Outside Chance

by Lyndon Stacey

  This much Eddie Truman relayed to Ben over the phone. ‘Ford sent one of his forensics chaps out to pick it up,’ he added. ‘We weren’t allowed to open it in case we contaminated the evidence, and also in case it was booby-trapped. He took it all away with him and they’ll apparently check that the hair actually comes from King, but I don’t think there’s any doubt – after all, they sent the photo.’

  ‘Well, that proves that they had the horse at some point,’ Ben said. ‘But not that they have him now. Still, it looks like they’re giving you another chance.’

  ‘Well, I just wish they’d get on with it. I kept my part of the bargain. I tell you, if I ever get my hands on these bastards …’

  ‘You told the police, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You said you kept your part of the bargain, but you didn’t – you told the police.’

  ‘Well, I had to, you know that.’ Truman sounded impatient.

  ‘Yes, I’m not saying you were wrong; I’m just trying to see it from their point of view.’

  ‘But how would they know, anyway?’

  ‘I don’t know for sure, but I suppose if it was someone who knew Helen well they might possibly have noticed the substitution, or …Well, I suppose you have to consider the possibility that they could have someone in your camp.’

  ‘You’re not trying to say it’s an inside job – that’s impossible!’ Truman declared emphatically.

  ‘I’m not trying to say anything; I’m just suggesting possibilities,’ Ben replied soothingly. ‘And at this stage I don’t think you can afford to dismiss anything as impossible.’

  ‘Well, what about you? Have you had any clever ideas? You seemed very interested in that email yesterday – have you thought any more about that?’

  ‘Thought about it …’ Ben admitted, but didn’t enlarge. He would want to do a whole lot more thinking before he would be prepared to risk unleashing Truman’s kind of trouble onto the Csikós. All he had at the moment was a name and a whole bundle of questions.

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder what the bloody hell I’m paying you for! I haven’t had much to show for it yet, have I?’

  ‘I never made you any promises,’ Ben pointed out. ‘It was all your idea, if you remember. I’d be quite happy to call it quits, if that’s what you want.’

  ‘No, it’s not. Not at the moment. I may still have a use for you. Seeing as I’m the one who’s paying, I think you should go back to Rackham. I’m still not convinced he isn’t in this somewhere, and he’s someone who’d recognise Helen, too.’

  ‘Sure, if that’s what you want me to do. But I think you’re wasting your time.’

  ‘Ah, but that’s the beauty of delegation,’ Truman observed. ‘If I’m wasting anyone’s time, it’s yours. Let me know what you come up with. I’m racing this afternoon if the frost goes off, but I’ll be in this evening.’

  There was a crackle as the connection was severed without further ado, and as Ben put the phone down his vague sense of guilt was effectively wiped out by a wave of irritation at the man’s high-handedness.

  Yawning, he regarded a cooling cup of coffee and decided to make himself a replacement. He hadn’t got much sleep the previous night, his mind too busy with the discovery he’d made.

  Stefan Varga. There were probably dozens of Stefan Vargas in the world, but Stefan Vargas who were also jockeys? That surely narrowed the field a little. Ben wasn’t generally a betting man but he’d have been prepared to put quite a substantial sum on the ex-Castle Ridge jockey being Jakob Varga’s son. That being so, it would be naïve to suppose that the Csikós’ presence in the country at the exact moment that Cajun King had gone missing was a coincidence.

  Ben wasn’t naïve.

  On the other hand, there were still a couple of things that didn’t add up, not least the fact that, if Jakob was to be believed, Stefan was dead. Putting aside his liking for the Hungarian, Ben was still inclined to believe him, because he had volunteered the information when he could have foreseen no reason to lie.

  So where did that leave him?

  Jakob?

  Was he the kind of man who would nurse a grievance for sixteen years? Surely not. He was a passionate man, certainly, but he was such a steady character, so fair and non-confrontational. And yet, how well did Ben really know him?

  Coming at it from another angle, though, there were other problems. The Csikós’ tour would have been planned some way in advance; it wasn’t the kind of thing you could do on impulse – there would be permissions to be obtained, venues and stabling to book and publicity to arrange. Surely the whole trip hadn’t been arranged with this in mind?

  Wandering into the living room, he stoked up the wood-burner and collapsed on to the sofa, cradling his hot mug of coffee and staring broodingly at the leaping flames.

  The plain truth of it was that he didn’t want it to be Jakob. But, trying to look at the matter from a completely dispassionate point of view, if it were Jakob, then who else was involved? Everyone? There had been at least three hijackers, according to Ricey. And if it weren’t Jakob …

  Ben considered the other members of the troupe. Nico? Jakob had certainly said that Nico had been very keen to come to England – but did one take such a risk in the memory of a cousin? And for something that had happened when you yourself would have been what – sixteen or seventeen? Ferenc then; Ben would have been happier to imagine that the surly Ferenc was behind it, if it hadn’t been for the fact that he couldn’t have done it on his own.

  And where could the horse be hidden? The Csikós were on the move every four or five days. Had they got him at livery somewhere, or turned out in some farmer’s field? In his mind’s eye Ben went over all the horses travelling with the troupe, but to no avail. True, if one had the nerve one could conceivably have concealed the missing horse within the ‘wild’ bunch, except that among their unkempt number Cajun King, with his sleek coat and apology for a tail, would have stood out like a sore thumb.

  Whatever the case, if there was even the possibility that the Stefan Varga connection between Eddie Truman and the visiting Hungarian horsemen was anything more than a coincidence, then he had no choice but to look into it.

  Ben sighed, not relishing the thought.

  If Ben wasn’t looking forward to putting the Csikós under scrutiny, then at least he could take some small comfort from the fact that now he hadn’t got to go so far to do it. After their move the previous afternoon, they were scheduled to be at Romsey, in Hampshire, and had been invited to park up in the grounds of a nearby stately home. Sure enough, when he’d navigated the narrow lanes around the estate, following the directions of a helpful groundkeeper, he turned into a field and there they were, the familiar transporters and attendant smaller vans, arranged in what Ben was beginning to recognise as their usual positions.

  Bordering the field on one side were a cluster of large, tin-roofed breezeblock structures, arranged around a concreted area and reached by way of a wide metal gate. Beyond these, the arched roof of another, vast building showed white against the cloudless sky.

  Seeing signs of activity in the yard, Ben drove towards the complex and parked.

  Nico was the first person to notice his arrival and came over to greet him with every sign of pleasure, trailing Bajnok in his wake.

  ‘Ben! Can’t stay away, eh?’ he cried. ‘Have you come back for another riding lesson? Because Jakob is not here.’

  ‘Oh? Where’s he gone?’ Ben tried to ignore the proximity of the big black horse.

  ‘He’s gone into the town with Gyorgy to buy food. We are nearly without hot dogs, think of that! The Csikós cannot perform without hot dogs – we would go to strike!’

  ‘On strike,’ Ben corrected, absent-mindedly. In his head he was remembering ‘You have risked the life of your horse’ and comparing the speech pattern of the Hungarian’s words: ‘He’s gone into the town with Gyorgy …’ It was worryingly similar.

  ‘On strike, then. Bu
t did you come to ride? They should be back soon.’

  ‘Actually, I’m not sure I could even climb on board a horse today.’

  Nico grinned broadly. ‘You are a little stiff, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ Ben agreed ruefully. ‘Just a little.’

  ‘I know just the thing,’ the Hungarian declared.

  ‘Not horse liniment?’ he asked warily.

  ‘No. Exercise. You can come and help me put in the posts for the round pen. It is a good site here but there is not so much, er …?’

  ‘Not so many facilities?’

  Nico frowned, perhaps not sure of the word. ‘Yes, I think. There is room for the horses but there is nothing more. Come, I’ll show you.’

  ‘So where will you do the show?’ Ben asked, following Nico across the rough, wet grass and watching the toes of his shoes become saturated.

  ‘Ah. There is a riding centre next door and they lend us their arena. It has seating for many people – more than last time – and it is already sold out for the first two performances. Soon everyone will have heard of the Csikós.’

  ‘You’re in the local papers,’ Ben told him. ‘I stopped for petrol and there you were. I bought a copy; hang on, I’ll get it.’

  Moments later, with a barely suppressed grin, he returned and handed the paper to Nico, then laughed out loud as he saw the Hungarian’s eager anticipation turn to outrage. The front page carried a fairly creditable photograph of Nico and Duka doing their party piece, but carried the unfortunate headline, The Cossacks are Coming!

  Nico stabbed the newsprint with his finger and said something in his own tongue which was chock full of indignation and, Ben guessed, a good few words that wouldn’t be found in your average Hungarian-to-English phrasebook.

  ‘I thought it was rather good,’ he teased, feigning surprise.

  ‘Cossacks! We are not Russian – we are Magyar; Csikós!’

  ‘And I thought you were Rom …’

  ‘You, my friend, are a troublemaker!’ Nico declared with a glint in his eye.

  Still smiling, Ben followed Nico and Bajnok into the nearest of the buildings, the cavernous concrete interior of which had been divided into a dozen or more pens, each bounded by four-foot-high breezeblock walls, topped with steel mesh. A central walkway gave access to the individual compartments and at the end were stacked fifteen or twenty huge bales of wood shavings. The stalls were occupied by the troupe’s horses, who stood fetlock deep in crisp white shavings, pulling at haynets and looking, for the most part, supremely content. One or two of them had taken full advantage of their new bedding and rolled; they now stood looking like refugees from a winter storm, with pale flakes of wood clinging to their coats and trapped in their mane and tail hair.

  ‘And that is exactly what Bajnok will do, as soon as I let him go,’ Nico told Ben. ‘I don’t know why I just spent half of an hour brushing him.’

  He took the big black to an empty stall and led him in, sliding the metal door shut as he unclipped the lead rope and came out.

  Sure enough, the Friesian stallion wasted no time. Barely had the door shut when he began to turn round, end to end, stamping his feet and swishing his luxuriant black tail. With a grunt he collapsed into the thick blanket of shavings and proceeded to whip up a blizzard as he enjoyed a prolonged and vigorous roll.

  ‘Look at him, rubbing his mane in it,’ Nico said disgustedly. ‘I should have put plaits in. Why did I not think?’

  When Bajnok finally got back on his feet, there wasn’t an inch of his dark glossy coat that wasn’t speckled with white. Nico rolled his eyes heavenwards before turning away.

  ‘Come, we have work to do.’

  Ben and Nico made a good team, marking out a twenty-metre circle with a crowbar, a length of rope and some sawdust, then taking it in turns to hold the posts and swing the mallet. After a short while they were joined by Nico’s brothers, Miklós and András, who, armed with more wood and reels of wire, started to put up the rails – three between each pair of posts. The mood seemed generally light-hearted; Miklós and András even launched into an impromptu clowning routine for Ben’s benefit. He wasn’t normally a great fan of clowns, but he had to admire the pair’s split second timing with the length of wood, and eventually found himself laughing out loud.

  When he and Nico had erected the last of the posts they left the other two to finish fitting the rails and went in search of much-needed refreshment. Jakob and Gyorgy were still out and, although Ben had been intending to try and bring up the subject of Stefan with the older man, he began to see that Nico might, after all, be his best bet. Nico, in his present high spirits, was garrulous in the extreme and, with a little judicious steering, Ben felt that the conversation might easily include mention of Jakob’s son.

  In the event, it proved more straightforward than he could have hoped. Nico wanted to know about Ben’s own family and, in telling him about Mikey, Ben was able to add quite casually, ‘I gather Jakob’s son was a jockey too.’

  ‘Yes, he was. Who told you that?’

  ‘Jakob did.’

  ‘I’m surprised. He doesn’t usually talk about him. What else did he say?’ Nico had found the key to the catering wagon and was rustling up coffee and biscuits for them both.

  ‘That he died in a car crash. Tell me about him; were you close?’

  Nico shrugged. ‘We are Rom – we have to be close. Gadje – outsiders – don’t welcome our company. Stefan was my cousin, kind of. My Uncle Vesh – you’ve seen him around – is married to Jakob’s sister. He was six years older than me, and when you’re growing up, that seems quite a lot. I used to follow him around as a kid. I guess I looked up to him; he was my hero. Then he went to ride racehorses in South Africa, and when he was offered the job over here I wanted to come too.’

  ‘He came to England, then? What happened?’ Ben was careful not to sound too eager.

  ‘He was a big success. Many people were asking for him to ride their horses, they said he had a gift.’ For a moment, Nico almost glowed with pride. ‘They said he had a big future ahead of him. He was only here for a few months – less than a year – but he made more money than the rest of us had ever dreamed of. Then he called and said he was coming home – to Hungary – you understand; there was something wrong with his papers and he couldn’t stay.’

  ‘Didn’t he tell you any more?’

  Nico shook his head sadly.

  ‘His car crashed. It was old and they think the brakes failed. It turned over and over down a bank …’ He illustrated the movement with his hands.‘…And then there was fire. We never saw him again.’

  ‘Poor Jakob.’

  ‘He was …’ Nico struggled to find the word.

  ‘Devastated?’

  ‘Yes, devastated. We were all so proud, and then – nothing.’

  ‘Where did it happen?’ Ben prompted gently. He’d already got more than he’d expected to.

  ‘At home, near Szolnok, at night on a dark country road. But you won’t write about this, will you Ben? It’s private. Jakob wouldn’t like it.’

  ‘No, of course not. I’m sorry – I was just interested; because of Jakob. He’s such a nice guy.’

  ‘Everybody likes Jakob,’ Nico stated matter-of-factly.

  ‘Nico!’ The shout came from outside and was followed by a rapid phrase that was incomprehensible to Ben but not, obviously, to Nico. He replied in kind, then, getting to his feet, translated for his visitor with a flash of his whiter-than-white teeth.

  ‘Gyorgy says I should get off my fat arse and help him unload the van. I better do it. You stay here.’

  ‘No, I’ll come and help.’ Ben drained his mug and stood up.

  Jakob was outside with Gyorgy and, seeing them side by side, Ben was struck by how alike the brothers were. ‘The Csikós’ was a family business of a type rarely seen in England. Even Tamás, the vet, was married to Jakob’s daughter, Dritta. They had welcomed Ben with generous hospitality, but he guessed that if he ever did anything
that remotely threatened one of their number they would close ranks instantly and range against him. ‘We are Rom – we have to be close,’ Nico had said.

  ‘There is something wrong, Ben?’ Jakob paused in passing, his arms full of plastic-wrapped trays of tins.

  ‘No.’ Ben shook his head. ‘Just thinking about families.’

  ‘Ah, never work with them,’ Jakob declared loudly. ‘Look at this lot: a bunch of lazy good-for-nothings, and the shame of it is, I can’t give them – what is that word you use? – the sack. I can’t get rid of them.’

  Nico rattled off something in his own tongue and ducked to avoid being cuffed by Gyorgy. He dodged away, laughing.

  ‘The ingratitude of the young,’ Jakob complained. ‘He says they only keep us old people around out of pity! But you see he only says it when I have my hands filled with packets, eh?’

  Ben laughed, but his enjoyment of the moment was tempered by the suspicions occupying his mind. If these people – any of them – were involved in the kidnapping of Eddie Truman’s horse, not only would some of them undoubtedly be arrested, but the whole troupe would be discredited, their burgeoning reputation sullied beyond recall. ‘The Csikós’ would, almost certainly, be no more.

  When the last of the supplies had been transferred from the van to the catering wagon, Gyorgy announced his intention of starting to prepare lunch, and Nico invited Ben to watch him schooling Duka.

  ‘I teach him a new trick. Come, I’ll show you.’

  Ben went with him, hoping for a chance to have a look at the loose horses. The newly built round-pen was already in use, with Tamás standing at its centre, closely watching the Arab, Vadas, who was circling him at the trot.

  ‘How is he?’ Nico called.

  With a step sideways and slightly towards it, the vet brought the free-running horse to a smooth but instant halt. He walked across and slipped a rope halter over the chestnut’s head before answering Nico.

  ‘He seems all right today. There’s no heat in that foot. I think maybe we caught it in time.’

  ‘That’s good.’ Nico turned to Ben. ‘Vadas was a little sore yesterday and when Vesh took off the shoe he found the beginning of a – I don’t know your word for it …’