Tip Off

by John Francome

  ‘You mean, once he’s got a decent jockey on board?’ Matt’s eyes flashed again, sharp to spot and point out a flaw. ‘You know, Simon, on today’s showing, I think you must be the worst jockey I’ve ever seen. It really is time you gave up.’

  I was used to Matt’s constant jibes. ‘Don’t rub it in! I recognise that my partnership with Nester is due for review, but I’m still going to race Baltimore.’

  ‘God help him,’ Matt smiled. ‘Anyway, I suppose I can’t expect you to give up the chance of Nester winning the Champion Chase just because it might upset Tintern, so there’s not a lot we can do about that. Meanwhile, he rang half an hour ago and changed the appointment to tomorrow, at Portman Square. So you needn’t have rushed back.’

  ‘Too bad,’ I said, on reflection glad not to have to see Lord Tintern this evening. ‘Did he say what it was about?’

  Matt shook his head. ‘No, and I didn’t ask.’

  ‘I’ll have to wait till tomorrow then,’ I said philosophically. ‘I was going to go over to Wetherdown, but I don’t think I can face Jane yet. At least this’ll give you a chance to buy me a drink to celebrate your win.’

  ‘And the fact that you and Nester are still alive in spite of your pathetic performance!’

  ‘Toby Brown has always thought he was right,’ Lord Tintern said with mild disparagement. He paused while he poured us both a hefty measure of ten-year-old Laphroaig.

  The bottle and two heavy cut-crystal glasses stood on the polished mahogany surface of an elegant early-Georgian card table. The table stood alone in the middle of a small, panelled meeting room in the Jockey Club premises at Portman Square in the West End of London. ‘He used to work for me, you know, years ago when he first left school. He’s my godson, as a matter of fact. I took him on as a favour to his mother, as a sort of trainee racing manager.’

  ‘Wasn’t he any good, then?’ I prompted.

  Lord Tintern glanced at me down his long, slightly hooked nose. He reminded me of a golden eagle I’d once seen at a falconry centre, gazing disdainfully from high on its perch. I was interested to observe that only three generations away from the keeper of a tiny inn off the Great North Road, Tintern seemed to have acquired all the characteristics of a true aristocrat.

  I had the impression that he was going to pounce on me for the audacity of my remark, but he restrained himself. ‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘he showed real flair for the job, but he was more interested in running the horses for his own gain than the good of their careers; we pretty soon fell out. I can’t say I’ve given him much thought since then, but, as you know, he’s the hottest property in the game now, tipping all these winners. And, I might say, causing a lot of worries.’

  ‘Tell that to the millions of punters all over the country who are following him.’

  ‘Quite frankly, Simon, I’m not particularly sorry to see the big bookmakers losing for once. But that’s not the point – the fact of the matter is, Toby’s up to something. Nobody in the history of horse racing has ever been so successful as a tipster. You and I both know that, no matter how clever you are or how hard you work, there’s always an element of luck involved. Toby’s found a way to dispense with that, and it means only one thing: he’s cheating. The bookies are baying for his blood. They sent a delegation to us over the weekend, and I’ve been asked to look into it.’

  ‘Why don’t you use your own security people?’

  ‘Because Toby knows them. We’ve been on his case for a while now and come up with nothing. I thought maybe a fresh approach would throw up something.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said. But I was still surprised that he’d turned to us. The Jockey Club employed at least two dozen full-time ex-CID men, as well as a handful of retrained old soldiers, to maintain the integrity of British racing. And if it was true that Toby knew them all, it was also true that he knew me, and that I was now in the security business myself.

  I was glad this didn’t seem to have put Tintern off. I’d been hustling for some Jockey Club business for months, but in the back of my mind I was concerned that my decision to run Nester against Tintern’s horse in the Champion Chase hadn’t struck home yet; I was sure that sooner or later it would get right up his nose and seriously affect our chances of working together.

  So why was he giving me instructions now?

  For the moment, I decided just to let things run. A job was a job. ‘I’ll let you have a preliminary report by the end of the week,’ I said. ‘But you must have considered the possibility that it’s no more than just a lucky run?’

  Tintern shook his head. ‘Nobody stays lucky that long. He’s on his own inside track, and we’ve got to know how he got there. But,’ Tintern hesitated a second, ‘take your time. You know – softly, softly catchee monkey.’

  I nodded, thinking what a fatuous maxim that was. Besides, Toby was no monkey. ‘Shall I report to you?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Anything you need, just ask.’

  Once the business end of the conversation was over, we spent a few minutes exchanging racing small talk. Lord Tintern was affable enough and I was careful to avoid anything that might lead to a reference to Nester. The entries for the Queen Mother Champion Chase had been published three weeks before and I couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed Nester among them. I guessed he’d be more than a little irritated to see a horse that he had once owned and written off entered in any race, let alone a Championship. Especially as he knew that I’d bought Nester from his daughter for the same token payment she had made to him.

  ‘By the way,’ he was saying, ‘Emma phoned from Florida last Friday. She said she was coming home tonight.’

  ‘That’s great news,’ I said, trying to conceal my elation.

  ‘I should warn you,’ he said, looking directly at me, ‘I don’t think you’ll get much encouragement from her. I imagine she has bigger fish to fry.’

  I didn’t speak for a second or two and decided, small fish that I was, not to rise to the bait. ‘I’m sure she has,’ I said mildly.

  ‘You know, of course, that I wasn’t too happy about her selling that horse to you,’ he went on.

  I shrugged my shoulders to hide my alarm that he’d decided to raise the subject now. ‘I don’t think anyone believed he would recover at the time.’

  ‘That’s not the point. The fact is, I’d virtually given the horse to her – I’d be very unhappy if he suddenly came back to form. However, we mustn’t let a bit of sporting rivalry interfere with our professional relationship, must we?’ he added, with a sudden gracious smile, holding out a hand to me. ‘Don’t take too long getting to the bottom of this business with Toby.’

  When Toby Brown wasn’t staying in his exotically decorated flat in Mayfair, he lived on his own in an exquisite Strawberry Hill Gothic cottage on the edge of his mother’s estate at Wetherdown, near East Ilsley.

  Besides his tipping service, Toby seemed to have fingers in every racing pie. He had a few horses in training – none, surprisingly, with his mother; he owned several brood mares and youngsters, and he regularly bought and sold foals and yearlings. He also had a newspaper column and regularly appeared on television to air his idiosyncratic views on racing.

  Although there was rumoured to be a partner involved in his telephone operation, everyone knew it was all Toby’s making. His high profile had ensured that his success was well documented and the line had quickly taken off.

  He claimed he’d devised an entirely new formula for picking winners. This took into account more factors influencing the outcome of a race than any rival tipster. He had measured every race-course in the country, made his own going assessments based on times, and even counted the number of strides taken by each horse to cover a furlong.

  Business was booming for Toby. When I’d asked him two weeks earlier, he’d arrogantly told me that he netted an average thirty pence every time a punter called in for the day’s selection and he was getting around five thousand calls a day, with up to twelve thousand on
Saturdays. Not a bad income when you considered the overheads – all he needed was his formbook and a telephone; no office and no staff. I guessed, though, that since his recent run of winners, turnover must have trebled at least.

  When Lord Tintern showed me out, I got into my Audi outside the Jockey Club and joined the traffic creeping round Portman Square, heading for the M4 to go back to the office.

  My thoughts flitted between interest in the job I’d just been handed and excitement at seeing Emma again for the first time in over a year.

  She’d gone off to the States soon after I’d bought Nester from her, saying she’d be back the following spring. But by autumn, she still hadn’t reappeared; she’d gone to spend most of the winter ski-ing in Colorado. I guessed, reluctantly, that there were other, unstated attractions there for her. I couldn’t blame her for that; I hadn’t told her how much I’d wanted her to stay.

  I had spent most of the two years before that with Laura Trevelyan, who had worked with my sister. Laura was neurotic, quick-witted, and one of the best-looking women on Vogue. But that relationship had ground to an inevitable and uncomfortable halt soon after Emma had left.

  Emma had sent me a few postcards while she was away, asking after Nester and Baltimore and, as an afterthought, me. I’d kept her up to date, but the most recent communication had been at Christmas in which she’d asked only after the horses.

  Now she was coming back.

  Slowing for the perennial hold up on the M4 near Slough, I could summon up a vivid picture of how Emma had looked, fifteen months earlier at Jane’s stables.

  She’d been wearing a pair of cream-coloured, stretch jodhpurs, uninterrupted by any panty lines, and a thin denim shirt, open just far enough to show the top of her lively breasts.

  Her light auburn hair, damp and dishevelled, fell in rat’s tails around a peach-soft face and her large turquoise eyes gleamed with conspiratorial excitement. It would have taken a man of far steelier resolve than I not to fall under her spell. I remembered it as if it were yesterday . . .

  It had been a darkening afternoon in November when I’d walked through the broad-arched gatehouse into Jane’s handsome stable-yard.

  ‘I’m very sorry, Gerald, but there’s absolutely no point in shouting at me.’ I could hear a rare tremor in Jane’s voice. ‘This horse will never race again and that’s all there is to it.’

  ‘Then you’ll just have to shoot the bloody animal!’ Gerald Tintern wasn’t joking. That much was obvious from the pitch and vindictive edge in his normally mellow voice.

  I’d caught the sharp exchange over the howl of a damp wind which blustered unchecked from Salisbury Plain. Not far short of a gale, it shrieked through the old brick archway.

  I took in the tableau in front of me: a horse as fit and strong as any I’d seen – apart from a bulky dressing around its near forefoot – and three human figures, all apparently oblivious to the vortex of icy air whirling around the enclosed space.

  Instinctively, I changed course, looking for cover from the weather and Lord Tintern’s anger. I knew Jane had seen me, and that she might have valued some moral support, but I kept my eyes down and walked quickly across to the office in one of the near corners of the yard.

  I let myself in. It was another world in here; warm and quiet except for the murmur of a television in the corner. Even the acrid smell of the head lad’s cheap tobacco was welcoming. The sight of Lord Tintern’s daughter with her long legs dangling over the side of an old desk was positively exhilarating.

  ‘Hi, Si,’ Emma said in her husky, lazy voice, and I grinned back at her, although up until now I’d always hated being called ‘Si’.

  ‘What’s going on outside?’ I asked. ‘Your father doesn’t sound too happy.’

  Emma sighed. ‘He can be very tough.’

  Jane’s head lad, Mick Mulcahy, was paging through the entry book. He looked up. ‘He doesn’t deserve a good horse.’

  ‘What’s happened?’ I asked again.

  ‘You know how much Dad paid for Nester?’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I said. ‘Obviously a lot, I should imagine, but he’ll get it all back on his insurance.’

  ‘Dad never insures anything. He says he’s rich enough to be his own underwriter.’

  ‘The horse may not be a write-off in any case,’ Mick Mulcahy muttered.

  ‘The vet said he’d cracked his pedal bone, just below the coronet,’ Emma said. ‘He said it might mend if he pins it, but it won’t ever be strong enough to race.’

  Jane had told me that an injury so deep inside the foot was rare. If Nester could have been persuaded to lie down for six weeks, he’d probably have mended well enough, but that was way beyond the patience of any horse. As it was, with luck he’d recover enough to enjoy his retirement at least.

  Emma was looking sharply at Mick. ‘How long do you think it’ll take for that foot to come right?’

  ‘I don’t know if it ever will – I’ve never seen an injury like it before.’

  ‘Esmond Cobbold could cure him,’ I said with quiet confidence.

  ‘Who’s he?’ Emma pounced on the possibility.

  I smiled, loving her enthusiasm. ‘He’s an old boy I know – a friend of my parents’ and a kind of healer – brilliant at getting horses right.’

  I picked up the phone on Mick’s desk and dialled a number in Herefordshire. After a short conversation, I hung up and turned to Emma with a grin. ‘He’s on his way.’

  ‘Who the hell is this fella?’ Mick asked sceptically.

  ‘Esmond Cobbold is the man who cured Harvey, my old hunter, when every vet who’d looked at him said he was unmendable.’

  ‘He’ll not cure Nester overnight, I can promise you that.’ The Irishman didn’t like to have his authority overruled.

  ‘Maybe not,’ I said, ‘but he’ll help more than anyone else I know.’

  ‘What does he do exactly?’

  ‘He can do anything to a horse, bar talk to it. I suppose you’d call him a faith healer, but he’s not a crank.’

  ‘Simon, are you sure you’re not exaggerating when you say he really can do something?’ Emma asked me, still sceptical despite herself.

  I held up my hands. ‘All I’m saying is that he’s the nearest thing I’ve seen to a miracle worker.’

  ‘Good!’ Emma slid off the desk and walked to the window. She looked through the wet glass at the group of figures, heading in different directions now. Jane trailed behind the owner through the arch. The bun on the back of her head had been demolished by the wind and turned into a mass of waving grey hair. She looked thoroughly deflated.

  ‘Wait here. I’ll be back in a moment.’ On impulse, Emma reached up to the row of pegs beside the door and helped herself to the nearest Barbour which was five sizes too big for her. She heaved it on. A moment later, letting a quick gust of damp air into the stuffy room, she was outside and the door was banging shut behind her.

  Five minutes later she came back, and after a modicum of persuasion I looked like being a thousand pounds poorer and the proud owner of a three-legged race-horse.

  I could only hope my confidence in Esmond would be justified.

  He was an octogenarian ex-cavalry officer and retired farmer. With his conservative background, regimental tie, drooping moustache and monocle, he was an unlikely character to find in the wild and woolly New Age world of personal auras and earth mysteries, but he seemed to accept his gift in a surprisingly prosaic manner.

  How he had discovered his ability to heal people’s injuries, he never told me, but he’d hinted that in order not to look foolish, he’d started with animals, successfully achieving a complete cure on his own labrador’s failing hip. He’d done similar things with other people’s dogs and then progressed to horses, which was how I’d first seen the results of his ministrations.

  My continuing faith in Esmond’s powers was rewarded. A week after he’d first arrived to see the horse at Wetherdown, I happily gave Emma the thousand pounds she�
��d promised her father, and wrote to advise Weatherbys that Better By Far had become the property of Simon Jeffries, Esquire.

  Chapter Three

  The morning after my visit to Portman Square, I woke early to ride first lot from Wetherdown on Baltimore.

  As I splashed water on to my reluctantly opening eyes, I looked at my face in the mirror in front of me and observed that the fresh bloom of youth was no longer evident.

  At thirty-five, I’d have been surprised if it were. But the strain of trying to keep my weight below twelve stone when I stood at just under six feet was starting to show, and my sybaritic tastes were beginning to cancel out the benefits of several squash games and four mornings’ riding out each week.

  I nodded philosophically, though, and grinned at my reflection. I was never going to win the Gold Cup, and I may not have been Leonardo DiCaprio, but I had a sneaky suspicion that the Honourable Emma Birt wasn’t totally uninterested in me.

  Pleased that I was soon going to see her again, I brushed my teeth, shaved and walked through to my bedroom to fling open the window and let in the first early calls of the hedgerow birds and the damp morning mist. I took a few deep breaths, glad that I’d restricted myself to one glass of wine with dinner and gone to bed before the midnight news.

  I pulled on a pair of cavalry twill jodhpurs, a cotton shirt and a cable-knit sweater. I’d left my boots in the back of the car, so slipped on a pair of deck shoes to go downstairs.

  I lived in what had once been the coach-house of a large Victorian mansion set a hundred feet above the small riverside town of Streatley. The view from the kitchen window was across the Thames and the flat meadows beyond. Ancient hedges and a few pollarded willows with ghostly spiked heads poked through the shroud of white mist which lay across the valley floor.