Dick Francis's Damage Read online

  “I’m sorry,” she said unnecessarily.

  Lydia stood up and went to put her arms around Faye as a series of sobs shuddered through her body.

  I felt helpless and distraught.

  Faye had always been my rock. She had been the one to wipe away my tears, right from when our dear mother had Gone off to see God, as our father had always put it.

  I desperately didn’t want Faye to go off to see God, not yet, not ever, but what could I do? Nothing. Only pray that the surgeon would do his work and save her.

  I stood up and went and put my arms around them both.

  “What’s this?” said Quentin loudly, coming into the kitchen. “Group hug?”

  The moment passed and Faye pulled herself away, dabbing at her eyes with a tissue and smudging her mascara.

  “Oh God, what a mess,” she said, trying to laugh. “I’ll just go and fix this.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Lydia, and the two girls went off to make repairs upstairs.

  “It’s very difficult for her,” I said to Quentin.

  “She’ll be fine,” he said with confidence. “She’s a tough old bird.”

  I wasn’t sure if he really thought that she would be fine or if he was just putting on a brave front. I couldn’t believe that he didn’t know the odds. Either way, I thought that he should be more consoling towards his wife, but I suppose that wasn’t Quentin’s style.

  “Is there anything you need from me to start your investigation?” he asked.

  “The so-called friend’s name,” I said.

  “Daniel something,” he said. “Foreign name. It’s in the CPS bundle. I’ll get it for you on Monday.”

  “Can I see the whole file?” I asked.

  “I’ll try, but I really shouldn’t be having anything to do with it.”

  “Then don’t. Tell me who to talk to and I’ll get it from them.”

  “You’ll have to approach Kenneth’s solicitor. It’s a woman.” He said it as if he didn’t fully approve of female lawyers. “I have her card somewhere. I’ll give it to you before you go.”

  “Where is Kenneth?” I asked.

  “He sits in his flat most days just feeling sorry for himself. He’s been suspended from his pupilage pending the outcome of the case.”

  “Why doesn’t he spend his time looking for the missing friend?”

  “It’s a condition of his bail that he can have no contact with the Crown’s witnesses.”

  “Witnesses plural?” I asked. “Who are the others?”

  “The police mostly. Arrest officers, search officers, and so on. And then there’s also the drug analysis company.”

  “Is it legal for me to have any contact with the friend?”

  “Probably not.”

  “What could be the consequences?” I asked.

  “If you found him and then the friend complained that you’d been in contact, Kenneth would probably lose his bail. So be careful. It’s also possible that you might be arrested for attempting to pervert the course of justice, although that’s unlikely.”

  “How unlikely?”

  “Very unlikely, I’d say. Unless, of course, you offered him money or threatened him in order to get him to change his story.”

  I might need to do both.

  Faye and Lydia came back downstairs.

  Quentin looked at his watch. “I have a client conference call in five minutes,” he said. “Don’t leave until after I’m finished.” It was more of a directive than a request.

  “We mustn’t be too long,” I said hesitantly.

  “But you will stay to lunch, won’t you?” Faye asked anxiously. “I’ve got a whole fridge full of food that needs eating before Monday. Q will eat at his club all week.”

  I looked at Lydia.

  “Yes, we’d love to,” she said. “I’ll help you.”

  —

  WE DIDN’T LEAVE until well after two, by which time Faye was exhausted. So much for us not making her tired.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, again unnecessarily, as Lydia and I stood on her doorstep to say good-bye. “It’s not the cancer or any treatment that makes me so tired, it’s more because I’m not sleeping very well at the moment.”

  “Darling Faye,” I said, “you don’t have to apologize. It is all our fault for staying so long.”

  She gave me a big hug while whispering ever so quietly into my ear, “Now, Jeff, get along and marry Lydia, won’t you. I want to still be round for my little brother’s wedding.”

  She pulled back and smiled at me.

  Oh God, I thought. Now what do I do?

  4

  On Monday morning I took the Tube from Willesden to the British Horseracing Authority offices in High Holborn, to my desk in the Integrity, Licensing and Compliance Department, more commonly referred to as the racing security service.

  I sat for an hour and tried to reply to the multitude of e-mails that had accumulated unanswered in my in-box during my week away in Cheltenham, but I wasn’t really concentrating. My mind kept wandering off to what was happening three and a half miles away at the Royal Marsden Hospital.

  Faye had been admitted at six that morning and was scheduled to go to surgery as the second patient of the day for the surgeon.

  I wondered what time that would be. How long would his first operation last? How long for Faye’s?

  I had asked Quentin to please keep me informed, but I had little faith that phoning his brother-in-law would be high on his priority list unless it was to ask about progress in finding Kenneth’s erstwhile friend.

  How long should I wait before I called the hospital? Perhaps I shouldn’t call before noon. Or maybe at eleven-thirty. Or eleven.

  I looked up at the clock on the office wall for the umpteenth time. Ten past ten. The hands seemed to move so slowly. Had it stopped? I stared at the minute hand for a full minute, timing it against my wristwatch, until it clicked over to eleven minutes past ten. No, it was still working.

  I stood up and walked down the corridor to the little kitchen area to make myself a cup of coffee. Pacing up and back helped my nervousness, but the clock had grudgingly moved on just five minutes to ten-sixteen when I sat down again.

  Come on, I told myself. Do something useful. Take your mind off it.

  I forced myself back to the e-mails.

  Most were update reports from my colleagues. There were five out-and-out investigators in the department, of which I was one, three of the others being ex–police officers, and the fifth a financial expert who had recently joined our ranks, reflecting the increasing financial complexity of many of the dubious practices we spent our time investigating.

  In addition, there were eight equine integrity officers who were responsible, among other things, for checking that the runners in all races were indeed the horses that everyone expected them to be. The penalty for knowingly substituting a different horse or “running a ringer,” as it was called, was one of the harshest in the rule book, with an expected twenty years’ disqualification and exclusion from the sport even for a first offense.

  And then there were the stable inspectors who spent their days making unannounced visits to licensed training facilities to check on the suitability of the premises and the welfare of the horses, and also arranging the random drug testing of the sport’s participants, both equine and human.

  We all regularly updated one another with progress and irregularities as we had found that it was not unusual for our investigations to overlap. An investigation into person A might throw up a connection to persons X and Y, while a completely separate inquiry into person B might show that he is also connected to one of or both X and Y and hence possibly to A.

  I scanned through the reports looking out for names that were familiar.

  Currently, I personally had three open cases, one
of which concerned the continuing fallout from the Matthew Unwin affair. I was trying to ascertain if any other individuals had profited from the doping of the horses. In particular, did the betting records show any unusual patterns during the running of those horses? It was painstaking work searching through the race results and cross-referencing them against computer betting data. So far, it had not turned up any discrepancies and I was beginning to think that it wouldn’t.

  But the case was the reason Nigel and I had been on the lookout at Cheltenham on the previous Tuesday. One of our covert sources had provided information to the intelligence branch that had led us to believe Unwin might be at the races that day to meet someone who had benefited from the doping.

  Little had I realized he was there to commit murder.

  Had Jordan Furness been more than just the victim of a vicious knife attack? Had he also been profiting from Unwin’s doped horses?

  Racehorse trainers, typically, have little contact with bookmakers and vice versa, other than the placing of bets, one with the other. Social contact, although not prohibited, was discouraged by the authorities. It would be all too easy to pass on privileged information, and doing so for financial gain was strictly against the Rules of Racing.

  So had there been any previous contact between Matthew Unwin and Jordan Furness? And had Unwin’s former stable employee, Lee Furness, been related to Jordan?

  These would be my next lines of inquiry into the matter.

  As well as the e-mails, there was a thin, translucent blue pocket folder that had been left on my desk by Crispin Larson, chief analyst in the intelligence section. There was a short, handwritten note paper-clipped to the front:

  Jeff, Enclosed came via RaceStraight. Worth a look, methinks. Use your customary dark methods to scour the land. Toodle-pip, Crispin.

  A blue folder indicated that the intelligence section believed it to be a matter worth pursuing but that it was not particularly urgent; those came in red folders and needed dealing with immediately.

  Crispin Larson was, in my view, totally obsessed with security. He started out with the assumption that every phone and every computer connected to the Internet was hacked and nothing should be sent by external e-mail unless you were prepared to have it read by others. Hence, he persisted in delivering the blue and red folders to investigators’ desks personally.

  I glanced up at the clock. The hands had miraculously moved on to eight minutes to eleven without me having watched them once since ten-twenty.

  Could I call the hospital yet?

  I dialed the number and, after being put through to the correct department, was informed by a firm but polite voice that Mrs. Calderfield had not yet gone down for the surgery. She was still waiting in her room.

  Poor Faye.

  The waiting must feel interminable. I now wished I’d gone to be with her, but she had insisted she would be fine with just Quentin.

  I watched as the clock’s hands moved reluctantly to eleven o’clock.

  Thinking about Quentin reminded me of Kenneth’s missing ex-friend. I dug the solicitor’s business card out of my pant pocket and dialed her direct number.

  “Diane Shorrocks,” said a female voice briskly.

  “Hello, Mrs. Shorrocks,” I said. “You don’t know me, but my name is Jeff Hinkley. I’m Kenneth Calderfield’s uncle.”

  “Yes, Mr. Hinkley,” she said slowly. “How can I help you?”

  “I’d like to look at the Crown’s evidence bundle for Kenneth’s case.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hinkley, but that would be impossible without Mr. Calderfield’s written authority.”

  “I only want to find out the name of the person who provided a statement to the police. Could you look for me?”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Hinkley,” she said again without sounding it. “I am unable to discuss anything about the case with you, or with anyone else for that matter, without Mr. Calderfield’s express permission. It would constitute a breach of client/solicitor privilege.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, I’d better get a written authority, then.”

  “Yes,” she said, “although my client has his own copy of the Crown’s case. He would be at liberty to show it to you, if he so wished.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll ask him. Thank you.”

  I hung up and rang Kenneth’s cell instead.

  He answered at the sixth ring just as I was beginning to think he wouldn’t.

  “Hello,” he said in a bored-sounding monotone.

  “Hello, Kenneth, this is Jeff Hinkley, your uncle, Faye’s brother.”

  “I know who you are,” he replied without any enthusiasm.

  “Your father has asked me to try and help you out of your present predicament.”

  “I can’t think how.” He sounded as if he had already given up hope and was resigned to his fate.

  “Kenneth,” I said sharply, “are you guilty?”

  “Call me Ken,” he said. “Only my father calls me Kenneth. And, no, I’m not guilty.”

  “Then please stop sounding like you are. Do you want my help or not?”

  “Yes I do,” he said, “but I can’t see how you can.”

  “Let me be the judge of that. Now, what is the name of the man who gave the statement to the police?”

  “Daniel Jubowski.”

  “Is he English?” I asked.

  “As far as I know,” Ken replied. “I think his grandfather was Polish. Came over to fight in the Second World War and never went back.”

  “Where does this Daniel Jubowski live?” I asked.

  “He had a place near King’s Cross overlooking the canal.”

  “But now he’s gone?”

  “According to someone he shared with. I went to find him and was told he’d moved out.”

  “What does he do for a living?”

  “I’m not really sure,” Ken said. “Something in the City, I think.”

  “How did you meet him?”

  “Oh, you know, at a party.”

  “I’d like to have a look at the complete prosecution bundle of evidence. I’m told you have a copy. Where do you live?”

  “I have a flat in Tower Hamlets, off Bethnal Green Road.”

  “Right,” I said. “I’ll see you at five o’clock at your flat.” He gave me the address and directions from Bethnal Green tube station.

  I looked up at the clock. It was eleven-twenty.

  I called the Royal Marsden again and was informed that Mrs. Calderfield had just gone down. She wasn’t expected back for at least a couple of hours.

  I fretted.

  It was a good job that Paul Maldini wasn’t looking over my shoulder. The head of operations would not have considered me good value for money on that particular day. I had probably spent only half an hour on BHA business so far.

  Perhaps if I did some work it would take my mind off what awfulness was being performed on Faye.

  I opened the blue folder from Crispin Larson to find a single sheet of paper inside:

  A male caller to the RaceStraight anonymous tip-off line has claimed that the trainer Graham Perry is using performance-enhancing substances on some or all of his horses.

  When pressed for evidence to support such a damning allegation, the caller said “he just knew” before hanging up.

  About an hour later the same or a second caller to RaceStraight made the same accusation but again gave no details.

  The last routine inspection of Graham Perry’s yard was in February this year, when all was found to be in order. In addition, an unannounced team carried out tests on a random selection of twelve of his horses three years ago and all were found to be negative.

  This is an unsubstantiated claim of a suspect nature (rated C/D3) and any investigation must be performed with utmost tact so as to protect the hitherto
good name and reputation of Mr. Perry, who is currently unaware of these allegations.

  I wondered why Crispin had given it to me. I was considered to be the department’s specialist in undercover work, but surely this should be dealt with in an upfront and open manner. The usual practice would be to send a testing team back to Perry’s yard, with the bells ringing and the lights flashing, to do blood tests on all his horses, and to hell with any secrecy. The tests would either be positive, in which case he’d lose his training license forever, or negative, in which case his good name and reputation would not only remain intact but be enhanced.

  I took the blue folder down the stairs to the intelligence section and knocked on Crispin Larson’s door.

  “Come in,” he shouted from within. I opened the door. “Ah, Jeff, dear boy, our resident genius and champion of the dark arts. Come in and sit down.”

  I did both.

  “Now,” said Crispin, “what brings you down to the murky shadows of intelligence?”

  “It’s about this file you left on my desk.”

  “Ah,” he said again expansively. “The Perry file.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Why have you given it to me and not to one of the testing teams? Is it really a matter for utmost tact? Don’t we just send in the scientists to find out if the horses are high on amphetamines?”

  “Well. We could do just that. But wait! What if our caller is merely a mischief-maker? Analyses are expensive, you know. Would the substantial outlay be prudent?”

  It would be prudent, I thought, if not doing so endangered the good name of racing. “Surely we don’t have to worry about the cost if the sport’s integrity is at stake.”

  “I have my reasons,” Crispin said. “I want you, our shadowy, silent sleuth, to have a quiet look first.”

  “So what is it you want me to do, exactly?” I asked.

  “Do your usual business, dear boy. Ask quiet questions, look under stones, discover if there’s any substance to the accusation. Or is it some vengeful malcontent spreading unsubstantiated tittle-tattle? Report back to me asap.”

  Crispin tended to speak in a manner that was as cryptic as the crossword puzzles he was renowned for completing in double-quick time.