“It’s barely six o’clock on a Saturday,” McCarron said. “We do call-outs only at weekends, remember?”
She gave him an arched look. “Do you really think he’s going to leave you here supposedly alone all night and not ‘just happen’ to pop by and check on you?”
McCarron’s own smile was rueful as he heaved himself upright. The effort left him swaying. “You’re right,” he said, “but I can call him on the way and tell him not to bother. You’ll have to drive, after all.”
With a feeling of sinking futility, Kelly asked, “On the way where?”
“The racecourse,” McCarron said with apparent innocence. “Today is this big shindig of Lytton’s isn’t it? And while you’re beating some answers out of him Kelly love, I can be having a nice little flutter.”
111
Harry Grogan stood in the stable yard watching his heavily padded grey colt bound up the ramp into the waiting horsebox. The colt was on his toes and dragged the lad alongside him in his eagerness to be off.
Standing next to his owner, the trainer nodded approvingly and said, “Knows what’s coming and can’t wait to get up and at ’em you’ll see, Mr Grogan.”
Grogan heard the unforced confidence in the man’s voice and silently echoed it. The colt was the best he’d ever had. A man could spend a lifetime searching for such a horse and never find it.
The lad tied the colt up in his narrow stall and secured the partition behind him before jogging down the ramp again. There was a buzz in the yard even this early, the rough breath of animals and people mingling under the floodlights.
Grogan stood back and watched the scene—part of it and yet apart from it. He squinted up towards the sky. The sun was just beginning to inch over the horizon, promising a fair mild day. Good going, not too warm. Perfect.
“He’ll do his best,” he said. “Can’t ask for more.”
The trainer flashed him a quick relieved smile, acknowledging miracles hoped for rather than expected, before he nodded and hurried away. Grogan watched him go. They’d almost finished loading the horsebox, swinging the ramp closed, starting up the rumbling diesel.
Grogan heard the grit of boots on the concrete behind him and turned to find Dmitry waiting at a respectful distance.
“We should go,” Dmitry said shortly. “Traffic.”
Grogan took a last glance around, refusing to be hurried, before turning at last towards the Range Rover. Dmitry had left the engine running, the heater on.
As they walked, Grogan skimmed his eyes over the younger man. “Viktor?”
There was a small hesitation before Dmitry shook his head. “Gone.”
Grogan said nothing, just waited for the rear door to be opened and climbed inside.
Almost as soon as he had settled himself in the warm leather and the car moved off, his cellphone rang. Grogan checked the display before he took the call.
“Sweetheart. To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“Darling,” Myshka’s voice drawled in his ear. “How do I not call on your big day?”
Something about the way she said it gave Grogan the feeling he was being mocked, but with Myshka it was hard to tell.
“Where are you?” he said instead.
“Getting ready,” she said. “I want to make myself beautiful for you.”
Not you I’ll be looking at, sweetheart. Not today. He grunted. “Don’t be late.”
“Do not worry.” Her voice was a breathy purr. “I would not miss it for world.”
Grogan ended the call and slid the phone back into his pocket and he wished, not for the first time, that his Irene was still with him. Like the old days.
But he allowed nothing of this regret or nostalgia to reach his impassive face.
112
“Bastard!”
Myshka slammed the phone down and stared at herself in the mirror. She was fresh from the shower, hair wrapped in a towel and face bare.
She felt tired and looked old. Perhaps that was why she had called Grogan, in the hope that he might offer some throwaway reassurance that she need not go to any special effort. Something like: “You’ll always be beautiful to me sweetheart.”
She should have known better than to expect flattery from a pig like that.
Myshka sat very straight and stared at her own reflection. She didn’t need to lean close anymore to see the lines around her eyes, across her forehead and beginning to ring her neck like an old chicken.
She would always have a striking look she knew, because of the way she’d learned to carry herself, the way she’d been taught to dress. But soon people would speak of her in the past tense—“she used to be such a beauty”—in hushed tones. As if she hadn’t the sense to die young before everything began to leave her and she was left only with her memories of faded glory.
Dmitry will not leave me.
The conviction was strong, overwhelming. Dmitry had always stood by her. He would always do so.
After today he would be able to do nothing else.
113
Steve Warwick hammered on the door to the en suite bathroom.
“Hurry up in there, can’t you?” he called sharply through the panelled oak. “What’s taking so long?”
“I want make myself pretty for you,” Yana’s wavery voice called back.
But Warwick was already halfway across the bedroom raking a hand through his still damp hair as he yanked a dress shirt off its hanger and shoved his arms into the sleeves. “Matt’s used to how you look,” he shouted casually over his shoulder. “And he’ll kick up a stink if we’re late.”
“Am coming.”
Warwick sighed impatiently as he fastened his tie in the full-length mirror on the bedroom wall, turned back the cuffs and slipped on cufflinks.
He tried out his trademark killer smile and hoped that nobody would see past the urbane confident appearance he presented to the trembling man beneath. The deadline with Harry Grogan was rapidly approaching. Warwick had no more hope of paying what he owed now than he did when he’d made that absurd deal—never mind the extra eight percent on top.
He felt himself begin to sweat with remembered fear. Perhaps another squirt of antiperspirant wouldn’t be a bad idea.
“Yana, come on!”
As he crossed the room again he glanced at the drab black dress she’d laid out on the bed. Anyone would think she was going to a funeral he thought, not a race meeting.