Dick Francis: Whip Hand

Lucas drummed his fingers on the tablecloth. 'Unofficial,' he said. 'My own private show.'

As Lucas Wainwright was himself the top brass of the Security Service, the investigative, policing arm of the Jockey Club, even unofficial requests from him could be considered to be respectably well-founded. Or at least, until proved otherwise.

'What sort of job?' I said.

The thought of what sort of job slowed him up for the first time. He hummed and hah'ed and drummed his fingers some more, but finally shaped up to what proved to be a brute of a problem.

'Look, Sid, this is in strictest confidence.'

'Yes.'

'I've no higher authority for approaching you like this.'

'Well,' I said. 'Never mind. Go on.'

'As I've no authority, I can't promise you any pay.'

I sighed.

'All I could offer is… well… help, if you should ever need it. And if it was within my power to give it, of course.'

'That could be worth more than pay,' I said.

He looked relieved. 'Good. Now… this is very awkward. Very delicate.' He still hesitated, but at last, with a sigh like a groan, he said. 'I'm asking you to make… er… discreet enquiries into the… er… background… of one of our people.'

There was an instant's silence. Then I said, 'Do you mean one of you? One of the Security Service?'

'I'm afraid that's right.'

'Enquiries into exactly what?' I said. He looked unhappy. 'Bribery. Backhanders. That sort of thing.'

'Um,' I said. 'Have I got this straight? You believe one of your chaps may be collecting pay-offs from villains, and you want me to find out?'

'That's it,' he said. 'Exactly.'

I thought it over. 'Why don't you do the investigating yourselves? Just detail another of your chaps.'

'Ah. Yes.' He cleared this throat. 'But there are difficulties. If I am wrong, I cannot afford to have it known that I was suspicious. It would cause a great, a very great deal of trouble. And if I am right, which I fear I am, we… that is, the Jockey Club… would want to be able to deal with things quietly. A public scandal involving the Security Service would be very damaging to racing.'

I thought he was perhaps putting it a bit high, but he wasn't.

'The man in question,' he said miserably, 'is Eddy Keith.'

There was another countable silence. In the hierarchy of the Security Service then existing, there was Lucas Wainwright at the top, with two equal deputies one step down. Both of the deputies were retired senior-rank policemen. One of them was ex-Superintendent Eddison Keith.

I had a clear mental picture of him, as I had talked with him often. A big bluff breezy man with a heavy hand for clapping one on the shoulder. More than a trace of Suffolk accent in a naturally loud voice. A large flourishing straw-coloured moustache, fluffy light brown hair through which one could see the pink scalp shining, and fleshy-lidded eyes which seemed always to be twinkling with good humour, and often weren't.

I had glimpsed there occasionally a glint as cold and unmerciful as a crevasse. Very much a matter of sun on ice: pretty but full of traps. One for applying the handcuffs with a cheery smile; that was Eddy Keith.

But crooked…? I would never have thought so.

'What are the indications?' I said at last. Lucas Wainwright chewed his lower lip for a while and then said, 'Four of his enquiries over the past year have come up with incorrect results.'

I blinked. 'That's not very conclusive.' 'No. Precisely. If I were sure, I wouldn't be here talking to you.'

'I guess not.' I thought a bit. 'What sort of enquiries were they?'

'They were all syndicates. Enquiries into the suitability of people wanting to form syndicates to own horses. Making sure there weren't any undesirables sneaking into racing through the back door. Eddy gave all-clear reports on four proposed syndicates which do in fact all contain one or more people who would not be allowed through the gates.'

'How do you know?' I said. 'How did you find out?'

He made a face. 'I was interviewing someone last week in connection with a dope charge. He was loaded with spite against a group of people he said had let him down, and he crowed over me that those people all owned horses under false names. He told me the names, and I checked, and the four syndicates which contain them were all passed by Eddy.'

'I suppose,' I said slowly, 'they couldn't possibly be syndicates headed by Lord Friarly?'

He looked depressed. 'Yes, I'm afraid so. Lord Friarly mentioned to me earlier this afternoon that he'd asked you to take a look-see. Told me out of politeness. It just reinforced the idea I'd already had of asking you myself. But I want it kept quiet.'

'So does he,' I said reassuringly. 'Can you let me have Eddy's reports? Or copies of them? And the false and true names of the undesirables?'

He nodded. 'I'll see you get them.' He looked at his watch and stood up, the briskness returning to his manner like an accustomed coat. 'I don't need to tell you… But do be discreet.'

I joined him on his quick march to the door, where he left me at an even faster pace, sketching the merest wave of farewell. His backview vanished uprightly through the weighing room door, and I took myself out again to my car, reflecting that if I went on collecting jobs at the present rate I would need to call up the troops.

I telephoned the North London Comprehensive School and asked to speak to Chico Barnes.

'He's teaching judo,' a voice said repressively. 'His class usually ends about now.'

'Wait a minute.'

I waited, driving towards London with my right hand on the wheel and my left round the receiver and a spatter of rain on the windscreen. The car had been adapted for one-handed steering by the addition of a knob on the front face of the wheel's rim: very simple, very effective, and no objections from the police.

'Hullo?'

Chico 's voice, cheerful, full even in one single word of his general irreverent view of the world.

'Want a job?' I said.

'Yeah.' His grin travelled distinctly. down the line. 'It's been too dead quiet this past week.'

'Can you go to the flat? I'll meet you there.'

'I've got an extra class. They lumbered me. Some other guy's evening class of stout ladies. He's ill. I don't blame him. Where are you 'phoning from?'

'The car. From Kempton to London. I'm calling in at Roehampton, at the limb centre, as it's on the way, but I could be outside your school in… say… an hour and a half. I'll pick you up. O.K.?'

'Sure,' he said. 'What are you going to the limb centre for?'

'To see Alan Stephenson.' 'He'll have gone home.'

'He said he'd be there, working late.'

'Your arm hurting again?'

'No… Matter of screws and such.'

'Yeah,' he said. 'O. K. See you.'

I put the 'phone down with the feeling of satisfaction that Chico nearly always engendered. There was no doubt that as a working companion I found him great: funny, inventive, persistent, and deceptively strong. Many a rogue had discovered too late that young slender Chico with his boyish grin could throw a twenty stone man over his shoulder with the greatest ease.

When I first got to know him he was working, as I was, in the Radnor detective agency, where I had learned my new trade. At one point there had been a chance that I would become first a partner and eventually the owner of that agency, but although Radnor and I had come to an agreement, and had even changed the agency's name to Radnor-Halley, life had delivered an earthquake upheaval and decided things otherwise. It must have been only a day before the partnership agreements were ready to be signed, with finances arranged and the champagne approaching the ice, that Radnor himself sat down for a quiet snooze in his armchair at home, and never woke up.