Pulse(79)

Satisfied all was in order, I checked that all the equipment cupboards were closed and also that the medicine cabinet on the wall was properly secured. It was where we kept our supply of morphine, the ultimate painkiller.

Then I picked up the bags from Whizz, locked the door, put the keys in the Clerk of the Course’s office and went to tea . . . not that I ate anything.

I smiled.

Another highly interesting and rewarding day at the races.

Little did I realise that the excitement wasn’t yet over.





29


I walked into Cheltenham Hospital at a quarter to eight as the setting sun cast long shadows of the college buildings across the open expanse of their cricket ground.

I adored the coming of summer when the days were lengthening and the evenings getting warm enough to sit outside in the garden, sipping chilled white wine spritzers with ice cubes clinking in the glass. Every year it did wonders for my mood and, this year in particular, it was a welcome release from the misery and gloom of the preceding winter.

I’d already picked up the boys and I left them sitting in my Mini in the staff car park while I took the bags in through the hospital main entrance. ‘I won’t be long,’ I said to them. ‘Just dropping off some things.’

Dick McGee was the only occupant of a two-bedded side ward and he appeared to be asleep when I quietly walked in.

Thank goodness, I thought. I can just dump his stuff and go.

I placed the bag gently on the floor next to the wall but he obviously sensed my being there and opened his eyes.

‘Hello, doc,’ he said.

‘Hi, Dick,’ I replied. ‘How are you doing?’

‘Not great, but I’ll live. And I’ll walk again thanks to you. It seems I owe you an apology.’

‘Just doing my job,’ I said.

‘Thanks anyway.’

‘I brought your stuff,’ I said, indicating towards the bag on the floor, ‘and Whizz said to not worry about your car. He’ll get someone to drive it to your home tomorrow. He also asked me to say hi from him.’

Dick smiled but it turned into a grimace of pain.

‘Hurts?’ I asked.

‘Only when I breathe,’ he said, trying to make a joke of it. ‘It comes in waves and it’s got worse since I got here.’

‘Pain is sometimes like that, especially in the back. The bruising causes swelling that comes on later and presses on the spinal nerves. Haven’t they given you something for it?’

‘Doped to the bloody eyeballs,’ he said. ‘It’ll soon pass.’

He closed his eyes but the pain was still clearly visible in his features.

I looked down at him lying there, small and vulnerable in the hospital bed, very different from his godlike status as a fearless champion when sitting astride an impressive charger.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘I’d better be off.’

Dick opened his eyes and then his mouth as if he was about to say something. But he closed it again without uttering a sound.

‘Your phone’s in the bag,’ I said. ‘Do you want it?’

‘Yeah. Great.’

I took it out and handed it to him. ‘Bye then,’ I said, and turned towards the door.

‘He was some sort of investigator,’ Dick said quietly but clearly.

I turned back. ‘Who was?’

‘The man in the car park, the one who died. The man in the photo.’

Ten minutes later one of the nurses came to tell me she’d had a call from the hospital main reception desk. My son was there and he wanted to know how much longer I was going to be.

I’d completely forgotten about the twins.

‘Not much longer,’ I said. ‘Please tell him I’m sorry and will he wait in the car.’

The nurse went away and I turned back to Dick McGee.

‘Will you tell the police or the racing authorities what you’ve just told me?’

‘No way,’ he said. ‘I’d tell them I’ve no idea what you’re talking about. Do you think I’m stupid or something? My life would be over. I’d be hounded out of the jockeys’ changing room for a start. No one likes a snitch.’

‘So why are you telling me?’ I asked.

‘Because I reckon you’ve earned it,’ he said, waving a hand at his supine body. ‘If I’d had my way earlier this afternoon, I’d have ended up in a wheelchair or worse, although I’m not sure being dead is actually worse than being paralysed. Anyway, I reckon I owe you, but I’m not telling anyone else and I’ll deny ever having said it.’

‘So what am I meant to do with the information?’ I asked.

‘I don’t care, just don’t involve me.’

‘But you are involved,’ I said.

‘No, I’m not,’ he said firmly. ‘I’m totally clean and above board. Always have been and always will be. OK, I’m fiercely competitive, but I’m fair with it. Not like some others I could mention.’

‘Mike Sheraton, for example?’

He stared at me. ‘I’ve said enough. I think you’d better go now.’

I walked out of the room into the main body of the ward and then along the corridor towards the lift thinking about the conversation I’d just had with Dick McGee.