Hands Down, page 11
‘How did that happen?’
‘You don’t want to know,’ I said with a laugh. ‘I’ll drop it into the dealership tomorrow to get it fixed.’
She was silent for quite a long time.
‘Are you still there?’ I asked.
‘Sid, please be careful.’
‘Always, my love.’
And I would be careful. I couldn’t rely on the cavalry coming to my rescue again.
* * *
I’m not sure who was more pleased to see me, Charles or Rosie, when they met me in the hallway at Aynsford.
Rosie barked and wagged her tail, while Charles looked rather haggard.
‘Mrs Cross was away today,’ he said. ‘Her daughter was unwell and she had to look after her two grandsons, so it was just me here. That dog of yours is hard work. When she’s inside, she wants to go out, and when I put her out, she immediately wants to come in again. I’ve had absolutely no peace.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, trying not to laugh. ‘Has she been fed?’
‘I gave her the dog biscuits you left.’
‘What? All of them?’ I’d left enough for at least two meals.
‘Yes. Was that wrong?’
‘No, it’s fine.’
No wonder Rosie was happy.
‘Do you fancy a snifter?’ Charles asked. ‘I’m going to have one. I think I’ve earned it.’
‘Go on, then.’
The three of us went into his drawing room and he poured a good deal more than a snifter of whisky into each of two cut-glass tumblers. He handed one to me.
‘Our men,’ he toasted, taking a large swig.
‘Good health,’ I replied, doing the same, only with a smaller swig.
Charles and I sat down in the armchairs facing each other, while Rosie curled up on the carpet at my feet and went to sleep.
‘I just don’t believe it,’ Charles said, looking down at her. ‘Why didn’t she do that for me?’
‘I must have a natural way with animals.’
‘Don’t give me that bullshit,’ Charles said, laughing out loud. But then he got more serious. ‘Have you heard from Marina?’
‘She called me this afternoon. She was in tears. Her father is dying. The doctors say they can do nothing more for him.’
‘What a bugger.’ He took another large slug of his whisky. ‘But it comes to us all in the end. Are you going over there?’
‘Marina says not to come at present. Her brother is flying over from New York.’
‘But she needs you, not her brother.’
Did she?
Did she really want someone who couldn’t give up the investigating drug?
I had tried – God, I’d tried – but there was something in me that needed to right the wrongs I found, especially those in the other love of my life – horse racing.
Please don’t ever ask me to choose between my wife and my addiction. I craved both.
Christ, how I craved both.
14
In all, I spent a good hour with Charles. Both he and I seemed grateful for the company.
‘Fancy another?’ he asked, standing over me with his favourite decanter.
‘Better not,’ I said. ‘I have to drive home soon.’
‘You could always stay over. Mrs Cross always leaves the bed in the spare room made up.’
‘Thanks, Charles. But I’ll have to get back.’
I had to take my anti-rejection pills and they were in the bathroom cabinet at home. I should keep some in the car, I thought, just in case.
‘As you like.’ But he poured himself another generous measure.
‘So what have you discovered?’ he asked, sitting back down in his armchair.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Come on, Sid, I know you too well. You didn’t drive all the way to Yorkshire twice in three days just for the view. You’ve been investigating something, so what is it?’
‘Have you been watching the television news over the past three days?’
‘Of course.’
‘The story about a stable fire in Middleham, and then the discovery of the body of the trainer?’
He nodded. ‘Suicide.’
‘That’s what the police think.’
‘But you don’t?’
‘No.’
I told him about Gary Bremner calling me on Friday, the day before the fire, and then again on Saturday after it, when everyone believed he had died in the flames. I described my trip to meet with Gary on Sunday and my subsequent visit to Simon Paulson’s yard and our discussion about jockeys’ agents and trainers’ premiums.
Charles’s eyes grew wide with astonishment, and his eyebrows rose closer and closer to his hairline.
‘There’s more,’ I said, and went on to describe my encounter with the detective chief inspector in Gary Bremner’s garden after Gary’s body had been found, and then my trip to Catterick races and my firm belief that the results of at least two of the races there had been manipulated. I finished by recounting the details of my encounter with the two masked men in the racecourse car park.
By the time I’d finished, Charles was sitting there with his mouth hanging open in disbelief, his glass of whisky undrunk in his hand.
‘Does Marina know what you’re doing?’ he asked eventually.
‘She knows some of it,’ I replied. ‘But please don’t tell her about the men with baseball bats.’
‘Are you going to report them to the police?’
‘What do you think?’ I asked sarcastically. ‘It would be a total waste of time. No one got hurt, so the police wouldn’t do anything, even if they could find them. Anyway, I’m grateful to them.’
‘Grateful?’
‘Yes, because they have confirmed that what Gary told me is true.’
‘So what will you do now?’
It was a good question.
Did I have enough to take to the racing authorities?
Hardly.
So what else did I need?
‘I think I might go and see someone.’
‘That policeman?’ Charles said.
I laughed. ‘Maybe I should, but he wasn’t who I had in mind.’
‘Who then?’
‘Jimmy Shilstone.’
‘And who is he?’
‘The jockey who rode the two losers today at Catterick.’
* * *
I drove Rosie back to our dark and lonely home in Nutwell.
Only when I was unlocking my back door did I wonder if it had been sensible to have walked down the unlit path at the side of the house.
My address was hardly a secret and if I could drive up and down to Yorkshire in a day, so could my assailants from the Catterick racecourse car park.
I suppose I should have been thankful that Marina and Saskia were not here to be targeted. I was only too well aware, from past experience, how certain lowlifes could apply pressure to me by attacking those I loved.
The thought of meeting the balaclava wearers again made me shiver. I was no longer the ultra-fit, fearless crusader I had once been. My many racing falls, and the subsequent injuries, were beginning to catch up with me, with creeping arthritis in some of my joints, especially my ankles.
And my new hand needed protecting.
‘Try hard not to damage it,’ my surgeon had said to me on the day I’d been discharged from hospital. ‘One of the side effects of the anti-rejection drugs might be that all your body tissues bruise more easily. And bruising is particularly dangerous for the transplant itself. The increased blood that sits in a bruise has been known to trigger rejection problems in some patients.’
So, whereas I had once dived into every encounter with my false left hand to the fore, I now shielded the new one, often putting it behind my back so it couldn’t get damaged accidentally.
So was I being unrealistic in taking on an individual or organisation prepared to send a couple of thugs with baseball bats to beat me up? Was it ever worth it?
But, equally, could I really stand by and allow something as dear to me as British jump racing to be effectively killed off by greed – greed that transcended fair play and tore up the rule book?
* * *
Before taking my pills and retiring, I went round the whole house checking that all the doors and windows were firmly shut and bolted, and for good measure I collected the long iron poker from the fireplace in the sitting room and placed it by my bed.
But the night was uneventful other than Rosie barking at a squirrel in the garden at half past six and frightening me rigid.
The rest of Wednesday morning was occupied by me taking the Discovery to the local Land Rover dealership and persuading them to fix the driver’s door window while I waited. They tut-tutted about how such a thing could have possibly happened and I didn’t enlighten them. But fortunately there was a spare glass of the right dimensions in their parts department and, by lunchtime, I was back on the road in sublime warmth and quiet.
The afternoon was filled with me first catching up on some correspondence from my accountant and then using the Racing Post website to study the full videos of recent races, specifically those sent out from Simon Paulson’s stable and ridden by Jimmy Shilstone.
They’d been very clever, I thought.
In the past three weeks, Simon Paulson had had eleven runners, not including the two at Catterick the previous day, and seven had been ridden by Jimmy Shilstone. Two of those had been winners and, of the other five, I reckoned that one was a definite fix, and maybe one of the others was also suspicious. But proving it would be nigh-on impossible. Indeed, it was only the look of panic in Jimmy’s eyes when I’d confronted him after the first race at Catterick that had made me truly certain that something hadn’t been right.
The race I was pretty sure had been fixed was a Class 4 two-and-a-half-mile handicap chase held at Newcastle during the previous week.
Unlike at Catterick, where the last seven furlongs are mostly downhill, at Newcastle there is a stiff rise from the start of the home straight all the way up to the finish line. Hence, races tend to be run here at a slower pace and often the contests don’t get going in earnest until near the end, as everyone is trying to hold something in reserve for that final climb.
Everyone, that was, except Jimmy Shilstone.
The video showed he had set off on the favourite at a tremendous gallop, leading the field by eight lengths or more by the time they passed the winning post on the first circuit. As he turned into the home straight for the second and last time, he had still been leading by two lengths, but his horse soon paid the price for that fast early pace, fading badly over the last four uphill fences in heavy going to finish third, some ten lengths behind the eventual winner.
Shilstone had also had a ride in a later race on the same day, but for a different trainer. It was another handicap steeplechase, this time over two miles, and one reserved for novice chasers – young horses that hadn’t won a steeplechase prior to the start of the current season in late April.
I watched that video too.
On that occasion, Jimmy had ridden a completely different style of race, starting slowly and only making his run for victory up the concluding hill. And it had proved successful, with him catching the long-time leader some ten strides from the finish to win easily, with his hands down.
I wondered if the racecourse stewards had questioned him as to why his tactics in the two races had been so different. Probably not. It was only obvious when you watched the two races immediately one after the other as I had just done, rather than separated by an hour and a half, as they had been on the day itself.
It was definitely time to go and visit Jimmy Shilstone, and maybe also Simon Paulson for a second time. But would they talk to me? Or would they run off to tell tales to their puppet master, putting me in greater danger? What could I do that would convince them that the former was the best route?
I looked up Jimmy Shilstone in the Thoroughbred Business Guide but his entry didn’t give his address, only a telephone number, and I didn’t want to give him the chance to hang up on me when I was asking him some pertinent questions. That had to be done face to face, not on the phone.
Next I scanned the Racing Post website to see if he had any rides booked, so I could confront him at a racecourse. I discovered that he had nothing for tomorrow but was due to ride at Ayr in Scotland for two days after that. Ayr was almost twice as far away from Oxfordshire as Middleham, at least six hours in the car each way. I decided I’d wait until he was a little closer.
But what about the mystery man who had put his phone number under my windscreen wiper? Where was he? Was visiting him a possibility instead?
I still had the piece of yellow paper. I retrieved it from my pocket and looked at it. It had a mobile number beginning 07 written on it in black ink.
I searched on the internet for any help in finding out whose number it was. There were quite a number of commercial tracking websites, but on closer examination it became obvious that, under the laws of the United Kingdom, they could only track the person from the number if the individual concerned had given their permission and had a certain app installed on their phone.
Dead end.
An easier route seemed to be to simply call the number and ask, but I had tried that before and he’d refused to say, so there was little point in me trying it again. But could someone else?
I reckoned that, if the telephone owner was riding a horse when he heard me shouting from the Swine Cross in Middleham, and he knew Anton Valance well enough to call him, the chances were high that he was a BHA-licensed jockey.
In order to prevent the disclosure of sensitive information to either gamblers or bookmakers, all licensed jockeys riding at any race meeting have not only to register their mobile phones with the authority, but are banned from making or receiving calls, texts or emails during a restricted period beginning half an hour before the advertised time of the first race and finishing when the last race starts, unless under the strict supervision of an official in a designated ‘phone zone’ within the weighing room. They also have to agree to provide the authority on request with fully itemized billing records for any calls made by their phones during that restricted period.
I called Charles.
‘Could you do me a favour?’ I asked.
‘Depends on what it is,’ he replied.
‘Can you phone a number for me and pretend, in your most severe Royal Naval voice, to be from the Integrity Department at the British Horseracing Authority?’
‘For what reason?’
‘I have someone’s number but I want to know his name. I think he must be a jockey, and all jockeys have to register their phone numbers with the BHA. So please could you ring the number as the BHA and ask his name.’
‘But will he tell me?’
‘I don’t know. He wouldn’t tell me yesterday morning, so probably no, not if you ask him straight out. So I suggest you could ask him for his postcode, as a security question, and for the first line of his address. Then you say that the details he’s given you are different to the ones the BHA have on file. Then, sounding confused, you check that it is actually, I don’t know, Joe Bloggs you’re talking to. He’ll say no, of course not, it’s… and he’ll give you his name.’
‘Sid, you’re a genius.’
‘Only if it works.’ Which I feared it wouldn’t.
‘Okay, what’s the number.’
I read it out from the piece of yellow paper.
‘Right, I’ll call you back.’
I sat and stared at my phone as five minutes became ten.
Eventually it rang and I grabbed at it.
‘His name is Marcus Capes,’ Charles said. ‘He’s a twenty-year-old conditional jockey employed in Middleham by a trainer called Noel Kline. He lives in digs at 42 Leyburn Road with an elderly widow, Mrs Doris Robinson, and her Siamese cat, Tiddles, and he’s trying his best to save up to buy a second-hand car to make getting to the races easier.’
‘How on earth did you get all that?’
‘I rang the number you gave me and I told him my name was Commander Crichton from the Integrity Department of the BHA and we were running a periodic security check. I did as you suggested with the postcode and the first line of his address, and he coughed up his name, right on cue. Then he simply volunteered the rest. In fact, I could hardly stop him talking.’
‘You’re amazing,’ I said, laughing. ‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, yes, and there’s one more thing. He’s represented by an agency called The Jockeys Stable. He told me his contact there is a certain Anton Valance.’
Why was I not surprised?
15
On Thursday morning I took Rosie with me to Yorkshire.
I had tried to suggest leaving her again with Charles but, as Mrs Cross was still away looking after her grandchildren, he had baulked at the idea.
‘I’m very sorry,’ he said. ‘I simply can’t have her again today. She’s just so exhausting.’
Rosie, however, was delighted to be coming with me.
Unlike the other Irish setters Marina and I had owned, each of whom had detested going in the car to the point of shaking and vomiting whenever it was suggested, Rosie was in her element, barking loudly at every passing vehicle. I knew I should have put her in the back of the Discovery, behind the special dog grille, but she much preferred being up front with me, her head stuck out the passenger window into the wind.
And, in truth, I loved her company.
I just wish I had trained her better – in particular, to bite anyone wearing a balaclava.
* * *
Marina had called me on Wednesday evening with the latest update from Fryslân.
Her father had rallied somewhat with the arrival of Elmo from New York, but I wasn’t at all sure if Marina had been pleased or disappointed by the development.
‘This could go on for weeks,’ she’d said in desperation.
‘Just relax,’ I’d said. ‘Make the most of the time he has left to enjoy his company. When he’s finally gone, there will be no chance of ever speaking to him again.’
