Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Gamble

“Yes, thank you,” he replied. “But he can also be a bit idealistic at times.”

“Isn’t that a good thing in the young?” I said.

“Not always,” he replied, staring at the wall above my head. “We all have to live in the real world. To Ben, everything is either right or wrong, black or white. There’s no middle ground, no compromise, and little or no tolerance of other people’s failings.”

It was quite a statement, I thought, and one clearly born out of a certain degree of conflict between father and son. Perhaps Ben didn’t easily tolerate his father’s addiction to gambling.

Shenington seemed to almost snap out of a trance.

“Where’s your lady?” he asked, looking around.

“She was cold,” I said. “A friend has given her a lift to my mother’s house. I’ll pick her up later. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t blame her,” he said. “It’s a cold night, and many of my guests have already gone. The rest will probably go before the last race.”

I ventured out onto the balcony and peered through the gloom as yet another long-distance hunter chase became a test of stamina for the tired and dirty participants. At least this one promised to give the crowd an exciting finish, that was until one of the two leaders slipped while landing over the last fence and deposited its hapless rider onto the grass with a sickening thump. I watched as the miserable jockey sat up holding his arm in the classic brokencollarbone pose, the bane of every rider’s life.

I realized that it was at a point not very far from where the jockey was sitting that my own life had changed forever some eight years previously. How different things might have been if I’d landed on my outstretched arm that day, as he had just done, and not on my head, if I’d only broken my collarbone instead of my neck.

As Shenington had predicted, almost all his remaining guests departed after the race, saying their good-byes and preparing for the dash to their cars in the rain.

Finally, there was just Viscount Shenington, myself, and two men in rather drab suits remaining. Even the catering staff seemed to have disappeared.

Suddenly, I felt uneasy.

But my concern was far too late.

One of the two men stood by the door to ensure no one could come in while the other advanced towards me. And he had a gun in his gloved hand, together with the ubiquitous silencer.

“Mr. Foxton, you are an extraordinarily difficult man to kill,” Shenington said, smiling slightly. “You usually don’t turn up when you’re expected and yet you came here so sweetly, like a lamb to the slaughter.”

He almost laughed.

I didn’t.

I’d been bloody careless.

What do you want?” I asked, trying to keep the fear out of my voice.

“I want you dead,” Viscount Shenington said.

“So you can stop spreading your silly rumor that my brother was murdered.”

“But he was, wasn’t he?” I said.

“That is something you are not going to have to worry about anymore,” Shenington said.

“How could you have killed your own brother?” I asked. “And for what? Money?”

“My brother had no idea what it was like to be desperate for money. He was always so bloody self-righteous.”

“Honest, you mean.”

“Don’t give me all that claptrap,” he said. “Everyone’s on the make. I just want my share.”

“And is your share a hundred million euros?” I asked.

“Shut up,” he said loudly.

Why should I? Maybe I should shout as loudly as I could, to attract attention.

I took a deep breath, and the cry for help began in my throat. But that was as far as it got. The man with the gun punched me very hard in my lower abdomen, driving the air from my lungs and leaving me lying in a heap on the floor, gasping for breath. And then, just for good measure, the same man kicked me in the face, splitting my lip and sending my blood in a fine spray onto the carpet.

“Not in here, you fool,” Shenington said to him sharply.

That was slightly encouraging, I thought, through the haze in my brain. At least they weren’t going to kill me here. It might have been rather incriminating to leave a dead body in the corner of the box amongst the empty champagne bottles.

“It won’t do you any good,” I said through my bleeding mouth, my own voice sounding strange even to me. “The police know I’m here.”

“I somehow doubt that,” Shenington replied. “My information is that you’ve also been avoiding them over the past week.”

“My fiancée knows I’m here,” I said.

“Yes, so she does. When I’ve dealt with you, I’ll deal with her too.”

I thought about saying that Jan Setter also knew I was here, but that might have placed her in mortal danger as well.

I kept quiet. I’d opened my big mouth enough already.

I could hear the public-address system outside. The last race had started.

“Now,” said Shenington to the men. “Take him down now, while the race is running.”

The two men came over and hauled me to my feet.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“To your death,” Shenington said with aplomb. “But not here, obviously. Somewhere dark and quiet.”

“Can’t we…”

It was as far as I got. The man on my right, the one without the gun who had been standing by the door, suddenly punched me again in my stomach. This time I didn’t fall to the floor, but only because the two men were holding me up by my arms. My guts felt like they were on fire, and I was worried that some major damage may have been done to my insides.

“No more speak,” said the man who had punched me. English was clearly not his strong point.

“No more speak” seemed a good plan, at least for the time being, so I kept quiet as the two men walked me past my coat, through the door, across the corridor and into one of the deserted catering stations. The three of us descended in one of the caterer’s lifts. There was no sign of Shenington. I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad. I suppose two against one was marginally better than three to one, but, on the downside, I’d have little or no chance of reasoning with these two heavies. Although I doubt if I’d have had any chance anyway, had Shenington been there with us.

The lift stopped, and I was marched out of it and then across the wet tarmac towards the north exit and the racetrack parking lots beyond. The facilities at Cheltenham were really designed for the Steeplechasing Festival in March, when more than sixty thousand would flock to the track every day. The parking lots were therefore huge, but on a night like this, with only a fraction of the crowd, most of them were deserted and, at this time of night, dark and quiet.

“Somewhere dark and quiet,” Shenington had said.

I came to the conclusion that my last brief journey would likely come to an abrupt end in a far corner of one of the track’s parking lots. I tried my best to slow down, but I was being frog-marched forward. I also tried to sit down, but they were having none of that. They gripped my arms even tighter and forced me on.

I’d have to shout for help, I thought, and chance another punch, but the commentator’s voice was booming out through the public-address, so would anyone hear me? There were only a very few people about, hurrying to go home with their heads bowed down and their collars turned up against the rain. Most of the remaining crowd were sensibly under cover, watching the race. Only a fool would stand about down here in the wet.

“Horse!” a voice called loudly off to my right in warning. “Loose horse!”

There is no doubt that horses have a homing instinct. Ask any trainer who has had a horse get loose and lost on the gallops. More often than not, the horse is found happily back at the stable, standing in its own box, home before the search party.