'Holy shit!'
Drew Fitzgerald stared at the screen in front of him with mounting horror. Seconds earlier it had been full of names and numbers, columns of them, weeks and weeks of work. Now it was blank, black, the nothingness accentuated by a galaxy of little white sparkles.
He crashed his chair away from the desk. Give him a horse with rolling eyes and snatching teeth and hooves intent on causing fatal injuries, and he was fine. Face him with an empty screen where there should be oodles of information, or little flashing boxes blinking piously that he'd made an input error and all data will be deleted, and blind panic immediately set in.
He snatched up the telephone, impatiently punching the numbers. 'Holly? It's Drew. The bloody thing's gone again! What? No, I didn't! Or, at least, I don't think I did ... Could you -? Brilliant. You're an angel.'
Holly, Drew's secretary, was an IT wizard. He'd leave the whole thing to her. Right now, he wanted to get as far away from the unpleasant beige box as possible. This wasn't what training racehorses was supposed to be about; if he'd wanted to spend his day behind a desk he'd have gone into insurance or something respectable. Before he'd come to train in Milton St John, before he'd had his aspirational dreams of breaking into the big time, all his paperwork had amounted to names and numbers scribbled in a diary, or on the backs of envelopes – much to his accountant's horror – or, more often than not, was merely kept in his head.
Squinting in the glare of the sun, Drew hurried beneath the clock arch across Peapods' cobbled stable yard towards normality.
Sunday. The nearest the racing fraternity came to a day of rest, although with race meetings now taking place seven days a week, even that was never taken for granted. Still, today, was as close as he was going to get to a day off. Alister, his assistant trainer, had taken the yard's two runners to the meeting at Bath. Drew had thought it would be an ideal opportunity to use the computer to check the entries for the next few weeks. Calculate the possible income. Work out in private just how desperate the financial circumstances were. He hadn't expected the bloody computer to die on him.
The stable yard was divided into two, with thirty boxes in the main yard and a further ten through the ivy-covered gate. Forty boxes for forty potential champions. Drew sucked in his breath. Only half the boxes were occupied – and none of the current inmates, much as he adored them, were going to make his fortune.
The sun dappled over the slate roofs, throwing shadows across the cobbles. The horses had had their Sunday-morning pipe-openers, been breakfasted, and the stable lads had escaped back to the hostel to catch up on their sleep. There was no sound from the stables except the occasional rustle of hooves on bedding, and the odd contented whinny of a well-fed horse. Drew breathed in lungfuls of the yard's air and felt more at peace. The equine smell was the same the world over. Mingled with dusty straw, and the spicy warmth of bran mash – Peapods' Sunday special treat – the indefinable essence of horse, as always, quickened his pulse. This was his life-blood. He'd survive somehow. He'd have to.
Sensing him, the horses poked long noses over their half-doors and snorted pleasurably. He spoke to each one as he passed, patting, pulling ears. It was only his second year as a trainer in Milton St John, and his first had brought a rash of successes. Beginner's luck, he now thought ruefully. But at the time, the wins had convinced him that he would soon be up among the best trainers in the country. That early success had, contrarily, been one of his major problems. He simply hadn't capitalised on it. There hadn't been a winner out of Peapods for far too long.
Any owner with a half-decent horse was going to try for the big yards first. It was only natural. Why would they choose him if they could afford Diana James-Jordan, Emilio Marquez or John Hastings? And that was just the flat-racers. And only in Milton St John. If you started considering Newmarket, or the star-studded National Hunt yards in Lambourn ... Drew sighed again.
He clicked through the five-bar gate that divided the yard, and was plunged into shadow. The cool darkness was welcome after the scorch of the sun. He headed for the two boxes on the end of the row near the garages. Dock of the Bay, the best flat-racing hope of the yard, had gone to Bath. Solomon, Drew's own horse who was now fourteen and had been granted honorary retirement since they'd galloped to a swan-song victory together in the Czechoslovakian Pardubice, the toughest horse-race in the world, flapped his huge head towards the empty neighbouring box.
'He'll be back soon, you old softie.' Drew unbolted the door and stepped inside. 'I know you miss him.'
He stroked the hard bony nose and scooped a handful of horse nuts from his pocket. Solomon pushed his muzzle into Drew's shoulder and, still crunching, blew flecks of gritty foam across his face. Drew patted Solomon's withers, loving the warmth and the feeling of life. There had to be some way out of this mess. Some way of attracting new owners to the yard. Maybe a mixed yard had been too ambitious. Maybe he should have specialised. He hadn't known enough to be sure which way to go. And now he had a fair selection of also-rans in each category, but nothing that was going to set the racing press on fire.
Dock of the Bay was nearing retirement and there was nothing remotely as good to take his place. It would soon be the Derby. And Ascot. And then, by the end of the summer, National Hunt would be well into its stride – and he had no potential champions there either.
Solomon shifted in the gloom, pressing closer, still looking for titbits. Drew fed him the last of the nuts. He needed a winner, something to hurtle him into the limelight so that the owners would come knocking on his door. He needed all forty of the boxes filled with horses who were potential winners.
Solomon grated his large yellow teeth in Drew's ear. 'Yeah, I know you'd win for me.' Drew kissed his nose. 'You're a star, sweetheart.'
'I'm glad someone recognises my potential.'
Drew jumped and turned toward the yard. Charlie Somerset was leaning over the door.
'Christ! Don't do that!'
'Thought Solomon had turned into Mr Ed, did you?' Charlie joined him in the box, using his shoulder to push Solomon out of the way. 'Shift over, you great baby. So? What's up?'
'Nothing.'
'Crap. You always tell Solomon everything – even before you tell Maddy.'
'The computer's died. It always pisses me off that I can't control it. Holly's on her way over to sort it out.'
'And?'
Drew exhaled. 'And you know as well as I do that we can't survive like this.'
Charlie shrugged. 'No. It's a real shame we haven't got some hotshot for the Classics hidden away – but I suppose it's too late for that. What we need,' he ducked beneath Solomon's head, 'is something extremely media-friendly for next year's jumps. You know, a new Norton's Coin. Small stable takes on the big boys and wins. That sort of thing. You could try asking around – there might be some hairy point-to-pointer with Cheltenham potential eating its head off in one of the yards.'
'Yeah. And there might not be. Still, I suppose I could wander round the village and ask. I might catch someone at home this morning. And I certainly don't want to hang around here while Holly lectures me on pressing the wrong buttons.'
'Not,' Charlie grinned, 'a problem I encounter much myself.'
Drew laughed. Apart from being his jump jockey, Charlie was possibly his closest friend in Milton St John. And that raised another problem: if he gave up with National Hunt and specialised in flat-racing, then there would be no job at Peapods for Charlie.
'Where do you intend starting?'
'Kath Seaward. She's got everyone's ear.'
'Jesus.' Charlie backed out of the box. 'Don't mention me then. I'm still persona non grata at Lancing Grange.' He frowned at Drew as he bolted Solomon's door. 'Where's the car?'
'I'm not taking the car. I'm walking. I think better when I walk.' Drew knew this would flummox Charlie who seemed to be welded to the Aston Martin. 'And don't tell me you're driving to the Cat and Fiddle? It's only a hundred yards away.'
'Nah.' Charlie slid into his car's luxurious interior and pushed his dark red hair away from his eyes. 'I'm off to London. Tina Maloret thinks she might have forgiven me.'
Drew winced. Charlie would probably be knackered for the rest of the week. 'So we won't be seeing you around for a while?'
'Hope not.' Charlie revved the Aston Martin into life. 'If I'm not back by next weekend send in the Red Cross. Or that nice St John lady from Aintree ...'
St Saviour's bells shattered the Sunday silence, pealing across the roofs of the cottages and reverberating round the downland hills. Charlie leaned from the window. 'That reminds me – have you heard? About Gillian Hutchinson? The Vicar's wife?'
'Nothing remotely salacious, no.'
Charlie revved the car and started to pull away. 'She's rented the Vicarage flat to the woman who is opening the bookshop. A real grunge granny, according to the lads. I shan't bother checking her out.'
'I'm sure she'll be grateful. I'd heard the flat had been taken. At least Gillian Hutchinson's been luckier than me. I haven't had a single reply to the gardener advert.'
Drew felt a pang of pity for the newcomer at the Vicarage. Maddy and her friends had been delighted that there was to be a bookshop in the village, but honestly – when did trainers and jockeys ever have a spare minute to read anything other than form books or the racing papers? The bookshop seemed destined to be a spectacular failure. He knew the feeling.
Yelling to Maddy that he was going to Lancing Grange, he followed the Aston Martin's exhaust fumes out of the yard.
'It's far too bloody hot for May!' Kath flapped the tails of her checked shirt, looking, Drew thought, more like a demented scarecrow than ever. 'Thank God my season'll be all but over in a couple of weeks. This baked ground will knacker any progress. Still, apart from that nasty business with Ned Filkins at Christmas, and the effing débâcle at Aintree, we've had a damn good year so far.'
Kath Seaward's problems with her ex-travelling head lad were well known. His sacking had made the tabloids. And the air around Lancing Grange had been electric for days after the Grand National. Kath, it was rumoured, had put out a Mafia contract on Charlie Somerset.
Knowing that she was waiting for him to spring to the defence of his stable jockey, Drew didn't take Kath's bait. She was a master tactician on and off the racecourse. A wrong word now could lead to a major schism; and, although the rivalries between the various racing stables in Milton St John were fierce, there was also a strong bond of local camaraderie. And anyway, as his visit to Lancing Grange wasn't simply social, he was most unlikely to get Kath's help if he started championing Charlie.
Kath leaned against a pungently steaming wheelbarrow and surveyed him from beneath the brim of her grubby Jack Charlton golfing cap. Drew, playing the same game, rested his back against the wall in the sunshine and admired her immaculate stable yard with a professional eye. The Lancing Grange boxes were ultramodern. The yard was paved with red blocks and emerald-green tubs alight with pansies stood at each corner. A state-of-the-art tack-room, food store and equine medical centre took up the whole of one side. No expense was spared for the well-being of the seventy or so National Hunt inmates.
The stable block was slightly at odds with the rest of the Grange, Drew always thought, which was a moated flint manor-house, the home of the Seawards for generations. The addition of the racing stables had been Kath's first priority when she'd inherited the estate on the death of her elder brother. A last gesture of defiance in the face of the family who had been enraged that their only daughter had not married a high-ranking army officer and produced a brood of chinless wonders. A family, Drew gathered from Milton St John gossip, who had disowned their daughter years ago when it was clear that she would far rather have been born a man.
Kath had been working as an assistant trainer in Ireland, only returning to the village and the family home after all the Seawards were resting in St Saviour's churchyard. Lancing Grange stables were all the family she needed; the horses far more precious than any baby.
'Strikes me we're getting more and more like football and cricket,' she spoke suddenly, breaking the silence and peering at him again from beneath the cap's peak. 'You used to know where you were with the seasons. There was a respectable cut-off period. Football was in the winter, like jumping; cricket and the flat took up the summer. Now,' Kath glared as if the anomaly was Drew's entire responsibility, 'it's all merged into bloody one. What with all-weather tracks and summer jumping and all that crap. And the owners expect you to enter their damn horses all year round if there's any chance of a piddly bit of money at the end of it! Bloody fools! You can't get through to them that the poor sods have worked their guts out for months – they need a break like the rest of us.'
'Tell me about it,' Drew said with heartfelt sympathy. 'You should try running a mixed yard. I don't know whether I'm supposed to be at Ascot or Chepstow half the time. And, to be honest, I haven't got enough really good horses to justify either at present. I'm only going to be able to keep both sides running for another twelve months at the most. If I don't start earning some decent money, one of them is going to have to go.'
'I'm not surprised. A mixed yard would be far too complicated for me, too. It's pretty ambitious, even for a hardened professional.' Kath knotted the tails of her shirt above filthy riding breeches, exposing several inches of scrawny flesh. 'Is that why you've walked across the village on a Sunday morning? Do you want my advice? Okay then, for what it's worth, I'd say give up the jumping. You know there's more money on the flat – even if the Arabs don't currently think so. Is that what you want to hear?'
'Not really. Although it's what I've been thinking. I grabbed the opportunity to visit because I've got technology problems, and I've called Holly in to sort it out. I needed to escape before I hurled the computer through the window.' He rubbed his eyes wearily. 'I know your yard's full, so I thought you might have had to turn someone away. I just wondered if you'd been approached by anyone with a dead cert or twenty who's looking for a trainer for Cheltenham or Aintree.'