Hands Down, page 17
‘No,’ I’d said. ‘We can’t. We may not be back until very late.’
‘We? Who else are you taking?’
‘Chico. Chico Barnes. He’s in the car. He’s come to help me.’
‘Ah, yes, I remember him. He’s that curly-haired, crazy young man who doesn’t go to bed.’
It was true. On the last occasion that we’d all been together, Charles had provided a perfectly good room containing a comfy bed for Chico to use but, instead, he had spent the whole time sleeping upright on a chair in Charles’s kitchen, on watch, as he had done so again the previous night at my place.
And, for the second night, no one had come.
‘Perhaps they’ve come to their senses,’ Chico said to me in the car.
‘You really think so?’
‘No.’
‘Exactly. Nor do I.’
Simon Paulson had eventually given me Jimmy Shilstone’s address and also the gem of information that he rode out every morning for someone called Albert Frost, a Malton trainer.
I’d also asked Simon where Anton Valance lived.
‘I don’t know,’ he’d said. ‘Harrogate, maybe. I think he once mentioned to me something about going to the Turkish Baths there. Said he often needs to have a massage after his stressful mornings talking to, as he put it, “bloody trainers like you” on the telephone.’
‘Where’s his bank?’ I’d asked.
‘How the hell should I know?’
‘You told me you pay his trainers’ premium by bank transfer, so what’s the sort code?’
‘I’ll have to look.’
I had waited patiently for him to log on to his online banking.
‘Twenty, thirty-seven, thirteen.’
I typed the code into Google – Barclays Bank in Harrogate.
‘What’s the account number?’
‘I surely shouldn’t be giving you someone else’s bank details.’
‘So you’d rather I called the mobile number you gave me and tell him that you’ve given me his sort code but you said to ring him for the actual account number?’
‘You wouldn’t do that.’
‘Okay. Maybe I wouldn’t. But I still need it.’
‘But those things are private.’
‘No, they’re not. Every time you write someone a cheque it has your sort code and account number printed along the bottom. There’s nothing private in that.’
‘I don’t write many cheques these days.’ He’d said it wistfully, as if yearning after some long-gone, simpler life.
In the end, and after much procrastinating, Simon had finally given me Valance’s account number, not that it did me much good. Knowing his sort code and account number didn’t give me access to anything, and certainly not how much he was raking off the trainers, or making on bets from the fixed races, that was if he had been stupid enough to use the same account for his gambling activities, which I very much doubted.
‘So what’s the plan?’ Chico asked as we joined the M1 northbound at Leicester.
‘We’re on our way to Malton,’ I said, ‘to speak with one Jimmy Shilstone, jockey of that parish.’
‘The one that you said has stopped eight of Paulson’s horses?’
‘Indeed, and possibly many more for other trainers. I want to catch him between him riding out for a local Malton trainer and him leaving for Market Rasen. That’s assuming he does go home between the two. If not, we’re in trouble, but I think he probably will, as he’d have to drive right past his house anyway.’
‘What time will he leave for the races?’
‘He’s due to ride in the first – not one of Paulson’s – and that’s at two o’clock, so he’ll probably aim to get there by one. According to Google Maps it takes an hour and forty minutes from Malton to Market Rasen racecourse. If I were him, I’d allow an extra half hour for traffic near the racecourse or for some other sort of hold-up. So I reckon he’ll leave home between ten-thirty and eleven o’clock. But, to be on the safe side, I plan to be outside his house from nine.’
‘What will you do if he won’t speak to you?’
‘I think he will. Especially as I intend blocking his driveway so he can’t get his car out.’
‘Sneaky. So where after that?’
‘If we fail to speak to Jimmy this morning, we’ll have to see him at the end of the day. There’s no time to go to the races because we have to be in Harrogate by three o’clock.’
‘What for?’
‘Have you ever had a Turkish bath?’
‘I doubt it. Never been to Turkey. Greece, yes, Turkey, no.’
I laughed. ‘Do you even know what a Turkish bath is?’
‘Obviously not takin’ a normal bath in Turkey, then, or you wouldn’t be askin’.’
‘It’s a steam bath, plus cold and hot dry rooms, and then a freezing-cold plunge pool, and there’s one in Harrogate.’
‘Sounds a bit bleedin’ masochistic to me.’ Chico turned and gave me a broad, full-teeth grin. ‘But I’m game if you are. I’m not quite sure, mind, why we’re goin’ all the way to Harrogate just for a wash.’
‘We’re going there to see someone.’
The previous afternoon, after speaking to Simon Paulson, I had called the Turkish Baths in Harrogate.
‘How can I help you?’ said the friendly receptionist who answered.
‘Hello,’ I replied. ‘My name is Valance, Anton Valance, and I was wondering if you could tell me when my next appointment is as I seem to have mislaid the note I made.’
‘Certainly, sir. Just a moment. I’ll check on the computer.’
There had been a very slight pause.
‘Here we are. You’re booked into our three o’clock session, tomorrow afternoon.’
‘On Sunday?’
‘Yes, on Sunday. And you have a fifty-minute massage with Laura at three-thirty.’
‘Of course, thank you.’
Now, why did I think that Valance had made the appointment at that particular time as an alibi for what was going on eighty-five miles away in the three-thirty race at Market Rasen? Who could possibly think he had fixed a race that he wasn’t even watching?
Well, me, for one.
I assumed Valance wouldn’t have his two goons with him for his massage and, without his clothes on, I might catch him off guard.
I had also searched deeper into the internet for an image of him, so I knew which particular middle-aged man wrapped in a towel to accost.
Mr Valance was clearly a publicity-averse individual, and he was very hard to find. But, eventually, I discovered him in a two-year-old photo published in the Yorkshire Post of a group of five men standing smiling at the camera at a local charity event at Headingley Cricket Ground in Leeds. He was named as the second from the right.
I studied the photo in detail, trying to burn his image into my head. A quite portly gentleman stared back at me from the picture and I took careful note of his features, including his receding hairline, large nose and heavy jowls. After ten or fifteen minutes, I was confident that, despite him now being two years older, I would recognize him again, even without his smart white shirt and bow tie.
‘So what do you want me to do while you’re chattin’?’ Chico asked.
‘I want you to be with me and to look menacing.’
‘But I’m really a pussycat.’
Yes, I thought, but one with sharp claws.
* * *
Jimmy Shilstone’s driveway in Hill Street, Malton, was empty as we pulled up across the road at ten to nine.
‘What do we do now?’ Chico asked.
‘We wait. If he’s not back here by eleven-thirty, he’s not coming.’
I manoeuvred down the road about thirty yards, so that we were not too obviously waiting right outside his house, but we could still see his gateway clearly.
On this occasion, we had come north in Marina’s Skoda. There were times to be ostentatious and times to be covert. This was one of the latter. I was sure that if Jimmy spotted MY S1D waiting on his road, he would drive straight past, probably at high speed.
‘Where’s he ridin’ out?’ Chico asked after we had been there for forty minutes with no movement.
‘In a village called Amotherby, just outside Malton. Albert Frost’s yard.’
‘Why don’t we go and see if he’s still there?’
‘Because we might miss him. And I don’t know what car he drives.’
We went on waiting. And waiting.
At quarter to ten, with still no sign of him, I made a series of calls to local Malton numbers.
Ten o’clock came and went, and there was still no sign of Mr Shilstone.
Then, at ten past, a silver Audi drove quickly along the road towards us and turned into his driveway. Jimmy was back.
I gave him a few minutes to get into the house, then drove the Skoda over the road and parked it in the middle of his gateway. There was nowhere near enough room on either side for him to get his Audi out.
‘You stand by the car,’ I said to Chico. ‘I’ll go and ring the doorbell.’
I leaned on the bell and didn’t take my finger off it for the next two minutes, not until the door finally opened. Jimmy’s hair was dripping and he was wearing only a towel round his waist. I had caught him in the shower.
‘What the bloody hell…’ he was shouting as he flung open the door, but he tailed off when he saw who it was ringing his bell.
‘How the fuck did you find out where I live?’
‘I find out all sorts of things, Jimmy. It’s my job.’
‘What do you want?’
‘A chat, that’s all.’
‘I haven’t got time for a chat, not with you, anyway.’
‘Oh, I think you have.’ I spoke quietly and without any threat.
‘I have to get off to the races.’ He looked past me to where Chico was leaning up against the front wing of the Skoda, trying to look menacing. ‘And you can move that bloody car for a start.’
‘I’ll happily move it, but only after we’ve had our little chat.’
‘But I have to leave in a few minutes.’
‘Then we had better talk fast.’
I could see, once again, the same touch of panic in his eyes that I had first witnessed at Catterick.
‘I have absolutely no intention of talking to you,’ he shouted with a slight quiver in his voice. ‘Because I have to go now.’
‘To Market Rasen races?’
‘Yes.’
I shook my head and tut-tutted. ‘What a pity. It seems like you might not make it there today, after all.’
‘But I have to,’ he beseeched.
‘And why is that?’ I asked with my first touch of belligerence. ‘Why do you have to go to Market Rasen, Jimmy? Is it to make sure that Oscar Mike doesn’t win the fourth race?’
He stared at me and, just like Charles’s had before, his mouth hung open in amazement.
‘Like I told you, Jimmy,’ I said, quieter again. ‘I find out all sorts of things.’
22
‘Who told you that?’ Jimmy asked, finding his tongue.
‘So you don’t deny it?’
‘Of course I do.’
‘How about eight other Simon Paulson runners you rode that also didn’t win when they could have done – do you deny stopping those as well?’
‘Lots of horses I ride don’t win. Most of them, in fact,’ he said, echoing what Marcus Capes had said about jockeys having to get used to losing.
‘Yes, I know, but there are eight specific losers that never had a chance, did they, Jimmy? Because you had been told not to win on them.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘So what’s your plan for Oscar Mike today? Start too slowly and leave him too much to do at the end, or perhaps engineer that he falls, just like you did on Night Shadow at Catterick last week? Or maybe you have some other ruse this time to ensure he doesn’t win?’
‘I think I’ve heard enough of this nonsense. It’s time you left.’ And he started to close the door, but I placed my right foot forward to prevent it closing fully.
‘Okay, Jimmy,’ I said through the narrow gap. ‘If that’s what you want, but I won’t be moving my car any time soon. Can you run to Market Rasen in time?’
‘I’ll call the police.’
‘And tell them what, Jimmy? That you have to get to Market Rasen races to commit a fraud? I don’t think so.’
‘Then I’ll get a taxi.’
‘Then you’d better hurry up. It’s already almost half past ten and I can tell you that there are no taxis free in Malton.’
‘How can you know that?’
‘Because I called all the local firms and I booked the only two taxis still available, both to collect me from the station in York at eleven-thirty.’
I looked at my watch.
‘They’ll be on their way soon. Which means you will need to get a taxi from York or from Scarborough, and neither of those would get here in time to get you to Market Rasen for the first.’
I stared at him but he said nothing.
‘So if I were you,’ I went on, ‘I’d call the trainer now and tell him that you’re indisposed and can’t ride his horse today. Maybe you won’t get to ride any of them.’ I paused while the enormity of his problem sunk in. ‘Or else you can talk to me now and be away from here in just ten minutes.’
He opened the door wide again.
‘What do you want?’
‘I want to know what hold Anton Valance has over you. Only then can I help you get away from him, while also hoping to keep your jockey’s licence.’
‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Fat chance of the second, if I tell you the first.’
‘Did he film you taking money for agreeing to stop one? Or maybe he lent you some money, say to buy that fancy Audi, and now he’s charging you extortionate interest?’
‘Neither.’
‘Jimmy, you’re wasting time you haven’t got. Tell me, what is it?’
He still hesitated.
‘Look,’ I said. ‘You either speak to me now or I’ll make a report to the BHA about the two horses you stopped last week, and also about your plans to do it again with Oscar Mike today. Then there will be absolutely no chance of you keeping your licence. Is that what you want?’
‘No,’ he mumbled.
‘Then speak to me.’
He sighed deeply. ‘Do you promise not to tell the police?’
‘The police?’ I’d thought he was afraid of the BHA, not the police.
‘Yes, the police. Do you promise not to tell them?’
‘I promise.’
But withholding information from the police about some serious crimes is, in itself, a criminal offence.
Another sigh, and he looked up to the overcast sky as if searching for divine intervention.
‘It was a girl.’
‘What was?’
‘Valance got me a girl,’ he said. ‘I went to Liverpool for the Grand National meeting – he’d booked me six rides spread over all three days. I would have preferred to drive back and forth each day to Malton but he insisted I stay over or else I’d be too tired to ride, he said, especially on Saturday with all the National traffic.
‘Anyway, on the second night I was down there, he calls me and says he knows how to cheer me up after none of my rides thus far had won. Next thing I know, this girl arrives at my hotel room and says she’s dead keen to be ridden by a real jockey. She ends up staying the whole night, not that we got much sleep.’
‘So? Nothing criminal in that.’
Stupid, I thought, but not criminal.
He sighed once more. ‘You don’t understand. She was a real girl. Turns out she was only fifteen.’
‘Ah.’
‘Ah, indeed,’ he said. ‘Sexual activity with a child. You can get fourteen years for that.’
‘But, if you honestly believed that she was older, and didn’t know she was only fifteen, is it still a crime?’
‘It seems that the Crown Prosecution Service always consider it’s a crime if the man is more than six years older than the girl. I was twenty-three at the time, so they’d claim I should have known better or that I should have asked for proof of her age. And maybe I should have done.’
He stared up at the ceiling.
‘I knew she was young, just not quite that young. She told me she was eighteen but I had my doubts, even then. Seventeen maybe, I thought, but not as young as fifteen or I wouldn’t have touched her. She was certainly well developed – lovely tits – and she wasn’t a virgin either, I can tell you. Not with all that knowledge. And she was keen as mustard for me to get on with it. Stripped off all her kit almost as soon as she was through the door.’
Jimmy wasn’t the first man to be seduced in such a manner, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last. Throughout human history, the male of the species has had a tendency to move all his brains from his head to his underpants in such circumstances.
‘But Valance must have known how old she was.’
‘Course he did, but he denies it.’
‘But procuring a fifteen-year-old girl for sex with someone else is a far worse crime than actually having it, so Valance must be culpable as well.’
‘Yeah, maybe, but it’s not his face on the damn video, nor his cock.’
‘What video?’
‘Of the girl and me having sex.’
‘How come there’s a video? Did you take it?’
‘Of course not. Neither did she. There was a secret camera set up in the hotel room. Filmed everything.’
It was my turn now to stare at him, dumbfounded.
‘Valance must have fixed it. He assured me that, as my agent, he would take care of everything for my Liverpool trip, booking the hotel and such. All I have to do, he says, is turn up and ride. He bloody did take care of me too, stitched me up good and proper, with a full-frontal view of me riding all right.’
‘How did you find out the girl was under-age?’
‘I was emailed a copy of her passport. Her name was blanked out, but the photo on it was definitely of her, and it showed her date of birth clear as daylight. On that night in Liverpool, she’d been two weeks short of her sixteenth birthday.’
