Outside Chance

by Lyndon Stacey

  ‘Tell me the start of it,’ Jakob suggested, placing a mug of coffee on the worktop in front of Ben and pulling out a couple of tall stools to sit on.

  Ben took a mouthful of strong, black coffee and burnt his tongue, but hardly noticed.

  ‘Was it an accident? How old were you?’

  ‘I was fourteen – we were fourteen; I had a twin.’

  Jakob’s prompting finally loosened Ben’s tongue.

  ‘There were always horses when I was growing up.my parents were dealers: they bought and sold show ponies and jumpers, and from the time we were big enough to sit in a saddle, my brother Alan and I would spend every weekend – and a good few weekdays – at horse shows. Mum and Dad would buy unbroken youngsters, back them and school them with us on board, and then we’d hit the shows to win prizes and bump up the resale value. It was a very successful operation, as far as I can remember. Dad, especially, had a great eye for raw talent, and Mum took charge of the breaking and schooling. Alan and I got to be very good at getting the best out of a variety of ponies – and then horses, of course, as we got older. We used to win all the time. I expect we were horribly conceited brats. Some of the other kids on the circuit really hated us, but it never mattered, of course, because we had each other.

  ‘We missed a fair amount of school in our early years, but when we started GCSEs our parents got quite strict. We still did the weekend shows but on weekdays we had to go to school, unless it was a very important show. The horses we were riding were big enough by then for Mum to take over during the week.’

  Ben paused, and when he continued his voice and expression were bleak.

  ‘This one day, we should have been at school – our parents thought we were – but we’d bunked off. Played truant. It was the Bath and West, you see. One of our favourites, and we’d never missed it before. Dad had a heavyweight hunter he was pretty sure would take the championship and we wanted to be there. So we planned it in advance, got off the bus at the second stop and doubled back. We thought if we hid in the horsebox until we got there they’d be pretty angry, but it’d be too late for them to do anything about it.

  ‘The thing is, we never got there. Halfway down the A303 some guy fell asleep at the wheel and jackknifed his articulated lorry right in front of us. Dad tried to avoid it, bounced off the crash barrier, ran up a bank and the horsebox went over on its side.’

  He paused again, staring into his coffee cup.

  ‘Dad’s show hunter had pulled one of his leg protectors off earlier in the trip, and Alan and I were in the back, trying to put it back on. When the lorry went over, Trojan came over on top of us. With the lorry on its side he couldn’t get up and we were trapped underneath him …’ Ben swallowed hard, and the coffee in his cup rippled as his hand began to shake. ‘I was near Trojan’s head but Alan was under his belly. He couldn’t breathe. I could just see his face. He cried out to me a couple of times and then went quiet. We were looking at one another and I watched him die.’

  There was a long moment of silence in the catering van and Ben watched in surprise as a splash of moisture landed on the worktop. As he emerged from his memories, he found his vision swimming with unshed tears.

  The discovery was shocking.

  He’d never been able to cry for his brother before. At the time, shock had given way to a form of denial; a numbness that dulled all his senses for months to follow. By the time the numbness passed, suppression had become a habit.

  Jakob was watching him, a wealth of sympathy in his hooded black eyes.

  ‘Why are you blaming yourself, Ben? There was nothing you could have done.’

  Ben put a hand to his eyes, shook his head and sniffed.

  ‘But you see, it was my fault, because it was my idea. If I hadn’t suggested it, Alan would still be alive.’

  ‘I doubt it,’ Jakob said. ‘You were twins, Ben. I’m sure you only said what he was already thinking. If you hadn’t suggested it, he would have done. You didn’t force him to go along.’

  Ben shook his head again. ‘No. I didn’t force him.’

  ‘Then there is no blame.’ Jakob made a small noise of disgust and spoke a few words in his own tongue before saying, ‘Someone should have talked to you at the time. A child – and you were only a child – should never have been left to deal with such a thing, such a tragedy, on his own.’

  Ben pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and made good use of it.

  ‘My parents were too busy blaming each other, and themselves,’ he explained. ‘They divorced less than a year after it happened. Everything was a mess.’

  ‘And you? What happened to you?’

  ‘Oh, I went to live with my father but he was determined to put it all behind him. He wouldn’t speak of it. It was almost as if Alan had never existed. Pretty soon he got married again, and then he had a new life that I didn’t really fit into. I packed up and left to go and live with my mother, but halfway there I changed my mind. I went to Dover, got on a cross-channel ferry and spent the next six months in France. I spent my sixteenth birthday working in a vineyard in the Dordogne.’ Back on a more even keel, Ben took a sip from his cup. ‘I travelled for a couple of years, then came back to catch up on my schooling and eventually went to university. That’s basically it,’ he finished, with an apologetic smile. ‘I thought I’d put it behind me, but it just keeps coming back.’

  ‘Every time you get close to horses, and yet, you choose to work around them. Are you punishing yourself for what happened, Ben? For the death of your twin and the break-up of your family? I think you are.’

  Ben was taken aback. ‘That’s pretty deep, isn’t it? Where did that come from?’

  Smiling slightly, Jakob shook his head.

  ‘You forget, I am Rom – Romani – or at least part of me is. We have the sight.’ He read the burgeoning cynicism in Ben’s eyes and threw up his hands to silence him. ‘No, I’m not talking about tea-leaves or crystal balls, that’s just for the Gadje – the tourists. I mean what we see in here.’ He tapped his temple with his index finger. ‘Ah, I can see you don’t believe – I don’t need the sight to see that; it’s in your face for the world to see.’ He shook his head again. ‘That’s all right; I’m used to it. But I want to help you, Ben. We have to remove the fear so you can move on.’

  ‘So, you think I must ride again.’

  ‘Yes. You must ride again, and I will help you, if you will let me. Will you let me?’

  Ben hesitated, feeling his heart begin to thud heavily.

  ‘Yes. All right. But it must be now. We have to do it now.’

  Jakob stood and picked up the cups. Putting them in the sink, he said, ‘I am ready.’

  ‘Duka?’

  Ben had been waiting in the round pen behind the arena as Jakob had told him to. The same one where he’d watched, spellbound, as Ferenc put the Andalusian through his paces. Now Jakob appeared with the very same horse.

  ‘You can ride. You told me you could. It is not something you forget. Duka will be perfect; he will do only what you tell him to. His training is of the very best.’

  ‘I thought, perhaps, Melles,’ Ben said weakly. ‘I never thought …’

  ‘Melles is placid but he can be – what’s the word – arguing?’

  ‘Awkward? Stubborn?’

  ‘Yes, stubborn. He is stubborn and he is very wide. Duka will be perfect. Come.’ Jakob pulled the stirrups down and tightened the girth.

  Ben stepped forward, wishing he were practically anywhere else on earth. The proximity of the horse, its smell and the soft thud of its hooves in the sand all threatened to overturn his careful composure. At Jakob’s bidding he swallowed hard, took the supple leather reins in his left hand, placed his right hand on the back of the saddle and bent his left leg at the knee.

  Within moments he was in the saddle. His feet instinctively found the stirrups and his fingers felt for the reins. At Duka’s shoulder, Jakob looked up at him and smiled.

  ‘You see, I told you you
would not forget. We will walk.’

  Without waiting for a reply the Hungarian stepped forward, his hand on Duka’s bridle, encouraging the horse to do the same. Ben’s body immediately settled into the old familiar four-beat rhythm of the walking horse and, with a sense of wonderment, he felt his anxiety begin to melt away. Duka’s neck arched proudly and Ben could see his forelegs flicking out sideways as he lifted them with the exaggerated action of his breed. The horse was light and obedient, balanced between rein and leg, and as his nerves evaporated, Ben began to glory in the forgotten joy of riding a fine horse.

  ‘You are OK, Ben?’

  Jakob’s voice came from behind and to one side, and Ben saw with surprise that he had fallen back. He was alone with the horse and he was coping. More than that; it felt good.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Duka’s white ears flopped to and fro as his head nodded, and the saddle creaked comfortingly. Ben squeezed with his heels and the Andalusian responded immediately, hindlegs powering him forward into a trot and then, after a circuit or two, into an armchair-comfortable rocking canter, his loosely plaited mane flopping against his neck and Ben’s hands.

  Back to the trot, across the middle of the circle to change the rein, and once more into a canter, Ben allowed his body to relax and go with the movement. When, after a few more circuits, he reluctantly reined the stallion in and turned to where Jakob stood at the edge of the ring, Ben couldn’t prevent a grin from spreading across his face.

  ‘I’d forgotten it could be like that,’ he told the Hungarian.

  ‘And Duka went well for you. You are good on a horse. A little stiff in your shoulders but that is to expect after – how many years?’

  ‘Eighteen.’ Ben slipped his feet out of the stirrups and dismounted, landing lightly at Duka’s side. ‘Christ, my legs are like jelly!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’ll suffer for that.’

  ‘Yes, I think you will. Just loosen his girth for me, would you?’

  Jakob tossed the request casually at Ben, who went to step nearer to the Andalusian and then faltered. His eyes darted towards the older man and found that he was watching closely. The nightmare panic came back. After the heady success of riding Duka he’d thought his demons were effectively banished, but here, on the ground, it seemed nothing had changed, and instantly fear came flooding back.

  ‘You can do it, Ben,’ Jakob murmured softly. ‘Look at his eyes – see how gentle he is.’

  As if sensing Ben’s hesitation, Duka turned his head and looked enquiringly at him, his big, dark eyes regarding him steadily, a little like a legal secretary peering over a pair of pince-nez.

  ‘Look at his eyes, Ben.’

  Ben looked, but the fear had nothing to do with conscious decision. He knew Duka had no wish to hurt him, but the knowledge didn’t really help. The panic was rooted deep in his psyche, waiting there for a certain sound, smell or situation to trigger it to explode into his mind with disabling force. He bowed his head, wrestling with the urge to just turn and walk away – away from the horse, from the round pen, and from the troupe.

  ‘If you go now, you’ll never come back,’ Jakob said quietly.

  Damn you, I know that, Ben thought, not looking up. But suddenly he was moving again, close to Duka’s side, lifting the saddle flap, feeling for the girth straps, loosening the buckles.

  ‘OK, let’s get him back to his stable,’ Jakob said casually, stepping forward to take the horse’s rein.

  Ben moved back as Duka walked by, grateful to the man for his matter of fact manner. He felt drained and a little shaky; although he had survived the first encounter, he was under no illusion that the battle was won. The difference was that the joy of riding again had given him one important thing: the extra incentive that he needed to face up to his fear and conquer it.

  As Ben left, the Csikós were busy with last-minute preparations for their move. He looked briefly for Nico, but no one seemed to know where he was so he asked Miklós, his brother, to pass on the message that he’d catch up with him at their next stop.

  His journey back to Wiltshire was a thoughtful one, his mind see-sawing between the emotions of the morning and the ongoing puzzle of Cajun King’s disappearance. If all had gone well that morning then presumably the horse would soon be returned, but that wouldn’t necessarily be the end of his own investigation or that of the police. He couldn’t see Truman being content to let the matter go. His towering ego wouldn’t rest easy with the knowledge that someone had got the better of him, even if there hadn’t been the little matter of half a million pounds to consider. If the kidnappers imagined that they were away and free, they should think again. With the horse safe, Ben knew Truman would spare no effort or cost to exact revenge and, remembering what he’d heard of the trainer’s methods in the past, he very much doubted that his notion of settling the score would involve either the police or Her Majesty’s justice system.

  He thought back to his conversation with Belinda Kepple and what she’d told him about Helen and her unfortunate lover. Did that explain the apparent gaps in the pictorial history of the yard? Could Truman really have been so furious that he had destroyed all evidence that the boyfriend had ever existed? It would certainly explain the resentment Helen appeared to harbour for her father, although Ben didn’t see why, if she’d felt that strongly, she hadn’t followed her lover to Poland or wherever he originated from. Granted, she’d only been sixteen or so at the time but, after all, Ben had only been that age when he went to France. After a moment’s reflection, he supposed it was different for girls.

  Was it possible that this ex-Castle Ridge jockey could be behind the kidnapping? Could someone really carry a grudge for all that time? And why, for that matter, would someone wait that long? It was not as if Cajun King was the first Castle Ridge horse in fifteen years to be favourite for one of the big races. And apparently Eddie hadn’t considered the deported jockey to be a threat, because he’d made no mention of him to Ben.

  As his car rolled to a halt on the gravel in front of Truman’s house, Ben wondered what the prevailing mood would be. He was slightly surprised that he hadn’t heard from the trainer one way or another. Surely the ransom drop must have been made by now.

  Unexpectedly, it was Helen who opened the front door; she didn’t look exactly overjoyed to see him.

  ‘Dad’s up at the yard,’ she said. ‘He won’t be long but you can go on up if you like.’

  Squinting up at the moderately heavy drizzle that had started some twenty minutes before and showed no obvious signs of easing, Ben stayed where he was.

  ‘I suppose I could sit in my car and wait,’ he commented.

  Helen regarded him with ill-concealed displeasure.

  ‘Well, you can come in, but it’ll have to be the kitchen because I’m feeding Lizzie.’

  ‘Oh well, I’m not proud,’ Ben declared obligingly.

  Helen’s look of dislike deepened as she stepped back to let him past and he wondered what, if anything, he’d done to merit this hostility, or whether it was just part of her general attitude.

  ‘So how did everything go this morning?’ he asked as she led the way through to the kitchen. ‘Did they make the drop?’

  ‘Yeah, but nothing happened.’ Helen crossed to the high chair where her baby daughter sat, gurgling happily and pushing a plastic spoon round in a puddle of greenish puréed food. ‘They’re still waiting.’

  ‘Really? You mean they picked up the money but you haven’t heard anything?’

  ‘No. I mean they haven’t picked up the money. The police are watching the pick-up point but so far no one’s come. We don’t know what’s going to happen now.’ She picked up a bowl containing more of the purée and retrieved the spoon from the baby.

  ‘So, where was the drop?’ Ben asked, watching with fascination as Helen posted a brimming spoonful of mush into the child’s open mouth and, in a continuation of the movement, fielded the overspill before it could go further than the little rounded chin. He remembered seeing his step
mother use precisely the same technique with Mikey when he was a baby, and wondered abstractedly whether it was something taught at ante-natal clinics or whether it came with the whole maternal-instincts package.

  ‘Somewhere in the New Forest, I think. You’ll have to ask Dad – I don’t know all the details.’ Helen’s tone discouraged further questions and her body language plainly said that she was busy with more important things.

  ‘She’s a bonny baby,’ said Ben, to whom all babies looked alike. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘Ten months. She’ll be one on the first of May.’

  ‘Oh, a May Day baby – but you didn’t bow to pressure and call her May.’

  ‘We named her after my mother, but May is her middle name,’ Helen told him, relaxing and almost producing a smile as she aimed another spoonful unerringly into the small mouth. The baby’s bright blue eyes opened very wide as she stared up at Ben.

  ‘So tell me about your affair with the jockey,’ Ben said, using underhand tactics and slipping the question in while Helen’s guard was down.

  It worked, too.

  ‘Wh – what jockey?’ she stammered, turning deathly pale. ‘What do you mean?’ Her concentration broken, the spoon stopped, suspended in mid-air halfway to the baby’s mouth.

  ‘I was told you had a – what shall I say – a liaison with one of the yard’s jockeys when you were not much more than a kid, and that your father threw him out.’

  ‘Daddy never told you that!’ Helen had gone from ashen to decidedly pink, and the latest spoonful of mush landed with a plop on the plastic tray of the high chair while Lizzie looked on with an expression of comic surprise.

  ‘No, it wasn’t your father who told me,’ Ben agreed. ‘But someone who knows, nevertheless.’

  ‘What else did they say?’

  ‘What else do you think they might have said?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it. It’s all way in the past,’ Helen said, returning her attention to the infant, who was now happily dabbling her chubby fingers in the spilt food. ‘Oh, Lizzie, what a messy girl you are! Look at your fingers – hmm? What a mess!’