Tip Off (36 page)

I had marked out Daniel Dunne as a man who would respond better to large quantities of soiled banknotes than anything else.

Having arranged with Frank that such quantities as I might need could be made available, I had phoned Daniel. Without telling him why I wanted it, I'd arranged a meeting late Saturday morning, in his small West End office, a few hundred yards, as it happened, from Toby's last address.

Daniel Dunne's personal tastes were reflected in a display of vast, inept oil paintings of classic horse races that crowded his office walls. The small bronze of a Derby winner on his desk confirmed it.

‘Hello,' he said, getting up from behind it to welcome me warily. ‘I hope you haven't come here to try and sell me a horse.'

‘I don't think I've got any fast enough for you,' I said, nodding at the pictures.

He gave a disappointed laugh. ‘I'd always be interested in a nice inside deal. So, what can I do for you?' He waved vaguely at a faux-Chippendale chair. I concluded that Tintern, for his own reasons, had not yet told Dunne I was responsible for Harry Chapman's volte-face.

‘You've occasionally had to acquire properties for our mutual friend Gerald Tintern, haven't you?' I said, sitting down.

Dunne was instantly on his guard. ‘I've acted for him once or twice, in sensitive situations.'

‘Like when he's been building up a holding in a block?'

‘How the hell do you know?'

‘I can tell you that Tintern won't be in a position to complete on anything as from tomorrow. But I've come here to tell you there's still a way you could earn a commission.'

Dunne's cheek twitched in a way that reminded me of Tintern. ‘Really? How?'

‘What I want to know is which of the fourteen freeholds in that block Tintern hasn't bought yet.'

‘Why should I tell you that?'

‘Because if there are any left, he won't be buying them, and with Harry Chapman sitting on his lease for eighteen years, the block's worth bugger all to any developer.'

‘Have you got a punter?'

‘Yes, if there's one of the freeholds left which could create a bit of leverage.'

‘As it happens, there is one left,' he said quietly, ‘and I'm just on the point of getting the old bastard who owns it to sell. He's wound me up on the price as far as he could, not because he knew Tintern's filling a gap but because he's one of those canny old boys who can just smell how keen you are, however well you fake it.'

I had to fake hard myself, to disguise my relief there was still one part of the deal that would escape receivers if Tintern's loans were called in.

‘Well, if you want a buyer,' I said calmly, as if there were some question about it, ‘who'll pay you another five percent over the top, in readies, I've got one.'

 

The tension in Jane's cramped office was almost tangible.

Four days after my meeting with Daniel Dunne, we were waiting for the phone call that would confirm that the deal was done – or, at least, was so far down the line that it was irrevocable.

The phone tinkled, and I answered it.

‘Hello, Simon. Harry here. Just to let you know we've bought that little property you recommended. I haven't had a look at it, but my surveyor tells me it's a terrible place and will probably fall down in a few years anyway. And your Mr Dunne was in for a good cut.'

‘I know, Harry, but you understand as well as I do it was money well spent.'

‘I do indeed. And I was phoning to say thank you. We'll be in touch.'

I put the phone down with a satisfied grin.

‘Well done,' Frank said. ‘That'll really sting Gerald when he finds out.'

‘What exactly have you done now?' Jane asked, pleased that Tintern seemed to be getting what he deserved, but confused by the details.

‘Let me tell you,' I said. ‘Tintern had marked out a major hotel site which he'd been buying up for years. By promising to grease the palm of a chap called Daniel Dunne, I discovered that of the fourteen freehold premises on the block, Tintern had acquired all bar one. Most of those freeholds had various commercial tenancy agreements within them, and he'd bought out nearly all the commercial leaseholders, letting some hang on under licence until he'd got a full house. As it happens, the building of which Salmon's shop occupies the ground floor was the only freehold he hadn't got. Until yesterday he thought he had it, and even though Salmon's had backed out of their agreement to sell him their lease, I'm sure he thought that once he'd got the freehold, sooner or later he'd get them out somehow.'

‘Or maybe,' Frank said, ‘he was sure he was going to buy out the whole Salmon group anyway.'

‘Exactly,' I agreed, wondering if Jane was following, or cared anyway. I went on. ‘Daniel Dunne was on a percentage of the whole deal when it was complete, but after I convinced him that would never happen, he switched horses like a circus rider. Yuri Ashkenazy, the old boy who owned the last of the freeholds, of which the Salmon's shop occupied only the ground floor, had owned the property since the fifties, when he'd operated a small jeweller's there. When he retired, he granted Salmon's a lease and himself lived in the top three floors of the building, resisting all efforts to buy it until now. His health is failing, though, and his daughter in Portsmouth has insisted that if he wants care, he will have to move to pay for it.

‘But that hasn't stopped him stringing along the Jersey property company who seemed so anxious to acquire the impractical building that they were prepared to offer almost double the price Dunne had originally put on it.

‘When his tenants on the ground floor came to him with an offer a good ten percent higher than the Jersey company's bid, on condition he exchanged and completed within a week of the offer, Dunne told him the original bidders wouldn't go any higher, and Ashkenazy's just signed a deal with Salmon Racing.'

 

‘Lord T must be fuming!'

It was nearly a week later, and Matt had picked me up from home at nine in the morning to drive us to the first day of the Cheltenham Festival to watch the Champion Hurdle. He was looking at me now with an odd grin. ‘I'm sure he's fuming – he was arrested yesterday.'

‘What!' I gaped at him. ‘Tintern arrested? What are you talking about?'

‘The police went round to Ivydene yesterday; they took him away plus the contents of his study.'

I was still finding it hard to believe.

‘Jason rang me from the office half an hour ago. The police from Bristol phoned, wanting to talk to us. They've caught Taylor . . .'

‘Who is Taylor?' I asked with my mind still in turmoil at the news.

‘David Dysart's research scientist, the one who went missing. They caught him flying back in from Spain yesterday – to collect his dog, of all things – and he totally broke down; definitely not one of life's born villains. He gave them the whole story about Tintern becoming a shareholder in Powderjet and then offering Taylor money and a research company of his own if he would create an air gun from a camera. I suppose the whole scam hinged on the fact that Tintern had free access to the bar-codes that were used to identify the runners, and that he could easily authorise a photographer's badge; he thought it was his chance to cripple the bookmakers.'

I shook my head in amazement. ‘Quite a nice idea. Especially Tintern using a good tipping service to make the selections for him. It must have been strange for poor old Toby not having a clue why he was tipping so many winners.' I noticed that Matt was heading into the centre of Cheltenham. ‘Why aren't we taking our usual route to the race-course? We don't want to get snarled up in the town with the rest of the punters.'

‘No choice, I'm afraid,' he said airily. ‘We've got to go and see Inspector Wyndham; he's at the local nick.'

‘Why on earth didn't you say so earlier?'

‘Because I didn't want to spoil your day sooner than was necessary.'

 

The detective was waiting for us in a room in the County Police HQ in Lansdown Road. He looked even closer shorn and meaner than last time. But I could see that under the hard exterior, he was very pleased with himself.

‘Morning, gentlemen,' he said. ‘I thought you were never coming. I guessed you'd rather see me here than have to talk to me at the races tomorrow – it's a big day for you, I gather?' He looked at me.

‘Maybe.'

‘Right, I thought I'd tell you myself what's been going on, and I need you to corroborate some of it. I told you when I saw you at Paddington if anything new came up that justified it, we would re-open the case. As you've no doubt heard, Lord Tintern was arrested at his home yesterday evening. One of the parties to this doping scam – a man called Taylor – has spelled the whole thing out. Did you two know anything about this, by the way?'

‘I expect the CID in Bristol have told you they came and spoke to us about some missing prototypes which Taylor had developed,' Matt said blandly. ‘We'd been asked by Wessex Biotech to find them. At least David Dysart will be a satisfied customer now,' he added smugly.

‘We didn't do much,' I put in.

‘It was because we found Tresidder that Taylor got out,' Matt reminded me.

‘Yes,' I conceded, but turned to Wyndham. ‘How come you're involved? You didn't have anything to do with the prototype enquiry, did you?'

‘No. But after he got nicked for the theft of Biotech's property – and he's already been charged with conspiracy to defraud for that – I was offered the chance to talk to him a little more about the late Toby Brown. As a result of further enquiries, I was able to pull him for the doping scam.'

‘But I thought you'd been told to forget Toby's death?'

‘That was before Lord Tintern got pulled on this other matter; it's amazing how quickly influence can dry up at times like these,' he grinned.

‘Okay, but what prompted you to go after him over Toby?'

‘When the CID from Bristol went round to Ivydene to pick him up, they collected every document they could find on the premises. One of these was a note written by Toby, addressed to his mother, telling her why he was going to commit suicide.'

I looked at Matt, who nodded, unsurprised.

‘I always thought it was the most likely scenario,' he said.

I sat back and sighed. ‘So, what happened?'

‘Tintern admitted he'd been round to Toby's that morning.' I tried to look surprised while Wyndham went on. ‘And the night before.'

Now I
was
surprised.

‘Apparently Toby had rung him and asked him to come; said he wanted to talk to him about a very delicate matter.'

‘Did Tintern tell you all this?' Matt looked puzzled.

‘No. He told us some of it, but on the strength of what Toby wrote, we've also been out and picked up a nasty little character called Steve Lincoln – I believe you know him, too?'

We nodded.

‘Why didn't you mention him before?' Wyndham growled.

‘At that stage, we couldn't see why you seemed so reluctant to investigate Toby's death. If you'd shown more interest, maybe we would have done.'

‘Did you know he was round at Toby's too, the night before?'

‘Yes,' Matt said.

‘He said if we didn't charge him, he'd tell us what we needed to know. He hadn't got anything out of the blackmail apart from a few quid Tintern used as a decoy. And we'll need a rock solid case against someone like him.' Wyndham shrugged pragmatically.

‘Lincoln said that he and Toby had been arguing. Toby was still infatuated with him, apparently.' Wyndham wrinkled his nose. ‘No accounting for taste! Anyway, Lincoln told Toby it wasn't his brilliant judgement that was picking all these winners, it was because Tintern was doping the opposition. Toby wouldn't believe him, and rang Tintern to come up so he could tackle him about it, face to face. Lincoln was still there, hiding in another room, when Tintern showed up, so he heard everything – like Toby saying he knew exactly what Tintern was up to, and how he was trying to bring the bookies to their knees. Tintern denied it at first, but finally said the bookies had been robbing racing for years and they deserved it. Then Toby started getting hysterical and screamed that no matter what Tintern thought of the bookies, what he was doing was out and out criminal fraud and he was a disgrace to racing.

‘This didn't cut much ice with Tintern. He kept very calm, Lincoln said. He agreed that he had made sure that all the naps had won, but said that Toby would never prove a thing and if he ever mentioned it to anyone, he'd send everything he knew about him and his rent boys and gay junkie friends to the papers, then Toby would stop being everyone's favourite, cuddly television racing personality overnight. He said that if Toby's father were still alive, he'd be utterly ashamed of him.'

I winced, imagining the hurt Toby must have felt.

The detective sniffed. ‘Tintern didn't say much more after that and left, but Lincoln had already sussed out most of what was happening anyway. And he'd seen some photograph Toby had in his toilet. It showed Toby's dad in his regiment, as well as Tresidder, Greeves – the chap in Newmarket who topped himself – and, would you believe it . . .'

‘Yes, I would,' I said. ‘We've got it. Lord Tintern's in the photograph too when he was mere Captain The Hon. Gerald Birt. So what did Lincoln do?'

‘He stayed on and told Toby if he didn't give him any money, he'd get it out of Tintern. He told Toby exactly what he thought of him, and said if Tintern did give a story to the papers, he'd be selling his part of it too for the right money.'