Whip Hand

'Eddy,' I said, smiling and feeling a traitor.

'Hello, Sid,' he said cheerfully, twinkling at me from above rounded cheeks. 'What are you doing here?'

A good-natured normal enquiry. No suspicions. No tremor.

'Looking for crumbs,' I said.

He chuckled fatly. 'From what I hear, it's us picking up yours. Have us all out of work, you will, soon.'

'Not a chance.'

'Don't step on our toes, Sid.' The smile was still there, the voice devoid of threat. The fuzzy hair, the big moustache, the big broad fleshy face still exuded good wilclass="underline" but the arctic had briefly come and gone in his eyes, and I was in no doubt that I'd received a serious warning off.

'Never, Eddy,' I said insincerely.

'See you, fella,' he said, preparing to go indoors, nodding, smiling widely, and giving me the usual hearty buffet on the shoulder.

'Take care.'

'You too, Eddy,' I said to his departing back: and under my breath, again, in a sort of sorrow, 'You too.'

I carried the notes safely back to the flat, and thought a bit, and telephoned to my man in gas-bags.

He said hallo and great to hear from you and how about a jar sometime, and no, he had never heard of anyone called John Viking. I read out the equation and asked if it meant anything to him, and he laughed and said it sounded like a formula for taking a hot air balloon to the moon.

'Thanks very much,' I said sarcastically.

'No, seriously, Sid. It's a calculation for maximum height. Try a balloonist. They're always after records… the highest, the furthest, that sort of thing.'

I asked if he knew any balloonists but he said sorry, no he didn't, he was only into airships, and we disconnected with another vague resolution to meet somewhere, sometime, one of these days. Idly, and certain it was useless, I leafed through the telephone directory, and there, incredibly, the words stood out bold and clear: The Hot Air Balloon Company, offices in London, number provided.

I got through. A pleasant male voice at the other end said that of course he knew John Viking, everyone in ballooning knew John Viking, he was a madman of the first order.

Madman?

John Viking, the voice explained, took risks which no sensible balloonist would dream of. If I wanted to talk to him, the voice said, I would undoubtedly find him at the balloon race on Monday afternoon. Where was the balloon race on Monday afternoon?

Horse show, balloon race, swings and roundabouts, you name it; all part of the May Day holiday junketings at Highalane Park in Wiltshire. John Viking would be there. Sure to be.

I thanked the voice for his help and rang off, reflecting that I had forgotten about the May Day holiday. National holidays had always been work days for me, as for everyone in racing; providing the entertainment for the public's leisure. I tended not to notice them come and go.

Chico arrived with fish-and-chips for two in the sort of hygienic greaseproof wrappings which kept the steam in and made the chips go soggy.

'Did you know it's the May Day holiday on Monday?' I said.

'Running a judo tournament for the little bleeders, aren't I?'

He tipped the lunch onto two plates, and we ate it, mostly with fingers.

'You've come to life again, I see,' he said.

'It's temporary.'

'We'd better get some work done, then, while you're still with us.'

'The syndicates,' I said; and told him about the luckless Mason having been sent out on the same errand and having his brains kicked to destruction. Chico shook salt on his chips.

'Have to be careful then, won't we?'

'Start this afternoon?'

'Sure.' He paused reflectively, licking his fingers.

'We're not getting paid for this, didn't you say?'

'Not directly.'

'Why don't we do these insurance enquiries, then? Nice quiet questions with a guaranteed fee.'

'I promised Lucas Wainwright I'd do the syndicates first.'

He shrugged. 'You're the boss. But that makes three in a row, counting your wife and Rosemary getting her cash back, that we've worked on for nothing.'

'We'll make up for it later.'

'You are going on, then?'

I didn't answer at once. Apart from not knowing whether I wanted to, I didn't know if I could. Over the past months Chico and I had tended to get somewhat battered by bully boys trying to stop us in our tracks. We didn't have the protection of being either in the Racecourse Security Service or the police. No one to defend us but ourselves. We had looked upon the bruises as part of the job, as racing falls had been to me, and bad judo falls to Chico. What if Trevor Deansgate had changed all that… Not just for one terrible week, but for much longer; for always?

'Sid,' Chico said sharply. 'Come back.'

I swallowed. 'Well… er… we'll do the syndicates. Then we'll see.' Then I'll know, I thought. I'll know inside me, one way or the other. If I couldn't walk into tigers' cages any more, we were done. One of us wasn't enough: it had to be both.

If I couldn't… I'd as soon be dead.

The first syndicate on Lucas's list had been formed by eight people, of whom three were registered owners, headed by Philip Friarly. Registered owners were those acceptable to the racing authorities, owners who paid their dues and kept the rules, were no trouble to anybody, and represented the source and mainspring of the whole industry.

Syndicates were a way of involving more people directly in racing, which was good for the sport, and dividing the training costs into smaller fractions, which was good for the owners. There were syndicates of millionaires, coal miners, groups of rock guitarists, the clientele of pubs. Anyone from Aunty Flo to the undertaker could join a syndicate, and all Eddy Keith should have done was check that everyone on the list was who they said they were.

'It's not the registered owners we're looking at,' I said. 'It's all the others.'

We were driving through Kent on our way to Tunbridge Wells. Ultra-respectable place, Tunbridge Wells. Resort of retired colonels and ladies who played bridge. Low on the national crime league. Hometown, all the same, of a certain Peter Rammileese, who was, so Lucas Wainwright's informant had said, in fact the instigating member of all four of the doubtful syndicates, although his own name nowhere appeared.

'Mason,' I said, conversationally, 'was attacked and left for dead in the streets of Tunbridge Wells.'

'Now he tells me.'

' Chico,' I said. 'Do you want to turn back?'

'You got a premonition, or something?'

After a pause, I said 'No,' and drove a shade too fast round a sharpish bend.

'Look, Sid,' he said. 'We don't have to go to Tunbridge Wells. We're on a hiding to nothing, with this lark.'

'What do you think, then?' He was silent.

'We do have to go,' I said.

'Yeah.'

'So we have to work out what it was that Mason asked, and not ask it.'

'This Rammileese,' Chico said. 'What's he like?'

'I haven't met him, myself, but I've heard of him. He's a farmer who's made a packet out of crooked dealings in horses. The Jockey Club won't have him as a registered owner, and most racecourses don't let him through the gates. He'll try to bribe anyone from the Senior Steward to the scrubbers, and where he can't bribe, he threatens.'

'Oh, jolly.'

'Two jockeys and a trainer, not so long ago, lost their licences for taking his bribes. One of the jockeys got the sack from his stable and he's so broke he's hanging around outside the racecourse gates begging for handouts.'

'Is that the one I saw you talking to, a while ago?'

'That's right.'

'And how much did you give him?'

'Never you mind.'

'You're a pushover, Sid.'

'A case of "but-for-the-grace-of-God",' I said.

'Oh, sure. I could just see you taking bribes from a crooked horse dealer. Most likely thing on earth.'

'Anyway,' I said, 'what we're trying to find out is not whether Peter Rammileese is manipulating four racehorses, which he is, but whether Eddy Keith knows it, and is keeping quiet.'