Taking the Fall

by A. P. McCoy

  He did it again. And again. And again.

  Charlie had told him that lots of horses refused jumps, in different ways. There was the ditcher, who dropped his shoulders and swung away at the last moment, ditching you into the fence. There was the ditherer, who showed he was scared early on, and was just no way going over that fence. There was the dirt-sprayer, who ran full pelt at the fence then somehow locked his foreleg in the dirt, spraying up mud and sending you clattering over the top. There was the drifter, who came off the jump line and simply tried to bypass the jump altogether. Then there was the ding-dong, Charlie had said, and that was a horse who had decided it was fun just to fuck you up.

  Parisa was a ding-dong, and Duncan knew it. It was all about who was going to be in control at the crucial moment of takeoff. Parisa was a smart horse who had learned to pretend to go into the jump with all engines, only to stop dead, and then to peer over the hurdle at the dumped rider as if to say, ‘Everything all right?’

  This time Duncan galloped Parisa at the hurdle, knowing that he would stop, and simply reined him back before the jump-off point. The horse stood at the hurdle, possibly surprised at still finding the jockey on his back. Duncan repeated the exercise, and held him there, looking at the hurdle. Then he went back to turning the horse away from the jump. Then standing. Then turning.

  If the horse was confused, that was all part of the programme. Parisa had to know that Duncan was calling the shots. This entire process went on for some time. Duncan wasn’t interested in an early spectacle; he was out to make a point. A few of the spectators drifted away, cheated of their chance to gloat. Not until Duncan was good and ready did he pat the horse and say, ‘Come on. Now we go.’

  Parisa took the jump beautifully. Duncan cantered him back and took the same hurdle again. He took the jump five times before going off on a gentle canter to jump several flights of hurdles. By the time he took the horse back to Cadogan and Osborne, the two men were standing with Lorna, all the other hands having drifted away.

  ‘Nothing wrong with this horse,’ Duncan said. ‘Though I wouldn’t try that unless you know what you’re doing. Could make him worse.’

  ‘You bored him to death,’ Osborne said.

  ‘No charge for fixing him, in that case,’ Duncan said.

  Lorna sniggered. ‘Perhaps you should get Duncan to ride for you. Get a few more winners.’

  Cadogan turned a pair of bulbous blue eyes on his daughter. Osborne looked away.

  The entrance to Tramp nightclub was framed by a simple awning squeezed between the rows of classy tailors on Jermyn Street. There were a few people waiting outside in a line, so Duncan decided to push his luck and simply walk down the steps. At the desk he gave his name and said he was with George Pleasance. It did the trick.

  The place looked like a gentlemen’s club, with wood-panelled walls, as if some old buffer had had a disco and lights put in as an afterthought. But the atmosphere was excitable. The age range was very mixed and some people were dancing badly on the disco floor. There were lots of women in tiny skirts, and before he’d gone three yards he’d spotted an ageing film star, three footballers and a well-known politician. There was no VIP room. The entire club seemed to be offering itself as a VIP room.

  Someone beckoned him from a table in the corner. A hairy paw with a big gold ring and a lighted cigar was waving at him. It was Pleasance. He was sitting next to three stunning women and a bald-headed man. One of the girls disappeared and Duncan was given her seat. Pleasance waved at a waiter and a glass on the table was filled with bubbling champagne.

  Pleasance puffed on his cigar, smiling broadly at Duncan, as if he were fascinated by him. Duncan took a sip of the champagne. Still way overfocused on Duncan, Pleasance took his hand and shook it as if they’d never met before. ‘Didn’t think you’d come. Very happy you have. This place needs cheering up.’

  Duncan glanced at the girls. ‘Looks like you have plenty of cheer.’

  The girls were smiling at him as if waiting for an introduction, but they didn’t get one. The bald man just looked bored. Duncan saw that the next table was full of jockeys he knew either personally or at least in passing. On the far side, Sandy Sanderson sat entangled with a leggy brunette. Her long manicured fingers seemed to be stroking his thigh. Either he hadn’t noticed Duncan’s arrival or he was ignoring him.

  ‘You know all those,’ Pleasance said. ‘Good lads.’ He indicated the bald man. ‘This is Norman.’

  There was a slight nod from Norman, and a blink.

  ‘I’m Judith,’ said one of the girls brightly. She seemed to be able to make her eyes sparkle at will.

  ‘I’m Selina,’ said the other, an elegant blonde with a Mediterranean suntan.

  ‘There, that’s got that all sorted,’ Pleasance said. ‘Anything you want, the waiter will set it on my tab. Now I’ve got to take care of some things. Enjoy yourself.’ He got up to go and Norman followed him, leaving Duncan alone with the two girls.

  ‘So,’ Selina said, ‘are you a jockey too?’

  Pretty soon he was mingling with the jockeys from the next table. They drank champagne. They danced with the girls. Other girls came and joined their table, then left. Occasionally there was a stir when this or that celebrity came in or when one got up on the dance floor. Duncan was surprised by how much bad dancing there was amongst the rich and famous. He got drawn into running a bet on who was the worst dancer in the room, the outcome to be decided by asking six pretty girls.

  Pleasance returned with Norman, only to clap Duncan on the back and ask him if he was enjoying himself. Beyond that, he had little to say to him. ‘So long as you’re having a good time,’ he said, ‘that’s all I want.’

  While the other jockeys were getting sweaty drunk, Duncan paced himself. The only member of the company who didn’t speak to him was Sanderson. Sometime just before midnight he saw Sanderson slipping out of the packed club, hand in hand with the leggy brunette.

  Emerging from the toilets, he fell into conversation with a young man his own age. They talked about the number of first-division footballers that were in the club. It was only after they went their separate ways that he realised the young man was the movie star Trevor Buckingham.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder. He turned round to find Mandy Gleeson done up to the nines in high heels and a golden dress. In the lights she looked so lovely he had to gulp. He recovered to say, ‘Didn’t know this was your kind of hang-out, Mandy.’

  ‘It’s not. I’m working.’

  He looked her up and down. ‘Undercover?’

  ‘Interesting company you’re keeping these days.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Duncan, ‘I’m a regular here. It’s the low prices that bring me back.’

  ‘I meant George Pleasance. I see you’re well in at his table.’

  ‘I knew what you meant.’

  The DJ played a slow number. ‘Dance with me?’ she said.

  They stepped on to the busy dance floor. On one side of him was maybe one of the Rolling Stones smooching with a tiny Asiatic beauty; on the other side someone who looked like a retired colonel was trying to quickstep one of the cast of Coronation Street. Mandy put her head against his collar and he gave in to the scent of her hair. She smelled wonderful. He thought maybe it was worth coming just for this dance.

  ‘I hope you’re not getting mixed up with him,’ she said.

  It pulled him out of his trance. ‘Pleasance? No. I’m just checking out the lie of the land.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I have my reasons. But no, I’m not getting drawn in.’

  ‘You say that now. He’s got a lot of people in his pocket.’

  Duncan looked up from Mandy and saw someone subtly motioning him from the edge of the dance floor. It was Norman, Pleasance’s bald-headed minder. Norman tapped the side of his nose and nodded meaningfully. Duncan let him know he’d seen him but went on with the dance.

  Mandy tipped her head back to look at him. ‘He’s not just
a playboy,’ she said.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘Do you? He’s got a lot of jockeys at his table, hasn’t he?’

  The dance came to an end. She leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ she said. Then she melted away from the dance floor.

  Duncan made his way back and Norman collared him. ‘Fuckin’ kiss-and-tell merchant,’ he said. ‘Find yourself in the News of the World if you ain’t careful. Stick with these gals over here.’

  ‘Right,’ Duncan said. ‘Thanks for the heads-up.’

  By ‘these gals over here’ Norman meant Selina and Judith and three or four other high-energy beauties who danced in and out of their company. Judith was showing a lot of interest in Duncan. She was smart and funny and she repeatedly touched his knee with her fingertips. She smiled a lot and licked her lips whenever he had anything to say. The club was a high-class grope tent. He’d never seen so many people with their arms under the table. In the noise and the bustle of the crowded club, it all seemed to go unnoticed. Except by him. Though he had his collar torn open with the rest of them, he was watching.

  Meanwhile, someone was watching him.

  Pleasance sat down next to him, put an arm around his shoulder. ‘If you want to take her home,’ he said, ‘it’s all sorted.’ Then he stood up. ‘Got enough to drink here, Judith?’

  Judith wasn’t how Duncan imagined a whore. The plain fact was, he’d never been up close to a whore in his life. Judith seemed too smart, too fragrant, too fresh. She just seemed like a pretty girl who was out for a good time. It occurred to him that George Pleasance had a string of women like some rich men owned a string of racehorses. He had to bring himself to his senses.

  Then Mandy Gleeson walked by. She’d spotted that he was holding hands with Judith under the table. She winked and carried on.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Judith asked.

  ‘One of those girls who gets you into bed and then sells the story to the papers,’ he said. ‘Apparently.’

  ‘Oh,’ Judith said, ‘they are so despicable.’

  At some point in the small hours, Duncan left and he left alone. The other jockeys were pairing up with the girls and he knew if he didn’t go right then he’d be compromised. There was no sign of Pleasance so he said a quick goodbye to the surprised Judith. The staff at the door brought his coat quickly, just as if it had a ticket attached. He skipped up the steps and the cold London air was like a shave from an icy razor. He waited a moment to get his bearings.

  Someone followed him out. At first he thought it was Judith.

  It was Mandy Gleeson. ‘Leaving all alone? People will gossip.’

  ‘Oh, it’s you. Yeah, I wanted to get myself a reputation.’

  ‘Too late to buy a girl a coffee?’

  Duncan thought he could do with sobering up. ‘Now that sounds like a good idea.’

  She slipped her arm inside his and he got a whiff again of that delicious perfume. They walked down Jermyn Street to a place she knew, but when they got there it was closed. They walked to another place but it was shut too.

  ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I live just across the river. I have coffee. But it’s not an invitation.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘I mean it. If that’s what you want right now, you should go back inside Tramp.’

  ‘Coffee at yours sounds good.’ He smiled innocently.

  ‘Walking or cab? It’s twenty minutes.’

  ‘Walking.’

  London at two a.m. wasn’t asleep but it was chilled and relaxed. They walked the streets of Mayfair together and he liked the way she pressed up to him in her heavy coat. Cigar smoke and perfume hung in the air. He saw a rat run in the gutter. They came upon the river and crossed Westminster Bridge. She had an apartment up towards Waterloo.

  It was good to get into the warmth of the apartment. She made coffee and brought out cake, but he just took the coffee.

  ‘I forgot,’ she said. ‘What it must be to be always hungry but to have to turn everything down. So what’s with George Pleasance?’

  ‘I’ve got nothing to tell you about him if that’s why you brought me here.’

  ‘Steady, Mr Crocodile. No, it wasn’t why I brought you here. But there are things that I can tell you.’

  ‘How do you know I won’t spill the beans to George? Him being so generous towards me.’

  ‘Because unless I’m a really bad judge of character, it’s just not you. Which makes me curious about what you are up to exactly.’

  ‘Just sampling the good life.’

  ‘Didn’t your dad tell you not to take sweeties from strange men?’

  How smart of her, he thought, how smart of her to mention Dad.

  ‘He did. How much information have you got for your TV programme?’

  ‘We’ve got lots. But it’s not George Pleasance we’re after. It’s the Jockey Club.’

  She laid it all out for him. George Pleasance was a cocaine smuggler on a big scale. The police and customs knew that; they just couldn’t get him. He was too clever and his followers were too loyal. That wasn’t the business of the journalists. What they wanted was to expose the Jockey Club, who were doing nothing about Pleasance using horse racing to launder huge sums of money from his drugs enterprise. Just as the police knew about Pleasance’s cocaine exploits, the Jockey Club knew about his laundering activities. Pleasance operated with two basic methods, prepared to take a loss here and there so long as his percentages were high. She said he was smart enough to see betting losses as a tax. Sometime he would bet favourites, having interfered with the contenders either by getting to the jockeys or slowing the horses through difficult-to-trace doping, but his favourite method was to lay bets against a horse winning, since in that scenario the variables were easier to control.

  ‘Or rather, the jockeys are easier to control that way,’ said Duncan.

  ‘You’ve got it. Now I know this; you know this; the Jockey Club know this. So why won’t they do anything about it?’

  Mandy said that getting proof was the killer – not getting proof that this or that jockey had held up a horse, because you would never get that kind of proof, even in the most fishy-looking circumstances. A horse would have to run backwards. But getting proof that the Jockey Club was sitting on information it knew would discredit the sport. The security team at the Jockey Club was a joke; their internal investigations were amateurish; they covered for each other and always had.

  ‘Brown envelopes stuffed with cash?’ Duncan said.

  ‘That would help. We know the story but we’ve got nothing. No evidence. We’re going round in circles.’

  ‘Like I say, I can’t help you. I don’t know anything.’

  ‘Better keep it that way. I do hope you know that Mr Nice Guy George Pleasance is not a nice guy behind the smiles.’

  ‘I figured that out.’

  ‘The police told me he’s a killer. He doesn’t dirty his hands but he has his executioners. Bag of cash, get rid of this one for me, but at this time, on Friday please, while I’m at the casino rolling it out on CCTV.’

  ‘You know he mixes with Cadogan and Osborne?’

  ‘Oh, we know who he’s in bed with.’ She stifled a yawn. ‘Speaking of bed, there’s your couch. I’ll get you a pillow and a blanket. Don’t look at me like that. I did make it clear. Well, didn’t I?’

  14

  ‘You’re riding for who?’ said his best friend Kerry.

  ‘You’re riding for who?’ said his trainer Petie.

  ‘You’re riding for fucking who?’ said his agent Mike.

  Gypsy George, now working steadily at Petie’s yard, said nothing at all. He just gave Duncan a look that was as old as time. But it was still a look that said, You’re riding for who?

  The only person Duncan hadn’t told was his dad, Charlie. That was going to be the most tricky.

  ‘What are you going to say to your da?’ Kerry said. ‘How the hell are you going to let him know? He watches r
acing on the television every day. You can’t keep it from him.’

  ‘I know,’ Duncan said. ‘I’m still thinking about how to break it to him.’

  ‘Well,’ Petie said, ‘I said I’d not stand in your way where there’s no conflict with my horses, but I’m surprised to see you go that way. Not fixing to jump ship on me, are you?’

  ‘No,’ Duncan said. ‘I promise you not.’

  ‘I’m your agent,’ said Mike. ‘I know you’ve got a plan. You need to let me in on it.’

  ‘It’s just this ride,’ Duncan said. ‘Or one or two.’

  ‘Or one or fucking two,’ Mike said, shaking his head.

  He was to ride at a minor meeting at Ludlow for Duke Cadogan. Lorna had pulled it off for him. It was only a Class 4 chase for five-year-olds and upwards over two miles: the Pinkland Insurance Handicap Chase. The horse was the stubborn Parisa. As it happened, he was riding in Petie’s colours in two other races on the same card, in the fourth race and the last.

  ‘I hope to fuck you know what you’re doing,’ Kerry said.

  The night before the meeting at Ludlow, Duncan went to see Charlie at Grey Gables. Mrs Solanki let him in, led him to Charlie’s room and closed the door after him with a gentle click.

  He’d brought Charlie a bottle of wine. There was a plate of Mrs Solanki’s samosas on the table. They sipped wine and Duncan nibbled round the edge of a samosa, and they talked horses. Duncan told Charlie that George had settled in well at Petie’s place and Charlie was overjoyed to hear it.

  ‘I’m glad you’ve been able to do something for Gypsy George,’ he said.

  They talked in detail about Petie’s horses and his training methods. Like Charlie, Petie was dedicated to fitness and diet, and Charlie liked to hear what he was up to in fine detail.

  ‘He’s keen to meet you,’ Duncan said. ‘He said he’d love you to look over his place.’