Taking the Fall Read online

  TAKING

  THE

  FALL

  A.P. McCoy

  Contents

  Cover

  Title page

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by A.P. McCoy

  Copyright

  1

  December 1979

  Duncan was hauled out of sleep by the sound of his bedside phone. It came into his dreams. As he sat up in bed, someone tapped him lightly on the head with a thirty-two-pound mallet. With eyes still pasted shut, he grabbed the phone and licked his dry lips.

  A voice said, ‘Duncan, you dog!’

  Duncan made to check his surroundings, but as he moved, he took another light knock from the mallet. He winced. He was recovering from a Young Jockeys’ Christmas party at the tail-end of 1979 that had started with them all getting thrown out of the Lamb and Flag and finished in the Wherever nightclub.

  ‘What was the last thing I said to you last night, Duncan?’

  Duncan smacked his dry lips. ‘Goodbye?’

  ‘Funny. Think again.’

  Duncan actually tried to think sensibly, but his headache discouraged the effort of remembering. His tongue had sprouted a thick-pile carpet and that put him off speaking too.

  The voice on the phone said, ‘Platform two for the eight forty-five. Be there, I said. Didn’t I? Well, didn’t I? Now you just listen to this.’

  There was a dull roar on the phone. Like the sound of a train approaching.

  ‘Did you hear that, Duncan? Did you? That’s the eight forty-five coming in, steaming.’

  ‘Kerry, you don’t fool me. That’s an electric train. Electric trains don’t steam.’

  ‘It’s the feckin’ eight forty-five whatever you say and I’m on it and you’re not; and you can forget about your ride today. For God’s sake don’t tell me you ended up with that red-headed bird you were flirting with all night.’

  Duncan looked over his shoulder. Under the white cotton duvet a sleeping figure lay curled, but all he could see of her was a pale and elegant foot poked out from the bottom of the bed. Her toenails were painted flamingo-pink. He sniffed and delicately pulled back the corner of the duvet to reveal the shiny chestnut curls and slightly freckled brow of a very pretty red-headed girl.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s a blonde.’

  ‘You’re a lying toerag. I saw her climb into a cab with you when we left the Exchange Bar.’

  ‘Is that where we ended up?’

  ‘Oh yes. And she had to put you into the cab with a spoon.’

  ‘Kerry,’ Duncan said, ‘I’ll make it down for the next train. Sit tight. Wait for me. Be a good pal.’

  ‘Hell with that. You’re on your own, son. What was the last thing I said to you last night?’

  ‘Platform two. Eight forty-five.’

  ‘No, before that. The last thing before the last thing. I said don’t get mixed up with the redhead. Didn’t I? Do you know whose feckin’ daughter she is? Do you? Do you know? Now I’m on this train. You better get your arse there for the first race or you’re on the skids, pal, on the skids. I’ll cover for you as far as I can. Just like I always do. Jesus, man, do you know whose daughter that is?’

  ‘Kerry, I’ll get there.’

  ‘You’re a damned nuisance is what you are.’

  Duncan heard a whistle blow and then the line went dead.

  Both he and Kerry were jocked up for the first race at Doncaster. The last time he’d raced there he’d been pulled up by the stewards for excessive use of the whip, which was just ridiculous because the ride he was on was already dead before they’d dragged it out of the stables. The steward, Pointer, was one of those failed trainers in green wellies: a by-the-book military type with a hatred of every promising young jockey who showed a high seat and a bit of style. Duncan had got lippy with him, and that bit of lip had cost him dear.

  He didn’t want to go back to Doncaster. He had the mother of all hangovers and there was a fine-looking girl in his bed whom he’d quite like to meet. No, he didn’t want to go to Doncaster, but on days like this you had to take what you were given.

  Unless you were at the top of the game, that is, front of the pack with plenty in hand, and then you could pick and choose. And the top of the game was where Duncan planned to be. Time was – for a while – when that looked to be exactly where he was heading. He’d been one of the most promising – no, scratch that – the most promising young jockey in the country. He was hacking up everywhere. Runner-up for the 1978 Conditional Jockey Championship; though he rode fewer winners, his strike rate was ten per cent higher than the champion’s. Everyone knew damned well he was the better jockey. Then when he’d moved on to becoming a fully fledged jockey, he’d found out the hard way that the best jockeys didn’t always come by the best rides, and that had cost him dearly.

  There was just stuff in his way. Connections, for example: owner loves you, trainer hates you; or trainer likes you but owner for some reason won’t even let you ride his prize pig. Other things counted too: old friendships, former stablemates, debts being paid, secrets protected. Jockey Club favours. Form; and not the form of the horses, either.

  Then there was the darker stuff: arrangements, handshakes, bookies’ specials, say nothin’. The whole lot of it nothing to do with who could gallop down that last straight with their nose in front. It should be so simple, best jockey gets best horse, but it never was. You got what you were given, and if you had a bit of lip and a bit of spunk about you and spoke out of turn just occasionally, you might find yourself saddling a can of Pedigree Chum for all the chances you had.

  But Duncan was one for winning rather than whining, and he knew it would come good in the end. He was just going to have to work through it and prove himself. He had the touch. He could feel a ride quicken under him, and not every jockey knew when to tuck in and wait and when to let the horse open up. Sometimes he could even take a horse on the downgrade and flash past a favourite. He had it. He had what it took, and he knew it.

  First he had to dig in and ride the gaff tracks, and ten dozen other gaff tracks, and learn to button his lip. His friend Kerry had that lips-sealed thing off much better than he did. Knew when to shut up. He and Kerry went way back, had been Conditional jockeys together, still a rivalry there, but good mates. They had looked out for each other, and after they had finished their time as Conditionals it had been Kerry who’d warned him he’d be disqualified for excessive use of the lip if he wasn’t careful.

  But so often he just couldn’t help himself. His gob always ran away with him. ‘Not exactly a pigeon-chaser, is it?’ he might say to a trainer when given an outsider. ‘Why am I so bloody lucky?’

  ‘Just take the trip,’ Kerry had told him. ‘Ride what you’re given and you’ll get your chance one day.’ But still Duncan would complain and mouth off to the trainer if he was told to do nothing more than get round.

  And of course Kerry was right. He and Duncan were both twenty-one years old but still kids as far as the owners and the trainers were concerned. But knowing that you should shut your gob and doing it were two different things. Sometimes it seemed that his mouth worked independently of his brain. It was like there was a little monkey-demon that got inside him and said the things he said, half in fun, half in jest, but usually at some cost to himself. Maybe he should have his jaw wir
ed shut.

  And maybe he should have his zipper wired shut, too. He turned to the girl sleeping beside him. Gently he tugged the covers from her, revealing her breasts. He leaned over and kissed a pink nipple and she woke up, blinking at him. She smiled happily and sat up, propping herself on one elbow.

  ‘Duncan, do it again, will you?’

  ‘Listen,’ Duncan said. ‘Do you have a car?’

  ‘A car?’

  ‘I’m late for a meeting at Doncaster. I was wondering if you could drive me.’

  ‘Drive you? How could I drive you? I don’t have a licence.’

  ‘What?’ Duncan’s head pounded again. ‘How old are you?’

  ‘Eighteen. In January.’

  Only just the right side of legal. Duncan blinked. At least there wouldn’t be a stewards’ inquiry. ‘You might have told me.’

  ‘The subject never came up. Anyway, you’re not so much older.’

  ‘I feel like I’m a hundred this morning. And I’ve got to get to Doncaster.’ He swung his legs out of bed and found his way to the toilet. There was a bathroom scales on the floor and he weighed himself. It was close. He didn’t have a couple of hours for the sauna, so he was going to have to pop a pee pill to get rid of that extra two pounds. He got off the scales and inspected his face in the mirror. His eyes were bloodshot and he didn’t look like a winner today. But he would, soon. In a few hours’ time he would put on the silk and he would glow and he would fly.

  He threw some cold water on his face. When he came out of the bathroom, patting his face dry with a towel, the girl pulled the sheets around herself but in a manner he knew was inviting him to whisk them away from her. She shook her head coquettishly. ‘Anyway, how come you don’t have a car?’ she said. ‘You can’t go everywhere on a horse.’

  ‘It was repossessed last week. I’m sunk.’

  ‘I can get you a car easily enough.’

  ‘How’s that, then?’

  ‘My dad. He’s got loads of cars.’

  ‘Loads? What is he, the local Ford dealer?’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Duncan. He’s in the same business you’re in. Racing, I mean.’

  ‘Oh I remember now.’ I could hardly forget, could I? he thought. Major scumbag number one.

  ‘And,’ she laughed prettily, ‘he’s got about twelve cars in the garage. What do you like? There’s a Lamba . . . Lambra . . .’

  ‘Lamborghini?’

  ‘That’s it. And a Porsche. A shiny black one. And some others. He never uses most of them, so he won’t miss one for a day.’

  He flicked the towel at her buttock and she squealed. ‘Get dressed. We’re on our way!’

  They took a taxi from Duncan’s place to hers, and all the way Duncan tried to figure out a way of asking her name without sounding impolite. After all, if you’ve just had sex vigorous enough to make you lose half a pound, you really ought to know what she’s called. ‘Your dad,’ he tried. ‘Does he have a pet name for you?’

  She made a face. ‘No. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that most dads have a special name for their daughter, don’t they? I wondered if he called you Bunny or Pumpkin or some such thing.’

  ‘Bunny?’

  Duncan shrugged.

  ‘You’re weird,’ she said. She looked out of the window at the grey sky. After a while she said, ‘He just calls me Lorna like everyone else. To be honest, he doesn’t care about me enough to give me a pet name.’

  Lorna. Of course. He’d thought it was Laura or Lara and it was important not to get it wrong. Now he remembered moving in on her in the nightclub and making her laugh, and Kerry beckoning to him and saying, ‘Now you keep away from that if you ever want to ride for the Duke.’

  She’d been wrong about her father. ‘Duke’ Cadogan wasn’t exactly in the same business as Duncan. No more than a soldier fighting in Northern Ireland was in the same business as an international arms manufacturer. Where Duncan was a jockey, Cadogan was a racehorse owner, one further step removed than a trainer. He bought the horseflesh and sponsored a stable the way that a businessman might buy himself into being the chairman of a football team. His nickname had nothing to do with the English aristocracy.

  When the taxi drew up at Lorna’s house, Duncan got out, paid the cabbie and stepped back to take in the size of the property. ‘Anyone home?’ he said nervously.

  ‘Only the staff,’ Lorna said. ‘I’ll get the keys to the garage.’

  She hurried off, leaving Duncan to take in the sweep of the lawns, the outbuildings and the great Georgian columns trumpeting the front of the house and its gravel driveway. Just one of those outhouses was bigger than the old cottage he’d shared with his dad as he’d grown up.

  Dad it had been who had raised him and put him in the saddle. Dad who had taught him everything he knew, who’d showed him the way. Yes, he was a lot older than all the other lads’ fathers, in his late forties when Duncan was born. And when his mother – who by all accounts was a screaming basket case – had upped and left when Duncan was only five years old, it had been Dad who had taken over and done the whole damned thing.

  His dad, Charlie, was a small-time trainer. Not any more, but back then. Struggling to make it, always struggling. He didn’t have big-time players investing in his tiny stables: no football managers, no business tycoons, no fake dukes. He did everything the hard way. Went over to Ireland, or even to France – something no one else was doing at the time – to find a prospect, bring it back, get it fit, race it and sell it on. Some of these trips Charlie pulled Duncan out of school and took the boy with him.

  ‘I love you, Dad,’ Duncan heard himself whisper as his eyes surveyed the four-million-pound property. ‘And I will fucking get them. All of them.’

  He was brought out of his reverie by the sound of Lorna trudging across the gravel. She beamed at him, dangling a big set of keys in front of her. ‘Shall we see what’s there?’

  He followed her over to a modern garage with steel doors. She unlocked a side door, hit a switch and the doors rolled upwards, purring as they went. A row of lights flickered on, one after the other, to reveal Cadogan’s collection of motors.

  They walked slowly between the silent vehicles, Lorna lightly trailing a finger on the slightly dusty paintwork. She seemed to be waiting for him to choose. The motors looked sort of sad and sleepy and forgotten, like beautiful courtesans in a harem no one ever visited, losing their best years. There was a Mercedes-Benz 450 SL soft-top; the Porsche and the Lamborghini she’d mentioned; a 1960s American Dodge Dart and an early seventies Chevy Camaro. There were a couple of vintage classics like the 1939 Simca 5. Heck, there was even a new Volkswagen Beetle in the mix, and for a moment he felt like taking that just for perversity. But the Lamborghini had more curves than a Playboy centrefold.

  ‘I think you’ll look pretty in the sunflower,’ he said.

  ‘Oh good,’ Lorna said. ‘I’ve always fancied the yellow one.’

  She went over to a cabinet, unlocked it and puzzled over the rows of keys until she found the right set. She tossed them through the air and Duncan caught them. He weighed them in his hand for a moment before unlocking the Lamborghini doors. He stepped round to the passenger door and held it open for her.

  She blushed. ‘You’re a gentleman!’ She sank into the low-slung plush leather of the passenger seat and it made her skirt ride up her legs.

  ‘Oh yes, every inch a gentleman.’ He unclipped the seat belt and reached across her to fasten it in place. Then he pulled the strap across her chest.

  ‘Not too tight!’ she protested.

  But he tightened it anyway, then leaned down and kissed her, putting his tongue in her mouth at the same time as he slipped his hand between her legs. She wore thin tights but no knickers.

  Moments later he was outside the garage, listening to the motor purr. He depressed the accelerator and the purr turned to a big-cat snarl. He looked at his watch. This was going to be good.

  ‘This has gru
nt!’ he said. But then he was distracted by a whirring noise from overhead. He looked up through the tinted glass of the windscreen and saw a helicopter high in the sky. It looked like it was descending.

  ‘That will be Daddy popping in for a few things,’ Lorna said. ‘Probably best if we shoot off.’

  The Lamborghini did have grunt. It ate the motorway. They were so low in the seats that it was like riding in a snake’s belly. Duncan felt his own body weight pressing on his kidneys, and the diuretic pills meant he was going to have to stop pretty soon. He wished he’d stopped at the last services, but time was short if he was going to make the race. He looked at his watch and gave the accelerator a little more toe. The motor spat in response.

  He wished he could pile up enough money to give his old dad one of these things. Not that his father was at all interested in cars. There was only one kind of horsepower for Charlie, and that was the kind where you pumped oats in one end and shovelled shit from the other. But when he made it, he would give his dad one of these anyway.

  He looked at his watch. He was going to have to floor it to make the race in time.

  School had come and gone and had barely touched Duncan. It wasn’t that he didn’t get along with his teachers – though the old lippy problem had got him into a couple of scrapes with teachers and older boys alike – it was just that all that geography and maths and other stuff didn’t seem to stick.

  ‘Don’t you worry,’ his dad had told him. ‘You’re too sharp for ’em, that’s the problem. You’ve got brains enough. It’s just a different kind of brains.’

  And his dad was right: Duncan did have a brain. What kind of brain that was became clear one day when he was just nine years old and Charlie took him along to a race meeting in Leicester in the East Midlands, not far from the stables. It was a day of sunshine and the jockeys’ bright silks were shimmering and flying like flags at a gala. Duncan was mesmerised by the tic-tac men and the antics of the bookies’ runners. His dad gave him a brief explanation of what the signs meant, explaining that some of the gestures were secret. Duncan went over and stood by the white-painted rail dividing Tattersalls from the Silver Ring. He watched the signs and observed the runners, and then he studied the bookies’ chalkboards as the odds tumbled or went way out. Pretty soon he had it all worked out.