by Joe McNally
‘I don’t need to!’
‘Candy, we’re all on the same side here. Please just double-check it. Today if you can, and tell me tonight when you’re confirming those stallion racing records.’
He bit his lip then nodded. Much more used to giving orders than obeying them, he was finding the adjustment tough. ‘Did you get the details on the prostaglandin injection?’ I asked.
He looked baffled.
‘The thing that killed Dunn,’ I said.
‘Oh, yes. I spoke to one of our vets this morning.’ He produced a black Dictaphone and pressed the rewind button then clicked to play, releasing the tinny voices. Candy first: ‘How would an injection of five ccs of prostaglandin affect a human being?’
A slightly effeminate voice in which I could almost hear the flinch replied: ‘Pretty grimly, I should think. Death would come from internal suffocation. First, you would feel sick, sweat heavily, the skin would turn very white as the shock effect hit the body. The chest, abdominal, and all other smooth muscle groups would contract, causing bronchial spasms then severe vomiting and diarrhea. As intense pressure built, the heart rate would increase rapidly and the system would quickly suffocate and cease functioning.’
‘Painful.’
‘Agonizing, I would guess.’
‘How long before he’d die?’
‘Three, maybe five, minutes.’
‘Not the way you’d choose to go?’
‘As the saying goes, I’ll settle for being caught in bed with a young woman at the age of eighty-seven, shot by her jealous husband.’
Candy clicked it off. I looked at him. ‘Still think Dunn wasn’t deeply involved in this?’ I asked.
‘I’m coming round. We just need something more solid.’
‘Call me as soon as you can with those racing records. That’s the next step.’
He rang from a call box just before seven that evening, and I noted the information on the racecourse appearances of the eight infertile stallions. ‘What about the dead vet, Simon Nish? Definitely no links with Dunn?’
‘Absolutely none.’
We agreed to meet in the lay-by next morning at 8.15.
38
A thick mist rolled low over the flatlands. I drove through it, slowing automatically even though it reached only to the wheel-tops, making the car look like some air-cushioned vehicle in a sci-fi movie.
I was ten minutes early, but Candy was in the lay-by waiting. I got in his car and smiled. ‘We can’t keep meeting like this,’ I said.
‘You’re cheery.’
‘For good reason, my friend.’
He waited, anticipation in his eyes. I said, ‘Your horses had a total of thirty-nine runs in the past eighteen months. Alex Dunn was at the course on every occasion.’
‘In an official capacity?’
‘I don’t know, but he was definitely there.’
‘But if he wasn’t officiating, how would he have got access to the stables?’
‘Come on, Candy, the security guys have known him for years. He’d walk into the stables without a question being asked.’
‘Mmmm. I suppose that’s possible. But I still think you’re up against it statistically. The guy’s job was on the racecourse, he must have been at the races more times than not. I’d have thought it would have been more unusual if he hadn’t been there the thirty-nine times those horses ran.’
‘But—’
'And, bear in mind that if we’re now assuming those colts were got at before they were retired to stud, we’re talking about investigating their different trainers, hundreds of stable staff, all the visitors to those yards including other vets. It’s a fucking nightmare, Eddie!’
I was annoyed. I’d travelled here feeling very positive after working late and hard. I said, ‘That doesn’t mean you can ignore it. You can’t just carry on building up reams of facts and figures, Candy. You need to take some action.’
‘And how do we keep the damn thing out of the papers then?’ He was almost shouting but it was end-of-the-tether stuff rather than anger at me. ‘How do we work our way through, our detailed way through, all those people and not alert anybody?’
‘That’s why I’m saying, try it my way first. Believe me, Dunn is a very strong link, we’ve just got to build on it.’
‘How?’
‘We need to find out for sure if he visited the stables on each of those racedays. You know Peter McCarthy, Jockey Club Security. He’d be able to get the records checked. Every visitor should be logged.’
Candy looked nervous. He said, ‘I can’t risk making McCarthy suspicious.’
I thought for a minute then suggested he get one of the Sheikh’s trainers to request the list. ‘Tell him to tell Mac it’s for an industrial tribunal hearing against a sacked lad or something. Ask for an additional few days outside those thirty-nine if you like, that’ll help throw him off the scent if he does become suspicious.’
He looked at me as though I was crazy. ‘Then the trainer would be suspicious!’
I sighed with frustration. ‘Candy, this is the reason you’ve got nowhere on this so far. At some point you’ll have to take a calculated risk.’
‘It’s not mine to take! How can I make you understand that?’
‘Somebody has to bite the bullet. What about the Sheikh himself?’
‘No way!’
‘Why not? If nobody can make a proper decision without his approval then you’re going to have to put it to him.’
He sat staring wide-eyed out of the window as the prospect sank home. ‘Candy, if you don’t, you’ll be sitting here next year with maybe eighteen bloody stallions firing blanks and you no further forward. Believe me!’
He turned to me. ‘Why don’t you ask McCarthy? You know him. I’ll make sure you get well paid if you can handle this side of things discreetly.’
‘I told you before, I need to keep a low profile on this. I can’t say why just now but I do. I’m willing to do anything you need behind the scenes, I’ll direct the whole damned show if you want, but you’re going to have to put a degree of trust in some people.’
He was shaking his head slowly. I said. ‘Speak to the Sheikh. If you give him an honest summary of where you’ve got to, he will have to accept that something more needs to be done.’
Candy rested his elbow on the car window and chewed at his thumbnail. All that his expression told me was that he wanted the world to go away. I touched his arm. He turned slowly toward me, frowning, thumbnail still between his lips.
‘Listen,’ I said, ‘you’re fucked anyway, not to put too fine a point on it. Your boss won’t tolerate this much longer, you admitted that yourself. The worst that can happen is that you bring things forward a month or two.’
I watched his eyes change. The frown faded and something of the old Candy came back with his smile. ‘You’re right, Eddie. What the hell? The job’s not worth it anyway. I can do without it. I’ll always work.’
‘Of course you will, but don’t admit defeat just yet. We can crack this if the Sheikh gives you a bit more of a free hand. When can you speak to him?’
‘Tonight. I speak to him every night.’
‘Good. Will you call me when you’ve talked?’
‘Sure.’
I spent the rest of the day in my room trying to make a more detailed analysis of each horse’s run, looking for a pattern. If my theory was right and Dunn was treating these horses in advance of their retirement to stud, then this chemical he was using had to be powerful stuff. I found one colt that went ten months between his last appearance on a racecourse and the announcement of his retirement. How the hell could Dunn’s serum remain effective so long? And why were the horses showing up so positively in fertility tests well after Dunn must have got at them?
That night Candy rang. Sheikh Ahmad Saad had agreed to give him a much freer hand and had even volunteered to take a more active part himself. The Sheikh was a Jockey Club member and rather than having to ask McCarthy for that
list of stable visitors, the Sheikh was going to request it himself via McCarthy’s boss. No one would dream of asking the Sheikh for a reason, so confidentiality would be maintained.
Candy reckoned they’d have the list by tomorrow afternoon.
He had it before 11.30, and brought it with him for our daily meeting. I could tell by the satisfied look on his face as I sat beside him in the car that he’d come up with something. He handed me the list of stable visitors. On every one of the thirty-nine the name Alex Dunn appeared, gleaming in a broad yellow stroke of highlighting ink.
We smiled widely at each other and he reached over to shake my hand. ‘Well done.’
‘All in a day’s work,’ I said.
‘What next?’
‘That depends on your priorities. We need to find out what Dunn did to those colts, and we need to find out who was behind it.’
‘How do you know he wasn’t acting alone?’
‘Well, what do you think? The guy couldn’t even control his gambling habit. How’s he supposed to plan something like this?’
I said. ‘Capshaw has to be the next logical step. Dunn did a lot of work for him and as far as I know spent time at his place. He also spent plenty backing Capshaw’s runners. That might have been part of the deal. Maybe Capshaw gave him information in exchange for damaging those horses.’
‘You honestly think Dunn would try to destroy a multi-million pound business for the sake of a few tips from a trainer?’
‘Maybe Capshaw put him up to it? I know you say he’s not the vengeful type, but what else, who else might be involved on Capshaw’s side?’
A big green van pulled into the lay-by and edged past to park fifty yards in front. We stopped talking and watched the driver’s door. Nobody got out.
Candy said, ‘If you don’t think Dunn had the ability to organize this campaign then I’m telling you that Capshaw didn’t either. I know him well. He’s not up to it.’
I shrugged. ‘Fine, so someone else is. But that still makes Capshaw the next link in the chain. It was after we followed him at Ascot that Martin was attacked and the pictures taken from him. Now, if Capshaw or some of his cronies didn’t set that up, who did? We need to find out more about him, more about his personal life, his history.’ I made a mental note to chase Charlie Harris for those pictures.
‘Okay, I’ll get a man onto it this morning. Anything else we should be doing?’
‘What about Dunn? This chemical castration idea he first had years ago, he must have discussed it with other vets, surely?’
‘Maybe.’
‘If we could find out the basis of it, the particular chemical he had in mind, it might help us solve the second problem more quickly. Even if we never catch the people behind this, at least with an antidote the stallions would be back to normal.’
‘If only.’
We sat in silence for a while then I said, ‘Bear in mind that if this is guy hates the Sheikh enough, he probably hasn’t finished yet. He could already have someone else out there. If not, he’ll want to recruit a replacement for Dunn.’
Candy nodded, looking grim.
I said, ‘Put a man on Dunn’s past too if you can. And maybe somebody could check with removal companies to see if any of them picked up stuff from his place out at Six Mile Bottom. It would be nice to know where all his lab kit and papers are now. That would cut through a hell of a lot of the crap.’
‘Leave it with me.’ Candy noted it in his little leather book then said, ‘What are you doing for the rest of the day?’
‘I’m going to bed to try and give my brain a rest. I haven’t had a decent sleep for weeks. Then I’m going to go for a long sweaty run in the hope that a few more pieces get jogged into place. Can you give me a call this evening if there’s anything to report on Capshaw and Dunn?’
‘This evening? You’re hopeful.’
‘Let me know anyway, even if it’s something that seems insignificant.’
‘Okay.’
Back at the stud, I rang Charlie Harris and asked him to send those Ascot shots as soon as possible.
39
I put on my running gear. Leaving by the back door, I headed across the fields into the woods, building up a pace I knew I could maintain for miles.
And I started again to dissect the scraps of information in my mind. I had the niggling feeling that I’d overlooked something or misinterpreted it, so I mentally broke down the structure I’d built and tried to look again at each of the individual pieces. The steady rhythm of my feet on the forest floor seemed to help the process.
Most of my discussions with Candy had been centred on the conspiracy against the stallions and the commercial fallout. The deaths of Brian Kincaid and Alex Dunn had somehow faded into the background. My guess now was that Brian had simply been unlucky that I’d approached him about Town Crier.
Dunn had been his mentor to a large extent, and Brian would have been aware of Dunn’s interest in chemical castration and sought his help to solve Town Crier’s problem. Recalling Dunn’s frightened reaction the day I confronted him at Newmarket, Brian’s approach a few days before mine would have panicked him. If Dunn had blabbed about Brian to whoever was running this, the decision to kill him would have been taken quickly.
What effect would that have had on Dunn? I was assuming he had some affection for Brian and maybe at first believed the sauna death was an accident. What if he later came to a different conclusion? Would he have been horrified? Terrified? Would he have planned to go to the police? Was that why he disappeared so suddenly? Was he removed from the equation, kept alive for as long as he was useful then killed off like Brian?
Toward the southern edge of the forest, shafts of sunlight through the tall trees sliced my moving shadow into fragments.
Brian Kincaid. Whoever was running things hadn’t killed him personally. He had hired someone to do it. I’d been so blinkered about Tranter, I’d never given the matter any objective thought. As I did so now I realized how stupid I’d been. The fact that Brian had died in a sauna in the weighing room narrowed down the potential murderers dramatically.
The killer must have been well known on the racecourse. At Stratford at the very least, but more probably around other courses too. Jockeys and valets, trainers and racecourse officials, were the only ones entitled to use the weighing room area. The changing room itself was restricted to jockeys and their valets.
So, if it wasn’t Tranter then it was another jockey, or a trainer, valet or official. A simple check through the newspapers or racecard for that day would tell me almost every one of the above who’d been at Stratford. Valets would be difficult, but if pushed I could probably come up with most of their names from memory.
Such a modern contraption as a shower was unheard of in my parents’ house, and I had to settle for a cool bath before changing into jeans and a white T-shirt. I called Candy but got his answerphone. I left a message then drove into town to find a betting shop.
The manager agreed to dig through his file copies of The Sporting Life till he found the one from Stratford. I took it to the local library, photocopied the section I needed then returned it. I had no inclination to do any more work in that small cell I slept in at the stud, so I set off for the library again where I settled in the reading room to study the Stratford card from that day.
Working through the list of trainers and jockeys, I tried the simple method of rejecting those I considered incapable of murder. It didn’t take long to go through the card without ticking even one suspect. I then tried going through again and awarding points in a sort of Man Most Likely To Murder game, nobody notched up more than three.
Next, I did racecourse officials, but apart from the two who scored very highly on boring people to death, I came up empty again. Valets were about the only ones whose names weren’t published so, using pen and pad, I worked up a list from memory: six valets, all of whom I’d known for years. I’d have bet my life none would have killed a cat, never mind Brian Kincaid.
And yet somebody among all those I’d just discounted had murdered him. A stranger might gain access to the weighing room for a few minutes before being rumbled, but no way would he get to the sauna and, indeed, spend some time inside, as he must have done with Brian.
But…Brian would have gone in there after the last race. People would be packing up and heading home, rushing around. Maybe a stranger would have got further than usual at that time. The valets would be the guys to talk to. Their duties meant they were usually last to leave the weighing room. I scribbled a few more names and resolved to get contact numbers for them.
That too would have to be done through Candy, as I still couldn’t risk putting my head above the parapet. Outside the library, I called him: answerphone. I tried Candy ten times over the next two hours without success and after hearing the start of his answerphone message yet again, I shouted in rage and frustration.
This reliance on others was really beginning to piss me off. I was finding it very tough to handle the fact that I couldn’t simply ring up someone I wanted to ask a question of or jump in the car and go to the races.
Candy finally contacted me that evening with nothing new to report. Still annoyed at him, I complained that I hadn’t been able to reach him all day and he got spiky, saying he had a business to run and couldn’t sit waiting for me. It developed into a childish argument fuelled by my frustration. In the end, I apologized and explained why I was so wound up.
Candy said, ‘Don’t worry, I can get one of my guys to speak to all the valets that were at Stratford, see what they remember.’
‘Which guy?’
‘One of the investigators who’s been working for me.’
‘Racing man?’
‘Well, no, but he knows his stuff.’
‘Come on, Candy, valets are hardly going to be falling over themselves to tell him what they know. And not just valets, everyone else. Shit, you know how secretive racing people can be!’
Well, what else do you suggest? Why don’t you go and do it?’