Dick Francis's Damage

by Felix Francis

“I have no intention of doing and dying,” I said. “I intend on finding out who’s really responsible for this mess. What exactly did Leonardo say in his letter that arrived on Wednesday morning? You said that he was angry because the payment hadn’t been enough. Was that all?”

  “He said he’d teach us a lesson.”

  “Well, we now know what he meant by that. Did he say anything about getting some more money?”

  “He said he wants a million pounds or there would be more disruption, but he surely must know he won’t get it. Especially now.”

  “At least he’s come down from two million,” I said. “How about if we offer to pay him?”

  “With what? Monopoly money?”

  “We need him to arrange another drop. That would give us another chance to catch him.”

  “But we didn’t get even close to catching him last time. We just threw away a hundred grand by chucking it out the window of a fast-moving train.”

  “But what if he used the same drop point again? I could just wait there for him to walk into a trap.”

  “But that’s hardly likely, is it? It would be far too risky.”

  “Why?” I said. “Leonardo has doped racetrack water supplies twice and he’s used poisoned food twice. Perhaps he’s a man of habit.”

  “I think it’s a bit of a long shot.”

  “Maybe,” I said, “but the spot he chose was ideal for the purpose. There can’t be many stretches on that line with a nice long, isolated grassy embankment and no trees to get in the way.”

  “But he could use a different line.”

  “Not if he wants opening windows to chuck things out of. Almost every other line now has sealed trains with automatic doors.”

  “I still think it’s a huge risk,” Crispin said.

  “We always have the option of not throwing out the money if it’s at a different spot. And we have to do something. I’m fed up with us just waiting for him to disrupt things again. But we do need to be at that Board meeting this afternoon. Tell Howard that we have to be there.”

  “How, dear boy?” Crispin asked.

  “Say we’ll be there to help divert some of the flak away from him. I’m sure he’ll agree.”

  “It might get us fired even faster.”

  “Do and die,” I said. “If we’re going to die, I’d rather die doing something positive.”

  “OK. I’ll ask him. But don’t be surprised if Ian Tulloch vetoes it.”

  “Don’t let Howard tell him,” I said. “At least not until we’re already in the boardroom. And, Crispin, don’t be surprised at what I say at the meeting. Go along with it. Don’t question anything. I promise you, I’ve not lost my marbles.”

  He laughed. “Now, why would I think that, dear boy?”

  —

  I ARRIVED at the BHA offices in High Holborn at a quarter to one just as many of the shell-shocked staff were going out to find some lunch.

  I was confronted by Nigel Green in the lobby.

  “You could have told me,” he said angrily. “You made a fool of me. I’ve been going round telling everyone that it was a scandal that you’d been fired and, all along, you hadn’t been.”

  “Thank you,” I said smiling at him. “You’re a good friend.”

  “Better than you,” he said.

  That hurt.

  “I’m sorry.”

  He looked at me for a moment, nodded, then walked past me to the door.

  Paul Maldini was not so forgiving when I met him in the corridor outside Crispin Larson’s office.

  “You’re a bloody disgrace,” he said. “I’m your damn boss, for God’s sake.” He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Don’t you trust me?”

  “It isn’t a matter of trust.” Although I suppose it was.

  “It certainly feels like it to me,” he said. He pointed his right index finger straight towards my face. “I’ve got my eye on you, young man. In the future, you’d better watch your step.”

  He turned on his heel and marched away stiffly down the corridor.

  In the future, Paul had said.

  He was assuming that the BHA had a future and that I would still be in it.

  Governance by consensus, not by statute. That’s what Howard Lever had said. The way things were going, the British Horseracing Authority was rapidly losing the confidence of the racing industry and hence would soon lose its consensus as well.

  The Jockey Club, under the terms of its Royal Charter, has overall responsibility for governance of racing but had delegated that remit initially to the Horseracing Regulatory Authority in April 2006 and subsequently to the BHA a year later.

  I wondered what the reaction in racing would be if the one hundred and thirty-four self-electing members of the Jockey Club now decided to take back the regulatory control of the sport for themselves.

  In the past there would have been uproar, but now I was not so sure.

  I knocked on Crispin’s office door.

  “Come in,” shouted a voice from inside. So I did.

  “Ah, my brother-in-arms,” said Crispin, rising briefly from behind his desk. “Come on in and sit down. You look very smart. We don’t often see you in a suit and tie.”

  “I thought I should dress properly for my execution. I’m also wearing two vests so I don’t shiver.”

  He laughed out loud and banged his desk in approval.

  “Did you manage to speak to Howard Lever about us being at the meeting?” I asked, taking the chair opposite him.

  “Yes, I did.” Crispin hesitated, which I took as not such a good sign. “But he’s very worried about his own position and he doesn’t want to upset the new chairman.”

  “Did you explain that we might be able take some of the flak away from him?”

  “Yes, but he wasn’t convinced.”

  “We really need to be in that meeting,” I said.

  “Why exactly?” Crispin asked.

  “We just do.”

  “Come on, dear boy, I can hardly say to Howard that we really need to be there just because we do. You’ll have to give me a more definite reason.”

  I sat and looked at him for a moment.

  “Crispin, can I trust you?”

  “What a strange thing to say,” he said. “Of course you can trust me.”

  I paused again, wondering if I was crazy.

  “I believe that someone who attends those Board meetings knows more about what is going on than they are saying.”

  “Go on,” he said, sitting quietly—and not reaching for a telephone to fetch the men from the lunatic asylum to come and take me away.

  “I’m not saying that one of them is our friend Leonardo, although he might be, I’m just sure that someone on that Board reacted to something I said.”

  “What?”

  “Do you remember the meeting we had here on the Sunday after the Grand National?”

  “Of course.”

  “I said at that meeting that I believed the person responsible was a racing insider and that because of the drugs used to dope the horses he might have a hyperactive child.”

  “I remember.”

  “Well,” I said, “something happened in that meeting and I now think it was a reaction from someone when I said that.”

  “What sort of reaction?”

  “I’m not sure. Some sort of frisson of excitement. Or maybe it was fear. Either way, it made me feel uncomfortable.”

  “It’s not much to go on,” he said.

  “I know. I only remembered it yesterday afternoon and I’ve spent most of the night thinking about it. But I’m sure I’m right.”

  “So why does that mean you need to be at the meeting today?”

  “Partly because I want to say it again to see if there’s another similar reaction and this time I�
��d be ready for it.”

  “And?” he encouraged.

  “I want to argue in favor of paying our friend some more money so that I can set a trap for him at the drop.”

  “Assuming it will be at the same place?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We made it quite clear at the last meeting that we didn’t know where the first drop had been, so there’s no reason for him to change it. We just have to make sure we don’t let on that we are planning a trap.”

  “But what if you’re wrong, dear boy?”

  “Then we don’t throw out the money and nothing will have been lost other than my time and energy.”

  —

  IAN TULLOCH was far from happy when Crispin and I entered the boardroom with Howard Lever, upon whom Crispin had spent the past half an hour applying undue pressure to get us in.

  “This is a meeting of just the Board,” he said. “We do not need any supernumeraries.”

  “I think they should be here,” said Howard. “And Stephen Kohli as well. They have been present at all the other emergency meetings and their contributions may be relevant.”

  Ian Tulloch didn’t like it. I could see in his eyes that he felt his authority as the new chairman was being undermined. He looked around for support but didn’t find any.

  “Seems sensible to me,” said Neil Wallinger, and there were nods of agreement from Charles Payne and George Searle.

  “Very well,” said Ian Tulloch reluctantly. “But I may ask them to leave when we get on to questions of accountability.”

  Howard raised his eyebrows in apparent surprise at the remark, but he must have known what was coming.

  We waited while Stephen Kohli was located and took his place at the table.

  “Gentlemen,” Ian Tulloch said loudly to bring the meeting to order. “We face the most difficult period in our short history, but we must be strong and resolute. The BHA is the authority for racing in this country and we should not shy away from our responsibilities.

  “I know that the departure of Roger Vincent is seen by some of you as a major blow to our credibility, but I see it as an opportunity, a chance to put the past behind us and to move forward with aplomb.

  “This Board has my total confidence, and we must strive to regain the trust of those in our industry who rely on us every day of their lives. It is not the time to shirk our duty or to quit. That would plunge racing into disrepute and greater chaos. Now is the time to stand up and be counted, the time to demonstrate that the BHA is up to the challenge and ready to perform its task with integrity and sureness.”

  He finished with a flourish and looked up and down the table as if seeking approval or even some applause.

  “Bravo,” said Neil Wallinger. “Well said.”

  There were also murmurings of approval from the others.

  “But what about the press?” Bill Ripley said, pointing down the table at the chairman with the arm of his tortoiseshell glasses. “They seem to be out for our blood.”

  “We must remain firm,” Ian Tulloch responded.

  “And we absolutely must give some explanation of the events at the Cheltenham Festival and what we propose to do about the results,” Piers Pottinger said. “To continue to say nothing is greatly harming our image.”

  “But what are we going to say about the results?” Neil Wallinger asked. “We can hardly make the whole meeting void. The betting public would be in meltdown, to say nothing of the owners, trainers and jockeys.”

  Crispin was ready with an answer. “We can simply announce that the levels of methylphenidate found in the tested samples were too small to have made any difference how the horses ran and, consequently, all the results stand.”

  “And was it too small?” Neil asked.

  “Yes,” said Crispin confidently. “It was only slightly above the no-effect threshold. Hardly enough to make any significant difference.”

  “How close were the races?” I asked. “If a horse that tested positive won by a nose, are we then open to a legal challenge from the one that finished second.”

  “But it would also have had methylphenidate in its system.”

  “Can we be sure of that? Most of the horses that finished second weren’t tested. And we know that at least three were clear of the drug.”

  Stephen Kohli was dispatched to get a record of all the Cheltenham results.

  “Now,” said the chairman, “while we wait for Stephen, can we have a report on yesterday’s events at Fontwell Park?”

  “Ten people total were made ill,” Howard said. “Two of those were the stipendiary stewards appointed for the day and both were taken to the hospital with severe dehydration.”

  Nobody liked to ask for the finer details of why they had become dehydrated.

  “What was the source?” Ian Tulloch asked.

  “We don’t have the results back yet, but it would appear that it was something in one of the salads that was served for lunch in the stewards’ dining room. Remains of the lunch are currently being tested by the Food Standards Agency.”

  “Was it the same stuff as in the cake at Ascot?” asked Neil Wallinger.

  “There wasn’t any of the cake left to analyze, but I wouldn’t be surprised. The symptoms were the same.”

  “You think it was the same man?” asked George Searle.

  “We can’t be sure,” Howard replied, “but I think it would be too much of a coincidence if it wasn’t.”

  There were more nods of agreement from all around the table.

  “How easy is it to get poison?” Neil Wallinger asked. “Don’t you have to sign a register or something?”

  “Maybe you do for arsenic, or something like that, but lots of other things are poisonous,” I said. “Everyone knows that eating just a couple of deadly nightshade berries can be fatal, but there are many more readily available poisons. Red kidney beans are highly toxic if eaten raw, and elderberries can kill you as well, to say nothing of toadstools and other fungi, most of which are lethal. The army instructs soldiers in survival techniques and part of the training is given over to foraging for food, in particular what you can eat safely and what you can’t.”

  “Are you suggesting that this man has been a soldier?” asked Bill Ripley.

  “No, not necessarily,” I said. “Anyone can find out about poisons easily enough on the Internet. All I really suspect is he’s a racing insider and that maybe there is hyperactivity in his family.”

  I was ready for any reaction, but there was none. Not even a flicker. Was I wrong? Or had the person been ready for it and been able to control his emotions? Perhaps it was only on the first occasion, when the individual was unprepared, that it had produced such an effect.

  “And I reckon it is the same man who has been doping horses in their home stables as well,” I said. “You may recall that the trainer Matthew Unwin was disqualified for eight years in January after some of the horses in his care tested positive for a banned stimulant. Crispin Larson and I are now of the opinion that his claim that someone else drugged the horses was probably true. Of course you also know that Unwin killed Jordan Furness at Cheltenham on Champion Hurdle Day. He is currently in Long Lartin Prison awaiting trial for murder and I’m trying to arrange to visit him.”

  “For what purpose?” asked Neil Wallinger.

  “I want to ask him why he thinks Jordan Furness had something to do with the doping. That’s what he’s apparently told the police. I know it’s a long shot but we seem to be up against a brick wall at the moment.”

  “Yes,” said Ian Tulloch. “And what are we going to do about it? We simply can’t afford for this man to go on disrupting race meetings.”

  “We should pay him,” I said.

  All the eyes in the room swiveled around in my direction.

  “You’ve changed your tune,” Piers Pottinger remarked. “Why the su
dden conversion?”

  “This has been going on now for a month,” I said, “and we’re no nearer finding out who’s responsible. He’s always been one step ahead of us. He poisons the drinking water so we introduce the trucks, so instead he poisons the jockeys. We put systems in place to stop that, but he then sabotages the track. And now he’s got at the stewards. He’s been leading us in a right merry dance and, as a result, the BHA is imploding round us. Perhaps it is time for a different approach before it’s too late.”

  “But can we afford to pay?” Howard said. “And there’s no guarantee that doing so will make him stop. That policeman made it quite clear that he thought we were fools for paying anything.”

  “Exactly,” said Ian Tulloch. “And raising that amount of cash is not that easy. Could we even do it again?”

  “You originally said that the upper limit was half a million,” Crispin said. “So far, we have paid only a fifth of that.”

  “I agree that we should try something,” said Bill Ripley. “Maybe paying him is the right thing to do.”

  “What I can’t understand,” said Charles Payne, “is how this man could make use of such a large amount of cash anyway. Money-laundering regulations are so tight these days that it’s almost impossible to pay for anything with readies.” He sounded as if he had tried.

  “Casinos,” I said. “Or a dodgy Indian diamond dealer.”

  “What about them?” he asked.

  “Many casinos will take cash and ask no questions. Just buy fifty or a hundred thousand quid’s worth of chips, sit at a table and play with only a fraction of that, then cash out at the end for a check or direct payment into his bank account. Easy. And even if you can’t do it in this country anymore, you certainly can in Egypt or Lebanon where the high rollers and superrich Arabs go to gamble and where fifty or a hundred thousand is regarded as mere small change.”

  “And the diamond dealers?” asked Charles Payne.

  “It doesn’t have to be diamonds,” I said. “Any commodity will do. And it’s the purchase contract that’s important, not the actual stones. You pay cash to an Indian broker in Wembley for a contract to buy diamonds and then those contracts are ‘sold’ in India. The diamonds never actually exist. It’s just a ruse to get money out of India because the Indian government has tight control of the movement of their currency. You pay a hundred thousand in cash to the guy in Wembley and end up with a transfer of ninety thousand into your bank account from India as a legitimate diamond trader and, presto, the dirty money is now clean, minus the broker’s commission. They are always desperate for sterling cash to pay out to the Indian community living here in exchange for rupees received back home. No questions would be asked.”