Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Front Runner

‘Were you blackmailing him?’

‘I’ve had enough of this rubbish,’ he said suddenly. ‘Get out of my house. Right now. Go on, get out.’ He was almost shouting as he ushered me down the hallway towards his front door.

I was in no position to argue with him as standing my ground may have resulted in a physical assault, something my poor damaged body could ill afford.

‘And don’t come back,’ Morris shouted as I walked out towards the car.

‘I’ll see you at the disciplinary hearing,’ I called back in valediction.

‘I doubt that,’ he replied.

The words sent a chill down my spine. Had he said it because he would not be attending the hearing or because he believed I wouldn’t live long enough to be there myself?

‘Not a very successful visit, by the look of it,’ Faye said as I got back into her car.

‘No,’ I agreed. ‘Let’s go.’

I had been in Morris’s house for less than fifteen minutes but I was exhausted. I leaned my head back on the head restraint and closed my eyes.

‘You need to rest,’ Faye said as we drove away. ‘You must regain your strength.’

She sounded like a character in a Jane Austen novel speaking to the victim of a nasty fever. But I think she was right. I did need to regain my strength if I was going to discover who was trying to kill me.

‘But I want to see you,’ Henri said on the phone at Monday lunchtime. ‘I’ll come to Richmond after work.’

To be honest, I’d tried to put her off, although I wasn’t sure why.

Perhaps I was worried about what Faye would think of her. Or maybe it was because Quentin could be so abrupt and offhand that I didn’t want Henri to be offended to the point of never coming back.

‘What’s your sister’s address?’

I told her. Of course I told her. It had been two whole days since she had kissed me goodbye in the hospital on Saturday and I was desperate to see her again.

‘I’ll be there sometime after six,’ she said.

‘Lovely.’

I spent most of the afternoon either on the phone or at my computer.

First, I called Paul Maldini at the BHA offices.

‘How did we find out that Leslie Morris would be placing bets at Sandown on Tingle Creek Friday?’ I asked.

‘We received a tip-off,’ Paul replied.

‘From whom? And what sort of tip-off was it?’

‘I think it came from a CHIS.’

A CHIS was a covert human intelligence source. A racing insider who provided information of possible wrongdoing to the BHA. They were crucial to the integrity of racing. Some were stable staff who had concerns over the legality of things they saw happening, and who then approached the authorities in confidence for clarification. Others were employees of bookmaking firms concerned about the probity of their practices.

Once established, a CHIS would be nurtured and cherished, made to feel important, and encouraged to pass on any snippet of information that might be useful to the Authority.

‘Yes, but which CHIS?’

‘I don’t know. It was anonymous by the time it reached my desk.’

‘Try and find out for me, will you?’ I said.

‘Why?’ Paul said. ‘The information was accurate.’

‘That’s partly why I want to know who provided it. How was the informant aware something was going on unless he was also somehow involved? We were also told he was placing bets on behalf of someone else, an excluded person.’

‘What about it?’ Paul said.

‘Morris claims he used his own money.’

There was a long pause from the other end of the line while Paul worked out, first, that I must have spoken to Morris and, secondly, whether he approved or not.

‘I’ll get back to you,’ Paul said.

I started searching on my computer. My main problem was that I didn’t really know what I was searching for.

Paul Maldini phoned back almost immediately.

‘It was an anonymous call to RaceStraight.’

‘Dead end, then,’ I said.

Anyone could make such an anonymous tip, and there was no way of us identifying the caller. The RaceStraight reporting line was operated by an independent body and they weren’t allowed to say who had called them, even if they knew.

I went back to my computer and used the BHA database to watch the videos of all the races in which Bill McKenzie had ridden for the month leading up to his ride on Wisden Wonder at Sandown. I was trying to spot anything suspicious.

In all, there were forty races, twenty-three of them over hurdles, fifteen steeplechases and two National Hunt flat races. In those forty, Bill had had three winners and five seconds. In addition, he had fallen twice and been unseated once, the difference between a fall and an unseated being whether the horse itself actually falls to the ground or the jockey simply comes off its back while it remains upright. Both result in the jockey landing on the turf at high speed and from a great height.

I studied his riding in all the races and with only one did I have the slightest question.

McKenzie had ridden a horse called Pool Table in a three-mile novice chase at Cheltenham in mid-November on the same day as the Paddy Power Gold Cup. It had started as hot favourite at a price of eleven-to-eight, but had finished second of the six runners, beaten two lengths by a much longer priced competitor.

The only reason I was even the tiniest bit suspicious was because Pool Table had hit the third-last fence in exactly the same way that Wisden Wonder had done at Sandown.

Pool Table had been lying third in the approach to the fence, tucked up very close behind the two leaders. He blundered badly, crashing through the stiff birch, and was lucky not to have fallen. However, his momentum, critical at this stage of the race, had been totally lost and he was unable to make up the deficit in the run up the famous Cheltenham hill to the finish line.

The fence in question was on the run downhill towards the turn into the home straight, where the runners were racing almost directly towards the crowded grandstands. Even the broadcast television pictures were head-on at this point, where the horses were travelling at their fastest as they made their bids for victory.

It would not have been easy for anyone to spot what actually happened.

Only on the RaceTech patrol-camera footage, taken from behind, was it possible to see that Bill McKenzie appeared to have made no effort to invite his mount to jump, just as he had failed to do on Wisden Wonder in the hurdle race at Sandown.

According to the BHA database, Bill McKenzie lived near Wantage, not far from Lambourn. If I had been feeling better, I’d have taken a train there and then to go and see him. He probably wouldn’t be at the races, not if he was nursing a broken collarbone.

Maybe I’d go later in the week.

I warned Faye that I had a female friend coming to visit but that did little to ease my nerves at what she would think of her.

My ever-caring sister did her best to extract information, but I was playing my cards very close to my chest. If there was one thing I’d learned in the Intelligence Corps, it was how to keep things to myself.

‘I met her at Sandown races,’ I said finally, when pressed. ‘We sat next to each other at a lunch.’

‘And you like her?’

‘Yes.’

‘And is she keen on you?’

What could I say? Henri had been keen enough to spend several days trying to find me at University College Hospital.

‘I think so.’

‘Good,’ Faye said, smiling broadly. ‘I look forward to meeting her.’

I waited for Henri in the sitting room, unable to resist the urge to stand at the window so I could watch her approach across Richmond Green. I was like a child impatient for the arrival of Father Christmas.