Dick Francis's Front Runner

2

Dave Swinton and I were waved through by the Newbury-racecourse gateman, who recognized Dave and almost touched his forelock. ‘Morning, Mr Swinton,’ he said without bothering to look at the jockey’s pass hanging round Dave’s neck. He inspected my authorization more closely. It had my name, my photo and the words BHA Integrity Investigator clearly marked in black print. The gateman scowled. No one, it seems, likes a policeman, not even a racing policeman.

‘How did the blackmailer contact you?’ I asked when we were out of earshot.

‘He rang my mobile.’

‘Did you see his number?’ I asked.

‘It said withheld.’

Of course it would.

‘What did he say?’

‘He told me to lose a race.’

‘Yes,’ I said with some impatience, ‘but what exactly did he say? What were his actual words?’

‘He said I had to lose the race or he’d spill the beans to the taxman that I’d received big gifts from owners that I hadn’t declared.’

‘Did he use those precise words?’

‘Yeah, near enough.’

‘He must have told you which race to lose,’ I said.

‘He just said not to win on...’ He stopped.

‘On what?’ I encouraged.

‘Never you mind.’

‘But I do mind, Dave. Goddam it, I’m trying to help you.’

‘Then forget I ever said it.’

He hurried off towards the weighing room and into the safety of the jockeys’ changing room. Theoretically, my BHA credentials meant that I could have followed him in there, but I was sure it wouldn’t do any good. And it wouldn’t help me make any friends. I may have had an absolute right of entry into every part of the racecourse, but such entitlement was to be used most sparingly, if at all. If I invaded their personal space, any moral authority I might currently possess amongst the jockeys would evaporate faster than ether on a hotplate.

Instead, I meandered around enjoying the ‘feel’ of the racecourse on the morning of a big race — especially during this relatively quiet time before the bulk of the racegoers began spilling off the special race trains, surging through the entrances, filling the bars and raising the expectation level to fever pitch.

It was a while since I had been to Newbury, but it remained one of my favourite courses. The flat terrain gave spectators a good view of all the action from the grandstands, and the long final straight with four stiff fences to the finish provided a keen challenge for both horse and jockey.

The track at Newbury didn’t just have a long straight but it was also very wide. These two features combined to produce a foreshortening optical illusion that made the winning post always appear closer than it actually was, tempting the inexperienced or unwary to make a final effort too soon, only to find that the post was still on the horizon and more patient jockeys were sitting quietly behind, ready to pounce.

Conversely, waiting too long could be a disaster as well. No jockey receives more abuse than one who leaves it too late and then just fails to get up on a fast finisher.

This was supposedly my weekend away from work but I was never completely off duty when on a racecourse. I walked around with my eyes and ears firmly open, watching and listening for anything that shouldn’t be there. It was habit, I suppose, and one I couldn’t shake off — not that I was trying very hard.

I went through the Berkshire Stand and then on to the betting ring, where the lines of bookmakers were busily setting up on their pitches, erecting their electronic price-boards and logging their computers on to the racecourse’s wireless network. How things had changed since the days of chalk and the big ledger recording books that had given these men their name.

I went back into the grandstand to warm up and get myself a coffee. I was still desperately thirsty after my stint in Dave’s sauna. How he could go without anything to drink at all was beyond me, especially as he was, even now, running around the nearly two-mile-long course in a sweatsuit, trying to remove yet another pound of liquid from his system.

The enclosures began to fill quickly as the expected crowd of over seventeen thousand arrived in their droves and I wandered amongst them, listening out for any snippets of information that might be useful.

‘Jeff Hinkley?’ called a voice behind me.

I turned. A shortish well-dressed man with swept-back grey hair was walking towards me with his hand held out. I shook it warmly.

‘Mr Smith,’ I said. ‘How lovely to see you again.’

‘Call me Derrick, please.’

Derrick Smith was a leading owner whose many horses in training had included the great Camelot, winner of both the Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby.

Derrick introduced me to the person he was with, a tall grey-haired man, smartly dressed in a fawn overcoat with a brown velvet collar over a tweed suit.

‘Jeff Hinkley, this is Sir Richard Reynard.’ He said it in a manner that made me think I should know who Sir Richard Reynard was.

I didn’t.

‘Good to meet you,’ I said, shaking his hand.

‘Are you all set for next week?’ Derrick asked.

‘Definitely,’ I said. ‘Thank you. I’m looking forward to it.’

He had asked me for lunch in his box at Sandown on the following Saturday as a thank-you for uncovering and foiling a plot to kidnap one of his horses on the eve of Royal Ascot in June.

‘Good,’ he said.

‘Do you have any runners today?’ I asked Derrick.

‘No. Richard and I are here as guests of Hennessy. Why don’t you come up with us and have a drink? I’m sure they won’t mind.’

‘I’m hardly dressed for it.’ They were in suits but I had on only a sports jacket and no tie.

‘Nonsense. You’ll be fine.’

The three of us rode up together in the lift to the fourth level of the Berkshire Stand and into the large Hennessy Cognac hospitality area, where a champagne cocktail was thrust into my hands.

The room was already half full and many of the faces were known to me.

And I was clearly known to several of them. There were even a few cautious glances in my direction from the few with whom I’d had professional contact — me as an investigator and they as the investigated.

‘Godfrey,’ Derrick called to the chairman of the cognac company, taking him by the arm and forcing him to turn towards us, ‘have you met Jeff Hinkley? He’s the man who saved my horse at Ascot.’

Godfrey, or Viscount Marylebone as he was more formally known, was our host. He shook my offered hand with a quizzical look on his face that suggested he was desperately trying to remember the guest list.

I wasn’t on it.

‘Thank you for the drink, My Lord,’ I said. ‘Mr Smith brought me in with him but I won’t be staying long.’

Godfrey Marylebone was not very good at concealing his relief. ‘I see. Nice to meet you,’ he said, but he was already looking over my shoulder towards some of his other guests, those who were expected. He moved away towards them. Derrick Smith, meanwhile, had turned to speak to someone else and had taken Sir Richard Reynard with him.

I took the opportunity to go out onto the viewing balcony. It wasn’t often that I had the chance to look over a racecourse from such an exalted position. I was usually down on the lower levels in pursuit of lesser mortals.

There were two men outside braving the cold and they were in earnest conversation, their heads bowed together. The shorter of the two was very angry with the other, as he was making very plain. ‘You’re a total fucking idiot!’ I heard him say. ‘You absolutely shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t even be in the country. It’s far too risky.’

‘No one will ever know,’ said the other man.

‘I know, and that in itself is bad enough,’ replied the first.

At that moment the two seemed to notice my presence and instantly stopped talking. One of them even pointedly turned away from me so I couldn’t see his face.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Don’t mind me. I’m just getting some air.’

They just stood there, waiting, so I went back inside.

The room was, by now, getting very full indeed and people were beginning to move towards their places at the tables that were laid for lunch. Time to go, I thought.

I looked round for Derrick Smith and for Lord Marylebone to say my goodbyes, but they were both busy talking to others at the far end of the room, so I worked my way towards the exit to leave quietly. Sir Richard Reynard was standing there on his own, next to the coat rack.

‘Please say goodbye to Mr Smith for me,’ I said to him.

He looked at me and nodded.

As I turned towards the door, I glanced back through the windows towards the balcony. The two men were still deep in discussion but, this time, I was able to see both their faces.

I whipped my iPhone out of my pocket and took a quick long-distance photo of them. As I’d lifted the phone, they both happened to look straight at me so I had a good shot of their full faces.

One never knew when such things might be useful.

Having no lunch, added to his run around the course, must have done the trick because Dave Swinton had evidently met his ten-stone-four target.

At a quarter to three I watched as he emerged from the weighing room wearing Integrated’s black, red and white colours and went to join the horse’s owner and trainer in the parade ring.

The Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup, run at Newbury each year on the last Saturday in November, is one of the most prestigious races on the calendar.

The two steeplechases that every owner, trainer and jockey are desperate to win are the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National, but the Hennessy would maybe come in an equal third alongside the likes of the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on Boxing Day, and the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Hence the mixture of excitement and anticipation in the Newbury parade ring was palpable, with some owners shifting from foot to foot, unable to keep still in their nervousness as they waited on the grass.

The same was true for the jockeys.

For the up-and-coming, this was one of those days when careers could be made or lost, while the old hands looked worryingly over their shoulders at the young whippersnappers who would cheerfully take their jobs without a heartbeat of hesitation.

Finally, an official rang the bell for the jockeys to get mounted and, one by one, they took their proper places on the horses’ backs, completing a transformation from diminutive bystanders into gods.

I stood by the rail as the horses made their way from the ring out to the course.

‘Good luck,’ I called to Dave as he passed.

He looked down at me and smiled but said nothing. I thought he looked unwell with the deep-set eyes, hollow cheeks and thin lips of one who was undernourished and dehydrated.

This was his fourth ride of the afternoon, any one of which would have left most normal men exhausted. Dave, meanwhile, had had no breakfast and no lunch, not even a drink of water.

No wonder he looked unwell.

Integrated won the Hennessy by a nose in the tightest of photo-finishes, Dave Swinton employing all his magic to urge the horse to stretch its neck at just the right moment to pip the favourite to the line.

The crowd went wild and they continued to cheer as Dave manoeuvred Integrated into the unsaddling space reserved for the winner, his gaunt pre-race appearance having been banished by a huge smile and a hefty dose of adrenalin.

He was still grinning as he walked towards me on his way back into the weighing room, his saddle over his arm.

‘Now, that’s why I do it,’ he said. ‘Bloody marvellous.’

‘No question of you losing that one, then?’ I said.

The smile vanished for a second but quickly returned although, this time, it didn’t quite reach to his eyes.

‘Not a chance.’