Dick Francis - Silks

For what seemed like an age, the silence in the court was broken only by the sound of fast-moving pencils on notebooks in the press box, and by a slight sob from Deborah Radcliffe in the public seats.

The judge looked intently at Roger Radcliffe, who was standing silently in the witness box with his head down, his previous ramrod appearance now nothing but a distant memory.

‘Well?’ said the judge to him. ‘The witness will please answer the question. Was Peninsula a four-year-old horse when he ran in the Derby?’

Radcliffe lifted his head a fraction. ‘I refuse to answer on the grounds that I might incriminate myself.’

It was as close to a confession as we were likely to get.

But I hadn’t finished with him yet.

‘Mr Radcliffe,’ I said. ‘Did you murder Millie Barlow?’

His head came up sharply and he looked at me. ‘No,’ he said, but without much conviction.

I pressed on. ‘Did you murder Millie Barlow because she made further blackmail demands on you after Peninsula had won the Derby?’

‘No,’ he said again.

‘And did you then murder Scot Barlow when he took over the blackmail demands from his dead sister?’

‘No,’ he said once more.

‘Or was it your godson, Julian Trent, who actually carried out that second murder, on your instructions, after you had used intimidation of these innocent people in order to secure his release from prison for that very purpose?’ I waved my right hand towards Josef Hughes and George Barnett behind me.

Radcliffe’s demeanour finally broke completely.

‘You bastard,’ he shouted at me. ‘You fucking bastard. I’ll kill you too.’

He tried to leave the witness box, but he had made just two steps towards me before he was surrounded by court security guards, and the police.

The judge banged his gavel and silence was briefly restored.

‘The defence rests, My Lord,’ I said, and sat down.

Perry Mason himself would have been proud of me.

The judge adjourned the case for lunch while Roger Radcliffe was arrested by Inspector McNeile. Radcliffe was cautioned and made aware that he had the right to remain silent, but that advice was obviously a bit late. The man I had come to know as ‘the whisperer’ was finally led away, still spouting obscenities in my direction.

The smarmy prosecution QC came across and firmly shook my hand. ‘Well done,’ he said with obvious warmth. ‘We don’t often get to see the likes of that in an English court.’

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I intend to make another “no case” application and request an acquittal.’

‘Up to the judge, old boy,’ he said, ‘I’ll seek instruction from the CPS, but I don’t think there will be any objection from our side. This jury would never convict Mitchell after hearing that lot.’ He laughed. ‘Best fun I’ve had in years. I don’t even mind losing this one.’

Eleanor, behind me, rubbed my shoulders.

‘You were brilliant,’ she said. ‘Absolutely brilliant.’

I turned and smiled at her. Josef Hughes and George Barnett sat behind her, beaming away as if smiles could go out of fashion.

‘You two can have your self-respect back,’ I said. ‘Without you here I think he might have bluffed his way out.’

If it was possible, they smiled even wider, and then shook me and each other by the hand. I thought it unlikely that the Law Society would give Josef back his right to practise, but he was still a young man and he was bright. I was confident that, without the fear that had consumed them over the past fifteen months, he and Bridget and baby Rory would now be fine.

‘How about a coffee?’ I said to them.

As we made our way out of court I bumped into Scot Barlow’s parents. Mr Barlow senior was a big man and he stood full-square in front of me, blocking my path to the door. He was also considerably taller than I, and now he stood quite still and silent, looking down at me. I wondered if he was pleased or not. He had just discovered the truth about who had killed his children and why, but he had also discovered that they had both been blackmailers. Perhaps he might have preferred it if Steve Mitchell had been convicted of the murder of his son. That would have brought finality. Now he would have to endure another trial, and some unpleasant revelations.

He went on staring at me while I stood waiting in front of him, staring back. Eventually he nodded just once, and then turned aside to let me pass.

Eleanor, Josef, George, Bruce, Nikki and I sat at one of the tables in the small self-service cafeteria area in the main court corridor, drinking vending-machine coffee from thin brown plastic cups, toasting our success.

‘But why was it so important?’ asked Bruce.

‘Why was what so important?’ I said.

‘About the horse’s age,’ he said. ‘So what if the horse was a year older than it was supposed to be when it ran in the Derby? I know that it was cheating and all that, but was it really worth murdering someone over? It was only a race.’

‘Bruce,’ I said. ‘It may have been “only a race”, but horse racing is very big business indeed. That horse, Peninsula, was sold to stud for sixty million US dollars. And mainly because it won that race.’

His eyebrows rose a notch or two.

‘But it was because he won it as a three-year-old running against other three-year-olds that he was worth all that money. Three is young for a horse, but only horses of that age are allowed to run in the “classic” races held in England, and also the Triple Crown races in America.’

‘I never realized,’ said Bruce.

‘Peninsula was syndicated into sixty shares,’ I said. ‘That means that he was sold in sixty different parts. Radcliffe says that he kept two for himself, so there are fifty-eight other shareholders who each paid Radcliffe a million dollars for their share. I suspect that most of those will soon be wanting their money back. I’d like to bet there are now going to be a whole bunch of law suits. It will all get very nasty.’

‘But why didn’t Radcliffe just register the horse with the right age and run him the year before?’ Josef asked.

‘Most racehorse foals are born between the first of February and the end of April, certainly by the middle of May,’ I said. ‘The gestation period for a horse is eleven months and mares need to be mated with the stallion at the right time so that the foals arrive on cue. The trick is to get the foals born as soon as possible after the turn of the year so that they are as old as possible, without them actually being officially a year older. In Peninsula’s case, either someone messed up with the date of his mare’s covering or, more likely, he was simply born a couple of weeks prematurely when he was due to be a very early foal anyway. Radcliffe must have decided to keep his birth secret until January. If he had registered it correctly in December then Peninsula would have been officially a yearling when he was biologically less than a month old. Then he would have been at a great disadvantage against the other horses born nearly a whole year before him but classified as being the same age. He would most likely still have been a good horse, but not a great one. Not sixty million dollars great. To say nothing of the prize money that Radcliffe will now have to give back for all of those races. The Epsom Derby alone was worth over seven hundred thousand pounds to the winner, and the Breeders’ Cup Classic had a total purse of more than five million dollars.’ I had looked them both up on the internet. It was going to be a real mess.

‘But Millie knew the truth because she’d been there when Peninsula was foaled,’ said Eleanor.

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘Radcliffe had probably paid her off. But maybe she was greedy, and that cost her her life. It was our good fortune that you were able to find an image of that picture of Millie and Peninsula as a foal.’ I smiled at her. ‘But the silly thing is that, if Radcliffe hadn’t taken that photo from the silver frame in Scot Barlow’s house, I would never have realized that it was important. He’d have literally got away with murder, and the racing fraud. I suppose, to Radcliffe, it must have shone bright as a lighthouse, advertising his guilt, but no one else would have thought so, certainly not this long after the event.’