• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

It was true, I thought. The plants had come out of their pots, and the earth had spread all over the new carpet. The hotel manager had not been at all pleased. We had been politely asked to leave, and never to come back, or else he would call the police.

Billy and I laughed together at the memory.

“Those were the days,” he said. “Carefree and bloody stupid, we were.”

“But such fun,” I said, still laughing.

For both of us, it seemed, fun had been on the wane recently.

“So to whom do you owe a hundred grand?” I asked. The laughter died in Billy’s throat. But he didn’t answer. “Was it the same guy who tried to kill you?”

He still didn’t answer. He just looked at me.

“Or was he just trying to give you a gentle reminder to pay up, a reminder that went too far?”

“Did the bloody cops tell you to ask me that?” he said crossly.

“No, of course not,” I said. “They don’t even know I’m here.”

“So why are you so bloody interested in me all of a sudden?” The bonhomie of just a couple of minutes previously had disappeared completely.

“Billy. I’m just trying to help you,” I said.

“I don’t need your fucking help,” he said explosively, just as he’d done outside the Weighing Room at Cheltenham.

“That’s what you said to me once before and you ended up in here. Next time, it might be the morgue.”

He lay back against the hospital pillows and said nothing.

“All right,” I said. “If you won’t tell me who, at least tell me why you owe someone a hundred thousand. Then I can properly advise you about your financial dealings.”

“I can’t,” he said, staring at the ceiling. “Even if I didn’t end up dead, which I probably would, I’d have no bloody job left.”

“Against the rules of racing,” I quoted, somewhat self-righteously.

He turned his head and gave me a sideways look.

“Actually, no. At least not that time. That’s what’s so bloody ironic.”

He paused.

“What’s ironic?” I prompted.

“Are you sure you’re not working for the fuzz?”

“I swear on a bottle of champagne in a grand piano,” I said with a smile.

“And some separated f-ing plants?” he asked, smiling also.

“Them too,” I said, placing my right hand over my heart.

He thought for a while longer, as if still debating whether or not to tell me.

“I won a race I should have lost,” he said finally.

“What do you mean, a race you should have lost?”

“I told him I’d lose, but then I went and bloody won it,” he said.

“That was rather careless of you.”

“No, not really,” he said. “I did it on purpose. I was so fed up with that bastard Vickers overtaking me in the championship, I was trying to win on everything I rode. Fat lot of good it did me. I’ve come bloody second yet again.”

“So who was it that you told you’d lose the race?”

He thought for a moment.

“Sorry, mate,” he said. “I can’t tell you that. My f-ing life wouldn’t be worth tuppence.”

“Is he a bookie?” I asked.

“No,” he said with certainty. “He’s a bloody nob.”

I expect, to Billy, anyone who spoke the Queen’s English without a liberal scattering of swear words would be classed as a nob.

“Which nob in particular?” I asked.

“I’m not saying,” he said. “But even if I did you wouldn’t f-ing believe it.”

“And does this nob still want his hundred thousand?”

“I expect so,” he said. “That’s what he claims he lost because I won the race. But I haven’t actually talked to him since this little caper. Perhaps I’ll tell him to bugger off. A broken leg must be worth a hundred grand at least.”

“Tell him you’ll enlighten the cops as to the identity of your attacker if he doesn’t leave you alone.”

“Don’t be bloody naïve,” he said. “These sort of guys don’t mess about. Telling him that would get me killed for sure.”

“Sounds to me like you’re in trouble if you do say who attacked you, and also if you don’t.”

“You are so right,” he said. “Once you say yes to them the first time, you’re bloody hooked for life. They’ve got you by the balls, and there’s no way out.” He leaned his head back against the white pillows, and I thought there were tears in his eyes.

“Billy,” I said.