The Horse With My Name (6 page)

‘
I
don’t even like you, and I don’t know a thoroughbred from a donkey.’

She smiled widely. ‘Of course you like us.’

‘Us?’

‘I know. I keep saying that. It’s hard to . . .
Okay. Me
.’

I couldn’t quite picture the two of them in bed, but I could certainly see them working together on the Horse Whisperer.

‘I like to think we’ve done a lot of good, Dan. Occasionally we get it wrong, but ninety per cent of the time I reckon we’re right on the nose. And if we can make racing – hell, the
world
– a better place, sure isn’t it worth it?’

‘It certainly is.’

‘Good, I’m glad you feel that way, Dan. Because I want you to become the Horse Whisperer.’

We went back downstairs. A troop of cleaners had arrived and were setting about cleaning up the mess. As we passed through the house two of them were trying to evict a mourner who’d locked himself in one of the toilets and was refusing to come out. One was calling through the door, ‘Now, Jimmy, just turn the key,’ but Jimmy was intent on completing what sounded like a rendition of ‘The Star of County Down’. I wasn’t sure because he was banging his foot against the door and pulling on the chain in time to his wailing. At the sound of our footsteps on the tiled
hallway the cleaners turned and looked helplessly towards us. My host wasn’t the least bit fazed by it. ‘Just leave him,’ she said.

‘But Missus, there’s a powerful smell of boke . . .’

‘Then let him stew in it, then give him a mop the instant he comes out.’

We walked back through the kitchen and out into the cobbled yard behind. The two spaniels I’d spotted earlier basked in the late afternoon sun. She led me across to the stables. She introduced me to half a dozen horses. Brown ones. I patted them and made
there’s a good fella
sounds.

‘Have you ever even been on a horse, Dan?’

‘Only in my dreams. When I was about eight. Cowboy stuff. But my wife rides all the time.’

‘Really? What stable?’

‘Oh, she’s not faithful to any particular one.’ I patted a nose, and decided to get off the subject. She’d moved on to first name terms somewhere between NASA and the stables, while I was thus far too embarrassed to admit that I didn’t even know her surname. ‘Tell me about Corkery and Geordie McClean,’ I said. ‘I’m not really following what . . . I mean, Geordie was trying to shut down the Horse Whisperer thing, but he didn’t know that it was Mark who was running it . . .’

‘And me . . .’

‘Sorry. Of course . . .’

‘Yes he was. And if he wasn’t getting anywhere with the law, then why not without it?’

I shrugged.

‘Dan. Look, if we discount the freak accident theory, then Mark was killed because someone found out he was involved in the Horse Whisperer, and the one who’s been our sworn enemy these last few months has been Geordie McClean. If you add in that McClean also had a grudge
against him because he won this house off him in a bet, then
everything
points to him being involved.’

I patted some more horse. ‘I know. But I also know Geordie. He’s slippery, but I wouldn’t say that he’d be up to murder.’

‘Nobody’s a murderer until they commit the deed. And I’m quite sure he didn’t drop the car himself. He might have sent someone, he might just have given a hint and somebody did it for him. He mightn’t even have meant for him to die. But he was involved. I know he was involved. Every bit of my body
screams
that he was involved. Either it was because of the house, or the Horse Whisperer, or both, but he’s the man.’

We walked on out of the stables and stood on the brow of a small hill which sloped down towards the tennis courts. Now that we were closer I could see that the net was sagging and although the grass on the court was closely cropped the white lines were badly faded. I couldn’t imagine Corkery in tennis whites. He was more a duffel coat and Guinness man, more interested in rackets than racquets.

I turned and looked back up at the house. What a windfall. Geordie McClean would have been kicking himself at having to hand over the keys to the likes of Mark Corkery. And all because he’d overstretched himself.

Geordie made his money in the seventies in the insurance business when Belfast was literally booming. He soon branched out into retail and property. He was always a bit of a risk-taker, and that inevitably led him into gambling. He bought over a small chain of ‘turf accountants’ in East Belfast. It was just his bad luck that within a month of opening Mark Corkery placed an accumulator covering six different race meetings, a million-to-one shot really, the sort of crazy bet only a lunatic or the truly inspired could ever come up with, and one that threatened to bankrupt
Geordie’s whole newly acquired chain. He should never have accepted the bloody thing in the first place, but he was new in the business and some fresh-faced eighteen-year-old in his first year as well took it on without referring it above. Most bookies are insured against such freak results, but again there was a slip in the paperwork somewhere and McClean had to face the fact that not only did he have to pay out, but also that he
couldn’t
pay out. He had the money, but it wasn’t liquid. He could have realised it in a few weeks, but Corkery wasn’t prepared to wait. McClean had a choice, of course, because the one thing the Government has never done is make betting debts enforceable under law. It is left as purely a matter of honour and trust between the bookie and the punter. And fair play to him, McClean fully intended to make good his debt; besides, without public confidence he’d have no business. So he offered Corkery the house as a stopgap and they agreed on a handshake that he could buy it back as soon as the cash was handed over; except Corkery fell in love with the house and reneged on the deal, and there was nothing McClean could do about it.

Except drop a car on him.

‘Dan, my man was killed. I want whoever did it punished.’

‘I understand that.’

‘The Horse Whisperer will not die with Mark. What they don’t understand is that it’s now largely self-perpetuating. You saw those e-mails, the faxes, it’s like that
all
the time. There’s so much horse shit out there, it just has to have an outlet. If Mark was killed because of the Horse Whisperer, then Geordie McClean is one confused fella right now, because the Horse Whisperer just keeps appearing.’

‘Or he’s going to keep coming back until the job’s finished.’

‘Not if we nail him first. And for that we need proof and
I’ve a nasty feeling it’s not something that’s going to land in my e-mail basket, or come through the fax. I need
you
to do what Mark used to do best.’

‘I take it we’re not talking sex here.’

‘Stop it. Will you go down there and stick your nose in and see what he’s up to? Will you do it for Mark?’

‘Of course I will.’

‘Thank you.’

We looked at each other for several moments. Then she said, ‘Oh fuck it,’ and came forward to hug me. I hugged her back. We released each other after a little and she wiped at another tear.

‘There’s just one crucial piece of information I need to know,’ I said.

‘Anything.’

‘What’s your name?’

She let out an involuntary laugh. ‘Why, I presumed . . . It’s Hilda. Hilda Abernethy.’ She put out her hand and I grasped it. ‘I’m very grateful, Dan.’

‘Yeah, well, you might not be. Let’s see what happens.’

I got a cab down to the King’s Head.

Mouse looked up as I came through the door. He was sitting by himself at the bar. He nodded and ordered me a pint. ‘I KNEW YOU’D TURN UP EVENTUALLY.’

‘Shhhhh,’ I said. He rolled his eyes and left a fiver on the bar for the drink. ‘Everyone else gone home?’

‘Aye,’ he replied, a little more quietly, ‘soft shower of bastards. Used to be an occasion like this they’d be throwing us out at closing and then we’d head off to a party . . .’

‘Usually at my house . . .’

‘. . . usually at your house. But half of them spent the whole friggin’ afternoon on their mobiles making sure––’ His mobile beeped. Without a blink he answered it. ‘No,’
he told it, ‘page
seven
. . . he’s never been front page in his life . . .’ Then he clicked it off and turned back to me. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘where was I?’

‘Bastards with mobiles.’

‘Oh aye, and it was all mineral water this and iced tea that. The cunts.’

I nodded and sipped my pint.

‘How was the old girl?’ he asked.

‘Corkery’s?’ He nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘What’s your interest up there?’

‘Nothing. Paying my respects.’

‘You? It’s not your style. What’re you after, Dan?’

‘Why do I have to be
after
anything?’

‘Because I know you.’

I shrugged and looked at my pint for a while. Mouse looked at his. There was racing on the TV above the bar but I tried not to show any obvious interest. The brown horse seemed to be leading. I said, ‘You ever hear of the Horse Whisperer, Mouse?’

He kept his eyes on the screen, but nodded slowly.

‘What do you think?’

‘I think Redford’s starting to show his age.’

I took a sip. ‘I’m thinking of going back to work.’

‘I thought you might be.’

‘I’ll be looking for some freelance shifts.’

‘Shouldn’t be a problem.’

‘But first I’m going south. Dublin way.’

‘Is it something to do with Corkery?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Anything I can do?’

‘Keep an eye on Trish.’

‘As ever.’

‘She’s living on Windsor Avenue with some bloke. She seems happy. We have to break it up. See if you can find
out anything about him. There’s bound to be something, he has a beard. His name’s Clive.’

‘Beard and Clive. I hate him already. Any chance of a surname?’

I shook my head. ‘She’s playing her cards close to her chest.’

‘And what a chest it is. In a strictly not-interested-in-my-best-friend’s-ex-wife’s-chest kind of a way.’ He cleared his throat. ‘So where should I start?’

‘By checking a list of all those recently released from institutions for the criminally insane.’

‘Are you serious? You think he’s . . .?’

‘Well of course. He’d have to be fucking mental to take on Trish, wouldn’t he?’

6

There are one-horse towns, and there are thousand-horse towns, and Ashtown is a combination of the two. Twenty minutes north of Dublin, three pubs, one victualler’s, a post office with a green postbox outside and a video store. Its claim to fame is having the Fairyhouse Racecourse, home of the Irish Grand National, a stone’s throw away. Beside the course stands the Irish base of Tattersalls, the world’s first bloodstock auction house. Ten thousand horses a year pass through its books and parade rings, millions upon millions of dollars. Horses are to Ashtown as dope is to Amsterdam, and the business can be just as murky.

I drove down on Easter Saturday. It was a relief to get out of Belfast, partly because there was a hiccup in the peace process and all sorts of trouble was threatening to break out, but mostly to get away from me. The old me. The memories and the broken heart. I put them into a shoebox and pushed them under the bed in my little palace. Out of courtesy I called the landlord and told him I’d be away for a few days. I’d the feeling it wouldn’t have worried him if I dropped dead, decomposed and started dripping through to the slum flat below as long as
the Government rent cheque kept filtering into his bank account.

Hilda had given me the lend of a car and the keys to the house in Ashtown that Corkery had rented for the duration of the Easter races at Fairyhouse. She drove round to hand the car over personally. I took one look at it and said, ‘This is the car that flattened Corkery.’

She nodded. ‘It’s okay. It’s been cleaned.’

I took her word for it, but it seemed to me that at least some of her late boyfriend would still be going to the races. Perhaps his soul had transferred into the car. Maybe my life was turning into
Herbie Goes to the Races
. Or possibly
Christine
. I had my laptop and an e-mail address for the Horse Whisperer. She handed over Corkery’s ATM card and his bank card and said there was around a thousand pounds between the two accounts and I was welcome to use it as expenses. I said I wouldn’t abuse her trust, and she laughed, although I think she meant it kindly. I promised her I would do my best; I also pointed out that my wife usually said that my best wasn’t good enough. She said she had every faith in me and gave me an Easter egg. I looked at it and thought about my dead son, then gave her a hug. If she’d been twenty years younger I’d have invited her to come along, and she’d have said no.

I drove south. I filled up on petrol before crossing into the unoccupied twenty-six. Not that it was any cheaper, but just so that I wouldn’t be contributing to their economy. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Then on across the border, or lack of it. There’s nothing
physical
any more, just a sense of time warp and the grass seems a little less green. I drove through Dundalk, still home to hundreds of terrorists, then turned right at Drogheda. I passed through Slane, where I’d once seen Bruce Springsteen play a massive open-air concert, and then across the Boyne river, where
King William of Orange had co-headlined an even bigger gig with King James three hundred years before, so successful that people were still talking about it.

I arrived in Ashtown in early evening. It took me a while to find the house, and sixteen seconds to move in my worldly possessions. It was recently built and had five bedrooms, which was four too many. There was a television and an ensuite shower and a kitchen I could have swung a whole family of cats in. There was an intercom system for fending off unwelcome visitors. There was a Spar around the corner. I bought groceries and a bottle of Ribena. I was pleasant and they were pleasant. They asked me if I was down for the races and I said yeah. I refrained from asking if the murder suspect Geordie McClean was a regular. I returned home and made myself beans on toast. Before I could launch into them there was a knock on the door. When I opened it there was a man in a smart suit standing there with three oil paintings in his arms.