High Stakes

Epilogue

I gave Energise away.

Six weeks after his safe return to Rupert’s stable he ran in the Champion Hurdle and I took a party to Cheltenham to cheer him on. A sick tycoon having generously lent his private box, we went in comfort, with lunch before and champagne after and a lot of smiling in between.

The four newly-registered joint-owners were having a ball and slapping each other on the back with glee: Bert, Allie, Owen and Charlie, as high in good spirits as they’d been at the census.

Charlie had brought the bridge-playing wife and Bert his fat old mum, and Owen had shyly and unexpectedly produced an unspoiled daughter of sixteen. The oddly mixed party proved a smash-hit success, my four conspirators carrying it along easily on the strength of liking each other a lot.

While they all went off to place bets and look at the horses in the parade ring, I stayed up in the box. I stayed there most of the afternoon. I had found it impossible, as the weeks passed, to regain my old innocent enthusiasm for racing. There was still a massive movement of support and sympathy for Jody, which I supposed would never change. Letters to sporting papers spoke of sympathy for his misfortunes and disgust for the one who had brought them about. Racing columnists, though reluctantly convinced of his villainy, referred to him still as the ‘unfortunate’ Jody. Quintus, implacably resentful, was ferreting away against me in the Jockey Club and telling everyone it was my fault his son had made ‘misjudgements’. I had asked him how it could possibly be my fault that Jody had made the misjudgement of taking Macrahinish and Ganser Mays for buddy-buddies, and had received no answer.

I had heard unofficially the results of the autopsy on Black Fire. He had been killed by a massive dose of chloroform injected between the ribs straight into the heart. Quick, painless, and positively the work of a practised hand.

The veterinary bag found beside the dead horse had contained a large hypodermic syringe with a sufficient length of needle; traces of chloroform inside the syringe and Macrahinish’s fingerprints outside.

These interesting facts could not be generally broadcast on account of the forthcoming trial, and my high-up police informant had made me promise not to repeat them.

Jody and Macrahinish were out on bail, and the racing authorities had postponed their own enquiry until the law’s verdict should be known. Jody still technically held his trainer’s licence.

The people who to my mind had shown most sense had been Jody’s other owners. One by one they had melted apologetically away, reluctant to be had for mugs. They had judged without waiting around for a jury, and Jody had no horses left to train. And that in itself, in many eyes, was a further crying shame to be laid at my door.

I went out on the balcony of the kind tycoon’s box and stared vacantly over Cheltenham racecourse. Moral victory over Jody was impossible, because too many people still saw him, despite everything, as the poor hardworking little man who had fallen foul of the rich robber baron.

Charlie came out on the balcony in my wake.

‘Steven? What’s the matter? You’re too damned quiet.’

‘What we did,’ I said sighing, ‘has changed nothing.’

‘Of course it has,’ he said robustly. ‘You’ll see. Public opinion works awful slowly. People don’t like doing about-turns and admitting they were fooled. But you trust your Uncle Charlie, this time next year, when they’ve got over their red faces, a lot of people will quietly be finding you’re one of their best friends.’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

‘Quintus,’ he said positively, ‘is doing himself a lot of personal no good just now with the hierarchy. The on dit round the bazaars is that if Quintus can’t see his son is a full-blown criminal he is even thicker than anyone thought. I tell you, the opinion where it matters is one hundred per cent for you, and our little private enterprise is the toast of the cigar circuit.’

I smiled. ‘You make me feel better even if you do lie in your teeth.’

‘As God’s my judge,’ he said, virtuously, and spoiled it by glancing a shade apprehensively skywards.

‘I saw Jody,’ I said. ‘Did you know?’

‘No!’

‘In the City,’ I nodded. ‘Him and Felicity, coming out of some law offices.’

‘What happened?’

‘He spat,’ I said.

‘How like him.’

They had both looked pale and worried and had stared at me in disbelief. Jody’s ball of mucus landed at my feet, punctuation mark of how he felt. If I’d known they were likely to be there I would have avoided the district by ten miles, but since we were accidentally face to face I asked him straight out the question I most wanted answered.

‘Did you send Ganser Mays to smash my place up?’

‘He told him how to make you suffer,’ Felicity said spitefully. ‘Serves you right.’

She cured in that one sentence the pangs of conscience I’d had about the final results of the Energise shuttle.

‘You’re a bloody fool, Jody,’ I said. ‘If you’d dealt straight with me I’d’ve bought you horses to train for the Classics. With your ability, if you’d been honest, you could have gone to the top. Instead, you’ll be warned off for life. It is you, believe me, who is the mug.’

They had both stared at me sullenly, eyes full of frustrated rage. If either of them should have a chance in the future to do me further bad turns I had no doubt that they would. There was no one as vindictive as the man who’d done you wrong and been found out.

Charlie said beside me, ‘Which do you think was the boss? Jody or Macrahinish or Ganser Mays?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘How does a triumvirate grab you?’

‘Equal power?’ He considered. ‘Might well be, I suppose. Just three birds of a feather drawn to each other by natural evil, stirring it in unholy alliance.’

‘Are all criminals so full of hate?’

‘I dare say. I don’t know all that many. Do you?’

‘No.’

‘I should think,’ Charlie said, ‘that the hate comes first. Some people are just natural haters. Some bully the weak, some become anarchists, some rape women, some steal with maximum mess... and all of them enjoy the idea of the victim’s pain.’

‘Then you can’t cure a hater,’ I said.

‘With hardliners, not a chance.’

Charlie and I contemplated this sombre view and the others came back waving Tote tickets and bubbling over with good humour.

‘Here,’ Bert said, slapping me on the back. ‘Know what I just heard? Down in the ring, see. All those bleeding little bookies that we saved from going bust over Padellic, they’re passing round the bleeding hat.’

‘Just what, Bert,’ said Allie, ‘do you bleeding mean?’

‘Here!’ A huge grin spread across Bert’s rugged features. ‘You’re a right smashing bit of goods, you are, Allie, and that’s a fact. What I mean is, those little guys are making a bleeding collection all round the country, and every shop the smart alecs tried it on with, they’re all putting a fiver in, and they’re going to send it to the Injured Jockey’s bleeding Fund in honour of the firm of Scott, Canterfield, Ward, Idris and Huggerneck, what saved them all from disappearing down the bleeding plug-hole.’

We opened a bottle of champagne on the strength of it and Charlie said it was the eighth wonder of the world.

When the time came for the Champion Hurdle we all went down to see Energise saddled. Rupert, busy fastening buckles, looked at the ranks of shining eyes and smiled with the indulgence of the long-time professional. The horse himself could scarcely stand still, so full was he of oats and health and general excitement. I patted his elegant black neck and he tossed his head and sprayed me with a blow through his nostrils.

I said to Rupert, ‘Do you think I’m too old to learn to ride?’

‘Racehorses?’ He pulled tight the second girth and fastened the buckle.

‘Yes.’

He slapped the black rump. ‘Come down Monday morning and make a start.’

‘In front of all the lads?’

‘Well?’ He was amused, but it was an exceptional offer. Few trainers would bother.

‘I’ll be there,’ I said.

Donny led Energise from the saddling boxes to the parade ring, closely followed by Rupert and the four new owners.

‘But you’re coming as well,’ Allie said, protesting.

I shook my head. ‘Four owners to one horse is enough.’

Bert and Charlie tugged her with them and they all stood in a little smiling group with happiness coming out of their ears. Bert’s mum, Owen’s daughter and Charlie’s wife went off to plunder the Tote, and I, with the most reputable bookmaking firm in the business, bet five hundred pounds to three thousand that Energise would win.

We watched him from the balcony of the private box with hearts thumping like jungle drums. It was for this that we had gone to so much trouble, this few minutes ahead. For the incredible pleasure of seeing a superb creature do what he was bred, trained, endowed and eager for. For speed, for fun, for exhilaration, for love.

The tapes went up and they were away, the fourteen best hurdlers in Britain out to decide which was king.

Two miles of difficult undulating track. Nine flights of whippy hurdles. They crossed the first and the second and swept up the hill past the stands, with Energise lying sixth and moving easily, his jockey still wearing my distinctive bright blue colours because none of his new owners had any.

‘Go on, boyo,’ Owen said, his face rapt. ‘Slaughter the bloody lot of them.’ Generations of fervent Welshmen echoed in his voice.

Round the top of the course. Downhill to the dip. More jumps, then the long climb on the far side. One horse fell, bringing a gasp like a gale from the stands and a moan from Allie that she couldn’t bear to watch. Energise flowed over the hurdles with the economy of all great jumpers and at the top of the far hill he lay fourth.

‘Get your bleeding skates on,’ muttered Bert, whose knuckles showed white with clutching his raceglasses. ‘Don’t bleeding hang about.’

Energise obeyed the instructions. Down the leg-testing slope he swooped like a black bird, racing level with the third horse, level with the second, pressing on the leader.

Over the next, three of them in line like a wave. Round the last bend swept all three in a row, with nothing to choose and all to be fought for over the last of the hurdles and the taxing, tiring, pull-up to the winning post.

‘I can’t bear it,’ Allie said. ‘Oh come on, you great... gorgeous...’

‘Slaughter them, boyo...’

‘Shift, you bleeding...’

The voices shouted, the crowd yelled, and Charlie had tears in his eyes.

They came to the last flight all in a row, with Energise nearest the rails, furthest from the stands. He met it right, and jumped it cleanly and I had stopped breathing.

The horse in the middle hit the top of the hurdle, twisted in the air, stumbled on landing, and fell in a skidding, sliding, sprawling heap. He fell towards Energise, who had to dodge sideways to avoid him.

Such a little thing. A half-second’s hesitation before he picked up his stride. But the third of the three, with a clear run, started away from the hurdle with a gain of two lengths.

Energise put his soul into winning that race. Stretched out and fought for every inch. Showed what gut and muscle could do on the green turf. Shortened the gap and closed it, and gained just a fraction at every stride.

Allie and Owen and Bert and Charlie were screaming like maniacs, and the winning post was too near, too near.

Energise finished second, by a short head.

It’s no good expecting fairytale endings, in racing.