“But you could have been killed,” she said, clearly shocked.
“I would have given the thief the money,” I said. “But my father told him to go to hell and kicked him in the balls. I think that’s why he was stabbed.”
She was a little reassured, but not much.
“But why didn’t you tell me about it straightaway?” she implored.
“I didn’t want to upset you just before the assessment,” I said in my defense. And she could see the sense in that. “But that’s not all, my love. Far from it.”
I told her about my mother and the fact that she hadn’t died in a car accident either. As gently as I could, I told her about Paignton Pier and how my mother had been found murdered on the beach beneath it.
“Oh, Ned,” she said, choking back the tears.
“I was only a toddler,” I said, trying to comfort her. “I have no memory of any of it. In fact, I don’t remember a single thing about my mother.” And, of course, Sophie had never known her.
“How did you find out?” she asked.
“The police told me,” I said. “They did a DNA check on him. It seems that everyone at the time thought my father had been responsible and that’s why he ran away, and also why Nanna and Grandpa made up the story of the car crash.”
“How dreadful for them,” she said.
“Yes, but it wasn’t actually that simple,” I said.
I went on to tell her about my mother’s pregnancy, and, eventually and carefully, I told her the whole story about the baby being my grandfather’s child and how it had been he who had strangled my mother to prevent anyone from finding out.
She went very silent for some time, as I held her hand across the car handbrake.
“But why, then, did your father go away?” she asked finally.
“He was told to,” I said.
“Who by?”
Sophie had once loved my grandparents as if they had been her own. Now I laid bare the awful story that my grandmother, our darling Nanna, had orchestrated the whole affair. She certainly had been responsible for me having had no father to grow up with and quite likely had been instrumental in my mother’s demise as well.
Sophie just couldn’t believe it.
“Are you absolutely sure?” she asked.
I nodded. “I found out most of it yesterday,” I said. “When I went to see her.”
“Did she tell you all this?” Sophie asked with a degree of skepticism.
“Yes,” I said.
“But how? She’s losing her marbles. Most days, she can’t remember what she had for breakfast.”
“She was quite lucid when I spoke with her yesterday,” I said.
“Surprisingly so, in fact. She couldn’t really remember who you were, but there was nothing much wrong with her memory of the events of thirty-six years ago.”
“Was she sorry?” Sophie asked.
“No, not really,” I said. “I think that’s what I found the hardest to bear.”
We sat together silently in the car for some while.
All around us were happy families: mums and dads with their children, running up and down the hills, chasing their dogs and flying their kites in the wind. All the things that normal people do on a Sunday afternoon.
The horrors were only inside the car, and in our minds.
22
On Monday morning, I picked up Luca and Duggie early from the Hilton Hotel parking lot at Junction 15 on the M40 motorway, and the three of us set off for the Bangor-on-Dee races with happy hearts but with mischief in mind.
The bruises on my abdomen, inflicted by fists and steel toe caps at the Kempton Park races, had finally begun to fade, but the fire of revenge still burned bright in my belly. I had told Larry Porter that I would get even with the bastard who had ordered the beatings, and today was going to be my day.
“Did you check with Larry?” I said to Luca. “Has he got the stuff?”
“Relax,” Luca said to me. “Don’t worry. Larry will be there in good time.”
“Did you speak to any of your friends?” I asked Duggie. “To remind them?”
“All OK,” he replied. “As Luca said, relax, everything is fine.”
I hoped he was right.
We arrived at the racetrack early, and I parked in one of the free parking lots. I went to pay the fee at the bookmakers’ badge entrance while Luca and Duggie unloaded the equipment and pulled it through to the betting ring.
“Where’s the bloody grandstand?” said Duggie, looking around.
I laughed. “There isn’t one.”
“You’re putting me on,” he said.
“No,” I said. “There really aren’t any grandstands at Bangor.”
“How do the punters see the racing, then?” he asked.
“It’s a natural grandstand,” I said. “The people stand on the hill to watch the racing.” The ground fell away down towards the track, giving ample room for a good view of the horses.
“I’ve seen it all now,” he said.
“No, you haven’t,” I said. “In southern Spain, they race along a beach, with the crowd wearing swimming trunks and sitting under sun umbrellas. It’s proper racing with starting stalls, betting, the lot. It even gets TV coverage.”
“And in St. Moritz, in Switzerland,” Luca said, “every year they race on a frozen lake. I’ve seen it. It’s amazing. But there are no swimming trunks, though, more like fur coats: it’s midwinter.”
“They race on snow in Russia too,” I said. “And back in the eighteen hundreds, they used to have racing right along the frozen Moscow River-actually on the ice.”
“Then why do they cancel racing here whenever it snows?” Duggie asked.
“Good question,” I said. “Obviously, the wrong kind of snow.”
We giggled. But it was nervous laughter.
We set up our pitch, and Luca commented favorably on the new name on our board. I had spent the previous evening painting over the TRUST TEDDY TALBOT slogan and had replaced it with, it had to be said, some pretty poorly painted white letters saying simply TALBOT AND MANDINI.
“I’ll have to change the wording on our tickets as well,” Luca said. “I’ll do it now.”
He set to work while I went to the Gents’. The nerves were clearly beginning to get to me.
“There’s a public pay phone on the wall round there,” I said when I came back. I pointed down the side of the building between the seafood bar and the Gents’.
“I’ll have to be making a call to my granny, then, at the appropriate time,” said Luca, smiling.
“No way,” I said. “I’ll need you here, on the pitch.”
“What’s the problem?” Duggie said.
“I don’t want anyone being able to use the public pay phone when the mobiles stop working,” I said.
“That’s easy,” said Duggie. “I’ll go and fix it.” And off he went before I had a chance to stop him.
He was back in a couple of minutes.
“All done,” he said. “No one’s going to use that phone today.”
Luca and I looked at each other.
“What did you do?” I asked Duggie.
“What do you think?” he said. “I broke it. Then I went into the office and complained that the phone wouldn’t work. They’ve put an OUT OF ORDER sign on it now.”
I laughed. “Well done.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But they offered me the use of the secretary’s phone instead if it were urgent like.”
“Ah,” I said. I didn’t want anyone using the secretary’s phone either.
“It’s simple,” said Duggie. “I got the secretary’s phone number, so I get a mate to call it at the right time and then not hang up. It will tie up the line so no one can call in or out on it. In fact, I’ll get a few of my mates to all call just in case they have more than one line on that number. That’ll tie them all up.”