The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Sure,’ Cassie agreed, putting her racecard back in her pocket. ‘The difference being that when Attie lays a horse out, he does it better than most. I saw War Poem in the pre-parade ring. He looks awful well to me.’

  ‘So does your fella, Cass,’ Dexter said. ‘I don’t know anyone who can turn a horse out the way you do. And on all known form—’

  ‘I know, I know,’ Cassie sighed. ‘Trouble is, as you well know, horses don’t read the form book.’

  ‘I tell you, Cass,’ Dexter said as they stood up to greet a white-faced Josephine who was making her way out of her changing room to meet them. ‘I tell you after what we did to this young lady down in Kilkenny, that diamond necklace is as good as hanging round her pretty little neck.’

  ‘I must be crazy,’ Josephine muttered as she and Cassie made their way into the paddock to be greeted by Dr and Mrs Tatlow, Dormie One’s owners. ‘I thought I was nervous the first time I rode in this race, but that was nothing as to how I feel today.’

  ‘You’ve only got one problem,’ Cassie said as Liam turned the horse on to the central lawn ready for Josephine to mount up. ‘He can pull his way to the start and if he does take hold, he could waste too much gas. So get him right up against the far rail and practically tuck his head over it. Don’t let him fight you, just tell him who’s boss, and once he’s got the idea, give him some slack and let him go down nice and freely.’

  ‘And who should I look out for?’ Josephine asked to be reminded as she checked the buckles on her helmet straps and then cocked one leg ready to be thrown up into the saddle by Fred.

  ‘Yellow and red,’ Cassie said. ‘That big chesnut carrying number nine. Remember what I said. He comes with a rattle late and he’s got plenty of toe, so you’re just going to have to run him into the ground.’

  ‘First, second or third by the time the four marker, first or second by the three, and first by the time we pass the two,’ Josephine reminded herself.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ Cassie said as Fred legged her daughter up. ‘See you in the winner’s enclosure.’

  The stalls were barely open and Dormie One was a length up. At the end of the first furlong Josephine had pushed him on to make that two, and by the time the field had covered the first half mile the Claremore pair were six lengths up with the field already stretched out in Indian file behind them. Behind Cassie someone laughed with delight.

  ‘I didn’t know it was Christmas!’ the punter cried. ‘I’ve got him at twelve to bloody one!’

  Watching her horse through her race glasses, Cassie couldn’t help but agree. Even though Josephine was giving the horse a breather, they were still four or five lengths clear of the second horse who was some six lengths clear of a bunch of horses fighting for third place. Wilstach, the favourite, was in a hopeless position a long way off the pace with only four horses behind him, while War Poem would have to prove to be Pegasus to win from where he was, namely leading the bunch of tail enders. Coming to the home turn Josephine stole one look over her left shoulder to make absolutely sure there was no danger and even though War Poem was beginning to make a late run through the field, according to the course commentator it was beginning to look as though Josephine could dismount, lead her horse home and still not get caught. Nevertheless, remembering her orders and mindful of the fact that in horse racing anything could happen, Josephine sat down and rode her horse home as if the rest of the field were within half a length of her. Only when she was less than a hundred yards from the post did she begin to ease up, slowing Dormie One almost to a walk as they coasted past the post.

  ‘First number three, Dormie One, second number nine War Poem, and a photograph for third place between number sixteen Armoran and number seven Wotwilitbee,’ a voice announced over the loudspeakers as Cassie made her way down to the winner’s enclosure. ‘The distances were twelve lengths and a neck, and the starting prices were as follows. Number three Dormie One was returned at eight to one, and War Poem at six to four joint favourite.’

  ‘Eight to one, Cassie,’ the man from the Sporting Life said as the circle of journalists closed on Cassie after she had greeted her victorious horse and daughter. ‘That should pay for the winter break.’

  ‘You know me, Tony.’ Cassie smiled back at the journalist. ‘I never back. Most of all my own.’

  ‘Somebody knew something, though, wouldn’t you say? The horse was all but friendless when they were forming the market, then suddenly – whoosh. That’s a pile of money to bring him in that quick to eights,’ another voice asked her from the throng.

  ‘Probably the gallop watchers,’ Cassie laughed. ‘They don’t miss a trick.’

  ‘By all reports your chap did a bad piece of work this week,’ someone else volunteered. ‘There were even rumours he mightn’t run.’

  ‘He’s a funny old horse,’ Cassie said, still smiling. ‘You don’t know what he’s going to do one day from the next.’

  ‘So what is he going to do next?’ the Sporting Life enquired.

  ‘Go up about two stone in the handicap, I’d say,’ Cassie replied. ‘Wouldn’t you?’

  After the trophy presentations, Cassie took her owners up to Jack Madigan’s private box for some champagne where Theodore was amongst the guests waiting for her. As she was showing the Tatlows into the box and as Theodore came out to congratulate her a stocky, heavily featured little man in an expensive silk suit and with dark, slicked down hair who was making his way down the corridor stopped when he saw her, staring at her with cold, ice blue eyes before suddenly smiling at her in recognition.

  ‘Mrs Rosse,’ he said, in a noticeably hoarse voice from which practically all trace of a Dublin accent had been ironed out. ‘Mike Gold. We have met, I don’t know if you remember? At the Racehorse of the Year Awards, the first year your horse The Nightingale won.’

  He put out a pudgy gold-ringed hand and Cassie took it, remembering very well who this short, heavy-set, dead-eyed man who was standing smiling at her was. Even though they had only met once, like everyone else in racing she had seen the bookmaker’s picture often enough in pages of the ordinary daily newspapers as well as those devoted to the industry.

  ‘Yes, I remember you, Mr Gold. You very kindly sent over a magnum of champagne when we won.’

  Which I very nearly sent back.

  Mike Gold smiled, the smile of a man who knew perfectly well that a celebratory gift of champagne was not the only thing for which Cassie Rosse remembered him. And when he smiled, Cassie noticed he suffered from a pronounced tic in his lower left cheek.

  ‘May I offer you a glass of bubbly now, perhaps?’ he enquired, still holding Cassie’s hand in his. ‘Your horse certainly did the business, did it not? Got the day off to just the sort of start I like.’

  ‘You had heavy liabilities on the race?’ Cassie enquired as if she couldn’t believe it, at the same time slipping her hand from his grasp. ‘I wouldn’t ever have thought that was a big betting race.’

  ‘You know Attie Bewes, Mrs Rosse. Attie laid that horse of his as if it couldn’t get beat. And when Attie lays a horse, there are always liabilities. So for coming to our rescue, I would be delighted if you would join myself and my co-directors for a drink.’

  Cassie hesitated. There was no way she was going to abandon the Tatlows who were not only loyal owners but also personal friends of hers for a drink with one of the enemy, yet now the opportunity had presented itself for her to get momentarily under the wire she found it hard to refuse.

  ‘Would you think me very rude if I postponed it until after the next race?’ she wondered, giving the bookmaker a brief but sweet enough smile. ‘Our second runner’s not until the fourth, and I really must have a drink with my winning connections.’

  ‘But of course.’ Mike Gold smiled back, but hard as he tried to match Cassie’s charm it was still the smile on the face of a tiger. ‘We’re in box F. Come and watch the next race with us if you like.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Cassie said, re-opening the
door of Jack Madigan’s box. ‘If I can I will.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ Theodore mused as he followed Cassie back into their box. ‘Remind me to tell you something interesting about that gentleman sometime.’

  When Cassie finally excused herself from her own party and joined the much larger and noisier party in Box F, the second race had already been run and the bookmakers’ spirits were running high since the contest had been won by a rank outsider at 33/1 with the odds on favourite not even placed.

  ‘I don’t suppose it will matter if Biography wins the King George now, will it?’ Cassie asked as her host poured her a glass of vintage champagne.

  ‘We’d always rather a heavily backed ante post favourite didn’t oblige, Mrs Rosse, naturally,’ Mike Gold replied, clearing his throat and then carefully handing her an expensive fluted glass. ‘But certainly these first two results have helped the books considerably.’

  A small sharp-faced man standing by the window handed a telephone to Gold without saying a word. Gold excused himself for a moment to Cassie and took the call without moving away. Cassie sipped her champagne and looked round at the roomful of expensively suited men and their ornately costumed women who were busy helping themselves to a mountain of food and a bar stacked with vintage champagne and expensive spirits. The women were all suntanned, designer clothed and covered in modern jewellery while their escorts were muscular, dead-eyed men in equally expensive Italian suits and hand-made shoes. Some of the women eyed Cassie with interest at first but seeing that she was evidently not one of their number they rewarded her with a brief smile before continuing their raucous conversations.

  ‘No,’ was all Gold said, right at the end of the one-sided conversation, before handing the telephone back to his minion and turning his attention back to Cassie. ‘Now where were we?’ he enquired.

  ‘Balancing the books,’ Cassie replied. Gold smiled, taking a Havana cigar from a box on the table beside him and snipping the end off with a solid gold cutter.

  ‘Your horse could put a cat among the pigeons. There’s been a weight of money for Big Wallow since the office opened and it looks as though he’s going to start a very short priced favourite.’

  ‘He’ll give a good account of himself,’ Cassie replied, turning her attention to the runners who were now making their way down to the start for the next race.

  ‘Not too good, I hope,’ Gold said, giving a laugh to show he wasn’t really serious, a laugh which soon turned to a hacking cough.

  ‘Tell me,’ Cassie wondered, deliberately switching the subject. ‘What’s the biggest single bet you’ve ever laid, Mr Gold? Or would you rather not say?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I’ve always been curious. Not being a gambler myself, I’ve always wondered just how much one individual is prepared to risk.’

  ‘Good enough.’ Gold lit his cigar and also turned his attention to the runners going to post. ‘As a single bet, five hundred thousand to win five hundred thousand,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘Who won?’

  ‘Not the horse.’

  ‘Who was the horse?’

  ‘Now that wouldn’t be very professional of me, Mrs Rosse,’ Gold replied, catching the reflection of Cassie’s eyes in the plate glass window and smiling. ‘Anyway, enough of business and back to pleasure. As a small token of my gratitude for seeing off Attie Bewes’ horse in the first, I’d like to offer you a free fifty pound bet on your runner in the fourth. What price Big Wallow now, Mike?’

  The thin-faced man in the corner checked the electronic notepad in his hand and looked up. ‘In to six to four, Mr Gold sir,’ he said. ‘We just laid another five thousand to win seven and a half.’

  ‘Mrs Rosse will take the six to four, Mike,’ Gold said. ‘Fifty pounds to win seventy-five.’

  ‘I’ll accept your kind offer only if the money goes to charity should the horse oblige,’ Cassie stipulated. ‘The Injured Jockeys’ Fund.’

  ‘Done,’ Gold nodded. ‘In that case we’ll make it a hundred to win one hundred and fifty. In keeping with our famous slogan – Turn Your Bet To Gold’.

  Cassie was about to say something when she stopped, as if the words had been knocked from her, like a blow to her solar plexus. Turn Your Bet To Gold. She must have seen the maxim a thousand times but because it was part of the fabric of racing and since she herself was not a gambler, it had registered only fleetingly in the conscious part of her mind. But now it had awakened something deep inside her, the memory of something she had seen over and over again and always taken to mean something entirely different. Gold! was the word she had seen and so often. And Gold Again! Gold! Gold! Gold! Written in the margins of red leather-spined ledgers, the ledgers in which Tyrone had so carefully annotated every tilt he’d had at the ring. How could I have been so stupid? she thought as in an effort to conceal the feeling that she had suddenly stumbled on the way out of what had seemed to be an impenetrable maze she turned away to stare without really seeing at the racecourse far below where the last runners made their way down the track towards the starting stalls. Then she turned back to face Mike Gold.

  ‘You’re doing this because you don’t think my horse will win,’ she said with a sudden smile. Gold held her look, his cigar clenched between two rows of expertly reconstructed teeth, and finally shook his head as if sadly disappointed.

  ‘That’s a little cynical, Mrs Rosse,’ he said, taking the Havana from his mouth and examining the length of ash. ‘My offer is in good faith.’

  ‘In that case lay me the first fifty on offer on the first horse past the post at starting price.’

  ‘You want a charity bet? You want me to pay out on whatever horse wins?’

  ‘You don’t pay out, Mr Gold. You donate the winnings to the Injured Jockeys.’

  Having finished the examination of his cigar ash, Gold smiled without humour and stuck the Havana back between his teeth. ‘I’m a turf accountant, Mrs Rosse,’ Gold replied evenly. ‘Not some goddam punter trying to buy a knighthood.’

  ‘Very well, let’s try it another way,’ Cassie said, opening her purse and taking out five twenty pound notes. ‘You lay me my hundred on the first horse past the post, the money to go to charity as agreed.’ She turned to face him, holding the money out for him to take.

  ‘There’s only one loser here,’ he said. ‘And that’s not you.’

  ‘Maybe I’ve done my share of losing, Mr Gold,’ Cassie returned. ‘Look – if my horse wins, and is returned favourite, right – you lose. But you’ll probably have backed him yourself to shore up your losses or whatever, so the wound won’t be exactly grievous. More of a scratch than a cut I’d say. You have similar liabilities every day of the week and if I may say so, you aren’t exactly walking round with the seat out of your pants.’ Gold smiled as if he had just been awarded the ultimate compliment as Cassie continued. ‘But if a long price horse wins, let’s say at twenties – with the favourite beaten you’ll be only too happy to send a couple of thousand to the injured jocks.’

  ‘I see, Mrs Rosse,’ Gold said, nodding slowly as he puffed on his cigar. ‘I think you’ve just made me one of those offers I can’t very well refuse.’ He took the money from her hand and offered to the cadaverous-faced man standing in the corner of the window. ‘Mike – a hundred pounds the winner of the fourth at starting price.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Gold,’ Cassie said, putting down her champagne glass. ‘Now I must get back to my own party. This has been fun. It really has.’

  Cassie hurried back to Jack Madigan’s box to find Jack already on the telephone.

  ‘Have you backed your horse yet, Jack?’ she asked. ‘Because if you haven’t, don’t.’

  Knowing Cassie as well as he did, Jack must have sensed her anxiety because he immediately cupped his hand over the phone. ‘I backed him at two to one when the offices opened, but I haven’t got stuck in yet,’ he replied. ‘I intend to do that on the rails, because there’s money now for this horse Dequadan. They’ve backed
him solid all the way in from six to one to twos, and if they let our fella drift to seven to four I shall help myself in a big way.’

  ‘Don’t,’ Cassie said succinctly. ‘You know where I’ve just been. And I reckon they know something we don’t know.’

  Jack Madigan frowned at Cassie, then killed the call he had been busy making, giving Cassie his full attention.

  ‘They think Wally’s going to get beat,’ Cassie said, using the horse’s stable name. ‘If he drifts it’ll be for one of two reasons. Either the serious money is going elsewhere and they’re trying to trawl in a few punters by a show of generosity—’

  ‘Huh,’ Jack Madigan snorted. ‘The day I meet a generous bookie is the day that pigs fly.’

  ‘OK,’ Cassie agreed. ‘My thoughts exactly. So if we don’t start five to four or shorter somebody knows something. Believe me, I felt the vibrations. Look, on all known form we should be clear favourite. When Wally ran second to Mockingbird at the Royal Ascot meeting, he beat Haleys Done by three lengths and Haleys Done had Dequadan ten lengths behind him at Newmarket. As for the Howard horse Shantaak, on a line through Strip The Willow and Mashood we’re six pounds better. So how come you can still get six to four about him? Seven to four in some places – I just saw a show on the television.’

  Jack Madigan picked up his racecard. ‘You think I should hedge my bet?’ he asked Cassie.

  ‘I certainly don’t think this is the time to try to get rich,’ Cassie replied.

  ‘Richer,’ his wife Fiona laughed. ‘I don’t know what the hell he wants to bet for.’

  ‘For the hell of it,’ Jack growled. ‘To beat the scumbag bookies.’

  ‘Look – what’s this race worth—’ Cassie quickly consulted her own racecard. ‘It’s worth just under seventeen thousand to the winner, so if Wally does win, you’re not exactly going to go home empty-handed, are you? But if he loses, how much were you going to lay out?’

  ‘Far too much,’ Fiona chipped in, pouring herself more champagne. ‘More than he lets me have for clothes I can tell you, Cassie.’