Pulse

by Felix Francis

  If he thought that a naked male form was going to offend me, he was wrong. As an emergency doctor, I’d seen more willies than he’d had roast lunches.

  I laughed, and that didn’t please him either. He made a rude gesture in my direction and mouthed a couple of very ungentlemanly words encouraging me to go away; instead, I looked around to see if I could spot Mike Sheraton or Jason Conway. Not that I particularly wanted to see their willies too, I was just curious to see if they were there so that I could ask them about the man in the photo. But there was no sign of either of them.

  I knew they were both due to ride as I’d looked it up on the Racing Post website but there was still nearly two hours before the first race so they may have not arrived yet, or perhaps they were lurking in the sauna trying to shed a pound or two before racing started.

  I walked out onto the weighing-room terrace and sat in the sun on one of the wooden benches. I couldn’t remember ever having been to the races before when I didn’t have anything to do.

  I felt lost and miserable.

  Part of me wanted to stand up and go back into the medical room, to tell Adrian Kings not to be so damned stupid, and to carry on doing what I did best. I even briefly thought about threatening to make public his hand-washing problems of the past if he didn’t reinstate me but . . . what good would it do? He was the most senior racecourse medical officer here at Cheltenham and he would simply not choose me again anyway. And the way my health was going at the moment, I could do with every doctor being more of a friend than an enemy.

  I sat on the bench for the next half-hour watching the comings and goings, jockeys arriving to change, trainers collecting saddles to take over to the saddling boxes for the first race, owners hovering nervously more in hope than expectation. And then there were the TV and radio crews hoping for an exclusive interview to reveal some golden nugget of information about a horse’s chances in the big race. In fact, all the regular hustle and bustle around the weighing room on a Festival morning.

  But I was now out of it, present here only in body.

  I thought about going home.

  My home had always been my castle, my safe retreat from the horrors of emergency medicine, but it had recently become my prison, the place from which I gazed out through the glass at the world beyond, wondering if I would ever be able to rejoin it.

  Whereas going home had once been a pleasure, it was now a torment.

  So I went on sitting on the bench; that was until I saw Jason Conway walking across the parade ring. I pulled the photo of the unnamed man from my coat pocket and went forward to intercept.

  ‘Excuse me, Jason,’ I said, standing right in front of him. ‘Do you know this man?’

  I thrust the photo almost up to his nose so he couldn’t avoid looking at it.

  Jason glanced at the picture then at me. ‘I’ve already told the police that I don’t know him,’ he said.

  ‘Why did he die?’ I asked.

  No reply.

  ‘What are you involved in?’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ he said, pushing past me and disappearing up the steps and into the sanctuary of the weighing room.

  Two things struck me. The first was that, contrary to what I’d believed, PC Filippos must have actually taken note of what I’d said to him in the hospital, and the second was that Jason Conway was lying.

  As the mother of identical twins, who as children had seemed to communicate as much by telepathy as by the spoken word, I had become quite adept at reading body language and detecting vibes. And there had been vibes aplenty radiating from Jason Conway. He was a deeply worried man and that could only be because, not only had he seen the unnamed man but he probably knew his full name and why he’d died.

  I went back to the bench to wait for Mike Sheraton.

  Adrian Kings appeared on the terrace to my left, took one look at me, pursed his lips and retreated back inside where I saw him speaking to Rupert Forrester, the managing director. Presently, another member of the racecourse executive came over and asked me what reasons I had for being in a restricted zone.

  Kick me when I’m down, why don’t you?

  ‘No reason,’ I said.

  So he asked me to leave the weighing-room area. At least he didn’t tell me to leave the racecourse entirely.

  I walked across the parade ring and on towards the Princess Royal Grandstand. In spite of the sunshine, I was desperately chilly and I dug my hands deep into my coat pockets. Always being cold was one of the unfortunate consequences of having lost so much weight and a fresh gust of icy wind made me shiver. I went in search of the nearest warm shelter – the Vestey Bar in the base of the grandstand.

  I hadn’t had a single alcoholic drink for many months – far too many calories – but now I found myself standing at the bar swiftly gulping down a double Whisky Mac to ward off both the cold and the awful feeling of helplessness that had gripped me by the throat.

  Living my life over those months had been like walking a tightrope. I’d had to concentrate intensely for every single second in order not to fall off – one way into full-blown anorexia, starvation and death, the other into a hedonistic self-indulgence of drink, drugs and excess leading to massive weight gain and a return to crippling depression. Just being me, and staying as I was now, had become a full-time occupation.

  Yet here I was in a bar at barely eleven in the morning, knocking back the whisky and loving the warm glow that enveloped me as a result.

  ‘Another double, please,’ I said to the barman, pushing a fresh banknote across the counter towards him.

  Part of me wanted him to say, No, no, you’ve already had enough, but instead he took my money and measured two more shots of Dewar’s Finest Scotch Whisky into a fresh tumbler, before splashing in an equal quantity of Stone’s Original Green Ginger Wine.

  ‘Bugger Adrian Kings,’ I said to myself, lifting the glass in a silent toast before downing its contents in three great gulps.

  ‘And again,’ I said, sliding the empty glass across the bar top.

  This time the barman did look at me with a questioning expression but I just nodded at him and waved my hand around in encouragement.

  What on earth are you doing? the sensible half of my brain asked.

  Getting drunk, of course, replied the delinquent half with a laugh. Sod the lot of them.

  And I was getting drunk, and very quickly. Not only had I lost my long-established tolerance for alcohol but I’d had nothing to eat for breakfast. Unaccustomed booze on an empty stomach – the perfect recipe for disaster.

  I watched the barman dispense two more measures of the golden liquor.

  Whisky. Whisky.

  My scrambled brain wondered if it contained dissolved cocaine.

  Even in this state, every line of thought came back to the unnamed man, my friend Rahul, and why he’d died.

  15

  The sensible half of my brain started to win.

  I was sitting on a stool in the Vestey Bar with my fifth double Whisky Mac untouched on the high table in front of me, almost as if it were goading me to drink it like the bottle of magic liquid in Alice in Wonderland. But this particular potion certainly wouldn’t make me shrink – indeed, it would quite likely make me fall over – so I sat looking at it, unable to move and determined not to stray any further from my tightrope.

  I stayed put throughout the first race, not daring even to let go of the table in case I should stagger around like an animal with mad-cow disease. Surely, I thought, one should be able to think oneself sober if one focused hard enough. My medical training told me otherwise but I went on trying nevertheless.

  I tried to watch the race on one of the many TV sets fixed to the walls of the bar but the jockeys’ silks seemed to blend together into a colourful kaleidoscopic mass before my intoxicated eyes. Only when the horses had jumped the last and were on the run-in to the finish line did I distinguish the leader’s red-and-white stripes – Dick McGee.

  I remembered back to his mass
ive reaction to seeing the picture of the unnamed man. He must know more than he was telling.

  I remained where I was in the bar for the next two races as the worst effects of the alcohol gradually began to diminish and I found that I could stand unaided with only a minor wobble.

  I asked a fellow drinker to save my seat and then slowly weaved my way to the ladies. I poured the last demon drink down the toilet before splashing some cold water onto my face at the sink.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t think that I appeared very drunk, but appearances could be deceiving.

  And I now realised I had another big problem.

  How was I going to get home?

  I couldn’t drive in this condition and it would be many hours until the alcohol in my blood dropped to a legal level.

  I seemed to have three choices: I could walk the four and a half miles home; I could call Grant and ask him to collect me; or I could get a lift from someone going my way.

  Whichever method I chose, my car would have to stay overnight in the racecourse car park and Grant would be certain to find out that I’d been drinking again. It would give him even more reason to believe I should be back in Wotton Lawn.

  God, you’re a fool, I told my reflection in the glass.

  A goddamn bloody fool.

  I safely made my way back to the bar to find that the person I’d asked to keep my seat had gone and so had the stool I’d been sitting on, snaffled by a large group of young twenty-somethings having a great day out.

  I stood by the table and looked across at them as they laughed and joked with one another.

  Where had my youth gone?

  When I’d been their age I’d spent all my waking hours working or studying. I don’t remember having had the time, or the money, for days at the races, or anywhere else for that matter. I suppose that everyone over forty must eye the young with a touch of envy. They still have their whole lives ahead of them, their dreams and aspirations untainted by experience and disappointment.

  The fourth race of the day was the Grade One Stayers’ Hurdle, run over two complete circuits of the course. At three miles it was one of the longest hurdle races on the calendar with all twelve runners carrying the same weight at eleven stone ten pounds. It was a true test of a horse’s stamina, especially as the going was officially ‘soft’.

  I stood by the window of the Vestey Bar and watched over the heads of the crowd as the horses walked around the parade ring and the jockeys were given leg-ups onto them. Someone had left a racecard lying on the table and I looked to see who was riding: Dick McGee was not, but Jason Conway and Mike Sheraton were both present, Jason in a red jacket with yellow cap, while Mike sported blue-and-white checks. They were easy to spot as they made their way down the horse-walk towards the course.

  Many of those in the bar, including the youngsters, went outside to view the race live and cheer home their fancies, so I reclaimed my stool and sat on it watching the contest unfold on the television screen, concentrating hard through the haze of intoxication.

  Jason Conway was at it again.

  As soon as the starter released the field, Jason was off at a great rate of knots, jumping the first hurdle a good four lengths in front. However, this time, he reined back and settled into mid-division, before his horse tired coming down the hill second time round and was pulled up before the last.

  Mike Sheraton, meanwhile, rode the whole race in about third, fourth or fifth place, never seriously challenging the winner, which went away from the others over the last two flights to win easily by six lengths.

  I went outside to watch the horses come back into the winner’s enclosure to unsaddle. By now I was just about able to walk in a straight line but I was still thankful to lean on the rail right next to the pole designating the space reserved for the fourth-place horse.

  Mike Sheraton had finished fourth.

  As the blue-and-white checks came in I held up the photo of the unnamed man high above my head so that Mike Sheraton couldn’t fail to see it.

  He stared at it, then down at me.

  ‘Who is this man?’ I mouthed at him.

  There was a touch of panic in his eyes. There was also something else – a coldness. It sent a shiver down my own back that was nothing to do with the ambient temperature. Perhaps it had not been such a good idea to hold up the photo after all. The alcohol had clearly made me over-bold.

  I stayed leaning on the rail as Mike Sheraton dismounted and removed his saddle. He glanced my way a couple more times before turning and walking away to weigh in. I watched him go and wondered what he and Jason Conway were involved in.

  The police were not even considering the unnamed man’s death as suspicious, just unexplained, but, if the two jockeys’ reactions were anything to go by, I reckoned there was quite a lot that was suspicious about it.

  I remained standing there as the horses were led away and the presentations to the winning connections were made by the chairman of the sponsors. Then I made my way up the steps towards the crowd first-aid room.

  Not that I was in need of any urgent medical assistance or anything. However, I vaguely knew one of the St John’s Ambulance volunteer nurses who was regularly on duty and she lived just down the road from me in Gotherington.

  I was hoping she might be able to give me a lift home.

  ‘Hello, Isabelle,’ I said, going in and thankfully finding her in her bright green St John’s uniform shirt and black skirt.

  ‘Hello, Dr Rankin,’ she said in her broad Welsh accent. ‘How can I help?’

  ‘I was wondering if you could give me a lift home later?’ I said. ‘Save me asking Grant to come and collect me.’

  ‘Well, I could,’ she said slowly, ‘but my Ian is having to come for me. My car wouldn’t start this morning, see. Probably the cold. Damn nuisance too, I can tell you.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I have a car here. Could you drive us home in that?’

  She looked at me with her head slightly to one side.

  ‘Why can’t you drive your own car? I could come with you then, see.’

  ‘Well,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘I think I may have had one too many to be fit to drive.’

  She went on looking at me. ‘Aren’t you here on duty?’ she asked with a disapproving tone in her voice.

  ‘Good God, no,’ I said with a laugh. ‘Merely a spectator today. Met some old chums and they seem to have forced too much drink on me.’

  Isabelle relaxed a little. Whether she believed me or not was another matter.

  ‘I suppose I could ring Ian and tell him not to bother,’ she mused. ‘He would be grateful for that, see. It’s always hell getting back in when everyone else is trying to leave and he likes to go down the Shutters early on Thursdays for the skittles.’

  The Shutters was the Shutters Inn, the local pub in Gotherington village.

  ‘Great,’ I said. ‘Shall I come back here when you finish? What time?’

  She looked around at the other two staff as if gauging their reaction. ‘I suppose I could get away about an hour after the last race. Say half past six.’

  It was much later than I’d hoped. I might even be half sober by then.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘You call your Ian and tell him you are coming home with me and I’ll be back here at six-thirty sharp.’

  Six-thirty. I looked carefully at my watch, trying to concentrate on the hands. Half past four. Two hours to wait. I could easily walk home in that time but it would mean leaving the car, and I now had a plan to ensure that Grant never knew of my indiscretions with my good friend, Whisky Macdonald.

  Isabelle would drive to her house and then I’d take a chance by driving the last hundred yards home. Easy. Surely all the Gloucestershire police would be busy directing the traffic leaving the racecourse.

  I texted Grant to tell him that I’d not be home until about seven and could he put the pizzas from the fridge in the oven for the boys’ tea if they were back before me. They had made plans
to go to a friend’s house after school all this week as I’d been expecting to be on duty at the racecourse anyway.

  He texted back straight away to ask where I was.

  ‘At the racecourse’, I texted back. ‘Helping out. xxx’

  ‘Supposed to be resting,’ came the reply after a short but meaningful pause. I could tell from the curtness, and no added kisses, that he wasn’t pleased.

  ‘I’m taking it easy’, I texted back. ‘See you later. xxx’

  Taking it easy drinking, I thought, and was almost tempted to go back to the Vestey Bar for more.

  Instead I went up to the Racing Hall of Fame area – cosy, and no alcohol.

  I stood in front of the roaring log fire warming my hands and wondering where I went from here.

  The sensible half of my brain was telling me to leave it all to the professionals. If the police don’t believe the man’s death was suspicious, it said, who are you to say otherwise? Let it go.

  But the delinquent side was adamant. Something is up, it said, and you are the only person who knows it. Keep digging.

  First I turned one way, and then the other.

  ‘What shall I do?’ I said, almost to myself.

  ‘I’d do the favourite, if I were you,’ said the man standing next to me, who had obviously overheard. ‘But I’m no judge, really. I’m down on the day. In fact, I’m down for the whole bloody meeting. Don’t actually know how I’m going to pay my hotel bill tomorrow.’ He laughed. ‘Not unless bloody Conway can win this one. Last-chance saloon.’

  ‘Jason Conway?’ I said.

  He nodded. ‘Useless sod.’ The man said it with feeling.

  ‘Why did you back him then?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t. I backed the horse, big time. Months ago and before I knew Conway was riding it.’