Dick Francis's Gamble (6 page)

Part of the government's anti-money-laundering requirements was that financial advisers had to know their clients, and Lyall & Black, as a firm, reckoned that a face-to-face meeting with every client should occur at least annually, in addition to our regular three-monthly written communications and twice-yearly valuations of their investments.

I had long ago decided that expecting racing folk to come to a meeting in the London offices was a complete waste of time. If I wanted them as clients—and I did—then I would have to come to see them, not vice versa. And I had found that seeing them at their place of work, the racetracks, was easier than chasing them down at home.

I had also discovered that being regularly seen at the races was the best way to recruit new clients, which was why I was currently standing on the terrace in front of the Weighing Room, warming myself in the midday April sunshine, more than ninety minutes before the first race.

“Hi, Foxy. Penny for your thoughts? What a lovely day, eh? Did you see the National yesterday?” Martin Gifford was a large, jovial, middle-ranking racehorse trainer who always joked that he had never made it as a jockey due to his large feet. The fact that he stood more than six feet tall and had a waist measurement that a sumo wrestler would have been proud of seemed to have escaped him.

“No,” I said, “I missed it. I was stuck in the office all day. I just saw the short report on the television news. But I'd been at Aintree on Saturday.”

“Bloody rum business, that was,” Martin said. “Fancy postponing the Grand National just because some bastard got themselves killed.”

He had obviously been reading the papers.

“How do you know he was a bastard?” I asked.

Martin looked at me strangely. “Because it said so in the paper.”

“I thought you knew better than to believe what you read in the papers.” I paused, deciding whether to go on. “The person murdered was a friend of mine. I was standing right next to him when he was shot.”

“Bloody hell!” shouted Martin. “God, I'm sorry. Trust me to jump in with both feet.”

Trust him, indeed. “It's OK,” I said. “Forget it.”

I was suddenly cross with myself for even mentioning it to him. Why hadn't I just kept quiet? Everyone in racing knew that Martin Gifford was a five-star gossip. In an industry where there were many who believed that there was no such thing as a private conversation or a secret, Martin was the past master. He seemed to have a talent for knowing other people's private business and passing it on to anyone who would listen. Telling Martin that the murder victim had been a friend of mine was akin to placing a full-page spread in the
Racing Post
to advertise the fact, except quicker. Everyone at Cheltenham would probably know by the end of the afternoon, and I was already regretting my indiscretion.

“So was the National a good race?” I asked, trying to change the subject.

“I suppose so,” he said. “Diplomatic Leak won easily in the end, but he made a right hash of the Canal Turn first time round. Nearly ended up in the canal.”

“Were there many people there?” I asked.

“Looked pretty full to me,” he said. “But I watched it on the television.”

“No runners?” I asked, but I knew he hadn't any.

“I haven't had a National horse for years,” he said. “Not since Frosty Branch in the nineties, and it was the death of him, poor fellow.”

“Any runners today?” I asked.

“Fallen Leaf in the first and Yellow Digger in the three-mile chase.”

“Good luck,” I said.

“Yeah. We'll need it,” he said. “Fallen Leaf probably wouldn't win if he started now, and I don't rate Yellow Digger very highly at all. He has no chance.” He paused. “So who was this friend of yours who got killed?”

Dammit, I thought. I'd hoped he would leave it, but I should have known better. Martin Gifford hadn't earned his reputation for nothing.

“He was just a work colleague, really,” I said, trying to sound indifferent.

“What was his name?”

I wondered if I should I tell him. But why not? It had been in all of yesterday's papers.

“Herbert Kovak.”

“And why was he killed?” Martin demanded.

“I've no idea,” I said. “As I told you, he was only a work colleague.”

“Come on, Foxy,” Martin said in an inviting tone. “You must have some inkling.”

“No. None. Nothing.”

He looked disappointed, like a child told he can't have any sweets.

“Go on,” he implored once more. “I know you're holding something back. You can tell me.”

And half the world, I thought.

“Honestly, Martin,” I said. “I have absolutely no idea why he was killed or who did it. And if I did, I'd be telling the police, not you.”

Martin shrugged his shoulders as if to imply he didn't fully believe me. Too bad, I thought. It was true.

I was saved from further inquisition by another trainer, Jan Setter, who was everything that Martin Gifford wasn't—short, slim, attractive and fun. She grabbed my arm and turned me around, away from Martin.

“Hello, lover boy,” she whispered in my ear while giving me a kiss on the cheek. “Fancy a dirty weekend away?”

“I'm ready when you are,” I whispered back. “Just name your hotel.”

She pulled back and laughed.

“Oh, you're such a tease,” she said, looking up at me beguilingly from beneath her heavily mascaraed eyelids.

But it was she who was the tease, and she'd been doing it since we had first met more than ten years ago. Back then I had been an impressionable eighteen-year-old, just starting out, and she was an established trainer for whom I was riding. I hadn't really known how to react, whether to be flattered or frightened. Apart from anything else, she'd been a married woman at the time.

Nowadays, she was a mid- to late-forties divorcée who seemed intent on enjoying life. Not that she didn't work hard. Her stables in Lambourn were full, with about seventy horses in training, and, as I knew from experience, she ran the place with great efficiency and determination.

Jan had been one of my clients now for three years, ever since she had acquired a substantial sum from her ex during a very public High Court divorce case.

I adored her, and not just for her patronage. Perhaps I should accept her invitation to a dirty weekend away, but that would then have changed everything.

“How's my money?” she asked.

“Alive and kicking,” I replied.

“And growing, I hope.” She laughed.

So did I. “How was the preview?”

“Fabulous,” she said. “I took my daughter, Maria, and a college friend of hers. We had a really wonderful time. The show was terrific.”

At my suggestion, Jan had invested a considerable sum in a new West End musical based on the life of Florence Nightingale set during the Crimean War. The true opening night was a week or so away, but the previews had just started, and I'd read some of the newspaper reports and prereviews. They had been somewhat mixed but that didn't always mean the show wouldn't be a success. The
Wizard of Oz
spin-off musical,
Wicked
, had been panned by the
New York Times
after its opening night on Broadway, but it was still running there more than seven years and three thousand performances later, and it was breaking box-office records all around the world.

“Some of the prereviews are not great,” I said.

“I can't think why,” Jan replied with surprise. “That girl that plays Florence is gorgeous, and what a voice! I think she'll make me a fortune. I am sure the proper reviews after the first night will be fabulous.” She laughed. “But I'll blame my financial adviser if they aren't and I lose it all.”

“I hear he has broad shoulders,” I said, laughing back.

But it wasn't necessarily a laughing matter. Investing in the theater had always been a high-risk strategy and fortunes had been lost far more often than they'd been won. Not that investing in anything was certain. It was always a gamble. I had known some seemingly cast-iron and gold-plated investments go belly-up almost without warning. Shares in big established companies were usually safe, with expected steady growth, but that was not always the case. Enron shares had fallen from a healthy ninety dollars each to just a few cents within ten weeks, while Health South Inc., once one of America's largest health care providers, had lost ninety-eight percent of its value on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Both those collapses had been due to fraud or dodgy accounting practices, inflating their revenues and profits, but business catastrophes can have the same effect. BP shares fell in value by more than fifty percent in a month when an oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico even though the costs associated with the explosion, and the subsequent oil clearup, represented far less than half the company's assets.

Could such a calamitous loss have resulted in Herb's murder?

I couldn't believe it was possible.

Patrick Lyall held regular meetings, usually on a Monday, when investment plans for our clients were discussed. All his assistants were present, and that included Herb and myself. We were expected to research the markets and put forward investment suggestions—for example, the new musical that I had recommended to Jan Setter—but the firm's rule was clear and simple: none of our client money could be invested in any product without the prior approval of either Patrick or Gregory.

Our exposure to BP losses had been mostly through personal pension schemes, and, bad as it was, the risks had been well spread, with no individuals actually losing their shirts, or even as much as a tie. Certainly not enough, I thought, to murder their adviser.

“You should come and ride out for me,” said Jan, bringing my daydreaming back to the present. “First lot goes out at seven-thirty on Saturdays. Come down on a Friday and stay the night. You'd enjoy it.”

Now, was that an invitation to a dirty weekend or not?

And yes, I would enjoy it. The riding, that is. At least I think I would have. But I hadn't sat on a horse in eight years.

I could remember so clearly the devastation I had felt when told I couldn't be a jockey anymore. I had been sitting at an oak table in the offices of the British Horse Racing Authority in High Holborn, London. Opposite me were the three members of the medical board.

I could recall almost word for word the brief announcement made by the board chairman. “Sorry, Foxton,” he had said, almost before we were all comfortable in our chairs, “we have concluded that you are, and will permanently remain, unfit to ride in any form of racing. Consequently, your jockey's license has been withdrawn indefinitely.” He had then started to rise, to leave the room.

I had sat there completely stunned. My skin had gone suddenly cold and the walls had seemed to press inwards towards me. I had expected the meeting with the board to be a formality, just another necessary inconvenience on the long road to recovery.

“Hold on a minute,” I'd said, turning in my chair towards the departing chairman. “I was told to come here to answer some questions. What questions?”

The chairman had stopped in the doorway. “We don't need to ask you any questions. Your scan results have given us all the answers we need.”

“Well,
I
have some questions to ask
you
, so please sit down.”

I could recall the look of surprise on his face that a jockey, or an ex-jockey, would talk to him in such a manner. But he did come back and sit down again opposite me. I asked my questions and I argued myself hoarse, but to no avail. “Our decision is final.”

But, of course, I hadn't been prepared to leave it at that.

I'd arranged to have a second opinion from a top specialist in neck and spinal injuries to help me win my case. But he only served to confirm the medical board's findings, as well as frightening me half to death.

“The problem,” he told me, “is that the impact of your fall occurred with such force that your atlas vertebra was effectively crushed into the axis beneath. You are very lucky to be alive. Extraordinarily lucky, in fact. Quite apart from the main fracture right through the axis, many of the interlocking bone protrusions that helped hold the two vertebrae together have been broken away. Put in simple terms, your head is balanced precariously on your neck, and the slightest trauma might be enough to cause it to topple. With that neck, I wouldn't ride a bike, let alone a horse.”

It hadn't exactly been encouraging.

“Is there nothing that can be done?” I'd asked him. “An operation or something? How about a metal plate? I still have one in my ankle from a previous break.”

“This part of the neck is a difficult area,” he'd said. “Far more complicated than even an ankle. There are so many planes and degrees of movement involved. Then there is the attachment of the skull, not to mention the inconvenience of having the nerves for the rest of your body passing right through the middle of it all, indeed the brain stem itself stretches down to the axis vertebra. I don't think a metal plate would help and it would certainly be another problem you could do without. In normal life, your muscles will hold everything together and your neck should be fine, just try not to have a car crash.” He'd smiled at me. “And, whatever you do, don't get into a fight.”

For weeks afterwards I had hardly turned my head at all, and, for a while, I'd gone back to wearing a neck brace to sleep in. I remember being absolutely terrified to sneeze in case my head fell off, and I hadn't even been near a horse, let alone on one's back. So much for being a carefree risk taker. The Health and Safety Executive had nothing on me when it came to my neck.