Dick Francis's Damage (16 page)

G
rand National Day started inauspiciously with a call from Crispin at a quarter to nine on my cell. I looked at the number readout on the screen.

“What are you doing in the office on a Saturday?”

“Checking Roger Vincent's mail. And a good job I did too. There's a note from our friend.”

It was brief, and to the point.

Too little, too late. Enjoy your day.

“Not much doubt, then,” I said.

“No,” Crispin agreed. “What do we do?”

A trip to Outer Mongolia seemed like a good idea. Or maybe to the Moon.

“There's nothing that we aren't already doing,” I said. “I suppose you could phone the racetrack and say you've had a
credible threat to the Grand National, but it will mean calling in the police.”

“I could say it was from the antibrigade.”

“That would still bring in the cops,” I said.

“And we aren't certain that the disruption will be at Aintree. It could be at one of the other meetings.”

“We could cope with disruption anywhere else. No, it has to be here.”

And it was.

—

AINTREE
on the Saturday of the meeting had been sold out for weeks. Hence, my first problem was to gain entry to the racetrack.

On Friday, I had simply paid my money at the turnstiles, but that was now not an option. Entrance on Grand National Day was by tickets purchased in advance only.

I made my way from the railway station around to the horse trailer parking area to find the special reception set up in a temporary cabin for the owners and trainers.

Aintree, in common with most other racetracks, looked after the horse owners pretty well, allocating up to six entrance tickets per runner, as well as providing free food vouchers and complimentary race programs, all of which had to be collected from reception.

I stood in the line of expectant clusters, many of them no doubt dreaming of winning “the big one,” while the three women behind the counter did their best to keep up with the demand.

When it was my turn, I simply passed my BHA pass across the counter to one of the young women and asked her for an
owner's cardboard badge. She looked up at me and then down at the pass and then back up at me again.

“I'm working undercover,” I whispered so that those collecting tickets alongside me wouldn't hear. “That's what I look like under this lot.” I smiled at her.

The photograph on the pass showed a clean-shaven man with short, spiky blond hair. I was currently wearing a full dark beard with matching curls, together with some thick-rimmed eyeglasses.

She hesitated, turned to the older woman standing next to her and showed her my ID.

“He says he's working undercover,” she said rather too loudly for my liking. “He wants an owner's badge.”

I smiled at the man standing next to me, who had turned to look my way.

The older woman waved for me to go around to the side door of the cabin.

“Why don't you wear your BHA pass? That's why it has a lanyard.”

“I could,” I said, “but not without broadcasting to everyone that I'm a BHA investigator. That wouldn't exactly help, now would it?”

“I'll have to call the office.” She turned to go.

“I would much rather you didn't do that,” I said in my best authoritative voice. “You might just blow my cover altogether. Look at my eyes.” I removed the spectacles. “They are the same eyes as in the photo.”

She had a close look and then studied the picture.

“All right, Mr. Hinkley,” she said, “I agree that you are who you say you are. But it's most irregular. Wait here.”

She went back inside and then reappeared with an owner's badge, a white cardboard rectangle with a big red O5 printed large across the middle.

“The five means you have access to the parade ring for the Grand National. It's the fifth race. Would you like a race program as well?”

“Yes, please,” I said.

She disappeared back inside and re-emerged with one.

“Thank you,” I said, taking it. “And please don't mention my name to anyone.”

“Who are you looking for?” she asked.

“The winner of the National, of course,” I said with a smile. “The same as everyone else.”

—

THE GATEMAN
raised no objection as he scanned my owner's badge at the turnstile, and even the security personnel seemed to have picked up their game as I was properly searched on my way in.

Once inside, I wandered around with my eyes and ears open, trying to notice something out of the ordinary.

There was nothing. At least nothing I could spot.

I spied Nigel Green standing on the viewing steps outside the weighing room, but he didn't give me so much as a second glance as he chatted to another member of the BHA office staff enjoying a day out at the races.

The excitement of the crowd was palpable and there were many activities put on to keep them busy in the time before the races started. A Dixieland jazz band played a never-ending melody and a troupe of theatrical performers dressed as famous film
stars entertained a circle of admirers behind the Princess Royal stand.

Not one of them was conveniently dressed in a mask and striped T-shirt.

I walked through the lines of bookmakers in the betting ring and watched the parade of former Grand National winners as they were walked up the track, past the scene of their greatest achievement, to the nostalgic cheers of the crowd.

I stood with my back to the running rail, scouring the scene with my eyes, looking for any telltale smoke that might indicate a fire.

Nothing.

As the races started I became more and more anxious. It was like sitting in an air-raid shelter during a raid—certain that a bomb would drop but not knowing exactly where or when.

As the time approached for the Grand National itself, I wanted to be everywhere, checking everything.

I went down to the parade ring to be close by in case someone made an attempt to attack a horse, or an owner, or one of the many high-profile guests gathered on the grass as the forty horses for the big race circled around them.

The great and the good were out in force, as one would expect on one of the most celebrated racing days of the year. The five days of Royal Ascot, Derby Day, Guineas weekend at Newmarket in May, the Cheltenham Festival and maybe the Sussex Stakes at Glorious Goodwood or British Champions Day at Ascot in October—these were the rare days of British racing, those not to be missed, and Grand National Day at Aintree was, for me, top of the list.

It was a day I usually enjoyed from dawn to dusk, and then some.

But not this year.

Roger Vincent, as chairman of the BHA, was holding court in the center of the parade ring, with Ian Tulloch, Bill Ripley and Neil Wallinger in close attendance. I wondered if they were as nervous as I was, but they didn't appear to be as they laughed and joked with their guests.

Piers Pottinger was there too, together with his lovely wife Carolyn. They were deep in conversation with the trainer Duncan Johnson and another man I recognized as Tim Bell, a fellow PR executive of Piers's.

I looked down at my program. Duncan Johnson had two runners in the big race and one was owned by the firm of Bell Pottinger. Last-minute instructions were clearly being passed on by the owners to their trainer.

Graham Perry was also in the parade ring, chatting to a middle-aged couple that I took to be other owners. According to the notes in the program, this was Graham's first runner in the Grand National and his nervousness was clearly visible as he shifted his weight from foot to foot, unable to remain still for more than a few seconds. I hoped, for his sake, that the methylphenidate had long passed out of his horse's system.

The jockeys appeared from the weighing room, bringing a burst of color to the scene.

I was getting pretty frantic as I searched around with my eyes, trying to spot the very first sign of any trouble. But I knew there was nothing I could really do to stop it.

I was reminded of an Afghan tribal leader who had asked his bodyguards if they could prevent him from being killed. “No,” they had replied, “but be comforted by the knowledge that we will be there to kill the assassin.”

There was no way I could prevent Leonardo from carrying
out an act of malicious damage, but maybe I'd be close enough to catch him afterwards.

I watched as the jockeys mounted, their silks shining brightly in the sunshine. Another turn around the parade ring and then they were filing out through the tunnel under the grandstand and onto the track

I walked through the tunnel behind them, my adrenaline level climbing to stratospheric levels.

The horses circled, forming themselves into race-program order for the traditional parade in front of the stands. The crowd was in position, with every vantage point taken, the buzz of excitement building towards a crescendo.

Now, I thought. Now it will happen.

My heart was beating quickly, and I could even hear the rush of blood in my ears above the sound of the crowd.

But nothing untoward occurred.

The horses continued serenely on with the parade and the fever pitch of the expectant throng grew ever higher.

The horses broke from the formal parade, their jockeys turning them to canter down to have a look at the first fence while the crowd took a collective breath in preparation for the race itself, and still nothing happened.

The horses cantered or trotted back towards the grandstand in preparation for the start that would take place in the corner of the track right in front of us. Here the horses circled again as their girths were tightened and last-minute checks made of their saddles and bridles. Some of the jockeys stood up on their stirrups to try to release the nervous tension in their legs.

I leaned against the rail and looked back at the sea of faces staring back at me from the stands. I searched along the rooftops, trying to spot something that shouldn't have been there—
maybe a marksman taking aim at the starter who was climbing his rostrum.

Nothing.

“They're under Starter's Orders,” came the call over the public address system, and the noise level of the crowd was turned up a few more notches.

“They're off!”

The crowd cheered even louder still as the horses swept away from them towards the line of six fences down to Becher's Brook.

As the runners crossed the Melling Road, I could see all the heads move as the attention of the crowd switched from the horses to the giant TV screens, which gave a much better view of the field jumping the first fence.

The race had started without incident and I began to breathe slightly more easily.

Had I got it wrong?

Maybe something was going to occur at one of the other tracks and not here.

There was a groan from the crowd and my heart rate jumped, but it was due to one of the favorites having fallen at the third fence, the first open ditch.

I chanced a look at the screens and watched as the horses streamed over Becher's, then on towards the Canal Turn for the first time. Here, at the farthest point of the circuit, they turned the famous ninety-degree corner and started back towards the grandstands.

There were a few fallers at the next six fences, but nearly thirty of the original forty runners were still standing and racing in a big group as they sped towards The Chair, a big open ditch in front of the enclosures. The leading horse stumbled on landing, pitched forward and went down to the turf, spilling his rider out
in front of him, and there were gasps from the crowd as some of the following horses kicked the jockey around as if he was a football.

But the real disaster occurred at the next fence, the smallest on the track, the fence situated right in front of the main grandstands in full sight of the seventy thousand people present, plus the hundreds of millions viewing worldwide on television.

Watch out for the fireworks.

As they raced towards the water jump the horses were confronted by a wall of fire as multiple fireworks ignited at either side, sending a thick curtain of bright, burning stars ten feet high across the whole width of the fence.

It was like a scene from some pyrotechnic horror movie playing out in slow motion before our eyes.

The cheering of the crowd instantly changed to screams of terror as the horses and jockeys tried to stop or veer to either side to avoid the flames.

Several of the leading horses were too close to the fence to pull up. Three of them clattered through the plastic running rails towards the grandstands, kicking the race sponsors' advertising boards aside, while two others tried to jump the eight-foot-high fence wings on the far side, only to crash to the ground in a flurry of horses' legs, jockey silks and rigid white-plastic spars.

The remainder managed to stop in time, but those closest to the fence reared up in fear of the fire. One toppled right back over, trapping the poor jockey under its bulk as it tried to regain its feet, before running off loose, the whites of its eyes showing in fear and panic.

Even those jockeys who were able to remain in the saddle looked shocked and bemused as to what to do next.

As the fireworks finally died away, one or two of the jockeys
set their mounts to jump the fence, to continue with the race, but the horses were having none of it, refusing to move into a trot, let alone a gallop, despite some frantic urging and kicking.

The crowd had initially gone eerily quiet as the mayhem unfolded in front of them, but now there were shouts of anger and frustration, followed by boos of displeasure and condemnation.

My worst fears had been fulfilled.

But why?

The fences should have been searched.

Someone's head would roll for this. And I was all too aware that it would probably be mine.

T
wenty minutes after the fireworks were set off, the Grand National was officially declared null and void, and the remaining two races of the day were abandoned.

The great race had been murdered and I hadn't even been close enough to kill the assassin.

In truth, I'd been a pretty useless bodyguard.

I walked down to the viewing areas in front of the County Stand and watched as several police officers isolated the area around the water jump with blue-and-white
Police—Do Not Cross
tape. It had become a crime scene.

Not only had the race been disrupted but one of the horses that had tried to jump the fence wing had broken a leg and had been put down in full view of the grandstands. And two of the jockeys had left the scene, flat-out, in ambulances, one with his neck immobilized in a cervical collar.

There was a sort of numbness about the crowd.

All the excitement of the day had vanished in that instant and there had been nothing to fill the vacuum. No winner to applaud, no trophy presentation to watch and nothing to discuss, other than the obvious, and even that was not really being spoken of. There wasn't much to say. People just shook their heads in disbelief and resignedly set off for the parking lots and home.

I remained while all those around me departed, my legs somehow refusing to take me away. Perhaps I would soon wake up and find it had only been a nightmare after all and all was fine.

Of course, I didn't. And the reality of the situation slowly began to sink in.

Now what should I do?

“Our friend” Leonardo had horseracing by the short and curlies.

I stood and watched as Roger Vincent, Piers Pottinger, Howard Lever and Stephen Kohli were escorted down the track to the water jump by two policemen in uniform with silver braid on their peaked caps. The top brass.

They stood near the point where the runners should have landed and were clearly having something explained to them by one of the policemen, who kept pointing at either side of the fence.

I looked closely at the jump itself. It was only about three feet high but had a nine-foot-wide pool of water on the landing side. Consequently, the horses had to extend as they jumped to clear the water. Many years ago the pool had been two or three feet deep, but safety concerns now meant that the water depth was only six inches so that horses that dropped their hind legs in the water didn't injure their backs.

The Grand National fences are unique in British racing insofar that they are bright green rather than the usual dark brown
of birch. That is because they are dressed each year with a thick coat of fresh spruce foliage laid over an inner core. Until recently the cores were constructed of solid, unyielding timber but are now more horse-friendly flexible plastic.

All of them, that is, except the water jump, the center of which is a live, growing yew hedge. On either end, where the wings met the fence, the hedge had been allowed to grow taller so that there were pillars of yew that extended above the normal height of the fence by a couple of feet. From the manner in which the policeman was pointing, I surmised that the fireworks had been hidden in these pillars, facing inwards.

I continued to watch as the group went around the fence to the takeoff side.

The six men stood there for a while, talking and pointing, before finally walking back up the track, past the winning post and on towards the tunnel between the Earl of Derby and the Lord Sefton stands.

I stayed where I was for a little longer, not knowing exactly what to do.

My mission to Aintree had been an unmitigated disaster. Not only had my negotiation plan proved to be an abject failure in preventing the disruption of the great race but I was no nearer in determining who was responsible.

Far from my boast to Lydia that
I'm going to catch the bastard myself
, I felt personally humiliated and broken.

I was also angry.

Angry with myself for my own failings. But also with our
non
-friend, Leonardo.

I won't forget this feeling, I thought, as I drove home.

And I would use my anger in revenge when I determined to whom I should direct it.

—

MY PHONE
rang at half past six on Sunday morning, but I wasn't asleep.

“Do you have any body armor?” Crispin asked without even saying hello. “If you do, wear it. We have been summonsed to appear before the Board at the BHA offices at eleven this morning.”

“On a Sunday?” I asked.

“On a Sunday. Have you seen today's papers? They're not good.”

“I'm still in bed.”

“Tut-tut, dear boy,” Crispin said. “The condemned man should be up early on the morning of his execution.”

“Shut up, will you. You'll be in the same shit as me.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But everyone knows it was your idea to ignore him before Ascot. And also your idea to offer such a low sum.”

“You agreed to it.”

“Only under sufferance. I told you Howard wanted to offer a quarter of a million.”

He was right, but I'd been hoping for a touch more loyalty. I could see that contrary to what he'd told me before about us both being in this together, Crispin was going to ensure that I took all the blame.

“What do the papers say?”

“
Incompetence
is the word they like to use most. Applied about equally to the BHA, Aintree management and the Merseyside Police. And the
Racing Post
reminds everyone this is not the first time this month that racing has been disrupted and abandoned.
They mention the food poisoning incident at Ascot as a further example of the BHA's inability to run racing properly.”

“Do they actually link the events?” I asked.

“Not specifically, but I'd have thought it was only a matter of time. I'll see you at eleven. Have a hearty breakfast, dear boy, and wear two vests.”

“Two vests?”

“So as not to shiver.”

“What are you on about?”

“History, man, history,” Crispin replied. “Don't you know your history?”

With that, he hung up.

“Trouble?” Lydia asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I reckon I may well be sacked properly this time.”

“But it wasn't your fault!”

“Maybe not. But I'll still get the blame, you wait and see. Crispin said to wear two vests.”

“Two vests?”

“Something about history and not shivering.”

“Charles the First,” Lydia said. “He wore two vests at his execution so the crowds wouldn't see him shiver from cold and assume he was afraid of the ax.”

“Oh, great,” I said. “That's all I need. Either I have to come up with something pretty amazing by eleven o'clock this morning or it will be a one-way trip to the scaffold. Or to the Job Center.”

“Well, get up, then,” she said, pushing me out of bed with her feet. “Get to your desk immediately and think of something pretty amazing. We have a bloody mortgage to pay and I don't
earn enough.” She didn't say it with a smile and a laugh. She was deadly serious.

I'd been anticipating a bit of nooky to cheer me up, but that was obviously a fruitless hope. I put on my dressing gown and walked down to my study.

I woke up my computer from its slumbers.

You have 4 new messages
, I was informed by my e-mail server.

Three of them were junk mail, but the other was from Roger Vincent and had been sent late the previous evening. It wasn't particularly friendly.

For a start, he addressed me as Hinkley, rather than Jeff or Jefferson.

I wondered if it was because he was angry with me. Or maybe it was a class thing. Roger Vincent had always believed that as chairman, he was somehow superior in class to the average BHA staff member.

“Hinkley,” it read. “Be at the BHA offices at eleven o'clock tomorrow morning (Sunday) for a meeting with the Board. Don't be late.”

No
please
, no salutation, not even his name at the end.

It was a command, not a request.

I looked at my watch. It was five to seven. I had just four hours to come up with something amazing.

—

ACCESS.
That was the key.

Who had access to the water supply tanks at Cheltenham and Newbury, someone who also had access to the jockeys' changing room at Ascot before racing, and also to the water jump at Aintree?

The water tank at Cheltenham was not exactly secure. Anyone
with a stepladder would have been able to gain access, although doing so without being seen would be more difficult.

I'd called Fergus Hunter, the stables manager, and he'd said that he hadn't seen anyone climbing through the hatch, but that didn't mean that it hadn't occurred. He wasn't there all the time, and hardly ever in the evenings.

The Cheltenham stables had opened on the Friday before the racing started on the following Tuesday, with some of the Irish runners arriving early in order to get over the journey. So from Friday onwards there had been security staff at the stable entrance, which was right next to the manager's office.

But the security was for the stable area itself, not the space above the office. Anyone dressed as a water company employee, carrying a ladder over his shoulder, wouldn't have been stopped from climbing up to the tank even if he'd had a large bag of Ritalin tablets dangling from his belt.

Similarly, access to the water jump at Aintree would have been easy. Whereas the grandstands may have been lit up at night, the track itself would have been in darkness, and it was impossible to patrol the whole perimeter to prevent someone climbing in.

However, access to the weighing room and jockeys' area at Ascot would not have been available to all, even early in the day before racing had started.

The gates of Ascot racetrack, those that allowed the public to enter, had been opened on that particular Saturday at ten-thirty, by which time the Clerk of the Scales in the weighing room had arrived.

Anyone out of place would have surely been challenged.

No one other than jockeys, their valets and those persons authorized by the BHA were officially allowed into the changing
room, except that in recent years TV crews and all sorts of others in the media also had access, especially on big race days, but only with the permission of the Clerk of the Scales.

And why had our friend used Ritalin in the water at Cheltenham?

In the Unwin case the drug had been Dexedrine.

I looked up Dexedrine on the Internet. Dexedrine was a trade name of the drug dextroamphetamine sulfate. According to the various websites I visited, Dexedrine was one of the medications widely used in the treatment of hyperactivity—just as Ritalin was.

Was that a coincidence? Maybe not.

Two very different drugs, two very different chemical formulae, but both treatments for the same disorder.

Was the perpetrator himself hyperactive? Or did he have hyperactive children?

—

I WAS
still researching the drugs when Quentin called me at nine o'clock. That was all I needed when time was short.

“How's Faye?” I asked.

Quentin ignored such niceties. “Have you spoken to the friend about withdrawing his statement?”

“No,” I said, “not yet.”

“Why not?” he demanded.

“Quentin, I've been busy. Didn't you see what happened at Aintree yesterday?”

“No.”

I believed him, despite the disruption of the Grand National being the lead story on every TV and radio news bulletin and the topic of every newspaper headline. Quentin had less interest
in sport than anyone else I knew. He was probably the only man in England who didn't know that Manchester United was a soccer team.

“I will try to get round to speaking with him later this week.”

“I suppose that will have to do,” replied Quentin in a tone that left me under no illusion that I had not, in his eyes, fulfilled my obligations.

“I may be able to convince him to withdraw his statement without there being any payment made. That way, we do not open ourselves up so much to a charge of perverting the course of justice.”

“Just do what it takes,” he said. “And the sooner, the better. Kenneth is getting very depressed at the prospect of a trial.”

Kenneth is getting depressed, I thought, not by the prospect of a trial but at the certainty that his father would then discover that he was gay.