Warned Off

Warned Off

 Copyright
© 2012 by Richard Pitman and Joe McNally

First published
in Great Britain by Hodder & Stoughton in 1993

This electronic
edition published in 2012

All rights
reserved
 

Authors’ note

This is a work
of fiction. Names characters, places and incidents are either a work of the
imagination of the authors or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is
entirely coincidental.

This
was the earliest severe winter I could recall, albeit I was only twenty seven.
That put me about a third of the way through my life I reckoned and it was one of
the things that made me decide to try and find my sister.

Alcohol has that self-delusional effect
on me. It makes me think that somehow everything is going to be alright again.
I was bloody cold living in that caravan, Christmas wasn’t far off, and I longed
for just one evening by a warm hearth. My skewed and boozy mind’s eye decided
Marie, my sister, probably lived in a nice cottage in Newmarket with a big log
fire. I hadn’t seen her since I’d left school. She wasn’t in the phone book.
Address unknown, but Newmarket isn’t that big. That’s what I kept telling
myself, when I hit the road, collar up, thumb out, plodding through grey slush,
Newmarket isn’t that big.

As it turned out, its size didn’t
matter. I stopped in the first pub I saw after being dropped off and left it at
midnight with some old floozy who offered me a bed and some chips and curry
sauce.

Come morning, a dull hangover and empty
pockets stripped away my happy family yuletide ambitions. I left the sleeping
beauty snoring and decided the solitary life of the caravan-by-the-dung-heap
dweller was about as much as I deserved.

It was frosty and misty. I quickened,
trying to keep warm, heading south along the High Street away from the town. I
needed to pee. Keeping urine warm in the bladder’s an inefficient duty for the
body when heat is needed elsewhere. Remember that next time you’re going out in
icy weather and it might save you jumping a fence to find some bushes.

These bushes were on the golf course. I
drew a yellow piss flower in the frosted grass and was conscious, as I zipped
up, of smiling involuntarily for the first time in ages. Then, at the end of a
line of rhododendrons, I saw a man’s leg on the ground, the rimed corduroy of
his trousers clean above a bloodied brown shoe.

The body was lying face down, his left
leg bent at the knee as though he’d been felled mid-run. I considered dragging
him out but realised it was unlikely he’d be alive. The frost layers on his
clothes would have taken more than one night to thicken that much. I went to
the far side of the bush and parted the leaves till I could see his face. His
eyes were frozen shut. A crust of pinkish frost, blood-tinted, lined either
side of a long deep wound on his throat.

I turned round and headed wearily back
into town and the police station.

The
sergeant recognised him; Danny Gordon, twenty-nine years old, late of the
Horseracing Forensic Laboratory, Newmarket. His face was the colour and texture
of tripe and his throat was cut so deep his head had almost come off.

‘As bad as you’ve seen?’ I asked the
sergeant

He turned on me as though I’d offended
him. ‘What do you think?’

I shrugged, half apologetic, ‘Sorry.
Stupid question.’

‘I know his wife well,’ he said. ‘Used
to go out with her. They’ve got three kids.’

I felt useless, worn out and somehow
guilty. He took me back to the police station, offered me coffee and asked
questions. Shifts changed. They gave me soup and chicken sandwiches and
lemonade. It was late afternoon when they let me go. My feet were cold and wet.
I felt unclean and unshaven and still hungover. ‘Any chance you can organise me
a lift home?’

The sergeant didn’t bother looking up at
me. ‘Nope.’

I watched him, hunting with one finger
above his keyboard. I said, ‘Remind me next time I get the urge to be a good citizen
to walk on by.’

He ignored me. I said. ‘In fact, come
witness time, count me out.’

‘You’ll be there.’ He said quietly.

I turned and headed for the door.
‘Here,’ he said. I looked round. He was offering me a banknote. ‘That should
get you home.’

Twenty quid. I took it. ‘Thanks. Want me
to sign something?’

He looked at me now. ‘There’s nothing to
sign.’

‘You’re lending me this then?’

‘No. Keep it. Happy Christmas.’

‘I’ll send you a cheque. What’s your
name?’

He was back concentrating on his keyboard
again. ‘Santa Claus.’ He said. ‘Make a donation at midnight Mass.’

I put the money in my pocket. ‘Thanks.
Sign of the staff shortages in the force when you have to play the bad cop
and
the good cop. See you sometime.’

‘I’ll look forward to it.’

About
nine weeks after I’d found the body, McCarthy came to see me. I didn’t
recognise him when I first opened the caravan door; the only light came from a
weak gas lamp hanging behind me, and though he looked up when he spoke his face
was still in shadow.

I stepped to one side. The lamp swung
and flickered in the wind but enough light fell on his face to identify him as
Peter McCarthy, Racecourse Security Services investigator.

‘Hello, Eddie.’

The surprise at seeing him kept me
silent.

‘You remember me, don’t you?’

I nodded. ‘What do you want?’

‘Just to talk.’

‘The last time we talked it cost me my
licence and eighteen months in jail.’

We stared at each other. The rain blew
into his back and pattered in bursts on his trilby. ‘Give me fifteen minutes,’
he said. ‘If you’re not interested in what I’ve got to say after that you can
throw me out.’ I moved aside.

‘Hell of a night, eh?’  He said.

I didn’t reply. Taking off his long
coat, he looked around him. ‘There’s a hook behind the door,’ I said. Pulling a
plastic chair from under the fixed table I left it for him, and went to sit on
my bed in the corner. McCarthy hung his coat up then fished in his jacket
pocket and pulled out a handkerchief.

He held it up to the light. There were
dark smears and blotches on it and he was trying to fold it over to a clean
bit. He saw me watching. ‘Nosebleeds,’ he said, ‘been getting them since I was
a kid’. McCarthy had got even fatter since I’d last seen him. About six feet
two and forty pounds overweight his face and dark untidy curly hair had a
greasy sheen even after he’d wiped away the rain. Finally he sat down, resting
his arms on the table, clasped his hands and looked straight at me like I was a
camera and he was about to start reading the news.

‘Your ban expired yesterday.’ He said.

‘I know.’

‘I wondered what your plans were.’

‘Why?’

He shrugged. ‘Maybe I can help you out.’

‘What makes you think I need help?’

He looked around the caravan. It was
old. God knows how many stablehands and labourers had used it before me. It was
damp and dirty and full of holes which I’d plugged, though the winds coming off
the fields still found their way in.

‘Not what champion jockeys are used to,’
McCarthy said.

‘Ex-champion ... I get by.’

‘Come on, Eddie, how much longer do you
want to be stuck in this box out in the wilds?’

‘I’ll move on when I’m ready, without
any help from you.’

‘You’re bearing old grudges.’

‘Damn right I am.’ I got up to get a
drink. All I had was a third of a bottle of whisky in a cupboard under the
sink. I half-filled a small glass, feeling no more hospitable toward McCarthy
than when I’d opened the door, but I did offer him a drink.

‘Coffee, if you’ve got some. Milk and
two sugars.’

As I lit the one gas ring that worked I
tried to figure what McCarthy’s angle was.

The last time I’d seen him he’d been
investigating my ‘involvement’ in a racehorse-doping ring. I’d had nothing to
do with it, but they didn’t believe me. They took away my jockey’s licence for
life and ‘warned me off the turf’ for five years.

The kettle bubbled and I sloshed some
boiling water into a mug and left McCarthy to stir it.

I took the whisky back to my bunk. He
looked across at me and raised his mug slowly. ‘Cheers,’ he said.

He sipped coffee before taking up his
newsreader’s pose again. ‘How close a touch have you kept with racing in the
last five years?’

‘None. I’ve no reason to.’

‘Miss it?’

Racing had been my life. I’d been
careful never to let them know that, “the authorities”. The injustice was bad
enough, I didn’t want them knowing their “punishment” had ripped out my heart.

‘Not any more.’ I said, then drank and
blinked as he stared me out.

‘Liar’

I glanced down, ready to check the time
then felt ashamed at the cheap plastic watch I wore and left my hand at rest
below the table. ‘Mac, I’m up early tomorrow. Tell me why you’re here.’

McCarthy pulled
out the dirty hankie, dabbed at his nose then said. ‘Toward the end of November
we heard from a good source that a new drug was being developed. Stimulant.
Undetectable. The plan as far as we know is to have it ready for the Flat
season which is now, what, about three weeks away? We got on to it fairly sharp
and we were making reasonable progress till just before Christmas when things
came to a dead end with a man called Danny Gordon.’

It took a few seconds for the name to
register. ‘The guy I found with his throat cut?’

‘The same. I think the man who had him
killed is the man behind the new drug. Gordon worked in the lab at the
Horseracing Forensic Laboratory.’

‘I know.’

‘He was last seen alive leaving a
Newmarket pub with two men. That was three days before you found him. Now, it
turns out the same two men, or at least we’re pretty sure it’s the same two,
were responsible for a couple of serious assaults about a week before Gordon’s
death.

‘A small-time crook called Walter
Bergmark got a home visit from two blokes. We don’t know what they wanted
because Bergmark won’t talk, but before they left they pounded his ankles, feet
and toes with a builder’s hammer. He had to have his feet amputated.’

Involuntarily my toes wiggled. ‘A week
later the same two men, we think, went to see a guy called Kristar Rask who’s a
much bigger fish than Bergmark. He’s been involved in syndicate fraud in
England and bribing jockeys in Sweden.

‘Again, Rask won’t say what they wanted
but they slit his eyelids with a scalpel, taped cotton-wool pads over his eyes
and soaked them in weed killer ... Blind for life.’

I drank. ‘Is that it?’

‘Then they killed Danny Gordon.’

‘You think I’m involved because I found
Danny Gordon?’

‘Nope’

‘So where do I come in?’

‘We want you to find the killers.’

This time I looked at my watch. ‘Your
fifteen minutes are up, McCarthy, good night.’

‘Hear me out, Eddie.’

‘No thanks, I’ve heard enough.’ I got
up, finished my drink at the walk and rinsed the glass.

‘Eddie, listen ...

‘Look, Mac, you’ve won the bet or the
contest or whatever it was you came here for. The let’s take the piss out of
Eddie Malloy trophy is yours, that makes you a dual winner. Now finish your drink
and go away and amuse yourself somewhere else.’

‘Eddie, take it easy for God’s sake, I’m
trying to help you!’

‘Sure you are, just like you helped me
five years ago?’

‘Oh, come on, Eddie, be fair!’

‘Me
be fair! What do you know about
fairness? How much did I get from you and your people?’

‘Listen, I never agreed with your
conviction or your punishment, it was way over the top. But I had to do the job
I was paid for. What would you have done in my place?’

‘I’d have spoken up, that’s what I would
have done, said my piece before your bosses decided to take away my fucking
livelihood!’

We spent the next five minutes arguing,
going over all the old shit I’d buried years ago. McCarthy wasn’t stupid. When
I’d burned myself out he said, ‘Remember Kruger?’

I nodded slowly. ‘What’s he got to do
with it?’

‘It was more what he had to do with your
case. You were convinced it was Kruger who set you up, weren’t you?’

‘He was the man behind the doping ring,
I know that. I wouldn’t have said he set me up. It was nothing personal, he
just didn’t care who went down, as long as it wasn’t him.’

‘But you got him for it?’

‘Oh, I got him all right. It cost me
eighteen months in jail but it was worth it. If you guys had caught Kruger
before you took my licence away then we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

‘We tried.’ He said.

‘Not very hard, though, did you? I
managed to find him.’

McCarthy raised his open palms,
apologetic. ‘We didn’t have enough grounds, Eddie, you know that ... and we
didn’t have the time.’

‘Well, you should have
found
the
time, Mr McCarthy. You should have found the fucking time! If it had been
someone “important” instead of just an upstart jockey you’d have found it,
wouldn’t you?’

He was ready to argue but stopped himself.
‘Look, we’re just getting into another shouting match. It’s pointless. We’ll be
here all night if we keep raking through it all.’

I glared at him. He said, ‘Tell me how
you tracked Kruger down.’

‘Why?!’ I realised I was still shouting
and I felt angry now that I’d lost my temper and let him see how bitter I was.

He held both hands up. ‘Okay. Okay. I’m
sorry. I didn’t come here to wind you up. Sit down for a minute, let me finish
then I’ll leave.’

I sat. He said, ‘This case we’re working
on, the new drug. We got our hands on some of it, just before Danny Gordon was
killed. It took about two weeks to analyse properly and when the report came
through it, well, it seems like a lot of the techniques used in the processing
of these drugs can be very individual, peculiar to one man or one team and
sometimes this shows up in analysis. What it comes down to is, if you were
right five years ago and Kruger was running the doping ring then, it looks like
he’s at it again. This stuff bears the same hallmarks.’

 My mind was beginning to race. ‘So
what you’re saying is, if Kruger is behind this and he gets caught there’s
every chance you can pin the old one on him?’

‘Probably.’

‘Would that clear me?

‘You know it wouldn’t. You went down
because you were a bit-part player. Correction, because you were thought to be
a bit-part player. The only chance of your name being cleared would be if
Kruger admitted you had nothing to do with it.’

‘And if he did?’

He shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

I sat forward on the bed. ‘Would I get
my licence back?’

‘We have to find him first.’

‘Mac! Would they give me back my
licence?’

He cradled the coffee mug and smiled.
‘There’d be a hell of a stink if they didn’t.’