Dick Francis's Refusal (13 page)

O
n Tuesday I went to watch Tony Molson ride Ackerman in the two-and-a-half-mile handicap chase at Towcester races, but not before I had spent most of the morning catching up on other things. This investigating business was playing merry hell with my “day job” of keeping up with share prices.

Also on Tuesday morning I had a difficult telephone call with Marina from her parents' home in Fryslân.

“Please, Sid,” she pleaded, “stop whatever it is you are doing to annoy this man.”

“I've done what he wanted,” I said. “Perhaps now he'll leave us alone.”

Or perhaps he won't, I thought.

I was sure that McCusker didn't need me to
do
anything to annoy him, just
being
Sid Halley was enough.

Marina didn't understand. She was a scientist, used to rational thought and logical analysis. Billy McCusker didn't employ either. All his actions were determined by emotion and greed. He wanted to be the big cheese in racing, the boss, the controller, and everything he did was directed towards that aim. He was like an unstoppable bulldozer pushing logic, the law and good sense aside with its blade.

“I'm so frightened,” Marina said. “I want to come home, but I'm not sure I can.”

“It'll be all right,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “I'll stay with you all the time. We'll do everything together, and we will keep Saskia safe too.”

“OK,” she said nervously.

“I'll be there tomorrow morning to pick you up from the airport. I promise.”

•   •   •

T
OWCESTER RACETRACK
in Northamptonshire had always been one of my favorites when I'd been a jockey.

It was a track where sound tactics were as important as a fast horse. The fences were inviting to jump, but the real test of stamina was the last mile to the finish, which was uphill all the way to the wire. Many a race had been lost at Towcester by not leaving enough fuel in the horse's tank for the stiff climb home.

Ackerman took the lead straight from the start in the two-and-a-half-mile handicap chase, the first race of the afternoon. He led the field of ten past the grandstands for the first time at a good pace, rounded the sharp right-hand corner and galloped away from the crowd towards the open ditch.

I thought Tony was taking them along too fast.

I had looked up Ackerman's form. He was a seven-year-old bay gelding and had run a total of twenty-one times over fences, winning only twice and being placed on six other occasions. Nevertheless, he had started this race as favorite at four-to-one.

His two wins had come the previous season, and, on both occasions, he had started slowly and had only taken the lead coming to the last fence, then ridden out in the run to victory.

Tony was riding a completely different type of race today, continuing to make all the running, as the ten of them swept downhill towards the water jump at the lowest point on the course.

I knew what he was doing. He was running the “finish” out of his horse, and, sure enough, four of the others came past him easily in the climb to the final turn.

At the second-last fence, Ackerman was still fourth, but he was laboring with tiredness, swaying slightly from side to side, and clearly not responding to Tony's furious urging for more speed.

Even though one of the three in front of him fell at the final obstacle, there was no chance that Ackerman would ever catch the winner, who pulled away along the home stretch to win by ten lengths. I thought it unlikely that Ackerman would have won anyway, but Tony's tactics had absolutely guaranteed that he wouldn't. However, third was not a complete disgrace, and no one could have accused Tony of not riding the horse out during the closing stages to gain the best possible position. The damage had been done long before they had turned into the final straight.

I walked over to the unsaddling enclosure to watch the first three horses come in and stood close by the position reserved for the third.

“I think we'll go back to Plan A next time,” the trainer said quite forcefully to Tony as the latter dismounted and removed his saddle. “Like I said, he definitely prefers to be held up for a late run.”

“You might be right,” Tony replied, “but it was worth a try.”

The trainer didn't particularly look like he thought it had been worth the try, and I could already read in his expression that he might be employing a different jockey next time.

Tony walked right past me on his way to the Weighing Room. His face was expressionless, and, if he saw me at all, he made no sign of recognition, simply staring straight ahead with a tight-lipped mouth.

He must have known that he was throwing away his career, one way or the other.

“Hello, Sid,” said a voice behind me with a Belfast accent.

I turned around, smiling. “Hello, Paddy, fancy a Guinness?”

“I thought you'd never ask, me old mucker.”

We moved to the bar in the base of the grandstand, and I bought a pint of the black stuff for him and a half of lager for me.

I'd hoped that Paddy O'Fitch might be at Towcester. He lived in the small market town of Brackley, ten or so miles down the road.

“So, Paddy,” I said as we moved away from the bar to a cocktail table, “what else can you tell me about Billy McCusker?”

Paddy made a face as if he'd swallowed a wasp. He looked all around him to check no one was listening.

“Bejesus, be quiet, will you!” he said in a forced whisper. “I now wish I'd told you nothing. I've been having nightmares about it ever since.” He looked all around once more. “And the word is dat you're asking questions among the jocks about him.”

“Who told you that?” I asked, surprised.

“It's a dangerous game, to be sure.”

“Come on, Paddy, who told you I've been asking questions?”

“No one,” he said, smiling.

I realized I had fallen into one of his little traps. I had done nothing more than confirm to him what he'd assumed, that I had indeed been asking questions of the jockeys. Stupid, I thought, and I can't afford to be stupid. The Sid Halley of old would surely not have made such a mistake.

And what worried me most was that Paddy now knew something that he wouldn't be able to resist telling others.

It was in his nature, to be sure.

•   •   •

I
LEFT
P
ADDY
in the bar lining up another pint of Guinness while I went outside to watch the racing. Tony Molson was riding again in the third race, for a different trainer, and I watched as he cantered his horse to the far end of the straight for the start of the two-mile novice hurdle, one of thirteen runners.

This time, Tony rode a picture-perfect race, holding up his horse in third place until the field turned into the finishing straight for the final time. Then he asked his mount for two mighty leaps over the last two flights of hurdles before releasing him to storm up the hill to the winning post, passing the other two horses to win by a neck.

Tony was a good jockey, there was no doubt of it. I suppose that was why he was still engaged by trainers to ride their horses. But for how long would they put up with him occasionally not riding to their instructions to win but to somebody else's to lose?

Robert Price had also been riding in the third race, and I made a beeline to intercept him as he was walking back to the Weighing Room with his saddle over his arm.

“Hi, Robert,” I said, coming alongside. He jumped as if he'd been poked with an electric cattle prod. “I'm still waiting for your call and I'm getting impatient.”

He didn't say anything, he just looked around him as if he was searching for help. He obviously found none, so put his head down and walked faster.

So did I.

“Have you told Judy yet?” I asked, trying to keep up.

“Told her what?” he mumbled back.

“About Billy McCusker.”

“Leave me alone.” He started to run.

“Why do you know him, Robert?” I shouted after him, but he didn't stop or look back. He skipped up the few steps into the Weighing Room and disappeared into the jockeys' changing area, his sanctuary, where I could no longer follow.

•   •   •

I
WATCHED
the rest of the races from the steps at the front of the main grandstand. At Towcester, the steeplechase course is on the outside of the loop, closest to the enclosures, and the grandstands are built nearer to the track than on any other racecourse in the country. The two combine to give the spectators an inclusive feel for the racing, with the thudding of the horses' hooves on the turf clearly audible over the buzz of the crowd.

It was enough to make any man's heart beat faster and mine was no exception, as I helped cheer home the short-head winner of the three-mile chase. Perhaps for the first time I was content to stand and watch without suffering pangs from not being directly involved in the action.

I must be getting old, I thought.

Race riding, especially over the jumps, was a young man's sport, and, increasingly, a young woman's one too. While the flat boys regularly went on into their late forties or even into their fifties, jump jocks, beaten up by regular falls, were finished long before that.

Now, for me, it was as if a curtain had been lifted from my eyes.

At last, during that day at Towcester, I found I could watch and enjoy others doing what I had ached for so long still to be doing myself. Gone, finally, was the sense of injustice that my riding career had been so unfairly cut short, something that had intruded almost daily into my thinking and driven me away from the races.

So it was with a happy heart and a renewed spring in my step that I went out to my car after the last race.

Many of the crowd had already gone home as the fine, sunny afternoon was rapidly deteriorating into a rather gloomy evening with the prospect of heavy rain from the ever-building dark clouds, and I could feel the first drops of it falling on my head as I hurried along.

I didn't get there.

Two large men in black anoraks were waiting for me, crouched down behind the car parked next to mine. As I reached for the door handle of the Range Rover, I was grabbed around the neck by one of the men. The second one punched me in the solar plexus with such force that all the breath was driven out of me and my legs buckled at the knees, only my head in the stranglehold stopping me from going down altogether.

Not again, I thought, as I hovered around the edges of consciousness. Not another bloody beating.

I tried to say something, to call out for help, but there was no air in my lungs with which to shout.

The second man hit me again, this time lower, in the groin.

“Stop asking jockeys questions,” said the first man right into my ear.

He released his grip, and I slithered to the grass, clutching myself between the legs. The second man then gave me a kick in the face by way of a leaving present before both of them melted away into the shadows.

The whole thing had taken only a few seconds.

No one had come to my aid. It had all happened so fast that no one would have had a chance to stop it even if they'd seen what was going on.

I lay on the ground, curled up, trying to breathe, as the rain started in earnest, great drops of it splashing off the cars around me.

I dragged myself up so that I was kneeling but still bent double, with my forehead resting on the wet turf and with a degree of panic rising in my throat. I was winded. My diaphragm had gone into spasm, making it impossible for me to fill my lungs.

It had happened to me several times before after falls and I knew that all I had to do was to wait calmly for the muscle to stop cramping and to start working again. But I fervently wished it would hurry up and do so because, in the meantime, I wasn't breathing, and the lack of oxygen reaching my brain was making my view of the world increasingly grayer than it was in reality.

My ability to inhale returned suddenly with a rush, and I gulped down lungfuls of welcome, damp air while my vision returned to full color. Only then did I notice the stream of bright red blood droplets falling from the end of my nose onto the vivid green grass.

I felt awful.

I ran my tongue gingerly around my teeth but couldn't detect any sharp edges that shouldn't have been there. That was a relief, at least. Next I carefully moved my right hand up to my nose, but that too seemed to be intact. The blood, I discovered, was coming from a cut on my left cheek just under the eye where the man's boot had split the skin.

My face didn't seem to hurt very much, but that was perhaps due to the combination of the fire burning in my belly and, even worse, lower down. And to add insult to injury, I was getting thoroughly soaked and rather cold.

I slowly hauled myself to my feet, but, even though it was a slight improvement, I was still doubled over by the pain in my groin.

“Are you all right?” said a voice from somewhere above my head.

“No, not really,” I croaked back.

I looked up to find the owner of the car that I was leaning against, his ignition key in his hand.

“Are you drunk?” he asked in a tone that implied that he didn't much like drunks.

“No,” I said, “I was attacked.”

“Attacked?” he repeated. “Do you mean mugged?”

Did I? Nothing had been stolen. My wallet and cell phone were still in my pockets.

“Nothing was taken,” I said. Other than my self-respect, I thought. I forced myself to stand up straight. “I'll be fine now, thank you.”

“But you're bleeding,” he said.

“Yes, but it'll stop.”

“I say, aren't you Sid Halley?” He almost laughed. “I used to love watching you ride. Pure genius on horseback.”

A fan was all I needed. I hoped he wouldn't ask for my autograph.