Pulse

by Felix Francis

  ‘So why do you think he’s a useless sod?’

  ‘He just is. Did you see the way he rode Checkbook yesterday in the Champion Chase?’ The man threw his hands up. ‘Absolutely hopeless. Far too free early on then, unsurprisingly, the horse ran out of puff well before the finish. Then Conway trots out some cock-and-bull story to the stewards about being unable to hold him back. All bloody nonsense. Why didn’t he just admit that he got it wrong? I had him at a damn good price too.’

  ‘So you expected him to win?’

  ‘At least to place. Had him each way.’

  ‘Is Checkbook normally a front-runner?’ I asked.

  ‘Not according to Timeform. Couldn’t believe it when Conway set off as if he was in the bloody Nunthorpe.’

  The Nunthorpe Stakes was the fastest horse race in the UK – a five-furlong dash, run each year at York in August, lasting less than a minute with the horses travelling in excess of forty miles per hour.

  ‘He did nearly the same thing today in the Stayers’ Hurdle,’ I said.

  ‘Did he?’ the man asked vaguely. ‘I wasn’t on him then.’

  A former colleague of mine, who had also been a passionate gambler on the gee-gees, once told me that, in a race, he only ever watched the horses he’d bet on. What the others did was not his concern, not unless it impacted on how his choices ran.

  My new-found friend and I moved away from the warmth of the open fire in order to watch the race on one of the many TV sets. We were both interested in how Jason Conway fared, but for different reasons. I wanted to see if he started fast again, while the man was far more concerned with how he finished.

  There were seventeen runners in the Mares’ Novice Hurdle and all three of Dick McGee, Mike Sheraton and Jason Conway were riding.

  But this time, Jason Conway seemed to be in no particular hurry at the start and, indeed, it was Mike Sheraton who jumped off fastest, easily in front over the initial flight of hurdles before settling down into the pack as the field came up past the grandstands on the first occasion.

  As the horses made their way down the back of the course they remained closely bunched together. Meanwhile, the man next to me stared unblinking at the screen, his knuckles gleaming white as he gripped the edge of a table with such force that he was in danger of pulling it over. He really must have been right about not being able to pay his hotel bill unless Jason Conway won on the favourite.

  As the horses came to the last flight, the man had almost stopped breathing, then he let out an audible moan of relief as Jason Conway’s mount took two lengths off her rivals in a huge leap, and then ran away from them up the hill to win easily.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ the man said, still holding on to the table for support. ‘I’m not doing that again.’

  ‘Doing what again?’ I asked.

  ‘Staking too much,’ he said. ‘Far too much. Real shirt-off-my-back stuff.’ He laughed nervously. ‘God, I need a drink.’

  So do I, I thought, but I didn’t follow him off to find one. Instead I went back to the fire and stood there staring into the flickering flames.

  Several recent scientific studies have shown that blood pressure is reduced by the hypnotic effect of flames dancing in a fire. It is believed to have something to do with human evolution and how the discovery of fire reduced the risks of the night by providing light and warding off predators.

  Maybe President Franklin D. Roosevelt knew more than people realised when he delivered his famous series of ‘fireside chats’ during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Second World War in the 40s.

  For me, it simply gave me an opportunity to think.

  Why would the jockeys deny knowing the unnamed man when they clearly did? What were they trying to hide? Was it to do with his overdose of cocaine? Or something else? Was the man’s death not an accident or suicide as the police believed, but murder? Or did the jockeys at least think that?

  Lots of questions but no answers.

  Someone had to find them and I didn’t hold out much hope that it would be the police. It wasn’t that I thought the detectives were particularly incompetent. It was just that I felt they were overly convinced that the unnamed man had killed himself, intentionally or otherwise, so they weren’t looking at any other scenario.

  So was it down to me?

  16

  At six-thirty sharp I was back at the first-aid room to find Isabelle leaning over a man lying on the treatment table.

  ‘Just coming, Dr Rankin,’ she said. ‘Mr O’Connor, here, had a bit of an argument with a flight of stairs and has cut his head. I won’t be a second.’

  ‘Can I help?’ I asked.

  I went over to the treatment table.

  I might have had a few drinks too many, but Mr O’Connor had clearly had quite a lot more than that. In spite of being horizontal, he forcefully gripped the edges of the treatment table to prevent himself from falling off as Isabelle applied some Steri-Strips to close a small wound on his forehead.

  ‘There you are, Mr O’Connor,’ Isabelle said, standing back and surveying her handiwork. ‘Now you take it easy, see.’

  Mr O’Connor stood up very slowly. ‘Tank you,’ he said, before swaying slightly and making a roundabout lunge for the doorway. And then he was gone into the night.

  Isabelle laughed. ‘Don’t you just love the Irish,’ she said. ‘They’re always so mellow when they’re drunk. Unlike the English, who simply fight.’

  ‘Are you ready now?’ I asked her. I was quite eager to get away, as the twins were due home at seven.

  ‘Coming, dear,’ Isabelle said, and she collected her coat.

  Isabelle and I walked together down the hill in the dark to my car, but we were going nowhere in it, not for a while anyway.

  It was Isabelle who spotted it first, in the glow of one of the lights that were set up around the car parks to help people find their vehicles.

  ‘Oh dear,’ she said. ‘I think you’ve got a puncture.’

  But then we saw that not just one but all four of the wheels were down on their rims.

  ‘Bugger,’ I said angrily.

  Isabelle, meanwhile, was quite distressed by the discovery. ‘This can’t just have happened accidentally,’ she said with a tremor of concern in her voice. ‘Someone must have done this on purpose.’

  ‘Indeed they did,’ I said pragmatically, and wondered who.

  I knew that he was pretty angry with me, but surely Adrian Kings wouldn’t have done such a thing?

  No. I dismissed the notion almost as soon as I had it. Ridiculous.

  So, who? And why? And was it directed specifically at me or at Mini owners in general? And who knew my car well enough to pick it out among so many others?

  I then noticed that there was a piece of paper tucked under the windscreen wiper. I reached forward and removed it. There were three words written on it in capital letters: STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.

  So it was directed specifically at me.

  I wasn’t shocked.

  I wasn’t even surprised.

  In fact, if anything, I was pleased.

  It confirmed that my obsession with the unnamed man must be for a valid reason.

  I spun round a full 360 degrees on my heel, trying to see if the person who had done this had also waited to see what would happen when I came back to the car. But, if he were still there, he remained hidden in the shadows.

  So, what to do now?

  Isabelle was still rather flustered. ‘Shouldn’t we call the police, dear?’ she asked.

  ‘Maybe,’ I said.

  I opened the car and removed the torch that I kept in the glovebox. Next I used it to inspect the tyres. I was quite expecting them to be slashed but I could spot no obvious damage to any of them. On all four, the little plastic cap had been removed, a short length of matchstick inserted to hold the valve open, and then the cap had been loosely replaced, allowing the tyre to deflate.

  They had all been let down rather than punctured.

  �
�I don’t think we need the police,’ I said. ‘What we need is a pump.’

  Most cars had departed soon after the last race but there was still a steady stream of people coming through the exits, leaving the bars and hospitality areas where the drink had continued to flow well after the horses had stopped running.

  I walked the few yards back to the exit.

  ‘Does anyone have a pump?’ I shouted. ‘I have a flat tyre.’

  ‘I have one,’ said a smart gentleman in a three-piece tweed suit with a shock of white hair – my chivalrous knight coming to the aid of a damsel in distress. ‘I’ll get it. Where’s your car?’

  ‘Just down here,’ I said, pointing.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’m just over there. Back in a mo.’

  He hurried away and I worried that, when he got to his car, he’d change his mind and drive off. But I needn’t have. He came trotting over with a smart electric model that plugged into the car’s cigarette-lighter socket.

  ‘I say,’ he said, inspecting all four wheels. ‘This is a rum do. Did you forget to pay your bookie or something?’

  I laughed. ‘Something like that.’

  It was amazing how a bit of alcohol could make one both confident and carefree at the same time.

  Isabelle and I were on our way after only a twenty-minute delay, with her driving, and the wait had even allowed the worst of the traffic to dissipate. We turned straight out onto the Evesham Road with no problem whatsoever.

  ‘I still think we should call the police,’ Isabelle kept saying.

  ‘On what grounds?’ I asked. ‘That someone stole the air from my tyres?’

  ‘Malicious damage,’ she insisted. ‘It must be against the law to let other people’s tyres down.’

  It was certainly antisocial, I thought, but I doubted that it was also illegal, not unless you were purposely trying to put someone in danger.

  Isabelle drove very slowly. Maybe it was because she wasn’t used to the car, or perhaps she didn’t like driving at night, but it took us at least twenty minutes to reach her house, a journey I usually did in half that time.

  ‘Are you sure you’ll be all right, dear?’ she asked when I told her I’d drive the last hundred yards home.

  ‘Perfectly,’ I replied.

  But I was pretty sure that I was still over the limit. I’d had eight measures of whisky and the same again of ginger wine – a minimum of twelve units of alcohol in just a single hour, when the recommended maximum was fourteen for a whole week. True, it had now been some time since my last one but, even so, I wouldn’t fancy my chances with a breath test. But I fancied my chances even less with Grant if he found out I’d been drinking. He’d have me back in hospital before you could pop a champagne cork.

  I dug into my pocket for the packet of extra-strong mints I’d bought at the confectionary stall at the racecourse, and popped two of them into my mouth.

  I then waited until Isabelle had disappeared through her front door before gently letting out the clutch and driving smoothly, and very carefully, along the road.

  No problem.

  Imagine my horror, therefore, to find a yellow-and-blue-checked squad car of Gloucestershire Constabulary waiting outside my house, and with a policeman sitting in it.

  In panic, I thought about going straight on, but that would have been even more suspicious. We lived in a cul-de-sac and I’d have had to turn round at the far end and come back.

  So I pulled into the driveway, quickly crunched two more extra-strong mints between my teeth, took a couple of deep breaths, and climbed out of my car.

  ‘Hello, Dr Rankin,’ said the policeman. It was Constable Filippos and he held a clipboard not a breathalyser. ‘Your husband said you’d be home soon from the racecourse, so I waited.’

  ‘Didn’t he ask you in?’ I said.

  ‘He did but I could tell he was busy getting food ready, so I waited here.’ He waved towards the patrol car. ‘Can you spare me a few minutes?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Come on in.’

  We went into the house with me trying not to breathe anywhere near him. Grant and the boys were in the kitchen so we went into the sitting room.

  ‘Are you on duty?’ I asked, waving a hand at his clothes. He wasn’t wearing his uniform but chinos and a sweater.

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘I’ve been transferred to CID. I’m a detective constable now.’

  ‘Is that a promotion?’

  ‘More like a shift sideways.’ He smiled. ‘But one I really wanted.’

  ‘Congratulations. Can I get you anything? Coffee or tea?’

  Glass of wine? No, perhaps not.

  ‘Tea would be lovely,’ he said. ‘Milk, no sugar.’

  I went into the kitchen.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ Toby and Oliver said together.

  ‘Hi, darlings,’ I replied with a wave. ‘Good day?’

  In unison, they both raised their eyes as if to say, ‘Of course it wasn’t a good day, Mum, it was a school day.’

  Grant was busy cutting up pizzas and I decided not to go over and kiss him. I didn’t want to breathe alcohol over him either.

  ‘There’s a policeman waiting for you outside,’ he said.

  ‘I know. He’s now in the sitting room. I expect he’s come to ask me some questions about that patient who died at the hospital last November.’

  ‘Trouble?’ Grant asked.

  ‘No, nothing like that. Probably just some more information needed for the coroner. Could you make him some tea – milk, no sugar – and bring it through? Thanks.’

  I went back to DC Filippos.

  ‘I was just passing,’ he said, ‘on my way back from Stow-on-the-Wold, so I thought I’d pop in and bring you up to date with developments.’

  ‘What developments?’ I demanded. ‘Have you caught the person who pushed me in front of the bus?’

  He was slightly taken aback. ‘Sorry, no. No progress on that one.’

  That was because he wasn’t looking, I thought.

  ‘But I did speak yesterday to those two jockeys that you said were seen arguing with the dead man.’

  I nodded. ‘One of them told me.’

  ‘Then you probably already know what I’m going to tell you.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘He only told me that he’d spoken to the police, not what he’d actually said.’

  ‘Right. Well, I interviewed them both at the racecourse on Wednesday after racing and they said roughly the same thing.’

  ‘Which was?’

  ‘That they vaguely remember having an argument with a man in the car park but they do not know who he was.’

  ‘What was the argument about?’

  ‘As far as they could recall, it was about the unauthorised parking of his car in the jockeys’ reserved area.’

  ‘So where is it now, then?’ I asked.

  ‘Where’s what?’

  ‘His car.’

  He stared at me.

  ‘And his car keys,’ I added.

  The policeman went on staring.

  Grant came in with the tea and I waited silently for him to leave.

  ‘So do you still think the man’s death is not suspicious?’ I said, my voice thick with irony. ‘I am absolutely certain that both the jockeys were lying to you. They know a lot more than they are telling.’

  ‘Why are you so sure?’

  ‘Well, for one thing, their reaction when I showed them the photo of the dead man.’

  ‘How exactly did they react?’

  ‘There was serious concern in Mike Sheraton’s eyes and Jason Conway was no less troubled.’

  ‘But did they actually say anything?’

  ‘Not as such, no,’ I said. ‘But their body language was screaming loudly in panic.’ The constable didn’t look that convinced. ‘I’m telling you, they know more than they’re saying. You could at least ask them the make of his car.’

  ‘I could,’ he agreed.

  ‘And do it separately so they
can’t simply agree on an answer.’

  He smiled. ‘You’ve been watching too many television dramas, Dr Rankin. No one is a suspect in this case.’

  ‘Not yet, but they will be.’

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask them but they will probably say that they don’t remember and, after all this time, I don’t think I’d remember either.’

  ‘Did you ask them why they didn’t come forward on their own?’

  ‘I did,’ he said. ‘But they both claimed they didn’t realise that the man they had argued with was the same man as in the photo.’

  ‘Dick McGee did. When he saw the image, he stopped as if he’d been shot.’

  ‘Then I will have to have a word with him as well.’ The DC smiled in a manner that made me think he was humouring me, and I didn’t much like it.

  ‘Look, I know you all think I’m crazy because I’ve spent time in a psychiatric hospital, but I’m not. I suffer from depression and I have an eating disorder but that doesn’t make me paranoid or a fantasist.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘And there’s another thing,’ I said, pulling the folded piece of paper from my pocket. ‘Someone let down all four tyres on my car in the racecourse car park this evening and left this stuck under the windscreen wipers.’

  I handed the piece of paper over to him and he opened it.

  He dropped it onto the coffee table as if he’d received an electric shock, the three written words facing uppermost: STOP ASKING QUESTIONS.

  DC Filippos wasn’t smiling now.

  ‘And all my questions,’ I said, ‘were directed towards Dick McGee, Jason Conway and Mike Sheraton. No one else.’ I paused. ‘So now tell me those jockeys don’t know more than they’re saying.’

  17

  On Friday morning I went back to the racecourse, in direct violation of Grant’s express command.

  He had told me firmly at breakfast that I must spend the whole day resting. I’d sat there emotionless as he spoke. I’d had no intention of obeying him, but I hadn’t exactly said so at the time. In fact, I hadn’t said anything at all.

  I had things I wanted to do at the racecourse, but I did plan to be home well before Grant returned from work so he wouldn’t know.