For Kicks - Страница 16

Humber 's horse looked the least well of the lot, and the lad leading him round wore unpolished shoes, a dirty raincoat, and an air of not caring to improve matters. The jockey's jersey, when he took his coat off, could be seen to be still grubby with mud from a former outing, and the trainer who had failed to provide clean colours or to care about stable smartness was a large, bad-tempered looking man leaning on a thick, knobbed walking stick.

As it happened, Humber 's lad stood beside me on the stand to watch the race.

"Got much chance?" I asked idly.

"Waste of time running him," he said, his lip curling.

"I'm fed to the back molars with the sod."

"Oh. Perhaps your other horse is better, though?" I murmured, watching the runners line up for the start.

"My other horse?" He laughed without mirth.

"Three others, would you believe it? I'm fed up with the whole sodding set up. I'm packing it in at the end of the week, pay or no pay."

I suddenly remembered what I had heard about Humber. The worst stable in the country to work for, the boy in the Bristol hostel had said:

they starved the lads and knocked them about and could only get riffraff to work there.

"How do you mean, pay or no pay?" I asked.

" Humber pays sixteen quid a week, instead of eleven," he said, 'but it's not bloody worth it. I've had a bellyful of bloody Humber. I'm getting out. "

The race started, and we watched Humber 's horse finish last. The lad disappeared, muttering, to lead him away.

I smiled, followed him down the stairs, and forgot him, because waiting near the bottom step was a seedy, black-moustached man whom I instantly recognized as having been in the bar at the Cheltenham dance.

I walked slowly away to lean over the parade ring rail, and he inconspicuously followed. He stopped beside me, and with his eyes on the one horse already in the ring, he said, "I hear that you are hard up."

"Not after today, I'm not," I said, looking him up and down.

He glanced at me briefly.

"Oh. Are you so sure of Sparking Plug?"

"Yeah," I said with an unpleasant smirk.

"Certain." Someone, I reflected, had been kind enough to tell him which horse I looked after: which meant he had been checking up on me. I trusted he had learned nothing to my advantage.

"Hmm."

A whole minute passed. Then he said casually, "Have you ever thought of changing your job… going to another stable?"

"I've thought of it," I admitted, shrugging.

"Who hasn't?"

"There's always a market for good lads," he pointed out, 'and I've heard you're a dab hand at the mucking out. With a reference from Inskip you could get in anywhere, if you told them you were prepared to wait for a vacancy. "

"Where?" I asked; but he wasn't to be hurried. After another minute he said, still conversationally, "It can be very… er… lucrative working for some stables."

"Oh?"

"That is," he coughed discreetly, 'if you are ready to do a bit more than the stable tells you to. "

"Such as?"

"Oh… general duties," he said vaguely.

"It varies. Anything helpful toer the person who is prepared to supplement your income."

"And who's that?"

He smiled thinly.

"Look upon me as his agent. How about it? His terms are a regular river a week for information about the results of training gallops and things like that, and a good bonus for occasional special jobs of a more, er, risky nature."

"It don't sound bad," I said slowly, sucking in my lower lip.

"Can't I do it at Inskip's?"

"Inskip's is not a betting stable," he said.

"The horses always run to win. We do not need a permanent employee in that sort of place. There are however at present two betting stables without a man of ours in them, and you would be useful in either."

He named two leading trainers, neither of whom was one of the three people I had already planned to apply to. I would have to decide whether it would not be more useful to join what was clearly a well-organized spy system, than to work with a once-doped horse who would almost certainly not be doped again.

"I'll think it over," I said.

"Where can I get in touch with you?"

"Until you're on the pay roll, you can't," he said simply.

"Sparking Plug's in the fifth, I see. Well, you can give me your answer after that race. I'll be somewhere on your way back to the stables. Just nod if you agree, and shake your head if you don't. But I can't see you passing up a chance like this, not one of your sort." There was a sly contempt in the smile he gave me that made me unexpectedly wince inwardly.

He turned away and walked a few steps, and then came back.

"Should I have a big bet on Sparking Plug, then?" he asked.

"Oh… er… well… if I were you I'd save your money."

He looked surprised, and then suspicious, and then knowing.

"So that's how the land lies," he said.

"Well, well, well." He laughed, looking at me as if I'd crawled out from under a stone. He was a man who despised his tools.

"I can see you're going to be very useful to us.

Very useful indeed. "

I watched him go. It wasn't from kindheartedness that I had stopped him backing Sparking Plug, but because it was the only way to retain and strengthen his confidence. When he was fifty yards away, I followed him. He made straight for the bookmakers in Tatter- sails and strolled along the rows, looking at the odds displayed by each firm;

but as far as I could see he was in fact innocently planning to bet on the next race, and not reporting to anyone the outcome of his talk with me. Sighing, I put ten shillings on an outsider and went back to watch the horses go out for the race.

Sparking Plug thirstily drank two full buckets of water, stumbled over the second last fence, and cantered tiredly in behind the other seven runners to the accompaniment of boos from the cheaper enclosures. I watched him with regret. It was a thankless way to treat a great-hearted horse.

The seedy, black-moustached man was waiting when I led the horse away to the stables. I nodded to him, and he sneered knowingly back.

"You'll hear from us," he said.

There was gloom in the box going home and in the yard the next day over Sparking Plug's unexplainable defeat, and I went alone to Slaw on Tuesday evening, when Soupy duly handed over another seventy-five pounds. I checked it. Another fifteen new fivers, consecutive to the first fifteen.

"Ta," I said.

"What do you get out of this yourself?"

Soupy's full mouth curled.

"I do all right. You mugs take the risks, I get a cut for setting you up. Fair enough, eh?"

"Fair enough. How often do you do this sort of thing?" I tucked the envelope of money into my pocket.

He shrugged, looking pleased with himself.

"I can spot blokes like you a mile off. Inskip must be slipping, though. First time I've known him pick a bent penny, like. But those darts matches come in very handy… I'm good, see. I'm always in the team. And there's a lot of stables in Yorkshire… with a lot of beaten favourites for people to scratch their heads over."

"You're very clever," I said. He smirked. He agreed.

I walked up the hill planning to light a fuse under TNT. " the high explosive kid.

In view of the black-moustached man's offer I decided to read through Beckett's typescript yet again, to see if the eleven do pings could have been the result of systematic spying. Looking at things from a fresh angle might produce results, I thought, and also might help me make up my mind whether or not to back out of the spying job and go to one of the doped horse's yards as arranged.

Locked in the bathroom I began again at page one. On page sixty-seven, fairly early in the life history of the fifth of the horses, I read "Bought at Ascot Sales, by D. L. Mentiff, Esq." of York for four hundred and twenty guineas, passed on for five hundred pounds to H. Humber of Posset, County Durham, remained three months, ran twice unplaced in maiden hurdles, subsequently sold again, at Doncaster, being bought for six hundred guineas by N. W. Davies, Esq. " of Leeds.

Sent by him to L. Peterson's training stables at Mars Edge, Staffs, remained eighteen months, ran in four maiden hurdles, five novice 'chases, all without being placed. Races listed below. " Three months at Humber 's. I smiled. It appeared that horses didn't stay with him any longer than lads. I ploughed on through the details, page after solid page.

On page ninety-four I came across the following:

" Alamo was then offered for public auction at Kelso, and a Mr. John Arbuthnot, living in Berwickshire, paid three hundred guineas for him.

He sent him to be trained by H. Humber at Posset, County Durham, but he was not entered for any races, and Mr. Arbuthnot sold him to Humber for the same sum. A few weeks later he was sent for resale at Kelso.

This time Alamo was bought for three hundred and seventy-five guineas by a Mr. Clement Smithson, living at Nantwich, Cheshire, who kept him at home for the summer and then sent him to a trainer called Samuel Martin at Malton, Yorkshire, where he ran unplaced in four maiden hurdles before Christmas, (see list attached). "

I massaged my stiff neck. Humber again.

I read on.

On page one hundred and eighty, I read, "Ridgeway was then acquired as a yearling by a farmer, James Green, of Home Farm, Crayford, Surrey, in settlement of a bad debt. Mr. Green put him out to grass for two years, and had him broken in, hoping he would be a good hunter.

However, a Mr. Taplow of Pewsey, Wilts, said he would like to buy him and put him in training for racing. Ridgeway was trained for flat races by Ronald Streat of Pewsey, but was unplaced in all his four races that summer. Mr. Taplow then sold Ridgeway privately to Albert George, farmer, of Bridge Lewes,