Knock Down

7

I spent most of the next week in Newmarket, staying with a trainer friend for the sales and the races.

Crispin, sober and depressed, had sworn to stay off drink in my absence and find a job, and as usual I had assured him he had the willpower to do both. Experience always proved me wrong, but to him the fiction was a prop.

Sophie had worked awkward hours all week-end and Monday but said she would come down to my house for lunch the next Sunday, if I would like. I could bear it, I said.

The whole mob was at Newmarket. All the bloodstock agents, big and small. All the trainers with runners, all the jockeys with mounts, all the owners with hopes. All the clients with their cheque books ready. All the breeders with their year’s work at stake. All the bookies looking for mugs. All the Press looking for exclusives.

I had commissions for eleven yearlings if I could find good ones at the right price, and in most cases my clients’ money was already in my bank. I should have been feeling quietly pleased with the way business was expanding but found instead a compulsive tendency to look over my shoulder for Frizzy Hair.

The fact that nothing else had happened over the weekend had not persuaded me that nothing would. The attacks still seemed senseless to me, but someone somewhere must have seen a point to them, and the point was in all likelihood still there.

Crispin had sworn on everything sacred from the Bible to his 2nd XV rugger cap that he had found the bottle of whiskey standing ready and uncapped on the kitchen table,and had smelled it as soon as he went through the door. At the tenth vehement repetition, I believed him.

Someone knew about my shoulder. Knew about my brother. Knew I kept horses in transit in my yard. Knew I was buying a horse for Kerry Sanders to give to Nicol Brevett. Someone knew a damn sight too much.

The Newmarket sale ring would have suited Kerry Sanders: a large enclosed amphitheatre, warm, well lit and endowed with tip-up armchairs. At ground level round the outside, under the higher rows of seating, were small offices rented by various bloodstock agents. Each of the large firms had its own office, and also a few individuals like Vic Vincent. One had to do a good deal of business to make the expense worth it, though the convenience was enormous. I would have arrived, I thought, when I had my own little office at every major sale ring. As it was I did my paperwork as usual in the margins of the catalogue and conducted meetings in the bar.

I turned up on the first day, Tuesday, before the first horse was sold, because often there were bargains to be had before the crowds came, and was buttonholed just inside the gate by Ronnie North.

‘I got your cheque for River God,’ he said. ‘Now tell me, wasn’t that just what you wanted?’

‘You should have seen it.’

He looked pained. ‘I saw it race last spring.’

‘I shouldn’t think it had been groomed since.’

‘You can’t have everything for that money.’

He was a small whippet of a man, as quick on his feet as in his deals. He never looked anyone in the face for long. His eyes were busy as usual, looking over my shoulder to see who was arriving, who going and what chance of the quick buck he might be missing.

‘Did he like it?’ he asked.

‘Who?’

‘Nicol Brevett.’

Something in my stillness drew his attention. The wandering eyes snapped back to my face and he took rapid stock of his indiscretion.

I said, ‘Did you know it was for Nicol before you sold it to me?’

‘No,’ he said, but his fractional hesitation meant ‘yes’.

‘Who told you?’

‘Common knowledge,’ he said.

‘No, it wasn’t. How did you know?’

‘Can’t remember.’ He showed signs of having urgent business elsewhere and edged three steps sideways.

‘You just lost a client,’ I said.

He stopped. ‘Honest, Jonah, I can’t tell you. Leave it at that, there’s a pal. More than my life’s worth to say more, and if you want to do me a favour you’ll forget I mentioned...’

‘A favour for a favour,’ I said.

‘What?’

‘Start the bidding for number four.’

‘You want to buy it?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

He looked at me doubtfully. No one who wanted to buy liked to show eagerness by making the first bid, but on the other hand no astute bloodstock dealer ever told another which horse he was after. I produced all the earnest naivety I could muster and he smirked a little and agreed to bid. When he had darted off I slowly followed, and saw him from across the paddock talking excitedly to Vic Vincent.

Together they turned the first few pages of the catalogue and read the small print. Vic Vincent shook his head. Ronnie North talked quickly, but Vic Vincent shook his head even harder.

I shrugged. All I’d proved was that Ronnie North wouldn’t do me a favour without clearing it with Vic Vincent. It didn’t follow that it was Vic Vincent who had told him that River God was for Nicol Brevett.

The first few horses were being led up from the stables to the collecting rings, and I leaned on the rails and took a close look at number four. A chestnut colt grown out of proportion with a rear end too tall for its front. Time would probably right that, but would do little to improve the narrow head. Its breeding was fairly good, its full sister had won a decent race, and it was being offered for sale by Mrs Antonia Huntercombe of Paley Stud.

‘Morning, Jonah,’ said a voice half behind me.

I turned. Jiminy Bell, half ingratiating, half aggressive, as at Ascot. A great one for arriving unheard at one’s elbow. He looked pinched with cold in the brisk wind because his overcoat was too thin for the job.

‘Hullo,’ I said. ‘Care to earn a tenner?’

‘You’re on.’ No hesitation at all.

‘Start the bidding on number four.’

‘What?’ His mouth stayed open with surprise.

‘Go up to two thousand.’

‘But you never... you never...’

‘Just this once,’ I said.

He gulped, nodded, and presently disappeared. He was less obvious than Ronnie North, but in a remarkably short time he too fetched up beside Vic Vincent, and he too got the emphatic shake of the head.

I sighed. Sophie’s Aunt Antonia was about to make another loss. For Sophie’s sake I had tried to ensure her a good price, but if Vic Vincent had put the evil eye on the colt I was going to get it for almost nothing. I thought on the whole that I had better not buy it. I wouldn’t be able to explain it to either Sophie or her aunt.

Very much to my surprise I found Vic himself drifting round to my side. He rested his elbows on the rails beside me, and nodded a greeting.

‘Jonah.’

‘Vic.’

We exchanged minimal smiles that were more a social convention than an expression of friendship. Yet I could have liked him, and once had, and still would have done had he not twice pinched my clients by telling them lies.

It was so easy to believe Vic Vincent. He had a large weatherbeaten face with a comfortable double chin and a full mouth which smiled easily and turned up at the corners even in repose. A lock of reddish brown hair growing forward over his forehead gave him a boyish quality although he must have been forty, and even his twinkling blue eyes looked sincere.

The bonhomie was barely skin deep. When I protested about my lost clients he had laughed and told me that all was fair in love, war and bloodstock, and if I didn’t like the heat to get out of the kitchen but he would stoke up the fire as much as he liked.

He turned up his sheepskin coat collar round his ears and banged one thickly gloved hand against the other.

‘Parky this morning.’

‘Yes.’

‘I heard you had a spot of bother at Ascot,’ he said.

‘That’s right.’

‘Constantine Brevett told me.’

‘I see.’

‘Yeah.’ He paused. ‘If Mrs Sanders wants any more horses, you’d better let me get them.’

‘Did Constantine say so?’

‘He did.’

He watched the first horses walk round the ring. Number four looked reasonable from behind but scratchy in front.

‘I bought a colt just like that, once,’ Vic observed. ‘I thought his shoulders would develop. They never did. Always a risk when they grow unevenly.’

‘I suppose so,’ I said. Poor Antonia.

He stayed a few more seconds, but he had delivered his two messages as succinctly as if he’d said straight out ‘Don’t step on my toes, and don’t buy that colt.’ He gave me the sort of reinforcing nod that the boss gives the cowed and ambled bulkily away.

The loudspeakers coughed and cleared their throats and said good morning everyone the sale is about to begin.

I went inside. Apart from four or five earnestly suited auctioneers in their spacious rostrum the place was deserted. Electric lights augmenting the daylight shone brightly on tiers of empty seats, and the sand on the circular track where the merchandise would walk was raked fine and flat. The auctioneers looked hopefully towards the door from the collecting ring and Lot 1 made its apologetic appearance attended by a few worried-looking people who were apparently its vendors.

There was no bid. No one there bidding. Lot 1 made its way out through the far door and the worried people went after it.

There was no bid for Lot 2 and ditto for Lot 3. British auctioneers tended to arrange their catalogues so that the potential money-makers came up in mid-session, and small studs like Antonia’s got the cold outer edges.

Lot 4 looked better under bright lights. All horses always did, like jewellery, which was why auctioneers and jewellers spent happily on electricity.

The auctioneer dutifully started his sale while clearly expecting nothing to come of it. He stretched the price up to one thousand without one genuine bid, at which point I rather undecidedly waved my catalogue. Antonia would be livid if I got it for a thousand.

‘Thank you sir,’ he said sounding surprised, and picked ‘Eleven hundred’ expertly out of the totally empty ranks of seats facing him.

Glory be, I thought. The aunt had had the sense to slap on a reserve. I made it twelve, the auctioneer said thirteen, and between us we limped up to his own bid of nineteen.

‘You’re losing him,’ said the auctioneer warningly.

Three or four people came in from the outside and stood near me on the edge of the track where Lot 4 plodded patiently round and round. Everyone outside could hear on the loudspeakers how the sale was going, and some had come in to see.

I wondered how high Antonia had made the reserve. Two thousand was all I would give for that colt. If she wanted more she could have him back.

I nodded to the auctioneer. He fractionally relaxed, said smoothly, ‘Two thousand... Selling all the time now...’ His gaze went past me to the people who had just come in. ‘Shall I say two thousand one...?’

No one said two thousand one. He made a few more efforts to no avail and Jonah Dereham got the colt.

I turned round. Behind me stood Vic Vincent, looking like thunder.

‘Jonah,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to you.’

‘Sure, Vic, how about coffee?’

He brushed the suggestion aside. He took me strongly by the arm in a mock-friendly gesture and practically propelled me out of the door.

‘Now look,’ he said.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘I told you that colt was no good.’

‘I’m grateful for your interest.’

He glared at me. ‘How much is Mrs Huntercombe giving you?’

‘It’s cold out here,’ I said.

He looked near to fury.

‘She’s giving you nothing,’ he said.

‘I haven’t asked her to.’

‘That’s the point, you stupid sod. We must all stick together. We must all let the breeders know that we all stick together. Do you understand what I’m saying? We can’t have you working for less than the rest of us. It’s not fair on us. You’ll make more money yourself too if we all stick together. It makes sense. Do you follow me?’

‘Yes,’ I said. All too well.

‘Mrs Huntercombe and people like her must be made to understand that unless they reward us properly we are not interested in buying their horses.’

‘I follow you,’ I said.

‘Good. So you’ll go along with us in future.’ A positive statement, not a question.

‘No,’ I said.

There may be quicker ways of stirring up hornets, but I doubt it. The rage flowed out of him like a tangible force. He was so near to explosive physical assault that his arms jerked and his weight shifted to his toes. Only the gathering sales crowd stopped him lashing out. He flicked glances left and right, saw people watching, took an almighty and visible grip on his feelings and put the frustrated violence into words.

‘If you don’t join us we’ll ruin you.’

There was no mistaking the viciousness in that voice, and the threat was no idle boast. People found it easy to believe Vic Vincent. The two clients I had already lost to him had believed I cheated them because Vic Vincent had told them so. He could stop the sale of a good filly just by saying she had a heart murmur. He could no doubt smash my growing business with a rumour just as simple and just as false. A bloodstock agent was only as secure as his clients’ faith.

I could think of no adequate answer. I said, ‘You used not to be like this,’ which was true enough but got me nowhere.

‘I’m telling you,’ he said. ‘You play ball or we’ll get you out.’

He turned on his heel and walked jerkily away, the anger spilling out of the hunched shoulders and rigid legs. Ronnie North and Jiminy Bell circled round him like anxious satellites and I could hear his voice telling them, low, vigorous and sharp.

Within an hour most of the bloodstock agents knew of the row and during the day I found out who my friends were. The bunch I had said I wouldn’t join drew their skirts away and spoke about me among themselves while looking at me out of the corners of their eyes. The chaps in the big firms treated me exactly as usual, and even one or two with approval, as officially they frowned on exorbitant kickbacks.

The uncommitted in the no-man’s-land between were the most informative.

I had coffee and a sandwich with one of them, a man who had been in the game longer but was in much my position, more or less established and just beginning to prosper. He was distinctly worried and cheered up not at all when I confirmed what Vic had threatened.

‘They’ve approached me as well,’ he said. ‘They didn’t say what would happen if I didn’t join them. Not like with you. They just said I would be better off if I did.’

‘So you would.’

‘Yes... but... I don’t know what to do.’ He put down his sandwich half finished. ‘They’re getting so much worse.’

I said I’d noticed it.

‘There used to be just a few of them,’ he said. ‘When I started, only a few. But lately they’re getting so powerful.’

‘And so greedy,’ I said.

‘That’s it,’ he said in eager agreement. ‘I don’t mind a little extra on the side. Who does? It’s just that... they’ve started pushing so hard. I don’t know what to do... I don’t like their methods and I can’t afford...’ He stopped, looked depressed, and went on slowly, ‘I suppose I could just not bid when the word goes round. There wouldn’t be much harm in that.’

The make-the-best-of-it syndrome. The buttress of every tyrant in history. He took his worries away and later I saw him smiling uneasily with Vic.

During the day I bought one more yearling, bidding against one of the big firms and securing it for a fair price. However extensively Vic’s tentacles might stretch they had not reached every breeder in the country, or at any rate not yet. Neither he nor his friends showed any interest in my second purchase.

Towards the end of the day one of my regular clients arrived with a flashy girl in one hand and a cigar in the other. Eddy Ingram, member of the well-heeled unemployed.

‘Staying for the week,’ he said cheerfully, waving the cigar in a large gesture. ‘How about you joining me and Marji for dinner tomorrow night?’

‘I’d like to.’

‘Great, great.’ He beamed at me, beamed at Marji. An overgrown school-boy with a nature as generous as his inheritance. I thought him a fool and liked him a lot. ‘Have you found me a couple of good ’uns, then?’ he asked.

‘There’s one tomorrow...’

‘You buy it. Tell me after.’ He beamed again. ‘This lad,’ he said to Marji, ‘He’s bought me four horses and they’ve all shown a profit. Can’t complain about that, can you?’

Marji smiled sweetly and said ‘Yes Eddy’ which was a fair measure of her brain-power.

‘Don’t forget now. Dinner tomorrow.’ He told me where and when, and I said I would see him at the races or the sales before that, if not both.

He beamed and led Marji away to the bar and I wished there were more like him.

In the morning I bought him a well-bred filly for eleven thousand pounds, outbidding one of Vic Vincent’s cronies. As none of his bunch looked upset, I guessed that one or all of them jointly would be collecting a kick-back from the breeder. Even though they hadn’t bought the horse they would collect just for raising the price.

By mid-morning the crowd had swelled tremendously and almost every seat in the amphitheatre was taken. Two highly bred colts, due to come up towards noon, were bringing in the punters on their way to the races and the town’s wives with their shopping baskets and the semi-drunks from the bars. None had the slightest intention of buying, but there was an irresistible fascination in seeing huge sums being spent. I watched the two star attractions stalk grandly round the collecting ring and then with the tide moved inside for the actual sale. No seats vacant near the door. I leaned against one of the dividing partitions and found myself next to Pauli Teksa. Short, tough, American. Wearing a wide-shouldered light blue overcoat.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘Fine. And you?’

‘Grand... I hear Nicol Brevett liked his horse. Kerry called me.’

‘Did she tell you we nearly lost that one too?’

‘She sure did. That’s some mystery you’ve got there.’

His attention however was not on Kerry or me or the problem of our disappearing purchases, but on the sale in hand. Heavy scribblings and calculations surrounded the high-bred colts in his catalogue, and it looked as though one American agent at least was about to try for a slice of British bloodstock.

The double doors from the collecting ring opened and the first of the colts was led in. The crowd stirred expectantly. The auctioneers put their best man forward. Pauli Teksa cleared his throat.

I glanced at his face. Nothing relaxed about it. Strong features, hard muscles beneath the skin, a face of resolution and decision, not of kindness and compassion. He had crinkly black hair receding at the temples and smoky grey eyes which could move faster than thought.

‘The first of two colts by Transporter.’ The auctioneer trotted through his spiel.‘... offered for sale by the Baylight Stud... Someone start me at ten thousand.’

Someone started him at five. When the price rose to ten, Pauli Teksa started bidding. I owed him something, I thought, for giving me Kerry Sanders’ commission, however oddly it had turned out.

‘I wouldn’t buy that colt if I were you,’ I said.

‘Why not?’ He raised the price another two thousand with his eyebrows.

‘Because of its colour.’

‘Nothing wrong with its colour. Perfectly good chestnut.’ Another two thousand.

I said, ‘Transporter has sired about three hundred horses and that’s the only chestnut. All the rest are dark bay or light brown.’

‘So?’ Another two thousand.

‘So I wouldn’t bet on the paternity.’

Pauli stopped bidding abruptly and turned towards me with an intent, concentrated expression.

‘You sure do your homework.’

I watched the chestnut colt going round the sand track while the price rose to forty thousand.

‘I’ve seen a lot of Transporter’s progeny,’ I said. ‘And they don’t look like that.’

The auctioneer looked over to Pauli enquiringly. ‘Against you, sir.’

Pauli shook his head, and the bidding went on without him.

‘This guy from New Zealand,’ he said. ‘When he was over Statesside, he asked me to buy him a Transporter colt at Newmarket if one came up, and ship it out to him so he could mix the blood line with his stock.’

I smiled and shook my head.

‘How much do you want,’ Pauli said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘For the information.’

‘Well... nothing.’

Pauli looked at me straightly. ‘You’re a goddam fool,’ he said.

‘There’s things besides money,’ I said mildly.

‘No wonder these other guys are against you!’

‘What have you heard?’ I asked curiously.

‘Why don’t you go along with them?’

‘I don’t like what they’re doing.’

He gave me an old-man-of-the-world look and told me I’d get hurt if I didn’t go along with the crowd. I said I would chance it. I was a triple goddam fool, he said.

The chestnut colt made fifty-six thousand pounds. The second potential star seller came into the ring looking as a Transporter should, dark bay with a slightly narrow neck and sharp pelvic bones high on the rump.

‘What about this one?’ Pauli demanded.

The real McCoy.’

‘You slay me.’

He bid for it but dropped out at his authorised limit of fifty thousand. I reflected upon how terribly easy it was to influence a sale. Pauli had believed me on two counts, first against the chestnut and then for the bay, and had acted unhesitatingly on what I’d said. Just so had others with Vic Vincent. Who could blame anyone at all for heeding off-putting advice when so much money was at risk.

At fifty-two thousand all the big firms had dropped out and the bidding had resolved itself into a straight contest between Vic Vincent and the carrot-headed Yorkshireman, Fynedale, who bought for Wilton Young. Constantine Brevett, I suddenly saw, had brought his smooth silver hair and dark-framed spectacles into the arena and was standing at Vic’s shoulder talking urgently into his ear.

Wilton Young’s man was nodding away as if he had the whole mint to call on. Constantine was looking both piqued and determined. Yearlings who cost more than sixty thousand were not a great financial proposition, even with the stud potential from Transporter, and I guessed that against anyone but Wilton Young he would have dropped out long ago.

At seventy thousand he began to scowl. At seventy-five he shook his head angrily and stalked out of the sale ring. The carrot-headed Fynedale winked at Vic Vincent.

Pauli Teksa said, ‘Say, that was some figure.’

‘Too much,’ I agreed.

‘I guess pride comes expensive.’

It did, I thought. All sorts of pride came expensive, in one way or another.

He suggested a drink and with the sale’s main excitement over we joined the general exodus barwards.

‘Seriously, Jonah,’ Pauli said, glass in hand and strong features full of friendly conviction. ‘There’s no place any more for the individualist in the game. You either have to join a big firm or else come to an agreement with the small men like yourself and act together as a body. You can’t buck the system... not if you’re out for profits.’

‘Pauli, stop trying,’ I said.

‘I don’t want to see you in big trouble, fellah.’

‘Nothing will happen,’ I said, but he shook his head, and said he was afraid for me, he surely was. I was too honest for my own good.