‘We’re more interested in the girls, Mr Delaney,’ put in Sam. ‘Where can we meet some?’
‘How would I know that? Amn’t I a married man? But there’s clubs for the likes of you single young fellers. I don’t mind what you do with the birds, anyway. But keep out of the way of people who want information. They’re vultures.’
Sam had landed a job on a stud outside town, owned by an Irish billionaire called Dermot O’Callaghan. O’Callaghan had made his money developing software that translated text and email messages into any language in the world. He’d invested heavily in bloodstock and developed an impressive stud near Newmarket, which was still the headquarters of the European bloodstock industry.
Sam was built for man-handling stroppy foals and difficult, reluctant mares rather than riding racehorses, and his job on the stud put him one step from the actual training of winners and losers. Tipper, though, was plumb in the path of temptation. What Delaney, Sam and Tipper didn’t know was that one of the vultures had engineered Tipper’s path to Newmarket in the first place: the Duke.
Newmarket is a town controlled by numerous cabals and factions, difficult to break into unless you know the keys and codes of the place. The biggest and most powerful of them is the Jockey Club.Their building dominates the upper end of the High Street. This is not the preserve of jockeys, but of rich and privileged racehorse owners. However, jockeys are to be found at many of the other, lower-order groups, from the freemasons and the golf club down to the small drinking and gambling circles, that meet more or less informally in the pubs and clubs of the town. Although Tipper didn’t know it, it wouldn’t be long before he was coerced into one of them.
Sam had suggested meeting for a pint after morning stables, at a roadside pub near O’Callaghan’s stud.
‘It’s a nice place,’ he’d said. ‘Landlord’s called Johnny the Fish. He’s great craic. They do posh food at one end, but you can get chips in the bar.’
Sam had not yet arrived when Tipper walked in. He went straight up to the counter.
In her tight, white T-shirt, as usual, Shelley was polishing glasses.
‘How you doing?’ Tipper asked quietly without making eye contact.
‘Not bad,’ she smiled, alerted by his Irish accent. ‘You new around here?’
‘Yeah. I’ve just come over with my cousin Sam. Working for David Sinclair, like.’
Shelley gave Tipper her biggest smile. He was cute. Very cute. This wasn’t going to be a hardship at all. When the Duke had told her she had to do ‘whatever it takes’ to get the new Irish jockey into the Covey Club she was expecting the worst. She fixed Tipper with her green eyes.
‘It’ll be nice to have a new guy around. God the men in this place are such tossers.’
‘Is that right?’ Tipper asked still trying to avoid eye contact. This bird wasn’t his type at all. He was mighty relieved to see Sam coming through the door.
‘Hey. How you doing, jockey?’ Sam laughed. Then he saw Shelley. Now she was his type. Tipper dragged Sam away from the bar as soon as they’d got their drinks.
‘Jesus, Tipper, she is a goddess…did you see…’
‘Give over Sam, will you? She’s a right old mare.’
‘Well. Aren’t you a great judge? I don’t exactly see a trail of them after you. She’s sex on wheels man.’
Johnny the Fish shimmied out from his office. Sam had filled him in on his up and coming cousin.
‘Ah. This is a pleasure,’ he said expansively. ‘Welcome to Newmarket’s haven of tranquillity and restfulness…well, not sure about the second bit. Not when the chef’s around, any way.’
Tipper and Sam nodded and mumbled something. The Fish was about to sit down and join them when an intermittent stream of oldish, jockey-sized guys ambled past and disappeared through a door which had ‘snug’ written above it.
‘Ah ha,’ the Fish smiled. ‘The Covey Club. Very punctual today,’ he continued without explanation. Sam took the bait.
‘The Covey Club? What’s that, Johnny? A disco club?’ he added mischievously.
‘Oh, they talk, have a drink. It’s social. Frankness and honesty is what they’re about. Being open with each other, if you know what I mean.’
Tipper didn’t know. He continued to look puzzled.
‘I’ll spell it out,’ said the Fish conspiratorially. ‘For your ears only. They pool information about horses in the yards where they work. Obviously the information’s got to be kosher, or it won’t be worth much. But there are people who’ll pay for really accurate reports.’
Tipper began to comprehend.
‘Ah, yeah! I’m with you. You mean anyone having a bet, like.’
The Fish arched his shoulders and screwed his eyes up a bit. ‘Anyone having a bet’—that covered professional punters, and bookies too, if you looked at it in a certain way.
‘Ye-es. That’s it. A bit like that. People having a bet. But it’s just a bit of relaxation, a fun way of supplementing the wages, which, as we all know, are miserly round here.’
‘Jesus, is that allowed, Johnny?’ Tipper asked.
‘Well. Strictly speaking it’s frowned on,’ the Fish reluctantly admitted. ‘But it’s all innocent fun. It’s fine as long as everyone keeps a lid on it. Know what I mean!’
Sam knew exactly what he meant. And he saw an opening for his talented cousin.
‘Do they have a man in Sinclair’s yard, Johnny?’
‘Well as it happens they don’t.’
‘Well, maybe we have the right man here?’ Sam suggested pointing his left finger obviously at Tipper.
‘Jesus, hang on a minute, Sam. I’m not sure I should be getting involved with that,’ Tipper protested.
‘Well, there could be an opening for you, young Tipper,’ Johnny persisted. ‘No harm in it.’
‘You’ll have great craic, boy. And you’ll get to know a few people. That won’t do you any harm,’ Sam pointed out.
‘Jesus, boys. I’m not so sure.’
‘How long have you been in London?’ Shalakov asked the prostitute sitting nervously on his sofa.
Like all tycoons General Stanislav Shalakov had many calls on his time. With economic interests ranging from Albanian artichokes to Zambian zinc, he travelled continually. His private pleasures didn’t receive as much of his attention as he would like. But he tried to devote one Saturday night every fortnight to their indulgence, usually in London, usually in the penthouse apartment he owned in Cadogan Square.
He never had the same girl twice. He quoted a peasant proverb from his youth: you only peel a potato once. By the time a girl had spent the night with Shalakov, she had invariably lost, in his eyes, the fresh bloom, the trembling aura of innocence that had made her attractive to him in the first place.
The shyness, the innocent aura, were all too likely to be a pose anyway, a carefully worked illusion. Most of the girls were in reality more-or-less hardened young hookers handpicked by