Dick Francis's Damage (28 page)

I
took a taxi from El Vino to the offices of the
London Telegraph
to see Gordon Tuttle. He came down to meet me in the lobby.

“What did you do?” he asked, looking at my arm in the sling.

“Fell off a horse,” I said.

I could tell that he didn't believe me. “You don't ride.”

“That's why I fell off,” I said. “What about those briefing documents?”

“I've made you copies,” he said, handing over two sheets of paper. “Just don't tell my editor I gave them to you. He's very protective of our sources, even the anonymous ones.”

“Thanks,” I said, looking down at the sheets. As Gordon had said, each of them had “Press Briefing” printed large across the top and one major fact underneath, in capital letters and underlined, followed by a series of leading questions concerning the suitability of the BHA to govern racing. I read through them
all and I could understand how they had molded press opinion. Whoever had written this had been very clever.

“Why do you think you had an exclusive with the second briefing? The first clearly went to all the papers because they all ran the same story.”

“I've no idea,” Gordon said. “Maybe because we printed quite a large spread for the first one. And perhaps we were more critical of the BHA than the other papers.”

There was no
perhaps
about it.

“I read your follow-up piece this morning,” I said. “Not quite as bad, but you were hardly complimentary either.”

“Maybe not,” he said, “but at least I wasn't calling for a return of the Jockey Club.”

“It will take more than that to stop the media bandwagon against the BHA.”

“I did take notice of what you said, you know, and I agree with you.”

“Then bloody well say so in your paper. Start a campaign to keep things as they are. You know I'm right.”

He didn't reply and I feared that my pleadings were falling on deaf ears.

“Will you do me a favor, then?” I said. “Off the record.”

He was careful. “What favor?”

“Ask your financial fellows if there are any City rumors flying round about someone.”

“What sort of rumors?”

“Anything to do with personal financial difficulties or irregularity.”

“Of whom?”

I told him and his eyebrows lifted almost to his hairline.

“Is there a story here, Jeff?” he asked seriously, his journalistic antennae twitching madly.

“No. Not yet. But if there is, you'll have it.”

“An exclusive?”

“It depends on what you find out.” I gave him one of my business cards. “Call me this evening round seven on my cell.”

—

ON MY WAY
back to Willesden I called in at my usual car-rental office and picked an inconspicuous silver Ford Fiesta with no sporty stripes painted on the bodywork. It had to be an automatic, I told the agent behind the desk without telling him exactly why. Meanwhile, the sling was carefully hidden out of sight in my coat pocket.

I found a free parking spot at the far end of Spezia Road and cautiously made my way to my front door without being attacked or molested.

“Good day?” Lydia asked as I walked into the kitchen.

“Pretty good,” I said. “And you?”

“Contracts were exchanged on two of my sales today,” she said, beaming with excitement. “One of them was a one-bedroom flat that has sold for over half a million. That's fifty-five grand over the asking price!”

“Well done,” I said, giving her a hug and a kiss.

She smiled. “And the other was an unremarkable house in Kilburn that went for one-point-two. It's crazy out there. London prices are going through the roof. How do people have the money?”

“God knows,” I said. “It must be hell for first-time buyers.”

Our little two-bedroom flat seemed to be an ever-improving
investment. Perhaps we might just be able to afford that house in the country with a garden for our kids to play in.

“What's for supper?” I asked.

“Spaghetti bolognese,” she said. “I'm getting it now.”

“Great. I'm starving.”

Gordon Tuttle from the
London Telegraph
called.

“Bingo,” Gordon said into my ear. “You were absolutely right.”

“How so?”

“According to a mate of mine at the City desk, your man is indeed thought to be in a spot of financial hot water. He's absolutely loaded, as we know, but his money is all tied up in a trust created by his grandfather and the word is that the family trustees are being bloody-minded about doling it out. It seems they don't approve of his gambling habits and are refusing to bankroll his debts.”

“A cash flow crisis,” I said.

“Absolutely. Asset-rich but cash-poor. Not an uncommon problem.”

“But are his difficulties widely known?”

“Possibly they are among the City editors, but certainly not by the general public. No one is sure enough of the facts to publish, for fear of being sued. But my mate tells me he's certain it's true, he just can't prove it.”

“That's really helpful,” I said. “Thank you.”

“Come on, Jeff, what's the story?”

“Sorry, Gordon, I don't want to be sued either,” I replied. “If and when there's a story, you will get it first. I promise.”

I hung up.

“Don't want to be sued about what?” Lydia asked, standing at the sink, draining the pasta from a saucepan.

“It's nothing important,” I said.

Lydia turned around and slammed the pan down onto the counter with a crash.

“Why won't you ever tell me things?” she said loudly and crossly. “You won't even tell me why someone tried to kill you and now I feel that you're keeping me in the dark over something else.” She put her hands on her hips. “Jeff, I need to know what's going on in your life. It matters to me.”

“I didn't want to trouble you,” I said, rather taken aback by the strength of her reaction.

“But don't you understand, you silly man, I want to be troubled. I need to be able to support you. I know that you've been really worried these last few days because you've been so quiet, but I don't know how to help because you won't talk to me.”

—

WE HAD
our spaghetti bolognese sitting at the kitchen table and I told her it all—everything from the events at Cheltenham, when Matthew Unwin killed Jordan Furness, right up to the financial information just given to me an hour previously by Gordon Tuttle.

I went through the whole story in chronological order, including the disruption of racing at Ascot, Aintree and Fontwell Park, the doping of horses at Cheltenham and at Graham Perry's yard, the notes from Leonardo, the replies in
The Times
, the first drop of money, my visit to Matthew Unwin. Everything.

“But if you know who this Leonardo really is,” she said, “why don't you and Crispin just go to the police and tell them?”

“Because we have no proof. I'm not even sure it's the right man. The only evidence I have is that he has a hyperactive child
and he's in a spot of trouble with his cash flow. That would hardly convince a jury, now would it? The police would probably tell me to get lost.”

“But isn't it worth a try?”

“No,” I said. “All that would happen is the police would interview him and that would alert the target to our suspicions. He would simply go to ground and we would never prove anything. We need to catch him in the act. To get him as he collects the next drop.”

“Target?”

“Surveillance-speak,” I said. “It's how I now think of him.”

“So what will you do next?”

“It would be simple if I could be certain that he'd use the same place for the next drop. Then I could just wait for him to fall into a trap. But I can't be sure of that, so I'm going to follow him.”

“Do you know where he is?”

“I assume he's at his home.”

“Hadn't you better make sure? You have to find him in order to follow him.”

I smiled. “You sound like my old army instructor. And you're right. That's why I rented a car.”

“I'll come with you,” Lydia said.

“No,” I said, “you don't have to get involved.”

“I want to get involved,” Lydia said. “You know that you could do with some help driving, especially if you have to follow him on foot.”

She was right. It was difficult, if not impossible, to follow someone properly on your own if they first used a private vehicle and then, say, a bus or a train. By the time you had found somewhere to leave your own car, the target would be long gone.

“How about work?”

“They can survive for a day without me. I'll call in sick.”

“OK,” I said. “That would be wonderful. But I was intending to get up really early.”

“How early?”

“About three-thirty.”

“Then we had better go to bed now,” she said, pushing away her empty plate.

I smiled at her. “What a great plan.”

—

THE
TRAFFIC
was very light in the middle of the night and we were outside the target's house in Weybridge, Surrey, well before five o'clock, a good hour or more before sunrise, with only the occasional streetlamp lighting the darkness.

Lydia had giggled most of the way there.

“What are you laughing about?” I'd asked her as we'd got into the car.

“You,” she'd said, wiping tears from her eyes. “I can't get used to what you look like.”

The brown woolen beanie plus wig and the goatee were making a further appearance, together with the black roll-neck sweater, dark-blue jeans and my brown leather bomber jacket. In addition, I had placed small cotton balls in my mouth between my teeth and cheeks to alter the shape of my face.

I was going to follow someone who knew what I looked like so I needed to change my appearance. A pair of thick-rimmed glasses completed the disguise.

“What's in the bag?” Lydia had asked as I'd placed it on the backseat.

“Camera with telephoto lens and night vision equipment,” I'd replied. “Just in case.”

“And what about your sling?” she had asked disapprovingly.

“I'll do without it. My shoulder is not so sore today, and wearing a sling would be far too memorable. I've got lots of painkillers.” I had tapped my pant pocket.

I stopped the car on the tree-lined suburban street, with its multimillion-pound mansions set back away from the road, mostly hidden behind high hedges or fences, electronic wrought-iron security gates shut tight across their driveways.

“Why are we here so early?” Lydia asked.

“First, to ensure we get here before the target goes out. And, second, because today is garbage pickup day in these parts.”

“Garbage pickup day?”

“Yes,” I said. “Look.” I pointed at the line of wheeled garbage cans standing outside the houses, all of them placed outside the gates. “The council website states that the cans have to be outside before seven a.m. I correctly assumed that people would put them out the night before.”

“But what about them?” Lydia asked.

“Watch,” I said.

I got out of the car, being careful not to slam the door shut, lifted two black garbage bags out of the car trunk and walked straight across to the can standing outside the target's house.

I lifted the lid, removed the bags from within and replaced them with those I had brought from home full of our own trash. I then calmly walked back and placed the target's trash in the trunk.

“What was that for?” Lydia asked when I'd got back in the car.

“I want to find out about our target's life and rummaging through his garbage may reveal more than just what he had for dinner last night. We should have at least an hour before there's any movement from within.”

I drove the few miles to the Cobham freeway service area. Even at this early hour, the freeway was busy, with lines of heavy-goods vehicles trying to beat the traffic before the usual morning rush. However, the service area's parking lot was sparsely occupied, with only about twenty cars, all of them parked close to the buildings. I opted for an empty space some distance away from any other vehicle, one conveniently situated right beneath one of the high-powered floodlights that lit up the area almost like daylight.

I donned a pair of latex gloves, laid out a waterproof sheet in the car trunk and then emptied the target's garbage bags onto it.

One at a time, I picked up each item and returned it to one of the bags.

“What are you looking for in particular?” Lydia asked as she stood and watched me, shivering slightly in the cool of the April morning.

“I not really sure,” I said vaguely, “but I'll know if I find it.”

There were all sorts of things, including plastic food wrappers, several soup cartons, used Kleenex, about a dozen eye makeup–removal pads, some potato peelings, wet coffee grounds, an old toothbrush, a broken lightbulb and some rather smelly fish skins.

The recycle police would have had a field day, as there were also three empty Coca-Cola cans, an instant coffee jar, numerous glossy magazines and various other papers that all should have been sent for recycling rather than for landfill.

There were, however, among the mass of true rubbish, a couple of items of great interest to me.

One was an empty plastic bubble strip of the drug Ritalin.
Methylphenidate hydrochloride
was clearly printed on its underside.

The second was a letter from a major bookmaking firm.

I nearly missed it, as the letter had been ripped into small pieces, and I noticed the torn-off top corner only because of the bookmaker's distinctive red logo printed on it. I dug around among the other detritus until I had the majority of the letter, albeit in about fifteen separate bits, some of them rather badly stained with coffee.