Dick Francis's Gamble

12

In the end, it was I who rang Chief Inspector Tomlinson, but not before the Armed Response Team had completed a full debriefing of the events in Finchley.

“So you say you saw a man standing outside your front door?” asked the response team superintendent as we stood in Mr. Patel’s shop.

“Yes,” I said. “He was ringing the doorbell.”

“And he had a gun?”

“Yes,” I said again, “with a silencer.”

There was something about his demeanor that said that he too didn’t really believe me. Mr. Patel hadn’t seen any gun nor, it seemed, had anyone else.

“He shot at me,” I said. “As I ran up Lichfield Grove. He shot at least twice. I heard the bullets whizz past my head.”

A team was dispatched to search and in due course one of them returned with two brass empty cases in a plastic bag.

Suddenly, everything became more serious. They believed me now.

“You will have to come to the police station,” said the superintendent. “To give a statement.”

“Can’t I do it here?” I asked.

“I need to reopen my shop,” said Mr. Patel anxiously.

“At my house, then?” I asked. “I need to get back to University College Hospital. My girlfriend had an operation this morning and she’s expecting me.”

Reluctantly the superintendent agreed to do it at my house, and we walked down Lichfield Grove together. The road had been closed to traffic, and about a dozen police officers in dark blue coveralls were moving up the road in line abreast, crawling on all fours.

“Looking for the bullets,” the superintendent informed me before I asked. “Don’t touch the door,” he said as we arrived at my house, “or the doorbell.”

I carefully opened the door with my key, and we went into the kitchen.

“Now, Mr. Foxton,” the superintendent said formally, “tell me why a gunman would come calling at your front door.”

It was the question I’d been asking myself for the past hour.

“I’m sure he was here to kill me,” I said.

“That’s very dramatic. Why?”

Why, indeed, when he could have done it so easily at Aintree at the same time as he killed Herb. What, I wondered, had changed in the intervening ten days that meant that I needed to be killed now but hadn’t needed to be then?

I told the superintendent all about the murder at the Grand National, and it was then that I again suggested calling DCI Tomlinson.

“My goodness, Mr. Foxton,” the chief inspector said with a laugh. “You seem to be making a habit of being interviewed by the police.”

“I can assure you it’s a habit I intend to give up at the earliest opportunity,” I replied.

The two senior policemen then spoke together for some time, and it was frustrating for me listening to only half of the conversation. Mostly they spoke about the videotape that the superintendent had removed from Mr. Patel’s recorder. The superintendent and I had watched it on the small black-and-white screen in the storeroom behind the shop. Just seeing the grainy image of the man as he had come through the shop door made the hairs on the back of my neck stand upright. He had advanced a couple of paces in and stood there, looking around. Then he had walked down the length of the store, putting his head through the plastic curtain into the storeroom behind. He then retraced his steps and went out the door, closing it behind him. Unfortunately the angle of the CCTV camera didn’t show what he did next. And none of the images showed his gun, which he must have been holding in his anorak’s pocket.

I shivered. How close had I come to hiding in the back room? Very close.

“Chief Inspector Tomlinson would like another word,” the superintendent said to me finally, handing over the phone.

“Yes,” I said.

“Can you think of any reason why someone would want you killed?”

“No, I can’t,” I said. “And, if they did, why wait until now? Why not do it at Aintree at the same time as killing Herb? Something must have changed since then.”

“What?” he said. “Have you been trying to find out whose initials are on those sheets?”

“No, I haven’t. But I did go into a MoneyHome agent and ask about the pay slips, but that was last Friday.”

“Leave the investigating to the professionals, Mr. Foxton,” said the chief inspector somewhat formally.

I think I was being told off.

“But if I hadn’t,” I said in my defense, “then you wouldn’t know that it was other Americans who were gambling using Mr. Kovak’s credit cards.”

“We still don’t know that for certain,” he said.

Maybe not, I thought, but I was sure I was right.

“So how are you going to catch this guy?” I asked him. “And before he succeeds in killing me?”

“Superintendent Yering will issue an immediate alert to all stations, including the airports and ports, with the man’s image from the tape. And we will be approaching the TV stations to run the video clip in their news broadcasts.”

It didn’t sound sufficiently proactive to me.

“Haven’t you got some mug shots or something for me to look at?” I asked. “I have to tell you I don’t feel very safe with this guy still out there on the loose.”

“You had better ask Superintendent Yering,” he said.

So I did but he wasn’t very forthcoming.

“We have literally tens of thousands of mug shots,” he said. “It would take you weeks to look through them all, and our man may not even be there. We need something else to point us in the right direction first, then it might be worthwhile. Perhaps we’ll get a fingerprint from your doorbell. Be patient, Mr. Foxton. The video image is good, and it should bear dividends when it’s shown on the news.”

If I lived that long, I thought.

“Can’t you provide me with some police protection?” I asked. “In a safe house or something?”

“MI5 or the CIA might have safe houses, but we don’t,” he said with a smile. “You’ve been watching too much TV.”

“But someone is trying to kill me,” I said in frustration. “Surely it’s your job to prevent that. I need some protection.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “We simply don’t have the manpower.”

They had the manpower, I thought, to have a dozen officers crawl along the road on their hands and knees looking for a bullet but not enough to prevent a future murder. It was crazy.

“So what am I to do?” I asked him. “Just sit here and wait to be killed?”

“Perhaps it wouldn’t be sensible to stay here,” he conceded. “Have you anywhere else to go to?”

My home and my office were now off-limits. Where else?

“I’m going to go back to the hospital to see my girlfriend,” I said.

Some of the Armed Response Team agreed to wait in my house while I belatedly had a shower and changed my clothes. I then threw some things into a suitcase, including my computer, and set off for the hospital in the back of one of their police vans.

“It’s the least we can do,” they said.

At one point I insisted that the police driver go right around the big roundabout at Swiss Cottage to make sure we were not being followed.

We weren’t, of course. What sort of killer would follow a van full of heavily armed police? But what sort of killer would gun a man down with sixty thousand witnesses close to hand? Or try to kill someone on their own front doorstep?

I couldn’t help but think of Jill Dando, the British TV personality, gunned down in exactly that way in a Fulham street.

And her killer has never been identified.

Claudia was still resting when I made it back to her room at the hospital. She was neither aware nor surprised that I had been away for nearly four hours and not the one and a half I’d promised.

I had made it, unmolested and alive, from the police van outside the hospital main door to her room, but not without a nervous glance at every person I met on the way. I nearly had heart failure when, just as the lift doors were closing, a man jumped through the gap who slightly resembled my would-be killer.

If I went on like this I’d be a nervous wreck in no time.

I closed the door to Claudia’s room, but of course there was no lock on the inside.

It made me feel very uneasy.

I thought it unlikely that the gunman would give up just because he’d lost me once. I imagined he was a professional assassin, and, like most professionals, he would take pride in completing his job.

Bugger the police, I thought. I felt so vulnerable. I believed absolutely that I needed some protection or else I’d wind up dead. Maybe I might be killed even if I had a bodyguard, but at least it would make me feel a little safer. However, Mrs. Gandhi, the Indian Prime Minister, had been shot dead by one of her bodyguards, so armed protection wasn’t always the best policy.

What should I do?

I couldn’t hide forever. But what was the alternative? Perhaps I should buy a bulletproof vest.

My main objective had to be to find out who was trying to have me killed and stop them, or at least remove the need, as they saw it, for my life to be terminated.

Easy.

But why, exactly, would anyone want me dead? It seemed a very extreme solution to a problem.

I must know something, or have something, that someone didn’t want me to tell or show to somebody else. Hence I needed to be killed to prevent it.

So what was it that I had, or knew?

The police already had the credit card statements and the MoneyHome payment slips so surely it couldn’t be them. Was there something else I had inherited from Herb that was so incriminating that murder was the only answer?

Claudia groaned a little and woke up.

“Hello, my darling,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

“Bloody awful,” she said. “And really thirsty.”

I poured some water from the jug on her bedside cabinet into a plastic glass and held it out to her.

“Just go easy,” I said. “The nurse said to drink just small sips.”

She drank several large ones and then handed back the glass.

“I feel so sore and bloated,” she said.

“Dr. Tomic said you might. It’ll pass in a day or so.”

She didn’t seem much reassured.

“Can you help me sit up a bit?” she asked. “I’m so uncomfortable in this bloody bed.”

I did as she asked, but it didn’t really improve matters. Nothing would, I realized, for as long as she was in pain.

“Let’s get you some painkillers,” I said, and pushed the nurse call bell.

They gave her an injection of morphine that deadened the pain but also sent Claudia back to sleep. It was probably the best thing for her.

I put on the television to watch the news, but I kept the sound down to a minimum so as not to disturb the patient.

The gunman in a London newsagent’s was the lead story, and, true to their word, the police had convinced the TV company to play the whole video clip of Herb’s killer coming into the shop, looking around, and then leaving again. They even showed a blown-up still of the man’s face as he had glanced directly up at the camera.

Just looking at his image made me nervous once more.

The news reporter then warned the viewers not to approach the man if they saw him but to report his presence to the police. The man is armed and very dangerous, the reporter said, but he didn’t mention anything about Herb Kovak or the killing at Aintree.

Did the news report and the video make it safer for me or not?

I also wondered if it put Mr. Patel at risk. After all, he was the one who’d had the best view of the gunman. I suddenly went quite cold just thinking about how much I had placed Mr. Patel in mortal danger by hiding behind his counter. But what else could I have done? Stayed out in the street and been killed?

I switched over to another channel and watched the whole thing once more, trying my best to recognize the face staring out at me from the screen. I knew I didn’t know him, other than at Aintree and in a Finchley street, but I tried to find some semblance or likeness. There was none.

Thankfully, Claudia slept soundly through both bulletins. She had enough worries on her own plate for the time being without being burdened with something else. After all, there was nothing she could do about it.

While she went on sleeping, I tried to work out where I could spend the night. I wasn’t going back to Finchley, that was for sure, but a second night sitting upright in the chair in Claudia’s hospital room wasn’t a very attractive proposition either.

As I still had the key in my pocket, I thought of going to Herb’s flat in Hendon, but I didn’t want to turn up there late at night and frighten Sherri after her traumatic trip to Liverpool. So instead I used my phone to find a cheap room near the hospital in a hotel located around the corner in Euston Square Gardens. They had plenty of availability, so I didn’t leave my name. I just planned to turn up there when I left the hospital. That somehow seemed safer.

One of the nurses came into Claudia’s room to once more take her vital signs and to settle her in for the night. I took it as my cue to leave.

“Night-night, my darling,” I said. “I’ll be back in the morning.”

“What about your job?” she said sleepily.

“I’ll call the office and tell them I’m not coming in,” I said. “The work will have to wait.”

She smiled and laid her head back on the pillow. She looked very vulnerable with her pale face almost matching the slight grayness of the hospital linen. We had to beat this impostor within her body, this cancer that would eat away at our happiness. If chemotherapy was what was needed, so be it. Short-term discomfort for long-term gain, that was what we had to think, what we had to believe.

I checked in to the hotel using a false name, and I paid for the room in advance with cash that I had drawn from an ATM in Euston Station. As the superintendent had said, I’d probably been watching too much TV. I didn’t really believe for a minute that the gunman had access to my credit card accounts, but I was taking absolutely no chances.

I had left the hospital by the main door only because there were no dark shadowy corners as there were outside the back entrance, but not before I had stood for a while behind a pillar watching the road, checking for anyone lurking in wait for me with a silenced pistol.

And I hadn’t left the building alone but had waited for a group of cleaning staff going off duty.

No one had fired a shot or come running after me. But would I even know if they did? I was certain Herb had been dead at Aintree before he realized what was happening.

I locked my bedroom door and then propped a chair under the door handle for good measure. I then relaxed a little and ate the takeaway cheeseburger, fries and milk shake that I’d bought from a late-night burger bar in the railway station.

It was the first thing I’d eaten all day. My mother would not have been pleased.

I removed my computer from my bag and logged on to the Internet to check my e-mails.

Amongst the usual bunch from various fund managers wanting me to contact them about their latest investment offering was one from Patrick expressing his disquiet over recent happenings both inside and outside the office.

It hadn’t been addressed solely to me but had been sent to all the Lyall & Black staff, but it felt like I was the main target.

“Dear colleagues,” Patrick had written. “At this time of seemingly major upheaval within the firm, it is important for us all to concentrate on why we are here. While we are, of course, greatly saddened by the tragic loss of Herb Kovak, it is our clients who we are here to serve. It is they who pay our salaries and we must not give them cause to look elsewhere for their investment advice. We need to conduct our personal affairs with the highest degree of probity and not give them any reason to doubt our honesty and integrity. I am sure that you will be asked by clients to speculate concerning the reason for Herb’s untimely death, as well as on the nature of it, and on the other unfortunate event that occurred in these offices last Thursday. I ask that you refrain from any comments that may in any way place Lyall & Black in a bad light. If in doubt, please refer the clients to Mr. Gregory or myself.”

I assumed that the “other unfortunate event” referred to was my arrest.

It made me wonder how Billy Searle was faring in the hospital and whether the police had made any progress in finding his attacker. Claudia’s cancer revelation and her operation, coupled with the minor matter of finding an assassin on my doorstep, had kept my mind somewhat occupied elsewhere.

I went on to the Racing Post website.

“Billy Searle,” it said, “was reported to be making steady progress. In fact, doctors at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon are amazed by the swiftness of his recovery from what were thought to be life-threatening injuries.”

They shouldn’t really be surprised, I thought. Jump jockeys were made tough and a breed apart from normal human beings. Broken bones and concussion were accepted as normal hazards of their employment, to be endured and recovered from as quickly as possible. All jockeys were self-employed-no rides meant no pay. It was a powerful incentive for quick healing.

There was nothing in the report about his attacker other than the stated hope that Searle would soon be able to be interviewed by the detectives investigating the incident about the identity of his assailant.

I wondered, meanwhile, if Billy was getting police protection.

The night passed without incident, although I lay awake for much of it half listening for someone climbing the drainpipe outside my bedroom window with gun in hand, and murder in mind.

I also spent the time thinking.

In particular, I spent the time thinking about the note I had found in Herb’s coat pocket. I knew the words of it by heart.

YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT YOU WERE

TOLD. YOU MAY SAY YOU REGRET IT, BUT

YOU WONT BE REGRETTING IT FOR LONG.

I had told DCI Tomlinson that I thought it hadn’t been so much a warning as an apology, even though he’d pooh-poohed the idea.

However, it did mean one thing for certain: Herb had known his killer, or at least he knew someone who knew he was going to die. That was assuming that the “won’t be regretting it for long” did, in fact, refer to him dying soon. It could, I suppose, have been from a girlfriend who was dumping him for not doing as he was told, but somehow I doubted it. Notes from girlfriends are never written in stark capital letters without a salutation of some kind, and a name.

What had Herb been told to do that he hadn’t done?

Was it something to do with the gambling and the credit cards, or was there something else?

I turned on the bedside light and wrote out the words in full on a notepad:

YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT YOU WERE

TOLD. YOU MAY SAY YOU REGRET IT, BUT

YOU WONT BE REGRETTING IT FOR LONG.

I studied it carefully.

Maybe Herb hadn’t “not done” something that he’d been told to do, perhaps he had “done” something that he’d been told not to.

But to whom had he expressed regret for his inaction or action? And why had he regretted it? Because it had been wrong or because it had placed him in danger?

Still so many questions and still so few answers.

“Leave the investigating to the professionals,” the chief inspector had said to me. But how long would they take? And would I still be alive by then?

Maybe it was time for me to start poking a few hornets’ nests, and hope not to get stung.

I went into the hospital just after seven-thirty on Wednesday morning. Claudia was so much improved, sitting up in her uncomfortable bed without as much as a murmur about backache, and she was eating a breakfast of muesli and natural yogurt.

“Well, look at you,” I said, smiling broadly. “You obviously had a better night than me.”

“Why? What was wrong with your night?” she asked.

“Lumpy hotel bed,” I said.

“Why didn’t you go home?”

Ah, I thought, careless. Now what do I say?

“I wanted to be nearer you, my darling.”

“But what a waste of money,” she said with mock disapproval of my profligacy. “If I have to stay in here another night, I insist you go home. I’ll be fine.”

Little did she know that there was no way I was going home and neither was she. It was far too risky.

“You look well enough to run a marathon,” I said. “I’m sure they’ll chuck you out just as soon as Dr. Tomic’s seen you.”

“The nurse says he’s usually here by eight.”

I looked up at the clock on the wall, the one that had driven me mad the previous day when Claudia had been in the operating room.

It was ten minutes before eight.

As if on cue, Dr. Tomic swept into the room. He had the blue scrubs on but this time wore a doctor’s white coat over them.

“Good morning, Claudia,” he said, and he nodded at me. “How are you feeling?”

“Much better than last night,” Claudia replied. “But I’m rather sore.”

“Yes,” he said. “That’s normal. I had to make incisions in the abdominal wall. They were only small but still painful. Do you think you are well enough to get up?”

“I have been,” she said, almost in triumph. “I went to the loo last night and again this morning.”

“Good,” he said. “Then I think you can go home today. I’ll see you in ten days to check on everything and take out the stitches. Until then, take it easy.”

“Great,” I said. “She will. I’ll see to that.”

“And,” he went on, “we’ve had the first results from the tests.”

“Yes?” Claudia said. “You can tell me.”

“The right ovary seems clear, but, as I feared, there were some cancer cells in the peritoneal fluid. Not many, but enough.”

We were all silent for a moment.

“Chemotherapy?” Claudia said.

“I’m afraid so,” said Dr. Tomic. “But maybe just one course. Two at most. I’m sorry, but it’s the best way forward.”

He left us digesting that not-so-tasty morsel, rushing off no doubt to cut out bits from another desperate cancer patient. It was not my idea of a fun job.

“Let’s look on the bright side, my darling,” I said finally. “The right ovary is clear.”

“That’s true,” Claudia replied, trying to be a little enthusiastic.

“So we might still have kids,” I said.

“If the chemo doesn’t make me infertile,” she replied gloomily.

Even the thought of being discharged from the hospital didn’t cheer her up much, especially when I told her we weren’t going home but to my mother’s house in Gloucestershire.

“Nick, you’ve got to be kidding” were her exact words.

“Nope,” I said. “And Mum is so looking forward to it.”

“But I want to go home,” Claudia whined. “I want my own bed.”

“But how would I look after you there when I have to go to work tomorrow?”

“And how, pray,” she asked drily, “are you going to go to work tomorrow from Cheltenham?” She paused briefly. “Come on, Nick, please let’s just go home.”

Now what could I say? I could hardly tell her I was worried we might get murdered on our own doorstep. She probably wouldn’t have believed me anyway.

I was convinced that Lichfield Grove in Finchley was far too dangerous for us and there was no way I was knowingly going to place my new fiancée into jeopardy. I’d been lucky last time, very lucky, and I’d had to run for my life. There was no way that Claudia would be able to run after having had two incisions through her abdominal wall. And who was to say I’d be lucky again?

And to live, I had to be lucky every time.

My best chance surely was to be where the assassin wouldn’t be and to remain where he couldn’t find me. He only had to be lucky once.

So, I decided, returning to Lichfield Grove was completely out of the question.

“My mother is so looking forward to it,” I said again. “And you yourself said it would be nice to go down and see her after the operation.”

“Yes,” she replied, “but I didn’t mean straight from the hospital.”

“Oh come on, darling,” I pleaded. “If your mother were still alive, we would probably go and stay with her.”

It was a low blow, well beneath the belt, and to someone who was in no state to receive one.

We rarely, if ever, spoke of Claudia’s parents. They had left her, aged eight, to spend the day with her grandmother, but they had never come back. Their Ford Escort had been driven off the cliff at Beachy Head straight down to the shingle beach some five hundred feet below.

The inquest had apparently returned a misadventure verdict rather than one of suicide. There had been some doubt as to which of the two had been driving at the time or whether some malfunction of the car had been the cause. But either way, Claudia blamed them both absolutely for leaving her alone in the world.

I thought it was quite likely the true reason behind all her weird paintings, but it was a topic that I raised rarely, and then with great care and tact.

“Nick, that’s hardly fair,” she said crossly.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I do want us to go straight to Mum’s.”

“But what about my things?” she said.

“You’ve got many of them here with you,” I said. “And I collected a few more yesterday from home.”

“And I definitely can’t go to your mother’s without my makeup,” she said defiantly.

“I’ve collected that too,” I said, trying not to sound too triumphant.

We went to my mother’s, but not before I’d received another tongue-lashing over my extravagance in hiring a car for the trip.

“And what’s wrong with our Mercedes?” Claudia had asked angrily.

“I thought you’d rather have a bit more space after your op,” I said, all sweetness and light. “The SLK is so cramped for the passenger.”

And rather conspicuous, I thought.

The man at the Hertz car rental center had tried to get me to hire his “Car of the Week,” a bright yellow Audi convertible with shiny chrome wheels. “It would suit you, sir,” he’d said eagerly. “Your sort of color. Makes a big statement.”

I had opted instead for a bog-standard, four-door blue sedan with not so much as a “Go faster!” stripe down the side. I wanted to blend into the background, not stand out from it.

I’d make my big statement in another way.

I’d told Claudia that my mother was looking forward to having us to stay, and she was, but only after I had talked her out of going to her regular Wednesday-afternoon whist drive in the village.

“Mum,” I’d said on the telephone, having woken her at ten to seven in the morning, “I just need to get us away for a few days.”

“But why, darling?” she’d replied. “What’s so sudden that you can’t come tomorrow?”

“Please, Mum,” I’d said to her in a tone like a seven-year-old trying to get his reluctant parent to buy him an ice cream.

“Oh, all right,” she’d said. “But I’ll have to go shopping for some food. And I really don’t like letting down the other players.”

“They’ll understand,” I’d said. “Just tell them your son is coming and bringing his fiancée home for the first time.”

She hadn’t been able to speak for a few moments. I had waited.

“Oh, darling,” she’d said eventually, her voice full of emotion, “is it really true or are you just saying that?”

“It’s really true,” I’d replied.

Hence, when we drove down the lane to her cottage, my mother was already outside to welcome us, in tears and almost unable to speak due to joy. She hugged Claudia like she’d never done before.

“What did you say to her?” Claudia asked me quietly as we went inside.

“I told her we were engaged,” I said. “We are, aren’t we?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling. “Of course we are. But what else did you tell her? You know, about the cancer?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I’ll leave that for you to decide.”

“I think not,” she said. “Not yet.”

“Fine,” I replied.

We went into the open-plan kitchen/dining room/living room, and Claudia sat down gingerly on a chair.

“What’s the matter, my dear?” my mother asked with concern. “You look like you’re in pain.”

“I am, Dorothy,” Claudia said. “I’ve just had an operation. A hernia. But I’ll be fine soon.”

“My dear,” said my mother, “come at once and put your feet up on the sofa.”

She fussed around her future daughter-in-law like a brooding mother hen and soon had Claudia propped up on the sofa with multiple pillows.

“There,” my mother said, standing back. “How about a nice cup of tea?”

“That would be lovely,” Claudia said, and she winked at me.

I left them to their bonding session while I took our things upstairs to the guest bedroom, negotiating the narrow, twisting staircase with our bags.

I sat on the bed and called the office using my mother’s cordless phone. Gregory should have returned from his long weekend away by now, and, with luck, Patrick would have convinced him over lunch not to hang, draw and quarter me, and even perhaps to let me back into the offices.

Mrs. McDowd answered.

“Lyall and Black,” she said in her usual crisp tone. “How can I direct your call?”

“Hello, Mrs. McDowd,” I said. “Mr. Nicholas here.”

“Ah yes,” she said curtly. “Mr. Patrick said you might ring. But it’s not your number.”

Mrs. McDowd, I decided, was sitting on the fence with regards to me. She was being neither friendly nor hostile towards me. She would clearly wait to see how I fared with the senior partners before committing to an allegiance either way.

“Are Mr. Patrick and Mr. Gregory back from lunch yet?” I asked.

“They didn’t go to lunch,” she said. “They’ve gone to a funeral. They’ll be gone for the rest of the day.”

“That was rather sudden,” I said.

“Death often is,” she replied.

“Whose funeral is it?” I asked.

“A client of Gregory’s,” she said. “Someone called Roberts. Colonel Jolyon Roberts.”