Dead Weight Read online

  DEAD WEIGHT

  A Thriller

  John Francome

  Synopsis

  TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD IT SEEMS LIKE PHIL NICHOLAS HAS it all. For years he’s been one of the best jump jockeys around-winning championship after championship. On top of the money and glamour, he’s married to Julia, a sexy, beautiful, young woman who adores him. Unfortunately his good luck starts to run out when he suffers a devastating fall. His body heals, but his mind and confidence may be shattered forever. Flashbacks of his accident invade his dreams, rob him of his sleep, and freeze him in the saddle-an impossible situation for a jockey.

  While Phil is battling to overcome his fear, his weighing-room colleague, Adrian Moore, is viciously attacked after losing a race he should have won. It’s the start of a vendetta by someone determined to hurt those who break the rules of racing. If Phil wants to save the sport-and the woman he loves-it’s time for him to recover

  his nerve….

  John Francome, an ex-National Hunt Champion jockey, is also one of the UK’s most popular racing commentators. His electrifying racing thrillers have received outstanding critical acclaim. He lives in Berkshire, England.

  ALSO BY JOHN FRANCOME Inside Track Stone Cold Stud Poker Rough Ride Outsider Break Neck Dead Ringer False Start High Flyer Safe Bet Tip Off Lifeline ALSO BY JOHN FRANCOME AND JAMES MCGREGOR Eavesdropper Riding High Declared Dead Blood Stock

  DEAD WEIGHT

  A Thriller

  John Francome

  With thanks to Mary Bromiley, Nick Oldham, Michael Scott, Marc Serfaty Miranda Wolpert and Gary Nutting (aka www.harrythehorse.net) for their advice

  Keith woke up when the front door banged. For a moment he was relieved - his mother had come home. Then, as he listened to the heavy tread of a man’s boots on the floorboards of the hall, he realised it was Dad. The clump, clump sound was softened by the new lino in the kitchen - black-and-white check, Mum kept it spotless - but Keith was scared all the same. He didn’t know his father well - he’d been away for a long time. Mum had never said where he’d been but Keith knew, he’d heard things. And seven-year-old boys know what’s meant by `prison’.

  He lay still, listening to his father move around in the kitchen. The cottage was small and the walls were thin. Granny used to say that if you rolled a marble across the floor you’d scare the crows off the roof. That was before she had a row with Mum and stopped coming round. The row was about his father, Keith knew that. Granny and Dad didn’t get on.

  There was a rattling noise from downstairs and a clink of glass on glass. His father was having a nip. Sometimes he called it a wee dram and other funny names - a docking doris, that was one. It was because he was Scotch. When Dad was in a merry mood he’d try and teach Keith Scotch words and Scotch songs. That was fun. When he’d first come home they’d done that a lot and Keith had learned all sorts of things. He could sing `The Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond’ and say the first verse of a poem called `To a Moose’, which was very hard. Maybe that was why Granny didn’t come to see them any more. She said she hated the Scotch and why didn’t Keith’s dad clear off back north? There were enough old soaks in Somerset already without importing drunks from Dumfries.

  `Susan!’

  Even upstairs, under the covers, Keith flinched. He wasn’t scared of adults just because they were bigger. He’d sworn at old Pinky Cook when he’d told him off for nicking strawberries, hadn’t he? But his father wasn’t just big and strong. When he was out of sorts he could be mean - nasty mean like he sometimes was with Mum. Then you wouldn’t want to face him on your own. You’d want someone meaner and nastier on your side. Like the Beast.

  `Where are you, woman? Come down here, you bloody whore!’ Keith began to shake. He didn’t know what a `boor’ was, but he knew it wasn’t nice. He hated it when his father got like this. There were two Dads. One was kind and funny and gave him lots of things. The other was … like this.

  `Susan - do I have to drag your arse out of bed?’

  He was coming upstairs. Thump, thump, thump. He was looking for Mum but she wasn’t here. She’d always been here before when he’d come home like this.

  The door across the corridor crashed back on its hinges.

  His father cursed, a string of bad words. It wasn’t the words that upset Keith, he knew them anyway. It was the way Dad said them. As if he hated Keith’s mum more than anyone in the world and he wanted to kill her.

  But she wasn’t there. Smash!

  Keith scurried deep beneath the blankets as light flooded his small room. But there was no place for him to hide.

  A hand like a shovel picked him out of bed and dragged him into the open.

  His father’s face was red and ugly. The wave of hair above his forehead that he flicked back with a comb was all flattened and skewwhiff. It looked funny. But Keith didn’t dare laugh.

  `Where is she?’

  He stared up at his dad, frozen with fear. He was like a little boy in a picture book, held captive by a giant.

  `Where is your two-faced, whoring, cheating mother?’ Keith shook his head. He didn’t know.

  `Come with me.’

  The Beast wasn’t frightened of Dad. If his father yelled at the Beast like this and tried to push him around he’d be sorry.

  The big man dragged Keith by the arm into the next room, the one his parents shared. The bed was made and the bedside lamp lit. The room was as neat and tidy as usual.

  The man took hold of the counterpane and ripped the blankets from the bed. The sheets glowed in the pale lamplight.

  `Where is your mother?’ `She’s not here,’ he blurted.

  `I can see that for myself, you wee fool. You’re lying for her, aren’t you?’

  `No!’

  He threw Keith upon the bed and ground his face into the sheet. `Smell that, son. Smell it!’

  The faint whisper of his mother’s scent filled his nostrils as his father pushed his head down into the mattress. Keith squirmed, his cheeks smarting.

  `You know what it is, don’t you? It’s the stink of a whore.’ Keith coughed and spluttered.

  `She’s whoring in another’s man’s bed and you’re lying for her.’ Suddenly his father let him go. `Get up.’

  He dragged Keith back into his bedroom.

  When his father spoke this time his voice was soft.

  `I’m going to give you one more chance to tell me the truth.’ Keith didn’t like it when Dad’s voice got small. Somehow things always got worse.

  `Put the mice on the table, son.’

  Keith’s mum had objected to pet mice but Keith had begged and begged. And when Dad had come home he’d supported Keith, said there was nothing wrong with a few wee mice. That was when he’d taught Keith the Scotch poem, about the Moose. He’d even bought the mice for Keith, so it was out of Keith’s mum’s hands really.

  There were three, two white and one black. Keith had called them Gemmell, McNeill and Johnstone, after Scotch footballers, to please his dad.

  Keith put the cage on the table and watched as his father opened the door and took out Gemmell, the white one.

  `Now, think carefully. I want to know the truth. Where is your mother at the moment?’

  Keith stared at Gemmell, his white fur gleaming and his little pink

  nose twitching as he crawled up and over and through the hoops his father made out of his big sausage-shaped fingers.

  `Yes, son?’

  Keith thought hard. He didn’t know where she was. Sometimes she went out for a couple of hours after he’d gone to bed, but she said if he was worried he was to run next door to Mrs Shippam.

  `I dunno, Dad. Honest, I don’t.’

  His father stared at him, his eyes dark and gleaming.

  `Wrong answer,’ he said soft
ly. `She’s lying on her back in another man’s bed and I want to know whose it is. Now just you watch.’

  But Keith didn’t want to watch. His father’s fingers were flexing round the mouse and gripping. Then his hands were moving apart, a piece of Gemmell in each of them. Its white body writhed and wriggled, its squeaks filling the small room.

  `There,’ the Scots voice purred. `Poor wee thing. That’s what happens when you don’t tell the truth.’

  His father tossed the bits on to the floor. `So - who’s she with, son?’

  Keith was silent. He couldn’t speak, even if he knew what to say. His eyes were fixed on the little corpse, the white now stained with red. `Let’s try again, shall we?’ said Dad softly, and he pulled another mouse from the cage.

  As the man destroyed his son’s pets, tears rolled down the boy’s face. But in his eyes burned the anger of the Beast.

  Chapter One

  For as long as Phil Nicholas could remember, accidents only happened to other people. Like any jump jockey he’d had his share of falls and scrapes. He’d been dumped into ditches at thirty miles an hour, dragged face down through birch fences and kicked like a football as he rolled beneath the hooves of two dozen galloping steeplechasers. He’d paid the price in lost teeth, cracked ribs and broken collarbones and, on several occasions, spent the night in hospital at some doctor’s insistence.

  But overall he considered he was one of the lucky ones. He’d had friends who had been killed and a few who now did their racing from wheelchairs. Paralysis was the fear of every jump jockey. The moment you stopped rolling through the grass, regardless of what pain you were in, the first thing you did was to check you could move your legs. He’d been as shocked as anyone whenever tragedy struck but, deep down, it had no real effect. Like a soldier in a trench, no matter how many comrades fell around you, you had to believe that it would never happen to you.

  Three years ago his brother had died in a show jumping accident but, though Tim’s death had turned his life upside down, Phil had never questioned the sense in riding horses for a living. As far as he was concerned, he was a guy who always got up and walked away. Then last September he’d ridden May Queen at Worcester.

  A seven-year-old mare with a white blaze on her muzzle, May Queen was a favourite at Deanscroft, the large and successful West Country yard run by trainer Russell Dean. May Queen was embarking on a career over fences but she wasn’t a natural. She found difficulty in judging where to take off and often ended up just guessing. At home she was always fresh and as a consequence could get herself out of trouble, but at Worcester on a beautifully sunny afternoon she took one guess too many.

  Until the first open ditch in the straight, she’d jumped like a champion and the race was there for the taking. All Phil had to do was get safely over the last four fences. He’d even had time to glance over at the River Severn as they’d turned for home, noticing a pleasure boat full of people enjoying a free view of the race. He began to calculate the distance to the fence. May Queen was in an even rhythm which made it easy for him. With five strides to go he crouched lower into the saddle, preparing for her to spring forward, then for no reason she suddenly launched herself into the air.

  They were at least two full strides away and there was nothing that Phil could do, except sit tight and pray May Queen could at least reach halfway up the fence. If she could have managed that they might have been all right, but they had no such luck. Her front feet just made it over the guard rail and she turned a huge cartwheel over the birch fence, firing Phil head first into the firm ground. The horse untangled her limbs with a snort of indignation and trotted off unscathed, leaving Phil with ruptured nerves in his back, a left arm fractured in three places and the knowledge that accidents no longer happened to some other poor sod.

  Now, the following January at Wincanton racecourse, Phil was about to race with May Queen once again. But this time, thank Christ, he wasn’t on her back. That dubious pleasure belonged to Russell Dean’s second jockey, Mark Shaw.

  Mark was tucked away in a corner of the weighing-room, pen in hand, reading the Racing Beacon. He looked up as Phil sat next to him and grunted hello - the kind of greeting that clearly indicated he was busy.

  Phil could see the paper was open to a list of entries for the days ahead, many of them ringed and scribbled over.

  `Not reading my column, then?’

  Phil compiled a weekly diary for the Beacon - one of the perks of being last season’s champion jockey.

  `That load of old bollocks.’ Mark’s mouth twitched upwards at the corners, taking the edge off words spoken in a soft Irish brogue. `Why should I bother to read it when I can get it direct from your big gob?’ Phil laughed. `You cheeky monkey.’

  Phil was the number-one rider at Deanscroft, and though there was only five years’ difference between the two, that added up to a wealth of racing experience. He’d been imparting that experience ever since Mark had arrived as a green apprentice two seasons ago. Green or not, there had been no denying his ambition or dedication, and the first time Phil saw him on a horse he’d had a shock. The boy had clearly modelled his riding style on Phil’s own. Phil had never referred to this - though plenty of others had - but he’d felt a special sympathy for the Irish lad and gone out of his way to help him along. Not that, these days, Mark needed much help.

  `Watch out for May Queen at those ditches,’ he said. In a two-and-ahalf-mile race at Wincanton there are four open ditches to be cleared - more than any other course in the country.

  `No problem.’

  `She did me at a ditch at Worcester. Put her front feet straight in.’ `And so she did. I’ve got it on video. It’s in my top ten.’

  `Oh?’ Phil had watched it once. It had not been an enjoyable experience. `Well, be careful she doesn’t go for a repeat performance.’ Mark grinned. `Just you worry about your own horse and stop trying to put me off. I reckon I’m on the winner.’

  Phil stood abruptly. He realised he’d got it wrong. Mark was actually looking forward to piloting a dangerous jumper over seventeen fences in the January mud. What was more he recognised the feeling only too well. Until Worcester it had been one he shared.

  He clapped Mark on the back. `Good luck,’ he said. The words `you’ll need it’ also sprang to mind.

  In the parade ring Phil turned his thoughts to his own problems - all of which would be solved if only he could start riding winners again. Despite having the pick of the Deanscroft entries, he’d not been first past the post on any of them since his comeback at the beginning of December. No matter what spin he put on the facts - the after-effects of his injuries, a continuing problem with his left arm, the loss of racing opportunities to bad weather - he knew he was no longer the rider he had been before the accident. Though everyone at the yard had been vocal in their support, it wouldn’t be long before someone else noticed that he had lost his touch. And that someone was liable to be the man now standing next to him, his expensive mackintosh flapping in the keen winter wind, his granite-grey eyes assessing Phil as earnestly as any of his runners: Russell Dean, master of Deanscroft, the most successful National Hunt trainer of the past five years.

  Phil had begun riding for Dean just as he’d emerged as the top trainer in the land. Some called Dean lucky, others were suspicious of his methods, the envious simply complained he’d made it with his father’s money. Phil knew how wrong they all were. Russell was a man who combined attention to detail with an obsessive need to improve. He took nothing for granted and was always willing to try something new. As a consequence Deanscroft was ever changing and constantly expanding - it had a heated indoor swimming-pool for the horses, mechanical walkers where up to eight animals could be exercised at the same time, and a covered exercise ring to beat any bad weather. This, together with on-site veterinary staff constantly monitoring weight and testing blood, made Deanscroft the best training facility in the country.

  Russell Dean did not come from typical racing stock. The nearest he
’d been to a horse as a boy was watching from the rail at a racecourse with a bookie’s slip in his pocket. His father had been a Devon farmer who’d turned a couple of coastal fields into a caravan site and never looked back. When Roger Dean died he left his son a flourishing holiday-letting business with properties all over the West Country, including thirty acres of farmland and dilapidated buildings five miles north of Taunton in Somerset. Within two years Russell had sold the holiday business, christened the farm Deanscroft and set about converting himself from an afternoon punter into a full-time horsetrainer. And he’d done it. As he’d often said to Phil, what odds would he have got on that?

  `How’s the arm?’ he asked as he gave Phil a leg-up into the saddle of his mount, Ashburton, an eightyear-old bay of impressive proportions who’d already won over fences.

  `Getting stronger by the day, boss.’ This was true enough.

  The trainer ran an affectionate hand over the horse’s flank. `You’ll be safe as houses on this boy.’

  Phil was thrown by that - surely Russell wasn’t implying he wanted to play it safe? But the trainer was looking up at him with a reassuring smile. `I’ve got a hunch the pair of you are going to bolt up,’ he said.

  Phil hoped so. Champion jockey without a winner for four weeks. It was really getting to him.

  Rain was beginning to fall from a leaden sky as they cantered down to the start. The ground was soft and getting softer, but that suited Phil just fine. With his huge feet and high rounded action, the big rangy Ashburton was made for heavy going, unlike many of his rivals in the upcoming novice chase.

  They came alongside Adrian Moore on Chronicle and the young jockey pulled a face. `Mine don’t fancy this much,’ he called over. Phil could see for himself that the dainty Chronicle was looking far from comfortable.

  `Tell you what,’ Adrian continued. `You can have this race and I’ll take the last.’ Adrian was due to ride January King, a renowned mudlark, in the final race.

  `You’re on,’ Phil replied. He’d settle for one winner out of two starts any day, let alone right now.