‘It’s not so obvious,’ I replied, ‘if they’re hit as they leave the paddock. Horses often jump and kick as they’re set free, and the darts seem to leave no external mark.’
‘Hmm,’ Brian said, unconvinced. ‘I don’t know much about racing, but I know that horses fall often enough.’
‘Obviously, but good tipsters don’t nap dodgy jumpers, and once enough punters had clicked that these horses would always win, they were piling their money on, and so far the bookies and the Jockey Club haven’t been able to do a thing about it.’
‘Until yesterday,’ Matt added drily.
Griffiths left soon after that. He had wanted to take the camera gun with him; we declined, but we didn’t stop him taking the helium canister, which was almost certainly the property of Wessex Biotech.
‘Emma’s on the way over,’ I said, walking into Matt’s office next morning.
He glanced up. Behind him, the sun was glittering off the wet surface of the motorway and the traffic streamed silently eastward. He looked at his wall clock, which showed 9.30. ‘Have you got time for that?’ he asked.
‘She says she’s got something that may be relevant to Toby,’ I answered mildly, not feeling I had to justify myself further.
Matt had disappeared by the time Emma arrived. She rushed in to my office and gave me a quick kiss, but she was bursting to tell me her news.
‘Dad’s called an Extraordinary General Meeting of the shareholders of King George’s for tomorrow morning.’
‘Has he indeed? What for?’
‘He wants the shareholders to authorise a loan which is too big for him to ratify alone, under the Articles of Association of the company. They’re holding it in London, at the Belgravia King George.’
‘Just remind me who the shareholders are?’
‘There are only four: Lord T, Frank Gurney, David Green and me.’
I’d noticed how, increasingly since Frank had arrived for Toby’s funeral, Emma chose to refer to her legal father as ‘Lord T’, or even more scathingly, ‘His Lordship’.
‘What’s the loan for?’
‘I’ve spoken to Frank, but he doesn’t know.’
‘What about the other shareholder, David Green?’
‘Frank came over with his power of attorney.’
‘If it came to a vote, that could put you in an interesting position.’
‘I’ve been in a few of those recently,’ she said, smiling at me.
I laughed but stuck to the point. ‘Why did you think this would interest me?’
She walked towards the window. ‘I’m not sure. I just thought it might . . . you know, because of my involvement.’
‘Ah, I see.’
‘Well, are you interested?’
‘I could be,’ I said slowly. ‘I’d certainly like to know what happens at the EGM.’
‘I’ll let you know as soon as it finishes.’
I looked at my watch. ‘Right. I’m sorry but I’ve got to get on.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Windsor. I want to see if there’s anything more to learn about Tresidder.’
‘I’ll come with you.’
I thought for a moment. ‘Why not? I could probably do with some help.’
Cherry Tree Close was a quiet and moderately expensive-looking cul-de-sac close to Windsor Great Park and within sight of the mighty Copper Horse that dominated the skyline to the south.
Emma came with me up the short front path to knock on the door. I’d thought this would look less threatening if there was anybody in.
We rang and knocked, but heard nothing from inside. I looked at Emma. ‘We’ll go next door.’
We walked down the path, along the pavement twenty yards and up the next front path.
This time my knocking produced a small balding man of fifty or so. My immediate impression that he was foreign was confirmed as soon as he opened his mouth.
‘Yes? What can I do for you?’ He had a strong mid-European accent, perhaps Hungarian.
‘My wife and I were wondering if the house next door was to let? We’d heard that it might be.’
‘You had? Who from?’
‘I can’t quite remember. We’ve been asking around the town, you know, at most of the agents.’
‘Well, it might be. I own it but there is still a tenant for the house,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, he left this weekend without telling us.’
I nodded sympathetically. ‘Where did he go?’ I asked, trying to show a polite interest.
‘To Spain, I think. He said he owned a house there. He was a freelance photographer, though he said he was in the army before, posted here in Windsor for a while many years ago.’
‘Perhaps we could have a look round the house?’ I asked tentatively.
I could see he couldn’t really be bothered to show us at this stage. I pressed him. ‘Just a quick look. If you let me have a key, my wife and I could have a swift glance, so at least we could tell you if it was totally unsuitable?’
He took a deep noisy breath through his pudgy nose, then nodded. ‘Okay.’ He disappeared, returning with a pair of keys a few minutes later.
‘Tell me what you think when you bring them back,’ he said, glancing out of the window. ‘Your car is the Audi, yeah?’
‘That’s right.’
‘ “My wife and I”,’ Emma giggled as we let ourselves into the house next door.
‘But it worked,’ I said. ‘Let’s get stuck in – any papers, objects or anything that might have something to do with his activities round the race-courses.’
‘Okay. I’ll do upstairs.’
I went into the drawing room and made straight for a small cheap repro bureau.
Most of the drawers were empty. They looked as though they’d simply been tipped out, dust, scraps and all. There were a few bills in the cubby-holes, but nothing of interest.
Next I tried a small chest of drawers, mainly full of dining room utensils which I guessed came with the house. There was nothing to give any clue to the identity of the last occupants. But my eye was caught by something protruding from behind the bureau, where it had evidently slipped to the floor between the back and the wall. I pulled out a framed photograph. The moment I looked at it, I knew I’d seen it before.
It was the same regimental shot we’d found at Toby’s flat, including, among the seated officers, Gervaise Brown and The Hon. Gerald Birt. Standing behind them was a Sub-lieutenant Rupert Greeves – another name that rang a bell – and, among the other ranks, a thin, sharp face that stared back at me, very little changed in the thirty-five years since the photo had been taken – that of the recently departed tenant of 9, Cherry Tree Close: Sgt. F.W. Tresidder.
The first time I’d seen our surveillance shot of Tresidder, I’d had a nagging feeling I’d seen that face somewhere before, and now the connection fell into place. Greeves had known Tresidder from his regiment; Tresidder had fired the darts; Greeves worked at the Equine Forensic Lab.
I put the photograph back. I knew I could get Toby’s copy from Jane. I carried on searching for another ten minutes until Emma came down with a disappointed expression.
‘Did you find anything?’ she asked.
I told her about the photo. She saw its significance right away.
‘Rather suggestive.’
‘Exactly. Right, we’d better take the keys back and tell the man next door that this place is too small for us and our four children.’
Chapter Twenty-One
I watched from my office window as Emma drove her BMW from the car-park. I had a premonition that in the very near future major elements in our lives were going to change irrevocably. In the four weeks since I’d fallen off Better By Far on a soggy Monday at Fontwell Park, it seemed that my life had already moved further than it had in the previous three years.
When I managed to drag my attention back, I contacted Matt to tell him about the photo, and that Tresidder had done a bunk to Spain.
‘Shit!’ he
hissed. ‘Another lead dried up.’
‘’Fraid so. After what happened on Saturday he must have clocked he was being watched and decided to go, especially as he already knew he had that Jockey Club man on to him.’
‘Well, we’ve got the kit, and we’ve got the photographs of him using it.’
‘We still need him too,’ I pointed out.
‘I know that,’ Matt said curtly. ‘We’re working on it. And we’ve had a bit of a result at Lincoln’s address.’
‘What’s that?’
‘A man turned up there and rang the bell for his flat. No one answered him, but he’s been hanging around looking annoyed – as if Lincoln had arranged to be there and let him down.’
‘And . . .?’ I asked.
‘That’s it for the moment. The chap hasn’t gone yet.’
‘I’d better come and join you.’
‘Don’t bother. There’s nothing you can do here. I’ll let you know if the position changes and we need any back up.’
Feeling truculent at being left out, I put the phone down and leaned back in my chair for a moment until, decisively, I picked it up again and arranged to have another lesson with Julia de Morlay.
‘I’ll see you in twenty minutes,’ I said as I put the phone down.
Convincing myself that I was getting my priorities right, I left Jason and Monica in charge and drove over the downs to the de Morlays’.
What followed was my best schooling session yet. I jumped Nester over eighteen fences, including three open ditches, and never missed a stride. Instead of sitting up as I approached the take off, I crouched down, keeping my shoulders and hands low, and really felt as if I were helping for a change. It seemed paradoxical that the less I moved, the easier it was, but it worked, and Julia’s grin as I trotted back to her after jumping the last fence was almost as big as mine.
I jumped down thinking that, just maybe, riding in the Champion Chase myself wasn’t such a crazy idea.
As I left the yard, feeling very pleased with myself, my phone bleeped. It was Jane, wanting to know if Matt and I had found out anything more about Toby.
At once, the guilt that had lurked at the back of my mind as I’d driven to Derek’s came back into the forefront. I’d promised Jane I wouldn’t let up until we knew for certain what had happened to her son, and here I was, swanning about having riding lessons and schooling horses, which only encouraged fantasies of winning impossible races.
I went straight round to Wetherdown and found her as distraught as she’d been the day Matt and I had told her of Toby’s death.
‘I’m sorry, Simon,’ she said, opening the front door to me. ‘Frank’s gone to London for a couple of days and I hadn’t realised quite how much I’d been leaning on him. The trouble with having a reputation for being a bit of a dragon is that people simply don’t believe you when you tell them you can’t cope.’
‘You don’t want to undermine the reign of terror that you wield here,’ I joked.
She smiled back tearfully. ‘It took a long time to create,’ she agreed, leading me into her office where she poured me an early drink to keep her company. ‘You said you had some news for me?’
‘Yes. We saw the detective who was running the investigation on Sunday evening. I’m not sure if it wasn’t just bullshit designed to draw out what we knew, but taking it at face value, he was fairly disgruntled about the fact he’d been pulled off the case before he’d seen the forensic report to establish whether or not Toby had been killed before he . . .’ I was finding it hard to continue.
‘Before he was hanged,’ Jane finished for me.
‘Yes.’ I nodded. ‘And we also know that at least two, maybe three other people came round to his flat before we got there that morning. Any one of these people could have done it.’
‘My God!’ Jane said, putting her glass back on the table. ‘Who else was there?’
‘The last was a man we found when we went to see Connor McDonagh on Sunday morning.’
‘Was Connor murdered too, then?’ Jane gasped. ‘It said on the news that he died of a diabetic attack.’
‘That’s right, he did, but the man we found had been round to harass him, and we’ve only got his version of what happened.’
‘But who was behind it, Simon? Who would want to kill Toby?’
‘I promise I’ll tell you, Jane, as soon as we know for sure. Then we’ll pass it on to the police, I give you my word.’
She took a deep breath. ‘All right. I’m trying very hard not to get hysterical about it but it’s getting to be almost more than I can bear, not knowing for certain how my only child was killed.’
‘Frank’s been helping, hasn’t he?’
‘Yes, he’s been wonderful. Though he was never very keen on Toby, he knows what he meant to me.’
‘I understand too, you know,’ I said, truthfully.
Jane sighed. ‘You’re a good friend, Simon, and Frank likes you as well.’
This was a surprise given that he hardly knew me. ‘Really?’ I asked.
‘Yes, and considering you’re spending a lot of time with his daughter, that’s important,’ Jane said with a grin that evidently anticipated a stronger reaction than I gave her.
‘You know about that?’ I asked.
‘I’ve known for years. Why do you think I’ve always been so close to Emma? But I didn’t think Frank knew, or Emma for that matter, and I didn’t want to rock the boat. But for various reasons – physical similarity for a start – Emma worked it out for herself, and when she checked out all the dates, which I’d done too, that confirmed it for her. She told me she’d told you . . .’
‘She did, sort of. I didn’t realise she’d checked it so thoroughly, though.’
‘She’s done everything bar having a DNA test, but I’d say it’s ten to one she’s Frank’s daughter.’
‘I can’t say I’m sorry to hear that.’
‘You don’t fancy Gerald Tintern as a father-in-law?’
‘Who said anything about fathers-in-law?’ I said indignantly. ‘But since you ask – no.’
‘I sense there may be something of a showdown about to take place.’
‘You mean, at this meeting of the shareholders of the King George Group?’
‘Yes, of course. Gerald doesn’t have a controlling interest.’
I nodded. ‘And he’s a man who likes to get his own way.’
‘To put it rather mildly.’
‘He certainly won’t get his way at this meeting – I wonder how he’ll react?’
‘Frank will keep him in order, I don’t doubt,’ Jane said proudly.
As I was nodding my agreement, I remembered my other reason for coming to see her. ‘By the way, your late husband was in the same regiment as Gerald, wasn’t he?’
‘Yes. I thought you knew that?’
‘I did, but what I was wondering was if he’d left any records of his time in the army – regimental reports or magazines, anything like that?’
Jane laughed. ‘I should say so! There are two trunks full of dreary old publications of one sort or another up in the attic. What on earth do you want to know? I very much doubt you’ll find anything detrimental about Gerald.’
‘No, it’s nothing to do with him.’
‘Go up and help yourself by all means,’ she offered, and told me where to find the trunks.
Twenty minutes later, sitting in the musty silence of the roof of Wetherdown, I was reading the results of the regiment’s annual rifle competition, held thirty years before: winner, for the second year running, Sgt. F.W. Tresidder.
After lunch, I drove out between the impressive gate piers at the end of Jane’s drive. As I hadn’t had a chance to talk to Derek after my session with Julia that morning, I wanted to know his current view of my plan to ride Nester in the Champion Chase in fifteen days’ time. I knew he had no runners that day, but rang to make sure he hadn’t decided to go racing anyway. He answered himself and said he was watching it all on television.
When I joined him, we watched a couple of races together, talking in between them about Nester’s chances in the Queen Mother Chase, with or without me.
Derek, evidently on the basis of feedback from Julia, seemed less pessimistic about the idea of my riding than he had been. This was a big boost to my confidence because in order to keep his strike rate as high as possible, Derek only sent out horses with the very best possible chance. He never sent anything out ‘just for a run’ – especially not in a major race at the premier National Hunt meeting.
However, he was still expressing slight doubts and I heard myself practically pleading. I thought he was about to capitulate when the head lad walked in. He looked almost embarrassed to see me. ‘Evening, Mr Jeffries.’ He nodded and turned to Derek. ‘Guv’nor, could you come and have a look at Better By Far?’
Derek was on his feet at once and walking from the room. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘He seems to have a bit of heat in his off fore.’
Derek turned to me as I followed close behind. ‘Was that the damaged one?’
‘Yes,’ I gasped, with a sudden rush of anguish.
We walked briskly across the yard in Indian file to Nester’s box and went in. Derek went to the horse’s head and stroked him gently down his long dark nose before bending down to feel his lower leg.
He took his time, then looked up to me, with a resigned expression. ‘There’s definitely heat there. Of course, it may not be the old damage playing up; he may just have bruised his foot. I’ll get the vet.’
I knelt down beside my horse and ran a hand softly up and down his leg, from his knee to his toe. I distinctly felt the higher temperature around the once injured bone, and nearly wept. It was in the exact spot that the original trouble had been.
I knew at once what I wanted to do. I quickly got to my feet and ran back to the house to catch Derek before he started dialling.
‘Let me get the man who originally cured him to come and see him?’
Derek put the phone down and shrugged. ‘He’s your horse.’
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