Peter Lovesey: Wobble to Death

Solomon Herriott slumped into a seat in the judges’ stand and produced a flask of brandy from his jacket. This was the first rest he had allowed his feet since before midnight. They could not have ached more if he had been lapping the track himself. But there was encouragement in the day’s events. These marathon contests were traditionally slow to attract interest from Press and public, yet the duel between Darrell and Chadwick was already drawing spectators, and the news of Chadwick’s dramatic rejection of heel-and-toe would make sensational reading in the sporting Press. He lit a cigar and dreamily followed the movement of the runners- if they could be so described-distorted by the smoke. In a few minutes he replaced the flask in an inner pocket, raised him-self, and strolled over to his manager, Jacobson.

‘I’m leaving now, Walter. I shall rest at the club for an hour and tonight I’m dining at the London Sporting. Don’t send for me unless the building catches fire. If it does, take your time about raising the alarm because we’re magnifi-cently insured.’

Quivering with laughter and enjoying Jacobson’s resent-ment, he sauntered towards the exit.

On the outer track the trio known as the Scythebearer, the Half-breed and the Dublin Stag were lapping together, shuffling gently through the dust lying on the hard-packed surface. They wore silk running costumes of the professional type, zephyrs in brilliant colours, drawers and white tights. Williams had a cap pulled over his forehead as an eye-shade. A firm believer in maintaining the body’s liquid content, he had brought his training to a triumphant peak in the White Hart at Pentonville the evening before, and he was now weathering a hangover.

‘You start by feeling your worst,’ he was telling the oth-ers, ‘and you can only feel better as time goes on. Tomorrow I’ll be in prime shape. You poor coves ’ll be starting to feel your blisters then. ’Ow are your feet, Feargus?’

‘A little warm,’ admitted O’Flaherty, ‘but I’ll have no trouble this time, I promise you. My little room-mate can give me a pick-a-back for a mile or two.’

They were overtaking Mostyn-Smith several times each hour. His presence in the race encouraged them immensely. He was fifty yards ahead of them now, a slight, but upright figure entirely in black, save a flash of white calves where shorts failed to cover sock-tops. His action was an eccentric, loose-limbed performance. The knees were permanently bent and the lower legs enjoyed a mobility of their own, independent of the thighs, the style of an expert in egg-and-spoon racing. As the others overtook him, O’Flaherty slapped his shoulders heartily.

‘Keep going, mate. Only five bloody days and a bit.’

Mostyn-Smith raised a hand in salute, but they were past before he could respond.

‘Give Double-Barrel ’is due,’ Chalk observed. ‘ ’E’s out-lasted some sharp men already. I think ’e might stick it till tomorrow.’

Williams was laughing.

‘Not after a night in O’Flaherty’s ’ut! I wouldn’t even wish that on bloody Chadwick. ’Ow do you sleep now, Feargus? Is there still the trouble with the banshees? Johnny Marsh, the old ’Ackney Clipper, shared a tent with Feargus during Astley’s Wobble last March, ain’t that true, Irish? When Feargus ’ere saw the banshees ’e jumped up, ’it the canvas and brought the bloody lot down! Johnny Marsh wakes up, sees Feargus there, bolt-eyed and naked as a baby, shoutin’ for ’is Maker, and thinks it’s Judgement Day. ’Is ’air went white in an hour, and ’e’s been seeing doctors ever since. Ain’t that so, mate?’

O’Flaherty’s answer was to spit liberally on the track and blaspheme.

Even Williams recognised that the Stag would not be baited any more, and he changed the topic.

‘What happened to Cora Darrell, then? I never saw ’er leave.’

Chalk nodded his head in the direction of Darrell’s tent. ‘Went in there with Monk ten minutes back, like she was doing an inspection.’

‘Inspection! Inspection of what?’ The Half-breed punc-tuated his wit with a belly-laugh that pained his sore head.

‘Cora ain’t the girl to stand by a bed with a bloke and talk about training, now is she?’

‘Seeing as I ain’t been in that position with ’er,’ Chalk retorted, ‘I wouldn’t know.’

Now O’Flaherty recovered his humour.

‘Well, you’re in the minority there, matey. I thought every ped in London-Hello, that was quick, though. Look, she’s out again.’

Mrs Darrell swept into view again and glided across the arena with copious pretty waves and smiles, including one to her husband. When she crossed the tracks only a deft rais-ing of her velvet train rescued it from Billy Reid’s pounding boots as he lumbered past so close that his breath disturbed the curls on the nape of her neck. One final pause at the exit, a smile tossed back to nobody in particular, and Cora relin-quished the limelight to the less glamorous entertainers.

Chalk studied Charles Darrell curiously. He continued his steady semi-trot around the inner track, preoccupied with his task. He was still losing yards each lap to Chadwick, who showed no indication of reverting to a walk. Chalk addressed his companions.

‘What about ’im, then? Ain’t ’e bothered if ’is wife takes up with other parties?’

‘Charlie Darrell ain’t like you and me, friend,’ explained Williams. ‘ ’E’s a real pro-a runner, through and through. When ’e goes into trainin’, that’s it. No ale, tobacco or women. Six weeks of bloody saintly living. If Cora wants amusin’ she knows she can’t look to Charlie, not till after ’is race. And ’e don’t seem to stand in ’er way if she goes else-where. Don’t care a tuppenny damn.’

‘Now there, my friends, is dedication to the profession!’ O’Flaherty declared. ‘You have to admire it. Now I don’t compare with Darrell as a six-day man, but I fancy that if I didn’t have to keep my Moira content while I train I could beat the world.’

‘You’d beat Moira and all, mate, when you found out ’ow she’d passed the time,’ observed the Half-breed. ‘Six bloom-ing weeks of self-control! Can’t see Moira ’olding out, can you? No offence, mate, but you ain’t trained ’er that way.’

O’Flaherty’s temper flared.

‘What do you mean?’

‘What I mean is,’ said Williams, as he hastily sought for palliative words, ‘that Cora Darrell ain’t so different from any other woman-any I’ve met, anyhow. But you ain’t no Charlie Darrell. If you went on the wagon for six weeks like ’e does, and then Moira showed ’erself in ’ere, like Cora, while you were chasing your tail round this bloody path, you’d murder ’er, and spread the pieces all over the ’all.’

O’Flaherty grabbed at the Half-breed’s zephyr.

‘Hold your bloody tongue, Williams, or I’ll land one on you. No man insults my wife. If I chose to train away from her for a year, my Moira would keep faithful to me. If she didn’t, I’d belt her from here to Dublin.’

‘Just what ’e said, Irish,’ Chalk blandly pointed out. ‘I ain’t a married man, as you know, but I reckon Darrell’s got an ’eadpiece on him. True, Cora comes up ’ere and parades like a doxy, but Charlie can watch ’er at it, can’t ’e? Now you men leave your women on trust for six days and nights. D’you know where Moira is tonight, Feargus? I ain’t seen ’er ’ere.’

The Irishman jerked an elbow sharply into the Scythe-bearer’s ribs and ran on, privately coping with imagined infi-delities on the part of Moira, who at that moment was at home with the five young O’Flaherty’s in Wapping, darning the Dublin Stag’s socks.

It was at seven-fifteen in the evening that Francis Mostyn-Smith interrupted his third rest-period to seek out Herriott. After some delay he was referred to the race man-ager, Jacobson, who explained that the promoter was away from the Hall.