For Kicks Part 9

'What did Patty tell you?'

'She told me everything.' His anger was almost tangible. 'She came to me this morning in tears... she told me how you made her go into the hay barn... and held her there until she was worn out with struggling to get away... she told the... the disgusting things you did to her with your hands... and then how you forced her... forced her to...' He couldn't say it.

I was appalled. 'I didn't,' I said vehmently. 'I didn't do anything like that. I kissed her... and that's all. She's making it up.'

'She couldn't possibly have made it up. It was too detailed... She couldn't know such things unless they had happened to her.'

I opened my mouth and shut it again. They had happened to her, right enough; somewhere, with someone else, more than once, and certainly also with her willing co-operation. And I could see that to some extent at least she was going to get away with her horrible revenge, because there are some things you can't say about a girl to her father, especially if you like him.

October said scathingly, 'I have never been so mistaken in a man before. I thought you were responsible... or at least able to control yourself. Not a cheap lecherous jackanapes who would take my money and my regard and amuse yourself behind my back, debauching my daughter.'

There was enough truth in that to hurt, and the guilt I felt over my stupid behaviour didn't help. But I had to put up some kind of defence, because I would never have harmed Patty in any way, and there was still the investigation into the doping to be carried on. Now I had got so far, I did not want to be packed off home in disgrace.

I said slowly, 'I did go with Patty into the hay barn. I did kiss her. Once. Only once. After that I didn't touch her. I literally didn't touch any part of her, not her hand, not her dress... nothing.'

He looked at me steadily for a long time while the fury slowly died out of him and a sort of weariness took its place.

At length he said, almost calmly, 'One of you is lying. And I have to believe my daughter.' There was an unexpected flicker of entreaty in his voice.

'Yes,' I said. I looked away, up the gully. 'Well... this solves one problem, anyway.'

'What problem?'

'How to leave here with the ignominious sack and without a reference.'

It was so far away from what he was thinking about that it was several moments before he showed any reaction at all, and then he gave me an attentive, narrow-eyed stare which I did not try to avoid.

'You intend to go on with the investigation, then?'

'If you are willing.'

'Yes,' he said heavily, at length. 'Especially as you are moving on and will have no more opportunities of seeing Patty. In spite of what I personally think of you, you do still represent our best hope of success, and I suppose I must put the good of racing first.'

He fell silent. I contemplated the rather grim prospect of continuing to do that sort of work for a man who hated me. Yet the thought of giving up was worse. And that was odd.

Eventually he said, 'Why do you want to leave without a reference? You won't get a job in any of these three stables without a reference.'

'The only reference I need to get a job in the stable I am going to is no reference at all.'

'Whose stable?'

'Hedley Humber's.'

'Humber!' He was sombrely incredulous. 'But why? He's a very poor trainer and he didn't train any of the doped horses. What's the point of going there?'

'He didn't train any of the horses when they won,' 1 agreed, 'but he had three of them through his hands earlier in their careers. There is also a man called P. J. Adams who at one time or another owned six more of them. Adams lives, according to the map, less than ten miles from Humber. Humber lives at Posset, in Durham, and Adams at Tellbridge, just over the Northumberland border. That means that nine of the eleven horses spent some time in that one small area of the British Isles. None of them stayed long. The dossiers of Transistor and Rudyard are much less detailed than the others on the subject of their earlier life, and I have now no doubt that checking would show that they too, for a short while, came under the care of either Adams or Humber.'

'But how could the horses having spent some time with Adams or Humber possibly affect their speed months or years later?'

'I don't know,' I said. 'But I'll go and find out.'

There was a pause.

'Very well,' he said heavily. 'I'll tell Inskip that you are dismissed. And I'll tell him it is because you pestered Patricia.'

'Right.'

He looked at me coldly. 'You can write me reports. I don't want to see you again.'

I watched him walk away strongly up the gully. I didn't know whether or not he really believed any more that I had done what Patty said; but I did know that he needed to believe it. The alternative, the truth, was so much worse. What father wants to discover that his beautiful eighteen-year-old daughter is a lying s.l.u.t?

And as for me, I thought that on the whole I had got off lightly; if I had found that anyone had a.s.saulted Belinda or Helen I'd have half killed him.

After second exercise the following day Inskip told me exactly what he thought of me, and I didn't particularly enjoy it.

After giving me a public dressing down in the centre of the tarmac (with the lads grinning in sly amus.e.m.e.nt as they carried their buckets and hay nets with both ears flapping) he handed back the insurance card and income tax form-there was still a useful muddle going on over the illegible Cornish address on the one October had originally provided me with-and told me to pack my bags and get out of the yard at once. It would be no use my giving his name as a reference he said, because Lord October had expressly forbidden him to vouch for my character, and it was a decision with which he thoroughly agreed. He gave me a week's wages in lieu of notice, less Mrs Allnut's share, and that was that.

I packed my things in the little dormitory, patted goodbye to the bed I had slept in for six weeks, and went down to the kitchen where the lads were having their midday meal. Eleven pairs of eyes swivelled in my direction. Some were contemptuous, some were surprised, one or two thought it funny. None of them looked sorry to see me go. Mrs Allnut gave me a thick cheese sandwich, and I ate it walking down the hill to Slaw to catch the two o'clock bus to Harrogate.

And from Harrogate, where?

No lad in his senses would go straight from a prosperous place like Inskip's to ask for a job at Humber's, however abruptly he had been thrown out; there had to be a period of some gentle sliding downhill if it were to look unsuspicious. In fact, I decided, it would be altogether much better if it were Humber's head travelling lad who offered me work, and not I who asked for it. It should not be too difficult. I could turn up at every course where Humber had a runner, looking seedier and seedier and more and more ready to take any job at all, and one day the lad-hungry stable would take the bait.

Meanwhile I needed somewhere to live. The bus trundled down to Harrogate while I thought it out. Somewhere in the north east, to be near Humber's local meetings. A big town, so that I could be anonymous in it. An alive town, so that I could find ways of pa.s.sing the time between race meetings. With the help of maps and guide books in Harrogate public library I settled on Newcastle, and with the help of a couple of tolerant lorry drivers I arrived there late that afternoon and found myself a room in a back-street hotel.

It was a terrible room with peeling, coffee coloured walls, tatty printed linoleum wearing out on the floor, a narrow, hard divan bed, and some scratched furniture made out of stained plywood. Only its unexpected cleanliness and a shiny new washbasin in one corner made it bearable, but it did, I had to admit, suit my appearance and purpose admirably.

I dined in a fish and chip shop for three and six, and went to a cinema, and enjoyed not having to groom three horses or think twice about every word I said. My spirits rose several points at being free again and I succeeded in forgetting the trouble I was in with October.

In the morning I sent off to him in a registered package the second seventy-five pounds, which I had not given him in the gully on Sunday, together with a short formal note explaining why there would have to be a delay before I engaged myself to Humber.

From the post office I went to a betting shop and from their calendar copied down all the racing fixtures for the next month. It was the beginning of December, and I found there were very few meetings in the north before the first week in January; which was, from my point of view, a waste of time and a nuisance. After the following Sat.u.r.day's programme at Newcastle itself there was no racing north of Nottinghamshire until Boxing Day, more than a fortnight later.

Pondering this set-back I next went in search of a serviceable second-hand motor-cycle. It took me until late afternoon to find exactly what I wanted, a souped-up 500 c.c. Norton, four years old and the ex-property of a now one-legged young man who had done the ton once too often on the Great North Road. The salesman gave me these details with relish as he took my money and a.s.sured me that the bike would still do a hundred at a push. I thanked him politely and left the machine with him to have a new silencer fitted, along with some new hand grips, brake cables and tyres.

Lack of private transport at Slaw had not been a tremendous drawback, and I would not have been concerned about my mobility at Posset were it not for the one obtrusive thought that I might at some time find it advisable to depart in a hurry. I could not forget the journalist, Tommy Stapleton. Between Hexham and Yorkshire he had lost nine hours, and turned up dead. Between Hexham and Yorkshire lay Posset.

The first person I saw at Newcastle races four days later was the man with the black moustache who had offered me steady employment as a stable spy. He was standing in an un.o.btrusive corner near the entrance, talking to a big-eared boy whom I later saw leading round a horse from one of the best-known gambling stables in the country.

From some distance away I watched him pa.s.s to the boy a white envelope and receive a brown envelope in return. Money for information, I thought, and so openly done as to appear innocent.

I strolled along behind Black Moustache when he finished his transaction and made his way to the bookmakers' stands in Tattersalls. As before he appeared to be doing nothing but examining the prices offered on the first race: and as before I staked a few shillings on the favourite in case I should be seen to be following him. In spite of his survey he placed no bets at all, but strolled down to the rails which separated the enclosure from the course itself. There he came to an unplanned looking halt beside an artificial red-head wearing a yellowish leopard skin jacket over a dark grey skirt.

She turned her head towards him, and they spoke. Presently he took the brown envelope from his breast pocket and slipped it into his race card: and after a few moments he and the woman un.o.btrusively exchanged race cards. He wandered away from the rails, while she put the card containing the envelope into a large shiny black handbag and snapped it shut. From the shelter of the last row of bookies I watched her walk to the entrance into the Club and pa.s.s through on to the Members' lawn. I could not follow her there, but I went up on to the stands and watched her walk across the next-door enclosure. She appeared to be well-known. She stopped and spoke to several people... a bent old man with a big floppy hat, an obese young man who patted her arm repeatedly, a pair of women in mink coc.o.o.ns, a group of three men who laughed loudly and hid her from my view so that I could not see if she had given any of them the envelope from her handbag.

The horses cantered down the course and the crowds moved up on to the stands to watch the race. The redhead disappeared among the throng on the Members' stand, leaving me frustrated at losing her. The race was run, and the favourite cantered in by ten lengths. The crowd roared with approval. I stood where I was while people round me flowed down from the stands, waiting without too much hope to see if the leopard-skin redhead would reappear.

Obligingly, she did. She was carrying her handbag in one hand and her race card in the other. Pausing to talk again, this time to a very short fat man, she eventually made her way over to the bookmakers who stood along the rails separating Tattersalls from the Club and stopped in front of one nearest the stands, and nearest to me. For the first time I could see her face clearly: she was younger than I had thought and plainer of feature, with gaps between her top teeth.

She said in a piercing, tinny voice, 'I'll settle my account, Bimmo dear,' and opening her handbag took out a brown envelope and gave it to a small man in spectacles, who stood on a box beside a board bearing the words Bimmo Bognor (est. 1920), Manchester and London.

Mr Bimmo Bognor took the envelope and put it in his jacket pocket, and his hearty 'Ta, love,' floated up to my attentive ears.

I went down from the stands and collected my small winnings, thinking that while the brown envelope that the red-head had given to Bimmo Bognor looked looked like the envelope that the big-eared lad had given to Black Moustache, I could not be a hundred per cent sure of it. She might have given the lad's envelope to any one of the people I had watched her talk to, or to anyone on the stands while she was out of my sight: and she might then have gone quite honestly to pay her bookmaker. like the envelope that the big-eared lad had given to Black Moustache, I could not be a hundred per cent sure of it. She might have given the lad's envelope to any one of the people I had watched her talk to, or to anyone on the stands while she was out of my sight: and she might then have gone quite honestly to pay her bookmaker.

If I wanted to be certain of the chain, perhaps I could send an urgent message along it, a message so urgent that there would be no wandering among the crowds, but an unconcealed direct line between a and b, and b and c. The urgent message, since Sparking Plug was a runner in the fifth race, presented no difficulty at all; but being able to locate Black Moustache at exactly the right moment entailed keeping him in sight all the afternoon.

He was a creature of habit, which helped. He always watched the races from the same corner of the stand, patronized the same bar between times, and stood inconspicuously near the gate on to the course when the horses were led out of the parade ring. He did not bet.

Humber had two horses at the meeting, one in the third race and one in the last; and although it meant leaving my main purpose untouched until late in the afternoon, I let the third race go by without making any attempt to find his head travelling lad. I padded slowly along behind Black Moustache instead.

After the fourth race I followed him into the bar and jogged his arm violently as he began to drink. Half of his beer splashed over his hand and ran down his sleeve, and he swung round cursing, to find my face nine inches from his own.

'Sorry,' I said. 'Oh, it's you.' I put as much surprise into my voice as I could.

His eyes narrowed. 'What are you doing here? Sparking Plug runs in this race.'

I scowled. 'I've left Inskip's.'

'Have you got one of the jobs I suggested? Good.'

'Not yet. There might be a bit of a delay there, like.'

'Why? No vacancies?'

'They don't seem all that keen to have me since I got chucked out of Inskip's.'

'You got what?' he said sharply.

'Chucked out of Inskip's,' I repeated.

'Why?'

'They said something about Sparking Plug losing last week on the day you spoke to me... said they could prove nothing but they didn't want me around no more, and to get out.'

'That's too bad,' he said, edging away.

'But I got the last laugh,' I said, sn.i.g.g.e.ring and holding on to his arm. 'I'll tell you straight, I got the b.l.o.o.d.y last laugh.'

'What do you mean?' He didn't try to keep the contempt out of his voice, but there was interest in his eyes.

'Sparking Plug won't win today neither,' I stated. 'He won't win because he'll feel bad in his stomach.'

'How do you know?'

'I soaked his salt-lick with liquid paraffin,' I said. 'Every day since I left on Monday he's been rubbing his tongue on a laxative. He won't be feeling like racing. He won't b.l.o.o.d.y win, he won't.' I laughed.

Black Moustache gave me a sickened look, prized my fingers off his arm, and hurried out of the bar. I followed him carefully. He almost ran down into Tattersall's, and began frantically looking around. The red-headed woman was nowhere to be seen, but she must have been watching, because presently I saw her walking briskly down the rails, to the same spot where they had met before. And there, with a rush, she was joined by Black Moustache. He talked vehemently. She listened and nodded. He then turned away more calmly, and walked away out of Tatter-sails and back to the parade ring. The woman waited until he was out of sight: then she walked firmly into the Members' enclosure and along the rails until she came to Bimmo Bognor. The little man leant forward over the rails as she spoke earnestly into his ear. He nodded several times and she began to smile, and when he turned round to talk to his clerks I saw that he was smiling broadly too.

Unhurriedly I walked along the rows of bookmakers, studying the odds they offered. Sparking Plug was not favourite, owing to his waterlogged defeat last time out, but no one would chance more than five to one. At that price I staked forty pounds my entire earnings at Inskip's on my old charge, choosing a prosperous, jolly-looking bookmaker in the back row.

Hovering within earshot of Mr Bimmo Bognor a few minutes later I heard him offer seven to one against Sparking Plug to a stream of clients, and watched him rake in their money, confident that he would not have to pay them out.

Smiling contentedly I climbed to the top of the stands and watched Sparking Plug make mincemeat of his opponents over the fences and streak insultingly home by twenty lengths. It was a pity, I reflected, that I was too far away to hear Mr Bognor's opinion of the result.

My jolly bookmaker handed me two hundred and forty pounds in fivers without a second glance. To avoid Black Moustache and any reprisals he might be thinking of organizing, I then went over to the cheap enclosure in the centre of the course for twenty boring minutes; returning through the horse gate when the runners were down at the start for the last race, and slipping up the stairs to the stand used by the lads.

Humber's head travelling lad was standing near the top of the stands. I pushed roughly past him and tripped heavily over his feet.

'Look where you're b.l.o.o.d.y going,' he said crossly, focusing a pair of shoe-b.u.t.ton eyes on my face.

'Sorry mate. Got corns, have you?'

'None of your b.l.o.o.d.y business,' he said, looking at me sourly. He would know me again, I thought.

I bit my thumb nail. 'Do you know which of this lot is Martin Davies' head travelling lad?' I asked.

He said, 'That chap over there with the red scarf. Why?'

'I need a job,' I said: and before he could say anything I left him and pushed along the row to the man in the red scarf. His stable had one horse in the race. I asked him quietly if they ran two, and he shook his head and said no.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed that this negative answer had not been wasted on Humber's head lad. He thought, as I had hoped, that I had asked for work, and had been refused. Satisfied that the seed was planted, I watched the race (Humber's horse finished last) and slipped quietly away from the racecourse via the paddock rails and the Members' car park, without any interception of Black Moustache or a vengeful Bimmo Bognor.

A Sunday endured half in my dreary room and half walking round the empty streets was enough to convince me that I could not drag through the next fortnight in Newcastle doing nothing, and the thought of a solitary Christmas spent staring at coffee-coloured peeling paint was unattractive. Moreover I had two hundred pounds of bookmakers' money packed into my belt alongside what was left of October's: and Humber had no horses entered before the Stafford meeting on Boxing Day. It took me only ten minutes to decide what to do with the time between.

On Sunday evening I wrote to October a report on Bimmo Bognor's intelligence service, and at one in the morning I caught the express to London. I spent Monday shopping and on Tuesday evening, looking civilized in some decent new clothes and equipped with an extravagant pair of Kastle skis I signed the register of a comfortable, bright little hotel in a snow-covered village in the Dolomites.

The fortnight I spent in Italy made no difference one way or another to the result of my work for October, but it made a great deal of difference to me. It was the first real holiday I had had since my parents died, the first utterly carefree, purposeless, self-indulgent break for nine years.

I grew younger. Fast strenuous days on the snow slopes and a succession of evenings dancing with my ski-ing companions peeled away the years of responsibility like skins, until at last I felt twenty-seven instead of fifty, a young man instead of a father; until the unburdening process, begun when I left Australia and slowly fermenting through the weeks at Inskip's, suddenly seemed complete.

There was also a bonus in the shape of one of the receptionists, a rounded glowing girl whose dark eyes lit up the minute she saw me and who, after a minimum of persuasion, uninhibitedly spent a proportion of her nights in my bed. She called me her Christmas box of chocolates. She said I was the happiest lover she had had for a long time, and that I pleased her. She was probably doubly as promiscuous as Patty but she was much more wholesome; and she made me feel terrific instead of ashamed.

On the day I left, when I gave her a gold bracelet, she kissed me and told me not to come back, as things were never as good the second time. She was G.o.d's gift to bachelors, that girl.

I flew back to England on Christmas night feeling as physically and mentally fit as I had ever been in my life, and ready to take on the worst that Humber could dish out. Which, as it happened, was just as well.

Chapter 8.

At Stafford on Boxing Day one of the runners in the first race, the selling chase, threw off his jockey a stride after landing in fourth place over the last fence, crashed through the rails, and bolted away across the rough gra.s.s in the centre of the course.

A lad standing near me on the draughty steps behind the weighing room ran off cursing to catch him; but as the horse galloped crazily from one end of the course to the other it took the lad, the trainer, and about ten a.s.sorted helpers a quarter of an hour to lay their hands on his bridle. I watched them as with worried faces they led the horse, an undistinguished bay, off the course and past me towards the racecourse stables.