Dick Francis's Gamble (8 page)

As he had said, it was his money and he could do what he liked with it. Except that he clearly didn't like what he was doing with it.

He'd also told me that he owed some guy about a hundred thousand and had implied that his life would be in danger if he didn't repay it by the following evening. I would have normally dismissed such a threat as melodramatic nonsense but now, after the events at Aintree the previous Saturday, I wasn't so sure.

Should I tell someone about our conversation? But who? The police would probably want some evidence, and I had none. I also didn't want to get Billy into trouble. Jockeys who owe money would always be suspected of involvement with bookmakers. Perhaps Billy's need for urgent cash was completely legitimate. Maybe he was buying a house. I knew that estate agents could be pretty determined in their selling methods, but surely they didn't threaten murder to close a deal.

I decided to do nothing until I'd had a chance to discuss it with Patrick. Besides, I would need to inform him before I could start the process of liquidating Billy's assets.

I looked at my watch. It was already past six o'clock, and the office would be closed. I'd have to speak to Patrick about it in the morning. Nothing could be done now anyway, the markets in London were also long closed for the day.

Instead, I went to stay with my mother.

 

 

H
ello, darling,” she said, opening her front door. “You're far too thin.”

It was her usual greeting, and one that was due to her long-standing pathological fear that I was anorexic. It had all started when I'd been a fifteen-year-old who had been desperate to be a jockey. I'd never been very short so I had begun starving myself to keep my weight down. But it hadn't been due to anorexia, just willpower. I had always loved my food, but it seemed that my body, and my mind, had now finally trained themselves to stay thin.

As a rule, I never really thought about food and, if left to my own devices, there was little doubt that I would have become undernourished through neglect. But my mother saw to it that I didn't. She would literally send food parcels to Claudia with strict instructions to feed me more protein, or more carbohydrate, or just more.

“Hello, Mum,” I said, ignoring her comment and giving her a kiss. “How are things?”

“So-so,” she replied, as always.

She still lived near Cheltenham but not in the big house in which I had grown up. Sadly, that had had to be sold during my parents' acrimonious divorce proceedings in order to divide the capital between them. My mother's current home was a small whitewashed cottage, hidden down a rutted lane on the edge of a small village just north of the racetrack with two double bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and a single open-plan kitchen/ dining room/living room downstairs, the levels connected by a narrow, twisting, boxed-in staircase in the corner, with a leverlatched door at the bottom.

The cottage was an ideal size for her enforced solitary lifestyle, but I knew she longed still to be the charming hostess in the grand house, a role in which she had excelled throughout my childhood.

“How's your father?” she asked.

Her inquiry was a social nicety rather than a true request for information. She probably thought that I'd appreciate her asking.

“He's fine,” I replied, completing the duty. At least I assumed he was fine. I hadn't spoken to him for more than a fortnight. We really didn't have much to say to each other.

“Good,” she said, but I doubt that she really meant it. I thought she would almost certainly have also replied “Good” if I'd told her he was on his deathbed. But at least she had asked, which was more than he ever did about her.

“I've bought you some fillet steak for dinner,” she said, turning the conversation back to my feeding habits. “And I've made some profiteroles for pudding.”

“Lovely,” I said. And I meant it. As usual, when coming to stay with my mother, I hadn't eaten anything all day in preparation for a high-calorie encounter with her cooking and, by now, I was really hungry.

I went up to the guest bedroom and changed out of my suit and into jeans and sweatshirt. I tossed my mobile onto the bed. As always, the closeness to Cleeve Hill, and the phone-signal shadow it produced, rendered the thing useless. But at least I'd have a rest from its constant ringing.

When I came down, my mother was standing by the stove starting supper with saucepans already steaming on the hob.

“Help yourself to a glass of wine,” she said over her shoulder. “I've already got one.”

I went over to the antique sideboard that had once sat in the dining room of the big house and helped myself to a glass of Merlot from the open bottle.

“How is Claudia?” my mother asked.

“Fine, thank you,” I said. “She sends her love.”

“She should have come with you.”

Yes, I thought, she should have. There had been a time when we couldn't bear to be apart from each other even for a single night, but now that longing had seemingly evaporated. Perhaps that is what happens after six years.

“High time you made an honest woman out of her,” my mother said. “Time you were married and raising children.”

Was it?

In spite of what had happened to my parents, I'd always believed that someday I would marry and have a family. A few years ago, I'd even discussed the prospect with Claudia but she had dismissed the notion, saying that marriage was for boring people and that children were troublesome and not for artists like her who were busy pushing the boundaries of existence and imagination. I wondered if she still felt the same way. There had certainly been no recent hints about rings on the finger or brooding over other people's babies, but, if there were, would I still have welcomed them?

“But you and Dad are hardly a great advertisement for marriage,” I said, possibly unwisely.

“Nonsense,” she said, turning around to face me. “We were married for thirty years and brought you into the world. I would call that a success.”

“But you got divorced,” I said in disbelief. “And you fought all the time.”

“Well, maybe we did,” she said, turning back to her pans. “But it was still a success. And I don't regret it.” I was amazed. She must be getting soft in her old age. “No,” she went on, “I don't regret it for a second because otherwise you wouldn't exist.”

What could I say? Nothing. So I didn't.

She turned back to face me once more. “And now I want some grandchildren.”

Ah, I thought. There had to be a reason somewhere.

And I was an only child.

“You should have had more children yourself, then,” I said with a laugh. “Not good to put all your eggs in one basket.”

She stood very still, and I thought she was going to cry.

I placed my glass down on the kitchen table, stepped forward and put my arm around her shoulder.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I shouldn't have said that.”

“It's all right,” she said, reaching for a tissue and dabbing her eyes. “You never knew.”

“Knew what?” I asked.

“Nothing. Forget it.”

It clearly wasn't nothing if it reduced her to tears all these years later.

“Come on, Mum,” I said. “Something's obviously troubling you. Tell me.”

She sighed. “We wanted more children. We wanted lots. You were the first, although you were quite a long time coming as we'd been married for nearly eight years by then. I was so happy you were a boy.” She smiled at me and stroked my cheek. “But something had gone wrong with my insides, and we couldn't have any more.”

It was me who was almost crying now. I had always so wanted brothers and sisters.

“We tried, of course,” she said. “And once I did become pregnant, but the baby miscarried at three months. It nearly killed me.”

Again, I didn't know what to say, so once more I said nothing. I just hugged her instead.

“It was the real reason behind so much unhappiness in our marriage,” she said. “Your father gradually became so bitter that I couldn't have any more babies, stupid man. I suppose it was my body's fault, but I couldn't do anything about it, could I? I tried so hard to make up for it, but . . .” She tailed off.

“Oh, Mum,” I said, hugging her tight again. “How awful.”

“It's all right,” she said, pulling away from me and turning back towards the stove. “It's a long time ago, and I'll overcook these potatoes if I don't get to them now.”

 

 

W
e sat at the kitchen table for dinner, and I ate myself to a complete standstill.

I felt bloated, and still my mother was trying to force me to eat more.

“Another profiterole?” she asked, dangling a heaped spoonful over my plate.

“Mum,” I said, “I'm stuffed. I couldn't eat another thing.”

She looked disappointed, but, in fact, I had eaten far more than I would have normally, even in this house. I had tried to please her, but enough was enough. Another mouthful and my stomach might have burst. She, meanwhile, had eaten almost nothing.

Whereas I had plowed my way through half a cow, along with a mountain of potatoes and vegetables, my mother had picked like a bird at a small circle of steak, much of which she had fed to an overweight gray cat that purred against her leg for most of the meal.

“I didn't know you'd acquired a cat,” I said.

“I didn't,” she said. “It acquired me. One day he just arrived and he has hardly left since.”

I wasn't surprised if she regularly fed it fillet steak.

“He sometimes goes off for a few days, even a week, but he usually comes back eventually.”

“What's his name?” I asked.

“I've no idea,” she said. “He isn't wearing a collar. He's a visitor, not a resident.”

Like me, I thought. Just here for a good meal.

“Are you going to the races tomorrow?” she asked.

The April meeting at Cheltenham ran for two days.

“Yes, I'll go for the first few,” I said. “But I have some work to do here in the morning. I have my computer with me. Can I use your phone and your broadband connection?”

“Of course you can,” she said. “But what time do you plan to leave? I don't want to rush you away but I have the village historical society outing tomorrow afternoon.”

“The first race is at two o'clock,” I said. “I'll go around twelve.”

“Then I'll get you some lunch before you go.”

The thought of yet more food was almost unbearable. And I knew she would have bought the makings of a full English breakfast as well.

“No thanks, Mum,” I said. “I'm meeting a client there for lunch.”

She looked sideways at me as if to say she knew I'd just lied to her.

She was right.

 

 

I
don't like it, but we have to do as he asks,” said Patrick when I called him at eight in the morning using my mother's phone in the kitchen. “I'll get Diana on it right away.” Diana was another of his assistants, the one who had just qualified as an IFA. “Are you at Cheltenham again today?”

“Yes,” I said. “But I'll probably just stay for the first three.”

“Try and have another word with Billy Searle. Get him to see sense.”

“I'll try,” I said. “But he seemed pretty determined. Scared, even.”

“All sounds a bit fishy to me,” Patrick said. “But we are required by the Regulator to do as our clients instruct and we can't go off to the authorities every time they instruct us to do something we don't think is sensible.”

“But we have a duty to report anything we believe to be illegal.”

“And do you have any evidence that he wants to do something illegal with the funds?”

“No.” I paused. “But I wonder if breaking the rules of racing is illegal?”

“Depends on what he's doing,” said Patrick. “Defrauding the betting public is illegal. Remember that case at the Old Bailey a few years back.”

I did indeed.

“Billy told me he owed a guy some money,” I said. “Seems he needs a hundred grand. That's a very big debt. I wonder if he's got mixed up with a bookmaker.”

“Betting is not illegal,” Patrick said.

“Maybe not,” I agreed, “but it is strictly against the rules of racing for a professional jockey to bet.”

“That's not our problem,” he said. “And if you do ask Billy any questions, for God's sake try and be discreet. We also have a duty to keep his affairs confidential.”

“OK, I will. I'll see you in the office tomorrow.”

“Right,” said Patrick. “Oh yes. Another thing. That policeman called yesterday asking for you.”

“He didn't call my mobile. It was on all day, although the damn thing doesn't work here. My mother lives in a mobile-phone signal hole.”

“No, well, that wouldn't have mattered anyway because it seems he was rather rude to Mrs. McDowd so she refused to give him your number. She told him you were unavailable and not to be contacted.”

I laughed. Good old Mrs. McDowd, one of our fearless office receptionists.

“What did he want?” I asked.

“Seems they want you to attend at Herb's flat. Something about being his executor.” He gave me the policeman's number, and I stored it in my phone. “Call him, will you? I don't want Mrs. McDowd arrested for obstructing the police.”

“OK,” I said. “See you tomorrow.”

I disconnected from Patrick and called Detective Chief Inspector Tomlinson.