Dick Francis's Front Runner

21

After constant badgering, the doctors finally agreed that I could go home on Sunday morning. I think they were glad to see the back of me — I know the nurses were. They didn’t appreciate having a potential killer on the prowl.

To be honest, and for the same reason, I was grateful when Quentin arrived in his BMW to drive me to Richmond rather than to my flat in Harlesden.

I’d been in hospital for a whole week but, in many ways, it seemed longer.

I was eager to get back to work in spite of the dire warnings I’d been given by Doctor Shwan about having to take things easy for a while. In particular, I wanted to continue my look into Bill McKenzie’s riding and the gambling habits of Leslie Morris, and to rescue the investigation from the desk of Paul Maldini.

Was it just eight days since I’d met Henrietta Shawcross at Sandown Park races? It seemed that I had known her for ever.

She had come into the hospital on Saturday afternoon and we had watched the Channel 4 coverage of racing at Cheltenham and Doncaster.

‘I’m sorry I can’t stay late tonight,’ she’d said. ‘I’m going to a dinner at the Dorchester. It’s the Christmas party for all our UK staff and their wives. We do it every year.’

‘For Reynard Shipping?’

‘Yes. I promised Uncle Richard I’d be there.’

‘Will your cousin Martin also be there?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s the host tonight. That’s why he’s over here.’

‘From the Cayman Islands?’ I’d asked.

‘From Singapore. He has a place in the Caymans, but he spends much of his time in Singapore running our operation out there, although he was here for most of the summer restructuring the UK business. He’s our new managing director, now that Uncle Richard is taking things a bit easier.’

‘Well, I hope you have a great evening,’ I’d said. ‘Much better than staying here.’

‘I doubt that. The Christmas party always turns into a nightmare. Everyone drinks too much and then they start telling me what they really think of us.’

‘Which is?’

‘That we don’t pay them enough, we have too many Asia-based staff, and that the company makes the family too much money.’

‘And does it?’

‘No. My great-grandfather took a job as a stevedore in the London Docks after returning from the battlefields of France in 1918. He started his own ship-loading business in 1920 and, since then, it’s been the Reynard family that has built the business up to what it is today, so why shouldn’t we enjoy the spoils?’

It sounded to me like something she was well used to justifying.

‘Everyone who works for us is well paid. We certainly have no trouble recruiting from our competitors. And, these days, our main hub is in Singapore, so we are bound to have lots of Asia-based staff, aren’t we?’

‘Are you much involved?’

‘I sit on the board as a non-exec director.’

‘But you work full-time elsewhere?’

‘Yes,’ she’d said.

I had been desperate to ask her why, but I’d said nothing. She would tell me if she wanted to. And she did.

‘I run a recruitment agency in Fulham,’ she had said finally.

‘You told me at Sandown that you worked for an agency, not that you ran it.’

‘I didn’t want to brag. I set it up from scratch about six years ago after a friend complained how difficult it was to get catering staff for her kids’ parties, and it’s sort of blossomed from there into quite an enterprise. I now have six full-time employees, including me, and literally hundreds of people on our books. Clients come to us with their requirements and we act as the middlemen, putting them together with our self-employed chefs, waiters and waitresses. We do all the contract work and arrange payment to the staff. And we charge the clients a fee for doing it all.’

‘Sounds great.’

‘It is,’ she’d said, beaming. ‘The agency makes a healthy profit and it’s all because of me rather than my family.’

I could see how important that was to her.

‘I’ve just started a section recruiting entertainers and magicians for events.’

I could do with a magician, I thought, to make Darryl Gareth Lawrence disappear.

Faye fussed around me like a mother hen, insisting that I sit on the sofa in their sitting room with my feet up.

‘Can I get you anything?’ she asked.

‘Nothing, thank you.’

I had talked Quentin into going home to Richmond via Harlesden to pick up some things from my flat.

‘Will it be safe?’ he’d asked.

‘What has Faye been telling you?’

But my safety was indeed a big concern.

Twice I’d made Quentin take a detour in the journey up Harrow Road towards Harlesden while I watched to see if anyone was tailing us.

Satisfied that there wasn’t, I’d still made him drive slowly past my flat three times until I was sure that no one was waiting in the bushes for my arrival.

Remembering what had happened last time, I’d been even more wary as I’d put the key into the lock, stepping back from, rather than through, the open front door as I’d done before.

There’d been nobody lurking inside, with or without a carving knife.

Quentin had parked the car on the road outside and come in with me to carry my stuff. It was also the first time he had been to my new flat and I don’t think he’d been particularly impressed as he stepped over the boxes in the hallway.

‘You’re even more untidy than Kenneth, and that’s saying something.’

Kenneth was his son by a previous marriage.

I’d gathered up my laptop computer and some more clothes, which I’d stuffed into a holdall.

I’d never realized how happy I would be to get into Quentin’s BMW and drive away from my home. Not that it had stopped me from insisting that he made two complete circuits of the Hanger Lane Gyratory to check we weren’t being followed.

‘You’re paranoid,’ Quentin had said.

‘You would be too, if you were me. There have been three failed attempts on my life in the last two weeks alone. I have no desire for there to be another one that succeeds.’

I wondered if he was now having second thoughts about having me to stay in his house.

On Monday morning, with my phone and laptop fully recharged, I sat at Faye’s dining-room table and started making calls and replying to the backlog of e-mails that had accumulated in my inbox.

I was back in business.

I e-mailed Paul Maldini, asking for an update of where things stood with respect to Bill McKenzie, and requesting that the investigation be handed back to me.

His response was less than encouraging. A date had been set in the middle of January for a disciplinary panel hearing into the running of Wisden Wonder at Sandown, and also into the betting pattern of Leslie Morris on the same race.

‘But who’s to say that the investigation will be complete by then?’ I said to Paul when I called him.

‘We can always postpone the panel if we need to.’

Maybe, I thought, but it seemed like the wrong way round to me. I was a firm believer in doing a full investigation first, preferably without the target knowing that his behaviour was being looked into.

‘Has anyone interviewed McKenzie or Morris?’

‘Not yet,’ Paul said. ‘But they will have both received the letter by now, requiring them to attend the disciplinary panel. They can be questioned at that time. They have also both been told to produce their phone records for the past six months.’

So Morris would, by now, know that we were on to him. That was a shame. It meant that there was little hope that we would ever learn the identity of the mysterious excluded person for whom he had allegedly been placing bets. Not unless he’d been foolish enough to use a phone to call Morris that was registered in his own name.

Increasingly, all dodgy betting conspirators, together with most other villains and terrorists, used pay-as-you-go mobile phones. Bought for cash with a false name and thrown away immediately after use. Tracing who had made a particular call was almost impossible.

I logged on remotely to the BHA database, which told me that Mr Leslie Morris was a sixty-six-year-old retired accountant, and that he was the registered owner of one moderate racehorse.

An accountant. Now, was that a coincidence?

I also used the database to look up where he lived.

The address on his owner registration was in Raynes Park near Wimbledon, just down the A3 from Sandown Park races, and only a handful of miles from where I was in Richmond.

I wondered if paying Mr Morris a visit might be helpful. He’d probably be on the defensive at the official panel, and would most likely have a lawyer with him to advise what he should say and, more importantly, what he should not say. At home, alone, he might be less guarded, especially if I caught him unawares.

‘Do you ever use a local taxi firm?’ I asked Faye.

‘Where do you want to go?’ she asked in reply.

‘I need to go and see someone,’ I said.

‘Not to do with your work?’

I nodded.

‘But you’re meant to be resting and recovering, not working.’

‘I only want to go and speak with him,’ I said. ‘I’m not going to chase him anywhere.’

At least, I hoped not.

‘Where does he live?’ Faye asked.

‘Raynes Park.’

‘I’ll drive you, if you like,’ she said. ‘I’m not doing anything else.’

My first instinct was to say no. My work was my work and my family was my family. I didn’t mix the two. Largely because Faye would not have approved of everything I did in my work. However, the way things had been going recently, I thought it could be reassuring to have someone waiting for me outside when I went in to see Leslie Morris.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘That would be great.’

To say that Leslie Morris was not pleased to see me would be an understatement. As I introduced myself as a BHA investigator, he tried to close his front door but I had my foot against the frame, preventing it.

‘Move your foot,’ he demanded through the six-inch gap.

I didn’t budge. ‘No.’

‘What do you want?’ he asked, without releasing the pressure on the door.

‘I want to talk to you about Bill McKenzie’s riding of Wisden Wonder at Sandown.’

He didn’t ask me what it was about Bill McKenzie’s riding that I was interested in. He knew.

‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ he said. ‘Now, remove your foot.’

I still didn’t budge.

‘Aggravated trespass is against the law,’ he said.

‘So is defrauding the betting public,’ I replied.

There was no response other than an increased pressure on the door.

‘You’ll have to talk about it sometime,’ I said. ‘Or shall I pass the file over to the police? The Fraud Squad won’t just put their foot in your door, Mr Morris, they will break it down, and then they’ll arrest you. Is that what you want? Do you fancy a cold night in the cells sharing with some drug addicts?’

He was rattled. I could see it in his eyes.

‘Mr Morris,’ I said. ‘This is your last chance. Either you let me in now or you had better go and pack your toothbrush ready for the arrival of the boys in blue. It’s your choice.’

I was pretty sure that the police would not be sufficiently interested to come hotfoot to his door with an arrest warrant, and they certainly wouldn’t have put him in a cell with anyone else, but was Leslie Morris prepared to take the risk?

Obviously not, as he slowly opened the door wide.

‘Who is that?’ he asked, looking over my shoulder towards Faye, who was sitting in the car parked on his driveway.

‘My assistant,’ I said. ‘She’ll wait there for me.’

He led me through to the kitchen.

‘Now, what is all this about?’ he asked, nervously pushing his fingers through his white hair while trying his best to exude an air of innocence.

‘How well do you know Bill McKenzie?’ I asked.

Again, movement in his eyes indicated a rising degree of concern.

‘I’ve heard of him,’ Morris replied. ‘I’ve seen him riding, of course, but I don’t know him personally.’

‘That’s strange, because he seems to know you.’

More concern.

‘I can’t think how,’ Morris said. ‘I don’t believe he’s ever ridden my horse.’

I’d already checked for that in the BHA records.

‘Tell me about the bets you made at Sandown Park races on the Friday of the Tingle Creek meeting,’ I said, changing tactics.

There was a distinct tightening of the muscles around his eyes and his breathing became shallower, sure signs that his rising concern was nearing the slide into panic.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he replied, trying his best to control his breathing.

‘You made multiple bets on the race where Wisden Wonder was the favourite.’

‘I think you must be mistaken,’ he said.

I took my iPhone out of my pocket and showed him one of the photographs I had taken on that day at Sandown. It clearly showed him in his distinctive blue fedora handing over a substantial wad of cash to a bookmaker. In the background, plainly discernible, was a bookie’s brightly lit price-board showing the names of the eight horses in the race including Wisden Wonder, offered at six-to-four.

‘I am not mistaken,’ I said slowly. ‘You made over thirty large bets on that race. I watched and filmed you.’

I looked around, hoping that his little red notebook in which he’d recorded his bets would be conveniently lying on the kitchen worktop. No such luck.

‘But not a single one of your bets was on the favourite,’ I said. ‘Why was that?’

Now he was really anxious. He showed all the signs of increased adrenalin in his system — wider pupils, bunched muscles, rapid breathing. His body was ready for fight or flight, but his mind was still in control.

‘I obviously didn’t think the favourite would win,’ he said calmly. ‘And it wasn’t good value at such a short price.’

‘I think you are lying to me, Mr Morris. I think you knew that Wisden Wonder wouldn’t win because you had paid Bill McKenzie to ensure it didn’t. Then you backed every other horse in the race knowing that, whichever of them won, you would make a handsome profit.’

He said nothing.

‘Whose money did you use?’ I asked.

He looked slightly baffled by the question. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I calculated that you wagered nearly seventeen thousand pounds on that race. Where did you get that sort of cash?’

He seemed genuinely surprised that I knew the amount.

‘It was my money,’ he said.

I looked around me again. Mr Leslie Morris may have lived in a fairly sought-after part of London suburbia, yet there was nothing about his house or its contents that indicated he would have had seventeen thousand pounds in readies lying around spare to wager on the horses.

The original covert tip-off had indicated that he was placing bets for an excluded person.

‘I don’t believe you,’ I said. ‘Who’s your banker?’

‘I tell you, it’s all my own money,’ he said again with more confidence. ‘I used the lump sum from my pension fund.’

‘How did you know that Wisden Wonder wasn’t going to win?’

‘I didn’t,’ he said.

‘Don’t give me that nonsense,’ I said with annoyance. ‘You and I both know you wouldn’t risk your pension money unless you knew for certain that the horse wouldn’t win. Do you take me for an idiot or something?’

He said nothing.

‘So how did you know that, Mr Morris? How much did you pay Bill McKenzie to make sure he didn’t win?’

He still made no reply.

‘Saying nothing won’t help you at the disciplinary panel,’ I said. ‘Your racing days would be over for good.’

Disqualification as an owner, and exclusion from racing premises for a minimum of ten years was the least he could expect, maybe even for longer. Racing and the BHA were not very good at forgiveness, even for those who admitted their guilt and helped to implicate others.

‘Did you know Dave Swinton?’ I asked.

Full-blown panic now appeared in his eyes.

‘I met him once,’ he said, his voice sounding higher in pitch owing to the tightening of the muscles in his neck. ‘He rode my horse at Ludlow last May.’

I’d also checked that on the BHA database, and he would have known it.

‘His death is such a terrible loss for racing. I liked him.’

‘Did you know him professionally?’ I asked.

‘And what do you mean by that?’ he said, regaining some of his confidence.

‘Were you his accountant?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I was not.’

‘I’ll check, you know,’ I said.

‘Check away,’ he replied. ‘I worked for a small three-man outfit here in Wimbledon. I’m sure the likes of Dave Swinton would be represented by one of the big London firms.’

‘Were you blackmailing him?’

‘I’ve had enough of this rubbish,’ he said suddenly. ‘Get out of my house. Right now. Go on, get out.’ He was almost shouting as he ushered me down the hallway towards his front door.

I was in no position to argue with him as standing my ground may have resulted in a physical assault, something my poor damaged body could ill afford.

‘And don’t come back,’ Morris shouted as I walked out towards the car.

‘I’ll see you at the disciplinary hearing,’ I called back in valediction.

‘I doubt that,’ he replied.

The words sent a chill down my spine. Had he said it because he would not be attending the hearing or because he believed I wouldn’t live long enough to be there myself?

‘Not a very successful visit, by the look of it,’ Faye said as I got back into her car.

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Let’s go.’

I had been in Morris’s house for less than fifteen minutes but I was exhausted. I leaned my head back on the head restraint and closed my eyes.

‘You need to rest,’ Faye said as we drove away. ‘You must regain your strength.’

She sounded like a character in a Jane Austen novel speaking to the victim of a nasty fever. But I think she was right. I did need to regain my strength if I was going to discover who was trying to kill me.