Dick Francis's Front Runner

33

Henri and I ordered a taxi and, with the help of a couple of calls from my mobile, we eventually found our way to Derrick and Gay Smith’s house for drinks at six o’clock on Boxing Day evening.

They lived on the wonderfully named Conch Point Road in a large house set well back from the road, out of sight behind a stone wall, and with no name shown on the unpretentious gateway. Hence we had driven past it twice without realizing.

‘Welcome,’ Gay said, meeting us at the front door. ‘Well done for finding us. We like to keep a low profile. Come on in.’

We were ushered out to a covered veranda with its magnificent view north-eastward towards the sea.

We were not their sole guests.

Peter Darwin, the governor, and his wife, Annabel, were there ahead of us.

‘You should have much in common with Peter,’ Gay said to me. ‘He loves his racing.’

‘Just my luck to be posted to a country without a racecourse,’ Peter said with a laugh. ‘When I was told I was being sent to the West Indies, I secretly hoped it would be Barbados. I’ve always fancied going racing on Garrison Savannah.’

‘Wasn’t that a horse?’ I asked, dragging up a distant memory.

‘Yes, indeed,’ he said. ‘It won the Cheltenham Gold Cup back in the nineties. But it was named after the racecourse on Barbados.’

‘I’m so sorry Cayman is such a disappointment to you,’ Derrick said, handing around glasses of champagne.

‘I’ve got over it,’ Peter said with another laugh. ‘I keep in touch with things on the internet, as much as I can, and we go racing whenever we’re back home on leave. Don’t we, darling?’

‘As much as possible,’ Annabel agreed. ‘We always try and get to the Cheltenham Festival in March. Peter effectively grew up on Cheltenham racecourse.’

‘There are worse places,’ he said, laughing.

‘And we adore going racing at Stratford,’ Annabel said, looking lovingly at her husband. ‘That’s where Peter and I met.’

‘How romantic,’ Henri said. ‘Jeff and I met at Sandown races.’

‘In my box,’ Derrick said, all smiles.

Annabel beamed at us, her big blue eyes positively sparkling with delight.

‘Peter’s father was a jump jockey, and I once worked for the British Jockey Club.’

‘Jeff, don’t you work for the Jockey Club?’ Gay asked.

‘Not quite,’ I said. ‘But I do work for the racing authorities.’

Derrick again recounted the story of how I had saved his horse from being stolen at Ascot. I’d given up trying to tell him it was meant to be confidential. But if you couldn’t tell someone in the diplomatic service a secret, whom could you tell? Diplomats were meant to be good at keeping secrets. But they were also meant to be fairly proficient at lying for their country as well.

‘When was your father a jockey?’ I asked Peter.

‘Back in the sixties,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t famous or anything. He only ever rode four winners. He’d just started out on his career when he was killed in a road accident.’

‘How awful,’ I said.

‘I was only an infant at the time. I don’t remember him at all.’

‘I’ll look him up in the records. What was his first name?’

‘Paul,’ Peter said, pleased that I had taken some interest. ‘He was actually Paul Perry. I only became a Darwin when I was twelve and my mother remarried.’

‘Any relation to...?’ I asked.

‘None,’ he replied quickly, with one of those wan smiles that told me that he’d been asked that too many times before, and he was bored with it.

We watched as the last of the daylight faded away and then marvelled as the full moon seemed to emerge straight out of the water, its orange disc appearing unnaturally large and almost frighteningly close.

‘Magnificent,’ Peter said. ‘Quite enough to drive a man mad.’

‘Lunatic,’ I said.

‘Exactly so.’

The six of us went for dinner at the Calypso Grill at Morgan’s Harbour.

It was everything I had expected, except that there was no sign of Harry Belafonte, and the music being played through the sound system was more ‘steel-drum’ than true calypso. But the bright blues, reds and burnt orange colours, together with the laid-back, ‘No problem, man’ atmosphere were authentic Caribbean.

We were shown to a table out on the open terrace, right alongside the lapping water, and I found myself sitting next to Annabel Darwin and across from Gay Smith.

‘How lovely,’ I said. ‘I don’t think I have ever sat out under the stars for dinner on Boxing Day.’

‘I hate the winters in England,’ Gay said. ‘Give me the warmth, any day.’

‘Doesn’t it get too hot here in the summer?’ I asked.

‘Not too hot,’ Gay said. ‘But it does get very humid, and it rains a lot. We tend to go away from May to September.’

‘To England?’

‘Mostly, yes, to see the grandchildren. But up to now we’ve not been able to spend the whole summer in England. There’s a limit on the number of days we’re allowed, so we also go to Ireland, and anywhere else that takes our fancy.’

‘What’s the limit for?’ I asked.

‘Oh, it’s something to do with residency and tax, but I leave all that to Derrick. The British government has just changed the rules and I think it’s now better for us. We used to be able to stay in England for only ninety days per year but in future we can stay a hundred and twenty. Something like that.’

I chose the chicken liver pâté, which was spectacular, and then the Jamaican curried shrimp, which was hot as hell but delicious.

‘I love their crab cakes,’ Gay said. ‘They make them fresh from local crab caught right here in Morgan’s Harbour.’

‘Is it named after the pirate, Captain Henry Morgan?’ I asked. ‘As in the rum?’

‘Probably,’ she said. ‘But I suspect it’s more for the American tourists than because he ever came here.’

We laughed.

I liked Gay Smith.

Henri and I were offered a lift back to the Coral Stone Club from the restaurant with the governor and his wife in their official limousine.

‘Are you sure it’s allowed?’ I asked.

‘Positive,’ Peter said. ‘But one of you will have to sit in the front. Neither Annabel nor I are allowed to. Protocol. Strange, I know, but there you are.’

I sat up front with the driver, a Cayman Islands policeman in uniform, while Henri was between the Darwins in the back.

‘Do you fancy a nightcap, Jeff?’ Peter asked during the journey. ‘I seem not to have spoken to you much all evening.’

I turned my head, receiving a nod of agreement from Henri.

‘That would be lovely,’ I said.

‘Take us to Government House, please, Christopher,’ Peter said to the driver.

The driver did as he was asked and he soon stopped the car under the canopy in front of the governor’s residence. He was the first out of the car, opening the rear door for Peter and saluting smartly at attention as the governor stood up.

‘Christopher, here, will wait and take you home,’ Peter said.

‘I’m sure we could get a taxi,’ Henri said.

‘We could even walk,’ I said. ‘It’s less than half a mile.’

‘I will wait for you, sir,’ the driver said firmly, putting a stop to our shilly-shallying.

‘Thank you,’ I said to him. ‘We won’t be long.’

‘Take your time, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll be here.’

Peter and Annabel went into the house, and Henri and I followed.

‘Seems like a nice chap,’ I said to Peter, indicating at his driver over my shoulder.

‘All the police here are,’ he said. ‘They mostly have a good relationship with the community.’

‘I’m told there’s not much crime in the islands.’

He sighed. ‘There’s a lot more than I’d like,’ he said. ‘Opportunist burglary is the real menace, but we’ve also had a minor drugs war going on recently between some rival gangs. We like to think we’re clear of that sort of thing, but we’re not.’

How about attempted murder, I thought.

Henri and Annabel had a brandy each, while Peter and I chatted amicably about racing over a couple of glasses of port.

‘I see that Duncan Johnson trained another King George winner,’ Peter said. ‘He seems to have a knack of winning the big races.’

‘Yes, he does have a remarkable record.’ I’d watched the race on my laptop. Bill McKenzie had finished a creditable fourth. ‘Dave Swinton would have probably ridden the winner if he’d still been with us. He rode the horse last time out when it won at Haydock in November.’

‘His death is a huge loss to the sport,’ Peter said. ‘Personally, I am extremely saddened by it. He was so exciting to watch, even when he rode a raw novice over hurdles. He seemed to have a sensitivity for the horses unlike any other jockey. He could easily have gone on to be the champion for many more years, to become one of the super-greats.’

‘I agree,’ I said.

But did I really?

For me, Dave’s superhero reputation had been tarnished somewhat by his greed in demanding extra payments from the owners and trainers, and then his non-disclosure of such payments to the taxman, while maintaining the pathetic excuse that the payments were merely ‘gifts’.

Not that he deserved to be murdered for it.

I wondered if his almost god-like standing with the racing public might take a hit when all the sordid details came out at his inquest, or at the trial of Leslie Morris and son, as they surely would. But I wasn’t about to burst Peter Darwin’s bubble of admiration just yet.

Henri and I finished our drinks and departed, arriving back at our apartment in the back of the governor’s official car, albeit without the Union Jack pennant flying from its pole on the bonnet, as had been the case earlier.

‘Would Your Excellency like to come to bed with me for some rumpy pumpy?’ Henri said in an ultra-posh voice as we went in.

‘I may not be that excellency tonight,’ I said with a nervous laugh. ‘Not after all that booze.’

‘Let me be the judge of that,’ she giggled.

A little while later, she didn’t complain.

I woke again in the middle of the night — the bedside clock showing me it was three thirty.

It was unlike me to suffer so much from jet lag and I wondered if the hyperbaric treatment was somehow to blame.

Or maybe it was just that my inquisitive mind was running on overdrive.

Something that Gay Smith had said over dinner had struck a chord.

I gently eased myself out of bed and went into one of the other bedrooms and closed the door.

I used my mobile to call Faye and Quentin.

‘I thought you’d call us on Christmas Day,’ Faye said with a degree of reprimand in her voice.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I was out all day and carelessly didn’t have my phone with me.’ I had decided not to tell her of my diving adventures for fear of unduly worrying her. ‘Did you have a good day?’

‘Quiet,’ she said. ‘In fact, it was just the two of us. Kenneth made a late decision to go to France with a new friend.’

I don’t think she was actually trying to make me feel guilty, even though she had.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Are you having a nice time?’ she asked.

‘Lovely, thank you,’ I said. I told her all about the private jet and the fabulous apartment.

‘Don’t get ideas you can’t afford,’ she said, ever concerned about my welfare.

‘Yes, Mother.’ We laughed. ‘How are you feeling?’ I asked.

Such a simple question with so many unspoken overtones attached.

‘Fine,’ she said. ‘A little tired, as always.’ She laughed again. ‘I’ve been using that as my excuse to get Quentin to do all the washing-up.’

We chatted a bit more about what we had both been doing.

‘How’s it all going with Henrietta?’ she asked.

‘Great,’ I said. ‘Very happy.’

‘Quentin was very taken with her.’

I knew. I’d noticed.

‘Is he there? I’d like to have a word with him.’

I waited while she found him.

‘What the hell time is it with you?’ Quentin said as he came on the line.

‘Half past three,’ I said. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’

‘Got a guilty conscience?’

‘Slightly,’ I said. ‘But that’s not why I rang. Do you remember you told me about the man who sold his printing business and didn’t pay the capital gains tax?’

‘Of course. What about it?’

‘How did he claim to be tax resident in the Channel Islands, and why did you think he wasn’t?’

‘He bought a house in Guernsey, and established his residence there, but he then spent too many days in London. He was a fool to think that no one would bother to count.’

‘What’s the limit on days?’ I asked.

‘They’ve introduced a new system, and I’m not sure of the latest rules, but it used to be if someone spent more than one hundred and eighty-three days in the UK during any one year, or more than an average of ninety days per year over the current and previous three years, then they were considered as a tax resident. Those were the rules that applied in the case.’

Unlike for American citizens, who are obliged to file an annual IRS tax return wherever they live in the world, the British are required to do so only for years when they are actually tax resident in the United Kingdom.

‘How can you find out how many days someone spends in the UK?’

‘It’s not as straightforward as you’d think. Passports are now scanned on the way into and out of the country, but that didn’t used to be the case. Until very recently, there were no records taken when anyone left. Airline passenger lists could tell you, provided they went by air. But there were no passenger lists on the ferries, or on the trains through the Channel Tunnel. Then, of course, there’s Ireland. There are no passport checks whatsoever for UK citizens going either way across the Irish Sea, or when crossing the land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic. That’s where my Guernsey man went — he used cash to buy a ferry ticket from Liverpool to Belfast as a foot passenger, took a bus to Dublin, and then returned to London by air, later claiming he’d been in Ireland for two whole weeks. The revenue reckoned he’d gone there and back in a single day. He couldn’t produce any hotel receipts, or even say where he’d stayed.’

Sometimes Quentin’s long answers could be quite useful.

‘How do I find out the new rules?’

‘It’s sure to be on the web somewhere,’ Quentin said.

‘If I was so inclined, to whom would I report it, if I discover that someone has been defrauding the taxman?’

‘Directly to the revenue.’

‘Not the police?’

‘No. The police wouldn’t really know what to do with it other than pass it on to the tax authorities. It is they who prosecute tax cheats, not the CPS. They even have a tax-evasion hotline especially for tip-offs from the public.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s very helpful.’

‘Glad to be of service.’

We hung up.

Quentin knew better than to ask me why I wanted the information, or even who I was interested in. I would tell him if I needed to.

I went through to the kitchen and opened my laptop.

I Googled the rules on determining UK tax residency and discovered that the new system was far more complicated than the one Quentin had described. It took into account many factors other than just the days a person was present in the UK. Available accommodation, family ties and days spent actually working in the country were also now important.

Henri had told me that Martin had been working in the UK to restructure the British end of their organization. He also had a house and a minor child in the country. All of those things would have worked against him, reducing the number of days he was allowed to remain.

From carefully reading the rules on the UK Government website, it seemed to me that Martin would have been allowed to be in the country for a maximum of only ninety days without becoming a tax resident, maybe even less. Yet Henri had said he’d spent much of the summer there, and he’d also been in England for at least a week during the previous month.

I’d seen him.

So had he overstayed his permitted time?

You’re a total fucking idiot! You absolutely shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t even be in the country. It’s far too risky.

And what had Martin then replied to Bentley?

No one will ever know.

But I knew.