‘Avril, I’m always willing to listen if it helps.’
‘No, it’s not right. I don’t feel so bad moaning to my mum about it but I, well I sort of feel like I’m betraying him.’
I understood what she meant.
‘Listen, I’m sure a visit from you would pull him out of the dumps for a little while at least. He hasn’t seen anybody for months.’
‘What time suits, then?’
‘Half seven?’
‘Fine.’
‘I won’t tell him you’re coming. It’ll be a nice surprise then.’
By the look on Kenny’s face when I walked in that evening it was the worst surprise he’d ever had in his life. From his wheelchair in the silent room he stared at me like I’d come back from the dead to haunt him.
He’d put on at least twenty pounds making his naturally chubby face even fatter looking. His brown hair was short but uncombed around his prominent ears and there was a generally unkempt look about him. He wore a light grey open necked shirt and olive green cords.
‘How are you, Kenny?’
He still stared, transfixed. ‘What are you doing here?’ He seemed horrified. Avril stepped in. ‘Kenny! I invited Eddie for dinner. For Christ’s sake what’s wrong with you?’ He ignored her, wheeled his chair urgently toward me, dark ringed eyes staring up into mine, pleading before he spoke. ‘Eddie, please get out of here.’ His tone was quiet, rational.
Avril seemed incensed. ‘Kenny! Don’t you dare talk like that to a guest!’
He turned on her. ‘Shut up! Shut the fuck up!’
The high colour in her cheeks started draining as she stared at him. He looked up at me, veins standing out on his throat, pulse beating in his neck. He fought for control of his voice, ‘Eddie . . . Go away. Don’t come here again.’
I tried to talk to him but he cut me off immediately. He looked sane, rational but totally serious about not wanting me there. I nodded to Avril and left.
When I got home, there were two messages from Avril on the answerphone, hysterically apologetic. She asked me not to call but to meet her next day for lunch.
I spent the rest of the evening trying to figure Kenny out. Was he mixed up in all this with his brother?
54
Next morning’s mail brought fifty-four photographs of trophy presentations to winning racehorse owners, many of whom I recognized. I found the one I was looking for in under a minute. He featured twice, with different horses. I’d met him only once, in a car park at Huntingdon: the mature, pleasant, educated, handsome Mr. Ernest Goodwin, the acceptable face of Mayhem Incorporated.
It was too early to ring Broga, the middle of the night in Barbados. I called Mac, told him I now had solid evidence and asked him to find out what he could about Ernest Goodwin. The courses where he received the trophies may have had some personal information on him though I warned Mac that Goodwin was probably an alias.
‘You don’t say?’
Mac seldom stooped to sarcasm but he knew I wouldn’t give this thing up, knew that he was too far into it to pull back now. He’d have to keep helping me even though he didn’t care at all for what was being uncovered. If he thought the publicity surrounding Conway had upset digestions at Jockey Club dinners he was heading for revelations that would make the Conway PR just an aperitif.
He grudgingly promised to see what he could do on Goodwin. At eleven, I drove south for lunch with Avril Hawkins.
We met at a small country house hotel. She looked only slightly less strained than she had last night but her blonde hair shone and smelt of fresh shampoo. She wore a black two-piece suit over a beige top of very fine wool. Her make-up was neat and understated; soft grey eye shadow and very pale pink lipstick.
I kissed her lightly. She smiled and asked if I’d mind not eating after all, she’d lost her appetite.
So we sat drinking coffee on fine Regency chairs at the window of a wood panelled room, looking out over acres of parkland. Avril was obviously acutely embarrassed, ashamed of Kenny’s behaviour last night. I reassured her as best I could.
‘He’s been terrible for weeks now, Eddie, I hardly recognize him as a human being any more let alone the man I married. He sits in the bedroom for hours staring out of the window, doesn’t talk, and ignores the kids completely. I was hoping seeing you would pull him out of it. He always liked you.’
‘It wasn’t this bad last time I saw you, was it?’
‘Nowhere near it. He’d been drinking a lot after that tough patch in February but he seemed to be coming out of it.’
February.
That month kept coming up. Joe Hawkins bought his half million pounds worth of shares in February. Broga Cates suffered his first big insurance loss in February. I asked Avril if she knew what Kenny and Joe had argued about that day.
‘He wouldn’t tell me. They’d been fighting for ages over the insurance claim for the accident.’
Insurance.
‘How is the claim going?’ I asked.
Avril’s strained look was suddenly dulled further by an obvious depression. ‘Kenny dropped it,’ she said quietly.
‘Completely?’
She nodded.
‘Why?’ I was incredulous. As I remembered it, they’d been talking of over a million, sounding confident of success.
Avril’s shoulders rose in a sad, heavy shrug. ‘I don’t know, Eddie, I’ll never know. Kenny just told me the subject was closed.’
My mind was starting to sort things out, make adjustments, pin down the elusive link that was hovering.
‘When did Kenny last see his brother?’
‘Eddie, if you think it’s some family tiff that’s making Kenny behave like this you’re wrong . . . I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude it’s just that—’
‘It’s okay, don’t apologize.’ She looked miserable and I wanted so much to tell her exactly why her husband was behaving the way he was. Everything had slotted into place. I needed one point confirmed. ‘Kenny’s claim was against the local council, wasn’t it?’
‘Well, yes but it was their insurers, really.’
‘Their insurers wouldn’t happen to be a company called Silverdale?’
‘That’s them, I think. Why?’
‘Their name came up last week when I was asking about a claim on two dead horses.’
I was very wary of hurting Avril. If Kenny wanted to hide his secrets from her then it wasn’t for me to break what now felt like a trust even though Kenny had confided nothing to me. But it would all come out very soon, that was inevitable.
She was still trying to explain, ‘He won’t see Joe now, won’t take his calls, doesn’t reply to his letters. Joe comes on screaming at me then accusing me of turning Kenny against him . . .’ Tears welled. ‘. . . calling me, calling me all the bitches of the day.’
She reached into her bag for a handkerchief. Feeling desperately sorry for her, I reached across the table and took her hand. ‘I’m sorry, Avril, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
She squeezed my hand then pulled away. ‘I know, I know . . . it’s not your fault, Eddie…does me good to get it out.’
She wiped the tears, composed herself, got a small mirror from her bag and tidied her make-up.
‘Avril, I think I might be able to help Kenny.’
‘How?’
‘Well I think he’s maybe taken a bit too much on since the accident, got involved in one or two things that haven’t worked out.’
Sadness turned to worry now on her face. ‘Something bad?’
‘Put it this way, not bad enough that we can’t fix it.’
‘What is it?’
‘I’m not sure yet. Did Kenny see anyone else around the time of the fallout with Joe in February?’
‘He never goes out just gets the occasional visitor. He had two or three of the lads in around that time.’
‘Jockeys?’
‘Yes, old friends. Like you.’
I smiled. ‘Nobody else?’
‘Only
a man from the Jockey Club, but that was an informal visit too, to see how Kenny was recovering.’
‘What was the man’s name?’
‘I can’t remember. He seemed very pleasant, said it was a social call. He stayed about half an hour.’
‘Would that be about a week after I came to dinner?’
She thought back. ‘Around then, I’d say.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Tall. Over six feet. Well built. Well, a bit pudgy round the middle really, dark hair.’
‘Quite curly? Bit of a double chin?’
‘That’s right. Do you know him?’
‘Peter McCarthy.’
The line of questioning began dawning on her. ‘Is Kenny in trouble with the Jockey Club?’
‘Not anymore, he’s not.’
But McCarthy’s in big fucking trouble with Eddie Malloy. I asked Avril to say nothing to Kenny and promised I’d call her within a few days.
By the time I reached the car, I was raging. I phoned McCarthy’s office; he was at Sandown races. I drove there at dangerously high speed and found him by the weighing room comfortably back in dark suit, white shirt and tie and hobnobbing with two Stewards and a tall woman in a wide straw hat.
I resisted the strong urge to march straight up and confront him. When he finally caught sight of me, he didn’t look pleased and drew his conversation out as long as possible before admitting defeat and striding toward me very business-like and official.
‘Eddie, I’m busy today.’
I glared at him. My eyes were burning. He couldn’t have failed to spot the anger and the fierce intent. I said, ‘You want to have it out here?’
He glanced nervously around at the big crowd. ‘We’ll go over to the stables.’
I marched toward them sensing his reluctance. ‘Just five minutes, Eddie, I’ve got a meeting.’
‘Fuck the meeting!’ Neither of us spoke again till he’d signed me in past his security man at the gate of the racecourse stables and we had walked to the far end of a row of boxes. He checked the ones nearest us making sure they were empty then stood stiffly, staring at me. He said, ‘What is it?’
‘You visited Kenny Hawkins in February. Why?’
I could tell immediately that was the last thing he’d wanted to hear. He tried a weak bluff. ‘Confidential matter between Kenny and the Jockey Club.’
‘Bollocks! Blackmail is what you call it, Mac!’ I jabbed a finger at him. ‘I never ever thought you’d stoop to that, Mac! Never!’
His shoulders drooped and he looked away, head down.
I paced in front of him, trying to calm myself but I was almost tearful with rage and frustration and betrayal. Mac had helped me get my licence back. I’d always trusted him. I must have called him every name I could think of before the steam started going out of me.
He stood looking suitably ashamed, genuinely sorry. ‘Eddie, it wasn’t my idea, I hated doing it, detested it but Lord Greenboro insisted, he gave me no choice.’
Greenboro was the Senior Steward of the Jockey Club, effectively McCarthy’s boss. ‘Obeying orders, Mac, eh? Like they did at Auschwitz?’
He looked away again.
‘So Greenboro was big buddies with Bruce Cronin, the chairman of Silverdale Insurance? Kenny had his million pound claim in against Silverdale then Greenboro gives Cronin the news that Kenny Hawkins was one of the jocks who’d had a false brain scan from Conway?’
He nodded.
‘So! The good old school tie network strikes again! Senior Steward or not Greenboro had no right to give Cronin that information! No fucking right whatsoever! That was confidential. Kenny would never have ridden again anyway; you knew that, Greenboro must have known it. There was no need for disciplinary measures! Kenny Hawkins’s life, the lives of his family were in fucking tatters and the Jockey Club can’t even act human? For once in their history they can’t even act human!’
‘He wouldn’t have got away with it anyway, Eddie, it would have come out in court.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Silverdale would have demanded another brain scan, they’d read enough in the papers about Bill Keating’s case. Their doctors would have claimed Kenny could have suffered a blackout when driving over that bridge. The man had brain damage.’
I stopped pacing and turned on him. ‘Any damage shown by Silverdale’s brain scan could have been put down to the car crash!’
‘It couldn’t, Eddie, believe me! We checked on that. Any competent surgeon could have proved Kenny’s injury was historical.’
‘That doesn’t mean to say the crash barrier wasn’t faulty.’
‘He’d been having frequent blackouts, for God’s sake! They’d have torn him apart in court. Kenny knew that, he could never have won that claim.’
‘So why didn’t you let it go to court then?’ I asked.
He looked at me.
‘You don’t have to answer, Mac, I know the reason. It was to save the shining fucking Jockey Club any more bad publicity. That’s what it was at the end of the day, a PR exercise. Fuck Kenny Hawkins and his family, so long as we keep our name out of the papers. Now I know why you’ve been acting so nervous when Conway was mentioned.’
I started pacing again. Mac glanced at his watch. I said, ‘It kind of backfired a bit on Cronin, didn’t it? Silverdale would have been better off by far settling Kenny’s claim. How much have they paid out since to people like Broga Cates? Remember Broga? That was another little chore for you from Greenboro and Cronin, wasn’t it? The night you rang me to try and pick my brain about Broga because Cronin thought he was into insurance fraud.’
I picked up a pitchfork that was leaning against a stable wall and stabbed carelessly in the dirt with the points.
I said, ‘What would Cronin pay to catch the guy responsible for all these claims recently?’
‘You think it has been deliberate?’
‘I know it’s been deliberate.’
‘Do you know who’s responsible?’
‘What would Cronin pay, do you think?’
‘For a conviction?’
‘Uhuh.’
Mac screwed his face up, ‘I don’t really know. A lot I suppose.’
‘A million?’
‘Doubt it.’
‘Why? Bet he’s paid out five so far.’
‘I don’t know, Eddie, it sounds a lot.’
‘Find out. Ask Cronin if he’ll put up a million pounds reward. Tell him you have very good reason to believe it will bring results.’
‘I’ll try.’
‘Call me as soon as you’ve spoken to him.’ I walked away without saying goodbye.
55
It was a beautifully warm still evening when I drove into the yard. I was much calmer, had been doing a lot of thinking, taking satisfaction in a perverse way for the damage Joe Hawkins had inflicted on Silverdale Insurance. I just wished it had been done without all the heartache it had caused.
Still, everything was now in place. I wasn’t quite sure of the exact details. There were a couple of options but it had obviously started properly with the death of Conway in January.
Kenny had been finalizing his claim then. He probably knew that the brain scan thing could prove problematical if it got out but he’d have thought that unlikely. At that time, Kenny couldn’t have known I was setting Conway up for a fall.
It was more likely Conway found out about Kenny’s potential pay-out from the insurance claim and wanted a share of it. Conway’s lifestyle had been way beyond the income a few false scans would bring, there was every chance he was blackmailing the jocks concerned, threatening exposure. What an earner he would have seen in Kenny’s claim.
But Conway made the mistake of not knowing who Kenny’s brother was and Kenny made the mistake, I think, of telling Joe about Conway. The most Kenny would have been hoping for was that Joe could do something to scare Conway.
Instead Joe had had him killed which would have horrified Kenny, made him want n
othing further to do with his brother, made him refuse Joe’s offer of big lawyers to help win his claim. That’s when the arguments must have begun, the fights Avril had told me about.
On 10th February, I’d passed the Conway tapes to Mac. A week later, he visits Kenny and confronts him with the brain scan evidence. Kenny agrees to drop his claim. Mac says the Jockey Club will take no action. Kenny then finally tells his brother it’s all over but Joe Hawkins can’t stand seeing Silverdale winning so he sets out to ruin the company.
And he planned it so he’d take maximum benefit. He’d have got the idea from the insurance scam he’d been running for years killing unraced horses, the one that started to unravel when Bill Keating died along with two of Hawkins’s horses.
As soon as he knew I was asking questions about Bill, his man had rung with the threat. I suspected then that whoever was behind it was getting info direct from a jockey. By virtually telling me when we met in hospital at Christmas that he knew we were planning the coup for Kenny, Joe revealed that he had access to the most secret weighing room plans.
My first suspect had been Neumann but thinking back to Newcastle the day the coup idea came up he’d slagged Joe Hawkins off whereas Jeff Dunning had been anxious to do everything for Kenny.
And curry favour with his brother at the same time?
Also after my fall in that Barbados race Jeff had been trying to pump me, find out what my plans were. And how had Jeff got the invite to ride in that race? Had Hawkins pulled strings for him?
After that phone threat in October and the sabotaged jeep next day Joe Hawkins would have realized I was on the wrong trail anyway and when I latched onto Conway as the chief suspect in Bill’s murder Hawkins had happily let me get on with it.
When Kenny told Joe that Conway was blackmailing him it gave him a double incentive to kill. He frees Kenny and sets Conway up as Bill Keating’s killer, hopefully ending any further inquiries on that front. He must have scared Conway into producing Bill’s scans then planted them along with the crowbar for the police to find.
Aside from that Joe buys the shares in the rival insurance group, somehow gets hold of Silverdale’s client list and starts working through it targeting the costliest risks first, hence Broga Cates’s early losses in England.
Running Scared (The Eddie Malloy series Book 4) Page 21