Dick Francis's Front Runner

29

Henri went to her Reynard Shipping board meeting at nine thirty, collected by her cousin Martin, while I called Bill McKenzie.

‘What’s all this nonsense about you telling the police you’re not sure if it was Morris who was blackmailing you?’

‘I’m not sure,’ he replied, almost in a whisper.

‘You were pretty sure when I spoke to you before.’

‘That’s as may be,’ he said. ‘But now I’m not.’

‘What’s changed?’

‘Nothing,’ he said. I could hear the nervous timbre in his voice even from four and a half thousand miles away.

‘Has Morris contacted you?’

‘No,’ he said, but I knew he was lying from the slight hesitation before he answered.

‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing,’ he said again.

‘Did he promise to give you the pictures if you didn’t help the police?’

There was a long pause, which was answer enough.

‘You’re stupid,’ I said. ‘Do you really trust him? The only way to stop your wife seeing those pictures is to get Morris locked up.’

‘And how long would that be for?’ he said. ‘A year, two maybe? Then what? And you can still arrange to have things sent from prison, you know.’

He was right.

‘But even if he sends you a set of prints, he’ll still have the original image files. He could print off some more, or send them to your wife in an e-mail.’

‘I’ll have to take that risk.’

Bill McKenzie was in a very deep hole whatever he did. I suppose I couldn’t really blame him for wanting to accept a ladder from the very man who’d put him down there in the first place.

‘Bill,’ I said, ‘I’ll have no chance of saving your jockey’s licence unless you cooperate.’

His only reply was to whimper down the line.

‘Your best course of action is to bite the bullet and tell your wife about your French adventure. Then Morris would have nothing on you.’

‘I can’t,’ he said. It was more of a plea than anything.

‘It would be much better coming from you than from Morris. I’m sure your wife will forgive you when she knows you were drugged and set up.’

‘She won’t,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what she’s like.’

That made me wonder if his marriage was even worth saving, but there was his child to consider, and another on the way.

Henri returned at half past twelve.

‘Good meeting?’ I asked.

‘It was OK,’ she said. ‘Our board meetings are never much more than rubber-stamping exercises anyway. Most of the day-to-day decisions are made by the management board. The main board is just there to ratify them. Much of today’s meeting was taken up with the recent sale of our Hong Kong based operation to a Chinese consortium. Uncle Richard thought it was a good time to realize some of the company’s assets. The money involved is mind blowing.’

‘No need to cancel the private jet just yet, then?’ I said flippantly.

‘No.’

‘Who’s on the main board other than you?’

‘Uncle Richard and Martin, of course, plus a couple of directors appointed from our law firm over here. But those two don’t say much.’

‘How about Bentley?’

‘He’s not actually a board member. He’s the company secretary and he takes the minutes.’

‘It must be interesting for you, being a director of such a big organization,’ I said.

‘Not really. It’s all rather boring and mundane, to tell you the truth. The others don’t take much notice of what I say, even though I do know what I’m talking about. Even though I run my own business in London, I think the others just look upon me as a token female on the board. Uncle Richard effectively makes all the decisions anyway.’

‘But you are a shareholder?’

‘Yes, that’s true. We are still a hundred per cent family-owned business. My mother and Uncle Richard used to run it between them, so I suppose I’m now there to represent my side of the family. The main board only meets three times a year and I don’t usually get to all of them.’

‘Are they always here in the Cayman Islands?’

‘Mostly, although I prefer it when we meet in Singapore. We stay at Raffles and I absolutely love it there. But we have the major meeting of the year here. It also acts as the company’s AGM. That’s what we did today.’ She gave me a cuddle. ‘What have you been up to in my absence?’

‘Chilling out and making a few work phone calls,’ I said.

‘You shouldn’t be working,’ she said in mock crossness. ‘You’re meant to be on holiday.’

‘You’ve been working,’ I pointed out.

‘That’s different.’ She smiled. ‘Now, I’m hungry. What shall we do for lunch?’

‘You know the place better than I do.’

We lazily walked next door to the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and split a club sandwich and a Caesar salad at their pool bar, washed down with an excellent bottle of Côtes de Provence rosé.

‘So what’s on the agenda for the rest of the day?’ I asked.

‘I’m afraid I’ve agreed for us to go with Uncle Richard and Aunt Mary to the traditional Christmas Eve carol singing in the garden of the governor’s residence. That’s at seven. We could go out for dinner afterwards, just the two of us, or we could just go back to bed.’ She giggled and stroked my hand.

‘What happens tomorrow?’ I asked.

‘We have champagne with a few friends at noon, followed by a traditional family Christmas lunch. Both at Martin and Theresa’s house. Then we laze around for the rest of the afternoon complaining that we’ve eaten and drunk too much, before we eat and drink even more in the evening. Then we might watch a movie. Much the same as in England.’

‘Sounds great to me.’

‘Martin asked me if you were a diver. He always goes out diving early on Christmas morning. It’s a sort of ritual. He wonders if you would like to go with him.’

It seemed strangely out of character for him to ask me.

‘I was taught to dive by the army,’ I said. ‘But that was ten years ago at Sharm el Sheikh on the Red Sea. I haven’t done it now for ages.’

‘Shall I tell Martin you’d like to go?’

I had to admit that I was quite keen.

‘Do you think I’m well enough to go diving?’ I said.

She laughed. ‘I’d say you were quite well enough, if your exertions in the night are anything to go by.’

‘I won’t be able to carry the tanks when they’re out of the water.’

‘That’s no problem. We always have a dive master and a safety officer with us on the boat. They’ll help you.’

‘Will you be coming?’ I asked.

‘If you want me to,’ she said. ‘As long as you don’t plan to go too deep. Otherwise I’ll stay up on the boat while you and Martin dive.’

‘OK, then. Yes. I’d love to go.’

The carol singing on the lawn in front of the governor’s official residence was delightful. And it was packed with a mixture of expatriate British families and local Caymanians.

Sir Richard and Lady Mary picked Henri and me up from the Coral Stone Club and we drove about half a mile down West Bay Road.

Government House was an elegant colonial-style bungalow set amongst mature trees, close to the beach. A uniformed Cayman Island policeman stood guard at the gate, but there was no other sign of significant security. Indeed, the white-painted wall to the road was only about five feet high and, on the beach side, there was simply a low white-painted picket fence, along with a couple of notices requesting that passers-by should respect the governor’s privacy.

‘Who is the governor?’ I asked Sir Richard as we walked into the garden, which was lit up with strings of festive lights, attractively wrapped in spirals around the tree trunks.

‘The current one is a chap called Peter Darwin,’ he said. ‘The governor is nominally appointed by the Queen but it’s actually decided by the Foreign Office in London. It’s often the final posting before retirement for a career diplomat — a swansong in the sun. Peter is about halfway through his term.’

‘What’s his role?’ I asked.

‘He is Her Majesty’s personal representative in the Cayman Islands.’

‘So he’s quite important, then?’ I said.

‘Formally, Peter calls me Sir Richard, but I call him Your Excellency.’

That was one sort of answer.

I took a glass of thick red liquid from an offered tray.

‘What is it?’ I asked Henri.

‘Cayman rum punch,’ she said, also taking one. ‘It’s the national drink. Either this or frozen mudslides.’

‘Frozen mudslides?’

‘A cocktail made from ice, vodka, Baileys, Kahlua, chocolate syrup and cream, all blended together. It’s absolutely brilliant.’

‘And incredibly fattening,’ I said.

‘It was first created here on the Cayman Islands, at The Wreck Bar at Rum Point. It’s famous for it.’

‘In spite of not having any actual rum in it?’

‘Shut up!’ she said, punching me playfully on the arm.

Martin and Theresa arrived and came to stand with us under the royal poinciana trees as we listened to a large choir made up of children from all the island’s schools singing a selection of the best-known Christmas carols. Everyone joined in for a rousing rendition of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ as the finale.

One and all were in celebratory mood, wishing each other Merry Christmas, as the crowd began to disperse back to their cars.

‘Jeff,’ Sir Richard called. ‘Come and meet the governor.’

He introduced me to a short slim man with dark wavy hair that was just beginning to go grey at the temples.

‘Delighted to meet you, Your Excellency,’ I said, shaking his hand.

‘Please, call me Peter. I’m not one for formality, especially not on Christmas Eve. This is my wife, Annabel.’ He indicated to the blonde-haired woman with a small mouth and large blue eyes who was standing next to him.

‘Thank you for your hospitality,’ I said to her.

She shook my hand and smiled at me. ‘Is this your first time in the Cayman Islands?’

‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘But I hope it won’t be my last.’

‘That’s what everyone says,’ the governor said. ‘It’s very good for the tourist trade.’

‘Is it the island’s main source of income?’ I asked.

‘It’s certainly important, but our financial services industry is much bigger,’ he said. ‘There are over two hundred and fifty separate banks operating in Cayman. We have almost ten thousand different investment funds licensed to trade here. And we are one of the world’s largest insurance centres, with over seven hundred insurance companies registered.’

‘All of them trying to avoid paying tax?’ I said.

‘Financial institutions and companies will always base themselves in the most tax-efficient jurisdiction,’ he said, as if lecturing me. ‘If it wasn’t here, it would be somewhere else where conditions were favourable, such as Bermuda or the Bahamas. All Cayman financial services are fully compliant with both US and European directives and regulations.’

It sounded to me like a line he had used often before.

‘No suitcases full of dodgy cash, then?’

‘Absolutely not,’ he said. ‘It is far more difficult to launder illegal money here than almost anywhere in the world. That, sadly, is a reputation that the Cayman Islands has unfairly acquired from the past. Nowadays, it is simply not true.’

I believed him. Thousands wouldn’t.

The governor and his wife moved on to some of their other guests.

‘Come on,’ Henri said to me. ‘Let’s go and have some dinner.’

As we were walking out of the garden, we met Derrick and Gay Smith, also on their way back to the road.

‘Weren’t those children great?’ Gay said. ‘I love hearing choirs sing.’

We all agreed with her.

‘Jeff,’ Derrick said. ‘Would you and Henri like to come for drinks on Boxing Day?’

Henri and I looked at each other and we both nodded.

‘We’d love to,’ I said. ‘Where and what time?’

‘Come to our place around six,’ Derrick said. ‘Then we could all go out to dinner afterwards at the Calypso Grill.’

What could be more Caribbean? I thought. All else it needed was the King of Calypso himself, Harry Belafonte, singing Day-O from ‘The Banana Boat Song’.

‘Henri, you know where we live, don’t you?’ Derrick said.

‘I think so,’ she replied uncertainly. ‘I’m sure we’ll find it.’