Taking the Fall (5 page)

One Saturday in March when Sommers and his team were away at Cheltenham, Duncan arrived early for work and leaned his bike against the fence. There was a gallops adjacent to the stables where the horses were trained up an incline, and one of the stable hands, a fox-faced girl named Dawn, was putting a horse called Patroculus through his paces. Duncan knew there was something special about Patroculus and that he had been rested for several weeks after going lame ahead of a big race. Tommy and another man in a sporting trilby were leaning against the rail watching the animal race up the hill.

Being early, Duncan approached the men from behind, whereupon they both spun round and stared hard at him as if he were a spy.

‘I wondered if I could watch,’ Duncan said.

‘Fuck off,’ Tommy said.

Duncan tried to gabble a word of apology.

‘Fuck off,’ Tommy said again, through gritted teeth.

Duncan felt his scalp flush. He didn’t need to be told three times. He turned on his heel and walked back to the stables. He could hear the men talking. After a few moments one of them called him back. The two men were still regarding him steadily: Tommy scowling from under his cloth cap and the man in the trilby looking amused. This other man beckoned him.

‘How long you been with us, son?’

‘Eight weeks.’

‘Eight weeks. What Tommy means, son, is that when you work at these stables, you keep your mouth shut about everything you see and everything you hear. Yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘Good lad. You can stay and watch, though we’re about done.’

Tommy shook his head, but both men turned their attention back to the horse. Dawn was cantering Patroculus towards them, and when she drew abreast, she pulled him up and walked over. She looked meaningfully at Duncan.

‘It’s all right,’ said the man in the trilby.

‘He was pulling my arms out. He hasn’t even broken sweat.’

‘What about his pipes?’ said the man.

‘Nothing wrong with his pipes,’ Tommy growled.

Dawn shrugged.

‘Six weeks,’ said the man in the trilby.

‘Eight,’ said Tommy.

‘Six.’

The two men turned and walked back towards the stables. Duncan was left standing alone. He turned to admire the horse, but Dawn was already trotting away.

A couple of weeks later he was cycling to Penderton. A light mist hung over the fields and he had to climb a hill before he could freewheel down to the stables. As he took a bend, he spotted a car parked between some trees. Its driver had a pair of binoculars trained on the gallops in the hollow.

When he got to the stables he immediately told Tommy.

‘Where?’

‘There’s an old farm track at the top of the hill. It’s overgrown. But he’s taken his car up the track. There’s a gap in the trees and you can see the gallops from there.’

‘What car?’

Duncan told him it was a Wolseley saloon.

‘Yep.’ Tommy said no more but whistled up two rugged young men who also worked at the stables. They piled into a Land Rover and with Tommy at the wheel they lurched out of the yard. It was the first time Duncan had seen Tommy smiling since he’d started working there. Just outside the gate the Land Rover suddenly braked. Tommy got out and waved for Duncan to go with them.

Duncan climbed in beside Phil, one of the young men, who looked at him and sniffed. They drove up the hill and Tommy stopped to let Phil out, so that he could come up behind the spy. Then they cruised to a stop by the gap in the hedge and the rest of them got out quietly.

When the spy with the binoculars saw them coming, he turned away and walked straight into Phil, coming up from the rear. Phil grabbed the man’s collar.

‘Now then, Derek,’ Tommy said.

Duncan had seen lads roughed up at school but he’d never actually seen adults give someone a beating. He stood back, hardly sure whether he was supposed to join in. But Tommy stood watching with his hands on his hips. The man called Derek seemed to accept his fate.

One of the young stable hands held the spy’s arms behind his back. The other squatted down and offered three quick, hard jabs to the stomach. Duncan heard all the air wheeze out of the man and then saw him collapse to his knees. He was released by the stable hand pinning him from behind, who stepped round and dealt another hard blow to the side of the man’s head, landing near the ear, and a further blow to the neck.

The man collapsed on the woodland floor. It was all brutally efficient.

‘He’s fakin’ it,’ said one of the young men.

‘Either that or he’s soft as shit,’ said the other.

Duncan didn’t think the man was faking it at all. There was a small flow of blood leaking from his ear. He was making noises like he was straining to breathe.

‘Now that’s just a taster,’ said Tommy. ‘You’ve got the message, haven’t you, Derek?’

Derek, his face in the dark woodland mulch, wheezed a kind of reply.

‘That’ll do,’ Tommy said.

When the Land Rover returned to the yard, the three men got out in high spirits, laughing, boisterous and with shining eyes. Duncan got out too. Tommy nodded at him and made a playful feint of a punch in the ribs. Reading Tommy’s feelings was harder than reading those of a horse; even so, it was evident that the head lad was pleased.

‘I wanted you to see that,’ Tommy said. ‘There’s a thing called loyalty. That chap Derek used to work for us. It might have looked a bit rough, but it’s finished now. Finished. He’s been paid back and he won’t come again.’

‘What if he goes to the police?’

‘He won’t. Loyalty, Duncan.’

Tommy was pleased enough, a couple of weeks later, to give Duncan an exercising ride out on a retiring champion chaser called Jabberwocky. The difference between Jabberwocky – long past his best – and anything he’d previously ridden was the difference between a Porsche and a pedal bike. Duncan’s loyalty – and his future in the racing game – was sealed. Another thing that was sealed for him was the idea that if you wanted to right a wrong, you took it into your own hands.

Duncan left Grey Gables but only after giving his father a little hug – something that would never have been acceptable to either of them in the old days. Soft, Charlie would have called it. These days they had more time for a bit of soft. He also left two new tenners on the table, even though Charlie said he didn’t need it.

He said goodbye to Mrs Solanki and took the bus home. When he got to his apartment he felt a sudden pang of hunger, like someone grabbing his intestines with sharp fingernails and twisting. He had a glass of juice and smoked a cigarette instead. He told himself that he might have a spoonful of soup later on that evening.

He made a couple of calls. Not much doing. The way for a freelancer to get rides was to get yourself down to a stables and ride out first thing in the morning, until they got your trust and gave you a chance. Of course, getting in there in the first place was the trick. The higher up the pecking order for the good horses you went, the less they needed you to ride out with them.

Much more recent to the sport was the idea of getting an agent. He wasn’t so sure about that. Agents were often known as ‘characters’ in the business. Characters were people who suddenly and impulsively made a dash to Rio de Janeiro. Anyway, there were only a few agents in the country, with most people getting their rides the old-fashioned way. Getting an agent – a sound one – wasn’t as easy as you might think: an agent might take you on if you were already getting the rides coming to you, in which case why the hell would you need one? Still, Duncan was desperate enough to try anything. Petie Quinn had promised him there would be more rides, and on the strength of that and his win in the last race he left a couple of messages saying he was looking for a change of agent. Change from not having one, that is.

He felt a stab of hunger again so he decided to go and spend a couple of hours at the sauna. He had read somewhere about Continental jockeys using saunas to lose weight. It wasn’t exactly a popular idea with his contemporaries, most of whom preferred to pop a pee pill, but Duncan found it worked well for him if he spent enough time there. It was also somewhere he could go to try to calm his racing mind, and to work things out in his head.

He had a membership at a local gym and they had a decent pool and sauna set-up. If you chose the right time to go, it wasn’t crowded with blokes picking their toenails with a penknife or sitting with their legs apart to advertise their fat willies. He slung on a jacket ready to make the twenty-minute walk to the gym.

Before he left, he noticed that Lorna had left a bracelet on the bedside table in the bedroom. He thought he should call her, but then checked himself. He didn’t want to appear keen; and if she’d left her bracelet, she’d probably done so deliberately. She would call him. He was still looking at the bracelet when the phone rang.

He had an intuition that it would be her. He let the phone ring. Then he decided to pick up in case it was one of the agents returning his call. It was a male voice he didn’t recognise.

‘Is that Duncan?’

‘’Tis.’

‘Hi, Duncan mate, how are you doing?’

‘Who is this?’

‘I’m told you’re looking for an agent.’

‘Who is this? Peter Fraser?’

‘No.’

‘Ernie Calmun?’

‘No. Ernie told me you’d called him. He’s not taking anyone on just now so he passed your name on.’

‘And you are?’

‘Mike Ruddy.’

‘Never heard of you, sorry.’

‘Yes you have. I used to be a jockey. Before I was an agent.’

Duncan thought about it. ‘Oh hell, yes, I do know you. I’ve ridden against you once or twice. I didn’t know you were an agent now.’

‘That’s right. What you doing right at this moment?’

‘I’m just on my way to the hot box.’

‘The what?’

‘The sauna.’

‘What the hell is that all about?’

‘Helps you lose weight.’

‘Which one? Which sauna, I mean.’

Duncan told him the name of the gym. Ruddy knew it. ‘I’ll see you there in half an hour. I’ll join you in the hot box. Ha ha! I like that: hot box. Not that I need to any more. I’m an agent: I can be a fat fuck, right?’

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute! How long have you been an agent?’

‘About five minutes. See you in the box. I mean hot box.’

Click.

He didn’t notice the girl at the desk beaming at him when he signed in and took a towel for the sauna. He was still wondering how he’d been manipulated into meeting Mike Ruddy. It was already out of the question. There were only four really big agents in the country and he needed to be with one of them. Beyond that there was a handful of second-tier agents that he might have to go with. They didn’t include Ruddy, who as far as he knew wasn’t an agent at all.

He had the sauna to himself and turned the dial up high. Apart from anything else, it was a good way of discouraging company. He relaxed back with his eyes closed. But within a few minutes the door opened and a small, dark, wiry figure with a towel knotted at the waist came inside. He didn’t look at Duncan. He took his seat on the bench, put his hands on his knees, leaned forward and vented a theatrical sigh. He breathed out heavily three or four times, then turned to Duncan.

‘Yep. I’m Mike Ruddy.’

Duncan’s eyes were still half closed. ‘You’re not an agent at all.’

‘Yes I am.’

‘No you’re not. I looked at today’s cards. You were riding earlier today at Leicester.’

‘That’s right. I was. It was my last race ever.’

‘What?’

‘I quit. I’m no longer a jockey. I’m a jockey’s agent. Phew! Hot!’

Duncan took a harder look at the man. He was gazing back at him, headlights full-beam, offering a huge smile. He looked like a more handsome version of an orc.

Ruddy reached out and touched Duncan on the wrist. Duncan looked at the spot and Ruddy withdrew his hand. ‘Listen. I’ve been a jockey for twelve years. I’ve had some winners but I’m never going to get near to being a champion. I know that; everyone knows that. My own agent is – was – Ernie Calmun, who you phoned earlier. Well he’s been saddling me with losers. Today’s horse blew up on me and the last one had a wind problem and it’s all over. Going nowhere. So I’m in Ernie Calmun’s office late this afternoon giving him a bollocking and having a right old fallout about the rides he’s giving me. Then his secretary pipes up. He thinks he’s a big shot so he has one of those intercom things on his desk and she goes, “What will I tell Duncan Claymore?” And he goes, “Tell him I don’t have a place on my list right now.” An’ it’s like lightning! I think: no, I can’t ever be a champion jockey, but I can be an
agent
to a champion jockey! And I quit there and then. On the spot.’

‘You’re mad.’

‘And you know who that future champion jockey is?’ Ruddy held out a hand that wanted shaking. ‘Congratulations, Mr Duncan Claymore!’

Duncan looked at the hand, but the only thing he shook was his head. ‘You don’t have any clients. No office. No track record. You don’t have anything.’

‘You’re not listening! I have loads of contacts. I’ve ridden for every owner and trainer you can name. I’ve got three jockeys who will come with me. No, four. Four. Christ, you like it hot in here. It’s the future, honestly, Duncan, I can see it coming. Every jockey will have an agent pretty soon. Don’t get left behind.’

‘Which four?’

‘What?’

‘Which four jockeys have you got?’

‘Palmer will come if I ask him. He’s a pal. And Jangers. You must know Jangers.’

‘Both good jockeys; both past it.’

‘Not for two more years. Which is all I need. Plus I’ve got the two top conditionals will come with me.’

‘Conditionals!’

‘You’re only just out of conditional yourself! What’s more, if you say yes, they will all come. They know you’re good. But ask yourself why you need an agent.’

‘Oh yes. To take ten per cent of my loot. I need that.’

‘Don’t be a drip! I’m not talking about that.’

‘Enlighten me.’

‘Excessive use of the lip, old son!’

‘That’s an old joke.’

‘But it’s true. You can’t shut your gob. But here’s the thing, young jockey. They like me! The owners and the trainers, they all love me. How the fuck do you think I’ve been getting so many rides all these years when I’m second-rate? So I’ll do all the talking for you. I’ll be good at it. I’ll get the rides for you, wait and see. You’ll be turning this one and that one away, you will! It’s ’cos I’m so fuckin’ likeable.’