For Kicks Part 7

He looked round cautiously, and lowered his voice still further. 'Just add a little something to Sparking Plug's feed on Sunday night. Nothing to it, you see? Dead easy.'

'Dead easy,' I repeated: and so it was.

'You're on, then?' he looked eager.

'I don't know your name,' I said.

'Never you mind.' He shook his head with finality.

'Are you a bookmaker?'

'No,' he said. 'I'm not. And that's enough with the questions. Are you on?'

'If you're not a bookmaker,' I said slowly, thinking my way, 'and you are willing to pay a hundred pounds to make sure a certain favourite doesn't win, I'd guess that you didn't want just to make money backing all the other runners, but that you intend to tip off a few bookmakers that the race is fixed, and they'll be so grateful they'll pay you say, fifty quid each, at the very least. There are about eleven thousand bookmakers in Britain. A nice big market. But I expect you go to the same ones over and over again. Sure of your welcome, I should think.'

His face was a study of consternation and disbelief, and I realized I had hit the target, bang on.

'Who told you...' he began weakly.

'I wasn't born yesterday,' I said with a nasty grin. 'Relax. No one told me.' I paused. 'I'll give Sparking Plug his extra nosh, but I want more for it. Two hundred.'

'No. The deal's off.' He mopped his forehead.

'All right.' I shrugged.

'A hundred and fifty then,' he said grudgingly.

'A hundred and fifty,' I agreed. 'Before I do it.'

'Half before, half after,' he said automatically. It was by no means the first time he had done this sort of deal.

I agreed to that. He said if I came down to the pub on Sat.u.r.day evening I would be given a packet for Sparking Plug and seventy-five pounds for myself, and I nodded and went away, leaving him staring moodily into his gla.s.s.

On my way back up the hill I crossed Soupy off my list of potentially useful contacts. Certainly he had procured me for a doping job, but I had been asked to stop a favourite in a novice 'chase, not to accelerate a dim long priced selling plater. It was extremely unlikely that both types of fraud were the work of one set of people.

Unwilling to abandon Colonel Beckett's typescript I spent chunks of that night and the following two nights in the bathroom, carefully rereading it. The only noticeable result was that during the day I found the endless stable work irksome because for five nights in a row I had had only three hours' sleep. But I frankly dreaded having to tell October on Sunday that the eleven young men had made their mammoth investigation to no avail, and I had an unreasonable feeling that if I hammered away long enough I could still wring some useful message from those densely packed pages.

On Sat.u.r.day morning, though it was bleak, bitter and windy, October's daughters rode out with the first string. Elinor only came near enough to exchange polite good mornings, but Patty, who was again riding one of my horses, made my giving her a leg up a moment of eyelash-fluttering intimacy, deliberately and unnecessarily rubbing her body against mine.

'You weren't here last week, Danny boy,' she said, putting her feet in the irons. 'Where were you?'

'At Cheltenham... miss.'

'Oh. And next Sat.u.r.day?'

'I'll be here.'

She said, with intentional insolence, 'Then kindly remember next Sat.u.r.day to shorten the leathers on the saddle before I mount. These are far too long.'

She made no move to shorten them herself, but gestured for me to do it for her. She watched me steadily, enjoying herself. While I was fastening the second buckle she robbed her knee forwards over my hands and kicked me none too gently in the ribs.

'I wonder you stand me teasing you, Danny boy,' she said softly, bending down, 'a dishy guy like you should answer back more. Why don't you?'

'I don't want the sack,' I said, with a dead straight face.

'A coward, too,' she said sardonically, and twitched her horse away.

And she'll get into bad trouble one day, if she keeps on like that, I thought. She was too provocative. Stunningly pretty of course, but that was only the beginning; and her hurtful little tricks were merely annoying. It was the latent invitation which disturbed and aroused.

I shrugged her out of my mind, fetched Sparking Plug, sprang up on to his back and moved out of the yard and up to the moor for the routine working gallops.

The weather that day got steadily worse until while we were out with the second string it began to rain heavily in fierce slashing gusts, and we struggled miserably back against it with stinging faces and sodden clothes. Perhaps because it went on raining, or possibly because it was, after all, Sat.u.r.day, Wally for once refrained from making me work all afternoon, and I spent the three hours sitting with about nine other lads in the kitchen of the cottage, listening to the wind shrieking round the corners outside and watching Chepstow races on television, while our damp jerseys, breeches and socks steamed gently round the fire.

I put the previous season's form book on the kitchen table and sat over it with my head propped on the knuckles of my left hand, idly turning the pages with my right. Depressed by my utter lack of success with the eleven horses' dossiers, by the antipathy I had to arouse in the lads, and also, I think, by the absence of the hot sunshine I usually lived in at that time of the year, I began to feel that the whole masquerade had been from the start a ghastly mistake. And the trouble was that having taken October's money I couldn't back out; not for months. This thought depressed me further still. I sat slumped in unrelieved gloom, wasting my much needed free time.

I think now that it must have been the sense that I was failing in what I had set out to do, more than mere tiredness, which beset me that afternoon, because although later on I encountered worse things it was only for that short while that I ever truly regretted having listened to October, and unreservedly wished myself back in my comfortable Australian cage.

The lads watching the television were making disparaging remarks about the jockeys and striking private bets against each other on the outcome of the races.

'The uphill finish will sort 'em out as usual,' Paddy was saying. 'It's a long way from the last... Aladin's the only one who's got the stamina for the job.'

'No,' contradicted Grits. 'Lobster c.o.c.ktail's a flyer...'

Morosely I riffled the pages of the form book, aimlessly looking through them for the hundredth time, and came by chance on the map of Chepstow racecourse in the general information section at the beginning of the book. There were diagrammatic maps of all the main courses showing the shape of the tracks and the positioning of fences, stands, starting gates and winning posts, and I had looked before at those for Ludlow, Stafford and Hay-dock, without results. There was no map of Kelso or Sedgefield. Next to the map section were a few pages of information about the courses, the lengths of their circuits, the names and addresses of the officials, the record times for the races, and so on.

For something to do, I turned to Chepstow's paragraph. Paddy's 'long way from the last', was detailed there: two hundred and fifty yards. I looked up Kelso, Sedgefield, Ludlow, Stafford and Haydock. They had much longer run-ins than Chepstow. I looked up the run-ins of all the courses in the book. The Aintree Grand National run-in was the second longest. The longest of all was Sedgefield, and in third, fourth, fifth, and sixth positions came Ludlow, Haydock, Kelso and Stafford. All had run-ins of over four hundred yards.

Geography had nothing to do with it: those five courses had almost certainly been chosen by the dopers because in each case it was about a quarter of a mile from the last fence to the winning post.

It was an advance, even if a small one, to have made at least some pattern out of the chaos. In a slightly less abysmal frame of mind I shut the form book and at four o'clock followed the other lads out into the unwelcome rain-swept yard to spend an hour with each of my three charges, grooming them thoroughly to give their coats a clean healthy shine, tossing and tidying their straw beds, fetching their water, holding their heads while Inskip walked round, rugging them up comfortably for the night, and finally fetching their evening feed. As usual it was seven before we had all finished, and eight before we had eaten and changed and were b.u.mping down the hill to Slaw, seven of us sardined into a rickety old Austin.

Bar billiards, darts, dominoes, the endless friendly bragging, the ingredients as before. Patiently, I sat and waited. It was nearly ten, the hour when the lads began to empty their gla.s.ses and think about having to get up the next morning, when Soupy strolled across the room towards the door, and, seeing my eyes on him, jerked his head for me to follow him. I got up and went out after him, and found him in the lavatories.

'This is for you. The rest on Tuesday,' he said economically; and treating me to a curled lip and stony stare to impress me with his toughness, he handed me a thick brown envelope. I put it in the inside pocket of my black leather jacket, and nodded to him. Still without speaking, without smiling, hard-eyed to match, I turned on my heel and went back into the bar: and after a while, casually, he followed.

So I crammed into the Austin and was driven up the hill, back to bed in the little dormitory, with seventy five pounds and a packet of white powder sitting snugly over my heart.

Chapter 6.

October dipped his finger in the powder and tasted it.

'I don't know what it is either,' he said, shaking his head. 'I'll get it a.n.a.lysed.'

I bent down and patted his dog, and fondled its ears.

He said 'You do realise what a risk you'll be running if you take his money and don't give the dope to the horse?'

I grinned up at him.

'It's no laughing matter,' he said seriously. 'They can be pretty free with their boots, these people, and it would be no help to us if you get your ribs kicked in...'

'Actually,' I said, straightening up, 'I do think it might be best if Sparking Plug didn't win... I could hardly hope to attract custom from the dopers we are really after if they heard I had double-crossed anyone before.'

'You're quite right.' He sounded relieved. 'Sparking Plug must lose; but Inskip... how on earth can I tell him that the jockey must pull back?'

'You can't,' I said. 'You don't want them getting into trouble. But it won't matter much if I do. The horse won't win if I keep him thirsty tomorrow morning and give him a bucketful of water just before the race.'

He looked at me with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'I see you've learned a thing or two.'

'It'd make your hair stand on end, what I've learned.'

He smiled back. 'All right then. I suppose it's the only thing to do. I wonder what the National Hunt Committee would think of a Steward conspiring with one of his own stable lads to stop a favourite?' He laughed. 'I'll tell Roddy Beckett what to expect... though it won't be so funny for Inskip, nor for the lads here, if they back the horse, nor for the general public, who'll lose their money.'

'No,' I agreed.

He folded the packet of white powder and tucked it back into the envelope with the money. The seventy-five pounds had foolishly been paid in a bundle of new fivers with consecutive numbers: and we had agreed that October would take them and try to discover to whom they had been issued.

I told him about the long run-ins on all of the courses where the eleven horses had won.

'It almost sounds as if they might have been using vitamins after all,' he said thoughtfully. 'You can't detect them in dope tests because technically they are not dope at all, but food. The whole question of vitamins is very difficult.'

'They increase stamina?' I asked.

'Yes, quite considerably. Horses which 'die' in the last half mile and as you pointed out, all eleven are that type would be ideal subjects. But vitamins were among the first things we considered, and we had to eliminate them. They can help horses to win, if they are injected in ma.s.sive doses into the bloodstream, and they are undetectable in a.n.a.lysis because they are used up in the winning, but they are undetectable in other ways too. They don't excite, they don't bring a horse back from a race looking as though benzedrine were coming out of his ears.' He sighed. 'I don't know...'

With regret I made my confession that I had learned nothing from Beckett's typescript.

'Neither Beckett nor I expected as much from it as you did,' he said. 'I've been talking to him a lot this week, and we think that although all those extensive inquiries were made at the time, you might find something that was overlooked if you moved to one of the stables where those eleven horses were trained when they were doped. Of course, eight of the horses were sold and have changed stables, which is a pity, but three are still with their original trainers, and it might be best if you could get a job with one of those.'

'Yes,' I said. 'AH right. I'll try all three trainers and see if one of them will take me on. But the trail is very cold by now... and joker number twelve will turn up in a different stable altogether. There was nothing, I suppose, at Haydock this week?'

'No. Saliva samples were taken from all the runners before the selling chase, but the favourite won, quite normally, and we didn't have the samples a.n.a.lysed. But now that you've spotted that those five courses must have been chosen deliberately for their long finishing straights we will keep stricter watches there than ever. Especially if one of those eleven horses runs there again.'

'You could check with the racing calendar to see if any has been entered,' I agreed. 'But so far none of them has been doped twice, and I can't see why the pattern should change.'

A gust of bitter wind blew down the gully, and he shivered. The little stream, swollen with yesterday's rains, tumbled busily over its rocky bed. October whistled to his dog, who was sniffing along its banks.

'By the way,' he said, shaking hands, 'the vets are of the opinion that the horses were not helped on their way by pellets or darts, or anything shot or thrown. But they can't be a hundred per cent certain. They didn't at the time examine all the horses very closely. But if we get another one I'll see they go over every inch looking for punctures.'

'Fine.' We smiled at each other and turned away. I liked him. He was imaginative and had a sense of humour to leaven the formidable big-business-executive power of his speech and manner. A tough man, I thought appreciatively: tough in mind, muscular in body, unswerving in purpose: a man of the kind to have earned an earldom, if he hadn't inherited it.

Sparking Plug had to do without his bucket of water that night and again the following morning. The box driver set off to Leicester with a pocketful of hard-earned money from the lads and their instructions to back the horse to win; and I felt a traitor.

Inskip's other horse, which had come in the box too, was engaged in the third race, but the novice 'chase was not until the fifth race on the card, which left me free to watch the first two races as well as Sparks' own. I bought a race card and found a s.p.a.ce on the parade ring rails, and watched the horses for the first race being led round. Although from the form books I knew the names of a great many trainers they were still unknown to me by sight; and accordingly, when they stood chatting with their jockeys in the ring, I tried, for interest, to identify some of them. There were only seven of them engaged in the first race, Owen, Cundell, Beeby, Cazalet, Humber... Humber? What was it that I had heard about Humber? I couldn't remember. Nothing very important, I thought.

Humber's horse looked the least well of the lot, and the lad leading him round wore unpolished shoes, a dirty rain-coat and an air of not caring to improve matters. The jockey's jersey, when he took his coat off, could be seen to be still grubby with mud from a former outing, and the trainer who had failed to provide clean colours or to care about stable smartness was a large, bad-tempered looking man leaning on a thick, k.n.o.bbed walking stick.

As it happened, Humber's lad stood beside me on the stand to watch the race.

'Got much chance?' I asked idly.

'Waste of time running him,' he said, his lip curling. 'I'm fed to the back molars with the sod.'

'Oh. Perhaps your other horse is better, though?' I murmured, watching the runners line up for the start.

'My other horse?' He laughed without mirth. 'Three others, would you believe it? I'm fed up with the whole sodding set up. I'm packing it in at the end of the week, pay or no pay.'

I suddenly remembered what I had heard about Humber. The worst stable in the country to work for, the boy in the Bristol hostel had said: they starved the lads and knocked them about and could only get riff-raff to work there.

'How do you mean, pay or no pay?' I asked.

'Humber pays sixteen quid a week, instead of eleven,' he said, 'but it's not b.l.o.o.d.y worth it. I've had a bellyful of b.l.o.o.d.y Humber. I'm getting out.'

The race started, and we watched Humber's horse finish last. The lad disappeared, muttering, to lead it away.

I smiled, followed him down the stairs, and forgot him, because waiting near the bottom step was a seedy, black-moustached man whom I instantly recognised as having been in the bar at the Cheltenham dance.

I walked slowly away to lean over the parade ring rail, and he inconspicuously followed. He stopped beside me, and with his eyes on the one horse already in the ring, he said, 'I hear that you are hard up.'

'Not after today, I'm not,' I said, looking him up and down.

He glanced at me briefly. 'Oh. Are you so sure of Sparking Plug?'

'Yeah,' I said with an unpleasant smirk. 'Certain.' Someone, I reflected, had been kind enough to tell him which horse I looked after: which meant he had been checking up on me. I trusted he had learned nothing to my advantage.

'Hmm.'

A whole minute pa.s.sed. Then he said casually, 'Have you ever thought, of changing your job... going to another stable?'

'I've thought of it,' I admitted, shrugging. 'Who hasn't?'

'There's always a market for good lads,' he pointed out, 'and I've heard you're a dab hand at the mucking out. With a reference from Inskip you could get in anywhere, if you told them you were prepared to wait for a vacancy.'

'Where?' I asked; but he wasn't to be hurried. After another minute he said, still conversationally, 'It can be very... er... lucrative... working for some stables.'

'Oh?'

'That is,' he coughed discreetly, 'if you are ready to do a bit more than the stable tells you to.'

'Such as?'

'Oh... general duties,' he said vaguely. 'It varies. Anything helpful to, er, the person who is prepared to supplement your income.'