Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Gamble

I stood silently for a moment and looked at her.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“Yeah,” she replied with a sigh. “So am I.”

Colonel The Honourable Jolyon Westrop Roberts, MC, OBE, younger son of the Earl of Balscott, was waiting for me in the same place on the grandstands where I had met him the previous day.

“Ah, Nicholas,” he said as I made my way up to watch the first race. “I was hoping you might be here again today.”

“Hello, sir,” I said. In spite of calling himself plain Mr. Roberts, I knew he liked his formality. “How can I help?”

“Well,” he said with a slight laugh. “I hope you can help. But there may be nothing to help about. If you know what I mean?”

“No, sir,” I said, “I don’t know what you mean. You haven’t told me anything.”

He laughed again, nervously.

“As I explained to you yesterday,” he said, “there may be nothing to worry about. In fact, I expect there isn’t. I’m probably only wasting your time. And I wouldn’t want to get anyone into trouble now would I?”

“Sir,” I said with some determination. “How would I know if you won’t tell me? What is it, exactly, that is worrying you?”

He stood for a few seconds in silence, looking out over my head towards the track as if deciding whether he should go on.

“Gregory,” he said finally. “I’m worried about Gregory.”

“What about Gregory?” I asked. At times we had all been worried about Gregory. He ate far too much and didn’t do any exercise that we were aware of other than to walk to the end of Lombard Street for a substantial lunch five days a week.

“It’s probably nothing,” Jolyon Roberts said again. He stamped his feet and looked uncomfortable. “Best forget I ever said anything.”

“Are you worried about Gregory’s health?” I asked.

“His health?” Mr. Roberts repeated with surprise. “Why would I worry about Gregory’s health?”

“Then what is it about Gregory that you are worried about?”

Jolyon Roberts drew himself up to his full six-feet-three, the ex-Guards colonel who had won a Military Cross for gallantry as a young subaltern in the Falklands War.

“I’m worried about his judgment.”

My planned early departure from Cheltenham was put on hold as I steered Mr. Roberts into a quiet corner of the seafood bar for a discussion away from the ears of others. When a client, especially one with such a large investment portfolio as the younger son of the Earl of Balscott, questions the judgment of one of the senior partners, it is no time to hurry away home.

“Now, sir,” I said when we were each settled with a plate of prawns in Marie Rose sauce with smoked salmon. “In what way do you question Gregory Black’s judgment? And why are you telling me ?”

“It’s probably nothing,” he said again. “He has been so good to me over the years, very good. In fact, I’m sure it’s nothing.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I think you might be a good judge. You always were on a horse. It was me who recommended you to Lyall and Black in the first place, don’t you know?”

No, I didn’t know. And I was flattered. No wonder there had been such a welcoming open door when I’d applied for a job.

“Thank you, sir,” I said. “I didn’t know.”

“Oh yes,” said Mr. Roberts. “I’ve had my eye on you since you were eighteen years old and won on my cousin’s horse at Chepstow. Remarkable piece of riding. Told my cousin then that you would be champion jockey one day. Bloody shame you got injured.”

Yes, I thought once more, it was a bloody shame.

“But tell me about Gregory Black,” I said, trying to get back to the matter in hand.

“It’s probably nothing,” he said once more.

“Sir,” I said. “Colonel Roberts, you must see that you have to tell me now that you have questioned his judgment. I promise you that I will treat what you say in the strictest confidence.”

At least, I hoped I could treat what he told me with confidence. Independent financial advisers were governed by the Financial Regulator. We were expected to act in a manner that always reflected the highest principles of behavior. I would not be able to suppress information of wrongdoing solely because it would embarrass another IFA, even if he were my boss.

He was still reluctant to start.

“Is it about one of your investments?” I asked.

Still nothing.

“Do you disapprove of something Gregory has asked you to do?”

He absentmindedly ate some of his prawns, the cogs in his mind turning over slowly.

“He may be mistaken,” he said finally.

“Who might be mistaken? Gregory Black?”

Mr. Roberts looked up at me. “No,” he said. “My nephew, Benjamin.”

I was becoming more confused.

“How might your nephew be mistaken?” I asked.

“He visited the site, and he tells me there are no houses, no factory and no building work being done on it. In fact, he said it was just waste ground with a large amount of heavy-metal pollutants sitting there in stagnant pools. A local government official apparently told him that the cost of removal of the toxic waste would be far greater than the actual value of the land.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “But what has this to do with Gregory Black?”

“He advised me to invest in the project.”

“What project?” I asked.

“A Bulgarian property development project,” he said. “Houses, shops and a new factory making low-energy lightbulbs.”

I vaguely remembered the project being discussed several years ago at one of Patrick’s weekly meetings, but, as far as I could recall, it had been rejected as too risky an investment for us to recommend to our clients. But that didn’t mean that Gregory hadn’t thought it a sound investment. Patrick and Gregory may have had both their names on the company notepaper, but they valued their independence, even from each other.

“Are you sure it’s on the same site that your nephew visited?”

“He says so. He says there is no mistake. The site where there should be a factory and hundreds of new homes and shops is nothing but an industrial wasteland. There is even talk of it having being used as a dump for nuclear waste during the Soviet era.”

“How much have you invested in the scheme?” I asked him.

“Not that much,” he said. “The family trust has invested about five million into the project as a whole. The factory is named the Balscott Lighting Factory after my father. I’ve seen pictures of the development. The project is designed to be a great social experiment for one of the most deprived areas of the European Union. A lot of EU money has gone into it.”

Five million may not be that much to Jolyon Roberts and his family trust, but it was a fortune to most people.

“Do these pictures show a factory and new homes?”

“Yes, they do, and they show more houses under construction,” he said. “Gregory Black showed them to me. But what am I to believe, the photos or my only nephew?”

“There must be a simple explanation,” I said. “Why don’t you go and ask Gregory about it? I am sure he will have invested your money wisely.”

“I’ve already approached him, and he just told me not to be so silly, of course the factory has been built. But Benjamin is adamant. He says that no Balscott Lighting Factory exists anywhere in Bulgaria.”

“So what do you want me to do?” I asked him.

“Find out the truth.”

“But why me?” I asked. “If you think there is a fraud being perpetrated then you should go to the police, or to the financial services regulators.”