The Nightingale Sings

by Charlotte Bingham

  ‘Very well,’ he announced finally, after Cassie seemed to have had the time to review her entire life not once but twice. ‘You obviously have arranged for witnesses to the wager?’

  ‘Yes,’ Cassie replied as calmly as she could. ‘They’re waiting outside in the corridor.’

  ‘So let’s get it over with, then I’ll go to my bank and have them prepare the necessary draft.’

  ‘We’ll both go, Mr Gold,’ Cassie corrected him. ‘Then after that we’ll both go to the National Bank and have them hold the stakes.’

  While Gold carefully tapped the half inch of ash off his cigar into a large glass ashtray, Cassie went to open the door and call in Theodore and one of his rugby playing acquaintances.

  ‘The best I’ll lay you is seven to two,’ Gold said from behind her.

  ‘The best you’ll lay me is four to one,’ Cassie corrected him, then threw open the door.

  On the Saturday before the National Hunt Festival opened Niall Brogan announced the horse sound in wind, heart, and limb and ready to do battle with the best.

  ‘I only wish I felt as good,’ Mattie moaned after Niall had spelled out the results of all the tests he had run on the horse. ‘This month has been a total nightmare. I can’t remember the last time I slept right through the night in my own bed.’

  ‘You’ve done a great job, Mattie,’ Niall said, handing Cassie the sheet with The Nightingale’s blood count on it. ‘As long as no-one takes an eye off him between now and the big day, the horse goes to Cheltenham with the greatest chance possible.’

  ‘Josephine says he’s not put a foot wrong as far as his work’s gone,’ Cassie volunteered, scanning the papers in her hand. ‘And as far as his last gallop went, she said she came back with her arms a good six inches longer. Now all that remains for us to do is to get him over there in one piece.’

  The plan was to fly The Nightingale over on the Monday morning in one of Jack Madigan’s custom built horse transporters to Gloucester and then box him to Cassie’s old friends the Mandersons where she always stayed for Cheltenham so that he could sleep overnight in the security of their private stables. The horse would then be taken to the racecourse itself at first light on the morning of the race which was traditionally held on the opening day of the Festival meeting, allowed a good stretch and a brief photo call and press conference, then shut away under the ever-watchful eyes of Mattie and Bridie and young Phelim O’Connell whose services Cassie had loaned her son for the journey to Cheltenham and the meeting proper.

  The only problem was that on the Sunday morning Phelim failed to show up for work.

  ‘You’ve obviously tried his home,’ Cassie said as soon as she had hurried down to the yard in response to Liam’s call.

  ‘I sent Tim post haste down to the village first thing, guv’nor,’ Liam replied. ‘He’d told his mother he was sleeping over at Mattie’s yard Saturday and Sunday night in preparation for the Cheltenham trip so she didn’t think a thing of it when young Phelim wasn’t in for his tea or slept in his bed last night.’

  ‘And obviously he’s not at my son’s.’

  ‘No, guv’nor. But here’s a thing now. I called Mattie of course, to find out whether or not Phelim was indeed there, and he said no, he wasn’t actually due to arrive at his place until tonight. But then he said at about a quarter to three last night all hell broke loose at his yard, the security lights went on, the dogs all went spare, and the alarm he and Mick his head lad had rigged up on the fence round the top yard went off. Mattie left Mick and Josephine on guard outside Himself’s box and went off hot foot in his old truck to see what he could see and sure enough didn’t he see a car tear-arsing its way out of the drive? He went after it right enough, but whoever it was doused their lights and be the time Mattie got up to the crossroads he had it lost.’

  ‘You think that might have been Phelim, do you?’ Cassie asked carefully. ‘I just can’t accept that. Phelim’s such a gentle lad. Phelim wouldn’t let anyone touch a hair of Nightie. He’s devoted to his horses. I mean, he seems the sort of lad who’d die rather than let any harm come to any of the animals.’

  Liam shook his head and grunted. ‘It’s not him, boss,’ he said, ‘’tis the company he’s been keeping. He’s a quiet lad and much as he loves his horses he’s never really struck it up with any of the other lads. He’s a funny sort of lad, and very conscious of his looks, you know, with them jug handle ears, poor lad, and that no chin of his. But then last spring in Liverpool at the Grand National meeting he got picked up be this lass who was working at the time for Mr Brownlow, you know, who I have to say made a dead set for young Phelim and of course completely turned his head, what with this lass being a bit of a looker all right and poor young Phelim not being so happily endowed. Well.’ Liam shook his head again and ran his fingers back through his thatch of hair. ‘The long and the short of it was we all thought it was a one meeting wonder, as it were, and that when young Phelim got back home here that’d be that and no real harm done, but not one bit of it. Doesn’t the lass show up on his doorstep during the summer—’

  ‘When?’ Cassie asked. ‘Do you remember exactly when during the summer?’

  ‘I do as a matter of fact,’ Liam replied. ‘It was June, the morning of our Derby, and I remember because for the first time since he joined us that young Phelim was late to work. I gave him a right earful because we had a full hand of runners, if you remember, guv’nor, and it certainly wasn’t the morning to be late to work. And then it all came out, how this lass had turned up early in the evening at his house, how there’d been an unholy row with his father when he announced he was going into Dublin because I don’t know if you know but poor young Phelim has the mother and father of all mothers and fathers, believe me. He couldn’t breathe without getting their permission and – well. To cut a long story short, Phelim disobeyed them, stayed out the night, and of course cut it far too fine getting back out here first thing in the day.’

  ‘What makes you think this girl is bad company, Liam?’

  ‘Ach you can tell, boss. You could tell Sally was a number the moment you saw her. She’s a right floosy, and come on, we all asked outselves. What’s a floosy like that doing with poor young Phelim? She’s a real eyeful, if you like that kind of thing, guv’nor. Blond hair, big blue eyes, and a figure like an egg timer. Now what’s she doing with the likes of our Phelim? And what’s she doing working over here when she had a perfectly good job in a perfectly good yard in England? She was the assistant travelling head lad with her last outfit, yet she’s working over here as a plain unvarnished groom for Mick Heaslip, and sure that’s not exactly the most creditable place to be.’

  ‘You’re thinking what I’m thinking, aren’t you, Liam?’ Cassie wondered. ‘If she was around before Wally’s Ascot run—’

  ‘And didn’t Heaslip send over some horses to Ascot? And didn’t Miss Sally Eastman travel over with them?’

  ‘I still find it hard to believe Phelim would have anything to do with that sort of dirty work, Liam,’ Cassie said. ‘Don’t you?’

  ‘I’m not saying he did, boss,’ Liam replied. ‘All I’m remembering is what the guv’nor used to say. Your late husband that is that was, God rest his soul. Follow the man home, he’d say, boss, follow the man home.’

  ‘I know what my husband used to say, Liam. In fact I was quoting it to Mattie only the other day. But besides a couple of typically domineering Irish parents, what else would you find if you followed young Phelim home?’

  ‘You’d find that his youngest sister Philomena is spastic, boss,’ Liam said sadly. ‘She was born with cerebral palsy for which as you know there isn’t any known cure.’

  ‘I didn’t know that, Liam,’ Cassie said. ‘All I knew was he came from a large family.’

  ‘And little Phil has always been his extra special favourite, boss. Ah sure they took the poor lass to Lourdes twice, much good did it do her, for over these last couple of years hasn’t her condition got a lot worse.’
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  ‘I never knew,’ Cassie said with a frown. ‘If only I’d known—’

  ‘There wasn’t a thing you could do, boss, not a thing. Until very recently, that is. Phelim told Bridie – whom incidentally he adores – only a few months back that someone had told him of a place in California where they’d found a treatment for certain types of the palsy but of course it was far too expensive and way out of his family’s reach. So he started putting all his money to it, every spare penny, and he began buying Sweepstake tickets and even doing the football pools God help him, anything in the hope that somehow and with some sort of luck he might come be enough money to send little Phil over to America.’

  ‘Dear God,’ Cassie said quietly. ‘If he’d only come to me directly, Liam—’

  ‘Sure he knew you had troubles of your own, guv’nor.’

  ‘But what sort of trouble is he in now?’ Cassie wondered. ‘If this girl’s working him, Liam, he could be in serious trouble.’

  ‘And so could we, guv’nor,’ Liam replied. ‘Dear heavens, I feel a right ejeet meself now, so I do. Here have I been remarking on young Phelim the whole time, but the thought never crossed my mind that Phelim himself could have been got at. So perhaps it’s just as well he hasn’t showed up this morning.’

  ‘Yes, but why hasn’t he shown up this morning, Liam?’ Cassie persisted. ‘Don’t you somehow have the feeling it might have been better if he had?’

  Once she had rung Mattie to make absolutely sure that nothing untoward had happened in his yard other than the alarm of the night before and that The Nightingale had remained under Mattie and Josephine’s personal supervision, Cassie set about trying to find out where Phelim might have gone, but without luck. Not only that, but Phelim was not the only person gone missing. When she telephoned Mick Heaslip’s yard she discovered Sally Eastman had also failed to turn up for work.

  Worse was to follow, as if any further setbacks were needed. Bridie, who it emerged had not been feeling one hundred per cent for the last couple of days, woke up on the morning the Claremore party was due to fly to England with a roaring temperature, a bright red rash on her face and throat and all her lymph glands swollen. Despite her remonstration that it was only a bad cold Dr Gilbert diagnosed measles and forbade her to travel, a decision reluctantly endorsed by Cassie who now faced a real dilemma. She had no other experienced girls working in her top yard, but The Nightingale would only let women near him, and in the mêlée that was Cheltenham he was going to need all the steadying influences he could get. Mattie had a young woman working in his own yard who had been given The Nightingale to do as one of her three, but she had only just begun working for him and her racecourse experience was non-existent so Mattie ruled her out as a Bridie substitute.

  ‘We can’t leave one thing to chance,’ he told Cassie when they were discussing the matter that morning. ‘We can’t entrust the horse to a complete novice and imagine if the girl was nervous and made a mistake which she’d be highly likely to do and say the horse got loose. God he’d panic in that scrum, particularly if it’s a lad who tries to catch him because they’re not to know Nightie hates all members of the male sex. So there’s only one thing we can do, and that’s leave the horse to you and JO. You’re going to have to saddle him up while Jo holds him, and then you’re going to have to lead him up.’

  ‘Fine,’ Cassie said grimly. ‘Except you’re forgetting one thing. I can’t saddle him up single-handed. It always takes two to saddle a horse as you well know, Mattie, and a third person at the horse’s head, so we’re not going to make a proper job out of it if it’s just Jo and me. Since Nightie won’t let you anywhere near him let alone hold his head, that means we’re still one woman short.

  ‘OK, so we’ll take the girl, we’ll take my Deirdre,’ Mattie decided, ‘but she’s not to lead him up. She can hold his head while you and Jo saddle up—’

  ‘That’s going to look good at the home of National Hunt racing, right?’ Cassie said with a grin. ‘Co-owners and jockey saddling up one of the favourites. Just like at an Irish point to point.’

  ‘To hell with conventions, Ma,’ Mattie said. ‘I’m just trying to cover every eventuality. You’ll have to lead him because we can’t risk anyone else at his head, and if you have to leave your lucky hat at home, that’s tough.’

  ‘What haven’t we covered?’ Cassie asked, running her finger down the check list yet again. ‘Of course. Down at the start. The starter’s assistant who checks the horses’ girths—’

  ‘Is a woman.’ Mattie smiled. ‘I rang David Armstrong, the clerk of the course, because I suddenly remembered that last night – and I also remembered they have a woman assistant starter over there now – and as luck would have it, she’s on duty for the whole meeting.’

  ‘So at no point will there be a man anywhere near Nightie.’

  ‘Not unless he gets loose, and since the last thing he’d do would be to dump Jo on the way to the start, with you at his head and Jo on his back, the only way he’s going to get loose is during the race if God forbid he gets brought down – and if he does, it’s not going to matter then because it will be all over.’

  ‘He won’t be brought down, Mattie,’ Cassie said. ‘That’s a fact.’

  ‘How come, guv’nor? There’s a big field this year, fourteen runners all told and at least four of those shouldn’t be running. There are bound to be fallers, particularly at the pace the race is generally run, so I’d like to know what makes you so utterly sure we won’t be brought down.’

  ‘Then if you listen I’ll tell you,’ Cassie said.

  Which she did. In fact for the next three hours Mattie, Josephine and Cassie planned the race in detail, expanding Cassie’s plan of action, looking once again at the videos of all their most serious rivals, studying and cross referring the form of every single horse running and finally feeding into Mattie’s computer the timings of all the races the entered horses had ever run in over the same distance, making allowances for the weights they had carried and the conditions of the ground.

  Whatever permutations they made the result always came up the same.

  Interim

  ‘The last time we talked on camera, Cassie,’ the television commentator said, ‘was after your horse’s famous victory in the Eclipse. Then, like so many millions of racing fans, I was devastated when he was kidnapped and though mighty relieved when he was returned to you simply appalled by what the blackguards had done. Surely on that dreadful, fateful day you could never have imagined you would be walking the course here at Cheltenham on Champion Hurdle Day with The Nightingale not only starting in the race but looking as though he might well start favourite, such is the ton of money the punters have poured on him ante post and today ever since the offices opened?’

  ‘No, John,’ Cassie replied as followed by a camera car on the inside of the track they made their way towards the second last hurdle from home. ‘Not for one moment during those very dark days did I think the horse would ever race again. For a time we didn’t even think he’d live, first when we found him out the back of Claremore tied to a tree and looking for all the world like something out of the horse hospital in Cairo, and then not so long after that when he went down with a badly twisted gut. I thought if the horse pulled through his operation then the most we could hope for was to get him on his feet, fatten him up and turn him away in a quiet paddock somewhere.’

  ‘Instead of which,’ the commentator said, ‘you have a horse which many of us believe will be the first horse ever to win both a Derby and a Champion Hurdle. As well as practically every other Group One race in the book.’

  ‘There’s many a slip, John, as you well know. This is the most competitive hurdle race in the world, they go a heck of a lick, there are eight flights of hurdles to be jumped, and The Nightingale is taking on top class horses who have mostly all well and truly proved their true worth over the timber.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t be bringing the horse here just for sentiment, Cassie. And eve
n though he hasn’t had a race in public, we’ve all heard the rumours of some pretty remarkable performances back home in private schooling sessions, and you yourself have as always kept the public fully informed as to the horse’s well-being.’

  ‘Yes, and I’m glad to report that the horse travelled well and seems to be very well in himself. I just think the odds aren’t very realistic, that’s all. If he starts as favourite—’

  ‘Which it looks as though he will, Cassie.’

  ‘OK, so if he does start as favourite, John, they shouldn’t have him at anything less than two to one. Anything shorter than that you would have to say was not only unrealistic but unfair on the punters. The Tote still have him at five to two, I understand, and if that’s so and I was a betting person—’

  ‘Which you’re not.’

  ‘I have to admit to having a small investment on this race.’ Cassie smiled at her interviewer and then stopped to look up the long uphill climb towards the finishing post. ‘Having got this far, all of us took a little of what was on offer ante post. Even so, as I was saying, anyone who wants a bet today should see if those odds are still available on the Tote.’

  ‘And you can guarantee the punters a run for their money.’

  ‘There aren’t any guarantees in this game. A horse can get loose, it can spread a plate during the race, it can be brought down, run out, or just refuse to race. What I can say is that my son Mattie, who now of course is training the horse, has done a wonderful job with him and provided the horse gets to the start and jumps off, he’ll give the usual good account of himself.’