Dick Francis's Damage (13 page)

I thought Roger Vincent was about to ask how the samples were taken, but, at the last moment, he obviously opted out, perhaps deciding that he didn't really want to know.

“What makes you think it was done by the same man?” Ian Tulloch asked.

Crispin continued in his usual protracted manner. “An anonymous telephone caller left a voice mail on the whistle-blowing RaceStraight reporting line, claiming that the trainer in question was administering amphetamine to his horses. I instructed Jeff here to take a quick peek at the trainer's setup to establish the veracity of the claim.” Crispin paused.

“Yes,” Ian Tulloch said impatiently, “but why did you come to the conclusion that this was done by the same man who doped the water at Cheltenham?”

“And why,” Stephen Kohli asked, jumping in with two feet, “didn't you immediately send in a BHA testing team rather than relying on a rogue investigator?”

“I am not a rogue investigator,” I said sharply. “Please don't confuse being clandestine with being illegal. I work completely within the law.”

At least I tried to, although I didn't always tell the truth—except in court under oath.

“Mr. Larson, please answer my question,” Ian Tulloch said rather forcefully. “Why do you believe it is the same man?”

Everyone's eyes turned back to Crispin.

“It is a complicated situation, and maybe, dare I say, there is a touch of guesswork involved. In all, three different trainers have claimed they were approached by an individual who demanded money or he would dope their horses and they would lose their livelihood. In the light of that intelligence, I was of the opinion that the call to RaceStraight could be a malicious attempt to bring disgrace to an individual who had refused to pay. Hence, the unorthodox approach.”

Stephen Kohli looked apoplectic.

“Who are these trainers?” he demanded. “Why wasn't I informed of this before?”

Crispin tried valiantly to explain that things were often said to him in strictest confidence and that without the trust of those in the sport, he would have been unable to gather the intelligence he was famed for. Any loss of anonymity would instantly cause his network of covert human intelligence sources to evaporate in the wind.

But Stephen Kohli didn't seem to understand that. To him, things were always black or white, never gray. And he was seething.

“Gentlemen,” said Roger Vincent, trying to restore some sort of order by banging his palm on the table, “what is important here is the matter at hand and what we do about it.”

“Have you had any reply to the notice in
The Times
?” I asked.

“Yes,” Howard Lever said, “we have. Our offer was rejected out of hand. I said that twenty thousand wouldn't be enough.”

“What was the response, exactly?” I asked.

Roger Vincent handed over a piece of paper. “This is a copy,” he said.

I looked down and read the single paragraph.

Don't mess with me. Your offer is not enough. Five million in cash by next week or I will bring down your beloved racing for good. Agree in the Times on Saturday—or else.

“How was this delivered?” I asked.

“Addressed to me personally in the regular mail,” said Roger Vincent. “Same as last time.”

The paper was passed around the table amid considerable murmurings.

“We couldn't possibly acquire five million pounds in cash even if we wanted to,” said Neil Wallinger. “Money-laundering restrictions would prevent it for a start.”

“Why don't we ignore him?” I said.
All the eyes swung around to face me. “He's being totally unreasonable, so call his bluff. Use the trucks for drinking water, especially at Ascot this Saturday and Sunday, and make sure they're clean. Keep them guarded to prevent contamination. What then can he do?”

There were some nods around the table.

“What if he goes to the newspapers?” asked Piers Pottinger, always acutely aware of the public relations angle.

“Let him,” I said. “What can he say that won't incriminate him?”

“He could anonymously say that he had doped all the horses that ran at Cheltenham.”

“So what?” I said. “Would any of the newspapers believe him if he refused to give his name?” Now there were shakes of various heads. “And why
would
he go to the newspapers, not when there's still a chance of getting money out of us. He would surely only do that if and when all negotiations are over. And, even if he did, we could still argue that it doesn't invalidate the race results, not if all the horses were equally doped.” I conveniently ignored the
fact that at least three of the horses at Cheltenham had not ingested any methylphenidate. “We are not going to pay this man five million pounds, that's for sure, so we should pay him absolutely nothing. Let's ignore him. Or, better still, let's call in the police.”

Crispin and I were told to wait outside while the others discussed matters and made their decision.

“That didn't go very well,” I said to Crispin. “Stephen seems rather angry.”

“Stephen is always angry,” Crispin replied. “I've always found the best policy is to pay no attention to him.”

“But he's your boss.”

“So? Paul Maldini is your boss, but I hear you and Nigel Green take little or no notice of him most of the time.”

“Who told you that?” I asked, but he just smiled at me. Clearly, he believed that I didn't need to know, so he didn't tell me.

There wasn't much Crispin didn't know about racing and obviously that included everything going on within the BHA itself.

“What are they going to do, then?” I asked, jerking my thumb towards the conference room behind me.

“Your guess is as good as mine. This lot are totally unpredictable.”

The meeting broke up with a decision to do nothing, other than to continue with the water trucks. We were to wait and see what happened over the weekend. No notice would be placed in
The
Times
on Saturday, but, equally, no report was to be made to the police either.

“They bottled it,” Crispin said to me as we were leaving Scrutton's Club. “They hope by doing nothing it will all go
away, but I'm not sure your plan to ignore him is actually the best policy. With our heads stuck in the sand, we may not see the juggernaut coming that will run us all over.”

“You really think it's that bad?”

“Don't you?”

I
caught the District Line from St. James's Park to Richmond and went to see Faye.

“How lovely,” she said, opening the front door to their Georgian mansion and giving me a kiss. “Come on in.”

“You should be resting in bed,” I said with mock admonishment.

“Nonsense,” she replied with a laugh. “Coffee, tea or wine?”

“I'd love a coffee.” Actually, I would have loved a glass of wine, but I didn't think Faye would be able to join me so I opted for the coffee instead.

I sat on a stool at the breakfast bar while she set to work at her fancy coffee machine.

“What brings you to Richmond on a Friday afternoon?”

“I came to see you.”

She beamed with pleasure. “I'd have thought you'd be at your office.”

“I'm working away from the office for a while. I tell you, I
could get used to not having a supervisor looking over my shoulder all the time.”

She went on smiling and passed over a steaming cup of cappuccino.

“How are you anyway?” I asked. “You look amazing.”

“Oh, I'm OK,” she said. “But I don't like this chemo much. I had to go to the Royal Marsden most of the day on Tuesday. God, it makes me feel sick.”

“I'm surprised they started chemo so soon after the surgery. I'd have expected you to have more recovery time.”

“The operation was the easy part,” Faye said. “The surgeon used some fancy new robot system that only required a few small incisions. It's really clever. The robot's arms and hands did the operation inside me as if they were the surgeon's own, but, of course, they're much thinner. The cuts were a bit sore for a few days, but I'm fine now. At least I would be if I didn't feel so sick all the time.”

“How long do you have to have the chemo for?”

“Three or four cycles, according to my oncologist. Each cycle is three weeks long. That's bloody months of feeling like this.”

“Poor you,” I said, trying to be supportive. “But I'm sure it will be worth it.”

“I do hope so,” she said. “And, thankfully, they tell me that with Gem/Cis I shouldn't lose my hair.”

“Gem/Cis?”

“It's the combination of drugs I'm getting, Gem-something and Cisplatin. Can't quite remember. I had to lie there on a bed for hours with my arm sticking out sideways while they poured the stuff into me through a cannula tube.” She laughed. “It
reminds me of one of those executions by lethal injection. Any last requests?”

I smiled at her, but I found it all too serious for actual laughter.

“Tell me about you,” she said, changing the subject. “What have you been up to?”

“Not much,” I said. “Just the usual stuff of chasing cheats and fraudsters.”

“Have you caught any?”

“Not yet, but I'm working on it.”

Faye knew better than to probe too deeply into what I did for a living. It was a situation that had first occurred when I'd been in the army. Then she hadn't really wanted to know what I'd been up to because she knew she wouldn't like it. Not much had changed since I'd joined the BHA.

“How's Lydia?” she asked.

“She's fine.”

Faye knew me too well and must have detected something in the tone of my voice.

“What's wrong?” she asked, full of concern.

“Nothing's wrong,” I said.

“Now, don't lie to your big sister.”

It was what she'd said to me almost every day throughout my childhood, from age eight onwards, whenever I'd been caught doing something naughty and I'd tried to wriggle out of the punishment.

“I'm not,” I said.

“There you are doing it again,” she said with mock anger. “I can always tell when you're lying and you know it. Tell me what's wrong.”

“I don't want to trouble you, sis, especially when you're not well.”

“I will be far more troubled if you don't tell me.”

I sighed. This hadn't exactly been on my agenda for this visit. I'd come here intending to support Faye, not the other way around.

“Are you and Lydia having problems? Is that it?”

“Faye, my darling, don't worry yourself. Lydia and I are fine. I just feel a little trapped in our relationship, that's all. I'm sure it will work out.”

“Is that why you haven't asked her to marry you?”

“Yes,” I said, finally admitting that fact to someone else.

“Oh, Jeff, I'm so sorry,” Faye said. “And what I whispered to you last time you were here wouldn't have helped.”

“No,” I agreed, “not great.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I love Lydia, but I feel life is somehow passing us by. The excitement is less than it was.”

“Jeff, it's bound to diminish a bit with time. How long have you two been together?”

“Just over four years.”

“Mmm. Not really long enough for the seven-year itch. How does Lydia feel?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I haven't talked to her about it.”

“Then you must.”

“How can I? She wants to get married and have children.”

“So you do know how she feels,” Faye said. “Does she love you?”

“Yes, I suppose. She says she does.” I stood up and walked around the kitchen, taking deep breaths to hold back tears. “Faye, I don't know what to do.” More deep breaths. “Maybe it's just a phase I'm going through. Something about turning thirty. Or perhaps I'm expecting too much from a relationship. We almost
never argue or anything, and the sex between us is good. But the thought of marriage frightens me. It's too permanent.”

I sat down again on the stool. I could feel my eyes beginning to well up.

“How about children?” Faye asked.

“What about them?”

“Don't you want any?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“Why ‘of course'? Not everyone wants children.”

“Well, I do.” I sighed. “That's part of the problem. I feel I can't be responsible for bringing a child into the world if I'm not completely certain that Lydia and I will last together. It wouldn't be fair on any of us. And I'm not one of those idiots who think that having a baby will save their relationship. It never does.”

“No,” Faye agreed. “Having a baby puts more strain on a marriage, not less.”

“So what do I do?” I asked. “I don't want to hurt Lydia, but I'm not the happiest of bunnies at the moment.”

I was very close to crying, and Faye came around the breakfast bar and put a comforting arm across my shoulders.

“I can't tell you what to do, little bro, that has to be for you to decide. All I will say is don't do anything until you're certain it's the right thing. Lydia is a lovely girl, and they don't come along like that very often. Make absolutely sure she's not what you want before you cast her adrift.”

I
caught the train from Waterloo to Ascot at eleven-forty on Saturday morning.

I had meant to be much earlier, but both Lydia and I had overslept and that was because we'd had a really good time on Friday evening. The best in ages.

I had arrived home from Richmond the previous afternoon with Faye's wise words playing over and over again in my head:
Lydia is a lovely girl, and they
don't come along like that very often. Make absolutely sure
she's not what you want before you cast her adrift.

It was time to make some real effort on my side.

“Let's go out tonight,” I'd said to Lydia when she came home from work. “I'm fed up with staying at home and watching television and minding what we eat and drink.”

“Where do you want to go?” She hadn't sounded very enthusiastic, but I was not to be deterred.

“To the West End. How about a show? Then dinner afterwards.”

“Will we get any tickets this late on a Friday?”

“Maybe we will or maybe we won't,” I'd said. “But we could at least give it a go. Come on, let's try our luck.”

And so we had, acquiring the very last two seats in the peanut gallery for
Les Misérables
. We'd both seen the show before, but not together, and we adored the music.

Lydia laughed loudly at the inn-keeping Thénardiers, clung tightly to my hand when Éponine was killed, sobbed when little Gavroche was shot and wept openly when Jean Valjean died at the end, only to stand up and shout for more during the curtain calls.

We bounded down the stairs to the street warbling the lyrics of “Do You Hear the People Sing?” at the tops of our voices, and then laughing as other people looked at us as if we were crazy. And we were.

“God, what fun,” Lydia cried, hugging me outside the theater.

I hugged her back.

“How about the Dover Street Wine Bar?”

“I thought you didn't like jazz.”

“I do tonight.”

We had eaten dinner, then danced until they threw us out at three o'clock in the morning.

We hadn't actually made love on the backseat of the taxi on the way home, but it wasn't due to a lack of intent on either of our parts. We just had an annoyingly talkative taxi driver who also wouldn't stop looking at us in his rearview mirror as we giggled uncontrollably behind him.

But we had made up for it when we'd arrived home, not finally succumbing to sleep until nearly five.

Hence, we had overslept.

Now I dragged myself, bleary-eyed and rather hungover, out of the train at Ascot and up the hill to the racetrack.

Thanks to Crispin's little ploy with the parking spaces request, Ascot was brimming with security personnel. And, no doubt, the BHA Integrity Department would also be out in force, even if they were largely unaware of the true reason.

Consequently, I decided not to use my official credentials to get into the racetrack but paid my money at the turnstiles like everybody else.

I wasn't really sure why I was there. It was not as if I could actually do much, not without blowing my undercover status. But I knew I'd be happier being present at the track rather than sitting at home watching anything suspicious unfold on television.

The day was bright and sunny, but it had turned bitterly cold, with a strong northerly wind blowing freezing air straight down off the polar ice cap. Hence, everyone was in thick overcoats with gloves, scarves and warm hats, that greatly helped me to blend in.

I wore the brown woolen beanie that I'd last used at Cheltenham with the collar-length dark wig beneath. And the goatee was also making a repeat appearance, along with a pair of sunglasses. I had decided to come in disguise as I was concerned most about being recognized by one of my BHA colleagues, something which may have resulted in some awkward questions, rather than to remain incognito for any particular villains.

It did, however, have its other advantages.

I literally ran into Nick Ledder, the banned jockey I'd seen at Cheltenham—or, more accurately, he ran into me on the concourse of the enormous grandstand. Again, he had a tweed cap pulled down over his forehead and the collar of his coat turned up against the wind. I knew him instantly, but, fortunately, he
didn't recognize me even though he should know me quite well. I'd been the investigator who had testified against him at the disciplinary panel about his attempts to bribe another jockey.

Why, I thought, is Nick Ledder jeopardizing his future riding career by being seen at a racetrack?

Having nothing else better to do, I followed him.

The main grandstand at Ascot was designed primarily for the Royal Ascot meeting, five days each June, when crowds of up to eighty thousand would descend on this southeastern corner of Berkshire for the annual flat-racing festival of horses, hospitality, and hats.

A jumps meeting in freezing weather at the end of March, even on a Saturday, couldn't muster a crowd hardly a tenth that size, and, despite a large part of the grandstand being closed off completely, the place seemed cavernous and echoey.

And it didn't make following a target particularly easy, not that tailing Nick Ledder was very revealing.

He meandered around with seemingly no real purpose. He spoke to no one of interest and interacted only with the man behind the counter at one of the food stalls, where he bought a large Cornish pasty that he proceeded to inject with copious quantities of tomato ketchup from a pump.

That, I thought, wouldn't do his riding weight any favors.

I used my cell phone to take a picture of him tucking into his high-calorie lunch with the crown logo of the Ascot racetrack clearly visible in the background, but I became bored with that particular game and was thankful when the runners for the first race started to arrive in the pre-parade ring and I was able to switch my attention to the horses.

I leaned on a rail and watched as the ten runners for the two-mile novice hurdle were being saddled, the trainers constantly
checking that everything was in order and nothing had been forgotten. Duncan Johnson was one of them. I glanced down to my program and was interested to note that the horse he was preparing was Paperclip, one of those owned by Ian Tulloch.

I looked around for the owner and, sure enough, he was standing to one side, laughing and joking with a group of admiring ladies, all of them protected from the biting wind by thick fur coats and hats.

Paperclip, now saddled and wearing a thick rug against the cold, was led by his groom towards the main parade ring. Ian Tulloch and friends, together with Duncan Johnson, followed behind, all of them in excited good humor.

There was no sign of Duncan's young mistress nor his wife.

I looked up the record of Paperclip in the program. This was only his third-ever run and his first since before Christmas. He'd previously finished only fourth and sixth, but something about Ian Tulloch's demeanor made me think that the horse had improved considerably over the intervening months and clearly much was expected of him today.

I reckoned a minor betting coup was in progress, and it was all aboveboard and legal.

An owner and trainer were not under any obligation to tell everyone else if they thought their horse would run rather better than its past record might suggest just as long as the previous poor record hadn't been manufactured on purpose.

I stood by the rail, watching, until all the other runners had been saddled and had departed the pre-parade area. No unauthorized person attempted to get near any of them, not that I'd really expected them to. I had to assume that the drinking-water truck was in place at the stables, and I could see no other way that Leonardo would be able to drug all the horses running.

I wandered over to the main parade ring.

Thanks to Crispin's personal assistant, there were security guards everywhere, with twenty or more of them standing inside the rail, all facing outwards towards the crowd, to spot any miscreant who might attempt to approach the horses.

I even spotted Crispin himself, standing at the top of the viewing area, keeping watch.

He really must be worried, I thought. I couldn't remember when Crispin had last actually been to the races. The racetracks were the domain of the investigators, not the analysts, and I'd certainly never seen him anywhere but in the London office. I ambled over to stand next to him. He ignored me, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on the horses.

“Anything to report, Crispin?” I asked quietly.

Crispin glanced at me, then took a closer look.

“Jeff?” he said with uncertainty.

“I didn't want any of our own guys to recognize me,” I said.

“They certainly won't,” he said, laughing.

“Is there, in fact, anything to report?”

“Nothing at all. No one is getting anywhere near any of the horses unless they've been authorized to do so. Even the trainers are complaining because they have to produce their pass cards every time they go to the stables.”

“And the drinking water?”

“Clean as a whistle.”

“Good,” I said. “I see we have one of our esteemed Board members as an owner in the first.”

“Mr. Tulloch,” Crispin said without warmth. “I never did like accountants.”

“Meet you here after the third?”

“Fine.”

I drifted away and went through the grandstand to the viewing area beyond to watch the first race, stopping off briefly at a Tote counter to place a crisp twenty-pound note on Paperclip to win.

The hurdle track at Ascot is just over a mile and a half around in a clockwise loop so the runners lined up for the two-mile start some ways to our right. They jumped two hurdles in front of the grandstand and then swung right-handedly down the hill for another complete circuit of the track.

The jockey kept Paperclip closely in touch with the leaders as they raced over the three hurdles on the run down to Swinley Bottom, and then he started pushing Paperclip forward so that he had pulled clear of the others as they climbed the hill to the turn into the straight with just two more to jump.

Paperclip appeared every inch the winner as he flew over the second last, gaining two or three lengths on his pursuers while in the air.

But he didn't win. He finished second.

In the end, it was a close finish, but only because Paperclip's jockey badly misjudged things going to the last flight of hurdles, by which point they were ten lengths in front and bound for victory.

For some inexplicable reason, the jockey asked Paperclip to put in an extra stride before jumping when even the spectators in the grandstand could see that there wasn't room for one and, consequently, the horse was far too close to the obstacle when he took off.

He hit the hurdle hard with his front legs and almost came to a complete stop, landing on all four feet at once. Even then, the
wretched jockey very nearly redeemed himself by getting the horse going again, but their momentum had gone and the favorite came sailing past in the last few strides to win by a neck.

Many in the crowd cheered and jumped up and down with excitement, slapping one another on the back, not least to try to keep themselves warm against the icy wind that was blowing straight into our faces. Even I was getting cold and I usually didn't worry about the weather conditions.

I went back through the grandstand mostly to get out of the wind but also to watch the horses come back into the unsaddling enclosure.

Ian Tulloch stood with Duncan Johnson, waiting for Paperclip to appear from the tunnel under the grandstand. Gone was Ian's pre-race bonhomie. Now he didn't look at all happy. In fact, quite the opposite. He stood, stiff-lipped, with his hands clenched into fists inside his brown leather gloves.

I wasn't exactly pleased to have lost my twenty pounds, but I wondered just how many tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, Ian Tulloch had just seen washed down the toilet. He had a well-deserved reputation as a big gambler, and, apart from the debacle at the last hurdle, Paperclip had indeed run a much better race than his starting price of fifteen-to-one might have suggested. Next time out he certainly wouldn't start at such favorable odds.

Mr. Tulloch's little betting coup had failed miserably and any future opportunities had likely vanished with it.

No wonder he was angry.

The horses arrived, the much-backed winner receiving a small cheer from his supporters as his breath made great clouds of mist in the cold air and steam rose from his hindquarters.

Meanwhile, Tulloch glared angrily at Paperclip's jockey. I could just imagine what he was thinking. I was thinking it too.

As with every other racetrack in the country, Ascot provided buckets full of water for the horses to drink or for them to be washed down after their exertions. During the race, the buckets had been left in lines, completely unattended, awaiting the horses' return. Could they have been the source of the doping at Cheltenham? I watched as the water was now given to the horses, the winner gulping down half a bucketful in just a few seconds.

No, I thought, the buckets couldn't have been the cause. If a horse had consumed the methylphenidate only after the race was run, there surely wouldn't have been enough time for the drug to pass through its system and into the urine before it was tested.

Those horses selected for testing were taken directly from the unsaddling enclosure to the secure testing unit, where they had to remain until a sample was given. That could take some time, but most horses would pee within an hour, and many much sooner than that, especially if they were walked around and given more water to drink.

The veterinary technicians became experts at knowing if and when a horse was about to stale and invariably produced the cup on a stick right on cue to catch the urine for the sample.

And, in the unlikely event that a horse refused to perform within a couple of hours, blood would be taken instead. Either way, no horse was permitted to leave the unit until after suitable samples for testing had been obtained.