by Joe McNally
Guta stood by the balcony exit, framed by the hulk of Cleeve Hill behind him. He gave no sense of being on guard or watchful. The feeling I got was that he was calm, confident and relaxed in this glass eyrie where threats to his boss or the guests would be minimal.
As I stepped up to the microphone and cleared my throat, Guta glanced across and nodded, almost smiling, but not quite. I nodded to him. He was built like a jockey, his navy blue suit sat as impeccably on him as Sir Monty’s clothes did on his much larger frame. Guta’s boss would have been maybe sixty pounds heavier than him, yet, in that terrible car crash fireball, Guta had hauled him out. Monty chose to see himself as being lucky that day, lucky that Bruno, a man he’d never met until then, had driven past within seconds of Monty coming off the road. Fair play to Monty; very few would call a day like that a lucky one.
I looked again at the smiling Monty. I was strong and fit but could not have dragged him two metres.
I eased into my pitch, nerveless, and enjoying the attention. I talked through each race, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of the main contenders and offering a selection. I often finished these talks by warning people not to bet more than they could afford, but this glittering crowd might have viewed that as distasteful. I wished them luck. They applauded.
Monty stepped up to the microphone and put a hand on my shoulder, ‘What about your mount today, Eddie, Nantafa in the Triumph?’
‘He’s a brave little horse, but I think he’ll find this a bit too hot for him.’
Monty put a sailor’s hand to his brow on the lookout across the room, ‘I hope his trainer’s not here! That’s far too honest!’
And his guests laughed as guests do, too hard and too long.
As Monty took his hand from my arm, I grasped his sleeve, ‘Have you a couple of minutes?’
‘Of course. Shall we go out onto the balcony?’
Bruno Guta smiled and opened the door and Monty and I stepped into the brilliant chilled sunshine of mid March. I told Monty about Alice and how worried Ben was. Monty didn’t hesitate in offering Guta’s services. I’d been ready to tell the full story, but he gave me a short lesson on being a successful businessman by waving away the details, ‘Give Bruno’s phone number to Ben, and he can explain everything. Bruno will deal with it.’
As we raced downhill in The Triumph hurdle, Nantafa faltered. I gave him time to fill his lungs, but knew it wasn’t a question of fuel, but of engine size. To most people, one racehorse looks like another. To the experienced eye, there are many variations. No matter how skilled the judge, until a horse races, nobody can tell how fast it can go, and for how long.
Galloping toward the second-last, mine was among a string of strugglers being steadily left behind by the top horses. Watching others pull farther and farther away was something I’d grown used to in recent years. My eyes had adjusted…my mind had not. I hated being left behind.
Here on this final day of the Cheltenham Festival, I found myself wishing stupidly that my mount would take off as Montego Moon and Spalpeen had, igniting that whooshing turbo, and that this time I’d be able to control it.
We finished nearer last than first, and the remainder of the day held nothing for me but memories of past glories.
Come Gold Cup time, I walked down to the start to watch Jon Vogel checking girths, especially the girths of the hot favourite, Fenagh Abbey.
Vogel was an ex-jockey. He’d never reached mid-league, but he was a good talker, always happy to help the trainer persuade the owner that the goose he had just ridden was definitely a swan who simply needed softer, firmer, shorter, longer, more time between races, less time between races…whatever excuse had not been used before.
Vogel moved among the runners, checking that girths were tight. A couple of times he shoved buckles up a notch, chatting away to the jockeys.
Fenagh Abbey was a fine big bay, that reddish brown coat with black mane and tail. He walked calmly while a few of his rivals showed some level of nervousness. I watched Vogel’s hands as he moved toward the horse, until a chestnut broke my line of sight. I moved, but Vogel’s fingers were under the girth, too briefly, I thought, to have planted anything. He made no adjustment, but smacked the horse lightly on the rump and smiled at the jockey, saying something as he backed away.
I looked at the giant TV screen. Fenagh Abbey was evens favourite.
I watched the Gold Cup field approach the tape, unable after all these years to subdue the bitterness that turned the screw in my gut to ratchet up the envy. Still, it no longer made me physically sick. Such is progress, and I was glad to see them away and galloping toward the first.
I looked up. The blimp carrying the TV cameras was there. In the weighing room, I knew Mac would be watching the big bay favourite to the exclusion of all others. The Festival had started with the Spalpeen shock. The remainder of the meeting had gone smoothly. Fenagh Abbey was the last chance of another big money killing for whoever had nobbled Spalpeen and Montego Moon.
But Fenagh Abbey galloped home at the same pace as he had set out in front. Over the three and a quarter miles it had been enough to wipe out his rivals one by one, as though some invisible rear gunner were strapped to his flanks picking them off with calm regularity over the final half mile. I marvelled at the big bay as he passed me, ears pricked, giant stride carrying him up the hill with remarkable ease and economy.
All eyes were on him as he reached the winning post. I looked around, searching for Vogel. With the favourite’s victory, Vogel’s status as my chief suspect had just lost some of its credibility.
He’d gone.
The next race was for amateurs. I was beginning to feel like one of them.
14
At Uttoxeter races next day, I could almost smell the charred edges of trouble as I walked into the paddock before the Midlands Grand National.
When I saw Dil’s face I knew it was his life someone had set light to. Around his outline I visualized an image of a TV programme my mother used to watch, Bonanza, in which the credits rolled up over an old map, burning from the edges toward the Ponderosa in the centre.
Dil was today’s Ponderosa.
At his side, arms linked to his, was Vita Brodie, dressed head-to-toe in black. Her lips were crimson, her smile set harder than her lacquered blonde hair as she tried not to watch what everyone else was watching, the extraordinary figure of Dil’s yard secretary Primarolo Romanic, who was leading my mount, Kingdom Come, round the paddock.
She was the most stunning groom I’d ever seen. Normally these lads and lasses find even a basic suit of clothes too uncomfortable, or too expensive. Trousers and a loose jacket are the usual uniform of those looking after the horses.
Prim wore a sky-blue two-piece. The skirt stopped just above knee-level. Below the hem was a six-inch gap of naturally tanned smooth skin disappearing into long high-heeled suede boots. Her big high bust, small waist and swelling hips were almost cartoonishly sexy and as I watched her wiggle her way round, I remembered her telling me at a party that she used an old Marilyn Monroe trick of cutting a half inch from one boot-heel to help emphasize the hip swing.
Most of the frontline crowd against the white-railed oval were men. Not one was looking at the horses.
‘Hi Prim!’ I said, slipping through the gap between Kingdom Come and the horse in front. Her dark shining hair swung as she turned and her pink lips opened on glistening teeth and for a moment I pictured fangs and glanced across at the raised throat of Vita Brodie, who tended to carry her chin high to even out her neck wrinkles.
Big mistake, Vita.
Big mistake, Dil.
I guessed that war had finally been declared, and Dil had sided with the money woman. ‘Vita,’ I said as I bent to kiss her cheek, ‘you look very elegant.’
Her jaw muscles clenched. Elegant didn’t matter. Money didn’t matter.
Sexy mattered.
Young mattered.
Prim mattered.
‘Dil,’ I offered my
hand. A permanent look of shock is a difficult thing to pull off, but Dil managed it, and it paled his handsome face and even stilled those habitual finger-sweeps. He was statue-stiff, afraid that any movement would draw attention to his naked pain.
I said, ’I’m surprised to see Prim leading him round? What happened to Melanie?’
‘Melanie slipped in the horse’s box when she was getting him ready. Twisted her ankle.’
‘That’s a shame. It was very good of Prim to step in, eh?’
Dil stared at me, knowing I was enjoying this.
Maybe it’s because I was rooting for the underdog, but the whole scene gave me immense satisfaction, the warmth of it keeping a smile on my face all the way to the start as jockeys cantered up either side of me with the same question ‘Who the hell was that?’
That, my friends, was and is Primarolo Romanic, a woman scorned.
Six fences from home, mid-pack, and tiring in the Staffordshire mud, Kingdom Come finally wiped the smile from my face. Or maybe it was the G-force that did it as the horse took off in terror, ears up, head down, neck straight, tearing toward the next fence.
For the only time in my life, I was glad to be proved a poorer jockey than one of my colleagues. When Spalpeen jinked at Cheltenham, Vince McCrory stayed aboard. When Kingdom Come jinked beneath me, I slipped from the saddle, out of the ‘side-door’ landing on my shoulder blades, feet pointing back toward the remainder of the field who were moving so slowly, none had trouble avoiding me.
I sat up, watching them pass, splattering me with mud, one dumping a fist-sized clump of it in my lap as I felt the groundwater ooze into my breeches.
I got to my feet and turned and saw Kingdom Come miles ahead of everything else as he swung into the straight. Then he slowed so dramatically that it seemed as though he had met some deep ploughland.
I moved and put a hand to my brow, squinting to see if he had run through the rails into a field.
But he was still on the course. Trotting now. Then walking. He stopped. The others passed him. He remained standing, his nostrils filling the chilly afternoon air with clouds of steam.
I ducked under the rails and made my way across the infield toward him. My smile had returned; one of relief. No hospital this time. No ICU. No two-week layoff. Just the mystery of these wild horses, a riddle now complicated by an absence…the assistant starter today was Bernard Jeffries.
Vogel was out of the dock.
When I reached Kingdom Come he was shaking. He took a step away from me as I moved forward slowly, hand reaching for the reins, and his legs almost buckled. I caught the rein and urged him into a walk, trying to get him moving, making it less likely he’d collapse.
I saw the vet’s car coming and the sight triggered my common sense. I stopped walking and undid the horse’s girth, letting it swing free, hoping, despite Vogel’s absence at the start, that something would fall to the ground.
But nothing fell. I ducked to examine the girth strap as it hung loose; it was marked only by sweat stains. No buzzer-shaped indentation. Perhaps it had been lost in the crazed gallop…I sighed. Perhaps I was deluding myself. No drugs. No buzzers. No remote controls. What the hell was going on?
15
Dil came to the weighing room after the vet had examined Kingdom Come. He asked me to drive back to the yard and meet him there.
‘Why?’ I said.
‘We need to get to the bottom of this.’
‘We, as in?’
‘You and me, and Vita.’
‘What, the three of us around the table?’
‘You got a problem with that?’
I stared at him. The tension of Dil’s day was seeking an outlet. I straightened and said quietly, ‘Don’t talk to me like that.’
‘Like what?’ he reddened.
‘Like I’m some kind of lackey. I’m your stable jockey. You pay me. Vita pays you. If you want to let her talk to you that way, that’s fine. But don’t talk to me as though I’m some kind of lowly employee that has to come to your office and explain myself.’
‘That’s not what I said!’
‘It ain’t what you say, it’s the way that you say it.’
His shoulders slumped, ‘Well, it wasn’t what I meant. I’m sorry. It’s been a shit day.’
‘It has, and it’s not going to get any better with us sitting down to try and come up with some kind of answer just because Vita’s pissed off.’
‘So we just wait for the next time?’
‘No, we don’t just wait for the next time, Dil. We go home and we sleep on it, and I call Mac and find out what the dope test showed. Then I ask him if he’s made any headway with his enquiries. And I get access to whatever betting info he has from the bookies today, and then we have something to sit down and talk about. In the morning. When Vita is not bursting her corsets because Prim blew her out of the water today. When you’ve thought about how much you’re going to let your relationships fuck up your business. And when it’s finally sunk home with you that I don’t exist just to make sure you get what you want.’
I didn’t wait for an answer.
In the car, I dialled Mac’s number and put him on speaker, then I cancelled the call with a frustrated jab, knowing he wouldn’t yet have any information on Kingdom Come. I banged the steering wheel with my fist, still angry at the way Dil had spoken to me, at the helplessness when these horses took off.
I turned the key, and revved the engine hard, then the tiny shred of sense that remained got me to shut the engine off, step out of the car and go for a walk until I was calm enough to drive.
In The Snug, in the dark, looking over the rim of my whiskey glass at the burning logs in the stove, I had a vague awareness of Mave’s keyboard clicks from the next room. I wandered through to see her, working in the gloom with just the faintest flickers of flames from the stove reflecting on the paintwork of the open door.
‘Can I come in?’ I asked.
Her fingers clicked on as she looked at me, ‘What ails thee?’
‘Crazy horses. Crazy trainer.’
‘What’s the latest theory?’
‘I don’t have one. I’m waiting for Mac returning my call, but I’m pretty sure he won’t have one either.’
‘What about Ben and Alice?’
‘I gave Ben Bruno’s number last night and told him to call me if he needed anything else.’
‘And he hasn’t, so maybe Bruno is doing the sorting out that his boss seemed so confident about.’
‘I hope so. One less thing to worry about. I ought to ask Bruno to come to Dil’s with me in the morning and join me at the table with him and Vita.’
‘Or send him Prim’s way as a flirting target. Let her swinging hips lock onto his heat map and draw him in so she can make sure Dil suffers plenty collateral damage.’
I ducked sideways to look at her screen, ‘You playing a war game, or something?’
‘Nope.’
‘Designing one?’
‘Nope. Don’t over-interpret my military metaphors.’
My phone rang.
‘Mac. Any news?’
‘The dope test is clear. None of the four accounts that bet on Spalpeen were used today at all. At this stage there’s no evidence of any unusual betting or laying on Kingdom Come, or indeed on that race. I should have a full report in the morning.’
I sighed, ‘I take it my blimp theory didn’t pan out?’
‘All hot air, I’m afraid.’
I smiled wearily, ‘You were dying for me to ask you that.’
He chuckled in that deep Richter-scale way he had.
I said, ‘Nice to hear you relaxed enough to find some humour, anyway.’
‘If I didn’t laugh, I’d cry, Eddie. This is very unusual.’
‘You ought to be sitting on one when it happens.’
‘The motive, I mean. Whoever’s behind it neglects two opportunities out of three to make money. Okay, if we allow for the first one of yours to be a trial of some sort, it�
�s still a fifty percent opt out rate. Why? Whatever they are doing to control these horses cannot be easy. It must take meticulous planning. Why not cash in, especially once it’s proven?’
I said, ‘And why were two of them from the same relatively small yard? If somebody had something against Dil, or me, or the owners, why not nobble Stevedore and deprive us of a Supreme winner?’
‘Because they didn’t expect him to win anyway? And because money could be made from laying Spalpeen? But it is interesting that Grant’s yard has been affected in all three cases…I hadn’t considered that. How is security there?’
‘Well he’s hardly protecting the crown jewels. It’ll be no better or worse than at most yards outside of the big boys.’
Mac sighed, ‘I’d better come and speak to Grant, anyway.’
‘I’m seeing him in the morning. Want me to tell him?’
‘No. Hold off. Let me get the full report.’
‘Okay.’
Despite finding nothing under Kingdom Come’s girth, I considered mentioning the assistant starters, simply because I had nothing else to work on. ‘Mac, will you get me the patrol film for those three races? I want them from five minutes before the off, so I can see the full starting procedure.’
I sensed the hesitation, but he knew me well enough now not to question it. ‘Okay. I’ll get the online versions and send you a log in.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Goodbye.’
Still working her keyboard, Mave said, ‘You told me you found nothing under that girth. I thought you’d dropped Vogel?’
‘There was nothing under the girth, but maybe I got fixated on that. I should have checked under the saddle too. And it might be Vogel and crew. There’s more than one assistant starter. And none of them earn a fortune. Not from working, anyway.’
‘Illicit fingers on the buzzer, you reckon?’
‘Maybe. Can you dig around and find out how those buzzers work? Dil mentioned they’ve been used in America.’