The Horse Dancer (37 page)

A car drove past at a crawl, its driver eyeing her curiously through the slow-moving windscreen wipers, and she pretended to rummage for something in her pocket, trying to look like a normal person, on her way to a normal day.

It was nineteen minutes to seven.

She heard a familiar voice, carrying towards her on the wind. ‘Those marshes over there got more green than you boys got. Put yo’ money where yo’ mouth is.’ Cowboy John was sauntering down the centre of the line of vans, his battered hat shiny with rain, his hand outstretched as he greeted the others. From here she could just see the glow of his lit cigarette.

‘You come here straight from the airport? Jet-lag’s affected your judgement, Cowboy.’

‘You fo’get worrying about my judgement. Worry about that horse’s legs. I seen three-legged dogs with a better turn of speed than yo’ horse.’ There was laughter. ‘They started yet? Sal texted me. Told me you guys were starting six thirty. I should be in bed but my system’s all shook up from the time change.’

‘Started back by the Old Axe. They should be along any time now.’

Her head jolted upwards at the honk of a horn, a yelled exclamation.

As if on cue there was a silencing of traffic, no cars, no dull roar of vehicles overhead. There was a vacuum in the atmosphere; the men stilled, as they waited to confirm what they were seeing, then jogged forward, up the wet slip-road, for a better view. And first a small dot, then a distinct outline – there he was, trotting flat out down the flyover above them, pinned between the poles of a light blue sulky, his head lifted with anxiety as a grey-haired, thick-necked man pulled hard on the reins from the seat of the sulky behind him. Maltese Sal’s grey mare, a short distance away, trotted smartly alongside as Sal leant across to shout an insult as he passed.

She couldn’t take her eyes off her horse, his huge, muscular body trapped between the twin poles, his feet a blur on the hard road as he passed her. He was wearing blinkers, which made him seem blind, vulnerable, as if he was some kind of hostage. They were off the dual carriageway on the exit slip, briefly obscured by the intersection, then coming back round in a fluid loop towards the small crowd, as the flyover traffic surged forward above them. The men on the ground moved down the slip-road to meet them, and Sarah stepped back behind the white van, holding her breath. She watched the two horses coming back down the side-road, pulling up beneath the huge concrete pillars and there were cheers, exclamations, the sound of slamming car doors, a voice raised in protest. Boo wheeled, unsure whether he should be stopping, and his head was pulled back roughly, causing him almost to drop backwards on to his haunches.

She heard Cowboy John’s voice. ‘What the Sam Hill is
he
doin’ here?’

What if she failed? What if this all went wrong? She felt her breath rise up to her throat and stall, then leave her tight lungs in a long shudder.
Think. Assess.
She had spent her sleepless hours reading Xenophon’s advice to cavalrymen, and a sentence floated back to her now: ‘To be appraised of the enemy’s position in advance, and at as great a distance off as possible, cannot fail to be useful.’

She shifted her position behind the white van, her eyes fixed upon her horse.
I’m here, Boo,
she told him, and readied herself for action.

Mac heard Natasha’s shower kick in, glanced at the clock and winced at its confirmation of this unearthly hour. He lay back for a moment, dimly aware that there was something he needed to do. Then the significance of the morning bumped its way into his consciousness. She was leaving. This was it. The whole thing was ending.

He sat upright. Across the hallway, the shower ran, the faint whine of the extractor fan a distant, hesitant descant. She would aim to leave with as little fuss as possible.

‘I’ll come and sort out the house in time for the move,’ she had told him, after Sarah had gone to bed the previous evening. ‘Removals. Surveys. Whatever. And I can talk to the social worker, if you’d prefer not to do it yourself. But I won’t be staying here from now on.’ She had barely looked at him as she spoke, busying herself with odd books from the shelves.

‘You don’t have to do this, Tash,’ he said quietly.

But she had brushed aside his words. ‘I’ve got a big case, Mac. Biggest of my career so far. I need to focus.’ There had been no rancour, no anger. It was the Natasha he had hated: that closed-off, unreachable version of his wife. The one whose cool,
faux
-pleasant demeanour spoke of all the things he had apparently done wrong in his marriage.

He heard the doorbell, shrill and invasive. Postman? At this hour? Natasha wouldn’t hear it over the sound of running water. Sighing, he pulled on a T-shirt and headed down the stairs.

Conor was on the front step. Mac took in the smart suit, the neatly shaven chin, and recognised, not for the first time, how much he disliked the man.

‘Mac,’ Conor said evenly.

‘Conor.’ He wasn’t going to make this easy. He stood, waiting.

‘I’ve come to collect Natasha.’

To collect her. As if she was something he had loaned. Mac hesitated, then stood back to allow him into the hall, feeling bitter resentment at every step he took over the threshold. Conor walked in as if he had some claim to the house, turned left into the living room and sat on the sofa with the relaxed confidence borne of familiarity, then flicked open his newspaper.

Mac bit his lip. ‘Excuse me if I don’t stay and chat,’ he said. ‘I’ll just tell my wife you’re here.’

He walked up the stairs, feeling a burning anger at what was happening. The man seated on the sofa Mac had chosen, paid for, was waiting to take his wife away. But even as he acknowledged this caveman growl of protest, some other part of him answered with an image of Maria, barely dressed, clutching two glasses of wine. Her sneaking delight in Natasha’s pain.

The shower had stopped. He knocked on the bedroom door, and waited. When there was no response, he knocked again, then opened it tentatively. ‘Tash?’

He saw her reflection before he saw her. She was standing in front of the mirror, a towel wrapped around her middle, water still running in droplets over her bare shoulders from her wet hair. She flinched as he entered, and her hand shot unconsciously to her throat. That defensive gesture was a further rebuke.

‘I did knock.’

There were half-packed bags all around the room. Inches from a clean getaway, he thought.

‘Sorry. In my own world. It’s this case . . .’

‘Conor’s here.’

Her eyes widened. ‘I wasn’t expecting him.’

‘Well, he’s downstairs, waiting to collect you.’ It came out a little sarcastically.

‘Oh,’ she said. She took her dressing-gown off the bed and pulled it around her. Bending, she started to towel her hair. ‘Tell him . . .’ she began. ‘Actually, don’t worry.’

He ran his hand along the rim of an open suitcase. He didn’t recognise many of the clothes that were folded in it. ‘So this is it,’ he said. ‘You just go.’

‘Yup. Like you did,’ she said briskly, straightening to brush her hair. ‘Is Sarah up?’

‘Haven’t checked.’

‘With everything that went on last night, I forgot to mention – she had a form that needed signing. For some school trip.’

‘I’ll do it.’

She laid her suit on the bed and held first one shirt, then another against the dark blue jacket. When they had been married, she would always ask him what he thought of the match and, more often than not, go with something else. For the first few years it had been a joke between them.

He folded his arms. ‘So . . . where should I forward your post?’

‘You don’t need to. I’ll be back every few days. Just call me if there’s anything we need to discuss. What do you want to do about the social workers? Do you want me to ring them when I’m out of court this afternoon?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll talk to Sarah first. Work out when would be . . .’ He could not say ‘best.’ Nothing was going to be best for her. ‘Tash . . .’

She had her back to him. ‘What?’

‘I hate this,’ he said. ‘I know things have got a bit complicated, but I don’t see why it all has to end this way.’

‘We’ve had this conversation, Mac.’

‘No, we haven’t. We’ve lived here together for the best part of two months and we haven’t had any real conversation at all. We haven’t talked about what happened between us, or what the hell went—’

He turned abruptly. Conor was in the doorway. ‘I thought you might need a hand with your bags.’

He had aftershave on, Mac noticed. Who the hell wore aftershave at this time of the morning?

‘Is it this lot on the bed here, Natasha?’

She was about to answer but Mac interrupted: ‘If you don’t mind,’ he said, stepping in front of Conor, ‘I’d prefer you to wait downstairs.’

There was a brief, loaded silence.

‘I came to get Natasha’s bags.’

‘You’re walking into my bedroom,’ Mac said slowly, ‘and I’m asking you not to.’

‘I don’t think, strictly speaking—’

Mac turned on him. ‘Listen, mate,’ he said, hearing the barely controlled antagonism in his voice, ‘I own this house, half of it. I’m asking you nicely to get out of my bedroom – our bedroom – and wait downstairs so I can finish having a private conversation with the woman who, theoretically at least, still happens to be my wife.
If
that’s all right with you?’

Natasha had stopped brushing her hair. She glanced between the two men, then nodded discreetly at Conor.

‘I’ll put the seats down in the car,’ Conor said, and walked out, his car keys jangling ostentatiously in his hand.

The room was very quiet now. In the bathroom, the extractor fan clicked off.

Mac felt his heart-rate gradually subside. ‘Well, that’s it, then.’ He tried to smile, but it came out lopsided. He felt foolish.

Her expression was unreadable. ‘Yes,’ she said, her jaw tight. She began to busy herself again. ‘I’ve got to get on, Mac, if you don’t mind. But do ring me tonight when you and Sarah have worked out the time frame for everything.’ She picked up her suit and disappeared into the bathroom.

There had been two trotters in this race, Sal’s mare and Boo. Boo had not been expected to win, Ralph had told her; there was heavy money against him, despite his good looks, and sure enough he had come last.

From her vantage-point behind the van, she watched the jockey leap down from the sulky, grab at a rein and kick him hard in the haunch. Boo skittered sideways, his head arched backwards in pain. A moan of protest escaped her, and her feet carried her towards him almost without her realising it. Then she caught herself, ducked down, closed her eyes tightly and forced herself to focus, not to act rashly. A hundred yards away, one of Sal’s men was holding the sweating mare by one rein, his hands cupped around the flame of his lighter as he attempted to put it to his cigarette.

‘I swear, Sal, that’s some strange vitamins you been feeding that horse,’ he said, as he tucked the lighter back into his pocket.

‘It wasn’t my horse breaking up there.’

‘Spooked by the wind. On that side we took the full force of it.’

‘Like I told you up there, Terry boy, this race is
over
.’

Boo was dancing now, unhappy at the weight of the sulky, afraid of another thumping boot, and the man tied him roughly to the wing mirror of his truck, growling at him, his hand raised as if in threat as he walked away. She fired invisible bullets into the back of that fat head, mentally kicked him as he had kicked Boo. She thought she had never been so filled with rage. Forcing herself to breathe, she caught sight of Cowboy John, a short distance away, in urgent conversation with Sal. He was looking at Boo, his hat dripping with rain and shaking his head. Sal shrugged, lit another cigarette. John placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to steer him away from the crowd, but just as he turned, Sal was called back to the ring of men where the money was being counted.

She was calm now. She watched with the forensic attention of a hunter, with the strategic calculation of Xenophon, all the while edging forward, camouflaged by the parked cars, the vast, rough-cast pillars of the intersecting flyovers. She was a matter of feet from Boo now, close enough to see the sweat on his neck, his rain-darkened skin, close enough to assess how many straps bound him to the little two-wheeler.
Don’t call to me
, she warned him. The men were arguing beside the grey mare, Sal claiming noisily that he was the winner, claiming Boo as his, another man disputing this. Sal’s horse had broken from the trot, two, three times, he protested. He should be disqualified. There was a murmur of dissent, an equal one of agreement.

‘We got to get off now,’ someone was shouting, in an Irish brogue. ‘Get on home. The rozzers will be up here.’

She had slipped to the far side of Boo and saw the horse craning his neck to gauge who this was, trapped by his harness, his blinkers. ‘Ssssh,’ she told him, running a hand down his heaving flank, and watched his ears flick back and forth in recognition. She glanced at the men, and slipped the poles through the harness, her fingers nimble on the buckles.

Their voices were silenced briefly, and she ducked backwards, behind the pillar, heart beating erratically. And then they lifted again, this time in definite argument. She peeped out, saw money being divided, disputed, slapped into palms, and knew that this was her best chance: they would not look away while money was being counted.

She had but seconds left. Her fingers were trembling as she fumbled with the straps, adrenalin pumping blood into her ears, drowning the sound of the traffic above them.
I’m going to get you out of here, Boo.
Three straps. Two straps. Just one. She was murmuring it under her breath.
Come on.

It was as she wrestled with the last strap, her fingers slipping on the wet leather, that she heard it, the exclamation she had dreaded. ‘Oi! You!’