Dick Francis's Gamble (34 page)

DCI Flight answered immediately.

“Trust,” I said. “That's what you need.”

“Give yourself up,” he said.

“But I've done nothing wrong.”

“Then you have nothing to fear.”

I hung up and switched off my phone. Then I started the car and made my way back to Lambourn, being careful not to speed or in any way attract the attention of any passing policeman.

Dammit, I thought. All I didn't need was an overly interfering detective who was more interested in catching me than in anything else. “Give yourself up” indeed. Who did he think I was, Jimmy Hoffa?

 

 

I
caught the train from Newbury to Paddington just after seven o'clock on Monday morning, leaving the blue rental car in the station parking lot.

As the train slowed to a stop in Reading, I turned on my phone and called my voice mail.

“You have two new messages,” said the familiar female voice.

The first was from DCI Flight, promising not to arrest me if I came to the Cheltenham Police Station to be interviewed.

Why did I not believe him?

The second was from Ben Roberts.

“Mr. Foxton, I have spoken with my father,” his voice said. “He is not willing to meet with you or to discuss the matter further. I must also ask that you do not contact me again. I'm sorry.”

He didn't actually sound very sorry, and I wondered if his father had been standing next to him as he had made the call.

My investigating wasn't exactly going very well. Where did I go from here?

I turned off my phone and sat back in my seat as the train rushed along the metal towards London. I watched absentmindedly through the window as the Berkshire countryside gradually gave way to suburbs and then to the big city itself, and I wondered what the day would bring.

I had to admit that I was nervous about the disciplinary meeting with Patrick and Gregory.

Lyall & Black had been my life for five years, and I had begun to really make my mark. I had brought some high-profile, highworth clients to the firm, and some of my recommendations for investment, especially in film and theater, had become standard advice across the company.

Over the next few years I might have expected to have expanded my own client base while giving up most of the responsibility of acting as one of Patrick's assistants. I might even have hoped to be offered a full senior partner position when Patrick and Gregory retired, and that would be only five or six years away. That was where the real money was to be made and when my modest nest egg might start expanding rapidly. Providing, of course, that I was good enough to maintain the confidence of the clients.

However, I was now in danger of missing out completely.

But why? What had I done wrong?

It wasn't me who was defrauding the European Union of a hundred million euros, so why was it me who was attending a disciplinary meeting?

Perhaps the only thing I had done incorrectly was to not go straight to Patrick, or to Jessica Winter the Compliance Officer, as soon as Colonel Roberts had expressed his concerns over Gregory and the Bulgarian factory project. I should never have tried to investigate things behind their backs.

And I would rectify that mistake today.

I caught the Circle Line Tube from Paddington to Moorgate and then walked from there towards Lombard Street.

As I walked down Princes Street, alongside the high, imposing walls of the Bank of England, I suddenly started to feel uneasy, the hairs again standing up on the back of my neck.

For the past four days, I had been so careful not to let anyone know where I was staying, yet here I was walking to a prearranged appointment at the offices of Lyall & Black. Furthermore, the appointment was for a meeting with one of those I believed was responsible for trying to kill me.

I really didn't fancy finding another gunman waiting for me in the street outside my office building.

I slowed to a halt on the sidewalk, with people hurrying past me in each direction late for work. I was less than a hundred yards away from Lombard Street.

It was as near as I got.

I turned around and retraced my path back up Princes Street to London Wall, where I went into a coffee shop and ordered a cappuccino.

Perhaps Claudia was right and I was becoming paranoid.

I looked at my watch. It was ten to nine. Patrick and Gregory would be expecting me in ten minutes.

What should I do?

My instinct at my mother's cottage had been absolutely right when I had prevented Claudia from opening the front door to the gunman. But I desperately needed to talk to someone about my suspicions, to set in motion a proper investigation into the Bulgarian affair. Surely I would then be safe, as killing me would be too late. If Ben Roberts's father wouldn't talk to me, who else should I speak to? It had to be Patrick, if not to save my job, at least to save my life.

I turned on my mobile phone and rang the office number.

“Lyall and Black,” answered Mrs. McDowd. “Can I help you?”

“Hello, Mrs. McDowd,” I said. “It's Mr. Nicholas here. Can I speak to Mr. Patrick, please?”

“He's in the meeting room with Mr. Gregory and Andrew Mellor,” she said. “I'll put you through.”

Patrick came on the line. “Hello,” he said.

“Patrick,” I said. “Please don't say anything. It's Nicholas. I need to talk to you alone,” I said. “And without Gregory knowing.”

“Hold on a minute,” he said. “I'll go to my office.”

There were some clicks on the line and then Patrick came back on.

“What's this all about?” he asked quite crossly. “You are due to be here now for a disciplinary meeting.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, “but I won't be coming to the meeting.”

“Nicholas,” he said formally, “I must insist that you come into the office right now. Where are you?”

Where should I say?

“I'm at home,” I said. “Claudia still isn't well.”

“I'm sorry,” he said, not sounding it. “But this meeting is very important.”

So was Claudia, I thought.

“Where can I speak to you in private?” I asked.

“Here,” he said firmly and loudly. “I will speak to you here, in the office, at the disciplinary meeting.”

“I'm sorry,” I said, “but I will not be coming to the office today.”

“Listen to me,” he said. “If you don't come into the office today, there seems little point in you coming back at all.” He paused. “Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” I said. “I'll see what I can do.”

“Yes,” he said with ill-disguised anger. “You do that.”

He hung up.

I could imagine him going straight back into the meeting room and telling Gregory and Andrew that I wasn't coming. I was just glad I hadn't told him the truth about where I was.

 

 

I
caught the Tube from Moorgate Station but not back to Paddington. Instead I took the Northern Line to Hendon Central, walked down Seymour Way to number 45, and let myself into Herb Kovak's flat.

Sherri had gone home to America the previous Friday, and there were already a few letters lying on the mat. I picked them up and added them to the pile that she had left on the desk.

I sat down on Herb's desk chair and opened his mail.

Amongst other things there were some utility bills and a letter from a building society complaining that the direct debit had been canceled and they hadn't received the preceding month's interest on Herb's mortgage. It reminded me of the gym that also hadn't been paid due to the bank canceling the direct debit. I wondered how many others there would be.

There was so much to deal with, and the worst of it was not the domestic bills, troublesome as they were, it was the never-ending stream of demands from the twenty-two credit card companies. About half of them had sent their next statements, and not only were the previous months' balances still outstanding, overdue and generating interest but there were more charges on the accounts.

The American gamblers were still gambling, and still losing. But how could I stop them if I didn't know who they were?

There must come a time, I thought, when the credit card accounts reached their limit. That should bring it all to a stop, but at what cost?

I used Herb's landline telephone to call the building society and let them know why the direct debit had been stopped. They were so sorry to hear of Mr. Kovak's death, but of course that did not mean they would stop accruing the interest on the loan. Did they not know the real meaning of
mortgage
? The
mort
referred to death, as in mortuary and mortality. A mortgage was originally a pledge to repay the loan outstanding on one's death, not on the never-never thereafter.

Next I called the utility companies and tried to arrange for the gas, electricity and phone to be cut off. I made the mistake of telling them that I wasn't Herb Kovak, that he was dead and I was his executor. They all needed documentary proof that I was acting on Mr. Kovak's behalf, and, anyway, they needed the bills paid first. I pointed out that if I didn't pay the bills, they would cut the services off anyway. It didn't help.

I collected the credit card statements and the other things together and put them in a large white envelope that I found in Herb's desk. What I really needed was a solicitor to get things moving on the job of obtaining probate. At least I would then be able to cancel the credit cards, but probably not before they were paid off as well. This apartment would also have to be sold, and if the scale of the outstanding interest payment in the building society's letter was anything to go by, there may not be enough capital remaining after paying off the mortgage to cover the other bills. Perhaps I might need to make Herb's estate bankrupt.

All in all, it was not such a fine legacy.

 

 

I
knew Patrick lived in Weybridge. I knew it because Claudia and I had been to his house for dinner a few times, and also the firm's annual summer party the previous year had been held in his expansive garden.

I also knew that his journey from home to work involved being dropped at Weybridge Station by his wife, catching a train to Waterloo and then squeezing onto the Waterloo and City Tube line to Bank. Everyone in the office knew because Patrick was not averse to complaining loudly about public transport, or, for that matter, his wife's driving, especially if it had made him late for work.

I assumed his return journey would be the same but in the opposite direction, and I planned to join him for some of it.

He usually left the office between six o'clock and half past, but I was at Waterloo waiting by five in case he was early. Even so, I still very nearly missed him.

The main problem was that there were at least six trains an hour to Weybridge and they seemingly could leave from any of the nineteen platforms.

I waited on the mainline station concourse opposite the bank of escalators that rose from the Underground lines beneath. During the peak evening rush hour, two of the three escalators were used for up traffic, and these, together with the stairs alongside, disgorged thousands of commuters every minute onto the concourse, all of them hurrying for their trains.

By twenty-five past six, my eyes were so punch-drunk from scanning so many faces that my brain took several long seconds to register that I had fleetingly glimpsed a familiar one, but by then he had become lost again in the crowd walking away from me.

I chased after, trying to spot him again, while also attempting to search the departure boards overhead for trains to Weybridge.

I followed someone right across the concourse towards Platform 1 and only realized it wasn't Patrick when he turned into one of the food outlets.

Dammit, I thought. I had wasted precious minutes.

I turned back and looked carefully at the departure board.

There was a train for Basingstoke, via Weybridge, leaving from Platform 13 in two minutes. I would have to take the gamble that Patrick was on it. I rushed right back across the station, thrust my ticket into the gray automatic barrier and ran down the platform.

I leapt aboard the train just seconds before the doors slammed shut. But I hadn't foreseen that it would be so crowded, with more people standing in the aisles than actually sitting in the seats. As the train pulled out of Waterloo Station I began to make my apologies and work my way along the congested carriages.

Eventually, after annoying at least half the train's occupants, and thinking that Patrick must have caught a different one, I spotted him sitting in the relatively empty first-class section. Where else? He was reading an evening newspaper and hadn't noticed me coming towards him. He didn't even look up as I made my way through a sliding glass door and sat down in the empty seat next to him.

“Hello, Patrick,” I said.

If he was surprised to see me, he didn't particularly show it.

“Hello, Nicholas,” he said calmly, folding his paper in half. “I was wondering when you would turn up.”

“Yes,” I said. “I'm sorry about this, but I needed to talk to you without Gregory knowing or listening.”

“What about?” he asked.

“Colonel Jolyon Roberts,” I said quietly, conscious of the other passengers.

He raised his eyebrows a little. “What about him?”

“He spoke to me nearly two weeks ago at Cheltenham Races and again at Sandown a week last Saturday.”

“You know he died last week?” Patrick asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I do know. Terrible. I spoke to you after his funeral.”