'Right.' Ned settled himself between them. 'Now, let's get down to business.'
Afterwards, Vincent thought, there were a lot of things he should have said. As Jemima's father there were a lot of things he should have done, God help him. He could – and should – have walked out straight away. As soon as he knew. But, oh, it was so sweet. So easy. And almost infallible.
The money-making scam Ned had so far been pulling was simply that. A tax-free way to raise the stake necessary for the next phase. The big boys, it appeared, were nothing more than a figment of Ned's imagination. Just to add a bit of spice. This, like all clever and illegal schemes, involved very few people.
Just the three of them, it transpired. Vincent, pretty hazy as to why he'd been included in the triumvirate, tentatively enquired. If, as he suspected, Matt had been using his relationship with Jemima to claw him in, then he was going to the police or the Jockey Club or both, so help him.
Matt assured him that meeting Jemima at Windsor, seeing Jemima since, had absolutely no connection. This – um – suggestion had come up later. Much later. He looked pretty uneasy about it, to be honest, Vincent thought. He wasn't sure he trusted him.
Ned wiped the Guinness froth from his upper lip and explained the principles to Vincent. It had been a gift from the gods, Milton St John having two horses going for the same crown. Two excellent Grand National prospects: Drew Fitzgerald and Kath Seaward, both desperate to win – if for entirely different reasons. Of course, as with all scams, there were other horses to be considered in the equation, but Ned had done his homework. Yeah, sure, there would be an element of risk, but what was speculation without a risk, eh? Wasn't it what those stock-market laddies did all the time, eh?
Vincent was confused. 'But why involve me? Why not keep it all for yourself?'
'Peapods,' Ned said simply. 'I still had me contacts at Lancing Grange. I needed an ear at Peapods. Bloody Drew Fitzgerald's lads sodding adore him. They wouldn't even tell you the colour of his bloody socks. I was looking to have a foot in each camp, so to speak. You arrived at just the right time, Vince, mate, what with the job going there and everything. And you were broke. And it's all worked out nicely, hasn't it?'
Jesus! It had, of course. Vincent closed his eyes. He'd been giving away Peapods' trade secrets for months! And increasing Ned's stake money. Christ. This was bigger than anything he'd ever dabbled in before.
Matt didn't look at either of them while the plan was explained. His knuckles on the Coke glass were white, Vincent noticed. There was a muscle twitching in his cheek.
Simply – oh, so simply – what was going to happen was that Dragon Slayer, who was already ante-post favourite, would lose the Hennessey Gold Cup next month. Bonnie Nuts, if everyone was to be believed, could win it. Ned would be putting little each-way bets on Bonnie all round the country so as not to sod up the odds. No one would suspect.
They'd clean up nicely. This procedure would then be repeated elsewhere – hopefully culminating at the Kempton Christmas meeting and the Cheltenham Festival. Bonnie would finish higher than Dragon Slayer whenever they were pitched against each other. Dragon Slayer, it would then be assumed, had gone off the boil – and should start somewhere around thirty threes or lower for the National. Bonnie Nuts would hopefully be favourite. They would then play their ace card. Every single penny of their by-then considerable winnings on Dragon Slayer for the National.
Kath Seaward might suspect but she couldn't prove anything – Matt would see to that. He'd keep assuring her that the horse would come right in time. The same with the owner – Matt, Vincent noticed, actually winced when Ned mentioned Tina Maloret – and, of course, Matt would be as perplexed as anyone over the lack of form. The stewards could do what they liked – they'd not find any evidence of drugs or tampering....
Matt had proved that he could pull a horse with the best of them – and the racing press had been full of Kath's comments regarding Dragon Slayer's dislike of open ditches. Then, when Dragon Slayer won the National, everything would be all right.
Vincent let all this whizz round in his head. A million questions begged to be asked.
He looked at Matt. 'But what if Bonnie Nuts really is better? What if he beats you in the National?'
'He won't,' Ned cut in. 'Matt will see to that. Charlie Somerset will be unseated somewhere along the way.'
Vincent swallowed. He'd have to warn them at Peapods. He'd have to tell Jemima. He liked Charlie –
'Of course, you won't be saying a word.' Ned fished into his pocket and waved some papers under Vincent's nose. 'My contacts have been very busy researching your background, Vince, mate. Undischarged bankrupt. Umpteen County Court judgments. A suspended prison sentence for defrauding your own company. Repossessions. And a list of debt collectors who'd kill to know your current address.'
It was like an upper-cut to the windpipe. The fragile happiness he'd built up would be wiped out. He'd lose it all: Jemima's love and respect, Maureen's company, and everything he'd found at Peapods ... Shit, shit, shit.
Matt looked at him with understanding. 'If it's any consolation, I got suckered the same way.'
'It fucking isn't.' Vincent was bitingly angry. There was no way out. Nowhere to go – except along with it. 'And does Jemima know anything?'
Matt shook his head and shredded another beer mat.
Ned was nodding happily. 'Don't look so stressed, Vince, mate.
Matt has agreed to come along with us because he wants to win the National. He wants to win the National so much that it bloody hurts. He's been in Somerset's shadow for years. The ole cow, Mizz Seaward, will have what she wants in the end, Peapods will have picked up all the major spoils along the way until the National – and we'll have won the fucking lottery. Where the hell is the problem in that?'
Vincent wasn't sure. All he wanted to do was to get as far away from Ned and Matt as possible. But he still had the roller-coaster ride back to the village in Ned's car. He couldn't even walk it, could he? It was miles across open downland.
Somehow that seemed preferable than spending another minute in this company.
He stood up. 'Thanks for an entertaining evening, gentlemen. No, no, don't get up. I can find my own way out.'
Two hours later, frozen, drenched to the skin, his legs ripped to shreds by brambles, and more frightened than he'd ever been in his life, Vincent stumbled on to Milton St John's High Street.
The walk through the shrill darkness had at least given him time to think. He wouldn't say anything. He knew he wouldn't – couldn't. But he'd warn Jemima away from Matt Garside. He had to do that. And maybe he'd mention something at Peapods. Maybe drop a few little hints ... And maybe, just maybe, Bonnie Nuts would win on merit anyway, so it wouldn't be illegal, would it? And as for Matt unseating Charlie in the National – well, that was too Dick Francis for words! No one would be able to get away with that. Not these days. They even had cameras attached to the jockey's crash hats these days, didn't they?
He rounded the Peapods bend. Most of Milton St John was in darkness, the villagers asleep and dreaming carefree dreams. Ned bloody Filkins would come unstuck somewhere along the way, he was sure of it. Vincent swallowed. His mouth tasted bitter. He wondered fleetingly just what indiscretion Matt had committed to get caught up in all this. Sure, he believed the bit about him wanting to win the National. He understood that. But there had to be something else, surely, to make him risk his entire career? Poor sod, Vincent thought: poor, poor sod.
The Munchy Bar flat was in darkness. Brian's lorry wasn't in the lay-by. Vincent, imagining Maureen curled asleep, alone, sighed. He needed some comfort tonight. Needed to be held in someone's arms and reassured. Needed to be cuddled and told that everything would be all right.
He plodded on past. It probably would never be all right again.
There was only a week to go until Drew and Maddy's wedding. The village was in uproar. It was like the Queen's Jubilee and the Millennium celebrations all rolled into one.
Jemima, idly stirring a cup of coffee in the Munchy Bar, was preoccupied with more mundane matters.
'Want to get it off your chest, duck?' Maureen eased herself into the seat opposite her. 'A problem shared and all that?'
It was the Douwe Egberts period of the day. Maureen, having satisfied the needs of the genteel clientele, was raring for a gossip. Jemima continued stirring. 'I'm okay, thanks. Really.'
'That you're not! You can't fool me. It must be something real bad to bring you in here for your coffee break, with you having your own little kitchen and that. Not that you're not a sight for sore eyes and welcome, of course. Would you like a doughnut to go with that? Cheer you up a bit?'
Jemima shook her head. She wanted to tell Maureen, nicely, to go away and leave her alone – but wasn't that the very reason she'd come into the Munchy Bar in the first place? To be with other people. She hadn't wanted to sit on her own in the bookshop's tiny kitchen, nursing a mug of instant, and thinking. She'd done far too much of that in recent weeks.
'Tracy looking after the shop, is she?'
Jemima nodded. Tracy had been a real boon, but there wasn't the camaraderie she'd shared with Lucinda. Tracy ran a family of six with military precision and had previously worked the night-shift in a petrol station on the A34; a small bookshop offered few problems. And Bathsheba's fatwa had had no effect on sales. The Christmas stocks were already reducing nicely – she had even reordered the more popular tides, and the new displays especially for the festive season were stacked in the stockroom. The bookshop was surviving nicely. Jemima clinked her spoon round her cup again and wished that she was too.
'Not long till the wedding, eh? You'll be going to the church and the do, will you?' Maureen wiped invisible crumbs from the table with the edge of her pinny. 'Nice for you, living on the spot so to speak. Exciting. Young Matt taking you?'
Jemima took a deep breath. The coffee already had a skin on it. It made her feel sick. 'Yes, I think we're going together.'
'Good. Good. Your dad and me thought we'd go along together, too. With my Brian being in Scarborough all next week, like. Makes sense. No point in us both being alone.'
'No, I suppose not.'
'Spoken to your dad lately, duck? I thought he'd seemed a bit off-colour. Peaky.'
Jemima hadn't noticed. But then she hadn't noticed much recently.
Maureen heaved a sigh. 'And Lucinda's coming back from college for the wedding, isn't she?'
'Yes. She's being a bridesmaid.'
'That'll be nice. Especially with Charlie being best man. They'll be able to dance together after, without ole Bathsheba's forked tongue making mischief, won't they?'
Jemima supposed so. She hadn't really thought about it. Maybe Charlie had asked Tina Maloret to the wedding. Maybe Lucinda would turn up with Rebecca Maxwell-Dunmore's older brother, or some new man from the university. She honestly didn't care.
'Funny colour for bridesmaids, if you ask me. Dark green. Damn unlucky colour for a wedding. Whose idea was that, then?'
'I think it's Maddy's favourite. And Drew's dad was Irish. I don't think they consider it unlucky.'
'A nice pink would have been more proper. Or blue. Or –'
Jemima stopped listening. If only that was all she had to worry about; the colour of Maddy's bridesmaids' dresses. The last four weeks had been truly awful – and they shouldn't have been. They should have been fun. It was all Matt's bloody fault that she felt like this. If it hadn't been for him, then she could have joined in with the rest of the village in the excited run-up to the wedding. She and Gillian could have giggled together over Bella-Donna Stockings, and planned their strategy for tonight's League of Light vigil, and laughed about the complete irony of the situation.
As it was, although they'd had a few quiet sniggers together at Bathsheba's expense, and off-handedly discussed hats or not for the wedding, Jemima's heart hadn't been in it. She felt as though all the troubles she thought she'd left behind in her other life, had returned with a vengeance. She felt bloody
guilty.
All those years of worrying about money, and her parents, and whether they were going to be allowed to stay in the house, and if there'd be more rows, and if someone even more sinister than the last caller was going to hammer on the door at midnight, had come flooding back.
Peering out of her childhood bedroom window early in the morning, praying that the postman would pass them by, and hating him when he didn't. Stuffing her fingers in her ears when her mother opened the letters and cried. It could have been yesterday.
Watching burly men with clipboards carry away the things that had been familiar to her for as long as she could remember and hurl them into the back of a van. Knowing she'd never see any of them again. Crying herself to sleep.
Listening, hunched under the bedclothes, to her mother shouting and her father saying over and over again that it would be all right. He'd got a plan. They'd be rich one day. The memories had come back to haunt her.
Being there when her mother had said she'd had enough. She was leaving. Leaving Vincent, leaving her. And then she'd known it was her fault. She had done something to drive her mother away. Even though Rosemary had hung on, the threat was always there. The guilt had destroyed her carefree teenage years.
It had taken years to rebuild her confidence. As she got older she'd realised of course that it hadn't been her fault; that she had no reason to torment herself with guilt. Bookworms and Oxford had been like a false skin, useful while the scars healed. But the full recovery had taken place in Milton St John. And now bloody Matt Garside had reopened the wounds.
'You're fretting about tonight, I'll be bound.' Maureen's beehive quivered with indignation. 'Well, you've got no need. A lot of daft old besoms holding a silent vigil with bloody candles! Pah! Anyway, look at the weather. That'll douse a few flames.'