Felix Francis - Dick Francis's Front Runner

‘He didn’t give his name,’ Bill said.

There was something about his tone of voice that made me think he did know.

‘Was it a man called Leslie Morris?’ I asked.

He looked up at me sharply.

‘When I asked you about him before, you said you’d never heard of him, but you blushed, so I knew you were lying. So was it Morris who called you?’

He looked down again at the empty wineglass in his hand.

Then he nodded. ‘He didn’t actually say so, but I think it was him.’

‘Why did you lie to me about knowing him?’ I said.

‘Because I was worried about what he might say to you.’

‘Have you known him long?’ I asked.

‘Only since May. It was his bloody horse I went to Paris to ride. Morris called me out of the blue after Aintree. He was dead keen for me to go — paid my fare and everything, although, at the time, I couldn’t think why he bothered. Useless nag finished tailed-off last.’

So Morris had been lying about that too. Bill McKenzie had indeed ridden his horse, but in France. I silently berated myself for not having checked the French records as well as those for the UK and Ireland.

‘So Morris was over there with you?’

‘Yeah, together with his son. Nasty piece of work he is, I can tell you.’

‘Does Morris know about the girl?’ I asked.

‘I reckon he might.’

I believed there was no might about it. I’d wager my life savings that, not only did Morris know about it, he’d set it up. He’d probably arranged for the girl to get McKenzie drunk or, more likely, to slip him a mickey. Rohypnol maybe.

Easy.

Help him up to his room, remove all his clothes, lie him on the bed with the naked girl in a few compromising positions on top, snap a few photos just to be sure, and, hey presto, he had cause for blackmail and control. Rohypnol even caused temporary amnesia as a side effect so he wouldn’t have remembered much, but just enough not to question that it had happened.

Bill probably never even had sex with the girl. He’d have been incapable. But how would he be able to convince his wife of that?

‘Who else knows?’ I asked.

‘No one,’ he said. ‘I’ve not mentioned it to a soul before you. Please don’t tell anyone.’ He was begging me. ‘I don’t want Julie finding out.’

‘There may be nothing for her to find out about,’ I said. ‘If you don’t remember anything happening, then it’s quite likely that nothing actually did happen. Especially if you were unconscious.’

‘I chatted up the girl in the first place,’ he said gloomily.

‘If every wife divorced her husband simply because he’d chatted up some other girl, there’d hardly be a single marriage left intact.’

‘You don’t know my Julie. She can be very jealous.’

More fool her, I thought. But, then, I wouldn’t have wanted Henri chatting up some other man at the wedding in Kent.

I wondered what she was doing right now.

‘I was determined not to go through with it,’ Bill said, bringing me back from my daydreaming.

‘With what?’ I asked.

‘Stopping Wisden Wonder from winning. I’d done it once with Pool Table and I told the man that that was enough. But he says that I should think very carefully before I subjected my wife to such distressing news.’ Bill laughed forlornly. ‘I told him it wasn’t bloody me who would be subjecting her to the distressing news. He just replied that I should have thought about that before I fucked another woman.’

I could appreciate his dilemma.

‘I did consider trying to win the race anyway and to hell with him. If I’d won, perhaps it would screw the man good and proper. And, if I didn’t, then it wouldn’t matter because at least I hadn’t stopped the horse on purpose.’

‘So why didn’t you try and win?’ I asked.

‘I didn’t want to risk it. The man would have sent the pictures to Julie.’ He put his head in his hands again. ‘I even tried to get you lot to stop him.’

‘What?’ I said, surprised.

He looked up. ‘I tried to get the BHA to stop him by phoning that anonymous tip-off line. I was hoping you might arrest Morris or something. Then I’d be off the hook, so to speak. But I saw him standing by the paddock exit at Sandown as I was going out on Wisden Wonder, all bold as brass in his bloody hat. He didn’t say anything, he just glared at me. It gave me the bloody willies, I can tell you. So I made damn sure I couldn’t win. I fell off.’

‘Why did you tell the tip-off line that he was placing bets for an excluded person?’

‘I was hardly going to say that he was betting on a fixed race, was I, not when I was the bloody fixer? Don’t be daft. I tried to think of something that the BHA would have to act on. Something that would prevent him from being allowed into the racecourse. Something that wouldn’t implicate me.’

But it had implicated him.

It had been Bill’s telephone call that had alerted me to what was actually going on.

The irony wasn’t lost on him.

‘I suppose that was a bloody stupid idea.’

The following morning, having checked in the Racing Post that he wasn’t riding at either of the day’s two race meetings, I went to the village of East Hagbourne hoping to find Willy Mitchell at home.

My taxi drew up outside Mitchell’s place at noon. Willy was strapping his twin girls into their seats in a battered old Ford that stood in front of a modest-looking semi-detached bungalow.

‘Can you please wait?’ I said to the taxi driver. ‘I may be a while.’

‘Be as long as you like,’ he said, reclining his seat. ‘The meter’s still running.’

Willy Mitchell wasn’t pleased to see me.

‘We’re just going out for Sunday lunch,’ he said.

‘I won’t keep you long.’

His very young-looking wife came out of the front door carrying two plastic bags. She was little more than a girl herself.

‘Look after the twins for a minute, will you, love?’ Willy said to her. ‘This is about work. I won’t be long.’ He looked at me. ‘You’d better come inside.’

Mrs Mitchell looked quizzically in her husband’s direction but he said nothing more to her. He just led me through the front door and along into their kitchen, where we stood either side of a small table.

‘Now what?’ he said.

‘I’m on your side, Willy.’

‘I doubt that.’

‘It’s true, even if you don’t believe me.’

‘What do you want?’

‘Who is blackmailing you?’ I asked.

He didn’t say anything. As before at Ascot, he just stared at me.

I waited.

‘Who says I’m being blackmailed?’ he asked eventually.

‘You do,’ I replied. ‘It’s what your body language is shouting at me.’

He went back to saying nothing. I waited some more.

‘I’m trying to help you,’ I said.

‘Then go away and leave me in peace.’

‘I can’t do that,’ I said. ‘Either talk to me now or you’ll end up at a disciplinary panel at the BHA and you will lose your licence to ride.’

‘If I talk to you, I’ll lose my licence anyway.’

‘Not if I can help it,’ I said. ‘Willy, I know that you are being forced to do something you don’t want to. You are not alone. There are other jockeys in the same position as you. I don’t want any of you punished. I just want the blackmailer.’

‘Come on, Willy,’ called a female voice from down the hall. ‘Hurry up, or we’ll be late.’

‘All right, Amy’ love,’ Willy shouted back. ‘I’ll be there in a minute.’ We heard her go back outside. He looked at me. ‘We’re going to her mother’s place. She likes us there on time.’