way.’ Tipper smiled, instantly forgetting his problems. ‘No way.’
‘Oh yes. Red’s out at the stud alright. She looks great.’
‘Come on. Let’s go and see her. Jesus. She’s being sold here?’
‘Can I have a pint please?’ Sam gesticulated.
Tipper calmed. ‘Okay. But tell me, why’s she with you?’
‘Oh some long story. The guy who leases the stud to O’Callaghan knows the owner. I think he thinks if O’Callaghan sees the mare before she goes through the sale ring he’ll buy her. I’d say he will too.’
‘Jesus that’s wicked. Then she’ll always be here. Come on hurry up.’
Sam had a good gulp of his beer. He didn’t want to leave. Shelley would be appearing in a minute. He wanted to have another look at her to remind himself. She was late.
‘Hey. How was your first meeting with the Covey Club?’ Sam asked. Tipper didn’t immediately reply and looked at the pattern of the stone floor.
‘It was okay,’ he eventually admitted. ‘There was Spud, Jimmy, Chuck, Dobbo, Arthur, Rodney and Ray. Good lads.’
‘God, they sound like the seven dwarves, so they do,’ said Sam.
‘We’re all in different yards. And we all have a contact that we got to give our phone numbers to. The contacts phone us for the latest news, like.’
‘What sort of news is that?’
‘Things like do any of the yards have shy eaters, and how much is left in the mangers. Also they want to know how well the horses work, and what weights they carry on the gallops. Things like that.’
‘So who’s your contact?’
‘He’s a guy called the Duke. He rang during the meeting. Nice guy. Says if there’s anything I need any time to give him a ring. Wants me to drop in for a drink next time I’m in London.’
‘That sounds okay, boy. There’s no harm in that.’
Tipper wasn’t so sure. Nobody had ever given him something for nothing, so why would this guy? But he hoped Sam was right.
Shaunsheys had been waiting for a long time to land a proper touch. He’d been planning to retire to a little place in the Philippines, or maybe Thailand. He went for his holidays to one or the other every year. What he needed was one final deal to help him on his way.
When the Russians had initially approached him to find the best mare money could buy, he reckoned his moment had come. The promised two per cent commission was handy. But it wasn’t enough to keep him in little boys for the rest of his days. Now, however, he sensed his moment had come. He wasn’t going to muck about with two per cents now.
Over the years Shaunsheys had developed a sideline helping casinos round up bad debts—nothing physical, more along the lines of ‘I’m sure you wouldn’t want this to be known about on the racetrack, sir’. One of those with whom he’d had such conversations was the Honourable Rupert Robinson. Rupert was in a bad financial corner. His father had been too raddled with drink to consider accountants or financial planning, and anyway he hadn’t been intending to die. And there wasn’t just inheritance tax. Young Robinson’s appetite for Brazilians was fairly voracious, particularly after he’d downed a few bottles of bubbly and shoved half a gram of coke up his rapidly disintegrating nose. And for someone who could hardly use a calculator he was a little too keen on blackjack.
So Shug Shaunsheys’s face, while hardly welcome, wasn’t completely strange when, around noon three days after the meeting with Shalakov, he knocked on Robinson’s door in Sloane Avenue.
Robinson wasn’t unattractive. In fact the women in Virginia, where he hunted every year, fell over each other to dance with him. He was tall, athletically built and had rather soulful eyes. He also had a sloping forehead and straight sweptback hair. But today, as he opened the door of his sister’s house wearing a silk dressing gown, the bloodshot eyeballs, greasy hair and three-day stubble told a different story. The Honourable Rupert had been on yet another bender.
‘Shaunsheys. What the fuck do you want?’
‘I think it may be in your interest if we have a little chat.’
Robinson closed his eyes wearily.
‘Look, you bloody know I’m broke. I’m doing my best to get that money together, but it’s incredibly difficult. The Revenue have got their claws into my back.’
‘Then today’s your birthday, Rupert. I may be able to offer you a lot of money. Shall I come in?’
Robinson frowned. Shaunsheys’s visits had always cost him money in the past.
‘Oh,’ he said warily, ‘come on in then.’
Shaunsheys trailed his personal aroma, a combination of stale sweat and cigarette smoke, past Robinson. He stopped in the narrow hallway to admire a matching pair of paintings.
‘Ferneley. Very nice.’
Robinson ignored him and pointed towards an open door that led into a sitting room. Shaunsheys went through and sank into a deep, green leather armchair. Next to the chair was a mahogany table with a bronze of a horse and jockey. Must be worth a few quid, he thought, as must the big landscape over the fireplace, which he suspected of being a Munnings. A startling modern semiabstract canvas dominated the opposite wall. So why didn’t Robinson just sell some of this stuff, if he needed money? Or, come to think of it, flog the whole house?
Robinson knew what he was thinking. He gestured at the art and furniture.
‘All my sister’s. So’s the house. She’s in New York at the moment. So don’t get any ideas that your grubby casino is going to get their hands on any of it.’
‘Mr Robinson, I’m not here on casino business. I want to talk to you about Stella Maris. As I understand it you retired her from the track?’
‘Something like that.’
‘So you’ve entered her in the sales, right?’
Robinson winced. For the past year Stella Maris had been his only useful asset, and very useful she had been—the difference between concealed penury and very public bankruptcy. The mare’s victory in the Irish Oaks had been tax-free earnings that kept her owner well topped up with vintage Krug and Class A drugs, as well as staving off his creditors for a while. But now the prize money had all gone. Robinson had no choice but to kill the Golden Goose.
‘As a matter of fact I have. But I don’t need the likes of you running her up, if that’s why you’re here. There’s plenty of interest already, let me tell you.’
‘You misunderstand me. I’d like to buy her. What are you hoping she’ll make?’
Robinson was astounded. Shaunsheys’s collars were always grubby, his suits were unpressed, his hair greasily unkempt. Where was he going to find the money?
‘How do I know what she’ll make, for God’s sake?’ he asked testily. Hangover pains were stabbing into his cerebellum. ‘She’ll make what she makes.’
‘Come, come. You must have an idea what she’ll make. Half a million, perhaps?’
‘More like two. You haven’t got that kind of money.’
‘Now Rupert.’ Shaunsheys chuckled patronizingly. ‘You’re hardly in a position to judge what I’m worth. But I shouldn’t be too confident of selling her for two million. We both know how volatile the market is at the moment.’
Robinson’s head began throbbing like the business end of road-mender’s hammer. He