Felix Francis: Dick Francis's Gamble

Neither could I. It all seemed so unreal.

“I was standing right next to him,” I said. “One moment he was alive and laughing about which horse we should bet on and the next second he was dead.”

“Awful.” She stroked my arm. “Do they know who did it?”

“Not that they told me,” I said. “What did it say on the news?”

“Not much, really,” Claudia said. “Just a couple of so-called experts disagreeing with each other about whether it was as a result of terrorism or organized crime.”

“It was an assassination,” I said firmly. “Plain and simple.”

“But who on earth would want to assassinate Herb Kovak?” Claudia said. “I only met him twice, but he seemed such a gentle soul.”

“I agree,” I said, “and the more I think about it, the more certain I become that it must have been a case of mistaken identity. Perhaps that’s also why the police haven’t yet revealed who was shot. They don’t want to let the killer know he hit the wrong man.”

I walked around to the back of the car and opened the trunk. It had been a warm and sunny spring day when we had arrived at Aintree, and we had decided to leave our overcoats in the car. I looked down at them both lying there, Herb’s dark blue one on top of my own brown.

“Oh God,” I said out loud, suddenly becoming quite emotional again. “What shall I do with that?”

“Leave it there,” said Claudia, slamming the trunk shut. She took me by the arm. “Come on, Nick. Time to put you to bed.”

“I’d rather have a stiff drink or two.”

“OK,” she said with a smile. “A couple of stiff drinks first, then bed.”

Ididn’t feel much better in the morning, but that might have had something to do with the few more than a couple of stiff drinks I’d consumed before finally going to bed around two o’clock.

I had never been much of a drinker, not least as a need to keep my riding weight down when I’d been a jockey. I had left school with three top grades at A level and, much to the dismay of my parents and teachers, I had forgone the offered place at the LSE, the London School of Economics, for a life in the saddle. So, aged eighteen, when many young men going up to university were learning how to use their newfound freedom to pour large amounts of alcohol down their throats, I’d been pounding the streets of Lambourn in a sweatsuit or sitting alone in a sauna trying to shed an extra pound or two.

However, the previous evening, the shock of the day’s events had begun to show. So I had dug out the half bottle of single malt whisky left over from Christmas and polished it off before climbing the stairs to bed. But, of course, the spirit didn’t take away the demons in my head, and I had spent much of the night troubled and awake, unable to remove the mental image of Herb growing cold on a marble slab in some Liverpool mortuary.

The weather on Sunday morning was as miserable as I was, with a string of heavy April showers blowing in on a bracing northerly breeze.

At about ten, during a break in the rain, I went out for a Sunday paper, nipping up to the newsagent’s shop on Regent’s Park Road.

“A very good morning to you, Mr. Foxton,” said the shop owner from behind the counter.

“Morning, Mr. Patel,” I said in reply. “But I’m not sure what’s good about it.”

Mr. Patel smiled at me and said nothing. We may have lived in the same place but we did so with different cultures.

All the front pages on the shelves had the same story: DEATH AT THE RACES read one headline, MURDER AT THE NATIONAL read another, GUN HORROR AT AINTREE ran a third.

I glanced quickly at them all. None gave the name of the victim, and, to me, there appeared to be far greater coverage about the aggravation and inconvenience suffered by the crowd rather than any commiseration or condolence towards poor Herb. I suppose some conjecture was to be expected as the reporters had so little real factual information from which to make a story, but I was surprised at their apparent lack of any sympathy for the target of the assassin.

One paper even went so far as to suggest that the murder was likely to have been drug related, and then went on to imply that everyone else was probably better off with the victim dead.

I bought a copy of the Sunday Times for no better reason than its headline-POLICE HUNT RACE-DAY ASSASSIN-was the least sensational, and the story beneath it didn’t immediately assume that Herb had probably deserved to be killed.

“Thank you, sir,” said Mr. Patel, giving me my change.

I tucked the heavy newspaper under my arm and retraced my tracks home.

Lichfield Grove was a fairly typical London suburban street of mostly 1930s-built duplexes with bay windows and small front gardens.

I had lived here now for the past eight years yet I hardly knew my neighbors other than to wave at occasionally if we happened, by coincidence, to arrive or leave our homes at the same time. In fact, I knew Mr. Patel, the newsagent, better than those I lived right next to. I was aware that the couple on one side were called Jane and Phil (or was it John?), but I had no idea of their surname or what either of them did for a living.

As I walked back from the newsagent’s, I thought how strange it was that members of the human race could live here so cheek by jowl with their fellow beings without any meaningful reaction between them. But at least it made a change from the rural village life I had experienced before, where everyone took pains to know everyone else’s business and where nothing could be kept a secret for long.

I wondered whether I should make more of an effort to be more community minded. I suppose it would depend on how long I intended to stay.

Many of my racing friends had thought that Finchley was a strange choice, but I had needed a clean break from my former life. A clean break-that was a joke. It had been a clean break that had forced me to stop race riding just as I was beginning to make my mark in the sport. The clean break in question was to my second cervical vertebra, the axis, on which the atlas vertebra above it rotated to turn the head. In short, I had broken my neck.

I suppose I should be thankful that the break hadn’t killed or paralyzed me, either of which could have been a highly likely outcome. The fact that I was now walking down Lichfield Grove at all was due to the prompt and gentle care of the paramedics on duty at Cheltenham racetrack that fateful day. They had taken great pains to immobilize my neck and spine before I was lifted from the turf.

It had been a silly fall, and I had to admit to a degree of carelessness on my part.

The last race on Wednesday of the Cheltenham Steeplechasing Festival was what was known as the Bumper-a National Hunt Flat race. No jumps, no hurdles, just two miles of undulating rich green grass between start and finish. It is not the greatest spectacle the Festival has to offer, and many of the large crowd had already made their way to the parking lots, or the bar.

But the Bumper is very competitive, and the jockeys take it very seriously. Not often do the jump boys and girls get to emulate Willie Shoemaker or Frankie Dettori. Judging the pace with no jumps to break up the rhythm is an art, and knowing where and when to make your final challenge to the finish can make all the difference to the outcome.

That particular Wednesday, just over eight years ago, I had been riding a horse that the Racing Post had rather kindly called an outsider. The horse had just one speed-moderate-and absolutely no turn of foot to take it past others up the final climb to victory. My only chance was to go off fairly fast from the start and to try to run the “finish” out of the others.