Taking the Fall (21 page)

‘You’ve got twenty-five minutes before Roisin gets here,’ he told the buck-naked Irishman.

Kerry’s eyes flared wide open. ‘Holy Mother of God! Jesus, Mary and Joseph! Roisin will string me up by the balls! Look, you’ll have to get in bed with the girl!’

‘That won’t work.’

‘What am I going to do?’

‘Okay, don’t panic. Here’s an idea.’

Five minutes later, Kerry was dressed in full jockey kit. White poloneck undershirt, jodhpurs, boots, gloves, helmet, set of goggles hanging from his throat. He even held a riding whip as he shook the girl awake.

‘Huh?’ she said as she blinked at him.

‘I’m off to work,’ Kerry said.

‘It’s a Sunday.’

‘Oh, we jockeys don’t take a day off, didn’t you know that? Now if you’re quick out of bed I’ll give you a ride home in the car. To wherever you live.’

‘No breakfast?’

‘Breakfast? Ha ha! We jockeys don’t go in for breakfast. I’ll have to hurry you, though, my darlin’, because I’m already a wee bit late. For the first race. Training. Gallops. You know.’ He slapped the side of his riding boot with his stick for emphasis.

From the hall Duncan shouted, ‘You’d better get a move on, Kerry. You know what that bastard is like if you’re late!’

The girl swung her legs out of bed, frowned and found her bra and knickers. Within five minutes Kerry was driving her across town.

When he got back, Roisin was already in the flat, cooking breakfast. Kerry marched in and kissed her warmly. At least he’d taken his helmet and goggles off.

‘What the hell are you kitted up for?’ Roisin said.

‘New stuff. You know. Just giving it a stretch. Awfully tight.’ He held aloft a jar of instant coffee. ‘Plus I nipped out for coffee. Thought you might forget it.’

Roisin wrinkled her nose and turned back to the lean bacon sizzling in the pan.

‘It’s beautiful!’ Lorna said when she opened the package. She held the scarf to the light so it could shimmer on the mulberry silk.

‘It’s silk,’ Duncan said.

‘It’s not just silk! It’s the design. This is a Daniel Hanson silk scarf. I’ve seen them in Harrods. They cost a fortune!’

‘I’m not much good at picking out gifts for women. No practice.’

This was true. Duncan’s mother had never been around for him to buy gifts for at Christmas or on birthdays. But that was something they had in common. Lorna had been brought up by Cadogan and a series of nannies. Cadogan had never remarried, though he’d had a series of girlfriends, some of whom Lorna even called Mummy. The absence of a close mother had shaped Duncan and Lorna in similar ways.

‘It’s way too expensive. You can’t afford this. I’ve got all the fancy things I want. It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘You don’t want it?’

‘No, I love it! It’s gorgeous. But what I’m saying is that an hour in your company is more to me than anything you could buy me. I mean that.’

It was Sunday afternoon and they were going out for a hack on two quiet mares that Cadogan stabled near the house. The sun had broken out and it was perfect hacking weather. Along the way Duncan broke the story of Kerry in his full racing kit. Lorna laughed. She asked him if he too had had someone in his bed, and when he said no, she accepted it, and he liked that she did. In return she told him a couple of stories about her father being caught with his pants down by potential stepmothers.

It was a fine afternoon. When they were unsaddling the mares afterwards, Lorna said, ‘This has been the best day of my life.’

‘Don’t say that!’ said Duncan.

She told him that Cadogan kept a yacht moored in Brighton Marina. She suggested they go down there for a couple of days when he had a space in his calendar. He said they would.

But it wasn’t to be Lorna with whom Duncan took his next break; it was George Pleasance.

George called him up one night. ‘Got your passport in order?’

‘Yes.’

‘How’s your golf swing?’

‘Well. It’s okay. Not great. Why?’

‘Got your suntan lotion?’

‘What?’

George had a big place in Marbella. Swimming pool, tennis court, all that. Close to the golf course. He and a bunch of his buddies were off there for a couple of nights’ rest and relaxation. Mostly jockeys, but a couple of other friends too. George had already checked on Duncan’s schedule and had established that he was free. All taken care of: car to the airport, flight, accommodation at the house, golf club membership, nightlife.

‘The most strenuous thing you’ll have to do,’ George said, ‘is put on your sunglasses. Are you in?’

‘Sure,’ Duncan said. ‘I’m in.’

‘Ask your friend along too. Kerry. The more the merrier.’

‘Will do.’

Duncan put down the phone and walked back into the lounge, where Kerry was watching
Blake’s 7
again. ‘Who was that?’ he asked.

‘Just Lorna.’

‘Checking up on you?’

‘Something like that.’

‘Jesus!’ Kerry shouted at the TV screen. ‘Did you see that studio set wobble!’

He called Lorna to tell her he was going.

‘Don’t go,’ she said.

‘It’s just a couple of nights.’

‘Duncan, it’s not the whores I care about. If you want to run around with whores, nothing I think or say about that is going to make any difference. It’s Pleasance.’

‘What about Pleasance?’

‘He pulls you into his world. Once you’re in, you can’t get out. I’ve seen how he works.’

‘I’m a big lad, Lorna.’

‘No you’re not. You think you’re smarter and you can ride everything that comes along. But he’s in a different league. Look at Daddy. You think he’s a major player, but he’s frightened of Pleasance. He hates him. Pleasance has Daddy in his pocket in ways I don’t understand.’

Lorna had told Duncan that George Pleasance had entered her father’s life when Cadogan had run short of money. Cadogan had made his money in the City, mainly in the futures market. But he had made some disastrous decisions. Whereas most men would have sold off their car collection, their impressive artworks, their fine racehorses, Cadogan couldn’t bear to lose face. He simply had to hang on to the pretence that his stock hadn’t changed. Enter George Pleasance. Just as Lorna was trying to warn Duncan, once Pleasance had sunk his claws into you, there was no way he could be shaken off.

‘I’ll be careful, Lorna, I promise.’

‘You know what they call him? What people call George Pleasance? The Tailor.’

‘The Tailor?’

‘Because he’s always got the measure of you. And everyone else. He’ll stitch you up.’

‘I’ll remember that.’

‘But no one says it to his face.’

‘Right.’

‘I’m trying to protect you, Duncan.’

‘I appreciate it.’

‘You’re out of your depth. These are bad people. Daddy included. I love you, Duncan.’

He wasn’t sure he wanted to hear her say that. He had spent so long building an impenetrable shell around himself that now he didn’t even know his own feelings. Those three words were enough to make him doubt what he was doing. At first he had thought that Lorna was nothing more than a silly girl who ran around spending Daddy’s money. The truth was, he had come to admire her more and more. She’d been damaged by Cadogan’s remoteness and complete lack of interest in her. Despite that, she was a brave, witty and forceful girl. She was also very beautiful. What more could a man want?

There was silence on the telephone.

‘I’ll see you in a couple of days,’ he said.

He hung up.

George Pleasance’s spread in Marbella was stunning. A great white wedding cake of a building amid sprinkler-fed green lawns and with a large kidney-shaped swimming pool into which a white statue of a urinating cherub pissed three streams of sparkling water. The Mediterranean spring sunshine was hot and the sky a brilliant blue. Duncan was given a cool tiled room in the shadows at the rear of the house. Four other jockeys had been invited, two of whom he recognised from his night out at Tramp. Three other men, friends of Pleasance’s, made up the party: two men who wore lightweight suits even in the Mediterranean sunshine, plus a braying figure in shorts and a polo shirt who was introduced to him as a stockbroker.

There were girls around, too. And if anyone wanted a break from the beer and the wine and the whores and the silver dishes of cocaine that stood on the table in the hall, there was golf on offer. There was no pressure to join in. Duncan lay by the pool, he swam. He pretty much kept himself to himself.

On the last afternoon he was alone in the pool. He swam a few lengths at high speed, and when he stopped, he closed his eyes and leaned his head against the cool concrete lip under the pissing cherub. That was when he felt someone else slip into the water next to him.

15

O
f Petie’s best horses, Duncan and Petie were working on Wellbeing and The Buckler. Wellbeing was the mare who had hacked up easily as a 20–1 winner in a competitive Conditions Chase at Lingfield just before Christmas. The Buckler was the strong-minded gelding Duncan had run up second against Sandy Sanderson’s dirty tricks. Both horses had had trouble-free preparation since, and they were both in fine form. Petie had worked hard to get them into condition for the upcoming Cheltenham Festival; he’d also worked hard to try not to let anyone outside the stable see just how good the two horses were.

‘Spies are everywhere,’ he said.

Duncan knew from his days as a lad at Penderton that that was true. Information was big business. There were men hiding behind trees with powerful binoculars. There were characters in pubs always willing to stand rounds for the stable hands. Successful bookmaking was about having access to information about the health and form of a horse: did a horse have a cough; had it got a bruised foot; had it missed any work through lameness; how was it performing in the gallops; how was its breathing; why was a trainer like Petie getting up at five o’clock in the morning to put a horse through a gallop? On and on it went. Detail after detail, all of which could be converted into cash. Information increased the bookies’ profits and decreased their losses.

Wellbeing and The Buckler were queen and king of Petie’s stables. The average punter hadn’t worked this out yet. But certain people inside the business were sniffing round. Petie asked his staff to stay away from the local pubs, where snoopers had been asking questions. He asked them to drink further afield. He also increased security. He astonished everyone by having – at great expense – closed-circuit cameras installed. They were the sort of thing you only saw at airports, military bases and high-security depots. For the first few days the stable hands would stop and wave at the cameras, until the novelty wore off.

Petie liked to bet, and he liked good odds. He was determined to keep the information at home.

Kerry had adopted Wellbeing. The Buckler was Duncan’s pride. They were both going to be entered for the Cheltenham Festival in March. Those morning gallops in February at the crack of dawn were things of beauty. The light would be grey and then a flake of pink sunrise would appear as they pounded the turf, the horses’ breath steaming in the air, Roisin in a cape with her stopwatch, Petie huddled in a long coat and with his leathery face set in a grin of satisfaction.

Glory days, preparing for the Cheltenham Festival.

But before that, there were plenty of everyday races to be run. Duncan had been noticed. His dream of being Champion Jockey was a long way away, but he’d been gathering enough winners for his name to become a serious contender. His strike rate put him in with the runners. He was a major prospect for upcoming seasons. His name was mentioned in the racing columns as the kind of young jockey who might be looking for bigger stables than Petie Quinn’s next season.

Petie showed him the article.

‘No one has asked me anything about that,’ Duncan said. ‘They’ve just gone ahead and printed it.’

‘You’ll leave me or you won’t,’ Petie said.

Of course there were rules against jockeys betting, but no rules to stop owners and trainers betting on their own horses. And no rules to stop jockeys’ mothers, grandmothers or maiden aunts betting on or against a jockey’s chances.

‘Can you be sure?’ Lorna asked him.

‘You can never be sure,’ Duncan told her. ‘Racing is sometimes rigged but it’s rarely fixed.’

It was an evening when they had the entire Cadogan spread to themselves. Duke was away for a couple of days with his latest girlfriend and only the domestic staff and groundsmen were around. Duncan would stay over on these occasions. They might take one of Duke’s vintage motors from his car pool and drive it up to one of the pubs in the local villages, or to a restaurant.

They lay sprawled on a giant white leather sofa in Duke’s lounge, with the lights dimmed and the expensive artworks on the walls lit by carefully trained low-level spotlights. ‘Explain the difference,’ she said.

‘A fixed race is where the winner is already sorted before the race. A rigged race is one where the chances have been shortened or lengthened in some way. To fix a race you would have to get all the jockeys to agree who is going to win. You’ll never do that. There are too many honest jockeys around. I’ve even met one or two. But for a rigged race you might get one or two jockeys to agree to lose. That might give another horse more of a chance. But it’s not quite fixed.’

The conversation had all come about when Duncan had been discussing a horse he was riding for Petie the following day at Leicester. It was only a Class 4 race but the horse, he said, was certain to win. It was another almost unknown horse called Standard Contract. Through bad luck it had been pulled up, fallen or faltered in its most recent outings, but it was running way below its league, and Duncan was riding it. He was so confident, Lorna asked him if the race had been fixed.

‘We don’t fix our races,’ he said. ‘You think because the Duke and George Pleasance are into rigging races that the whole industry works like that, but you’re wrong.’

‘I don’t know how you can be so certain that it will win, then,’ she said.