Aim High (The Eddie Malloy series Book 7)

by Joe McNally

  35

  On November 2nd, Mave called and asked Eddie to come and see her after racing at Uttoxeter. ‘Want me to stay over?’

  ‘That would be nice. Where are you tomorrow?’

  ‘Sedgefield.’

  ‘Good. We can have a pre-dawn walk on the beach.’

  ‘Mave, it’s officially winter.’

  ‘That’s when the drama starts around here.’

  When Eddie settled that night by her fire, with whiskey and a pleasant tiredness, he found out the drama had already started. Mave told him Sonny had flown over to see her on Tuesday, forty-eight hours ago.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Pretty desperate, by the look of things. He told me they’ve now got three different people in Turkey working on finding Keki. They’re also burning through cash at a high rate in bribes.’

  ‘Slippery slope.’

  Mave nodded.

  ‘So he wants you to start running the programme again so Miss Raine can top up her war chest?’

  ‘Not just that. Sonny knows he won’t get on anymore with the bookies since his picture was all over the papers. Nina Raine has suggested her brother could take over.’

  Eddie shook his head. ‘She’s running poor Sonny ragged, isn’t she?’

  ‘I’ve never seen him looking so anxious. When he got together with her, he went from that big hangdog expression he had for years, to smiling and laughing like a kid. Now he looks like a junkie.’

  Eddie sighed. ‘Want me to talk to him?’

  ‘It wouldn’t make any difference. If you saw him, you’d know what I mean.’

  ‘So what did you tell him?’

  ‘That I’d think about it and give him an answer by the weekend.’

  Eddie said, ‘We know what that answer’s going to be, don’t we?’

  She opened her hands. ‘How can I say no, after everything he’s done for me? It would be like betraying my dad.’

  ‘What about cruel to be kind? The longer he’s with that redhead, the harder it’s going to be when she dumps him like she did with Saroyan.’

  ‘Saroyan ran out on her.’

  ‘That’s her story. Why would he have given her the pictures of me to sell for ten grand? If he was the fly-by-night she painted him as, why didn’t he keep the money and take off on his beloved Cane Toad project with it?’

  ‘He was an alcoholic, according to her, and we saw some evidence for that the first time we met him.’

  ‘He functioned well for an alcoholic drifter, though, didn’t he? Following Sonny without being spotted. I never knew Jonty was watching us. He got plenty pictures on the racecourse. And though he’d drank himself to sleep that night we got Sonny back, when we all settled down to hear the story, who had the gin glass? Nina…Jonty was drinking water.’

  Firelight glinted in Mave’s eyes as her logical side took over. Eddie went on: ‘Also, when Jonty was cashing in personally on the tips you were giving Nina, why up and run? Why not wait until the tips stopped? He would have made a hell of a lot more by doing that.’

  ‘Good question. Maybe I should have dug a bit deeper.’

  Eddie got up to refill the glasses. Mave said, ‘So how would she have got rid of Jonty?’

  ‘Well, she seems to find it easy to concoct stories. She could have told him anything…Scared the hell out of him, same as I tried to do with her the first time I met her at Market Rasen.’ Eddie handed Mave the whiskey. ‘All she’s done when Sonny’s come along is flitted to the most promising meal ticket. She was probably working on him from the start to give herself options if we didn’t pay up.’

  Mave put down her glass and massaged her face, groaning softly. ‘I’m beginning to wish, I’d never developed this programme.’

  ‘Well, just say no to Sonny. When did Sonny ever care about money?’

  ‘He cares about her.’

  ‘Does he? Or has it just developed into a fear of losing what he thought he had?’

  ‘Whatever, Eddie. It works out the same for me, doesn’t it? Do I restart the system and give them the tips or don’t I?’

  ‘What would you do if I wasn’t here trying to talk you out of it?’

  ‘I’d give Sonny what he wants.’

  ‘Then do it.’

  She watched him. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘I’ve screwed up too many relationships in the past by trying to make people do things the way I want them. I get paranoid and controlling. I don’t mean to, but I do, and I don’t ever want you to be anything but yourself.’

  She smiled slowly and sipped whiskey then looked across at him. ‘We have a relationship?’

  ‘Spiritual…In a kindred way.’

  She nodded slowly, still smiling. Eddie raised a hand. ‘Don’t let’s start analyzing it, please. It’s like trying to analyze genius, or art.’

  Her smiled widened. ‘So we have a genius-based arty relationship?’

  ‘We fit! How many people are in the world?’

  She shrugged, ‘Seven billion.’

  ‘How many countries?’

  ‘A hundred and ninety six…if you count Taiwan.’

  ‘How many oceans?’

  ‘You don’t know how many oceans there are?’

  ‘I do, but it would have broken up this nice rhythm I’ve got going, as you have just managed to do.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Rewind?’

  She nodded.

  ‘How many oceans?’

  ‘Well, only one, really, but for the sake of your rhythm, four.’

  ‘So throw all those people in all those countries and all those oceans and every living thing into a big barrel, break them all up, and you’ve got one go at dipping your hand in there and pulling out two things that fit exactly. Dead right. Slot together. Like they were engineered to the finest measurement. What’s the odds?’

  ‘Big.’

  ‘Exactly. Well that’s us!’

  ‘Oh…Good,’ she raised her glass. ‘To rhythm.’

  Eddie raised his. ‘And no blues.’

  36

  Broc Lisle called in at the nursing home. He’d held good to his promise, visiting his father every night and wheeling him for a mile around the corridors. Lisle had used a digital pedometer to work out the distance. His start point was the dining room door. The finishing post the threshold of Lisle senior’s room.

  The old man had not kept the bargain by choice. The spreading dementia had cut the nerve pathways to his legs. He could no longer walk. Broc knew this. He knew too, that although his father had shaken his hand that night, the old man had been unaware of any deal. He’d reacted automatically to an outstretched hand, as he had done all his life.

  Broc knew he had engineered a happy accident that evening, and he was delighted to honour his part of the agreement. The relief he’d found in no longer having to confront his father’s pained wandering, his quest for a way back home, would fuel Broc for as long as his father remained alive.

  Broc entered his father’s room smiling.

  It was deserted.

  He knocked on the toilet door. ‘Dad?’ Broc opened the door slowly and the light came on automatically. The toilet was empty. Broc went looking for a member of staff. Two or three were always to be found in the dayroom. Lily smiled when she saw him, ‘I didn’t realize you had brothers, Mister Lisle!’

  Lisle stopped himself from telling her he did not. ‘Dad’s had new visitors, then, has he?’

  ‘Your brothers are taking him on his usual nightly tour of the corridors. I told them that was what you always did. I thought they’d come to give you a night off.’

  Lisle smiled. ‘Thank you, Lily, I’ll go and find them.’

  The building was a long rectangle. Lisle met them on the short, northern leg of it. His father’s hands rested on the arms of the wheelchair, his face, as usual, showed no signs of recognizing his son as he approached. Kellagher, flanked by Sampson and Blackaby, stopped pushing the wheelchair and waited for Lisle to reach them. Unbli
nking, Kellagher slowly turned the chair until the handles were on Lisle’s side. Kellagher stared at Lisle for ten seconds, then turned and led the others away.

  37

  The first big weekend of the season arrived: Cheltenham. Saturday’s feature race was a long established handicap ‘chase that used to be known as the Mackeson Gold Cup. It had been won by some great horses. There was no budding champion set for this year’s race, but Eddie Malloy was due to ride the second favourite, Playlord, a new purchase by a syndicate of widows.

  A good card was scheduled on the Friday too. Eddie had one strongly fancied mount and three others. He left home early as he’d need a couple of hours in Cheltenham’s sauna to make the weight for his best ride.

  The changing room was already busy. Nobody minded reaching Cheltenham early. It was the home of National Hunt racing, a beautiful racecourse which hosted the big annual festival of National Hunt racing in March. The greatest jumpers in history had run here, and their ghosts still drifted, raising goose pimples on anyone with a racing soul.

  Eddie stripped off and joined four of the lads in the sauna, looking forward to the banter, to the optimism, the camaraderie, the collective relish of a new season. Spirits were high, the tales were as tall as ever, old injuries were absentmindedly rubbed and smoothed clean of sweat for a few seconds.

  The door opened.

  Blackaby, Sampson and Kellagher filed in.

  The laughter died. Kellagher looked at Eddie’s three sweating companions and nodded toward the door. They rose and left without comment. Sampson pulled the door closed behind them and stood watching the outside through the rectangular glass pane.

  Kellagher and Blackaby took the highest bench opposite Eddie. The dark-haired Blackaby turned sideways, swung his legs up and settled back against the wall. Kellagher arranged his towel slowly, like a woman fussing with her skirt hem.

  He smiled at Eddie. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Morning,’ Eddie said.

  ‘Nice out.’

  ‘It is.’

  ‘Is yours running in the big one tomorrow?’ Kellagher asked.

  ‘Unless it drops dead between now and then.’

  Kellagher smiled. Someone tried to open the door. Sampson held the gap to six inches. ‘Later,’ he said, and closed it.

  ‘I didn’t know you guys had booked an exclusive session,’ Eddie said.

  ‘We just wanted a quiet place to give you some worthwhile information.’

  ‘All three of you? You planning to harmonize or something? You should’ve brought one more for a barbershop quartet.’

  ‘You’re a funny man, Eddie,’ Kellagher said, smiling still.

  ‘You won’t believe the number of people who tell me that, but I never hear them laughing.’

  Kellagher laughed, a deliberate mock honking. ‘How’s that? Feel better?’

  ‘Blissful.’

  ‘Good. I’m pleased to add to your bliss by telling you that Tibidabo will win the big one tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, I’m happy for you. It’ll be nice for one of you three to notch a win at a decent track.’

  Kellagher nodded. ‘And we’re happy you’re taking it so well. Have a few quid on through your old mate, Sonny.’

  ‘Ahh, well, Sonny’s retired, you see, and I don’t bet. But I’ll be sure to pass your tip on to close friends.’

  ‘Please don’t. It’s for your ears only.’

  ‘Do the others riding in the race know of your supreme confidence?’

  ‘No need. It’s a two-horse race according to the bookies and according to the way a certain good judge sees it. Yours would be the only one that could beat mine. If anything unexpected happens during the race, my colleagues here will deal with it.’

  ‘Good for them. You seem a very efficient team. No wonder you have so many admirers.’

  Kellagher’s smile gradually faded to leave what he thought was his hard-man look. ‘Be good tomorrow and stay out of my way. Tibidabo wins the race. Understand?’

  ‘Thanks for the tip. Now I’ve got more than an hour to do in this box, and the air seems to be getting toxic since you three came in and started sweating. Why don’t you go away and let a few guys in who smell nice?’

  Kellagher stood up and looked down at Eddie. ‘Have you ever heard the saying "what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger"?’ he said. Then he ducked low, close to Eddie’s face…’They didn’t get us. Lisle said he’d finish us. He didn’t. He couldn’t. He just made us stronger.’

  Eddie held his nose and grimaced. ‘You certainly smell stronger!’

  In what passed for a decent snarl he said, ‘You’re a fucking idiot, Malloy!’

  Eddie smiled. ‘A happy idiot, though.’

  Kellagher turned toward the door. Sampson opened it. Blackaby swung down from his perch and they walked out, leaving the door open. Eddie got up and called after them, ‘Have a nice shower, guys! Use plenty of soap.’

  Eddie looked at the other jockeys, who were clad in towels, expecting them to start moving back toward the sauna. They avoided Eddie’s eyes. Eddie closed the door and sat down.

  What to do?

  Tell Mac? Lisle? Those three would see that as weakness. So would Ivory, if he was behind it, as Eddie suspected he was. This had the makings of a long battle. Eddie couldn’t risk being seen as weak. And nobody knew what tomorrow might bring.

  Eddie would tell no one.

  After racing, Eddie left the track in a hurry and broke the speed limit on the way to Lambourn. It would be dark by the time he reached home, and Eddie wanted the house as secure as possible in case he got a visit from Ivory’s boys. Turning in off the main road, Eddie went slowly past Rooksnest, the manor house sitting high above his place, then he pulled over and switched off lights and engine.

  Vaulting the fence, Eddie slipped into the wood and began working his way downhill. There was little leaf cover left and the bare branches rattled in the wind, but that would help him if anyone was waiting around the house half a mile below. Eddie stood for a minute letting his eyes adjust to the dark. He knew these woods well; his running trails wound through them, and he’d pounded out hundreds of miles.

  He set off downhill, smiling involuntarily, as the thrill of potential danger cast its usual spell. It was fear-driven, but addictive.

  Eddie circled the house, then settled in the woods for fifteen minutes before deciding all was well. He jogged back up the main track and returned in his car.

  Inside the house, nothing had been disturbed. He double-locked doors, and windows and went straight to his bedroom and pulled an ice-axe from under the bed. It’s blue and black rubber-covered handle took a full imprint of Eddie’s hand in the film of dust.

  He had always wanted to try mountaineering, but the thrill of racing kept the mountains in second position. In his wardrobe was a grand’s worth of climbing kit, unworn, awaiting his retirement from the saddle. When wondering where to store the axe, Eddie thought he might as well have it to hand in the night.

  He swung it slowly, adjusting to the heft, the balance. He took it to the bright kitchen and washed it, testing the spike with a finger through the dish-towel, running his thumb along the blade. For the first time, he understood the attraction of guns. Under attack, he’d much sooner pull a trigger to kill a man remotely than pierce his skull at close range and feel the bone crack and the shock run up his arm and the blood spurt in his face.

  At this thought, Eddie put the axe on the table and turned to the comforts of domesticity, filling the kettle and opening the fridge. But he took the axe to bed with him that night and did not hide it. He laid it like a cross alongside him…on the bed now, after two years below it. Ready. Waiting.

  38

  With one safe night behind him, Eddie drove to Cheltenham thinking of how best to avoid danger before the big race at 2.45. He felt less threatened than he had when leaving the track yesterday. Kellagher and his crew had either assumed Eddie was bluffing in the sauna, or they’d been too afraid to te
ll Jordan Ivory that they’d failed to scare him.

  Ivory would be betting big on Tibidabo. From what Eddie had heard of him, he’d have wanted to remove any risk to his money. If his jockey trio couldn’t frighten Eddie, Ivory would have more persuasive people to hand.

  But they’d need to get to him before the race. The easiest way would have been at home last night. If Eddie could make sure he stayed in public view between arriving at the course and leaving the paddock for the big one, he should be fine. What he’d do if Playlord beat Tibidabo…well, he would worry about that later.

  Kellagher and his boys drifted around the weighing room and the changing room as though Eddie didn’t exist. But when they were called to file out for the big race, Kellagher stepped in front of Eddie, and his partners squeezed in behind.

  As they waited for the signal to leave the changing room, Kellagher, in lemon silks, turned and put an arm around Eddie’s shoulder, pulling him forward, smiling and putting his head close to Eddie as though wishing him luck. ‘Mister Ivory asked me to tell you that he thinks you’re a smart and talented jockey who’s still ambitious. He says he’d hate to see you having to retire through injury.’

  Eddie put his arm around Kellagher’s shoulder and returned his smile. ‘Tell Mister Ivory I always try to stay a step ahead,’ and he put his boot-heel on Kellagher’s instep then shifted his full weight onto it. Kellagher’s face contorted and his arm came off Eddie’s shoulder as he tried to push him away, but Eddie held him there and showed him gritted smiling teeth.

  At 2.43 they lined up out in the centre of this vast natural amphitheatre, the packed stands away to their left, the wind swirling across the floor of the gentle valley, ruffling manes and tails as the starter, climbing his rostrum, checked his watch, and missed a step and almost tumbled backwards. Eddie heard a few chuckles, but the starter regained his composure and called them forward. Eddie had a final check to see where Kellagher and his sidekicks were…all on his outside. Playlord’s running style until now had been to settle mid-pack and come late; an ideal target for a small gang like Kellagher’s to box in and generally mess around.