The sensible half of my brain started to win.
I was sitting on a stool in the Vestey Bar with my fifth double Whisky Mac untouched on the high table in front of me, almost as if it were goading me to drink it like the bottle of magic liquid in Alice in Wonderland. But this particular potion certainly wouldn’t make me shrink – indeed, it would quite likely make me fall over – so I sat looking at it, unable to move and determined not to stray any further from my tightrope.
I stayed put throughout the first race, not daring even to let go of the table in case I should stagger around like an animal with mad-cow disease. Surely, I thought, one should be able to think oneself sober if one focused hard enough. My medical training told me otherwise but I went on trying nevertheless.
I tried to watch the race on one of the many TV sets fixed to the walls of the bar but the jockeys’ silks seemed to blend together into a colourful kaleidoscopic mass before my intoxicated eyes. Only when the horses had jumped the last and were on the run-in to the finish line did I distinguish the leader’s red-and-white stripes – Dick McGee.
I remembered back to his massive reaction to seeing the picture of the unnamed man. He must know more than he was telling.
I remained where I was in the bar for the next two races as the worst effects of the alcohol gradually began to diminish and I found that I could stand unaided with only a minor wobble.
I asked a fellow drinker to save my seat and then slowly weaved my way to the ladies. I poured the last demon drink down the toilet before splashing some cold water onto my face at the sink.
I looked at myself in the mirror. I didn’t think that I appeared very drunk, but appearances could be deceiving.
And I now realised I had another big problem.
How was I going to get home?
I couldn’t drive in this condition and it would be many hours until the alcohol in my blood dropped to a legal level.
I seemed to have three choices: I could walk the four and a half miles home; I could call Grant and ask him to collect me; or I could get a lift from someone going my way.
Whichever method I chose, my car would have to stay overnight in the racecourse car park and Grant would be certain to find out that I’d been drinking again. It would give him even more reason to believe I should be back in Wotton Lawn.
God, you’re a fool, I told my reflection in the glass.
A goddamn bloody fool.
I safely made my way back to the bar to find that the person I’d asked to keep my seat had gone and so had the stool I’d been sitting on, snaffled by a large group of young twenty-somethings having a great day out.
I stood by the table and looked across at them as they laughed and joked with one another.
Where had my youth gone?
When I’d been their age I’d spent all my waking hours working or studying. I don’t remember having had the time, or the money, for days at the races, or anywhere else for that matter. I suppose that everyone over forty must eye the young with a touch of envy. They still have their whole lives ahead of them, their dreams and aspirations untainted by experience and disappointment.
The fourth race of the day was the Grade One Stayers’ Hurdle, run over two complete circuits of the course. At three miles it was one of the longest hurdle races on the calendar with all twelve runners carrying the same weight at eleven stone ten pounds. It was a true test of a horse’s stamina, especially as the going was officially ‘soft’.
I stood by the window of the Vestey Bar and watched over the heads of the crowd as the horses walked around the parade ring and the jockeys were given leg-ups onto them. Someone had left a racecard lying on the table and I looked to see who was riding: Dick McGee was not, but Jason Conway and Mike Sheraton were both present, Jason in a red jacket with yellow cap, while Mike sported blue-and-white checks. They were easy to spot as they made their way down the horse-walk towards the course.
Many of those in the bar, including the youngsters, went outside to view the race live and cheer home their fancies, so I reclaimed my stool and sat on it watching the contest unfold on the television screen, concentrating hard through the haze of intoxication.
Jason Conway was at it again.
As soon as the starter released the field, Jason was off at a great rate of knots, jumping the first hurdle a good four lengths in front. However, this time, he reined back and settled into mid-division, before his horse tired coming down the hill second time round and was pulled up before the last.
Mike Sheraton, meanwhile, rode the whole race in about third, fourth or fifth place, never seriously challenging the winner, which went away from the others over the last two flights to win easily by six lengths.
I went outside to watch the horses come back into the winner’s enclosure to unsaddle. By now I was just about able to walk in a straight line but I was still thankful to lean on the rail right next to the pole designating the space reserved for the fourth-place horse.
Mike Sheraton had finished fourth.
As the blue-and-white checks came in I held up the photo of the unnamed man high above my head so that Mike Sheraton couldn’t fail to see it.
He stared at it, then down at me.
‘Who is this man?’ I mouthed at him.
There was a touch of panic in his eyes. There was also something else – a coldness. It sent a shiver down my own back that was nothing to do with the ambient temperature. Perhaps it had not been such a good idea to hold up the photo after all. The alcohol had clearly made me over-bold.
I stayed leaning on the rail as Mike Sheraton dismounted and removed his saddle. He glanced my way a couple more times before turning and walking away to weigh in. I watched him go and wondered what he and Jason Conway were involved in.
The police were not even considering the unnamed man’s death as suspicious, just unexplained, but, if the two jockeys’ reactions were anything to go by, I reckoned there was quite a lot that was suspicious about it.
I remained standing there as the horses were led away and the presentations to the winning connections were made by the chairman of the sponsors. Then I made my way up the steps towards the crowd first-aid room.
Not that I was in need of any urgent medical assistance or anything. However, I vaguely knew one of the St John’s Ambulance volunteer nurses who was regularly on duty and she lived just down the road from me in Gotherington.
I was hoping she might be able to give me a lift home.
‘Hello, Isabelle,’ I said, going in and thankfully finding her in her bright green St John’s uniform shirt and black skirt.
‘Hello, Dr Rankin,’ she said in her broad Welsh accent. ‘How can I help?’
‘I was wondering if you could give me a lift home later?’ I said. ‘Save me asking Grant to come and collect me.’
‘Well, I could,’ she said slowly, ‘but my Ian is having to come for me. My car wouldn’t start this morning, see. Probably the cold. Damn nuisance too, I can tell you.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘I have a car here. Could you drive us home in that?’
She looked at me with her head slightly to one side.
‘Why can’t you drive your own car? I could come with you then, see.’
‘Well,’ I said, taking a deep breath. ‘I think I may have had one too many to be fit to drive.’
She went on looking at me. ‘Aren’t you here on duty?’ she asked with a disapproving tone in her voice.
‘Good God, no,’ I said with a laugh. ‘Merely a spectator today. Met some old chums and they seem to have forced too much drink on me.’
Isabelle relaxed a little. Whether she believed me or not was another matter.
‘I suppose I could ring Ian and tell him not to bother,’ she mused. ‘He would be grateful for that, see. It’s always hell getting back in when everyone else is trying to leave and he likes to go down the Shutters early on Thursdays for the skittles.’
The Shutters was the Shutters Inn, the local pub in Gotherington village.
‘Great,’ I said. ‘Shall I come back here when you finish? What time?’
She looked around at the other two staff as if gauging their reaction. ‘I suppose I could get away about an hour after the last race. Say half past six.’
It was much later than I’d hoped. I might even be half sober by then.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘You call your Ian and tell him you are coming home with me and I’ll be back here at six-thirty sharp.’
Six-thirty. I looked carefully at my watch, trying to concentrate on the hands. Half past four. Two hours to wait. I could easily walk home in that time but it would mean leaving the car, and I now had a plan to ensure that Grant never knew of my indiscretions with my good friend, Whisky Macdonald.
Isabelle would drive to her house and then I’d take a chance by driving the last hundred yards home. Easy. Surely all the Gloucestershire police would be busy directing the traffic leaving the racecourse.
I texted Grant to tell him that I’d not be home until about seven and could he put the pizzas from the fridge in the oven for the boys’ tea if they were back before me. They had made plans to go to a friend’s house after school all this week as I’d been expecting to be on duty at the racecourse anyway.
He texted back straight away to ask where I was.
‘At the racecourse’, I texted back. ‘Helping out. xxx’
‘Supposed to be resting,’ came the reply after a short but meaningful pause. I could tell from the curtness, and no added kisses, that he wasn’t pleased.
‘I’m taking it easy’, I texted back. ‘See you later. xxx’
Taking it easy drinking, I thought, and was almost tempted to go back to the Vestey Bar for more.
Instead I went up to the Racing Hall of Fame area – cosy, and no alcohol.
I stood in front of the roaring log fire warming my hands and wondering where I went from here.
The sensible half of my brain was telling me to leave it all to the professionals. If the police don’t believe the man’s death was suspicious, it said, who are you to say otherwise? Let it go.
But the delinquent side was adamant. Something is up, it said, and you are the only person who knows it. Keep digging.
First I turned one way, and then the other.
‘What shall I do?’ I said, almost to myself.
‘I’d do the favourite, if I were you,’ said the man standing next to me, who had obviously overheard. ‘But I’m no judge, really. I’m down on the day. In fact, I’m down for the whole bloody meeting. Don’t actually know how I’m going to pay my hotel bill tomorrow.’ He laughed. ‘Not unless bloody Conway can win this one. Last-chance saloon.’
‘Jason Conway?’ I said.
He nodded. ‘Useless sod.’ The man said it with feeling.
‘Why did you back him then?’ I asked.
‘I didn’t. I backed the horse, big time. Months ago and before I knew Conway was riding it.’
‘So why do you think he’s a useless sod?’
‘He just is. Did you see the way he rode Checkbook yesterday in the Champion Chase?’ The man threw his hands up. ‘Absolutely hopeless. Far too free early on then, unsurprisingly, the horse ran out of puff well before the finish. Then Conway trots out some cock-and-bull story to the stewards about being unable to hold him back. All bloody nonsense. Why didn’t he just admit that he got it wrong? I had him at a damn good price too.’
‘So you expected him to win?’
‘At least to place. Had him each way.’
‘Is Checkbook normally a front-runner?’ I asked.
‘Not according to Timeform. Couldn’t believe it when Conway set off as if he was in the bloody Nunthorpe.’
The Nunthorpe Stakes was the fastest horse race in the UK – a five-furlong dash, run each year at York in August, lasting less than a minute with the horses travelling in excess of forty miles per hour.
‘He did nearly the same thing today in the Stayers’ Hurdle,’ I said.
‘Did he?’ the man asked vaguely. ‘I wasn’t on him then.’
A former colleague of mine, who had also been a passionate gambler on the gee-gees, once told me that, in a race, he only ever watched the horses he’d bet on. What the others did was not his concern, not unless it impacted on how his choices ran.
My new-found friend and I moved away from the warmth of the open fire in order to watch the race on one of the many TV sets. We were both interested in how Jason Conway fared, but for different reasons. I wanted to see if he started fast again, while the man was far more concerned with how he finished.
There were seventeen runners in the Mares’ Novice Hurdle and all three of Dick McGee, Mike Sheraton and Jason Conway were riding.
But this time, Jason Conway seemed to be in no particular hurry at the start and, indeed, it was Mike Sheraton who jumped off fastest, easily in front over the initial flight of hurdles before settling down into the pack as the field came up past the grandstands on the first occasion.
As the horses made their way down the back of the course they remained closely bunched together. Meanwhile, the man next to me stared unblinking at the screen, his knuckles gleaming white as he gripped the edge of a table with such force that he was in danger of pulling it over. He really must have been right about not being able to pay his hotel bill unless Jason Conway won on the favourite.
As the horses came to the last flight, the man had almost stopped breathing, then he let out an audible moan of relief as Jason Conway’s mount took two lengths off her rivals in a huge leap, and then ran away from them up the hill to win easily.
‘Bloody hell!’ the man said, still holding on to the table for support. ‘I’m not doing that again.’
‘Doing what again?’ I asked.
‘Staking too much,’ he said. ‘Far too much. Real shirt-off-my-back stuff.’ He laughed nervously. ‘God, I need a drink.’
So do I, I thought, but I didn’t follow him off to find one. Instead I went back to the fire and stood there staring into the flickering flames.
Several recent scientific studies have shown that blood pressure is reduced by the hypnotic effect of flames dancing in a fire. It is believed to have something to do with human evolution and how the discovery of fire reduced the risks of the night by providing light and warding off predators.
Maybe President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew more than people realised when he delivered his famous series of ‘fireside chats’ during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War in the 40s.
For me, it simply gave me an opportunity to think.
Why would the jockeys deny knowing the unnamed man when they clearly did? What were they trying to hide? Was it to do with his overdose of cocaine? Or something else? Was the man’s death not an accident or suicide as the police believed, but murder? Or did the jockeys at least think that?
Lots of questions but no answers.
Someone had to find them and I didn’t hold out much hope that it would be the police. It wasn’t that I thought the detectives were particularly incompetent. It was just that I felt they were overly convinced that the unnamed man had killed himself, intentionally or otherwise, so they weren’t looking at any other scenario.
So was it down to me?