Dick Francis's Gamble (27 page)

“Yes, dear,” she said. “Don't we all. Now, what would you like for breakfast? I have some bacon and local eggs, and Mr. Ayers, my butcher, has made me some wonderful sausages. How many would you like?”

“Just a coffee and a slice of toast would be lovely,” I said.

It was like King Canute trying to hold back the tide.

“Don't be ridiculous,” she said, already placing a frying pan on the stove. “You've got to have a proper breakfast. What sort of mother would I be if I didn't feed you?”

I sighed. Perhaps Claudia and I would go out for a drive at lunchtime.

I took her up a cup of tea while the sausages and bacon were sizzling in the pan.

“Morning, gorgeous,” I said, pulling open the curtains. “How are you feeling today?”

“Still a bit sore,” she said, sitting up. “But better than yesterday.”

“Good,” I said. “Time to get up. Julia Child downstairs is cooking breakfast.”

“Mmm, I can smell it,” she said, laughing. “Now, don't you expect that every morning when we're married.”

“What?” I said in mock horror. “No cooked breakfasts! The wedding's off!”

“We haven't even fixed a date for it yet,” she said.

“Before or after the hair loss?” I asked seriously.

She thought for a moment. “After it grows back. Give me time to get used to this engagement business first.”

“After it is, then,” I said. I leaned down and kissed her. “Don't be long or Mr. Ayers's sausages will get cold.”

She dived back under the covers and put a pillow over her head. “I'm staying here.”

“Hiding won't help,” I said, laughing, and leaving her alone.

My mother hadn't lied, the sausages were excellent, but, as always with her meals, they were too big and too numerous, and then there was the mountain of bacon and the scrambled eggs on fried bread, not forgetting the mushrooms and grilled tomatoes on the side.

I felt totally bloated by the time I sat down again at my computer to check through my client files using the firm's remote-access facility.

Claudia, meanwhile, had managed to extract herself from her bed, coming down to join us in a bathrobe, but she ate just a small bowl of muesli and a little sliced fruit. And had grinned at me as she did so. It really wasn't fair.

I spent the morning briefly looking through all the files for my fifty or so personal clients, to check on the reminder tags, ensuring that I hadn't missed reinvesting the proceeds of maturing bonds or such like.

What I really needed to do was to study all the recent stock movements. It was something that I should be doing every day in order to maintain a “feel” for the markets, to try to be, if not one step ahead, at least in tune with market trends. Not that Lyall & Black invested directly in individual stocks. That proportion of our clients' money put into equities was almost exclusively invested through unit trusts or investment funds that had a broad range of different shares within them. It was a way of spreading risk, of placing one's eggs in many baskets at the same time. But it was still important for me to have a feel for the markets in order to advise my clients which of the hundreds of trusts and funds to buy into.

And, over the past week or so, I had been guilty of serious dereliction of duty in the study department.

I used my mother's telephone landline to check on my voice mail. There was one new message and it was from Sherri, asking me to call her at Herb's flat.

“Hi,” I said when she answered. “Is everything all right?”

“Fine,” she replied, sounding totally fed up. “Least, I suppose it's fine. Monday in Liverpool was a bit of an ordeal.”

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Well, it's over, anyway.” She sighed audibly down the phone. “I'm going home. Tomorrow morning. I'm on a flight at ten forty-five to Chicago. I just called to say good-bye.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I'm glad you did.”

“A few letters have arrived here for Herb, and I had a phone call from his gym, something about Herb not paying them and they want his locker back. Hold on, I've got their number somewhere.” I could hear her rummaging in the background. “Here it is. Someplace called the Slim Fit Gym.” She read out the telephone number, and I jotted it down on the back of the rental car agreement.

“Don't you worry,” I said. “Leave the letters on the desk, I'll deal with them. And I'll call the gym. You look after yourself. I hope you have a safe trip home. I'll let you know about the funeral and such when I know.”

“The police said it could be weeks away. That's why I'm going back. I'll lose my job if I stay here much longer.”

Life could be a bugger.

I called the Slim Fit Gym.

“Mr. Kovak's direct debit has been canceled,” someone said. “So we want his locker back.”

“He died,” I said. “So take it back.”

“But there's a padlock on it,” the person said.

“Don't you have a spare key?” I asked. “Or can't you cut it off?”

“No,” they said. “We need Mr. Kovak's key.”

I remembered the key pinned to the bulletin board above Herb's desk.

“OK,” I said. “I'll bring the key in next week.”

They didn't like it but it was too bad. However, they did insist on having my contact details. I hated giving out my mobile number so I gave them the office one instead.

I disconnected and leaned back in the chair, stretching.

“Fancy going out?” Claudia said, coming over and rubbing my shoulders. “It's a lovely day out there.”

My studying would have to wait.

“That would be nice,” I said, turning around on the chair. “But are you sure you're feeling up to it?”

“Absolutely,” she said. “I'm feeling much better today. But let's take the car. I'm not yet ready to trek round the countryside. Why don't we go to a pub for lunch?” She winked at me.

“Great idea,” I agreed. I stood up and went into the kitchen area, where my mother was fussing with the dishwasher. “Mum,” I said to her, “Claudia and I thought we might drive to a pub for lunch. Do you want to come?”

“Oh,” she said. “I have some nice pork chops from Mr. Ayers for lunch.”

“Won't they do for this evening?” I said.

“I've got a roast leg of lamb for us tonight.”

Mr. Ayers, the butcher, had obviously been busy.

“Leave the chops in the fridge,” I said. “Give yourself a rest. Let's all go out for lunch.”

And we did, with me looking over the hedge for my would-be assassin as the three of us climbed into the nondescript blue sedan. But of course he wasn't there and we made it safely to a local country pub with a big GOOD FOOD sign outside. Claudia and my mother both ordered a glass of white wine and a poached salmon salad while I just had a Diet Coke and a bag of roasted peanuts.

“But, darling,” my mother complained bitterly, “you must have a proper lunch or you'll fade away.”

“Mother dear,” I said. “I've done nothing but eat since we arrived. I think fading away is the least of my worries.” But she didn't like it, and I could already feel an extra large portion of lamb coming on for dinner.

 

 

T
he phone was ringing when we arrived back at the cottage and my mother rushed in to answer it.

“It's for you,” she said, handing over the receiver to me.

“Hello,” I said.

“It was definitely a heart attack,” said Chief Inspector Tomlinson down the line. “While he was swimming in his own pool. Then he drowned as a result. A full postmortem was carried out at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead on Tuesday afternoon. Seems Colonel Roberts had a history of heart problems.”

“Oh,” I said. “Such are the perils of early-morning swimming.”

“It was late-night swimming, apparently, and on his own. And he'd been drinking. Stupid fool. His blood alcohol level was more than twice that for drunk driving.”

“But he wasn't driving,” I said.

“No,” said the detective, “but he was swimming, and in my experience alcohol and water don't mix.” He chuckled at his own joke, and I found it slightly irritating. But it reminded me of Jolyon Roberts doing just the same thing during our meeting in the Chasers Bar at Sandown Races.

“Hold on a minute,” I said, suddenly remembering something else from that meeting. “Colonel Roberts told me categorically that he didn't drink alcohol. And that he never had.”

I
'll get back to you,” said Chief Inspector Tomlinson suddenly.

“I need to call in a few favors.”

He hung up, and I was cross I hadn't asked him about Billy Searle. But it would wait.

The phone rang again in my hand.

“Hello,” I said, answering it. “Did you forget something?”

“Sorry?” said a female voice. “Is that you, Mr. Nicholas?”

“Mrs. McDowd,” I said. “How lovely to hear from you.”

There was a slight pause at the other end as Mrs. McDowd worked out that I was being sarcastic.

“I have a message from Mr. Patrick,” she said.

“How did you get this number?” I asked.

“He wants you to . . .” she started, but I interrupted her.

“Mrs. McDowd,” I said again loudly. “How did you get this number?”

“It was on the caller ID when you called in this morning,” she said.

That was careless, I thought, for someone meant to be in hiding.

“Anyway,” she said, “I know that number. You're staying with your mother. How is she?”

Bloody Mrs. McDowd, I thought. How does she know so much about me?

“She's fine, thank you,” I said, biting my tongue. “Now, what does Mr. Patrick want?”

“He wants you to call him in the morning before you come into the office. Something about arranging a meeting between you and Mr. Gregory.”

“Did he say what the meeting was about?” I asked.

“No,” she said, but I bet she knew. Mrs. McDowd knew everything.

“Please tell Mr. Patrick that I won't be in the office very early tomorrow.”

“I've already told him that,” she said. “Not with you being down in Gloucestershire.”

Who else had she told?

In particular, had she told Mr. Gregory?

 

 

I
spent much of the afternoon catching up on the changing price of derivatives and futures, and on how a recent fall in the Dow Jones Index in the United States had affected markets in the Far East more than those in Europe, and on fluctuations in the value of gold in pounds as a result of changes in the cost of a barrel of oil in dollars.

It was like a balancing act.

Some economies grew and others contracted; stock markets moved at different paces or in opposite ways; some currencies went up and others went down. The trick to winning in the great global financial game was to invest in the things about to go up in real value while selling those about to go down. Then there were hedge funds and short selling, both designed to make you money when the values went in the wrong direction.

But it was all a bit like gambling with a bookmaker. For you to win, he had to lose. So it was in the markets—there were winners and losers. The winners had big houses and the losers went bust, losing their big houses to the banks, which then sold them to the winners.

The money went round and round, but it did not always end up with the same people.

And then there were the fraudsters, those who tried to load the odds in their favor through insider trading or market manipulation.

Once upon a time, insider trading had been seen as a perk of the job for stockbrokers and company directors, cashing in on prior knowledge of profits and mergers by buying or selling stock before the facts were known to others. Nowadays, the courts send them to jail for doing what everyone used to do, and quite rightly too.

But there are always those who think they can beat the system, and many of them do, because betting on a certainty was like having a license to print money.

Herb Kovak had said to Mrs. McDowd that he liked to bet on certainties.

She'd told me.

 

 

C
hief Inspector Tomlinson called back at five o'clock.

“He'd definitely been drinking,” he said. “I've seen the full autopsy report. There's no mistake. They tested both his blood and the aqueous humor in his eye. And the stomach contained whisky residue.”

“How easy is it to force someone to drink whisky?” I asked.

“My, my,” he said. “Now who has the suspicious mind?”

“It's just too convenient,” I said.

“But how could you give someone a heart attack?” he asked, his slightly sarcastic tone clearly indicating that he didn't believe me.

“Hold his drunken head under the surface of his own swimming pool,” I said. “Either he drowns straightaway or, as he has a history of heart problems, he panics, has a heart attack and then drowns.”

“But why the alcohol?” he asked.

“To add confusion,” I said. “When you knew he'd been drinking, you instinctively believed he had been a stupid fool and you probably thought he half deserved to die for it.”

“True,” he said, “I did. But you are only speculating. There's no evidence of foul play.”

“No,” I agreed. “And what there was has conveniently been buried in Golders Green.”