Taking the Fall (12 page)

‘Oh don’t mind her,’ Petie said. ‘She’s the business head around here. She has to agree everything anyway. I keep no secrets from her. She’s smarter than she looks.’

‘No, you’re fine,’ Roisin said, sensing something afoot. ‘Here’s your tea. I’ll leave you boys to it.’

She went out and closed the door behind her with a click.

‘She’s very smart,’ Duncan said.

‘I see. What is it? Speak.’

‘Okay. Sandy Sanderson. He told me all your cash here comes from the IRA. He says you’re money-laundering for terrorists.’

Petie leaned across the hearth, shook the pan and poked the bacon hither and thither. ‘I see. And what about Duncan Claymore? What does he think?’

‘I don’t know anything. I just thought I’d ask you. Straight up, like.’

Petie took two slices of white bread and slapped all of the bacon between them. ‘Have you seen the sauce anywhere?’ he said.

There was a bottle of tomato ketchup on the table, so Duncan handed it to him and the Irishman gave himself a good helping. Then he took a great bite out of the sandwich. Duncan sat in silence. It was a few minutes before Petie finished eating. Then he took a great swig of his tea to wash it down. ‘You know what, Duncan? Tea and a bacon sandwich. The two things go together, don’t they? I mean, you could have coffee but it’s never the same. No. Tea and bacon. Egg and chips. Beer and cigarettes. Some things go together. You know?’

‘Yes.’

‘Selling sand to Arabs. I was in building. When the petrol dollars started to flow in the Arab countries they wanted sports stadiums and horse tracks and all the rest of it and I got some jobs. I found out they couldn’t make their tracks with all that sand they have. Too fine. It won’t drain, you see. So I said I knew where there was some sand.

‘Do you know how many sports stadiums and race tracks and athletics fields I built? That’s where I got my interest in racehorses. The sand cost me almost nothing and the Arabs threw money at me. I had tankers of sand going out there every day at one point. I had boys shovelling sand over here and I almost needed to employ some lads to shovel the cash into my account, so much of it was there coming in. So then what? You can only eat three meals a day and you can only have one bacon sandwich for breakfast. There’s more than I need. So I’m sixty-two and I’m retired from all that and now I’ve got my horses.

‘My money is my own. It’s not the RA’s, or anyone’s else’s. Mine. Do you understand?’

Duncan nodded. ‘I had to ask, Petie.’

‘And I’ve answered.’

‘You have.’

‘Good. Now where’s that girl? Roisin! ROISIN!’

Roisin appeared pretty quickly. She might have been eavesdropping, but she’d changed into jodhpurs and was ready to ride out. ‘Are you boys done?’

‘We are. Get some papers drawn up so I can put my cross there and he can put his cross there, and we’re away.’

‘We’ll ride out first,’ Roisin said, showing no sign of wanting to be ordered around. ‘Are you ready, Duncan?’

‘I am.’

‘Well then, why are you still sitting on your arse?’

8

D
uncan had been waiting in the hotel restaurant for almost forty-five minutes. He thought she wasn’t coming and the waiters were starting to look at him a little oddly as he took tiny sips of his lemon-flavoured water. At last she arrived, wearing a very short skirt and dark glasses.

‘Are you in hiding?’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s not sunny outside.’

‘You never know who’s watching,’ she said as she sat down with the waiters fussing around her. They whisked away her coat and pulled back her chair a few inches. ‘The Ritz. Very impressive. If you were
trying
to impress me, that is.’ She took off her dark glasses, folded them and placed them on the crisp linen in a neat line with her cutlery.

Mandy Gleeson had beautiful eyes. It wasn’t the nut-brown colour of them, nor the way her eyelids wrinkled, nor their almond shape. They seemed to be able to see through him. They would be difficult to lie to. So mesmerised was Duncan by Mandy’s eyes that it made him smile.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Would you like to order?’

She trawled the menu quickly and ordered a Caesar salad. He asked for the same but without the croutons. When the waiter had gone, she unclipped her handbag, took out a video cassette and laid it on the table. ‘What are you going to do with it?’

‘I’m just collecting tapes of my rides. For when I’m an old man. So’s I can watch them from my armchair.’

‘Bullshit!’

An elderly couple on the next table looked across at them.

‘It’s against the rules here at the Ritz,’ Duncan said, ‘to shout out your middle name.’

She smiled. She grazed her lower lip with her teeth. ‘You think you’re pretty cool, don’t you?’

He took a sip of water by way of answer, but without taking his eyes from hers.

‘Cool and confident. How confident are you? Let me guess. I know your sort so well. You’ve already booked a room upstairs, haven’t you? Go on. Admit it.’

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? Have you seen these prices?’

She shook her head. ‘Liar. You thought I’d come here, have a nice lunch and then follow you upstairs. Just because you are ridiculously good-looking. Just because you are smart and witty and funny. Just because you have an outrageously sexy body. Admit it. Go on. You already reserved that room. I’d bet my horse-racing winnings on it. It’s a cert.’

‘There are no certs. And you’d be wrong. There’s no way you would go upstairs with me right now.’

Her mood changed as she relaxed back into her chair. ‘Well, you got that right.’

‘Not on the first date anyway.’

‘Oh, is this a date?’

That depends on what happens in the future. If we see each other again, it will have been. If we don’t, it won’t.’

Their food arrived. Mandy paused until the overattentive waiters had gone before speaking again. ‘Okay, smarty. The quid pro quo. I want something from you in return. In return for the cassette, that is.’

‘And what would that be?’

‘Information.’

‘Ha! Sorry! Everyone wants that. More than my jockey’s licence is worth.’

‘I’m not talking about betting information, you saddle sausage!’

‘Saddle . . . So what are you talking about?’

‘We’re doing an investigation into corruption. We think organised crime is behind a lot of it. We—’

‘We?’ said Duncan. ‘Who’s this
we
? Have you got a microphone in your knickers?’

‘Do you take anything seriously? I mean the broadcasting company. We’ve got one or two good leads.’

‘And I thought,’ Duncan said, ‘that it was my charm that got you to have lunch with me today. What a sad world it is when people have to use each other.’ He turned and raised his glass to the old couple who were still staring at them from the next table. ‘I said it’s a sad world!’ They looked away quickly.

Earlier in the season three jockeys had been banned from racing for their part in race-fixing. Lay-betting had recently grown in popularity: the practice of betting a horse to lose rather than backing it to win. This had been standard spreading practice for bookies since time immemorial, whenever they feared a result that might break them; but the recent interest had developed beyond the bookies. The three banned jockeys had been found guilty of not trying hard enough to win; ‘failing to ensure a horse is ridden on its merits’ was the exact phrase.

‘Speaking of which,’ Mandy said, reminding him of who was using whom, ‘that tape won’t do you much good. It doesn’t show anything more than a bit of argy-bargy. Difficult to prove anything, if that’s what you want it for.’

‘It’s just a souvenir. So let me get this straight. You want me to report on my colleagues in the workplace. To spy on them for you. Just because you are beautiful. Just because you’re smart and witty. Just because you know that men admire you.’

‘That’s about it. And because I’m in television. Is that all you’re going to eat?’

They talked a little longer, and when Mandy said she needed to hurry away to a meeting, Duncan called for the bill. Mandy was strong on paying her share. ‘I like to go Dutch.’

‘No. This one is on me. Off you go and I’ll take care of it.’

‘Well. Next time I’m paying.’

They shook hands, all rather formal. ‘One thing,’ Duncan said. ‘Saddle sausage. I’ll get you for that.’

She smiled and moistened her lips with her tongue. Then she turned and left. Duncan watched her go.
Mandy Gleeson
, he thought,
you were sent to me by heaven
. He told the waiter he would take care of the bill at the hotel front desk. He did so by giving them Duke Cadogan’s code word.

‘Oh, and you can cancel the room,’ he told the receptionist. ‘I won’t be needing it.’

Roisin made all the travel arrangements and they flew together to Punchestown for their last meeting of the year. It was the first time Duncan had ever ridden in Ireland. Punchestown was one of the great traditional Irish courses for National Hunt racing. Petie was a little jumpy himself, even without a horse. He was on his home turf and he wanted to do well. He’d brought just three horses over, but one of them was to be ridden by an old friend to whom he’d promised the ride.

Duncan rode a disappointing unplaced in his first race, a handicap steeplechase over two miles, his mount blowing up two furlongs from home. But he scraped home first in the valuable fixture race of the day on Cantabulous, much fancied by the punters at 2–1. Petie’s other horse was placed, so although it wasn’t a gala day for them, he was content.

Kerry turned up out of the blue and Duncan was overjoyed to see him. Kerry couldn’t wait to get the plaster off his foot, and though he loved his family in Ireland, he said they were driving him crazy and he’d been glad to get away for a few hours. Duncan meanwhile introduced him to Petie and Roisin.

Petie had seen Kerry race in the past. He knew he was a damn good jockey, though he was shrewd enough in his evaluation to see that, good as he was, he wasn’t quite on a par with Duncan. He needed another jockey in the frame, and maybe he calculated that having Duncan’s buddy at the stables might be a cementing move. ‘I’ll be running more horses in different meetings come the new year,’ he told Kerry. ‘Let me know when you’re back on your feet.’

‘Be glad to,’ Kerry said. ‘Be very glad to.’

‘How do you like my silks?’ Roisin asked him.

‘I like them well enough,’ said Kerry.

Maybe Kerry held her gaze a moment too long, but Petie shook his head. Duncan had to fight back a smirk.
You’re a condemned man
, he thought.

He got a chance to spend an hour or so alone with Kerry before leaving Ireland. They got on to the subject of Petie Quinn’s money. Duncan had rung Kerry, and Kerry had a cousin who knew someone who knew someone and he’d found out what he could. ‘What can I tell you, Duncan? He’s a strong Irish nationalist, but then so am I. So is every Irish Catholic from here to Malin Head, so what does that tell you? Nothing in a pint pot. He might have been connected when he was much younger, that’s all I could uncover. You have to be very careful who you ask, you know. Nobody likes those kind of questions these days.’

‘That’s good enough, Kerry. I appreciate it. Hey, that Roisin is a good-looking filly, isn’t she?’

‘Is she? I can’t say I noticed.’

On the morning of New Year’s Eve, Duncan was woken by a hammering on his door and the ringing of his bell. Whoever it was rang so persistently that the battery in the doorbell faded. Duncan eventually answered the door with a towel round his waist.

Lorna brushed past him. ‘Why won’t you answer your phone? Have you got someone else in here?’

‘Cup of tea, Lorna?’

‘No. Yes. I must have rung a hundred times. Why haven’t you answered?’

‘I’ve been away. Riding horses. It’s what I do.’

‘Liar! It either rings out or it’s off the hook for ever.’ Lorna went into his bedroom and immediately opened the wardrobe doors.

‘She’s in the bathroom, if you must know.’

Lorna checked out the bathroom but found it empty.

‘Listen, Lorna. I told you. I was threatened by your dad’s thugs. If I see you again, there are a couple of thick-necked Brummies who are going to break my bones one by one and make me watch Aston Villa on Saturday afternoons. I’ve been missing you badly. You don’t need to look under the bed: I don’t have another girlfriend. I want to see you, but I can’t.’

‘That’s why I’m here. It’s all fine.’

‘Fine? What do you mean, it’s fine?’ Duncan knew perfectly well it would be fine. Cadogan was the sort of father who had given Lorna everything she’d asked for not because he loved her but because it was easier to get rid of her that way. He wouldn’t know how to deal with a shrieking teenager on heat. ‘How is it fine?’

She kicked off her shoes and took off her coat. ‘I talked him round.’

‘And just how did you talk him round?’

‘I got his porn tapes out and showed them to his girlfriend. Then while they were shouting at each other I got his suits out of his wardrobe. He likes tailored Savile Row suits. So I laid them all out on the gravel driveway and I drove that yellow thingy car we borrowed—’

‘The Lamborghini? You can’t drive.’

‘Yes, that one . . . No, I can’t drive, but I can make it go forward and back, so I drove it over all of his suits and then I smashed the car into a tree and went back into the garage to get another one but he came out and stopped me so I tore my clothes off and went into the kitchen and the cook was in there with a defrosting bird – I think it was a pheasant – so I smeared the blood all over me and got the cook’s knife and went back out—’

‘Stop. I get the idea.’

‘Well anyway, now I’m allowed to see you after all and you’re invited to our New Year’s Eve party at the house.’

‘You’re joking.’

If she was joking about these exploits, she didn’t say.

‘Party starts at eight.’ She unbuckled her belt and stepped out of her jeans and knickers. Then she peeled off her turtleneck sweater, letting her large pink breasts swing free. ‘Now fuck me.’