Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Gamble

“We don’t know yet. His image and fingerprints haven’t turned up on anything. Still waiting for the DNA analysis. But I can tell you one thing.”

“Yes?” I said eagerly.

“The forensic boys have been working overtime, and they tell me the gun matches.”

“Matches what?” I asked.

“The gun found in the bush outside your mother’s cottage was definitely the same gun that killed Herb Kovak, and they’re pretty sure the same gun was also used to shoot at you in Finchley. They can’t be a hundred percent certain without the bullets.”

The image of the line of policemen crawling up Lichfield Grove on their hands and knees came into my mind. They obviously hadn’t found anything.

“Does that mean that Chief Inspector Flight is now off my back?”

“I wouldn’t exactly say that,” he said. “He’s still hopping mad.”

“Yes,” I said. “I know. He’s left messages on my phone.”

“Speak to him,” Tomlinson said. “That’s probably all he wants. He may think you’re playing with him.”

“Does he still want to arrest me?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Ask him.”

We disconnected.

I looked at the number on the notepad and thought about calling DCI Flight. Ignoring him would only make him madder and then he might use more of his energies trying to find me than discovering the identity of his corpse. But I wasn’t going to call him from here. Dialing 141 might be enough to prevent the number appearing on caller ID but I was sure the police could still obtain it from the telephone company if they really wanted to.

But I’d called Chief Inspector Tomlinson using Jan’s phone. What was the difference?

It was a matter of trust, I thought. I trusted Chief Inspector Tomlinson not to go to the trouble of finding where I was from the call. But I didn’t trust DCI Flight.

So, at about five o’clock, I drove into the outskirts of Swindon and stopped in a pub parking lot before switching on my mobile and calling the Gloucestershire detective.

“DCI Flight,” he said crisply, answering at the first ring.

“This is Nicholas Foxton,” I said.

“Ah,” he said. “And about time too.”

“Have you spoken to DCI Tomlinson and Superintendent Yering?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said slowly. “I have.”

“Good,” I said. “So who was the man at my mother’s cottage?”

“Mr. Foxton,” he replied curtly. “It is me who needs to ask you some questions, not the other way round.”

“Ask away,” I said.

“What happened at your mother’s cottage last Thursday evening?”

“A man with a gun broke in, we had a fight, and he fell down the stairs and broke his neck.”

“Is that all?” he asked.

“Isn’t that enough?” I asked sarcastically. “Oh yes, and he was trying to stab me at the time he fell down the stairs.”

“We found a knife under the body,” he said. “But why did he need one? What happened to his gun?”

“It was under the fridge,” I said.

He paused.

“How, exactly, did it get under the fridge?”

“I hit it with an umbrella.”

This time there was a lengthy pause from the other end.

“Are you being serious, Mr. Foxton?” he asked.

“Very,” I said. “The man cut the power and the telephone. He then broke a pane of glass in the kitchen to get in, and as he was climbing through the window I hit him with a golf umbrella. He dropped the gun, which slid under the fridge. He then took a knife from its block and tried to stab me. I managed to get upstairs, but the man followed. As he was attacking me, we struggled, and both of us fell down the stairs. He came off worse. End of story.”

There was another pause, another lengthy pause, almost as if the chief inspector had not been listening to me.

“Hold on,” I said suddenly. “I’ll call you back.”

I hung up, switched my phone off and quickly drove the car out of the pub parking lot and down the road towards the city center. After about half a mile, a police car with blue flashing lights drove past me, going fast in the opposite direction. Now, was that just a coincidence?

I went right around a roundabout and drove back to the pub, but I didn’t go in. I drove straight past without even slowing down. The police car, still with its blue flashers on, had stopped so that it was completely blocking the pub parking lot entrance, and two uniformed policemen were getting out of it.

Was that also a coincidence? No, I decided, it was not.

I obviously hadn’t needed to ask DCI Flight if he still wanted to arrest me. I’d just seen the answer.

I drove north along the A419 divided highway towards Cirencester, in the opposite direction to Lambourn, and pulled over near the village of Cricklade.

I turned my phone on again and pressed REDIAL.

DCI Flight answered immediately.

“Trust,” I said. “That’s what you need.”

“Give yourself up,” he said.

“But I’ve done nothing wrong.”

“Then you have nothing to fear.”

I hung up and switched off my phone. Then I started the car and made my way back to Lambourn, being careful not to speed or in any way attract the attention of any passing policeman.

Dammit, I thought. All I didn’t need was an overly interfering detective who was more interested in catching me than in anything else. “Give yourself up” indeed. Who did he think I was, Jimmy Hoffa?

Icaught the train from Newbury to Paddington just after seven o’clock on Monday morning, leaving the blue rental car in the station parking lot.

As the train slowed to a stop in Reading, I turned on my phone and called my voice mail.

“You have two new messages,” said the familiar female voice.

The first was from DCI Flight, promising not to arrest me if I came to the Cheltenham Police Station to be interviewed.

Why did I not believe him?

The second was from Ben Roberts.

“Mr. Foxton, I have spoken with my father,” his voice said. “He is not willing to meet with you or to discuss the matter further. I must also ask that you do not contact me again. I’m sorry.”

He didn’t actually sound very sorry, and I wondered if his father had been standing next to him as he had made the call.

My investigating wasn’t exactly going very well. Where did I go from here?

I turned off my phone and sat back in my seat as the train rushed along the metal towards London. I watched absentmindedly through the window as the Berkshire countryside gradually gave way to suburbs and then to the big city itself, and I wondered what the day would bring.

I had to admit that I was nervous about the disciplinary meeting with Patrick and Gregory.

Lyall & Black had been my life for five years, and I had begun to really make my mark. I had brought some high-profile, highworth clients to the firm, and some of my recommendations for investment, especially in film and theater, had become standard advice across the company.

Over the next few years I might have expected to have expanded my own client base while giving up most of the responsibility of acting as one of Patrick’s assistants. I might even have hoped to be offered a full senior partner position when Patrick and Gregory retired, and that would be only five or six years away. That was where the real money was to be made and when my modest nest egg might start expanding rapidly. Providing, of course, that I was good enough to maintain the confidence of the clients.

However, I was now in danger of missing out completely.

But why? What had I done wrong?

It wasn’t me who was defrauding the European Union of a hundred million euros, so why was it me who was attending a disciplinary meeting?