“The police know I’m here.”
“I somehow doubt that,” Shenington replied. “My information is that you’ve also been avoiding them over the past week.”
“My fiancee knows I’m here,” I said.
“Yes, so she does. When I’ve dealt with you, I’ll deal with her too.”
I thought about saying that Jan Setter also knew I was here, but that might have placed her in mortal danger as well.
I kept quiet. I’d opened my big mouth enough already.
I could hear the public-address system outside. The last race had started.
“Now,” said Shenington to the men. “Take him down now, while the race is running.”
The two men came over and hauled me to my feet.
“Where are you taking me?” I asked.
“To your death,” Shenington said with aplomb. “But not here, obviously. Somewhere dark and quiet.”
“Can’t we…”
It was as far as I got. The man on my right, the one without the gun who had been standing by the door, suddenly punched me again in my stomach. This time I didn’t fall to the floor, but only because the two men were holding me up by my arms. My guts felt like they were on fire, and I was worried that some major damage may have been done to my insides.
“No more speak,” said the man who had punched me. English was clearly not his strong point.
“No more speak” seemed a good plan, at least for the time being, so I kept quiet as the two men walked me past my coat, through the door, across the corridor and into one of the deserted catering stations. The three of us descended in one of the caterer’s lifts. There was no sign of Shenington. I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad. I suppose two against one was marginally better than three to one, but, on the downside, I’d have little or no chance of reasoning with these two heavies. Although I doubt if I’d have had any chance anyway, had Shenington been there with us.
The lift stopped, and I was marched out of it and then across the wet tarmac towards the north exit and the racetrack parking lots beyond. The facilities at Cheltenham were really designed for the Steeplechasing Festival in March, when more than sixty thousand would flock to the track every day. The parking lots were therefore huge, but on a night like this, with only a fraction of the crowd, most of them were deserted and, at this time of night, dark and quiet.
“Somewhere dark and quiet,” Shenington had said.
I came to the conclusion that my last brief journey would likely come to an abrupt end in a far corner of one of the track’s parking lots. I tried my best to slow down, but I was being frog-marched forward. I also tried to sit down, but they were having none of that. They gripped my arms even tighter and forced me on.
I’d have to shout for help, I thought, and chance another punch, but the commentator’s voice was booming out through the public-address, so would anyone hear me? There were only a very few people about, hurrying to go home with their heads bowed down and their collars turned up against the rain. Most of the remaining crowd were sensibly under cover, watching the race. Only a fool would stand about down here in the wet.
“Horse!” a voice called loudly off to my right in warning. “Loose horse!”
There is no doubt that horses have a homing instinct. Ask any trainer who has had a horse get loose and lost on the gallops. More often than not, the horse is found happily back at the stable, standing in its own box, home before the search party.
Horses that are reluctant to race or that get loose due to falling, often head back to where they first came out onto the track, as if they were trying to get home or at least back to the racetrack stables.
This particular loose horse came galloping down the horse walk and attempted to negotiate the ninety-degree turn to get back into the parade ring. A combination of too sharp a bend and too much momentum, coupled with the wet surface, meant that the horse’s legs slipped out from beneath it and it fell, crashing through the white plastic railings and sliding across the ground towards the three of us, its legs thrashing about wildly as it tried to regain its footing.
The men on either side of me instinctively took a step backwards away from the sharp flailing horseshoes, slightly relaxing their hold on my arms as they did so. But I stepped forward boldly, out of their clutches, and caught the horse by the reins. In one movement, as the animal managed to stand up, I swung myself onto its back and into the saddle.
I needed no second invitation. I kicked the astonished horse in the belly, and we galloped back the way it had come, down the horse walk towards the track.
“Hey, stop!” shouted an official who was standing in my way, waving his arms about. I glanced behind me. The two men were in pursuit, and one was reaching into his pocket. I had no doubt he was going for his gun.
The official realized at the very last second that I wasn’t going to stop, and he flung himself aside. I kicked the horse again, and crouched as low as I could to provide the smallest target for the gunman.
I looked ahead. Even though the last race of the day was still in progress, out on the racetrack was definitely the safest place for me to be. Another official saw the horse galloping back towards him and he tugged frantically at the movable rail, closing it across the end of the horse walk.
But I wasn’t stopping. Stopping meant dying, and I’d promised myself I wouldn’t do that.
A rider communicates with his mount in a variety of ways. Pulling on the reins, either together or separately, is an obvious one, and cajoling with the voice or kicking with the feet are others. But the most powerful messages between horse and jockey are transmitted by the shifting of weight. Sit back and the horse will slow and stop, but shift the weight forward over his shoulders and he will run like the wind.
I gathered my feet into the stirrup irons, stood up, shortened the reins and crouched forward over the horse’s withers. The animal beneath me fully understood the go message. Riding a horse was like riding a bike-once learned, never forgotten.
As we neared the end of the horse walk I made no move to slow down. In fact, I did quite the opposite. I kicked the horse hard in the belly once more. The animal received the new message loud and clear, and he knew what to do. I shifted my weight slightly again, asking him to lengthen his stride and to jump, and to jump high.
We sailed over the rail with ease, and over the official as well, who’d had the good sense to duck down.
The horse pecked slightly on landing, almost going down on its knees, and for a moment I feared he was going to fall, but I pulled his head up with the reins and he quickly recovered his balance.
Left or right?
Left, I decided, pulling that way on the reins, away from the grandstand and towards the safe, wide-open spaces of the racetrack.
The other horses were coming up the finishing straight towards me, but I was well to the side of them, on what would have been the hurdle course at any other meeting.
My mount tried to turn, to run with the others, but I steered him away and galloped down to the far end of the finishing straight before stopping and looking back.
What remained of the daylight was disappearing rapidly, and the grandstand lights appeared unnaturally bright. It was difficult to tell if the two heavies were giving chase, but I had to assume they were, joined possibly by Viscount Shenington himself. He must be keener now than ever to remove me permanently from the scene.
I turned the horse again and cantered up the hill, towards the farthest point on the track away from the stands and the enclosures.
What did I do now?
The nondescript blue rental car would be waiting for me in the parking lot, but the problem was that its keys, together with my mobile phone and my wallet, were in the pockets of my Barbour, which I presumed was still inconveniently hanging by the door in Shenington’s box.
I watched as a vehicle turned onto the track from close by where I had emerged from the horse walk. I could see the headlights bumping up and down slightly as it worked its way along the grass in the direction from which I had come.
Another vehicle followed it onto the grass but turned the other way.
Both vehicles then moved forward slowly, driving around the course. If I stayed where I was, then the two of them would close on me in a pincer movement.
But who was in the vehicles? Was it Shenington and his cronies or would it be the police or the racetrack
