Читать книгу Citizen - Charlie Brooks - Страница 22

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 really was not up to this.

‘Well one and a half, minimum,’ he managed. ‘You realize what her breeding is?’

‘Yes I do, though one and a half mill’s still a lot…’

Shaunsheys made a show of considering, cocking his head towards the ceiling.

‘I tell you what, though,’ he went on. ‘I’ll give you a million for her right now. No risk. You can have the money tomorrow, in any account you like.’

Robinson shook his head in disbelief.

‘But you can’t—I can’t do that. She’s entered in the sale.’

‘So? She’ll stay in the sale. No one will ever know you sold her to me. She’ll go through the ring and what she makes will no longer be your worry, it’ll be mine.’

‘But what if she makes more than that?’

‘Then I’m laughing. But if she makes less, it’s you rolling in the aisles. There aren’t many buyers for a filly like her at the top end, and if those jokers happen not to turn up, she’ll go for a few hundred thou. This offer guarantees you a return which, in my opinion, you can’t turn down. My professional opinion, Rupert.’

Now it was Robinson’s turn to consider. Or to try to think, at least. Christ, if only a some bastard hadn’t infiltrated his skull with a pair of pliers.

‘One and a half,’ he said, ‘and we split anything on top fifty-fifty.’

‘You can’t have your cake and eat it, Rupert,’ sneered Shaunsheys. ‘Sell the horse to me now for a million. It’s terrible what accidents horses can have just before they go to the sales.’

‘That is bloody extortion.’

‘Really? I would say I’m making you a very generous offer. Yes or no?’

Rupert Robinson looked out of the window. An old lady was struggling with her shopping over the zebra crossing. Suddenly a car hurtled past, narrowly missing her. He winced. He couldn’t afford anything to go wrong with Stella Maris before the sale. He needed a million pounds. He just had to get it. And Shaunsheys was right, he might not if the horse went through the ring.

‘I’ll take one and a quarter,’ he muttered, trying to sound cool, though he felt as if he had a raging fever.

‘The offer is one million, Rupert. Yes or no.’

Robinson turned from the window, his fists clenched.

‘Damn you, Shaunsheys! Where will you get the money? It’s not really you, is it? You’re acting for someone.’

Shaunsheys stood up, a satisfied smile playing over his lips.

‘Good, so it’s a deal. If you just tell me where you want the money, it will be with you tomorrow. I was sure you’d see sense, so I took the liberty of printing off a little contract. Just so you don’t forget.’

Shaunsheys pulled an envelope out of his jacket pocket and took out two pages, both with the same agreement printed on them. It was that Stella Maris was sold to Shug Shaunsheys by Rupert Robinson for one million pounds. With the bookie’s biro that Shaunsheys fished from his trousers, Robinson reluctantly signed both copies. Shaunsheys took back one of them, carefully folded it and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

‘There you are,’ he said, in the voice of a dentist to a child. ‘That didn’t hurt. There are just a couple of small points in addition. You’re never to tell anyone that we’ve done this. It would be most distressing for your uncle if it ever got out. He might even have to resign from the Jockey Club. Where would he go for lunch then? As far as everyone’s concerned you are still the seller, and you will of course be at Newmarket for the sale. You will even remember to buy us a drink if we buy her, won’t you Rupert? I don’t want you forgetting those nice manners you learnt at Eton.’

‘Us? Who is us?’

‘You’ll see.’

Slowly his befuddled brain had pieced together Shaunsheys’s scam. It was the middleman’s revenge, playing both ends. He must be certain his client would go over the million, so the difference would be clear profit for Shaunsheys. Rupert knew that, if the fraud squad got to hear about it, they’d all be in the shit, including himself now that he’d signed Shaunsheys’s contract.

The bloodstock agent held out his hand and clicked his pudgy fingers.

‘Now, your bank details.’

Wearily Robinson walked over to his desk and took out his cheque book from the top right hand drawer. On a post-it note he copied the account name and number from a blank cheque.

‘If it’s not there by close of play tomorrow, the deal’s off,’ Robinson hissed as he marched sulkily into the hall and yanked open the front door. He stood leaning on the doorframe with his eyes closed, holding out the post-it note. It wasn’t that he was all that disappointed with the amount he was getting for Stella Maris. What really tweaked his wick was the fact that a slug like Shaunsheys was driving the deal, and making himself rich in the process.

Shaunsheys picked the bank details from Robinson’s fingers as he walked through the door. His face wore a smug smile.

‘Nice doing business, Rupert,’ he smirked.

But the door had already slammed behind him.

Shaunsheys didn’t mind. He had twenty-four hours to find someone who’d lend him the million. It wouldn’t exactly be at bank rate, of course, but Shaunsheys wasn’t worried about that.