Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Gamble

“What’s the meeting for?” he asked.

“So I can tell you why I think Herb Kovak was killed and why our dead gunman was also trying to kill me.”

“What’s wrong with today?” he said. “Or tomorrow?”

“There’s someone else I want to talk to first.”

“Who?” he said.

“Just someone.”

“I told you to leave the investigating to us,” said the chief inspector sternly.

“I intend to,” I said. “That’s why I want the meeting with you and the superintendent.”

But I also wanted to learn more about the Bulgarian investment before it.

“OK,” he said. “I’ll fix it. How do I contact you?”

“Leave a message on this number or I’ll call you again tomorrow.”

I disconnected.

I left the motorway at the Reading junction, went around the interchange and joined the westbound carriageway to go back towards Newbury.

I called the office, and Mrs. McDowd answered.

“Hello, Mrs. McDowd,” I said. “Mr. Nicholas here. Can I speak to Mr. Patrick, please?”

“You’re a very naughty boy,” she said in her best headmistressy voice. “You mustn’t upset Mr. Gregory so. His heart can’t take it.”

I didn’t reply. As far as I was concerned, the sooner his heart gave out the better.

I waited as she put me through.

“Hello, Nicholas,” said Patrick. “Where are you?”

Why, I wondered, was everyone so obsessed with my whereabouts?

“In Reading,” I said. “Have you spoken to Jessica?”

“Not yet. I’ve been reviewing the file myself this morning. I intend to discuss the matter with Gregory this afternoon.”

“Mind your back,” I said.

“Be serious,” Patrick said.

“I promise you, I am being serious, very serious,” I replied. “If I were you, I’d speak to Jessica first, and then both of you talk to Gregory.”

“I’ll see,” Patrick said.

Patrick and Gregory had been partners for a very long time, and I reckoned that Patrick might need quite a lot of convincing that his friend was up to no good. I suppose I couldn’t really blame him for checking things himself before he brought in the Compliance Officer.

“You might need someone who can read Bulgarian,” I said.

“Leave it to me,” Patrick replied decisively.

“OK,” I said. “I will. But I’ll call you again tomorrow to see how you’re getting on.”

I hung up and glanced in the rearview mirror. There were no signs of any flashing blue lights nor of any eager unmarked police cars. I drove on sedately back to Lambourn.

Iwant to go home,” my mother said, meeting me in Jan’s kitchen as I walked in from the car.

“And you will,” I said. “Just as soon as I’m sure it’s safe.”

“But I want to go home now.”

“Soon,” I said.

“No!” she stated in determined fashion, putting her hands on her hips. “Now.”

“Why?” I asked.

“We’ve been here long enough,” she said. “And I’m worried about my cat.”

“I didn’t think it was your cat.”

“He’s not, but I’m worried about him nonetheless. And I’ve got a WI meeting tomorrow night and I don’t want to miss it.”

Don’t mess with the Women’s Institute. Tony Blair, for one, had discovered that.

“All right,” I said. “I promise I’ll take you home tomorrow.”

She wasn’t very happy, but, short of ordering herself a taxi, there wasn’t much she could do. Tomorrow would have to do. I’d take her before I went on to the races.

And there was more unrest in the ranks from Claudia.

“I want to go home,” she said when I went up to our bedroom. She was standing by the bed, packing her things in her suitcase.

“Have you been talking to my mother?” I asked.

“Maybe,” she said.

I thought there was no “maybe” about it.

“Darling,” I said, “I’ve arranged a meeting with the police on Thursday to sort everything out. We can go home after it.”

“Why can’t you have this meeting tonight or tomorrow?”

“Because I have to talk to someone first, and I’m seeing them at Cheltenham Races tomorrow evening.”

She stopped packing and sat down on the bed.

“I don’t understand it. If the man who was trying to kill you was himself killed, then why are we still hiding?”

“There may be others,” I said. “And I don’t want to take any unnecessary risks. You’re far too precious to me.”

I sat down on the bed next to her and gave her a hug.

“But I’m bored here,” she said. “And I’ve run out of clean knickers.”

Aha, I thought, the true reason reveals itself.

“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’ve promised Mum I’ll take her back to her cottage tomorrow, so why don’t I take us all out to dinner tonight, then we’ll go back to Woodmancote with Mum round lunchtime, and you can either stay there or come with me to the races in the evening. What do you say?”

“I’m not going to the races.”

“OK,” I said, “that’s fine. You can stay at Mum’s cottage.”

“Oh, all right,” she said in a resigned tone. “Where shall we go for dinner tonight?”

“Some nice quiet pub with good food.”

And preferably where I wouldn’t be recognized by any Lambourn locals.

On Jan’s recommendation, we went to the Bear Hotel in Hungerford for a sumptuous dinner in their Brasserie restaurant, washed down with a bottle of fine wine.

“I’ll miss you,” Jan said over coffee. “It’s been great having the house full again. Please can you all come back for Christmas?”

My mother and Claudia toasted her kindness with large snifters of brandy, and it seemed to have done the trick as I drove a happy carload back to Lambourn and to bed.

Will the police still be there?” Claudia asked as I drove the last few miles to Woodmancote.

It was the question I had been wondering about ever since I’d agreed to bring my mother home.

“I don’t care if they are,” my mother said loudly from the backseat. “I’m just so looking forward to being home again.”

“If they are,” I said, “I’ll pretend to be a taxi driver just delivering you two.” I dug in my pocket and gave Claudia a twenty-pound note. “Here. Give me this and I’ll drive away after I’ve unloaded your stuff. Then I’ll call you later from the races.”

“But they might recognize you,” Claudia said.

“I’ll just have to take that chance.”

What I was more worried about was arriving to find the whole place sealed up as a crime scene, with POLICE-DO NOT CROSS tape across the porch and padlocks on the doors.

I needn’t have worried. We arrived to find no tape, no padlocks and no police guard.

The only external signs that anything was different was a new dangling wire that connected the corner of the building to a telegraph pole in the lane-the hasty repair of the cut telephone wire.

My mother let us in through the front door, using her key.

It was all, remarkably, just the same as before, with no visible evidence to show that a ferocious life-or-death struggle had gone on here less than a week previously. However, none of us could resist staring at the foot of the stairwell, at the place where we had last seen the gunman. There was no white chalk outline of a body or any other such comic-book indication of where the man had lain. Indeed, there was nothing at all to signify that anyone had violently died there.

The police had even secured the kitchen window, fixing a piece of plywood over the broken windowpane.

“Fine,” said my mother, trying to show that things were back to normal and that she wasn’t as uneasy as she sounded. “Who’d like a cup of tea?”