Taking the Fall (29 page)
Authors: A.P. McCoy
‘I’ve won you the pot,’ Duncan said.
‘You’re a dead man,’ Osborne hissed.
‘Well in that case I’d better get weighed in.’ He slipped the saddle off Ra-ho-tep. ‘Nice horse.’ Then, with the two men’s eyes burning into his back, he carried the saddle over to the Weighing Room.
‘Weighed in! Weighed in!’ came the announcement over the public address. Duncan made his way to the presentation podium to take more plaudits. On his way back, one of the lads from Petie’s stables said that Gypsy George wanted a word with him out by the horseboxes.
When he got there, three figures in black jumped out and bundled him into the back of a horsebox. They quickly pulled up the rear ramp. They all wore balaclavas and two of them were pointing guns at him.
One of them pushed him over roughly into the straw. Duncan winced as the pain from his broken rib shot through him. He thought he might vomit.
‘So then, Claymore,’ said one of the hooded figures, ‘you just couldn’t resist, could you? Couldn’t resist winning.’
‘Haven’t you been warned about the dangers of winning?’ This second figure had an Irish accent. It was a female voice. Although slightly built, she had a menacing manner.
Duncan held his throbbing ribs and looked coolly at his assailants. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘It would make me shit my pants. Where did you get the firearms?’
The smallest of the three figures whisked off the balaclava. It was Roisin. ‘Sports day starting pistols.’
The second to reveal himself was Gypsy George. The third, smiling, was Mike Ruddy.
‘It all went off okay, then?’ Duncan said.
‘I don’t want to do anything like that again,’ said Roisin.
‘You should have seen him, the shit,’ said Ruddy.
Gypsy George looked at Ruddy in disgust. ‘No one says
top o’ the morning
,’ he said.
‘Yes they do,’ said Ruddy.
‘Your Irish accent was shite,’ said Roisin.
‘Ignore them. It was bang on. Where’s Sanderson now?’ Duncan wanted to know.
Ruddy looked at his watch. ‘About now, he would be approaching home on shanks’s pony. Working on what the fuck he’s going to say. By the way,’ he added. ‘Great race.’
‘I’m still worried about this George Pleasance business,’ Roisin said.
‘I think I can handle that,’ Duncan said. ‘You’d better get rid of these starter pistols and balaclavas.’
‘There’s a trap under the long box,’ George said. ‘I’ll deal with it.’
‘Okay,’ Duncan said. ‘Come on, boys and girls. I’ll get showered and see you all in the owners’ bar.’
‘The first drink is on me,’ Ruddy said. ‘All this talking in Irish has given me a dry mouth.’
Mike was true to his word, and Petie was lavish with the champagne too. Petie had served notice on the racing world that he was an emerging force and that more, much more was to come.
Petie hadn’t been in on the kidnapping, whereas Kerry knew all about it, though he couldn’t be directly involved because he’d had to race. It was Gypsy George – who hated Cadogan and Osborne as much as Charlie did – who had engineered the plan along with Duncan when they’d spent some time talking in his caravan. Roisin had been pulled in by George, who knew she would be there for them. George was more doubtful about Ruddy, but they needed a third and Duncan had felt Ruddy’s loyalty would be unquestionable. Ruddy had hated the way he’d been drawn into pulling up horses and saw it as a personal revenge.
It was audacious and it might not have worked, but they’d pulled it off.
Lorna was in the owners’ bar with them, but her father was conspicuously absent, as was Osborne. The mystery of Sanderson’s disappearance was almost flushed away by the flow of champagne.
At some point in the hurly-burly of the festivities Duncan spotted George Pleasance. He still wore that same wreathed smile but somehow this time his eyes gave him away. Duncan thought there was no time like the present, so he excused himself from the company and went to the gents’ toilets, pretty certain Pleasance would follow.
He was right. Pleasance and his bald henchman and another stooge were there behind him within seconds. The bald man trapped the door.
‘Nice race,’ Pleasance said.
‘I thought I’d lost it on the run-in.’
‘You thought you’d lost it on the run-in? And you’re going to tell me why you
didn’t
lose it on the run-in?’
Duncan could feel Pleasance’s sweet and rancid breath on his neck. He stood his ground. ‘Last-minute instructions.’
‘What last-minute instructions?’
‘Cadogan told me in the paddock that things had changed.’
Pleasance laughed. ‘You’re lying.’
‘No, for sure—’
‘I still say you’re lying.’
‘—he’d been staking big bets on Tep. He told me that the bookies were refusing the lay bets. I know he made at least one big bet from his home because I was there with Lorna. I mean, a real monster bet. I just won him a huge payola. That’s what he wanted. It was just after that Chinese guy left.’
‘What Chinese guy?’
‘How should I know, just some chap from Hong Kong. I assumed you were in on it all.’
Pleasance hovered over him, eyeball to eyeball. ‘You do realise I can easily check this story out?’
‘Of course you can. Why would I lie? You can find out yourself what he was betting down to the last cent.’
Pleasance patted his face. ‘You bet I will, old son. And if your story doesn’t check out, you know I’ll be wanting to see you again.’
‘All right,’ said Duncan. ‘All right.’
Pleasance left the toilets with his henchmen. Duncan turned to the mirror and threw a little cool water on his face. Then he returned to the party.
S
ix days later, the tabloids reported that Duke Cadogan had been killed in a gun incident during a clay-pigeon shoot on his estate. It was a tragic accident; according to the police, there was no suspicion of foul play. Some of the red-top papers tried to tie the incident to the disappearance of Champion Jockey Sandy Sanderson on Gold Cup day. But Sanderson maintained that the last thing he remembered was enjoying a drink in the company of some businessmen, only to wake up in a strange hotel with a terrible headache. Somehow the story became one about Chinese businessmen. Chinese or Hong Kong betting rings were suspected of skulduggery.
Lorna was bewildered at her father’s demise. She knew that he’d never loved her, and she had little love for him. But he was still her father, after all. She also learned that she had inherited everything: house, grounds, capital, car collection and more than forty premium racehorses.
‘But what will I do?’ she cried to Duncan. ‘What will I do?’
‘I’ll take care of you, Lorna.’
‘Will you marry me?’
‘Slow down. But if that’s what you want, that’s what we’ll do.’
He went to Petie. ‘You know any good builders?’
‘Do I know any good builders? There’s no such thing as a good builder.’
‘You might need some new stables.’
‘Why is that, then?’
‘I know someone who pretty soon might be moving forty-plus head down to your stables.’
‘Forty head? That’s a lot of livestock.’
‘Too much for you? Not ready for the big time?’
Petie didn’t need to answer that.
Cadogan’s funeral was a lavish affair with a sombre service at the local church filled to capacity and a reception in the mansion. It seemed to Duncan that almost everyone who had been at the Cheltenham Festival was there. William Osborne turned out in a new suit but his old fedora. Many of his senior training stable hands were in attendance; several of the major trainers came to pay their respects. Sandy Sanderson was there with his wife, Christie, looking immaculate in an impossibly tight black dress and large-brimmed hat. Sanderson read a verse from the Bible and the vicar gave a touching sermon in which he compared life to a horse race.
Even George Pleasance was there, smiling sadly, embracing the mourners and offering consolation to Lorna.
‘If there is anything I can do to help, anything at all, you let me know.’
Lorna failed to return his sympathetic smile.
At some point in the proceedings Duncan was approached by Christie. She took him by the sleeve. ‘Is it true you’re getting married to Lorna?’
‘News travels fast.’
‘It does in the racing community,’ she said. ‘That would put you in a very useful position.’
‘I can’t think what you mean.’
‘Maybe I underestimated you, Duncan.’
‘Isn’t that your husband calling you?’
She turned to see Sanderson glaring at them.
‘He must be mad. You’re a wonderful girl, Christie.’
He kissed her in full view of the Champion Jockey.
Gradually the mourners drifted away, until only Lorna, Duncan and the staff remained behind. Lorna gazed out of the window at the last of the departing cars. ‘Most of those people who came didn’t even like him.’
‘I’m sure that’s not true,’ said Duncan.
‘Oh, it is true,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure even I did. I’m going to take a long bath, do you mind?’
‘Not at all. I thought I might go and see my dad. I’ll be back in an hour or two.’
Duncan left his battered Capri parked in the yard and made his way to the garage. Once inside, he switched the lights on and again surveyed the lavish motor pool, just as he had the first time he saw it. The yellow Lamborghini seemed totally inappropriate for a funeral day, but then again . . . He climbed inside, switched on the ignition and drove the purring Lamborghini out of the garage.
There was no way of knowing how much Charlie would remember. Duncan had told him everything. He’d had to do that, to explain to him why he would be riding Cadogan’s horses and wearing Osborne’s silks. There was always the danger that Charlie would forget what he’d been told and believe that Duncan had betrayed him. On the other hand, he anticipated a conversation where Charlie might say, in that knowing way of his, ‘Odd, son, how things unfolded for Cadogan.’
And he would say, ‘Yes, Dad. Very odd, that.’
They would leave it at that.
Of course, Duncan had had no idea of whether his plans would work out, or how things would turn out afterwards. He could never have anticipated Cadogan’s ‘accident’ in the woods; not that he would ever shed a tear for the man who had ruined his father. And as far as he was concerned, he still had major unfinished business with Sandy Sanderson and William Osborne.
Because at the end of it all there was only the race. And just as the Monk had told him, in that race someone was always going to have to take the fall. It was just a question of making sure that
someone
wasn’t you.
Sunlight flared in the open countryside. Duncan turned the radio up loud in the yellow Lamborghini. He booted the accelerator and the throaty engine gurgled with pleasure. The road stretched ahead like an unbroken beam of light.
A.P. McCoy is a record-breaking Northern Irish horse-racing jockey with a series of impressive wins to his name, including the Cheltenham Gold Cup, Champion Hurdle, Queen Mother Champion Chase, King George VI Chase and the 2010 Grand National.
McCoy was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2010, becoming the first jockey to win the award.
A.P. McCoy: My Autobiography
McCoy: The Autobiography
The Real McCoy: My Life So Far
AN ORION EBOOK
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Orion Books.
This ebook first published in 2013 by Orion Books.
Copyright © AP Enterprises Ltd 2013
The moral right of Tony McCoy to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All the characters in this book, except for those already in the public domain, are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published without a similar condition, including this condition, being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN: 978 1 4091 2971 4
Orion Books
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
Orion House
5 Upper St Martin’s Lane
London WC2H 9EA
An Hachette UK Company
Table of Contents