by Dick Francis
I wasn’t asking him, but he was right nevertheless. I was far too late.
“Only doing my job as instructed,” I said.
I checked the list again. Stall 63 next door had been occupied by a horse called Graduate, the winner of the Triumph Hurdle. Graduate was one of nine horses to have tested positive on the Friday.
I took more swabs from the floor and from the manger, placing them as before into separate plastic bags.
Freddie stood and watched, swaying slightly from foot to foot as if bored.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said to him. “Leave me the keys. I’ll lock up and hand them into reception when I’m done.”
He hesitated.
“I do have the authority, you know,” I said, “and I could be here some time.”
“OK,” he said, handing me the keys. “I’ve got plenty of other things to do.”
“Good,” I said. “You get on.”
He hesitated again, but I turned away and walked up the line of stalls looking for number 86. When I glanced back, he’d gone.
Somehow I felt more comfortable not being watched, except, of course, there were those twelve over-seeing cameras and young Freddie was probably already back in the control room studying my every move.
Stall 86 was the one that had been occupied by the horse that had finished second in the Gold Cup, another of the nine that had tested positive. It was identical to the others and spotlessly clean. I collected more samples anyway, but without much enthusiasm or expectation.
“Can I help you?” said a voice loudly behind me, making me jump.
I turned around to find a man standing in the doorway, hands on hips, his body language screaming out that he wasn’t happy.
“Hello,” I said, stripping off a latex glove and holding out a hand, “I’m Jeff Hinkley from the BHA.”
The information didn’t exactly placate him. If anything, it made things worse. He reluctantly shook my hand.
“Fergus Hunter,” he said. “Stables manager.”
“Ah,” I said. “We tried to call you but there was no reply.”
“We?”
“Young Freddie from the office. He gave me the keys.” I held up the bunch.
I had a suspicion that young Freddie was going to get a bit of an earful later, but it wasn’t actually his fault. I did have a right of entry to these stables at any time and Fergus Hunter must have known that.
“What is it that you’re after?” he asked in a broad northern accent.
“I’m just doing an inspection,” I replied.
“You won’t find owt wrong here.”
“I’m sure,” I said, smiling. “These stables appear to be well maintained and very clean.”
“Aye,” Fergus said, slightly pacified. “Best racetrack stables in country. You won’t find owt wrong here.” He repeated the line just in case I’d missed it the first time.
“Do you have a central feed store?” I asked.
“Nah,” he said. “They bring their own feeds, if needed. Store them in these.” He pointed at one of the cupboards that were spaced around the place. “Each trainer has his own tack box. We have seventy-five in all. That’s where they keep the feed, along with bridles, head collars, buckets, rugs and so on. Everything they need.”
“Are they secure?”
He laughed. “You bet they are. Stuff walks otherwise. People are always complaining that their good stuff has been switched for bad. Traveling head grooms get a key from me. They have to give a deposit, mind, or I’d never get them back neither.”
“So do you provide anything?” I said.
“We supply bedding. Mostly wood shavings these days, but we do offer paper strips as well. It used to be straw, but some horses tended to eat it, then they couldn’t race from being so full.” He laughed. “They won’t touch the shavings.”
So it couldn’t have been contaminated bedding that was the source.
“How about water?” I asked.
“What about it? It comes out of them taps.” He pointed at one of the taps positioned at intervals every three or four stalls.
“How about the supply?” I asked. “Where does it come from?”
Now it was his turn to look at me as if he thought me an idiot.
“Through the bloody pipes, man,” he said. “Where else do you think it comes from?”
“What I meant was, do you have storage tanks or is it direct from the mains?”
“From the mains,” he said. “We just turn on the tap and out it comes. We don’t have any tankers delivering water or anything like that.”
That also wasn’t what I’d meant.
“Is the mains connected directly to the taps or is there a tank somewhere?”
“I know there’s some sort of tank in the space above my office ceiling, I can hear it filling when it’s quiet.”
“I’ll need to take some samples,” I said.
He watched as I filled three small glass vials, one from a tap in the main yard, one from the Irish and, for good measure, one from the drain in the horse-washing area.
“I’ll need another sample from the tank above your office.”
I could tell from Fergus’s expression that he thought I was wasting my time as we walked back towards the entrance.
Access to the space was via a trapdoor set in the overhang in front of and above his office window. I used a stepladder. And, sure enough, there was a large tank in the space immediately above the desk. I smiled to myself and hoped that the rafters were strong enough.
I collected a sample of the water from the tank and carefully added the glass vial to the three others in my bag.
“Is that all?” Fergus asked somewhat impatiently.
“Not quite,” I said. “I can’t see on this list a stable allocated to Tail End Charlie.”
“That’s because he didn’t have one.”
“I thought all the horses had to use the stables.”
“Technically, they do,” Fergus said, “but Simon Booker’s runners are a law unto themselves.” Simon Booker trained at Prestbury, on the far side of the track. “They get walked over from home, already bridled. Booker would rather not bring them into the stables at all, he claims they pick up viruses, but he has to. That’s what the rules say, but somehow Booker manages to get round them.”
“Are you saying that Tail End Charlie didn’t enter the racetrack stables on Gold Cup Day?”
“Yeah, I am. I remember it well because he, Mr. Booker, was having a bit of a panic because the horse was late. Gave his groom a right telling-off for ambling over so slowly. It was bang on the forty-five minutes before the race. I watched the vet scan the chip through my office window and then the horse went straight to the pre-parade. Went straight home again after too. He never once set foot inside the stables.”
But he had been tested, with negative results. Was that significant?
“Look, I’m not trying to get Mr. Booker into any sort of trouble or anything,” Fergus said, suddenly becoming worried. “He complied with the rules about identification OK. I could have made Tail End Charlie come into the stables for ten minutes or so if I’d wanted, but it seemed easier to send him straight to the pre-parade ring, especially as we were so full.”
“It’s all right, Mr. Hunter,” I said calmingly. “I’ll not be reporting you or Simon Booker for failing to comply with the regulations. What you did was eminently sensible.”
He relaxed a little.
“What can you tell me about Barometer or Targetman?” I said. “They both ran on Gold Cup afternoon. Targetman won the last.”
“Bonkers trainer,” Fergus said, almost under his breath.
“Which one?” I asked, intrigued.
“Targetman’s,” he said. “Chap called Matheson, Rupert Matheson. Trains in Lambourn.”
“Insists on still using peat for bedding. Brings his own with him. No one else uses peat anymore, it’s far too dusty, and it’s a bugger for us to clean out afterwards, but he maintains that his horses like it. And he always brings his own water from home in plastic containers. Claims his horses prefer the taste of Lambourn water. Stupid man.”
Maybe he was not so stupid after all.
I reckoned the methylphenidate had to have been in the stables’ water supply.
11
He’s bloody done it again.” It was Crispin Larson. He called me on my cell phone very early on Wednesday morning. So early that Lydia and I were still asleep in bed.
“Who has?” I asked sleepily. “And what’s he done again?”
“Our friend, this Leonardo. He didn’t wait for Ascot. He did it again at Newbury last Saturday. Preliminary results on the A samples show that all six winners there tested positive for low-dose methylphenidate. The guys at the testing labs are having kittens. They’re worried about it being due to contamination at their end. I’m not sure that Stephen Kohli can keep a lid on things there for much longer. How did you get on at Cheltenham?”
“I’m pretty sure it was in the stables’ water supply. I’ve got some samples for you, along with some swabs. Can you meet me at El Vino later?”
“Lunch?” Crispin asked.
“No. Earlier or later. I have to do something from noon until two.”
“Three o’clock, then?”
“Fine,” I said. “And in the meantime hire a water truck at Ascot for this weekend. Tell everyone the stable supply is contaminated. Horses should only drink water taken from the truck.”
“How do you know it was in the water?”
“It had to be. It’s the only common denominator. The three that didn’t test positive didn’t drink the stables’ water. One came straight from his home stable in Prestbury, one has his own water brought with him from Lambourn and the third wasn’t allowed any water at the racetrack before racing as he tends to overdrink and that slows him down.”
I had telephoned the trainer of Barometer the previous evening and asked him straight out about the water. He’d been a bit wary as he thought I was asking about horse welfare, but he had agreed eventually that the horse had been purposely denied anything to drink once he’d left home early on the Friday morning.
“Right,” Crispin said. “I’ll arrange a water truck.”
“And get some samples of the Newbury stables’ water.”
“Right,” he said again. “I will.”
“What has happened about the announcement?” I asked.
“It should be in today’s Times.”
That’s a shame, I thought. If we had found out how the doping took place and were able to stop it happening again, then maybe there was no reason to entertain any demands from “our friend,” as Crispin insisted on calling him.
“OK,” I said to Crispin. “See you later.”
I hung up and lay back on the pillow.
“What was in the water supply?” Lydia asked without turning over.
Did she need to know?
Probably not, but my insistence not to say anything was putting a huge strain on our relationship. She’d hardly said a word to me when I’d got home from Cheltenham the previous evening as she clearly hadn’t wanted to ask a question that I wouldn’t answer. We had watched the television for a while in frosty silence and then she had taken herself off to bed in a huff at ten o’clock. And I’d been sure that she had been feigning sleep when I’d joined her about an hour later.
“Something called methylphenidate hydrochloride,” I said. “It’s sold as a drug called Ritalin and it stimulates the central nervous system. Someone has been doping horses indiscriminately by putting it in the water supply at the racetrack stables.”
“Is that what is so frightfully hush-hush?”
“Yes,” I said. “The BHA Board believe that if the betting public knew they would lose all confidence in racing.”
“But is that really likely?”
“It could be,” I said. “There’s not much confidence in professional cycling at the moment due to all their drug-taking revelations. Some of the sport’s superheroes have turned out to be nothing more than lying cheats. And cycle racing doesn’t depend on betting revenue in the same way that horseracing does.”
“What are you going to do about it, then?” Lydia asked, turning over and snuggling up to me under the bedcovers, her hands seeking me out and sending shivers of excitement down my legs. The aphrodisiac effect of being included in a secret was in full evidence.
“Nothing, just at the moment,” I said with a spreading smile.
“Oh, goodie.”
Did she need to know?
Definitely.
—
AT TWELVE NOON, I was waiting across the road from the offices of Hawthorn Pearce, hoping that Daniel Jubowski would soon emerge to purchase his lunch from the deli around the corner.
I really could have done without this distraction—I had enough to do for the BHA—but I had promised Quentin. However, I wasn’t entirely sure of the best way to proceed.
The last thing I wanted to do was to jeopardize Kenneth’s bail and have the two of us thrown into jail.
Daniel Jubowski came out through the front door and turned left down King Street towards Cheapside. I gave him about ten yards’ start and followed.
Lunchtime in the City was a busy time, with thousands heading away from their desks to find some food, and it was easy to disappear among the throng as they all hurried along to their favorite sandwich bar or delicatessen. I was wearing my best business suit, white shirt and tie and carrying a small black backpack, just like many of those around me, and I was certain that Daniel Jubowski had no idea that I was particularly interested in him as I stood right behind him in the queue to order.
“Hot pasta of the day with a side salad,” Daniel said to the female server behind the counter.
“Eat in or take away?” she asked.
“Eat in.”
She took a plate from the pile on the counter and went down to the far end to fetch the pasta.
“Who’s next?” another of the servers called out.
“That’s me,” I said. “Ham-and-cheese panini, please.”
“Toasted?”
“No thanks, just as it is.”
The server wrapped the panini in a paper napkin and placed it in a small paper carrier. “Drink?”
“Sparkling water. Small.”
The plastic bottle joined the panini in the bag.
“Four pounds ten.”
I handed over a fiver and received my change. Meanwhile, Daniel was also paying for his pasta.
We turned away from the counter at almost the same time, but I allowed him to move ahead of me looking for a free table.
He chose one near the window with two chairs and I followed him over to it.
“Mind if we share?” I said.
He said nothing but waved a hand in reluctant agreement.
We sat down facing each other, but Daniel only had eyes for his pasta and salad. I removed my panini from the paper bag and started eating.
“Food’s good here,” I said with my mouth full.
“Yes,” he said, not looking up. He loaded another spoonful of penne and popped it into his mouth. All his body language said that he didn’t want to talk.
That was a shame because I did.
“Do you work round here?” I asked.
He looked up at me but without any smile in his eyes. I put on my most I’m-coming-on-to-you face and hoped it might stir an interest.
“In King Street,” he said. “Hawthorn and Pearce. And you?”
“In the Bank of England,” I said.
I too
k another bite of my lunch.
“That must be interesting,” he said.
“Not really. I’m responsible for recording and cancelling serial numbers of banknotes destined for destruction due to age or damage. It’s boring.”
“Don’t you sometimes feel like stuffing them into your pockets?”
“All the time.” We laughed, and I laid my hand upon his arm, giving it a gentle squeeze. “But there are too many bloody security checks.”
He stared deep into my eyes. “I’m Daniel,” he said, holding out his hand.
“Tony,” I said, shaking it and looking right back at him. “Tony Jefferson.”
We ate in silence for a moment.
“I must get back,” I said, looking at my watch and standing up. “I’ll have to walk and eat. Good to meet you. Can we do it again sometime?”
“Do you fancy a drink later?” he said. “After work? A group of us meet every Wednesday.”
“Sure,” I said. “Where?”
“Do you know The William Ball in Gresham Street? Meet you there after five-thirty?”
Everyone who worked in the City of London was aware that The William Ball was a pub where gay men tended to gather. Daniel was making sure I knew the lay of the land.
“Great idea,” I said, picking up my bag. “I’ll see you later.”
He watched me through the window as I left the deli and walked off jauntily down the street in the direction of the Bank of England, my backpack slung over my shoulder.
The next meeting would be at his request and at his choice of venue.
I hoped I might find him off guard, with his mind on other matters.
—
CRISPIN DIDN’T recognize me when he arrived at El Vino at three o’clock. I was sitting at the bar and he walked right past looking beyond me towards the room at the back. I smiled inwardly to myself as he sat down at a table facing the door.
I stood up and walked over to him, pulling out the chair opposite.
“Sorry,” he said, “I’m waiting for . . .” He tailed off. “Good God, Jeff.”
I sat down, laughing.
“What’s all this for?” He waved his hand in a circular motion in front of my face, a face that was hidden again behind a full beard and a pair of black, thick-rimmed spectacles, my naturally fair hair stained a dark brown color.