Citizen

Sinclair hated asking her but he knew that it gave her a sense of power. Alison considered the suggestion as she took a deep drag of smoke. She’d seen Tipper O’Reilly in the flesh, on the day he’d ridden Stella Maris at the Curragh. He was a pretty lad all right, fresh-faced, pale skin, just the choirboy type that she liked best.

‘Yes,’ she said judiciously. ‘Yes, all right, why not? Let’s get Tipper O’Reilly over to ride for us.’

She took another satisfying drag and exhaled slowly. She loved reminding her pathetically weak husband that she was in control.

Nico had been bullshitting of course. He hadn’t seen the Irish Oaks. He’d never even heard of Tipper O’Reilly until the Duke had rung him and ‘strongly advised’ him to get O’Reilly over to ride for them.

‘Don’t worry Nico,’ the Duke had re-assured him. ‘We’ll keep an eye on him for you when he comes over.’

Tipper faced a gloomy end to the flat-racing season. It felt like it was set to be a bloody long, wet winter. His black cloud of depression had intensified as rapidly as his pillion girl had vanished when there was no bike to ride. Then, out of the blue he got a phone call. He didn’t know what to make of it; but he knew Sam would.

‘I’d a phone call from a feller in Newmarket in England. Says he’ll give me a job riding for him.’

‘Sounds great. Who is it?’

‘David Sinclair.’

Sam whistled.

‘Jeeze, that might not be bad. Big stable. You’d get some awesome rides. What did you say?’

‘Said I don’t know. Said I need to think about it. But he wants an answer in a couple of days maximum.’

‘I’d have bloody jumped at it already.’

‘See, I want to go right enough. But I’m pissing myself about being in England. I won’t know a bloody soul there.’

Sam phoned Tipper back the next morning.

‘What have you done about England, boy?’

‘Nothing. I’m still thinking.’

‘Well me Da says he’ll stand me the fare to go with you; he thinks I’ve got the experience and I’ll easily walk into a stud job over there. So what do you say? Will we go together and try our luck with the Newmarket girls?’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Sure I’m sure. I’ll miss the hurling. But my knee’s playing up so I’m probably bollocksed there anyway.’

Sam’s Da had seen a change in his son. He could see there were going to be some wild oats strewn about. And he didn’t want them seeding in his neighbourhood. So he’d been only too happy to get him across the water.

Tipper did no more thinking. What did he have to lose?

‘You’re on,’ he said.

Newmarket is a lonely, wind-swept place to the shy newcomer. Tipper had been right to have had concerns.

Settling in mid-November into a two room flat off the High Street, he and his cousin looked around for other lads to meet and talk to. In the past a young Irishman would have found that half the population of the town was from back home. Not any more. Sinclair’s yard, like most big racing stables, was a Babel of east European and Latin American tongues. They were full of Croats and Cubans, Czechs and Chileans, Ukrainians, Bolivians, Poles and Paraguayans. They were good horsemen, but not such good linguists. The English language was being pushed into third place behind Spanish and the favourite second language of eastern Europe, Russian.

At least there was Tipper’s immediate boss, Sinclair’s Head Lad Jim Delaney. Delaney was originally from County Donegal and a horseman of the old school. They could talk hurling and football and always, of course, horses. Delaney would sometimes have a pint of stout with Tipper and Sam at the Waggon and Horses or the Golden Lion in the evening. He took an avuncular interest in their well-being, and warned them about any moral pitfalls they might encounter.

‘Let me give you two a bit of advice, lads. Keep your lip buttoned about yard business. This here is a terrible town for gambling. Bookies have their spies everywhere, touts and scouts are always watching and listening. Never get too close to a bookie, or any chancer that might be playing the internet betting exchanges. They’ll always be screwing you for information.’

‘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.

12 (#ulink_90b93a4f-d54e-5ba9-9b0a-e7eb2a553fbf)

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.