Taking the Fall (7 page)

He met up with Mike Ruddy at the Pillars of Hercules on Greek Street in Soho. It was a smoky joint padded out with tired professionals and creative types. Ruddy said he’d rented a tiny office around the corner and was in the process of equipping it. So far he had a telephone, a desk with no chair and a paintbrush. Duncan suspected he was living there.

When Duncan arrived at the pub, Ruddy was already three quarters of the way down a mug of bitter. At the table with him but drinking white wine was Aaron Palmer, the senior jockey who’d also thrown in his lot with Ruddy. Ruddy crowed at Duncan’s arrival and scuttled off to get him a glass of wine and another beer for himself. The two jockeys nodded at each other.

‘He managed to talk you into it too?’ Duncan said, glancing round. All jockeys had a habit of checking out the faces seated about them in a bar. Just in case they might say something that could be misconstrued – or correctly construed – as inside information.

‘Ah, fuck it,’ said Palmer.

Palmer was thirty-eight. He was already cruising to retirement. With most jump jockeys retiring around the age of thirty-five, he maybe had a couple more seasons left. Unlike flat jockeys, who were more likely to ride until they were fifty, jump jockeys started to feel the pain of hitting the ground at thirty miles per hour on a regular basis. About one in every ten rides you ended up with your face in the wet grass, hugging your ribs. You could see that Palmer had lost his appetite for mud pie. In the Weighing Room some of the jockeys called him the Monk, not just because he had a severe haircut like a tonsure, but also because he was a loner with an intense stare.

Duncan wondered if sticking at a job for long enough changed your face. He’d seen fishmongers who looked at you like a haddock on a marble slab. Palmer had a ridiculously long, thin horse-face, which made you wonder if he’d started out like that. He also had a habit of chewing on nothing at all. He had everything but the bridle and the blaze.

‘So how did he talk you round?’ Palmer wanted to know.

‘I’m still not sure. Plus I didn’t already have an agent.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Lad with your talents.’

‘I can’t bite my tongue.’

‘Then get a tongue-tie.’

‘Ha.’

‘I rode a couple of times for your dad, you know.’

‘I know.’

Palmer glanced right and left. Then he slowly leaned across the table and spoke very quietly. ‘I don’t know what went down that time. But I know what I know and Charlie was always a straight shooter.’

‘It’s good to hear you say that. Not everyone thinks so.’

‘I know what I know. And so do others.’

Ruddy came back with the round of drinks. Wine for Duncan. ‘You’ve no idea what a relief it is,’ he said, ‘to drink as much beer as you like. What are you two talking about?’

Palmer looked at him with glittering eyes. ‘Up Your Bum to win the three thirty at Buggertown. Cheers.’

Yes, one or two big-time trainers hadn’t liked it when Charlie had begun to do well. Not least because Charlie wasn’t one to mince words. That was where Duncan had got it from. Charlie served it straight up. If he thought someone was a liar or a cheat, he told them. He said:
I don’t care if the mare is in foal or the stallion breaks its neck, a liar is a liar and a cheat is a cheat.
He’d taught Duncan to speak straight, too.

But what he’d failed to teach Duncan was that you couldn’t do that in horse racing any more than you could do it at the town hall hustings. Eventually the liars and the cheats and the knaves would move against you.

While Duncan was at Penderton, Charlie was having his best year. But maybe he was doing too well. He had winners over in Ireland at Punchestown, at Kempton, at Cheltenham in front of all the cameras, and then finally a spectacular and thrilling second-place photo finish with a horse called Dieseltown Blues at the Grand National, on the day when every granny in the country placed a bet, the ultimate test for horse, jockey and trainer. And then they started coming.

High-profile owners who were maybe dissatisfied with their trainers – in the way that high-profile owners often were dissatisfied if they weren’t winning everything – brought some serious stock along for Charlie to look at. And if the animals weren’t fit, he told them so. Fitness and diet and a different but uncompromising training regimen for each horse was what Charlie was all about. But the original trainers were disgruntled to hear that Charlie had told so-and-so that their horses were unfit. Some of them took it personally.

And when one owner decided he wanted to pull all six of his horses from their current stable and move across to Charlie, that was when he got the hex.

‘You’ve got a visitor,’ his head lad said.

Charlie let go of the fetlock of the bay he was attending to and saw a man in a sheepskin coat and a cloth cap getting out of a Jaguar XJ6 luxury saloon. He recognised the man from televised horse racing, though they’d never met. It was William Osborne. There were two top trainers in the country at that time, battling for supremacy. Osborne was one of them.

Osborne, a fox-faced man, tucked his chin into the collar of his sheepskin coat as he walked across the yard, so that his warm smile was half hidden. From across the yard he offered a handshake and greeted Charlie like they were old pals. ‘Charlie,’ he said.
Charlie!
‘How come we’ve not met in person before now? How’s that then, hey?’

‘It’s Mr Osborne?’ Charlie asked, shaking the hand, still wondering what the hell this was all about.

‘Will, please, Will to you, Charlie. We trainers are one of a kind.’

No we’re not
, thought Charlie. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Cup o’ tea would be grand,’ Osborne said. He stuck out a long tongue to advertise how parched he might be.

Charlie kept an electric kettle and a box of tea bags in the tack room, so he led the way through. Without being invited, Osborne took a chair. Charlie leaned his back against the wall, arms folded, while the kettle boiled.

‘I’ve got a filly. Very sweet. Should be doing much better. Big hopes for her. But she keeps fizzling out. I’ve done everything and I want you to have her, see what you can do.’

‘What?’ Charlie said. ‘Why am I so honoured?’

Osborne wrinkled his eyes. ‘You’ve got a hell of a reputation for ironing out these things.’

‘Have I?’

‘Oh yes. Oh yes. Have a word with Charlie about her. That’s what they’ve all said.’

‘Who? Who said?’

Osborne tapped his nose. ‘Those who know.’

Charlie sighed. ‘If she’s fading, you can’t always straighten ’em. Depends how she’s been treated. If she’s injured, that’s another thing.’

The kettle boiled. Charlie made tea in two chipped mugs.

‘Milky and sweet, if you don’t mind,’ Osborne said. ‘Will you take her, Charlie? I’ll pay top dollar. That goes without saying.’

Charlie handed over the mug of tea. ‘Of course I’ll bloody take her. I’ll be glad to.’

‘Good man! That’s what I was hoping to hear.’ He slurped the tea nosily. ‘Lovely.’

They talked for a while about the season, and some of the successes both men had had. Osborne was very complimentary about the race run by Dieseltown Blues at the Grand National. He said it could win it next year. He wondered where Charlie was sourcing his stock.

‘I’ve been over to France a few times. Looking for something different, you know?’

Osborne said he did know. He even suggested Charlie might keep an eye out for him on his next run across the Channel. He got near the bottom of his mug of tea before he said, ‘George McEwan’s on about pulling his six horses out of my place and bringing them down here.’

Suddenly all the flattery fell away and Charlie saw right to the heart of this surprise visit. ‘Happen,’ he said.

‘It’s a lot of horses for me to lose right now, Charlie.’

‘It is that.’

‘Six horses. We’re near the end of the season. And me and you-know-who are neck and neck for the Champion Trainer.’

‘That you are.’

Osborne laughed, a curious bark of a laugh. ‘He got a treble at Nottingham on Saturday while I had a bad day. You see it’s not just the six, Charlie; it’s that tongues wag and people lose confidence very easily. Then another follows him. They’re like bloody sheep, you know? Anyway, it’s a very bad time for me to lose any horses. Very bad. Worst possible timing, to be honest.’

‘Yes, I can see that.’

‘The rate you’re coming through, Charlie, and all the great things you’re doing right now, you’re going to need some good mates around you. Believe me, it cuts up rough. Well, I’m just here to say that I’m very interested in being a friend to you. I can see how we both need each other.’

‘Well, to be honest,’ Charlie said, ‘I don’t really see how I need you.’

‘Ha! You say that now. You say that now. But – and no disrespect to you, because you’ve done a great job with this small set-up you’ve got here – you’ve never been in the thick of it at the top level. And that, Charlie,
that
is when you need friends. I’ll be honest with you – George is a fucking idiot. He’s the worst kind of owner. He wants to tell you what size hoof pick to use. He’s a fucking pain in the arse.’

‘But you want to keep him.’

‘At the moment. As I’ve explained to you, it’s very bad timing right now.’

‘Mr Osborne—’

‘Will, please, Charlie!’

‘Will. If you want to bring your filly down here, that’s up to you and I’ll be very pleased to try and straighten her out for you. And if George wants to bring one, two or six of his horses, I’ll be pleased to take them, too. I don’t mind telling you, I need the money. The building has already started on my new stables. It’s a done deal.’

‘That’s not what I want to hear, Charlie.’

‘We don’t always get what we want, Will.’

Osborne sighed. ‘You don’t understand how things work in this business. You think you do, but you don’t.’

‘I’ve a fair idea.’

‘No. You don’t get it.’ He swilled the dregs of his tea around the bottom of his mug. Then he flung them across the concrete floor of the tack room, where they splashed dangerously near to Charlie’s boots. He stood up and walked to the door, where he turned before leaving. ‘I’ve come here trying to help you, and there it is. You think you’ve thrown a six, but you haven’t. You’ve thrown a big zero. You mind how you go, Charlie.’ Then he was gone.

Later that evening, Charlie told Duncan about the whole thing. He tended not to keep things from his son.

‘What are you going to do then, Dad?’

‘What am I going to do? I’m going to do this.’ Charlie picked up the phone and carefully dialled a number. ‘Hello, is that George? It’s Charlie Claymore here. Yes, I’m good. I’ve just rung to tell you the new stable block will be completed over the weekend. You bring your six horses just as soon as you’re ready. You will? That’s grand. I’ll see you next week, then.’

He put the phone down with a light click. Then he grinned at Duncan, showing his teeth, like a horse.

Duncan had been gone from the hotel maybe two hours. When he let himself into the room, he thought Lorna had gone to sleep. She was still tied to the bed exactly as he had left her, spread-eagled with her pale bottom presented to him like the centrepiece at a banquet. There were slight chafe marks on her ankles and wrists where she’d struggled to break her restraints. She lifted her head and looked back at him and her hair fell across her eye. It was difficult to say whether she looked angry or submissive.

He sat on the bed next to her and gently ran his ring finger along the length of her spine. She shuddered. The palm of his hand cupped her buttock and he trailed it across the swell of her bottom. Then he leaned across and nuzzled her neck, and traced the length of her spine with his lips. He kissed the backs of her legs, starting with the delicate folds at the backs of her knees.

‘There should be a word for the back of the knee,’ he said.

‘You’re a swine.’

He moved up to kiss the back of her thighs.

‘While you were gone, a hotel waiter came and found me like this. He fucked me. It’s all your fault.’

‘Did you give him a good tip?’

He put his fingers inside her. She was still wet.

‘I need a pee! I’m desperate. Duncan?’

Duncan relented. He started to loosen the cord at her wrist.

She stopped him. ‘No. I want you to fuck me again before you untie me.’

Some time later, when they were both getting dressed, Lorna pouted and said, ‘Duncan, do you have any feelings for me at all?’

‘Of course I do. I wouldn’t be here with you now if I had no feelings for you.’

‘But you never show your feelings. I don’t even know if you like me!’

‘Come here.’ He kissed her. ‘I won’t lie to you: I’m not in love with you. I’m not going to mislead you. But I love being with you. Isn’t that enough?’

‘No. Yes. I don’t know.’

‘Get dressed. I’d better go and settle the bill.’

‘Just tell them “Oscar”.’

‘Oscar?’

‘Oscar.’

Duncan went down to the hotel reception area and asked to pay the bill. He was relieved that Lorna had parted with the code word. He suspected he didn’t have enough in either his pocket or his bank account to cover lunch and a room at the Ritz. ‘It’s the Cadogan account.’

‘Certainly, sir.’ The receptionist took out a file, spread it before him and asked for a reference.

‘Oscar.’

‘Thank you, sir. That’s all taken care of.’

5

A
t Ludlow, Duncan rode a second-placed novice called Billy Blake for Petie Quinn. There was an exciting level of fitness to Petie’s horses, whether they were being brought on or were the more finished article. It reminded him of Charlie’s training techniques. Petie went for a good broad chest and plenty of muscle in the back end. He was less concerned with how pretty or stylish the animal was in the gallop. He knew power when he saw it.

They had the new silks designed by Petie’s daughter Roisin, a nervy, doe-eyed colleen in her mid-twenties, slim as a reed. The silks were sky blue with dark blue chevrons on the sleeve and a dark blue star on the body. These would be his colours every time he rode for Petie.