Dick Francis's Gamble

2

I spent much of Sunday reading and rereading the message on the paper, trying to work out whether it actually was a prediction of murder or just an innocent communication with no relevance to the events at the Grand National the previous afternoon.

YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT YOU WERE

TOLD. YOU MAY SAY YOU REGRET IT, BUT

YOU WONT BE REGRETTING IT FOR LONG.

I dug out the business card that I had been given at Aintree by the detective: Inspector Paul Matthews, Merseyside Police. I tried the number printed there, but he wasn’t available. I left a message asking him to call me back.

I wondered what it was that Herb should have done, what he had been told to do. And for what, and to whom, had he expressed regret?

I gave up trying to work it out and read about the murder in the Sunday Times. I thought again about calling our boss, but he would read about it in the papers and would find out soon enough that the victim had been his senior assistant. Why spoil his Sunday?

I knew all too well from my time as a jockey that one should never believe what one reads in newspapers, but, on this occasion, I was surprised how accurate the reports were as far as the factual information was concerned. The Sunday Times correspondent clearly had a good link direct to Merseyside Police headquarters, but not so good that he could actually name the victim. And he had little or no information about any motive, but that didn’t stop him speculating.

“Such a clinical assassination has all the hallmarks of a gangland organized crime ‘hit.’” He went on to suggest that a reason the name of the victim was being withheld was possibly because he was a well-known criminal, and the police didn’t want potential witnesses not to bother coming forward.

“That’s rubbish,” I said out loud.

“What’s rubbish?” Claudia asked.

I was sitting in our small kitchen with the newspaper spread out across the kitchen table while Claudia was baking a cake for her sister’s birthday, her long black hair tied back in a ponytail.

“This in the paper,” I said. “They’re suggesting that Herb was a criminal and probably deserved to be killed.”

“And was he?” Claudia asked, turning around.

“Of course not,” I said firmly.

“How do you know?” she asked, echoing the detective inspector.

“I just do,” I said. “I worked at the next desk to him for the past five years. Don’t you think I’d have noticed if he was a criminal?”

“Not necessarily,” Claudia said. “Do you think those who worked next to Bernie Madoff realized he was a crook? And how about that doctor, Harold Shipman? He murdered two hundred of his patients over more than twenty years before anyone suspected him.”

She was right. She usually was.

I had met Claudia during my second year at the LSE. We actually met on the London Underground, the Tube, an environment not usually renowned for introducing strangers. That particular evening, nearly six years ago, I had been going into college for an evening event and I was sitting next to Claudia when the train came to a halt in the tunnel. Twenty minutes later the driver came through the train explaining that there was a signal problem at Euston due to an electrical fire. Another twenty minutes after that we moved slowly forward to Kentish Town, where everybody was required to leave the train.

I never did get to the evening event at the LSE.

Claudia and I went to a pub for supper instead. But it was not a romantic liaison, it was strictly business. I was finding life as a student far more expensive than I had budgeted for, and Claudia was in need of digs close to the Byam Shaw School of Art, where she was studying.

By the end of the evening we had a deal. She would move into the guest bedroom in my house as a lodger and pay a contribution towards the mortgage.

By the end of the same month she had moved out of the guest room and into mine as full-time girlfriend, while she still went on renting the guest room as her studio.

The arrangement still existed although, since our student days, the rent she paid had decreased steadily to nothing as my earnings had risen and hers had remained stubbornly static at zero.

“Making your mark as an artist is not about commercial sales,” she would wail whenever I teased her about it. “It’s all to do with creativity.”

And creative she was, there was no doubt about that. Sometimes I just wished that others would appreciate her creations enough to write out a check. As it was, the third bedroom of the house had so many finished canvases stacked against the walls there was no longer space for a bed.

“One day,” she would say, “these will all sell for tens of thousands, and I’ll be rich.” But the main problem was that she didn’t actually want to part with any of them so she didn’t even try to sell them. It was as if she painted them solely for her own benefit. And they were definitely an acquired taste-one I would call dark and foreboding, full of surreal, disturbing images of pain and distress.

With the exception of a small life study in pencil, drawn during her Byam Shaw days, none of her work was hung on our walls, and that was because I found them impossible to live with.

And yet, surprisingly, I was able to live happily with the artist.

For a long while I had worried about her state of mind but it was as if Claudia placed all her dark thoughts into her paintings, and there they stayed, leaving her to exist outside her work in a world of brightness and color.

She herself had no real explanation for why she painted as she did and denied that it was due to the sudden death of her parents when she’d been a child. She said it was just how things turned out when her brushes stroked the canvas.

I had often thought of taking a selection of her weirdest paintings to be seen by an analyst to see if there might be some sort of psychological disturbance present, but I hadn’t liked to do so without her consent and I’d been too apprehensive to ask in case she had objected.

So I had done nothing. I had always tried to avoid personal confrontation, not least because I had grown up with it all around me from my parents, who had fought each other tooth and nail for more than thirty years until they had finally divorced in their late fifties.

“But it says here,” I said to Claudia, pointing at the newspaper, “that the murder had all the characteristics of a gangland killing. Now, surely I would have known if Herb had been involved in that sort of thing.”

“I bet my friends have all sorts of skeletons in their cupboards we’ll never hear about.”

“You’re such a cynic,” I said, but she did have some strange friends.

“A realist,” she replied. “It saves being disappointed.”

“Disappointed?”

“Yes,” she said. “If I believe the worst of people, then I’m not disappointed when it turns out to be accurate.”

“And do you believe the worst of me?”

“Don’t be silly,” she said, coming over and stroking my hair with flour-covered hands. “I know the worst of you.”

“And are you disappointed?”

“Always!” She laughed.

But I began to wonder if it was true.

I arrived at the offices of Lyall & Black on the fourth floor of 64 Lombard Street at eight-fifteen a.m. on Monday morning to find the door blocked by a burly-looking police constable in full uniform complete with anti-stab vest and helmet.

“Sorry, sir,” he said in an official tone as I tried to push past him, “no one is allowed into these offices without permission from my superior officer.”

“But I work here,” I said.

“Your name, sir?” he asked.

“Nicholas Foxton.”

He consulted a list that he had removed from his trouser pocket.

“Mr. N. Foxton,” he read. “Very well, sir, you may go in.” He moved slightly to one side while I passed, but then he stepped quickly back into his former spot as if expecting to prevent a rush from those not on his list.

The offices of Lyall & Black had never seen such activity so early on a Monday morning.

Both the senior partners, Patrick Lyall and Gregory Black, were in the client waiting area leaning on the chest-high reception desk.

“Oh hi, Nicholas,” said Patrick as I entered. “The police are here.”

“So I see,” I said. “Is it to do with Herb?”

They nodded.

“We’ve both been here since seven,” Patrick said. “But they won’t let us along into our offices. We’ve been told not to go beyond here.”

“Have they said what they are looking for, exactly?” I asked.

“No,” Gregory said sharply with irritation. “I presume they are hoping to find some clue as to who killed him. But I’m not happy about it. There may be sensitive client material on his desk that I wouldn’t want them to see. It’s highly confidential.”

I thought it was unlikely that the police would accept that anything was in the least bit confidential if it could have a bearing on unmasking a murderer.

“When did you find out he was dead?” I asked them. I knew that Herb’s name had finally been included in the late news on Sunday evening.

“Yesterday afternoon,” said Patrick. “I received a call from the police asking us to meet them here this morning. How about you?”

“I did try and call you on Saturday, but there was no reply,” I said. “I was actually with Herb when he was shot.”

“My God,” said Patrick, “that’s right. You were going to the races together.”

“And I was standing right next to him when he was killed,” I said.

“How awful,” Patrick said. “Did you see who killed him?”

“Well, sort of,” I said. “But I was looking mostly at his gun.”

“I just don’t understand it.” Patrick shook his head. “Why would anyone want to kill Herb Kovak?”

“Dreadful business,” said Gregory, also shaking his head. “Not good for the firm. Not good at all.”

It wasn’t too hot for Herb either, I thought, but decided not to say so. Lyall & Black, although very small, had risen to be one of the significant players in the financial services industry solely due to the single-mindedness of both Patrick Lyall and Gregory Black. Where Lyall & Black led, others usually followed. They took an innovative approach to their clients’ investments, often recommending opportunities that more traditional advisers might classify as too risky.

All independent financial advisers are required to determine and grade their clients’ attitudes to risk. Low-risk investments, such as fixed-interest bank accounts or triple-A-rated government bonds, tended to give only a small rate of return but the capital sum was safe. Medium-risk might include stocks in major companies or unit trusts and mutual funds, where the return should be greater but there was a chance of losing some of the capital due to a drop in the stock market price. High-risk investments, including venture capital trusts and foreign currency dealings, gave the opportunity to make big returns but could also result in large losses.

Lyall & Black, however, also advised on investments for which the risk level could only be described as extreme, such as the financing of films or plays, buying shares in wine funds, in foreign property portfolios or in works of art. Returns could be vast, but so were the chances of losing everything.

It was the attitude that had first attracted me to them.

Kicking a horse hard in the belly to ask it to lengthen its stride, to make it right for a jump, was also an extreme-risk strategy that could so easily result in a crashing fall. An alternative, safer approach might be to take a pull, to ask the animal to shorten and to put in an extra stride. It may have been safer, but it was slower, much slower. A great deal better in my mind to crash to the turf trying to win than to be satisfied with second place.

“How much longer are they going to keep us waiting here?” Gregory Black demanded. “Don’t they realize we have work to do?”

No one answered.

One by one, all the other staff had turned up, and the client waiting area was now full to overflowing. For most of them, they had only heard of Herb’s demise as they had arrived, and the last thing they wanted to do was to start work. The two ladies who doubled as receptionists and admin assistants were both in tears. Herb had been popular and much loved, and not least because he’d been a change from the usual rather straitlaced, pin-stripedsuited City financier.

Herb had loved being the American abroad, turning up on the Fourth of July with gifts of candy sticks and apple pie, hosting an office Thanksgiving lunch of turkey and all the trimmings in November, and drawling “Yee-haw!” at the top of his voice like a cowboy when he’d managed to lasso a new client. Herb had been fun, and life in the office was going to be a lot less cheerful for his passing.

Finally, around nine-thirty, a middle-aged man in an ill-fitting gray suit came into the reception and addressed the waiting faces.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began formally. “I am Detective Chief Inspector Tomlinson of the Merseyside Police. Sorry for the inconvenience, but, as you will be aware, my colleagues and I are investigating the murder of Herbert Kovak at Aintree races on Saturday afternoon. I expect we will be here for some time and I ask for your patience. However, I must ask you to remain here as I will want to speak to each of you individually.”

Gregory Black didn’t look pleased. “Can’t we work in our offices while we wait?”

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” replied the policeman.

“And why not?” demanded Gregory.

“Because I do not want any of you,” he looked around the room, “having any access to your computers.”

“But that’s outrageous.” Gregory was building up a head of steam. “Are you accusing one of us of having something to do with Mr. Kovak’s death?”

“I’m not accusing anyone,” Chief Inspector Tomlinson replied in a more conciliatory tone. “I just need to cover every avenue. If evidence does exist on Mr. Kovak’s computer, then I am sure you will all understand that it has to be free from any possible contamination due to any of you accessing the files through the company server.”

Gregory was hardly placated. “But all our files are remotely saved and can be viewed directly as they were at any time. This is completely ridiculous.”

“Mr. Black.” The policeman turned to face him directly. “You are wasting my time, and the sooner I get back to work, the sooner you will be able to get into your office.”

I looked at Gregory Black. I suspected that no one had spoken to him like that since he was at school, if then. There was absolute silence in the room as we all waited for the explosion, but it didn’t come. He just muttered something under his breath and turned away.

But in one respect Gregory was absolutely right: the restriction on using our computers was ridiculous. Our system allowed for remote access so that certain members of the firm could access the company files from their laptops when away from the office. If any of us had wanted to “contaminate” the files since Herb’s death, we’d had most of the weekend to have done so.

“Can we go out for a coffee?” asked Jessica Winter, the firm’s Compliance Officer. The photocopy room, which also doubled as the small kitchen where we made all our hot drinks, was beyond the offices and hence currently out-of-bounds.

“Yes,” said the chief inspector, “but not all of you at once. I will be starting the interviews soon. And if you do go, please be back by ten o’clock.”

Jessica stood up quickly and made for the door. Half a dozen more made a move in the same direction, including me. Clearly none of us exactly relished the prospect of being confined in close proximity to Gregory Black for the next half hour.

I had to wait until after eleven before I was interviewed and, much to Gregory Black’s annoyance, I was second on the policeman’s list after Patrick Lyall.

I don’t know whether the policeman did it on purpose to further antagonize Gregory, but the interviews were carried out in his office and at his desk, with Chief Inspector Tomlinson sitting in the high-backed leather executive chair in which Gregory usually rested his ample frame. That wouldn’t go down well, I thought, especially during a certain Gregory Black’s interview.

“Now then, Mr. Foxton,” said the chief inspector while studying his papers, “I understand you were at Aintree races on Saturday afternoon and were interviewed there by one of my colleagues.”

“Yes,” I replied. “By Detective Inspector Matthews.”

He nodded. “Have you anything further you wish to add to what you said in that interview?”

“Yes, I have,” I said. “I tried to call Inspector Matthews yesterday. In fact, I left a message for him to call me back, but he didn’t. It was about this.”

I removed from my pocket the folded piece of paper I had found in Herb’s coat and spread it out on the desk, rotating it so the chief inspector could read the words. I knew them now by heart: YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT YOU WERE TOLD. YOU MAY SAY YOU REGRET IT, BUT YOU WONT BE REGRETTING IT FOR LONG.

After quite a few moments, he looked up at me. “Where did you find this?”

“In Mr. Kovak’s coat pocket. He’d left his coat in my car when we arrived at the races. I found it only yesterday.”

The chief inspector studied the paper once more but without touching it.

“Do you recognize the handwriting?” he asked.

“No,” I replied. But I wouldn’t, the note had been written carefully in capital letters, each one very precise and separate.

“And you have handled this paper?” I assumed it was a rhetorical question as he had clearly seen me remove the paper from my pocket and spread it out. I remained silent.

“Did you not think this might be evidence?” he asked. “Handling it may jeopardize the chances of recovering any forensics.”

“It was screwed up in his coat pocket,” I said in my defense. “I didn’t know what it was until I’d opened it up and by then it was too late.”

He studied it once more.

“And what do you think it means?”

“I’ve no idea,” I said. “But I think it might be a warning.”

“A warning? Why a warning?”

“I’ve spent much of the night thinking about it,” I said. “It’s clearly not a threat or it would say ‘Do as you are told or else’ and not ‘You should have done what you were told.’”

“OK,” the policeman said slowly, “but that doesn’t make it a warning.”

“I know,” I said. “But think about it. If you wanted to kill someone, you’d hardly ring them up and tell them, now would you? It would do nothing except put them on their guard and make it more difficult for you. They might even ask for police protection. There is absolutely nothing to be gained and everything to lose. Surely you would just do it, unannounced.”

“You really have thought about it,” he said.

“Yes,” I said, “a lot. And I was there when Herb was killed. There was no ‘You should have done so and so’ from the killer before he fired. Quite the reverse. He shot so quickly, and without preamble, that I reckon Herb was dead before he even knew what was happening. And that is not in keeping with this note.” I paused. “So I think this might have been a warning from someone else, not from the killer. In fact, I believe that it’s almost more than a warning, it’s an apology.”

The chief inspector looked up at me for a few seconds. “Mr. Foxton,” he said finally. “This isn’t a television drama, you know. In real life people don’t apologize for murdering someone before the event.”

“So you’re saying I’m wrong?”

“No,” he said slowly, “I’m not saying that. But I’m not saying you’re right either. I’ll keep an open mind on the matter.”

It sounded to me very much like he thought I was wrong. He stood up and went to the door, and presently another officer came in and removed the piece of paper, placing it carefully into a plastic bag with some tweezers.

“Now,” said the chief inspector as the door closed. “Do you know of anything in Mr. Kovak’s work that might help me understand why he was killed?”

“Absolutely not,” I said.

“Mr. Lyall told me that you and Mr. Kovak worked closely together.” I nodded. “So what did he do, exactly?”

“The same as me,” I said. “He worked mostly for Patrick Lyall as one of his assistants, but he also had some clients of his own.”

“Sorry,” said the chief inspector, interrupting. “I’m a little confused. Mr. Lyall didn’t mention that Mr. Kovak was his personal assistant.”

“But he wasn’t like a secretary or anything,” I said. “He assisted in the monitoring of the investments of Mr. Lyall’s clients.”

“Hmm,” he said, pausing, and not appearing to be any the wiser. “Could you describe to me exactly what you do here, and also what this firm does?”

“OK,” I said. “I’ll try.”

I took a breath and thought about how best to explain it so that DCI Tomlinson would understand. “Putting it simply, we manage people’s money for them. They are our clients. We advise them where and when they should invest their capital, and then, if they agree, we invest their money for them and then we monitor the performance of the investments, switching them into something else if we believe there is a better return elsewhere.”

“I see,” he said, writing some notes. “And how many clients does the firm have?”

“It’s not quite that simple,” I said. “Even though we are a firm, the advisers are all individuals, and it’s they who have the clients. There are six qualified and registered IFAs here, at least there were before Herb got killed. I suppose there are now five.”

“IFAs?”

“Independent financial advisers.”

He wrote it down.

“Are you one of those?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“And you have clients of your own?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have about fifty clients but I spend about half my time looking after Patrick’s clients.”

“And how many clients does Mr. Lyall have?”

“About six hundred,” I said. “Apart from Herb Kovak and myself, there are two other assistants that help look after them.”

“Are they also IFAs?”

“One is,” I said, “although she’s just recently qualified and has no clients of her own yet. And the other isn’t.” I gave him their names, and he found them on the list of all the firm’s staff.

“How can you be independent if you work for a firm?”

It was a good question and one that I was asked often.

“Independent in this case means we are independent of any investment providers and we are therefore free to advise our clients about all investment opportunities. If you go to see your bank about investing some money, an adviser there will only sell you something from that bank’s investment portfolio even if there are better products elsewhere. They may be excellent financial advisers, but they are not independent.”

“So how do you make your money?” he asked. “I’m sure you don’t do this for free.”

“No,” I agreed. “We make our money in one of two ways, depending on the client. Most of them nowadays opt to pay us a fixed fee, which is a small percentage of the total we invest for them, and others choose that we collect the commissions from investment providers on the products we advise them to buy.”

“I see,” he said, but I wondered if he did. “How much money do you look after in total?”

“Lots,” I said flippantly, but he didn’t laugh. “Some clients have just a few thousand to invest, others have millions. I suppose the firm as a whole looks after hundreds of millions. Most of our clients are high earners or they have considerable family wealth, or both.”

“And these clients trust you with large sums of their money?” He sounded surprised.

“Yes,” I said. “And they trust us because we have masses of safeguards and checks to ensure that none of it goes missing.”

“And do these safeguards and checks work?”

“Absolutely,” I said, trying to sound affronted that he should even question it.

“Could Mr. Kovak have been stealing from his clients?”

“Impossible,” I replied instantly, but I couldn’t help thinking about what Claudia had said the previous afternoon about not knowing if someone was a crook. “Everything we do is subject to spot-check inspections by the financial services regulatory authorities, and we have someone called a Compliance Officer in the firm whose job is to scrutinize the transactions to ensure they are done according to the rules. If Herb had been stealing from his clients the Compliance Officer would have seen it, not to mention the Regulator.”

He looked down at the staff list. “Which is the Compliance Officer?”

“Jessica Winter,” I said. He found her on the list. “She was the woman who asked you earlier if we could go out for a coffee.”

He nodded. “How well did Mr. Kovak know Miss Winter?”

I laughed. “If you’re suggesting that Herb Kovak and Jessica Winter conspired together to steal from his clients, you can forget it. Herb thought that our dear Compliance Officer was an arrogant little prig, and she thought he was a bit of a maverick. Jessica was the only person in the firm who didn’t like Herb.”

“Maybe that was just a front,” said the detective, writing a note.

“My, you do have a suspicious mind,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, looking up. “And it’s surprising how often I’m right.”

Could he really be right? Could Herb and Jessica have been fooling the rest of us all this time? And could anyone else at the firm also be involved? I told myself not to be so silly. At this rate I would soon be distrustful of my own mother.

“And do you also think Mr. Kovak was a bit of a maverick?”

“No,” I said, “not really. He was just a flamboyant American in a business where people have a bit of a reputation for being boring.”

“And are you boring?” he said, looking up at me.

“Probably,” I said. I was certainly more boring now than I had been as a jockey. But maybe it was better being boring and alive than flamboyant and dead.

I returned to the reception area after my interview to join the other fifteen members of the firm squashed into the client waiting area that had been designed for just a small coffee table and two armchairs.

“What did they ask you?” Jessica said.

“Not much,” I said, looking at her and trying not to let her see in my face the questions about her that the chief inspector had triggered in my mind. “They just want to know what Herb did here and why I thought anyone would want to kill him.”

“Surely he wasn’t killed because of his work.” Jessica looked shocked. “I thought it must be to do with his private life.”

“I don’t think they have the slightest idea why he was killed,” said Patrick Lyall. “That’s why they’re asking about everything.”

There was a slight commotion outside in the lobby as someone not on the company staff list tried to gain access. He was being barred by our rather overbearing uniformed guard. I could see through the glass door that the would-be visitor was Andrew Mellor, the company solicitor. Lyall & Black was too small to have a full-time company lawyer of its own so we used Andrew, who worked in a legal practice around the corner in King William Street.

Patrick saw him as well and went over to the door.

“It’s all right, officer, Mr. Mellor is our lawyer.”

“But he’s not on my list,” said the uniformed policeman adamantly.

“It was I who provided that list and I forgot to add Mr. Mellor.”

Reluctantly the policeman stood aside and allowed the visitor to enter.

“Sorry, Andrew,” said Patrick. “It’s all a bit of a nightmare here at present.”

“Yes, so I can see.” Andrew Mellor looked around at the sea of faces. “I’m so sorry to hear about Herb Kovak. Unbelievable business.”

“And bloody inconvenient too,” interjected Gregory, who had been mostly quiet since his altercation with the chief inspector earlier. “But I’m glad you’re here.” I wondered if Gregory had asked Andrew to come around to be present during his interview. “We’ll have to talk outside.” Gregory began to ease himself up from one of the armchairs.

“Actually, Gregory,” said the lawyer, putting up a hand to stop him, “it’s not you I have come to see. I need to talk to Nicholas.” Fifteen pairs of eyes swiveled around in my direction. “Do you mind?” he said to me, holding out his arm towards the door.

I could almost feel the stares on my back as I went outside into the lobby with Andrew. We went past the lifts and around a corner so that the prying eyes in Lyall & Black could no longer see us through the glass door and the policeman on guard couldn’t hear our conversation.

“Sorry about this,” he said, “but I have something to give you.”

He pulled a white envelope out of his jacket inside pocket and held it out to me. I took it.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Herb Kovak’s Last Will and Testament.”

I looked up from the envelope to Andrew’s face.

“But why are you giving it to me?” I asked.

“Because Herb named you in it as his executor.”

“Me?” I said, somewhat taken aback.

“Yes,” Andrew said. “And you are also the sole beneficiary of his estate.”

I was astonished. “Has he no family?”

“Obviously none that he wanted to leave anything to.”

“But why would he leave it to me?” I asked.

“I’ve no idea,” Andrew said. “Perhaps he liked you.”

Little did I realize at the time how Herb Kovak’s legacy would turn out to be a poisoned chalice.