Dick Francis - Crossfire

"So what is Jackson Warren and Peter Garraway's little tax fiddle?"

"Eh?"

"What is Jackson and Peter's tax fiddle?" I asked again.

"You mean their VAT fiddle?" she asked.

"Yes," I said excitedly. I waited in silence.

She paused for a bit, but eventually she started. "Did you know that racehorse owners can recover the VAT on training fees?"

"My mother said something about it," I said.

"And on their other costs as well, those they attribute to their racing business, like transport and telephone charges and vet's fees. They can even recover the VAT they have to pay when they buy the horses in the first place."

The VAT rate was at nearly twenty percent. That was a lot of tax to recover on expensive horseflesh.

"So what's the fiddle?" I asked.

"What makes you think I'd ever tell you?" she said, turning in the car towards me.

"So you do know, then?" I asked.

"I might," she said arrogantly.

"I'll delete the pictures if you tell me."

Even in her cocaine-induced state, she knew that the pictures were the key.

"How can I trust you?"

"I'm an officer in the British Army," I said, rather pompously. "My word is my bond."

"Do you promise?" she said.

"I promise," I said formally, holding up my right hand. Yet another of those promises I might keep.

She paused a while longer before starting again.

"Garraway lives in Gibraltar, and he's not registered for VAT in the UK. He actually could be, but he's obsessive about not having anything to do with the tax people here because he's a tax exile. He only lives in Gibraltar to avoid paying tax. Hates the place, really." She paused.

"So?" I said, prompting her to continue.

"So all Peter Garraway's horses are officially owned by Jackson Warren. Jackson pays the training fees and all the other bills, and then he claims back the VAT. He even buys the horses for Garraway in the first place and gets the VAT back on that too. He uses a company called Budsam Ltd."

"So why is that a fiddle?" I asked. "If Jackson buys them and pays the fees, then he is the owner, not Garraway."

"Yes," she said, "but Peter Garraway pays Jackson back for all the costs."

"Doesn't that show up in Jackson's accounts or those of the company?"

"No." She smiled. "That's the clever bit. Peter pays Jackson into an offshore account in Gibraltar that Jackson doesn't declare to the Revenue. Alex says it's very clever because Jackson gets his money offshore without ever having to transfer anything from a UK bank, which would be required by law to tell the tax people about it."

"How many horses does Peter Garraway own in this way?" I asked.

"Masses. He has ten or twelve with us and loads more with other trainers."

"But don't they pay for themselves with the prize money?"

"No, of course not," she said. "Most horses don't make in prize money anything like what they cost to keep, especially not jumpers. Far from it. Not unless you count the betting winnings, and Garraway gets to keep those himself."

"So why doesn't Peter Garraway register himself as an owner in the UK for the VAT scheme?"

"I told you," she said. "He's paranoid about the British tax people. They've been trying forever to get him for tax evasion. He's obsessive about the number of days he stays here, and he and his wife even travel on separate planes so they won't both be killed in a crash and his family get done here for inheritance tax. There's no way he'll register. Alex thinks it's stupid. He told them it would solve the problem of the VAT without any risk, but Garraway won't listen."

I listened, all right.

Wasn't it Archimedes who claimed that if you gave him a lever long enough, he could lift the world?

I listened to Julie with mounting glee. Perhaps now I had a lever long enough to pry my mother's money back from under the Rock of Gibraltar.

All I had to do was work out on whom to apply it, and when.

I spent much of the night downloading Alex's files and e-mails onto my laptop using the Internet connection in my mother's office.

I had let myself into the kitchen silently using Ian's key. The dogs had been unperturbed by their nocturnal visitor, sniffing my hand as I'd passed them and then going back to sleep, happy that I was friend, not foe.

I worked solely by the light of the computer screen and left everything exactly as I'd found it. I didn't know why I still thought it was necessary for my presence to be a secret from my mother, but I wasn't yet ready to try to explain to her what had been going on.

It might also have been safer for me if she didn't know where I was.

After I had left Julie to drive herself home in the white BMW, I'd taken Ian's car slowly up the driveway of Greystone Stables. My two telltale sticks on their stones were broken. Someone had been up to the stable yard, someone who would now know I wasn't dead, someone who might try to kill me again. But they would have to find me first.

I slept fitfully on Ian's sofa, and he left me there snoozing when he went out to morning stables at half past six on Monday morning.

By the time he returned at about noon, I had read through all of Alex's downloaded information on my laptop. Most of it was boring, but amongst the dross, there were some real gems, and three standout sparkling diamonds.

Maybe I wouldn't need to use my lever after all.

One of the diamonds was that Alex, it transpired, was not only the accountant for Rock Bank (Gibraltar) Ltd but also one of the signatories of the company's bank account, and best of all, I had downloaded all the passwords and user names that he needed to access the account online.

I would try to log in to the account tonight, I thought, when I had access to the Internet from my mother's office.

The other diamonds were the e-mails sent by Jackson Warren to Alex Reece concerning me, the first a message sent on the night of Isabella's kitchen supper, and the second after the races at Newbury on the day Scientific had won. The first had been sent in a fit of anger, and the second as a warning, but nevertheless, it amazed me how lax people could be with e-mail security.

In the army, all messages were encrypted before sending so that they were not readable by the enemy. Even cell phones were not permitted to be used in Afghanistan in case the Taliban were listening to the transmissions and gaining information that could be useful either in a tactical way or simply to undermine the morale of the troops.

No parents, having been called by their soldier offspring one evening from a cell telephone in Helmand province, would welcome then receiving a second call, this time from an English-speaking member of the Taliban, who would inform them that their son was going to be targeted in the morning, and that he would be returning home to them in a wooden box.

It had happened.

Yet here was a supposedly sensible person, Jackson Warren, sending clear text messages by e-mail for all to read. Well, for me to read anyway.

"What the bloody hell do you think you were doing talking so openly in front of Thomas Forsyth?" Jackson had written soon after storming out of the supper. "His mother was one of those who invested heavily in our little scheme. KEEP YOUR BLOODY LIPS SEALED-DO YOU HEAR?"

Capital letters in an e-mail were equivalent to shouting, and I could vividly recall the way Jackson had stormed out of the room that night. He would certainly have been shouting.

The second e-mail was calmer but no less direct, and had been sent by Jackson to Alex at five o'clock on the afternoon of the races. He must have written it as soon as he arrived home from Newbury.

"Thomas Forsyth told me this afternoon that he wants to contact you. I am making arrangements to ensure that he cannot. However, if he manages to be in contact with you before my arrangements are in position, you are hereby warned NOT to speak with him or communicate with him in any way. This is extremely important, especially in the light of the company business this coming week."