Dick Francis's Damage

by Dick Francis

  “Not much,” Lydia replied. “Work every day and TV every night.”

  She put a plate of penne pasta with a pesto sauce down in front of me.

  I had thought, on the train, of us going out to our local Indian restaurant on Harrow Road, but Lydia was on a seemingly never-ending diet and curries were definitely not one of her allowable foods.

  Somehow we didn’t do things like that very often anymore.

  “There’s a drama on the box in half an hour that I want to see,” Lydia said as she washed up the saucepan. “The first half was on last night and it’s really good.”

  I desperately wanted to say that sitting at home on a Friday evening in front of the television was not really my idea of a fun time. I longed to tell her to get her glad rags on because we were going out clubbing in the West End, where we would drink far too much, dance until the early hours, and then make passionate love on the backseat of a taxi on the way home. All things we had done before.

  “Who’s in it?” I asked.

  “Some new chap called Jack Sherwood. He’s good, and very sexy.”

  I wondered if she still found me sexy.

  “Do you fancy a drink?” I asked. “I’ve got some wine in the cupboard.”

  “Not for me, thanks, not allowed. But you have one.”

  Why not? I thought. Maybe I’d get drunk. Not that it ever made anything better, or easier, in the long run.

  “I’m going to see Faye tomorrow,” I said.

  “So you said on the phone. How is she?”

  “Not looking forward to Monday.”

  “No, I bet she’s not. Any further news?”

  “No. I looked up gallbladder cancer and it wasn’t very encouraging. It’s not got a particularly great survival rate.”

  “Oh dear,” Lydia said. “I’m so sorry.”

  I sighed. “Let’s hope they’ve caught it early enough. I expect I’ll find out tomorrow.”

  “Do you want me to come with you?”

  “I’d love you to, but Quentin wants to discuss something else with me. He wants me there by nine. He apparently has something else at ten-thirty.”

  She made a face. Both of us liked our weekend lie-ins. Nowadays, it was our preferred “sex time.”

  “You go for nine. I’ll come along later, after you’ve spoken to Quentin.”

  Lydia also didn’t really get on with Quentin. I’m not sure anyone did. I suppose if you spend your life working in the fiercely adversarial system that we have in the English courts, then you become used to continuously trying to score points off everyone. Undoubtedly, it wins him cases but, I suspected, not many friends.

  If he hadn’t been married to my ailing sister, there’s no way I’d have forgone a bit of nooky to go talk to him about some investigating that I had absolutely no intention of carrying out.

  3

  Lydia watched her television drama while I spent the time working in my study, as I had started calling our second bedroom. Lydia, meanwhile, always referred to it as the nursery.

  For about the tenth time I looked up gallbladder cancer on the Internet.

  Depending on which website one looked at, there were either four or five stages, but none of them sounded very promising. The one mildly encouraging fact was that only those whose cancer was detected in the early stages were considered suitable for surgery to remove the gallbladder. But, even so, half of the patients diagnosed with just stage one cancer did not survive for five years, and most of those with stage two were dead within six months.

  It was depressing.

  I tried to look on the bright side and told myself that the other half of the patients did survive, and, after listening to Faye’s doom and gloom on the telephone, I’d happily take odds of even money.

  Next I looked up the details of Matthew Unwin’s case by remotely logging in to the BHA main computer and studying the file.

  Six horses in his stable had tested positive for the stimulant Dexedrine.

  He had denied any knowledge of how the drug had been administered and stated to the BHA disciplinary panel that someone else must have given it to the horses because he had refused to pay them. However, Unwin had been unable to provide the panel with the name of the person responsible or a single piece of evidence to back up his claim.

  In spite of repeated and insistent declarations of his innocence, he had been found guilty of administering a banned stimulant and had been disqualified and excluded from racing for eight years.

  Detective Sergeant Galley, the Cheltenham detective, had thought that an eight-year ban had been rather harsh, and, looking at the minute trace quantities of Dexedrine that had been detected in the six horses, one might tend to agree.

  However, it wasn’t Matthew Unwin’s first doping offense. Three years previously a horse of his had tested positive for Lasix, a banned diuretic, and he had been reprimanded and warned about his future conduct after pleading guilty.

  Stupid man, I thought. He’d been given a second chance and he’d thrown it all away. Now he would rot in jail. But for how long? Life imprisonment almost never meant that. For him it would probably be at least twelve years. Fifteen maybe. Either way, he was finished in racing.

  But he’d been finished even before he went on the rampage with the knife.

  Training racehorses was not like any other job.

  British racing had become a seven-day-a-week activity, while the horses at home needed constant care.

  Typical early mornings on the training gallops would be followed by afternoons at the races and then late nights at a desk, going through the race entries and doing all the other paperwork, not to mention the hours of driving to and from the racetracks. One trainer’s wife told me that she always went with her husband to the races not because she particularly wanted to be there every day but because the journey was the only opportunity she had to talk to him during the entire week. And now cell phones had put paid to that too.

  A trainer was also an employer and “the boss” to an army of grooms, work riders, and other stable staff, while at the same time being the deferential and courteous individual to whom owners of horses might turn to look after their precious darlings.

  Even after his ban was served, Matthew Unwin would never have again earned the trust of potential owners. In reality, an eight-year ban from racing was a life sentence.

  I went through the Unwin computer file right to the end.

  Way down at the bottom of page 22 of his disciplinary hearing report was a note of mitigation stating that Unwin’s fifteen-year-old son had learning difficulties from having contracted meningitis as a baby, his marriage had recently broken down, and, without an income from training, he would likely have his house and stables repossessed by the bank. None of which had prevented the disciplinary panel from removing his training license.

  Maybe he simply believed that he had nothing left to lose.

  I searched through the BHA files for any mention of Jordan Furness.

  Unlike horses, owners, trainers, jockeys, agents, valets, grooms, racing stables, racetracks, and equine swimming pools, all of which are regulated by the BHA, bookmakers are registered and licensed by the Gambling Commission. Hence, there was nothing to find about the victim of Unwin’s attack. However, there was a record of a Lee Furness, formerly registered as a member of the stable staff in Matthew Unwin’s yard.

  Now, was that a coincidence or what?

  —

  I TOOK the London Overground train to Richmond-on-Thames and Quentin was waiting for me outside the station.

  “I’d rather not talk at home,” he said. “Let’s go and have a coffee.”

  We went to a café in Brewers Lane, close to Quentin and Faye’s house, and sat far back, well away from the window.

  “Now,” said Quentin when we had been served our coffee, “I need you to investig
ate something for me, something very hush-hush. You must understand it needs to be very discreet.”

  “Just hold on a minute,” I said, slightly irritated. “I work for the BHA. I only investigate racing matters.”

  It was like Canute trying to hold back the tide.

  “Yes, I know all that,” he said dismissively, “but you’re family and I really need you to do this for me. And for Faye,” he added, just a fraction too late. “Especially now.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “It’s to do with Kenneth,” he said, looking around him to ensure no one else was listening to our conversation. “Silly boy seems to have got himself into a spot of trouble.”

  Kenneth was Quentin’s twenty-three-year-old son. Not by Faye but from an earlier union. My stepnephew. I’d met him once or twice over the years at family gatherings, but I hardly knew him very well.

  “What sort of trouble?” I asked.

  “He was arrested.”

  “For what?”

  “He hasn’t been convicted—not yet anyway.” Quentin was quite agitated, something that I hadn’t expected to see in my ultra-in-control brother-in-law.

  “For what?” I asked again.

  He looked around once more to make sure the waitress wasn’t hovering nearby and finally spoke softly. “Possession with intent to supply a Class A drug.”

  “Oh,” I said. It sounded to me like rather a lot more than just a spot of trouble. “Is he guilty?”

  “No, of course not,” Quentin said quickly. “Kenneth swears to me that he’s been set up. The drugs were planted in his flat and one of his so-called friends is telling porkies to the police.” He made it sound as if that alone was shocking, but, in my experience, almost everybody lies to the police at some stage in their lives, particularly if it helps them escape a conviction, and Quentin should know that better than most.

  “Which drug?” I asked.

  “Crystal meth. The friend is saying Kenneth agreed to sell him some.”

  “And you expect Kenneth to be convicted?” I said.

  He sighed. “If the jury believe the friend, then yes I do. We need to show that the drugs were planted or the friend is lying.”

  “Can’t the police establish that?”

  “The man has gone walkabout, disappeared completely. Moved out of his flat, changed his cell phone number, and bloody vanished. And, anyway, the police believe that Kenneth is bang to rights over this. They’re not even looking. They’re convinced he’s guilty.”

  Maybe that’s because he was.

  “Couldn’t Kenneth just plead guilty in the magistrates’ court and pay a fine? Surely it’s not such a big deal these days.”

  Quentin looked at me with a degree of contempt and not a little anger.

  “I can see that asking you was a waste of time. You clearly don’t understand the situation.”

  “Tell me, then.”

  “For a start, it won’t be just a fine. The case has been sent to the Crown Court and Kenneth will definitely go to jail if convicted. But that’s not even the worst of it. He is currently doing his pupilage in chambers to become a barrister. A conviction of this sort would end all that, he’d lose his career completely. He would never be called to the Bar, having been to prison.”

  “Haven’t you got some contacts in the police that you can use to get the investigation restarted?”

  “Don’t you think I’ve been trying, for God’s sake? But I spend most of my time defending at the Old Bailey, so I’ve hardly endeared myself to the police, and I’ve been privately warned off by the head of the Crown Prosecution Service for sticking my nose in where it’s not wanted.” I wondered with astonishment if those were tears I saw in his eyes. “It’s a complete disaster,” he said with passion. “And it will probably prevent me from ever being a judge, certainly not an Appeal Court judge or higher.”

  Ah, I thought. The nub.

  “Can you imagine how the press would describe me: Mr. Justice Calderfield, whose own son went to jail for intent to supply a Class A drug, was sitting today in the case of a drug dealer. They’d have a bloody field day.”

  “Does Faye know about all this?” I asked.

  “No. Thank God. So far, Kenneth has managed to keep everything quiet. He thought it would all go away, that the case would be dropped. But, last week, at the plea and case management hearing, the CPS gave their decision that thanks to the bloody friend’s statement, they believe there is enough evidence for a conviction and are proceeding to trial. A date has been set in June.”

  Quentin looked wretched. He could clearly see that the meteoric rise of QC,QC was about to hit the buffers, and the next generation was not even going to get onto the main line.

  “So what do you exactly want me to do?” I asked.

  He looked at me afresh.

  “Find the bastard friend who gave the police the statement and prove he’s lying.”

  “What if he’s not lying?”

  Quentin looked at me again. “Then buy him off. Offer him a few hundred quid to retract his evidence.”

  It all sounded so easy.

  —

  I HAD another cappuccino at the café while Quentin went home alone.

  “It wouldn’t do to turn up together,” he’d explained needlessly.

  I called Lydia.

  “I’m just leaving,” she said.

  “Then I’ll wait for you. I’m in a café in Brewers Lane—you know, the lane we sometimes take from the station to Faye’s house.”

  “I know it.”

  “Right. See you in a bit.”

  I left my coffee to cool while I nipped down to the corner to buy a copy of the Racing Post. I usually read it on my tablet computer, but I’d carelessly left it at home.

  The Saturday after the Cheltenham Festival always seemed to me to be a bit of an anticlimax, all the best horses having run in the preceding four days, but there were still five race meetings in Great Britain and another two in Ireland. And with over twenty-five thousand racehorses in training in both countries, there were plenty of horses available.

  The British racing industry moved on relentlessly.

  On all but a handful of days in a year, there were at least two race meetings scheduled somewhere in the UK, and on Boxing Day there could be as many as ten in England alone.

  Much of the newspaper, however, looked back at the previous four days’ racing, with a front-page color picture of Electrode jumping the last fence on his way to victory in the Gold Cup. There were more pictures inside, one of Duncan Johnson standing with his wife, both all smiles, in the winner’s enclosure after the race. The horse was already being quoted at just six-to-one by the bookmakers to complete the hat trick the following year.

  I wondered if the current Mrs. Johnson would still be around to see it.

  While I waited, I read through the racing news section as well as the gossip columns. It was an essential part of my job to be “up-to-date” with all things happening on or around a racetrack.

  Lydia arrived at ten o’clock and the two of us walked together around the corner to Faye and Quentin’s magnificent three-story Georgian town house overlooking Richmond Green. Being a top barrister, QC,QC wasn’t short of the odd bob or two.

  “We’d better not stay too long,” Lydia said as we walked down the path to their front door. “We don’t want to tire Faye.”

  “I agree. We’ll stay just half an hour or so.”

  Faye answered the door looking nothing like someone who was battling with a life-threatening illness. She was bright and cheerful, with immaculate makeup beneath her neatly styled brown curls, and she wore a smart navy blue dress with white belt and shoes.

  “Hello, my darlings,” she squealed, throwing her arms out wide. “Come on in. Q said you might be coming.”

  She gave both of
us hugs and kisses and then ushered us through the hall into her expansive kitchen.

  “Coffee?” she asked. “Or something stronger?”

  It was ten past ten in the morning.

  “Coffee,” Lydia said and I nodded. “Lovely.”

  We watched as Faye set to work with her fancy black-and-chrome coffee machine, producing three steaming cups, each topped with frothy white milk.

  “I can’t stand instant coffee,” she said. “There’s nothing like the real thing.”

  We sat at the kitchen breakfast bar sipping our drinks, not talking about the one topic that filled our minds.

  “So how are you feeling?” Lydia asked eventually.

  “Fine,” said Faye. “That’s what’s so damn annoying. Most of the time I’m absolutely fine. I can’t really believe there’s anything wrong with me, but the wretched doctors say otherwise. And I’m not looking forward to Monday, I can tell you.”

  “No,” I said inadequately. “Which hospital?”

  “The Royal Marsden.”

  “How long will you be in?”

  “Two, three, or four nights, maybe even five. It depends.”

  “On what?”

  “The surgeon, I suppose.”

  “What exactly will he do?” Lydia asked.

  “Take out some bits,” she said with a forced smile. “Maybe it’ll help me lose some weight.”

  We didn’t laugh.

  “If I’m lucky,” she went on, “he’ll just remove my gallbladder. That’s if the cancer hasn’t broken through the wall. Otherwise, he might have to take out some more. I really don’t want to think about it.” She breathed deeply. “But I can’t think of anything else.”

  “Why didn’t you have the surgery last week as soon as you knew?” I asked.

  “I’ve been waiting for the right man to do it. He’s been away at some conference or other in the United States. Apparently, he gets back on Sunday, so Monday is the earliest he could do it. The hospital told me it was worth the wait to get the top guy, so I did. I just hope it was the right thing.”

  Faye lost all her composure. Her shoulders drooped and she was close to tears.