He realized he’d been trembling, but he felt better now. He kept his eyes fixed on Shalakov, though the General seemed absorbed in the view of the sky through the window. His only response was to grunt when Nico said something to him in Russian, after which Nico smiled emolliently and thanked Sinclair. Then he turned to Shaunsheys, who had the look of a Victorian schoolboy waiting outside the headmaster’s study.
‘Now, Mr Shaunsheys. You have been given the opportunity to buy a mare for General Shalakov, but you keep suggesting unsuitable animals.
Shaunsheys opened his fishlike mouth to speak but Nico got in first.
‘I am going to tell you for the last time. General Shalakov considers any markings on a horse to be a weakness. So he doesn’t care how much you like a mare. Unless it has no markings on it, no white legs, no stars on its forehead, he is not interested. Do I make myself clear? It must be just one colour. Chestnut, bay, brown, black. He doesn’t mind as long as it is the best. Price no problem.’
Shaunsheys nodded quickly. He felt his system flooding with the champagne of relief, when he’d expected to be given a stomach full of vinegar. Price no problem! Perhaps God was not a delusion after all.
‘Thank you, Nico,’ he said nodding his head vigorously. ‘You’re a gentleman. Thank you, General. I won’t let you down. I promise.’
After the two Englishmen had left the General and Nico discussed the state of Sinclair’s business, and whether it was worth persisting with.
‘I won’t make an immediate decision about it,’ said Shalakov. ‘And in the meantime we shall update the dossier on Sinclair. If I do decide to stay with him, I have to know what’s going on inside that stable.’
‘Why not put someone in there?’ suggested Nico. ‘Someone who can report back to you, without Sinclair knowing.’
Shalakov stroked his chin. Suddenly the image of the little prostitute that he’d been denied came back to him. What had she said? Horses were my main interest in life, Comrade-General, my passion actually. He didn’t think she’d need much persuasion, then. He knew there were plenty of East Europeans in Newmarket. She would probably feel perfectly at home.
‘Yes, that’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘And you know? I think I have someone who’ll fit our requirements very well indeed. Get me Harrison.’
Tipper usually looked after the horses in the isolation yard if he wasn’t racing in the afternoons. It was a couple of hundred yards from the main yard and always quiet and semi-deserted. Alison Sinclair also kept her own horse there. She knew he was the only person in the isolation yard when she brought her horse back to its stable.
‘Tipper!’ she called out. ‘Give me a hand here, will you?’
He jogged over to hold the horse’s head as Alison slid from the saddle. She removed her hard hat and shook out her tangled hair.
He led her horse into the stable and assumed that she’d be gone by the time he’d untacked him. But when he emerged ten minutes later he found that she was still in the yard, standing just inside the open door of an empty stable. It had been made ready with fresh straw for a horse expected to arrive the next day. She crooked her finger at Tipper.
‘Come here. There’s something in here I want you to look at.’
She then retreated to the back of the box as he approached warily. The electric light was off and the air in the shadowy interior was heavy with the sweetish smell of straw dust. Alison was over by the manger with her back turned and her head slightly bowed. Tipper couldn’t make out what she was doing. He took a step towards her and, as if on a signal, she spun round to face him. It was then that he realized she had been undoing her buttons, for she slid her shirt from her shoulders and let it fall on the straw. She wasn’t wearing a bra.
‘Well?’ she asked as she ran her fingers over her nipples. ‘What do you think? Do you like them?’
Some men would have found Alison Sinclair very sexy all right, at least in appearance. But Tipper didn’t. She wasn’t actually fat, but everything about her struck him as being alarmingly, even overwhelmingly large: the mass of brown hair, the greedy mouth, the prominent nose and the broad horsewoman’s arse and thighs. Now, with a mixture of incredulity and abject terror, he found himself being invited to evaluate her naked, swaying breasts.
Alison took a step towards him.
‘Haven’t you anything to say? Try looking more closely.’
Her eyes were wide, intense like a bird’s, but also green and witchy. She reached out and grabbed him by the back of the neck, pulling his face into her cleavage. Then she lowered her face into his hair. She was a good six inches taller than he was.
‘That’s it. I like the smell of your sweat,’ she purred.
He couldn’t smell her in return because his nose was flattened against her breast-bone. Nor could he breathe. He struggled in her grip.
‘Why are you struggling? Don’t be so shy. You’ll never be a top jockey if you’re shy, you know.’
Tipper let his knees sag, so that by the force of gravity his face began to slide down from Alison’s thorax towards her belly. For a moment Tipper’s mouth met her puckered navel before it slithered on. She clutched him as his nose snagged painfully on the waistband of her jodhpurs. Tipper dropped down into the straw. Alison took this as a positive sign. The next moment she was on top of him.
‘No! No! Mrs Sinclair!’ he protested.
‘Don’t be bloody stupid,’ she grunted, breathing heavily as she tried to get her hands on the zip of his jeans. ‘You know you want it, Tipper, as much as I do.’
‘This isn’t right, Mrs Sinclair. I mean, what if Mr Sinclair—?’
‘You know what? He doesn’t care, Tipper. He’s at it too, believe me. Keep still.’
But pound for pound Tipper was considerably stronger than Alison. He grabbed her by her arms and threw her onto her back. Alison lay in the straw, mistakenly thinking that Tipper was going to jump on top of her. But nothing was further from his mind.
‘You ungrateful little pikey,’ she snarled when she realized Tipper was planning a rapid exit. ‘I offer you a good time and you behave like this.’
Tipper could sense her eyes glaring at him, but he fixed his own on the straw. She was utterly humiliated as she scrambled to her feet. Her face was red with anger and exertion. She was breathing heavily.
‘All right,’ she virtually spat out. ‘Have it your way. But let one thing be understood. You won’t be riding any good horses for this yard—never. Now fuck off out of here!’
Tipper emerged from the stable into the dull late afternoon light. He was trying to brush the straw off him when he looked up. David Sinclair was standing at the yard gate, watching him.
Tipper called Sam as he left the yard, but there was no response. His phone was turned off for a good reason. It was pay-back time for Shelley. But when Sam walked into the Partridge he had a big smile on his face for more than one reason, and it was the other reason he was bursting to tell Tipper about.
‘You’re not going to believe this, my man. But guess which mare came to board at the stud today for a few weeks before she goes through the sale ring?’ Tipper wasn’t in the mood for games.