by Joe McNally
‘You sit down. I’ll make the coffee.’
He did so without argument, and I found the makings of coffee and toast which he refused. I persuaded him to eat it.
Martin was forty-five. Not only did he still have all his hair but it seemed to be growing wild, out of control, thick and greying and alive. Framing his fine-boned unshaven face, it made him look more like a refugee or half-crazed artist than one of racing’s former heroes. But there was none of the usual fire in his blue eyes, which were bloodshot, exhausted-looking, lifeless. If the body had its own hospital, they’d have been in intensive care.
When he’d forced down the last mouthful of toast, he looked at me and said, ‘I’m sorry, mate.’
There was no need to start barking questions at him. He went through everything from the beginning, punctuating the story with regular apologies. ‘I should have thought more about it, should have called you. I just sort of panicked. It had been building up for weeks and when the guy phoned, I just blanked, panicked.’
The blackmailer had contacted him on Monday, claiming he knew another horse, a ringer, was being used to cover for Town Crier. He suggested Martin approach me to say ‘the game was up’ and that we’d better co-operate, which meant he would tell me which races not to try in. Martin couldn’t pluck up the courage to ring me, and when the blackmailer called on Tuesday and again on Wednesday, only to find Martin was avoiding him, he’d phoned me direct.
I said, ‘So he’s right in what he says about Town Crier?’ Martin nodded slowly, thick tendrils of hair swinging across his eyes.
‘What’s wrong with him?’
‘He’s lost it. Just lost it.’
‘Lost what?’
‘His fertility.’
We looked at each other.
‘Completely?’ I asked.
He nodded again. ‘Went from an eighty-eight percent success rate to zero.’
‘What, just like that? Overnight?’
‘Almost. Three or four days maybe.’
Stallion fertility is measured in how many mares each horse gets in foal. Town Crier’s had always been consistently high. ‘You should have called me.’
His shoulders tensed, hunching again as he moved awkwardly in his seat. ‘I thought he’d come through it, Eddie. I thought it might be a virus or something.’
I shook my head slowly, rubbing my face as the impact sank home. ‘You should have told me, Martin.’
‘I’m sorry, Eddie, I didn’t know how to tell you! What was it going to sound like less than a year after you put everything you had into the business? After I had persuaded you to invest all that money? What was I supposed to say: “Look, Eddie, sorry but our major asset has collapsed, our top player has just drawn stumps?”’
I was angry and avoided his eyes to hide it, then got mad at myself for being so protective of him. Almost afraid to ask I finally said, ‘What about this ringer stuff, that’s not true, is it?’ I don’t know why I asked, because I knew it had to be true or he wouldn’t have run away. Like battling on from two fences behind in a steeplechase, you’re always hoping for that little miracle, and maybe I thought that Martin had scarpered purely because of the pressure of Town Crier’s problem being revealed to the public. Maybe that was all it was.
It wasn’t. He’d been using a stallion called Acapella to cover the Town Crier mares. Acapella stood at a thousand pounds, half the fee we charged for Town Crier.
That wound up my sympathy and patience to breaking point. ‘For God’s sake, Martin, they’re not even the same colour!’
‘Close enough. There’s plenty bay in Acapella’s family. We’ll be okay.’
‘He’s black!’
He hunched his shoulders again and hung his head. His reasoning was that the colouring wouldn’t be a big issue, and maybe we would sort Town Crier out for next season. The fact that Acapella was also less likely to sire a horse of the same ability as Town Crier’s offspring didn’t matter to Martin at the moment. Most were bred for jumping and it would be five years before they’d see a racecourse. Again, he argued that Town Crier would have overcome his problem long before then so half a dozen or so sub-standard progeny would do little damage to his reputation as a sire.
I said, ‘And what do we do when the blood samples from the foals are analyzed for Weatherbys?’
The Jockey Club’s administrators, Weatherbys, operated a checking system to prevent the very thing Martin had been doing. As soon as a thoroughbred foal is born, a vet takes a blood sample to send there for testing. The sample proves the mating that is on paper is the one that produced the offspring.
Running nervous fingers through his wild hair, Martin said, ‘That won’t happen for months. We can sort something out by then.’
‘Like what, a miracle?’
‘We can say there was a mistake here, or maybe we can get hold of the samples before they get to Weatherbys, or bribe a vet or something.’
I stared at him. ‘You’re kidding me now, Martin. Tell me you’re kidding?’
He clamped his head between his hands and squeezed his eyes shut. ‘My head’s gone, Eddie. I’m sorry.’
I wondered what he’d told the staff. For each covering there would have to have been at least one other person present. A mare has to be held steady while the stallion is led up and sometimes helped to enter her. Unwilling mares can have hobbles fitted to stop them trying to escape or kicking the stallion, so often there will be three people at a covering.
‘What did you tell the staff?’ I asked. ‘Would they have known who the mares were booked to?’
He shook his head and muttered, ‘They thought it was a simple booking to Acapella.’
‘And nobody questioned why Town Crier hadn’t covered for so long?’ He shook his head again.
‘What about the insurance? Why don’t we just claim on that?’ Insurance was available against a stallion’s losing fertility and most breeders took sufficient cover.
In a quiet voice he said, ‘I didn’t take it out.’
‘You what? We agreed it! It was part of the budget!’
He couldn’t look at me. ‘Didn’t think it was worth it. His fertility rate was so high.’
I sighed. It was pointless getting any angrier. I tried to figure out what we could do to start repairing things.
I asked, ‘What are the vets saying?’
Still gripping his head, he said in a tense voice, ‘I took a sample of blood and sperm to a vet in Ireland, top bloke. The blood’s fine. The sperm is a hundred percent sterile.’
‘Temporary or permanent?’
‘No way of knowing.’
‘What about a second opinion?’
‘Who from?’ There was an edge in his voice now.
‘One of the Newmarket guys.’
‘Who’ll then know that the Corish Stud has a useless stallion. How long before that gets out to breeders?’
‘Martin, how else are we going to solve this? We can’t keep it covered up.’
‘We’ve got to keep it covered up, Eddie! Make no mistake about that!’ There was some fire in his eyes at last, sparked by desperation. But it was blinding him to logic.
‘Martin, we’re in a hole, let’s stop digging, please?’
He rounded on me, slamming his open hands on the tabletop.
‘You stop digging! It’s all right for you! If the business goes under you’ve done a few quid. Fine. You go back to riding. You’re young. You’ll be okay! What have I got? Fuck all!’
His fists and jaw muscles clenched and unclenched. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve got, Eddie, I’ll tell you what I’ve got coming at me from all points of the fucking compass! Divorce proceedings. My first child who’ll be born just after my forty-sixth birthday. No business. No money. Nowhere to live. And I’ll tell you what else I don’t have that you don’t think about now but by Christ you will when you get to my age, I don’t have another ten or fifteen years to pull the whole fucking thing back together again!’
He w
as reaching across to me, arms extended. If I’d been directly in front of him, he’d have had me by the lapels. His head was low, chin almost touching the table, tears welling. And I was sorry it had taken this much to make me understand why he’d crashed and burned in the past seventy-two hours.
I stayed until noon, comforting him, trying to persuade him we’d come through, that we’d get the blackmailer before he did any damage.
9
I drove at speed to Worcester races, where I’d agreed to meet Barney Dolan behind the main stand after the second race. Waiting for him, I watched the boats on the Severn, which flows so close to the track that there has never been a winter when it hasn’t flooded the racecourse. Watching the wide muddy river, I was glad Tranter hadn’t barged me into this one.
Barney appeared, looking as though he’d just come from our last meeting at Perth; same clothes, tie hanging loose at the same length, identical expression, cigarette freshly lit sending smoke trails up through the weave of his hat rim. We shook hands and when he glanced furtively around the way they do in B-movies, I thought it was all a wind up, though he’d sounded pretty desperate on the phone last night.
‘Why all the secrecy?’ I asked.
‘I don’t want us to be seen together. You’ll know why in a minute.’
A rowing crew surged past sweating and grunting. Barney and I were the only ones behind the stand. I said, ‘Barney, if anybody does see us round here, they’ll think we’re up to something. Whatever it is you want to talk about, let’s do it out front. Okay, people will see us but you’re a trainer and I’m a jockey, they’re much less likely to be suspicious.’
He didn’t say anything, just turned and led me along the single track. Among the crowds once more, we passed a line of glum bookmakers paying out on the second race, and walked on toward the parade ring, which we skirted then came back, travelling the route four or five times while Barney told his tale.
It seemed that my bathing partner at Perth, Cliptie, had been carrying a large amount of cash, carefully placed in betting shops around the country. So large that if the horse had known, he’d probably have sunk without trace. Most of that stake money, thirty grand of it, had belonged to one of Barney’s owners, Joe Dimokratia, Joey the Greek. And herein lay the crux: Joey the Greek did not know Barney had used his cash.
Joey was spending the month of June in his home country before returning to collect from Barney the proceeds of the sale of two of his horses, proceeds that Barney no longer had. Barney made it clear that Joey was unlikely to take this news gracefully.
If it hadn’t been for the pallor of Barney’s complexion and the nervous pitch of his voice, I would have found the whole thing comical. ‘So what do you plan to do?’ I asked.
‘I’ve got to get the money before he comes back.’
‘And what do you plan to use for stakes, if it’s any of my business?’
‘I’ve sold another one of Joey’s horses.’
‘You’re kidding. Without him knowing?’
He nodded, shrugged. ‘He can’t do any more to me if it doesn’t come off.’
‘Where do I come in?’ I asked.
'I want you to be at Market Rasen on Saturday and to leave yourself free for the second race.’
‘I’d hardly have thought I was your good luck charm, Barney.’
‘You’re trustworthy and reliable, Eddie, and you can keep your gob shut. We just got a bad break on Thursday.’
He didn’t realize how bad a break and I was tempted to tell him that I thought Tranter had sabotaged the bridle. But I wasn’t certain that he had. But supposing Tranter rode against me again when Barney’s money was down? I settled for telling him that Tranter held a grudge against me and that while Thursday’s incident might have been an accident, Barney shouldn’t risk putting me up on Cliptie again if Tranter was in the same race.
‘Don’t worry about Tranter, I’ll sort him out.’ He said it in such an offhand manner - almost like, ‘forget about the fly, I’ll swat it’ - that it worried me and made me realize how desperate he was. I’d expected him to blow his top and demand more details about Tranter and the Perth race, but that faraway gaze was in his eyes again, though this time it looked like single-mindedness rather than despair. He could see the target a week away and wasn’t going to be deflected.
Clutching his elbow lightly, I stopped and turned him toward me. ‘Barney, if I want him sorting out, I’ll do it myself.’
‘Leave it to me, Eddie.’ He made to walk on again. I held him. ‘Barney. I’ll sort it out.’
Barney’s big red nose made him appear jolly in a music-hall sort of way, but his grey eyes were cold and hard and I wondered how afraid he was of Joey the Greek. He said, ‘Eddie, I can’t afford another fuck-up.’
‘Listen you won’t put Tranter off easily, I’ve been trying to do it all season. Play safe, book somebody else.’
‘I want you, Eddie.’ He didn’t voice it but the look in his eyes said, “You owe me one.”
‘Fine. Let’s say I’ll ride. Just make sure you’ve got a standby in case Tranter turns out to have a mount in the race.’
Barney looked down at me, gripping my shoulders with both hands. ‘Eddie, you’re the standby.’
It turned out that Rod, Barney’s jockey son, had suffered no accident on Wednesday. The plan from the start was to declare Rod, an inexperienced claiming jockey, as the rider at Perth to discourage the public from betting on Cliptie so his price would drift. The last-minute substitution of E. Malloy would have gone pretty much unnoticed in the country’s betting shops. If I’d been unavailable for the ride on Thursday, Barney said he would have withdrawn the horse and held off until I was free.
Now he planned to try the same ruse at Market Rasen next week. Trouble was the blackmailer had warned me last night never to take another unbooked ride. Barney was staring hard at me, stiff with tension, and I saw in his face a reflection of Martin’s haggard features. I couldn’t tell which was the devil and which the deep blue sea.
At least it gave us something to work to, a deadline. We had exactly one week to find the blackmailer.
10
As arranged, Martin came to see me on Sunday afternoon and we walked to the pub for a late lunch. On the way there, the storm that had been brewing for days broke with a lightning bolt and thunderclap that made you believe in God. We ran but were drenched in seconds by a deluge that left us gasping for breath, then laughing stupidly, and finally splashing like children through the water overflowing the road drains.
By the time we reached the pub, it had rained itself out. We sat at a white table in the beer garden, steaming gently in the sun.
Martin drank beer. I sipped mineral water as we waited for sandwiches. We had agreed yesterday that Town Crier had to be officially taken off the market so that we weren’t compromised further. Martin was to phone the two breeders with mares booked in and tell them the horse was carrying a slight injury, nothing permanent, but the vet thought he’d be off for a few weeks. It was close enough to the end of the breeding season for them to be unlikely to request a new date.
‘How did they take it?’ I asked.
‘Mrs. Sansome was annoyed and moaned like hell but she’s a bit of a cow at the best of times. Parsons was okay. I got the impression he might even have been a bit relieved.’
I nodded, watching him. He looked much more positive, alive again. I’d persuaded him that things would come good if we worked through them. First priority was identifying the blackmailer and persuading him he’d been misinformed. The second was to find out what was wrong with Town Crier and fix it. And the third was to offer the owners who’d had a ‘fraudulent’ covering by Acapella a free nomination to Town Crier next year.
This was the one Martin was most nervous about. ‘Eddie, can’t we avoid that, somehow?’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know.’ He squirmed uncomfortably, shaking water drops from his hair. ‘I just don’t think we can tell them i
t was a mistake. How incompetent are we going to look when that gets out?’
‘As incompetent as you can get, but our honesty in admitting it will go a long way in mitigation. And we’ll be better off admitting it before the blood tests from the foals force our hand.’
‘It’s not going to be as easy as you think.’
‘Listen, it’s the least of our worries. We made it bottom of our list yesterday. Let’s keep it there until we’ve sorted out the others. Now who else knew about Town Crier’s fertility problem?’
‘Nobody.’
‘Nobody? You didn’t tell a soul?’
He avoided my eyes.
‘I told Caroline.’
‘Right. When?’
‘End of March.’
‘Did she know about Fiona at the time?’
He shook his head. More droplets. It turned out Caroline had found them in bed together a few weeks later, though Martin said it did nothing more than confirm what she’d been accusing him of for years. ‘She almost enjoyed it. Finding the evidence which would save all the cross-examination in the future.’
‘Who else knows?’
‘Fiona.’ He lowered his gaze.
I sighed. ‘Why didn’t you just take out an ad in the local paper?’
‘Fiona wouldn’t breathe a word. I’d bet my life on it.’
‘So it must have been Caroline.’
‘Couldn’t have been.’
I leaned across the table. ‘It must have been, Martin! You can’t have it both ways!’
He threw his hands wide and the waitress bringing the sandwiches had to jig quickly sideways. He apologized and turned on his most charming smile, but she’d been looking curiously at us dripping oddities all the way down the path and seemed keen to get back indoors. Martin paid and she hurried off.
I lifted a thin ham sandwich. Martin continued gesturing. ‘Carrie would have absolutely no motive for giving the game away.’
Between bites I said, ‘Never heard of “hell hath no fury” and all that?’
‘Look, all she cares about is screwing me for as much as she can in the divorce settlement. Why should she risk.’ he sought the word ‘devaluing my only asset? Our only asset?’
