For Kicks - Страница 15

The lads watching the television were making disparaging remarks about the jockeys and striking private bets against each other on the outcome of the races.

"The uphill finish will sort 'em out as usual," Paddy was saying.

"It's a long way from the last… Aladdin's the only one who's got the stamina for the job."

"No," contradicted Grits.

"Lobster Cocktail's a flyer…"

Morosely I riffled the pages of the form book, aimlessly looking through them for the hundredth time, and came by chance on the map of Chepstow race course in the general information section at the beginning of the book. There were diagrammatic maps of all the main courses showing the shape of the tracks and the positioning of fences, stands, starting gates, and winning posts, and I had looked before at those for Ludlow, Stafford, and Haydock, without results. There was no map of Kelso or Sedgefield. Next to the map section were a few pages of information about the courses, the lengths of their circuits, the names and addresses of the officials, the record times for the races, and so on.

For something to do, I turned to Chepstow's paragraph. Paddy's 'long way from the last' was detailed there: two hundred and fifty yards. I looked up Kelso, Sedgefield, Ludlow, Stafford, and Haydock. They had much longer run-ins than Chepstow. I looked up the run-ins of all the courses in the book. The Aintree Grand National run-in was the second longest. The longest of all was Sedgefield, and in third, fourth, fifth, and sixth positions came Ludlow, Haydock, Kelso, and Stafford.

All had run-ins of over four hundred yards.

Geography had nothing to do with it: those five courses had almost certainly been chosen by the dopers because in each case it was about a quarter of a mile from the last fence to the winning post.

It was an advance, even if a small one, to have made at least some pattern out of the chaos. In a slightly less abysmal frame of mind I shut the form book and at four o'clock followed the other lads out into the unwelcome rainswept yard to spend an hour with each of my three charges, grooming them thoroughly to give their coats a clean healthy shine, tossing and tidying their straw beds, fetching their water, holding their heads while Inskip walked round, rugging them up comfortably for the night, and finally fetching their evening feed. As usual it was seven before we had all finished, and eight before we had eaten and changed and were bumping down the hill to Slaw, seven of us sardined into a rickety old Austin.

Bar billiards, darts, dominoes, the endless friendly bragging, the ingredients as before. Patiently, I sat and waited. It was nearly ten, the hour when the lads began to empty their glasses and think about having to get up the next morning, when Soupy strolled across the room towards the door, and, seeing my eyes on him, jerked his head for me to follow him. I got up and went out after him, and found him in the lavatories.

"This is for you. The rest on Tuesday," he said economically; and treating me to a curled lip and stony stare to impress me with his toughness, he handed me a thick brown envelope. I put it in the inside pocket of my black leather jacket, and nodded to him. Still without speaking, without smiling, hard-eyed to match, I turned on my heel and went back into the bar: and after a while, casually, he followed.

So I crammed into the Austin and was driven up the hill, back to bed in the little dormitory, with seventy- five pounds and a packet of white powder sitting snugly over my heart.

CHAPTER SIX

October dipped his finger in the powder and tasted it.

"I don't know what it is either," he said, shaking his head.

"I'll get it analysed."

I bent down and patted his dog, and fondled his ears.

He said "You do realize what a risk you'll be running if you take his money and don't give the dope to the horse?"

I grinned up at him.

"It's no laughing matter," he said seriously.

"They can be pretty free with their boots, these people, and it would be no help to us if you get your ribs kicked in…"

"Actually," I said, straightening up, "I do think it might be best if Sparking Plug didn't win… I could hardly hope to attract custom from the dopers we are really after if they heard I had double-crossed anyone before."

"You're quite right." He sounded relieved.

"Sparking Plug must lose;

but Inskip. how on earth can I tell him that the jockey must pull back? "

"You can't," I said.

"You don't want them getting into trouble. But it won't matter much if I do. The horse won't win if I keep him thirsty tomorrow morning and give him a bucketful of water just before the race."

He looked at me with amusement.

"I see you've learned a thing or two."

"It'd make your hair stand on end, what I've learned."

He smiled back.

"All right then. I suppose it's the only thing to do.

I wonder what the National Hunt Committee would think of a Steward conspiring with one of his own stable lads to stop a favourite? " He laughed.

"I'll tell Roddy Beckett what to expect… though it won't be so funny for Inskip, nor for the lads here, if they back the horse, nor for the general public, who'll lose their money."

"No," I agreed.

He folded the packet of white powder and tucked it back into the envelope with the money. The seventy- five pounds had foolishly been paid in a bundle of new fivers with consecutive numbers: and we had agreed that October would take them and try to discover to whom they had been issued.

I told him about the long run-ins on all of the courses where the eleven horses had won.

"It almost sounds as if they might have been using vitamins after all," he said thoughtfully.

"You can't detect them in dope tests because technically they are not dope at all, but food. The whole question of vitamins is very difficult."

"They increase stamina?" I asked.

"Yes, quite considerably. Horses which " die" in the last half mile and as you pointed out, all eleven are that type would be ideal subjects. But vitamins were among the first things we considered, and we had to eliminate them. They can help horses to win, if they are injected in massive doses into the bloodstream, and they are undetectable in analysis because they are used up in the winning, but they are undetectable in other ways too. They don't excite, they don't bring a horse back from a race looking as though Benzedrine were cdittmg out of his ears." He sighed.

"I don't know…"

With regret I made my confession that I had learned nothing from Beckett's typescript.

"Neither Beckett nor I expected as much from it as you did," he said.

"I've been talking to him a lot this week, and we think that although all those extensive inquiries were made at the time, you might find something that was overlooked if you moved to one of the stables where those eleven horses were trained when they were doped. Of course, eight of the horses were sold and have changed stables, which is a pity, but three are still with their original trainers, and it might be best if you could get a job with one of those."

"Yes," I said.

"All right. I'll try all three trainers and see if one of them will take me on. But the trail is very cold by now… and joker number twelve will turn up in a different stable altogether.

There was nothing, I suppose, at Haydock this week? "

"No. Saliva samples were taken from all the runners before the selling 'chase, but the favourite won, quite normally, and we didn't have the samples analysed. But now that you've spotted that those five courses must have been chosen deliberately for their long finishing straights we will keep stricter watches there than ever. Especially if one of those eleven horses runs there again."

"You could check with the racing calendar to see if any has been entered," I agreed.

"But so far none of them has been doped twice, and I can't see why the pattern should change."

A gust of bitter wind blew down the gully, and he shivered. The little stream, swollen with yesterday's rains, tumbled busily over its rocky bed. October whistled to his dog, who was sniffing along its banks.

"By the way," he said, shaking hands, 'the vets are of the opinion that the horses were not helped on their way by pellets or darts, or anything shot or thrown. But they can't be a hundred per cent certain.

They didn't at the time examine all the horses very closely. But if we get another one I'll see they go over every inch looking for punctures. "

"Fine." We smiled at each other and turned away. I liked him. He was imaginative and had a sense of humour to leaven the formidable big-business-executive power of his speech and manner. A tough man, I thought appreciatively: tough in mind, muscular in body, unswerving in purpose: a man of the kind to have earned an earldom, if he hadn't inherited it.

Sparking Plug had to do without his bucket of water that night and again the following morning. The box driver set off to Leicester with a pocketful of hard- earned money from the lads and their instructions to back the horse to win; and I felt a traitor.

Inskip's other horse, which had come in the box too, was engaged in the third race, but the novice 'chase was not until the fifth race on the card, which left me free to watch the first two races as well as Sparks' own. I bought a race card and found a space on the parade ring rails, and watched the horses for the first race being led round.

Although from the form books I knew the names of a great many trainers they were still unknown to me by sight; and accordingly, when they stood chatting with their jockeys in the ring, I tried, for interest, to identify some of them. There were only seven of them engaged in the first race: Owen, Cundell, Beeby, Cazalet, Humber. Humber? What was it that I had heard about Humber? I couldn't remember. Nothing very important, I thought.