flopped down on the couch. ‘I’ll see the New Year in with you, then head back to the Shack and start planning for the future…If that’s all right with you?’
Eddie sat beside her. ‘Of course it’s all right. Stay on. Do your planning here. There’s no need to go back right away.’
She turned to him. ‘Symbolic, though, innit?’ she smiled wearily. ‘I thought you’d appreciate that.’
‘I do. I just don’t appreciate losing you.’
She closed her eyes, and massaged her face then said, ‘I’m too tired to talk about it, Eddie. I think my brain is finally burning out.’
‘Nah. Couldn’t do. They say the sun is halfway burnt out, but it still has five billion years left.’
‘I think I’ve got about five weeks left.’
Eddie put his hand on hers. ‘I’ll come north with you, if you want. Help you start your planning.’
‘Thanks, but it’s a solo job, this one. A solo job for the soul.’
Dil Grant had just one runner at Doncaster on the last day of the year. Normally, Eddie would have packed his bag as usual and driven up there. But Mave’s anxiety over Sonny’s final bet prompted him to ask Dil if he could stay home. Dil agreed. The horse had little chance anyway. Eddie came off the phone and turned to her, ‘I’m yours for the day.’
‘Oh, glory be! You’ll regret it. If these don’t win, you will not want to be within a mile of me.’
‘Mave, you’ve done your bit. Leave them to it. Your betting career is over now. Your tipping time is done. You want to travel, don’t you? Let’s not go anywhere near a betting shop. There’s a big motorhome dealer near Cheltenham. I’ve passed it a few times. Why don’t we drive up there and pick one for you for your round the world trip?’
And that’s what they did. While Mave moved wide-eyed from vehicle to vehicle, while they had lunch and turned the pages of glossy brochures showing glorious beaches, and sunsets, and Roman ruins, the first two of Mave’s selections had won at 5/1 and 9/2. From what Sonny had told her, they’d managed to place bets totalling £10,000; all straight win trebles where one loser would bust the bet. But the victories of those first two meant that Sonny and Nina had £330,000 running onto a mare called Glad Rags in the final race at Kelso.
Glad Rags was 4/1. Had the mare won rather than losing by a neck, they’d have gone into the New Year with a pay-out of £1.65 million pounds. But the length of the winner’s neck meant Sonny and Nina lost every penny of their ten grand stake.
Eddie and Mave were back at his place by the time they found all this out. Mave was sad, but relieved. She took out her phone. ‘I’ll just text Sonny to say sorry I didn’t come through for him.’
Eddie’s hand began rising to stop her, but, remembering his control freakery, he stopped himself, although he couldn’t hold his tongue. ‘Mave, you have nothing to apologize for.’
She looked at him. ‘He’ll be desolate, Eddie.’
‘He’ll learn his true worth to Nina Raine. He’ll need all the affection you’ve built for him over the years. He’ll need you when she dumps him. But if he’s desolate, it’s because of the decisions he made. You don’t have to say you’re sorry.’
She had watched him silently, her sad frown fixed, and when Eddie finished talking, she said quietly, ‘But I want to say I’m sorry.’
Eddie shrugged and turned away.
‘Build a fire,’ she said softly.
Later, as the final minutes of the year leaked away, they followed what had become Eddie’s ritual since moving into this place. They sat in the sun house in the cold, wet garden and raised toasts to the fact that they’d survived another year and that Mave had settled on the motorhome she wanted, and that soon she’d be driving away, trying, as this year was, to leave the sadness behind.
They huddled together as the sweeping second hand of Eddie’s watch moved toward midnight. ‘Boom!’ said Mave, as it struck 12. ‘There goes my programme, in a digital blast. The sound you hear is from a millstone finally cut from the neck.’
54
The big meeting on New Year’s Day had always been Cheltenham. Not this year. It was one of the JCR tracks and the fixture had been hastily transferred to Newbury. Dil had two runners there. Mave had wanted to catch a train home. Eddie said, ‘Mave, it’s New Year’s Day. How long do you think you’ll spend waiting for trains to get you to your godforsaken part of the world?’
‘It’s not as if I’m doing anything else, is it?’
‘Come with me to Newbury. My final ride’s in the third race. We’ll get away straight after that. I’ll drive you home. I’m at Catterick tomorrow, so I’ll stay over with you. If that’s okay?’
‘Of course it’s okay. I just don’t want to be on a racecourse. Not today. Not anytime.’
‘Then stay here. I’ll be back by four.’
When Eddie returned from Newbury, Mave was in the Snug, curled up on the couch.
‘You built a fire,’ Eddie said.
‘All by myself. Amazing, eh?’
‘Blazing amazing. I don’t suppose you stretched to making yourself a meal too?’
‘I did actually. I had some pasta and tuna for lunch.’
‘Building your strength for this globe-busting trip, ain’t you?’
‘I am.’
‘I’ll grab a sandwich and we’ll head for your place. If you’re ready, that is?’
‘I’m ready, Eddie.’
The drive was a five-hour gauntlet through torrential rain. Rain so heavy, Eddie told Mave he didn’t believe that a cloud could hold so much before bursting. The farther north they travelled, the less respite, and as they made the final turn on the road to Mave’s place, Eddie was confident he wouldn’t be riding next day. Catterick would be flooded. The only other meeting scheduled had been Exeter, another JCR track. They’d been unable to rearrange that fixture.
Eddie parked close enough to the door to give them a chance of staying relatively dry. ‘You got your keys?’ Eddie had to shout as raindrops battered the car roof. Mave held them up, swinging them. Eddie smiled, and they jumped out.
But the key wouldn’t turn in the lock. The wind drove the rain at their backs and Eddie tried to cover her as she fumbled. ‘It
won’t turn!’
Eddie reached for the key and tried. She was right. Without thinking, Eddie tried it the other way…It turned. It locked the door. Eddie unlocked it and urged Mave through, then pushed it closed on the wild weather. Mave was reaching for the light switch. Eddie stopped her. ‘Mave, the door was unlocked. Unless you forgot to lock it when you left, I think you’d better prepare yourself before you turn the light on.’
She flipped the switch.
Her eyes went past the general mess the burglars had left straight to her desk. ‘PC’s gone,’ she said.
She ran her main programmes on a big desktop PC. The monitor, keyboard and mouse were on the desk. The PC unit was missing.
Nina.
Sonny.
Had to be, Eddie thought, but he knew better than to say anything. Around the old stone-flagged floor, lay scattered rugs and many of Mave’s personal things. Drawers from her desk had been turned over. The kitchen was a mess. Her bed mattress lay on its edge between the bed-frame and wardrobe. Eddie followed her silently from room to room.
In the bathroom, the side panel had been ripped off, exposing the underside of the bathtub.
She turned to Eddie. ‘You want to start the biggest fire of your life?’
Eddie waited for the satirical smile. It didn’t come. ‘What do you say?’ Mave asked.
‘Are you seriously suggesting we burn the house down?’
‘Seriously.’
‘Mave, what we need to do is call the police. Once whoever did this finds out they can’t run the programme without your input, they’ll come after you next.’
‘Nobody can run the programme, remember? It ceased to be at midnight.’
‘Wouldn’t your PC have to have been set up and running for that to happen?’
‘No. Everything was in the cloud. That’s why I could run it from your place.’
Eddie looked around again. ‘All this for absolutely nothing, then. So what will happen when they turn the PC on and try to start the programme?’
‘The usual. They’ll be asked for a password.’
‘And if they get some super geek, could he break the password?’
She stared coldly at him.
‘No offence intended, Mave. I’ll take that as a no.’
Mave went outside. Eddie followed her and put an arm around her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry, Mave. We need to find a safe place for you. Whoever did this is not going to believe you destroyed the programme. They’ll be looking for you.’
‘But I’m not going to be here, am I? I’ll be on a campsite in Morocco or somewhere.’
‘There’s no way you’re travelling anywhere on your own after this. Not until these people are caught.’
She looked serious as she stared at him. She said, ‘I’m only going to tell you this once, okay?’
Eddie nodded.
‘Sonny wasn’t involved in this.’
Eddie watched her. She raised a finger, ‘You believe what you want, Eddie.’
Eddie turned and went downstairs and stood in the middle of the messed-up living room. A couple of minutes later, Mave came through the doorway, jaws clenched, breathing through her nose, trying to control her anger but each fast breath flared her nostrils and pumped her thin chest. Eddie said, ‘Want to find a hotel somewhere?’
She nodded.
They got a room in a hotel on the outskirts of Abersoch, high above the beach, and the sounds of the wild night roared up at them. Eddie hung their wet coats from the showerhead and they sat on the bed listening to the steadily decreasing drips hit the bath. Mave’s hands were clasped, resting on her thighs.
They sat together, bodies touching, but didn’t look at each other. Eddie said, ‘Mave, I’m in a bad position here, and I don’t know what to do.’ He saw her short nod of acknowledgement from the corner of his eye, but she said nothing, and they both kept staring at the floor.
Eddie said, ‘I told you a couple of days ago that I never wanted to control you. Ever since we got close, I made myself always ask one question when it came to any disagreement…I’d ask myself, what would she do if I wasn’t here? If we’d never met? But I don’t know what you want to do. Were you serious about just taking off?’
‘I’m serious,’ she said quietly, ‘but I don’t trust myself anymore. I’ve made some shit decisions in the past seven years. Every single one seems twice as bad as the one before it. It’s like one of those pyramids of acrobats that starts with the top one tumbling, misjudging just one step, then as everything beneath him goes, it just spreads in layers. That’s what my life has come to, and I just need to get away from it now. Leave everything. Wipe it all out. Try to start again. Go away.’
She hadn’t looked at Eddie, but the quiet despair in her voice tore him up. Eddie saw a blotch of wetness on the blue denim of her right thigh, a teardrop. He turned to her, put an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. Her weeping was quiet at first, then came a gulping for air in that lump-swallowing grief that engulfs before the dam bursts. Then the low helpless wails, and she tried to work herself closer to him, and it developed into a silent choreography as they understood what was needed, and she turned and Eddie eased her across until she lay in his lap, and he rocked her gently, like a child.
Her distress eased slowly as they moved, and Eddie realized that the steady rhythm was comforting him as much as it was Mave. And the sea below thundered on, and the coats in the dark bathroom dripped, and they rocked in the pool of light from the bedside lamp until all sense of time was lost, and even when she fell asleep the rocking would not stop.
55
They woke to TV news pictures of flooded roads, fields, and houses across northern England. Computerized graphics showed the whole of the UK. It was wet everywhere, but it looked like some giant had grabbed John O’Groats with one fist and Land’s End with the other and squeezed until the water pooled in the middle. No race meetings had survived. This was their first piece of luck. Mave had agreed to let Eddie take care of things, to take care of her until her confidence returned.
She was in danger. She accepted that. Whoever had the PC would soon discover that Mave’s password couldn’t be broken. The fact that the programme no longer existed made no difference.
Eddie couldn’t look after her twenty-four-seven, unless he stopped being a jockey and went full time trying to find who was behind this. But if he could get Mave to a safe place, he could put all his spare time into tracking down whoever was behind the burglary. For all Mave’s protests, Eddie had no doubt it was Nina and Sonny. Nobody else knew about the programme. Nobody else had been benefitting from it. And nobody else knew it was about to be destroyed. Case closed.
Eddie was sure Sonny hadn’t done it willingly. He believed that even with Nina driving him, Sonny wouldn’t go so far as to harm Mave. But Nina would know this too, and she’d have other men to do these things for her. That made Eddie think again…perhaps Mave was right after all. If Nina had a few people doing her dirty work, all she’d have needed from Sonny was Mave’s address. This was running through Eddie’s mind as Mave showered. She came out wearing a long red bathrobe. ‘You could fit about six Maven Judges in there,’ Eddie said.
She flapped the wide sleeves. ‘I feel like little Red Riding Hood’s little sister’s little sister.’
She dried her hair with a towel. ‘Mave, I need to make some plans. I don’t want to upset you, and I don’t doubt what you said about Sonny, but Nina has to be behind all this. She probably didn’t even tell Sonny she was going to have your place raided. Nina and Sonny were the only ones who knew about the programme. I’m happy to take Sonny out of the suspect side if you’re happy for me to go after Nina.’
She stopped with the towel and turned to him. ‘Sonny wasn’t there when they broke in. I’ll tell you why…whatever Nina Raine asked him to do, Sonny would rather die than scatter my personal things all over the floor. If only the PC had gone, you might have persuaded me Sonny was involved.’
‘Fine, I�
�m sorry I-’
‘And… they were not the only ones who knew about it. Remember the demo we had to give to the BHA people, the ones who signed the NDA?’
Nic Buley and Broc Lisle. Eddie had forgotten about them. ‘You’re right. Sorry.’
‘That’s okay,’ she turned up the collar on the dressing gown and the edge went close to the top of her head. ‘You’re the boss, now. I feel better having shoved all my responsibilities on to you. I’ll just drop in the odd fact or opinion if I think it’s going to be helpful.’
Eddie smiled. She sounded more like her old self. He said, ‘And I’ll still ask your opinion on my theories, especially the crazier ones, if that’s okay?’
‘That’s fine, but I’m guessing you’re already ruling out your two BHA guys?’
‘I’d trust Broc Lisle way ahead of Buley. But we don’t know where Buley is, so he’s got to be in the picture.’
‘‘What about Lisle?’ Mave said. ‘You sure about him?’
‘I’ve no reason to be sure other than instinctively. I don’t know, Mave. I can arrange a meeting and tell him what’s happened and see how he reacts.’
She crossed her arms and shook the still damp hair away from her face. ‘Your call. I’m going to get dressed.’
‘I promise not to watch.’
‘I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or an insult, Mister Malloy.’
‘It’s respect, Ms. Judge. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.’
She smiled wide and Eddie realized how long it had been since she’d done that, since he’d seen that crooked-toothed happiness. She said, ‘Congratulations, that’s the first song quote of the New Year.’
‘Let’s aim for one a day.’
‘Deal,’ she said, and returned to the bathroom.
Eddie’s phone rang, offering Eddie’s first seemingly psychic experience of the New Year. It was Broc Lisle.
‘Mister Malloy, Happy New Year to you.’
‘And to you.’