Tip Off

by John Francome

  ‘Not necessarily,’ I teased. ‘He’s doing rather well at Derek’s.’

  ‘I can’t possibly tell him to move anyway,’ Jane said morosely. ‘He’s got six of the best horses in my yard.’

  Emma laid a hand on her arm. ‘You’re lucky, you don’t live with him.’

  Jane smiled and pulled a face at the prospect.

  ‘In the meantime,’ she nodded resignedly at her empty champagne glass, ‘all that’s happened is that the storm’s been delayed.’

  ‘Well, it’s not just bad news,’ I said, putting my cheque on the table in front of her. ‘And all I want now is some time on your equiciser.’

  ‘Help yourself.’ She smiled.

  I left Emma in the house with Jane and walked out to the hay barn where the equiciser was kept. This piece of equipment was basically a wooden horse, whose head and neck were hinged on a spring. It was designed to recreate the motion of a galloping animal. It didn’t give much of an authentic feel, but it did entail the use of the correct riding muscles.

  Used properly, a rider needed to be supremely fit to last more than five minutes on it.

  I managed two, and was thrilled. I rested for a while and did another two-minute session, then a rest, until I’d done twenty minutes and called it a day, utterly exhausted.

  The next day, I went out to investigate Sox O’Dee’s win from another angle. I drove to Lambourn early and arrived at Connor McDonagh’s office door without any warning. I knew that he tended to spend the first couple of hours ringing round gathering information for his next day’s selections, and today was no exception.

  Joan showed me straight into her boss’s untidy lair. He stood up and came round his desk to greet me. ‘Simon, good to see you! Thanks for the word last week about Sox O’Dee. I suppose I’d better buy you a pint next time I see you in the Greyhound.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I came to see you to let you know they may take the race away from him.’

  Connor raised an eyebrow. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. I doubt he’ll pass the dope test.’ I looked at him hard as I spoke to detect any sign of culpability. ‘But you wouldn’t have had anything to do with that, would you?’

  ‘Good God, no, man! I’m not a complete eejit.’

  ‘His girl rubbed a whole lot of Dermobian on a scab, and that’ll almost certainly show through.’

  Connor looked excessively relieved. ‘Then they’ll not be pointing the finger at me?’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’

  He waved me to a chair and went back to sit down. ‘I tell you, Simon, I don’t know what the hell’s going on. I mean, I shouldn’t complain. I’m taking a frigging fortune on the line, but you and I know this is not down to me.’

  ‘There are some people who think you’re in partnership with Toby Brown.’

  ‘But I barely know the man! I haven’t a clue why he stopped, and I certainly haven’t taken any advice from him. I haven’t even seen him for weeks.’

  ‘Well, there are people who were very keen for him to stop, and if they think you’ve somehow taken over, they’ll want you to stop too.’

  ‘The bookies, of course?’

  ‘Yes.’ I nodded.

  ‘Jesus, Simon! I just pick a few horses. For sure I know what I’m doing, but I don’t expect to get it right every day.’

  ‘What’s it been – five out of five so far?’

  ‘Six out of six,’ Connor corrected.

  ‘Well, whatever, but I wanted to tell you that I have a professional interest in all this, and if you think you’re in trouble, I can help.’ I took out one of my business cards and scribbled an extra number on it. ‘That’s my mobile. You can get me on that any time. Just don’t tell anyone, anyone at all, that I’ve told you this. Okay?’

  ‘Sure.’ He took the card gratefully. ‘Thanks. Is there anything I can do for you?’

  ‘You could save me a couple of quid and tell me your nap for today.’

  He laughed, gave me a name and saw me out.

  Back at the office, Matt was looking agitated.

  ‘Tintern’s been on, asking how much we know about Connor’s activities.’

  ‘About time too,’ I said.

  ‘I just wonder how he feels about his own horse being one of Connor’s naps,’ Matt murmured.

  ‘When I saw him yesterday, he was happy as a sand boy – sloshing champagne around like a sailor on shore leave. Of course, Jane hadn’t told him the mandatory dope test would show up positive.’

  ‘What!’ Matt exploded. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I haven’t seen you.’

  ‘But what happened?’

  I told him about Sally and her over-enthusiastic ministering. ‘But the results won’t be released for a few days, so we’ll just have to sit and wait.’

  Matt sighed, hating to wait for anything.

  I tried to deflect him. ‘How are we getting on with Wessex Biotech?’

  He perked up. ‘I’m going down to see Brian Griffiths this evening. I want to run through various events over the last few weeks that I think may have some bearing on those missing prototypes.’

  ‘Have you seen one of the instruments yet?’

  ‘Not yet, but Dysart says he’ll give us a demonstration when we meet him later this week.’

  ‘Okay. In the meantime, I think I’ll go and see Tintern up at the Jockey Club on Thursday when he’s in. There are a couple of things I want to check out.’

  ‘What are you planning to do for the next couple of days?’

  I braced myself for a short skirmish. ‘As a matter of fact, I’m going racing tomorrow.’

  ‘To check Connor’s nap?’

  ‘Only if it happens to be running at Ludlow.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’m riding Baltimore in the hunter chase there.’

  Matt gave a disdainful shake of his head. ‘I’ve told you, Simon, if you think we’re ever going to make anything of our business, you’ve just got to get your priorities right.’

  ‘As it happens,’ I justified, ‘we’re involved in a racing investigation at the moment, so if it makes you feel happier, treat my day’s racing as research.’

  Any guilt that Matt might have wanted me to feel was utterly absent when I woke next morning, as enthusiastic as I’d ever been about riding a race.

  I’d now had several schooling sessions with Julia de Morlay and for the first time in my riding career, felt that I was in control of my horse rather than the other way round. Julia had been right when she’d said I would feel glued on once I got my irons back. Riding without stirrups had taught me more about balance and grip than I could ever have imagined.

  Jane had managed to enter my old hunter chaser in a very uncompetitive field, and despite sending the horse off with the obvious handicap of having me on board, was quite sanguine about our chances. She had owners visiting the yard, and couldn’t come to watch, but she wished me luck.

  Almost the first person I saw as I walked from the car-park behind the old Victorian stands at Ludlow was Connor.

  ‘How are you?’ he said in answer to my greeting.

  ‘Having serious bowel trouble.’

  ‘That should help with the weight,’ he laughed.

  I nodded. ‘Yes. But why are you here? Is your nap running?’

  ‘It is,’ he answered, with a hint of nervousness.

  ‘And who’s the lucky selection today?’

  ‘You are.’

  I felt as if a bomb had dropped right on my head, and stopped in my tracks.

  ‘What?’ I spluttered.

  ‘Only kiddin’,’ Connor said hastily when he saw my reaction. ‘Mine goes in the race before.’

  ‘Which is it?’

  ‘If you haven’t phoned, I’m not tellin’ you.’

  ‘The price on the boards’ll show it anyway,’ I said, annoyed and still quivering from the shock he’d administered. ‘So, why have you come?’

  ‘I just wanted to see it ru
n. And yours as well, of course,’ he added unconvincingly.

  I watched Connor’s selection win comfortably, on a television in the weighing room. No one should have been surprised. It was running way below its class, but I couldn’t stop myself from thinking of Toby. I prided myself on being a good judge of character, and when he’d told me he had no more interest in tipping, I’d believed him. Now, I wasn’t so sure.

  After that I concentrated entirely on my own race. The Shropshire course, laid on gravel, was riding well that day, with just enough cut to please my old boy.

  He was a very experienced and safe jumper and needed encouragement, rather than instructions, from his jockey. Nevertheless, the benefits of Julia’s merciless criticism bore spectacular fruit as I found I was giving him some real help over each fence. We had only one difference of opinion over where we should take off, and even though Baltimore had the final say, I never looked like falling off.

  At the end of the three miles, I felt as if I’d won the Derby, not a fifteen hundred quid hunter-chase. As I pranced into the winner’s enclosure to collect my pot, it was the first time I’d finished a race less exhausted than my horse.

  I rang Matt on my way home. ‘How did you get on with Griffiths?’ I asked first.

  ‘Bastard wasn’t there. He’d had to go to some crisis meeting at the plant which makes these injector things in Germany. Never had the bloody manners to tell me, though.’

  I judged this wasn’t the best moment to crow about my minor victory on Baltimore. ‘Did you see Dysart, then?’

  ‘No, he was with Griffiths.’ After a short pause he went on reluctantly, ‘How did you get on, by the way?’

  ‘We won.’ I tried not to sound too triumphant.

  ‘Bloody hell!’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said with a tentative laugh.

  Matt had the good grace to laugh with me. ‘Well done. I suppose I’ll have to get you a drink, though God knows, you must have been up against some terrible horses, and even worse jockeys.’

  ‘You’ll eat your words,’ I retorted.

  ‘I’ll eat your old trainers if you ever resemble a jockey.’

  ‘We’ll see,’ I said, laughing, and put the phone down.

  During the night, a few faxes spewed out of my machine bearing congratulations on my modest victory and soon after eight in the morning I received the first of half a dozen phone calls.

  One was from Toby. It was the first I’d heard from him in over a week.

  ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘He wouldn’t have been my nap.’

  ‘Toby, I hope you haven’t been napping anything since you agreed to quit?’ I was thinking of Harry Chapman’s icy appraisal of Toby’s greed.

  ‘Why? Who have you been talking to?’

  ‘Harry Chapman.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know what’s been happening but if Connor’s doing the business – and from what I’ve heard, he’s on the same kind of run as I had – it’s got nothing to do with me.’

  ‘I believe you, thousands wouldn’t.’

  ‘Well, that’s their problem.’

  ‘Where are you now?’ I asked.

  ‘In London – at the flat.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Of course.’

  It shouldn’t have made any difference to me what happened to Toby, and yet I did feel somehow responsible for his safety. I also had absolutely no doubt that, having paid Toby a handsome sum, the bookies would be furious if they thought he was turning them over. ‘It’s up to you, but just be careful.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  He rang off, leaving me wondering why I’d bothered. But he was after all my trainer’s son.

  The next day I sat waiting in the reception area of the Jockey Club. Lord Tintern appeared a few minutes after I’d come in and asked to see him. Although he didn’t look pleased to be interrupted without an appointment, he took me through to the meeting room where he had first briefed me two weeks before.

  ‘I have to tell you, Gerald, I think you were right,’ I started.

  ‘About what?’ he asked.

  ‘About some kind of connection between Toby and Connor. The only thing is, I don’t think either of them is aware of it.’

  ‘If they’re working together, then of course they are.’

  ‘What I mean is, I think someone else is pulling the strings.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd! If they’ve somehow contrived to influence the results of races, they’d both know how it was being done. At the same time, it seems they’ve sometimes tipped the right horses, which have won fair and square – like Sox O’Dee on Saturday.’

  ‘The steward took a blood test from him. Jane told me so.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  ‘We asked to see the results of dope tests on any of Toby’s winning naps that had been tested. That was a couple of weeks ago and we haven’t received them yet.’

  ‘I’ve got them here,’ Tintern said, leafing through some papers in a file he’d brought with him. ‘They were all negative. See for yourself.’ He thrust a list of incomprehensible data at me. ‘And if you’re trying to suggest that these animals have been systematically drugged, then I’m afraid you’re wasting your time. Whatever the answer is, that’s not it. Frankly, I’m sure Toby’s still directly and wittingly involved, and I was hoping you’d be able to tell me by now why he’d stopped naming horses himself.’

  ‘I can tell you that,’ I said, ignoring Harry Chapman’s warning. ‘He’s selling his naps to a consortium of bookmakers who are rewarding him better than his phone service.’

  Tintern looked annoyed. ‘I don’t think that would stop Toby from continuing to earn a bit on the side, though.’

  I couldn’t see any benefit in arguing about it, although I was almost certain that Toby, acquisitive as he was, was equally keen to avoid risking his own skin.

  ‘These bookmakers must really be starting to feel the pinch by now,’ Tintern went on. ‘So keep your ear to the ground. The last thing we want, for the good of racing, is a string of bankrupt bookmakers.’

  ‘Presumably, if all the bookies went bust, the punters would just have to use the Tote, like the Pari-Mutuel in France?’

  Tintern grunted. ‘Frankly, life would be a lot simpler if they did. I’ve been helping in the preparation of a Green Paper to go before Parliament with proposals that all betting in this country is channelled through the Tote, with the high street bookmakers simply acting as their agents.’

  I nodded. ‘I heard the idea at your lunch party last week. I should think the bookies will fight it tooth and nail?’

  ‘Well,’ Tintern said mildly, ‘they can try, but the time might come when they’ll be delighted to be guaranteed a profit for their business.’

  I left him, I thought, reasonably confident that Matt and I would get to the bottom of it. On my way out I asked the receptionist, using Lord Tintern as my authority, to send us a list of all the personnel at the Equine Forensic Laboratory at Newmarket.

  Armed with a digital camera and a conventional one with black-and-white film, I drove out of London and headed for Worcester, where Connor’s selection was running in the last race.

  My mind was seething with the ramifications of the bizarre events spawned by Toby’s three weeks of spectacular success.

  I felt as if I were gazing at one of those jumbled pictograms that appear in the Sunday magazines from time to time, from which, by looking at it for hours through squinting eyes, one is supposed to be able to extract a view of a totally unexpected three-dimensional object. I found that I kept snatching glimpses of a hard-edged image, but the moment I lost concentration, the picture melted into invisibility once more. But I was at least encouraged to believe that these rudimentary glimpses were leading me in the right direction.

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘There was something on Teletext this morning about Salmon Leisure’s share price,’ Matt said. ‘Anything in the business sections?’

  The day after I’d seen Ti
ntern at Portman Square, Matt and I had set off in good time to go racing at Cheltenham. Emma had come with us and Matt drove while she and I looked through the papers.

  I leafed through to the back of the Telegraph. ‘You’re right! They’ve dropped from four-thirty-seven to two-eighty-two in the last ten days. And no one’s likely to come to the rescue as long as they’re losing money.’

  ‘They’re certainly going to have to do something. If Connor’s naps keep coming up, there’s going to be absolute carnage. What do they say about that?’ Matt asked.

  I turned to the racing pages, read a few lines and laughed. ‘They hate to admit it, but now Connor’s named nine out of ten, they can’t pretend it isn’t happening.’ I read on a bit. ‘They don’t like it. They’re as good as saying they can smell a very large rat. And they almost sound sorry for the bookies.’

  ‘Hypocrites!’ Emma said. ‘They’re jealous, that’s all. Though God knows why they should take the bookies’ side – they’ve been winning since time began, and now at last the tables have turned, they’re whinging like spoiled brats. Anyway, what are you two looking for today?’

  ‘Same as yesterday. I’m going to photograph everyone in sight, anywhere near the horse, around the paddock and down at the start.’

  ‘What’s the horse called again?’

  ‘Free Willy.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ she groaned. ‘Why do people do things like that?’

  I laughed. ‘It’s quite a good horse.’

  About thirty seconds after the start, Free Willy looked like the right name for the horse. ‘Free’ was what he was as soon as he had deposited his jockey at the second fence and, to the delight of the bookmakers, galloped home alone.

  After we’d left Cheltenham two hours later, I wanted to get straight back to London to start processing the films in Catherine’s dark room. Matt dropped me at Swindon station and took Emma on to Ivydene.