Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Gamble

Mrs. McDowd answered.

“Lyall and Black,” she said in her usual crisp tone. “How can I direct your call?”

“Hello, Mrs. McDowd,” I said. “Mr. Nicholas here.”

“Ah yes,” she said curtly. “Mr. Patrick said you might ring. But it’s not your number.”

Mrs. McDowd, I decided, was sitting on the fence with regards to me. She was being neither friendly nor hostile towards me. She would clearly wait to see how I fared with the senior partners before committing to an allegiance either way.

“Are Mr. Patrick and Mr. Gregory back from lunch yet?” I asked.

“They didn’t go to lunch,” she said. “They’ve gone to a funeral. They’ll be gone for the rest of the day.”

“That was rather sudden,” I said.

“Death often is,” she replied.

“Whose funeral is it?” I asked.

“A client of Gregory’s,” she said. “Someone called Roberts. Colonel Jolyon Roberts.”

What?” I said. “What did you say?”

“Colonel Jolyon Roberts,” Mrs. McDowd said again. “Mr. Patrick and Mr. Gregory have gone to his funeral.”

“But when did he die?” I asked. I’d been talking to him only on Saturday at Sandown Races.

“Seems he was found dead early yesterday morning,” she said. “Heart attack, apparently. Very sudden.”

“The funeral is mighty sudden too,” I said, “if he only died yesterday.”

“Jewish,” she said by way of explanation. “Quick burial is part of their culture and usually within twenty-four hours. Something to do with the heat in Israel.”

She was a mine of information, Mrs. McDowd. The heat in England in April isn’t quite as intense as that in a Jerusalem summer, but, I supposed, traditions are traditions.

And I’d never realized that Jolyon Roberts had been Jewish. But why would I?

“Are you sure it was a heart attack?” I asked her.

Never mind the chief inspector’s suspicious mind, I thought, mine was now in overdrive.

“That’s what I heard from Mr. Gregory,” said Mrs. McDowd. “He was quite shocked by it. Seems he’d only been talking to Colonel Roberts on Monday afternoon.”

“I thought Mr. Gregory was away for a long weekend.”

“He was meant to be,” she said, “but he came back on Monday. Something urgent cropped up.”

“OK,” I said, “I’ll call Mr. Patrick on his mobile.”

“The funeral service is at three,” she said.

I looked at my watch. It was well past two-thirty.

“I won’t call him until afterwards,” I said. “Where is it?”

“Golders Green,” she said. “At the Jewish cemetery, in the family plot.”

I disconnected and sat on the bed for a while, thinking.

Herb Kovak had accessed the Roberts Family Trust file, and the Bulgarian investment details, and, within a week of doing so he’d been murdered. I’d sent an innocent-looking e-mail to a man in Bulgaria about the same development and, four days later, someone turned up on my doorstep trying to kill me.

And now Jolyon Roberts, with his questions and doubts about the whole Bulgarian project, conveniently dies of a heart attack the day after speaking to Gregory about it, as I had told him he should.

Was I going crazy or was a pattern beginning to appear?

A hundred million euros of EU money was a lot of cash.

Was it enough to murder for? Was it enough to murder three times for?

Idecided to call Detective Chief Inspector Tomlinson, if only to try to get some more information about the death of Jolyon Roberts.

“Are you suggesting that this Colonel Roberts was murdered?” he asked in a skeptical tone.

Suddenly, the whole idea appeared less plausible.

“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’d love to hear what the pathologist said.”

“Assuming there was an autopsy.”

“Surely there would be,” I said. “I thought all sudden deaths were subject to postmortems.”

“But why do you believe he was murdered?”

“I’m probably wrong,” I said.

“Tell me anyway,” the chief inspector said with a degree of encouragement. “And I promise not to laugh.”

“Murder is pretty uncommon, right?”

“I’ve seen more than my fair share on Merseyside.”

“But generally,” I said, “for us non-homicide detectives, I’d say it was a pretty rare thing to know a murder victim. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“OK, I agree. Murder is uncommon.”

“Well,” I said, “if I’m right and Colonel Roberts was murdered, then I’ve known two murder victims and both of them have been killed within the past two weeks, and I nearly became the third.” I paused.

“Go on,” he said.

“So I looked to see what connection Herb Kovak had with Colonel Roberts and also with myself.”

“Yes?” he said with greater eagerness.

“Lyall and Black, for one thing,” I said. “Herb Kovak and I work for the firm and Colonel Roberts was a client, although not a client that Herb or I would usually have contacted.” I paused again. “But Herb accessed the Roberts file just ten days before he died, in particular looking at the details of a Bulgarian investment that the Roberts Family Trust had made. I saw the record of him having done so on a company computer.”

“And what is significant about that?” the detective asked.

“Colonel Roberts approached me just a week ago over his concerns about that very same investment.”

“Why did he approach you in particular?”

“I’m not really sure,” I said. “He knew I worked for Lyall and Black, and he met me at the races on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. It was a chance meeting the first time, but I’m sure it was on purpose the second day. He was worried that the factory he had invested in hadn’t actually been built as he had been told it had, but he didn’t want a full inquiry as he was worried that he’d been duped and didn’t want the whole world to know. So he asked me to quietly have a look and check that all was well with the investment.”

“And did you?” he asked.

“I did a little bit of digging, but I told him on Saturday that I couldn’t go searching behind the backs of others at the firm and he should speak to his investment manager about it.”

“Who is?” he asked.

“Gregory Black,” I said. “Colonel Roberts spoke to him on Monday, only the day before he died.”

“But it’s quite a jump to think that he was murdered because of it. And are you telling me you suspect Gregory Black of killing him?”

“No, of course not,” I said. “Gregory Black may have an explosive temper, but he’s hardly a murderer.”

Or was he? Could I really tell what went on in his head? Or in anyone else’s head, for that matter? But Gregory a murderer? Surely not.

“But that’s not all,” I said. “I sent an e-mail to someone in Bulgaria last Friday, and a would-be assassin turned up at my door on Tuesday afternoon.”

“OK,” he said, now firmly interested. “I’ll try and find out if there was an autopsy carried out on this Colonel Roberts. Where did you say he lived?”

“Hampstead,” I said. “He only died yesterday, and he’s being buried in Golders Green cemetery even as we speak.”

“That’s very quick,” he said.

“Apparently, it’s a Jewish tradition to bury the dead as quickly as possible.”

“At least it’s not a cremation,” he said. “No chance of a second look at the body if it’s cremated. And I speak from experience.” He laughed.

What a strange occupation, I thought, daily dealings with violent death and its fallout.

“You will let me know the results?” I asked.

“If I can,” he said. “I’ll call you if I get anything.”