Whip Hand Read online

  ‘What percentage of horses develop bad hearts?’ I said.

  Some of the chronic anxiety state diminished as he moved confidently on to neutral ground.

  ‘Perhaps ten per cent have irregular heart beats. It doesn’t always mean anything. Owners don’t like to buy horses which have them, but look at Night Nurse which won the Champion Hurdle, that had a heart murmur.’

  ‘But how often do you get horses having to stop racing because of bad hearts?’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps two or three in a hundred.’

  George Caspar, I reflected, trained upwards of a hundred and thirty horses, year after year.

  ‘On average,’ I said, ‘are George Caspar’s horses more prone to bad hearts than any other trainer’s?’

  The anxiety state returned in full force. ‘I don’t know if I should answer that.’

  ‘If it’s “no”,’ I said, ‘what’s the hassle?’

  ‘But your purpose in asking …’

  ‘A client,’ I said, lying with regrettable ease, ‘wants to know if he should send George Caspar a sparkling yearling. He asked me to check on Gleaner and Zingaloo.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well, no, I don’t suppose he has more. Nothing significant. Caspar’s an excellent trainer, of course. If your client isn’t too greedy when his horse is two, there shouldn’t be any risk at all.’

  ‘Thanks, then.’ I stood up and shook hands with him. ‘I suppose there’s no heart trouble with Tri-Nitro?’

  ‘None at all. Sound, through and through. His heart bangs away like a gong, loud and clear.’

  6

  ‘That’s that, then,’ Chico said over a pint and pie in the White Hart Hotel. ‘End of case. Mrs Caspar’s off her tiny rocker, and no one’s been getting at George Caspar’s youngsters except George Caspar himself.’

  ‘She won’t be pleased to hear it,’ I said.

  ‘Will you tell her?’

  ‘Straight away. If she’s convinced, she might calm down.’

  So I telephoned to George Caspar’s house, and asked for Rosemary, saying I was a Mr Barnes. She came on the line and said hallo in the questioning voice one uses to unknown callers.

  ‘Mr … Barnes?’

  ‘It’s Sid Halley.’

  The alarm came instantly. ‘I can’t talk to you.’

  ‘Can you meet me, then?’

  ‘Of course not. I’ve no reason for going to London.’

  ‘I’m just down the road, in the town.’ I said. ‘I’ve things to tell you. And I don’t honestly think there’s any need for disguises and so on.’

  ‘I’m not being seen with you in Newmarket.’

  She agreed, however, to drive out in her car, pick Chico up, and go where he directed: and Chico and I worked out a place on the map which looked a tranquillizing spot for paranoiacs. The churchyard at Barton Mills, eight miles towards Norwich.

  We parked the cars side by side at the gate and Rosemary walked with me among the graves. She was wearing again the fawn raincoat and a scarf, but not this time the false curls. The wind blew wisps of her own chestnut hair across her eyes, and she pulled them away impatiently: not with quite as much tension as when she had come to my flat, but still with more force than was needed.

  I told her I had been to see Tom Garvey and Henry Thrace at their stud farms. I told her I had talked to Brothersmith; and I told her what they’d all said. She listened, and shook her head.

  ‘The horses were nobbled,’ she said obstinately. ‘I’m sure they were.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t know how.’ Her voice rose sharply, the agitation showing in spasms of the muscles round her mouth. ‘But I told you. I told you, they’ll get at Tri-Nitro. A week today, it’s the Guineas. You’ve got to keep him safe for a week.’

  We walked along the path beside the quiet mounds and the grey weatherbeaten headstones. The grass was mown, but there were no flowers, and no mourners. The dead there were long gone, long forgotten. Raw grief and tears now in the municipal plot outside the town; brown heaps of earth and brilliant wreaths and desolation in tidy rows.

  ‘George has doubled the security on Tri-Nitro,’ I said.

  ‘I know that. Don’t be stupid.’

  I said reluctantly, ‘In the normal course of events he’ll be giving Tri-Nitro some strong work before the Guineas. Probably on Saturday morning.’

  ‘I suppose so. What do you mean? Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well …’ I paused, wondering if indeed it would be sensible to suggest a way-out theory without testing it, and thinking that there was no way of testing it anyway.

  ‘Go on,’ she said sharply. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You could … er … make sure he takes all sorts of precautions when he gives Tri-Nitro that last gallop.’ I paused. ‘Inspect the saddle … that sort of thing.’

  Rosemary said fiercely, ‘What are you saying? Spell it out, for God’s sake. Don’t pussyfoot round it.’

  ‘Lots of races have been lost because of too-hard training gallops too soon beforehand.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said impatiently. ‘Everyone knows that. But George would never do it.’

  ‘What if the saddle was packed with lead? What if a three-year-old was given a strong gallop carrying fifty pounds dead weight? And then ran under severe pressure a few days later in the Guineas? And strained his heart?’

  ‘My God,’ she said. ‘My God.’

  ‘I’m not saying that it did happen to Zingaloo and Gleaner, or anything like it. Only that it’s a distant possibility. And if it’s something like that … it must involve someone inside the stable.’

  She had begun trembling again.

  ‘You must go on,’ she said. ‘Please go on trying. I brought some money for you.’ She plunged a hand into her raincoat pocket and brought out a smallish brown envelope. ‘It’s cash. I can’t give you a cheque.’

  ‘I haven’t earned it,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, yes. Take it.’ She was insistent, and finally I put it in my pocket, unopened.

  ‘Let me consult George,’ I said.

  ‘No. He’d be furious. I’ll do it … I mean, I’ll warn him about the gallops. He thinks I’m crazy, but if I go on about it long enough he’ll take notice.’ She looked at her watch and her agitation increased. ‘I’ll have to go back now. I said I was going for a walk on the Heath. I never do that. I’ll have to get back, or they’ll be wondering.’

  ‘Who’ll be wondering?’

  ‘George, of course.’

  ‘Does he know where you are every minute of the day?’

  We were retracing our steps with some speed towards the churchyard gates. Rosemary looked as if she would soon be running.

  ‘We always talk. He asks where I’ve been. He’s not suspicious … it’s just a habit. We’re always together. Well, you know what it’s like in a racing household. Owners come at odd times. George likes me to be there.’

  We reached the cars. She said goodbye uncertainly, and drove off homewards in a great hurry. Chico, waiting in the Scimitar, said, ‘Quiet here, isn’t it. Even the ghosts must find it boring.’

  I got into the car and tossed Rosemary’s envelope on to his lap. ‘Count that,’ I said, starting the engine. ‘See how we’re doing.’

  He tore it open, pulled out a neat wad of expensive-coloured banknotes, and licked his fingers.

  ‘Phew,’ he said, coming to the end. ‘She’s bonkers.’

  ‘She wants us to go on.’

  ‘Then you know what this is, Sid,’ he said, flicking the stack. ‘Guilt money. To spur you on when you want to stop.’

  ‘Well, it works.’

  We spent some of Rosemary’s incentive in staying overnight in Newmarket and going round the bars, Chico where the lads hung out and I with the trainers. It was Tuesday evening and very quiet everywhere. I heard nothing of any interest and drank more than enough whisky, and Chico came back with hiccups and not much else.

  ‘Ever heard of Inky Poole?’ he said.r />
  ‘Is that a song?’

  ‘No, it’s a work jockey. What’s a work jockey? Chico my son, a work jockey is a lad who rides work on the gallops.’

  ‘You’re drunk,’ I said.

  ‘Certainly not. What’s a work jockey?’

  ‘What you just said. Not much good in races but can gallop the best at home.’

  ‘Inky Poole,’ he said, ‘is George Caspar’s work jockey. Inky Poole rides Tri-Nitro his strong work at home on the gallops. Did you ask me to find out who rides Tri-Nitro’s gallops?’

  ‘Yes, I did,’ I said. ‘And you’re drunk.’

  ‘Inky Poole, Inky Poole,’ he said.

  ‘Did you talk to him?’

  ‘Never met him. Bunch of the lads, they told me. George Caspar’s work jockey. Inky Poole.’

  Armed with raceglasses on a strap round my neck I walked along to Warren Hill at seven-thirty in the morning to watch the strings out at morning exercise. A long time, it seemed, since I’d been one of the tucked-up figures in sweaters and skull cap, with three horses to muck out and care for, and a bed in a hostel with rain-soaked breeches for ever drying on an airer in the kitchen. Frozen fingers and not enough baths, ears full of four-letter words and no chance of being alone.

  I had enjoyed it all well enough, when I was sixteen, on account of the horses. Beautiful, marvellous creatures whose responses and instincts worked on a plane as different from humans’ as water and oil, not mingling even where they touched. Insight into their senses and consciousness had been like an opening door, a foreign language glimpsed and half learned, full comprehension maddeningly baulked by not having the right sort of hearing or sense of smell, not sufficient skill in telepathy.

  The feeling of oneness with horses I’d sometimes had in the heat of a race had been their gift to an inferior being; and maybe my passion for winning had been my gift to them. The urge to get to the front was born in them; all they needed was to be shown where and when to go. It could fairly be said that like most jump jockeys I had aided and abetted horses beyond the bounds of common sense.

  The smell and sight of them on the Heath was like a sea breeze to a sailor. I filled my lungs and eyes, and felt content.

  Each exercise string was accompanied and shepherded by its watchful trainer, some of them arriving in cars, some on horseback, some on foot. I collected a lot of ‘Good morning, Sid’s. Several smiling faces seemed genuinely pleased to see me; and some that weren’t in a hurry stopped to talk.

  ‘Sid!’ exclaimed one I’d ridden on the Flat for in the years before my weight caught up with my height, ‘Sid, we don’t see you up here much these days.’

  ‘My loss,’ I said, smiling.

  ‘Why don’t you come and ride out for me? Next time you’re here, give me a ring, and we’ll fix it.’

  ‘Do you mean it?’

  ‘Of course I mean it. If you’d like to, that is.’

  ‘I’d love it.’

  ‘Right. That’s great. Don’t forget, now.’ He wheeled away, waving, to shout to a lad earning his disfavour by slopping in the saddle like a disorganized jellyfish. ‘How the bloody hell d’you expect your horse to pay attention if you don’t?’ The boy sat decently for all of twenty seconds. He’d go far, I thought, starting from Newmarket station.

  Wednesday being a morning for full training gallops, there was the usual scattering of interested watchers: owners, pressmen, and assorted bookmakers’ touts. Binoculars sprouted like an extra growth of eyes, and notes went down in private shorthand. Though the morning was cold the new season was warming up. There was a feeling overall of purpose, and the bustle of things happening. An industry flexing its muscles. Money, profit, and tax revenue making their proper circle under the wide Suffolk sky. I was still a part of it, even if not in the old way. And Jenny was right. I’d die in an office.

  ‘Morning, Sid.’

  I looked round. George Caspar, on a horse, his eyes on a distant string walking down the side of the Heath from his stable in Bury Road.

  ‘Morning, George.’

  ‘You staying up here?’

  ‘Just for a night or two.’

  ‘You should’ve let us know. We’ve always a bed. Give Rosemary a ring.’ His eyes were on his string: the invitation a politeness, not meant to be accepted. Rosemary, I thought, would have fainted if she’d heard.

  ‘Is Tri-Nitro in that lot?’ I said.

  ‘Yes, he is. Sixth from the front.’ He looked round at the interested spectators. ‘Have you seen Trevor Deansgate anywhere? He said he was coming up here this morning from London. Setting off early.’

  ‘Haven’t seen him.’ I shook my head.

  ‘He’s got two in the string. He was coming to see them work.’ He shrugged. ‘He’ll miss them if he isn’t here soon.’

  I smiled to myself. Some trainers might delay working the horses until the owner did arrive, but not George. Owners queued up for his favours and treasured his comments, and Trevor Deansgate for all his power was just one of a crowd. I lifted my raceglasses and watched while the string, forty strong, approached and began circling, waiting for their turn on the uphill gallop. The stable before George’s had nearly finished, and George would be next.

  The lad on Tri-Nitro wore a red scarf in the neck of his olive-green husky jacket. I lowered the glasses and kept my eye on him as he circled, and looked at his mount with the same curiosity as everyone else. A good-looking bay colt, well grown, with strong shoulders and a lot of heart room; but nothing about him to shout from the housetops that here was the wildly backed winter favourite for the Guineas and the Derby. If you hadn’t known, you wouldn’t have known, as they say.

  ‘Do you mind photographs, George?’ I said.

  ‘Help yourself, Sid.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I seldom went anywhere these days without a camera in my pocket. Sixteen millimetre, automatic light meter, all the expense in its lens. I brought it out and showed it to him, and he nodded. ‘Take what you like.’

  He shook up his patient hack and went away, across to his string, to begin the morning’s business. The lad who rode a horse down from the stables wasn’t necessarily the same one who rode it in fast work, and as usual there was a good deal of swapping around, to put the best lads up where it mattered. The boy with the red scarf dismounted from Tri-Nitro and held him, and presently a much older lad swung up on to his back.

  I walked across to be close to the string, and took three or four photographs of the wonder horse and a couple of closer shots of his rider.

  ‘Inky Poole?’ I said to him at one point, as he rode by six feet away.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘Mind your back. You’re in the way.’

  A right touch of surliness. If he hadn’t seen me talking to George first, he would have objected to my being there at all. I wondered if his grudging against-the-world manner was the cause or the result of his not getting on as a jockey, and felt sympathy for him, on the whole.

  George began detailing his lads into the small bunches that would go up the gallops together, and I walked back to the fringes of things, to watch.

  A car arrived very fast and pulled up with a jerk, alarming some horses alongside and sending them skittering, with the lads’ voices rising high in alarm and protest.

  Trevor Deansgate climbed out of his Jaguar and for good measure slammed the door. He was dressed in a city suit, in contrast to everyone else there, and looked ready for the boardroom. Black hair rigorously brushed, chin smoothly shaven, shoes polished like glass. Not the sort of man I would have sought as a friend, because I didn’t on the whole like to sit at the feet of power, picking up crumbs of patronage with nervous laughter, but a force to be reckoned with on the racing scene.

  Big scale bookmakers could be and often were a positive influence for good, a stance I thought sardonically that they had been pushed into, to survive the lobby that knew that a Tote monopoly (and a less greedy tax climate) would put back into racing what bookmakers too
k out. Trevor Deansgate personified the new breed; urbane, a man of the world, seeking top company, becoming a name in the City, the sycophant of earls.

  ‘Hallo,’ he said, seeing me. ‘I met you at Kempton … Do you know where George’s horses are?’

  ‘Right there,’ I said, pointing. ‘You’re just in time.’

  ‘Bloody traffic.’

  He strode across the grass towards George, raceglasses swinging from his hand, and George said hallo briefly and apparently told him to watch the gallops with me, because he came straight back, heavy and confident, and stopped at my side.

  ‘George says my two both go in the first bunch. He said you’d tell me how they’re doing, insolent bugger. Got eyes, haven’t I? He’s going on up the hill.’

  I nodded. Trainers often went up halfway-and watched from there, the better to see their horses’ action as they galloped past.

  Four horses were wheeling into position at the starting point. Trevor Deansgate applied his binoculars, twisting them to focus. Navy suiting with faint red pinstripes. The well-kept hands, gold cuff links, onyx ring, as before.

  ‘Which are yours?’ I said.

  ‘The two chestnuts. That one with the white socks is Pinafore. The other’s nothing much.’

  The nothing much had short cannon bones and a rounded rump. Might make a ‘chaser one day, I thought. I liked the look of him better than the whippet-shaped Pinafore. They set off together up the gallop at George’s signal, and the sprinting blood showed all the way to the top. Pinafore romped it and the nothing much lived up to his owner’s assessment. Trevor Deansgate lowered his binoculars with a sigh.

  ‘That’s that, then. Are you coming to George’s for breakfast?’

  ‘No. Not today.’

  He raised the glasses again and focussed them on the much nearer target of the circling string, and, from the angle, he was looking at the riders, not the horses. The search came to an end on Inky Poole: he lowered the glasses and followed Tri-Nitro with the naked eye.

  ‘A week today,’ I said.

  ‘Looks a picture.’

  I supposed that he, like all bookmakers, would be happy to see the hot favourite lose the Guineas, but there was nothing in his voice except admiration for a great horse. Tri-Nitro lined up in his turn and at a signal from George set off with two companions at a deceptively fast pace. Inky Poole, I was interested to see, sat as quiet as patience and rode with a skill worth ten times what he would be paid. Good work jockeys were undervalued. Bad ones could ruin a horse’s mouth and temperament and whole career. It figured that for the stableful he’d got, George Caspar would employ only the best.