Dick Francis's Gamble

by Felix Francis

  “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.”

  13

  What?” I said. “What did you say?”

  “Colonel Jolyon Roberts,” Mrs. McDowd said again. “Mr. Patrick and Mr. Gregory have gone to his funeral.”

  “But when did he die?” I asked. I’d been talking to him only on Saturday at Sandown Races.

  “Seems he was found dead early yesterday morning,” she said. “Heart attack, apparently. Very sudden.”

  “The funeral is mighty sudden too,” I said, “if he only died yesterday.”

  “Jewish,” she said by way of explanation. “Quick burial is part of their culture and usually within twenty-four hours. Something to do with the heat in Israel.”

  She was a mine of information, Mrs. McDowd. The heat in England in April isn’t quite as intense as that in a Jerusalem summer, but, I supposed, traditions are traditions.

  And I’d never realized that Jolyon Roberts had been Jewish. But why would I?

  “Are you sure it was a heart attack?” I asked her.

  Never mind the chief inspector’s suspicious mind, I thought, mine was now in overdrive.

  “That’s what I heard from Mr. Gregory,” said Mrs. McDowd. “He was quite shocked by it. Seems he’d only been talking to Colonel Roberts on Monday afternoon.”

  “I thought Mr. Gregory was away for a long weekend.”

  “He was meant to be,” she said, “but he came back on Monday. Something urgent cropped up.”

  “OK,” I said, “I’ll call Mr. Patrick on his mobile.”

  “The funeral service is at three,” she said.

  I looked at my watch. It was well past two-thirty.

  “I won’t call him until afterwards,” I said. “Where is it?”

  “Golders Green,” she said. “At the Jewish cemetery, in the family plot.”

  I disconnected and sat on the bed for a while, thinking.

  Herb Kovak had accessed the Roberts Family Trust file, and the Bulgarian investment details, and, within a week of doing so he’d been murdered. I’d sent an innocent-looking e-mail to a man in Bulgaria about the same development and, four days later, someone turned up on my doorstep trying to kill me.

  And now Jolyon Roberts, with his questions and doubts about the whole Bulgarian project, conveniently dies of a heart attack the day after speaking to Gregory about it, as I had told him he should.

  Was I going crazy or was a pattern beginning to appear?

  A hundred million euros of EU money was a lot of cash.

  Was it enough to murder for? Was it enough to murder three times for?

  I decided to call Detective Chief Inspector Tomlinson, if only to try to get some more information about the death of Jolyon Roberts.

  “Are you suggesting that this Colonel Roberts was murdered?” he asked in a skeptical tone.

  Suddenly, the whole idea appeared less plausible.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But I’d love to hear what the pathologist said.”

  “Assuming there was an autopsy.”

  “Surely there would be,” I said. “I thought all sudden deaths were subject to postmortems.”

  “But why do you believe he was murdered?”

  “I’m probably wrong,” I said.

  “Tell me anyway,” the chief inspector said with a degree of encouragement. “And I promise not to laugh.”

  “Murder is pretty uncommon, right?”

  “I’ve seen more than my fair share on Merseyside.”

  “But generally,” I said, “for us non–homicide detectives, I’d say it was a pretty rare thing to know a murder victim. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “OK, I agree. Murder is uncommon.”

  “Well,” I said, “if I’m right and Colonel Roberts was murdered, then I’ve known two murder victims and both of them have been killed within the past two weeks, and I nearly became the third.” I paused.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “So I looked to see what connection Herb Kovak had with Colonel Roberts and also with myself.”

  “Yes?” he said with greater eagerness.

  “Lyall and Black, for one thing,” I said. “Herb Kovak and I work for the firm and Colonel Roberts was a client, although not a client that Herb or I would usually have contacted.” I paused again. “But Herb accessed the Roberts file just ten days before he died, in particular looking at the details of a Bulgarian investment that the Roberts Family Trust had made. I saw the record of him having done so on a company computer.”

  “And what is significant about that?” the detective asked.

  “Colonel Roberts approached me just a week ago over his concerns about that very same investment.”

  “Why did he approach you in particular?”

  “I’m not really sure,” I said. “He knew I worked for Lyall and Black, and he met me at the races on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. It was a chance meeting the first time, but I’m sure it was on purpose the second day. He was worried that the factory he had invested in hadn’t actually been built as he had been told it had, but he didn’t want a full inquiry as he was worried that he’d been duped and didn’t want the whole world to know. So he asked me to quietly have a look and check that all was well with the investment.”

  “And did you?” he asked.

  “I did a little bit of digging, but I told him on Saturday that I couldn’t go searching behind the backs of others at the firm and he should speak to his investment manager about it.”

  “Who is?” he asked.

  “Gregory Black,” I said. “Colonel Roberts spoke to him on Monday, only the day before he died.”

  “But it’s quite a jump to think that he was murdered because of it. And are you telling me you suspect Gregory Black of killing him?”

  “No, of course not,” I said. “Gregory Black may have an explosive temper, but he’s hardly a murderer.”

  Or was he? Could I really tell what went on in his head? Or in anyone else’s head, for that matter? But Gregory a murderer? Surely not.

  “But that’s not all,” I said. “I sent an e-mail to someone in Bulgaria last Friday, and a would-be assassin turned up at my door on Tuesday afternoon.”

  “OK,” he said, now firmly interested. “I’ll try and find out if there was an autopsy carried out on this Colonel Roberts. Where did you say he lived?”

  “Hampstead,” I said. “He only died yesterday, and he’s being buried in Golders Green cemetery even as we speak.”

  “That’s very quick,” he said.

  “Apparently, it’s a Jewish tradition to bury the dead as quickly as possible.”

  “At least it’s not a cremation,” he said. “No chance of a second look at the body if it’s cremated. And I speak from experience.” He laughed.

  What a strange occupation, I thought, daily dealings with violent death and its fallout.

  “You will let me know the results?” I asked.

  “If I can,” he said. “I’ll call you if I get anything.”

  “I’m not at home. And my mobile doesn’t work where I am.”

  “And where is that?”

  I was a little reluctant to tell him. The fewer the people who knew, the safer I’d feel. But he was the police, and he had provided me with an unshakable alibi when I was arrested for attempted murder.

  “I’m in a villa
ge called Woodmancote,” I said. “It’s near Cheltenham racetrack. It’s where my mother lives.” I gave him my mother’s telephone number.

  “Cheltenham is a long way from your office,” he said in a tone that seemed to ask a question.

  “I know. I know,” I said. “I ran away. Superintendent Yering was unable to provide me with any protection, and I felt very vulnerable, so I didn’t go home.”

  “I can’t say I really blame you,” he said.

  “So how about you giving me a bodyguard?” I asked. “Preferably one bristling with guns, and with evil intent towards assassins.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” he said. “Especially if it does turn out that Colonel Roberts was murdered.”

  “And another thing,” I said, deciding to get my requests in quickly as the chief inspector seemed to be in a generous mood. “Can you find out whether Billy Searle has started talking to the Wiltshire Police? And what he’s told them.”

  “Do you think he has something to do with all this as well?”

  “No, I don’t,” I said. “I happen to know where Billy’s money was invested because I did it and it was nowhere near Bulgaria. I’m just interested to know what he’s told the police. After all, I was arrested on suspicion of trying to kill him.”

  “I’ll try,” he said. “But some of these rural detectives can be reluctant to discuss their cases with officers from other forces.”

  “Just remind them it was me who gave them the information that Billy Searle owed someone a hundred thousand, and it was you that stopped them from looking bloody foolish by charging me with attempted murder when I had a cast-iron alibi.”

  “OK. OK. I said I’d try.”

  When I went downstairs, my mother and Claudia were in full flow with wedding plans.

  “It was about time he asked you to marry him,” she said to Claudia while looking at me.

  “But he didn’t,” Claudia replied. “I asked him.”

  My mother was quite taken aback and even rendered speechless for a few seconds. She had always been a stickler for tradition.

  “How very unusual,” she said finally. “But Nicholas always was a funny boy.”