by Joe McNally
The only sound that came from Tranter was the crunching grind of gristle giving way to a hammerhead of knuckle. His mouth opened half in surprise, half in protest, but before a word could form, he was hurtling backward, scattering tack and dropping his own gear as he fell. A dozen men, jockeys and valets, stood still. Through the doorway, an official moved forward inquiringly. Kincaid stepped over Tranter and slammed the door.
No outside observers now.
Grabbing the dazed Tranter, Kincaid hoisted him up and tore at his colours until much of Tranter’s flesh was exposed. Grunting, he lifted him off his feet and half-laid, half-threw him down on a long trestle table. Kincaid picked up Tranter’s own whip and started thrashing him, high hard strokes across his pale skin. Weals rose in instant red ridges as Tranter, still semi-conscious from the punch, groaned and tried to turn.
We all looked at each other, nobody sure what to do. From time to time, scores were settled in the privacy of the changing room. It was usually short and sharp and soon forgotten about but Kincaid was out of control. He started shouting: ‘If you ever do anything like that again I’ll kill you, you fucking despicable little turd!’ He was grunting with the effort of beating Tranter.
‘Brian, enough!’ I said, grabbing at his elbow. He wrenched free and raised the whip again. I seized the collar of his silks from behind and jerked him back, off balance. ‘You’ll kill him!’
He stared down at me. He was red-eyed with rage. I took the chance of reaching up to grip his shoulders. ‘Brian, for God’s sake, calm down! Calm down!’
He stared at me and I thought he’d gone permanently mad. He was panting, and blobs of spittle had appeared at the edges of his mouth.
With a mixture of gentleness and firmness, I led him slowly away from a prostrate Tranter as the others watched. They moved aside to let us through. Quietly I said to Colin Blake, ‘Get the doctor.’
Blakey moved quickly toward the door as I sat Kincaid on the bench. He stared straight ahead but his breathing eased and the rigidity seeped from his body until he was half-slumped, elbows on knees, head drooping, gazing at the floor.
Two hours later, Kincaid’s demeanour had changed to one of deep depression. We were in a small country pub, looking at glasses of whisky that neither of us had any real appetite for. His all-out assault had been triggered by Tranter’s abuse of his horse after being caught on the post. As they’d pulled up Tranter had steered himself behind Kincaid’s mount so that he couldn’t be seen from the stands and thrashed his own exhausted horse savagely with his whip around the head and neck. Brian described it graphically. Tranter lashed across the velvety muzzle and, more painfully, down the horse’s last rib so the leather flap wrapped under the soft part of the belly to bite into the fleshy purse that held his penis. Kincaid said Tranter gave the poor beast a welter of vicious strokes before he’d managed to reach him and almost wrench him from the saddle.
But the vet was disgusted by his own behaviour and lack of self-control, and no matter how much I tried to reassure him it was justified, his mood grew blacker. I told him Tranter had never lost consciousness and that the bewildered doctor had said he didn’t think there would be any permanent damage.
Nor was there any danger of Kincaid being disciplined. No witness would snitch and, spiteful as he was, it was highly doubtful that Tranter would either. ‘You’ll have to watch yourself though,’ I warned Kincaid, ‘the little bastard won’t forget it easily.’
Kincaid and I left the drinks unfinished and went our separate ways.
Back at my flat, Martin confirmed that the first part of our plan to beat the blackmailer had been carried out. As agreed, he persuaded Fiona to call Spindari and warn him that he was being set up.
Spindari had denied he knew anything about the blackmail attempt, but Fiona told him that Caroline, with Martin’s knowledge, had deliberately fed him false information on Town Crier in the hope that Jean Kerman would print the story and leave her newspaper open to a huge libel suit from the Corish Stud.
When Spindari asked what Fiona’s interest in it was, she’d said she was pregnant by Martin who had reneged on his promise to marry her and gone back to his wife. The simplest of motives: revenge.
Martin had spent the evening waiting to see if our plan had worked. The blackmailer would be aware by now that I’d ridden a winner at Market Rasen, having accepted exactly the type of ride he’d warned me against. But he hadn’t called. It looked like he’d swallowed Fiona’s story.
16
Martin stayed overnight and next day we travelled to Worcester to visit Kincaid to try to cheer him up. The vet’s mood had improved greatly since the previous evening; Judy, his wife, had told him he’d done exactly the right thing and that she’d have thought less of him if he hadn’t given Tranter a beating.
As we drank tea, Judy moved around the big kitchen preparing lunch and joining in the general conversation. Martin was growing increasingly impatient to ask questions about Town Crier. Kincaid noticed and suggested that we might like a conducted tour of the facilities.
As soon as we were outside, Martin pressed for news of progress on the samples. Kincaid explained he was still waiting for some results on the blood and sperm specimens.
‘Results from where?’ Martin asked nervously.
Kincaid smiled. ‘Don’t worry; they don’t know which stallion the sperm is from or why I’ve asked for the analysis.’
‘Who are they?’ Martin asked.
‘Specialists, Casper and Denbourne, a big lab. Lots of vets use them for analysis.’
‘Thoroughbred specialists?’
‘Specialist analysts, all animals. Look, the samples should be here by Tuesday at the latest. I’m as anxious as you guys to crack this. I don’t like mysteries.’
Martin nodded and ran his fingers through his grey mop, pushing it away to reveal that telltale gauntness, as though all the worries in his head were sucking at the skin, stretching it tighter over the fine bone structure.
Kincaid reached out and squeezed his shoulder gently. ‘I’ll ring you as soon as the results come through.’
The best that could be said about the next three days was that Spindari failed to resurface. It looked like we’d beaten the blackmail threat.
Kincaid called me just after nine on Tuesday morning: the lab could find nothing in the sperm to offer a clue as to the cause of the sterility.
‘Where next?’ I asked.
‘Can you give me till the end of the week?’ He sounded serious, thoughtful.
‘Sure. What’re you thinking?’
‘Ask no questions, Eddie.’
‘Brian…’
‘Eddie, listen, I won’t drop you in it, I promise.’
‘Okay. Can I make one stipulation?’
‘Shoot.’
‘No Horseracing Forensic Lab.’ The Horseracing Forensic Lab dealt mostly with security issues - the last thing we needed.
‘Fine. I’ll call you. Oh, are you at Stratford on Friday?’ He asked.
‘I’ve got nothing booked, but I’ll probably be there mooching around. Better than sitting here in this heat looking down on a one-horse yard.’
‘Dust in the mouth? Tumbleweeds outside the saloon?’
I smiled. ‘Something like that.’
‘See you on Friday.’
I had to ring Martin with the bad news, but I decided to dress up the facts a little. I told him the samples had highlighted something that required more investigation, further tests, and that Kincaid had asked us to hold on till the end of the week.
Martin took it well and quizzed me for details. I told him Kincaid had been talking medical terms and I hadn’t really taken it all in.
When I saw Kincaid at Stratford on Friday, he seemed very positive. He told me he expected to have some results by Monday at the latest. I’d agreed to ask no questions and I held to the deal, content to wait a few days more. Kincaid had been very upbeat and wasn’t the type to raise false hopes.
He was
at Stratford for a ride in the last. We stood talking just inside the changing-room door. I suggested we have dinner somewhere before driving home. He smiled ruefully. ‘Afraid not, Eddie. I haven’t eaten since yesterday morning. Got to do ten eight in the second at Southwell tomorrow.’
‘On what?’
‘Tubalcain.’
‘They must fancy it.’
He nodded, smiling.
‘Excuse me!’ A voice from behind us. It was Tranter. We’d been half-blocking the doorway. We moved aside and there was a sudden yelp. We turned to see Ken Rossington, a valet, clutching his right foot and hopping about in apparent anguish. Kincaid had stood on his toe, and although he was most apologetic, Rossington made his usual show of it. One of the changing room’s jokers, he’d milk any potential laugh for all it was worth.
Tranter looked in poor shape; bruised eyes, nose still swollen and misshapen. He sat on the bench. Kincaid followed him and it seemed for a few seconds he was going to approach him; there was an air of conciliation about the vet. Kincaid took a couple of steps inside the room, hesitated, then turned and strode out, a trace of anger back in his face.
Tranter didn’t watch him leave. Unpacking his kitbag, he showed no emotion.
I rode in the second race and the fourth, both unplaced, and loitered till after the fifth on the chance some poor bugger might crock himself and let me in for a ride in the last, but they all returned safe and I headed for the exits to beat the crowds. Driving home, I speculated on the chances of Kincaid’s coming up with something by the time I saw him at Southwell next day, but Kincaid didn’t make it to Southwell. He never left Stratford alive.
17
I heard about it next morning driving to Southwell. It was an item tagged on to the end of the news on Radio 5: ‘An amateur jockey and prominent vet has been found dead in what is believed to have been an horrific accident at Stratford Racecourse. Mister Brian Kincaid, who was married with a baby daughter, apparently collapsed in a sauna and died of severe hyperthermia. Mister Kincaid’s body was not found until early this morning. Racecourse officials say there will be a full inquiry.
‘And now the weather. ’
And now the weather.
I must have imagined it. Nobody could report the death of a friend of mine and simply say ‘And now the weather’. Impossible. A hoax or something. It had to be. I pulled over, mounting the grass verge. I was vaguely aware of a lorry thundering past, horn blaring, shaking the car. I sat gripping the wheel, staring straight ahead, replaying the news clip over and over in my mind.
I don’t know how much time passed before I reached for my phone and found the number of Stratford Racecourse in my diary. I asked for the clerk of the course. Unavailable. Could they confirm the news report? Not prepared to comment. Where could I get confirmation? Sorry, couldn’t help.
I had a friend in Jockey Club Security, Peter McCarthy. We’d helped each other over the years. I knew he tried to avoid working Saturdays, so I rang his home number and held for ten rings before he answered.
‘Mac, Eddie Malloy. I just heard a news item that said Brian Kincaid is dead. Is it right?’
‘Eddie, yes, I’m sorry. Only heard myself about half an hour ago. You knew Brian quite well, didn’t you?’
‘What happened?’
‘The theory is, apparently, that he went into the sauna for a half-hour session after the last race and collapsed in there, by which time everyone had gone home.’
‘Collapsed?’
‘It seems he’d been wasting quite hard to make the weight at Southwell today. Tragic, isn’t it?’
My mind overloaded temporarily with doubts, questions, and images of how Brian would have looked after lying in a sauna for hours.
Mac said, ‘Eddie, are you all right?’
‘Mmmm. Surely the sauna cabin has some sort of safety cut off?’
‘I don’t know, Eddie. There will be a full inquiry.’ I simply couldn’t think straight. Had to get off the phone. I told McCarthy I’d call him later.
I got out of the car and wandered over to a stone wall hemming black and white cattle into a big field. Resting my hands on the wall, I stared across the field into dark woods, trying to pull my thoughts together.
Brian Kincaid was dead. An accident in a sauna.
No way.
Not Brian. He was a highly intelligent man with considerable medical experience. Light-headed from fasting maybe, but he would have been more aware than most of the dangers of losing consciousness in a sauna. At the first sign of dizziness, he would have got out, I was certain of it. But he didn’t get out, so either somebody knocked him unconscious in the box or prevented him from escaping.
Logical progression: who?
Logical answer: Billy Tranter.
I leaned against the wall, trying to close down my emotions and think objectively. After the chances he took at Perth and the persistence he’d shown in persecuting me, it had occurred to me that Tranter might have the germ of a psychotic disorder. Whether it could have mutated into psychopathic was another matter. I needed to know more.
I got back on the road to Southwell. The last thing I felt like doing was riding horses, but Tranter would be there and I wanted to see him. Watch him. Study his behaviour. Analyze it. That’s what the logical side of me wanted to do. What the rest of me wanted to do was find him guilty without trial and beat him until he died.
The news at noon ran the same item on Brian’s death; no further details. Two minutes later, my phone rang. It was Martin. ‘I just heard on the news, about Kincaid.’
‘Uhuh.’
‘Tell me it’s not true, Eddie?’
‘It’s true.’
‘Ohhh. Jesus Christ! What are we, jinxed or something?’
‘What are you worried about? The samples? Town Crier?’ I was just in the mood for an argument. Ready to take my anger out on somebody.
‘Eddie, what are we going to do?’
‘What are we going to do? What the hell’s Judy Kincaid going to do? She has a three-month-old kid with no father! We’ve got a mangy fucking stallion firing blanks! Whose shoes would you rather be in?’
There was a long pause, and then Martin said quietly that he would call me later. I told him to be more bloody respectful to Brian Kincaid’s memory when he did. Memory. God, you’d think he’d been dead years. Yesterday I’d spoken to him. Yesterday. In the corridor in the weighing room. He’d been telling me he was wasting hard for this ride.
And who was behind us when he said it? Who was listening? Who could have made a reasonable assumption that Brian might use the sauna yesterday afternoon?
Billy Tranter.
I pressed the accelerator to the floor, speeding dangerously, stupidly, toward Southwell.
18
My temper had cooled by the time I reached the course. The guys in the weighing room weren’t as subdued as I’d expected and it made me angry, made me want to preach a sermon telling them they ought to be grieving for Brian Kincaid. But the fact that he was an amateur meant that he was never really part of the ‘brotherhood’. It wasn’t a matter of not being accepted, simply that most professional jockeys see each other almost every day in the same way as soldiers in a small elite unit do.
We know each other’s characters and weaknesses and share the same dangers daily. Amateur jockeys are tolerated and grudgingly respected if they are good. Brian had been respected but there seemed little emotion at his death, only shock at the manner of it. There was a lot of speculation about how terrible it must have been, and some juvenile nominations of the ways of dying some of them would prefer.
Bill Keating came in and told everyone he’d spoken to the caretaker at Stratford, the bloke who’d found Brian’s body
‘He said it was like a potato crisp.’ That silenced everybody. Tranter was in the corner. I watched his face but saw no emotion. I was sorely tempted to approach him and ask him to account for his movements every minute of yesterday, but had to settle for watching him w
henever I could: observing, looking for some flicker of satisfaction when Brian’s name was mentioned. But I saw none. And paranoia crept in. I imagined him congratulating himself as he cantered to the start, pictured him locking himself in the toilet so he could gloat and have a good laugh.
I resolved to wait in my car after racing and follow Tranter, but as the afternoon wore on realized that would be a foolish thing to do. Pointless.
Where did I expect him to head for, the scene of the crime? Or did I think he’d go home and erect a banner saying ‘I killed Brian Kincaid’?
Half-disgusted, wholly frustrated, I left after my ride in the fourth and drove to Worcester to see Judy Kincaid. The dread of facing her grew mile by mile but I felt I had to go there, pay my respects, and trot out the standard, ‘If there’s anything I can do’.
She was in bed under sedation; the baby was sleeping in the arms of her sister, who slowly paced the kitchen floor as her husband made coffee. All three of us sat for half an hour in that collective daze that descends on the newly bereaved and suspends social conversation, excuses long silences.
They promised to tell Judy I’d called in. As we said goodbye, I had the strongest of urges to stroke the baby’s forehead. I reached out and rested my hand softly on the warm pink skin. A tiny smile flickered on the round sleeping face, and I thanked God she wasn’t old enough to understand how much she had just lost.
19
I slept on my suspicions, and they were stronger when I woke. Once again, I rang Peter McCarthy, the Jockey Club Security man.
‘Eddie, how come I don’t hear from you for months then the only time you can find to call me is at weekends?’
It was warm-hearted banter. In the humour market, Mac and I usually traded at about the same exchange rate, but this morning it was the last thing I felt like and I steered him straight on to Brian’s death.
