Front Runner

by Felix Francis

  “I think you are lying to me, Mr. Morris. I think you knew that Wisden Wonder wouldn’t win because you had paid Bill McKenzie to ensure it didn’t. Then you backed every other horse in the race knowing that whichever of them won, you would make a handsome profit.”

  He said nothing.

  “Whose money did you use?” I asked.

  He looked slightly baffled by the question. “What do you mean?”

  “I calculated that you wagered nearly seventeen thousand pounds on that race. Where did you get that sort of cash?”

  He seemed genuinely surprised that I knew the amount.

  “It was my money,” he said.

  I looked around me again. Mr. Leslie Morris may have lived in a fairly sought-after part of London suburbia, yet there was nothing about his house or its contents that indicated he would have had seventeen thousand pounds in spare readies lying around to wager on the horses.

  The original covert tip-off had indicated that he was placing bets for an excluded person.

  “I don’t believe you,” I said. “Who’s your banker?”

  “I tell you, it’s all my own money,” he said again with more confidence. “I used the lump sum from my pension fund.”

  “How did you know that Wisden Wonder wasn’t going to win?”

  “I didn’t,” he said.

  “Don’t hand me that nonsense,” I said with annoyance. “You and I both know you wouldn’t risk your pension money unless you knew for certain that the horse wouldn’t win. Do you take me for an idiot or something?”

  He said nothing.

  “So how did you know that, Mr. Morris? How much did you pay Bill McKenzie to make sure he didn’t win?”

  He still made no reply.

  “Saying nothing won’t help you at the disciplinary panel,” I said. “Your racing days would be over for good.”

  Disqualification as an owner and exclusion from racing premises for a minimum of ten years was the least he could expect, maybe even for longer. Racing and the BHA were not very good at forgiveness, even for those who admitted their guilt and helped to implicate others.

  “Did you know Dave Swinton?” I asked.

  Full-blown panic now appeared in his eyes.

  “I met him once,” he said, his voice sounding higher in pitch owing to the tightening of the muscles in his neck. “He rode my horse at Ludlow last May.”

  I’d also checked that on the BHA database and he would have known it.

  “His death is such a terrible loss for racing. I liked him.”

  “Did you know him professionally?” I asked.

  “And what do you mean by that?” he said, regaining some of his confidence.

  “Were you his accountant?”

  “No,” he said, “I was not.”

  “I’ll check, you know,” I said.

  “Check away,” he replied. “I worked for a small three-man outfit here in Wimbledon. I’m sure the likes of Dave Swinton would be represented by one of the big London firms.”

  “Were you blackmailing him?”

  “I’ve had enough of this rubbish,” he said suddenly. “Get out of my house. Right now. Go on, get out.” He was almost shouting as he ushered me down the hallway toward his front door.

  I was in no position to argue with him as standing my ground may have resulted in a physical assault, something my poor damaged body could ill afford.

  “And don’t come back,” Morris shouted as I walked out toward the car.

  “I’ll see you at the disciplinary hearing,” I called back in valediction.

  “I doubt that,” he replied.

  The words sent a chill down my spine. Had he said it because he would not be attending the hearing or because he believed I wouldn’t live long enough to be there myself?

  “Not a very successful visit, by the look of it,” Faye said as I got back into her car.

  “No,” I agreed. “Let’s go.”

  I had been in Morris’s house for less than fifteen minutes but I was exhausted. I leaned my head back on the head restraint and closed my eyes.

  “You need to rest,” Faye said as we drove away. “You must regain your strength.”

  She sounded like a character in a Jane Austen novel speaking to the victim of a nasty fever. But I think she was right. I did need to regain my strength if I was going to discover who was trying to kill me.

  22

  But I want to see you,” Henri said on the phone at Monday lunchtime. “I’ll come to Richmond after work.”

  To be honest, I’d tried to put her off, although I wasn’t sure why.

  Perhaps I was worried about what Faye would think of her. Or maybe it was because Quentin could be so abrupt and offhand that I didn’t want Henri to be offended to the point of never coming back.

  “What’s your sister’s address?”

  I told her. Of course I told her. It had been two whole days since she had kissed me good-bye in the hospital on Saturday and I was desperate to see her again.

  “I’ll be there sometime after six,” she said.

  “Lovely.”

  —

  I SPENT most of the afternoon either on the phone or at my computer.

  First, I called Paul Maldini at the BHA offices.

  “How did we find out that Leslie Morris would be placing bets at Sandown on Tingle Creek Friday?” I asked.

  “We received a tip-off,” Paul replied.

  “From whom? And what sort of tip-off was it?”

  “I think it came from a CHIS.”

  A CHIS was a covert human intelligence source—a racing insider who provided information of possible wrongdoing to the BHA. They were crucial to the integrity of racing. Some were stable staff who had concerns over the legality of things they saw happening and who then approached the authorities in confidence for clarification. Others were employees of bookmakers concerned about the probity of their practices.

  Once established, a CHIS would be nurtured and cherished, made to feel important and encouraged to pass on any snippet of information that might be useful to the Authority.

  “Yes, but which CHIS?”

  “I don’t know. It was anonymous by the time it reached my desk.”

  “Try and find out for me, will you?” I said.

  “Why?” Paul said. “The information was accurate.”

  “That’s partly why I want to know who provided it. How was the informant aware something was going on unless he was also somehow involved? We were also told he was placing bets on behalf of someone else, an excluded person.”

  “What about it?” Paul said.

  “Morris claims he used his own money.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line while Paul worked out, first, that I must have spoken to Morris and, second, whether he approved or not.

  “I’ll get back to you,” Paul said.

  I started searching on my computer. My main problem was that I didn’t really know what I was searching for.

  Paul Maldini phoned back almost immediately.

  “It was an anonymous call to RaceStraight.”

  “Dead end, then,” I said.

  Anyone could make such an anonymous tip and there was no way of us knowing who. The RaceStraight reporting line was operated by an independent body and they weren’t allowed to say who had called them even if they knew.

  I went back to my computer and used the BHA database to watch the videos of all the races in which Bill McKenzie had ridden for the month leading up to his ride on Wisden Wonder at Sandown. I was trying to spot anything suspicious.

  In all, there were forty races, twenty-three of them over hurdles, fifteen steeplechases, and two National Hunt flat races. In those forty, Bill had had three winners and five seconds. In addition, he had fallen twice and been unsea
ted once.

  The difference between a fall and an unseated being whether the horse itself actually falls to the ground or the jockey simply comes off its back while it remains upright. Both result in the jockey landing on the turf at high speed and from a great height.

  I studied his riding in all the races and with only one did I have the slightest question.

  McKenzie had ridden a horse called Pool Table in a three-mile novice chase at Cheltenham in mid-November on the same day as the Paddy Power Gold Cup. It had started as hot favorite at a price of eleven-to-eight but had finished second of the six runners, beaten two lengths by a much longer-priced competitor.

  The only reason I was even the tiniest bit suspicious was because Pool Table had hit the third last fence in exactly the same way that Wisden Wonder had at Sandown.

  Pool Table had been lying third in the approach to the fence, tucked up very close behind the two leaders. He blundered badly, crashing through the stiff birch, and was lucky not to have fallen. However, his momentum, critical at this stage of the race, had been totally lost and he was unable to make up the deficit in the run up the famous Cheltenham hill to the finish line.

  The fence in question was on the run downhill toward the turn into the homestretch, where the runners were racing almost directly toward the crowded grandstands. Even the broadcasted television pictures were head-on at this point, where the horses were traveling at their fastest as they made their bids for victory.

  It would not have been easy for anyone to spot what actually happened.

  Only on the RaceTech camera footage, taken from behind, was it possible to see that Bill McKenzie appeared to have made no effort to invite his mount to jump, just as he had failed to do with Wisden Wonder in the hurdle race at Sandown.

  According to the BHA database, Bill McKenzie lived near Wantage, not far from Lambourn. If I had been feeling better, I’d have taken a train, there and then, to go to see him. He probably wouldn’t be at the races, not if he was nursing a broken collarbone.

  Maybe I’d go later in the week.

  —

  I WARNED FAYE that I had a female friend coming to visit, but that did little to ease my nerves at what she would think of her.

  My ever-caring sister did her best to extract information but I was playing my cards very close to my chest. If there was one thing I’d learned in the Intelligence Corps, it was how to keep things to myself.

  “I met her at Sandown races,” I said finally when pressed. “We sat next to each other at a lunch.”

  “And you like her?”

  “Yes.”

  “And is she keen on you?”

  What could I say? Henri had been keen enough to spend several days trying to find me at University College Hospital.

  “I think so.”

  “Good,” Faye said, smiling broadly. “I look forward to meeting her.”

  —

  I WAITED FOR Henri in the living room, unable to resist the urge to stand at the window so I could watch her approach across Richmond Green. I was like a child impatient for the arrival of Santa Claus.

  She arrived at half past six, again wearing the full-length camel-colored coat with hood, this time over a white lace-front blouse and black pants.

  I opened the front door before she had a chance to push the bell, eager to have the chance to spend a few moments together with her before I took her in to contend with Faye’s inquisitive gaze.

  “You look great,” I said, taking her coat and hanging it on the stand in the hall.

  “Hardly,” she said. “These are my work clothes. I’ve spent most of the day as a waitress.”

  “You’ve been waitressing?” I asked incredulously.

  “What’s wrong with that?” she said. “The waitress I’d booked was hit by a cyclist who ran a red light, so I stood in for her.”

  “Where?”

  “Some offices in Covent Garden. It was a boardroom Christmas lunch for the directors of an Australian travel company. I also provided the chef.”

  I wondered if any of the travel company directors appreciated that they had been served their turkey and mince pies by someone on the Sunday Times “Rich List.”

  “Well, you still look good to me,” I said, but I’d probably think she looked great in burlap.

  “Nice shirt,” she said, stroking my back.

  I smiled at her. She had bought it.

  We went through to the kitchen.

  “Faye,” I said, “this is Henrietta Shawcross.”

  I think Faye was impressed. The two certainly hit it off well, helped along by a couple of glasses of sauvignon blanc.

  Quentin arrived at seven o’clock and he too took an instant shine to Henri. He kept saying that he had some reading to do, but he never went off to do it. Instead, he sat and chatted, in the most genial manner I have ever seen from him, while never taking his eyes off Henri.

  “What are you doing for Christmas?” she asked me.

  Christmas was something I had been trying to ignore for months. Faye had asked me almost every week since August if I’d like to spend it with her and Quentin and every time I’d been vague in my response, unwilling to set anything in stone, and not at all sure that Christmas at the Calderfields’ was my idea of a fun time.

  Three years ago, Lydia and I had stayed with them for four nights over the holiday and Quentin had become more and more grumpy with every meal. Never again, we had agreed.

  Up until last week, I had seriously considered taking to my bed and staying there from Christmas Eve right through until New Year’s Day, missing all that dreadful bonhomie, mulled wine and repeat TV showings of It’s a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th Street.

  Maybe I’d have risen briefly to attend Kempton races on Boxing Day, but, otherwise . . . no thanks.

  However, my near-death experience, combined with my joyous meeting with Henrietta Shawcross, had slightly softened my view of the festivities.

  “Nothing,” I said. “How about you?”

  “I’m going away,” she said, “with my uncle and aunt.”

  Disaster, I thought.

  “Can you come too?” she asked excitedly.

  “Where are you going?” I asked with a certain degree of trepidation, ever wary of my bank balance.

  “The Caribbean.”

  “I ought to be at Kempton on Boxing Day.”

  She looked disappointed. “Surely you’re allowed time off to recuperate?”

  “Of course he is,” Faye said, “but he won’t take it. He never takes his vacation time. I’ll bet he’s not taken one day off all year. He even works on Saturdays and Sundays.”

  “I didn’t work last week,” I said in mild defense.

  “But you were in the hospital!” Faye said in astonishment. “You can hardly call that a holiday. And I know for a fact that you had meetings with people from your office.”

  “Only one meeting,” I said sheepishly.

  Faye rolled her eyes. “Do you see what I have to put up with?” she said to Henri, who laughed. Even Quentin laughed.

  “What’s this?” I said. “Be Nasty to Jeff Week?”

  “She’s only trying to get you to come away with me for Christmas,” Henri said.

  I looked at Faye. “Are you?” I knew she had been working on the assumption that I would, in the end, agree to stay with her and Quentin.

  “Absolutely. I think it’s a great idea.”

  So did I.

  “But what will your uncle Richard say?”

  “I mentioned to him last night that I might ask you. He remembers you from Sandown. He liked you. In fact, he seemed very keen on the idea of you coming with us.”

  “OK,” I said with a grin. “I’d love to.”

  —

  “THE CARIBBEAN?” Paul Maldini sounded more surprised than
annoyed when I called him first thing on Tuesday morning.

  “Yes,” I said. “For Christmas and the New Year.”

  “Are you well enough for such a journey?” Paul asked.

  “I reckon so,” I said. “At least, I will be by then.”

  “What about your investigations?”

  “They will all wait,” I said. “I’ve been told that I need to have a good rest in order to fully recover.”

  I wasn’t going to tell him that it had been my sister who’d told me.

  “But how about all this Wisden Wonder business?” he asked. “Who will investigate that, ready for the disciplinary panel?”

  “There’s plenty of time to get things done when I get back. Don’t worry. I’ll take some of my vacation. I’ve got loads of days left. It won’t cost the BHA anything.”

  That seemed to placate him somewhat.

  “What if I need to contact you?” he said.

  “My cell will be on and I will try to pick up my e-mails.”

  “Well, I suppose it’s all right,” he said reluctantly. “When do you go?”

  “Sometime next week.”

  —

  DETECTIVE INSPECTOR GALVIN called my cell phone at lunchtime.

  “We’ve found Darryl Lawrence,” he said.

  “Good,” I said. “That’s a huge relief. Where was he?”

  “At Victoria Tube station, just after eight-thirty this morning.”

  “What does he say?”

  “Nothing. He’s dead.”

  “Dead!”

  “He fell in front of a train.”

  “Suicide?”

  “Possible,” he said. “But I’d say it was unlikely. The northbound Victoria Line platform was extremely busy, totally packed full of commuters, with more coming down the escalators from the rail station every second. In my experience, suicides prefer to do it when it’s quieter, even deserted. I’d say it was more likely to be an accident. Or murder.”

  “Which?”

  “Can’t tell, at present. Those nearby are in shock. I understand that no one the Transport Police have spoken to so far saw anything suspicious, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. The traveling public are generally useless as witnesses. It’s as if people go into a trance when they travel on a train.”