by Dick Francis
‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Now… about Charlie West. I can see that of course you would call the rider of the third horse to give evidence. And it is clear from the transcript that you knew what the evidence would be. However, at the preliminary enquiry at Oxford West said nothing at all about Hughes having pulled his horse back. I’ve consulted all three of the Oxford Stewards this morning. They confirm that West did not suggest it at the time. He asserted it, however, at the Enquiry, and you knew what he was going to say, so… er… how did you know?’
More silence.
Ferth’s voice went on a shade anxiously. ‘Norman, if you instructed a Stipendiary Steward to interview West privately and question him further, for heaven’s sake say so. These jockeys stick together. It is perfectly reasonable to believe that West wouldn’t speak up against Hughes to begin with, but might do so if pressed with questions. Did you send a Stipendiary?’
Gower said faintly, ‘No.’
‘Then how did you know what West was going to say?’
Gowery didn’t answer. He said instead, ‘I did instruct a Stipendiary to look up all the races in which Cranfield had run two horses and compile me a list of all the occasions when the lesser-backed had won. And as you know, it is the accepted practice to bring up everything in a jockey’s past history at an Enquiry. It was a perfectly normal procedure.’
‘I’m not saying it wasn’t,’ Ferth’s voice said, puzzled.
Ferth stopped the recorder and raised his eyebrows at me.
‘What d’you make of that?’
‘He’s grabbing for a rock in a quicksand.’
He sighed, pressed the starter again and Gowery’s voice came back.
‘It was all there in black and white… It was quite true… they’d been doing it again and again.’
‘What do you mean, it was quite true? Did someone tell you they’d been doing it again and again?’
More silence. Gowery’s rock was crumbling.
Again Ferth didn’t press him. Instead he said in the same unaccusing way, ‘How about David Oakley?’
‘Who?’
‘David Oakley. The enquiry agent who photographed the money in Hughes’ flat. Who suggested that he should go there?’
No answer.
Ferth said with the first faint note of insistence, ‘Norman, you really must give some explanation. Can’t you see that all this silence just won’t do? We have to have some answers if we are going to squash Hughes’ rumours.’
Gowery reacted with defence in his voice. ‘The evidence against Cranfield and Hughes was collected. What does it matter who collected it?’
‘It matters because Hughes asserts that much of it was false.’
‘No,’ he said fiercely. ‘It was not false.’
‘Norman,’ Ferth said, ‘Is that what you believe… or what you want to believe?’
‘Oh…’ Gowery’s exclamation was more of anguish than surprise. I looked sharply across at Ferth. His dark eyes were steady on my face. His voice went on, softer again. Persuasive.
‘Norman, was there any reason why you wanted Cranfield and Hughes warned off?’
‘No.’ Half a shout. Definitely a lie.
‘Any reason why you should go so far as to manufacture evidence against them, if none existed?’
‘Wykeham!’ He was outraged. ‘How can you say that! You are suggesting… You are suggesting… something so dishonourable…’
Ferth pressed the stop button. ‘Well?’ he said challengingly.
‘That was genuine,’ I said. ‘He didn’t manufacture it himself. But then I never thought he did. I just wanted to know where he got it from.’
Ferth nodded. Pressed the start again.
His voice. ‘My dear Norman, you lay yourself open to such suggestions if you will not say how you came by all the evidence. Do you not see? If you will not explain how you came by it, you cannot be too surprised if you are thought to have procured it yourself.’
‘The evidence was genuine!’ he asserted. A rearguard action.
‘You are still trying to convince yourself that it was.’
‘No! It was.’
‘Then where did it come from?’
Gowery’s back was against the wall. I could see from the remembered emotion twisting Ferth’s face that this had been a saddening and perhaps embarrassing moment.
‘I was sent,’ said Gowery with difficulty, ‘A package. It contained… various statements… and six copies of the photograph taken in Hughes’ flat.’
‘Who sent it to you?’
Gowery’s voice was very low. ‘I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know?’ Ferth was incredulous. ‘You warned two men off on the strength of it, and you don’t know where it came from?’
A miserable assenting silence.
‘You just accepted all that so called evidence on its face value?’
‘It was all true.’ He clung to it.
‘Have you still got that package?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to see it.’ A touch of iron in Ferth’s voice.
Gowery hadn’t argued. There were sounds of moving about, a drawer opening and closing, a rustling of papers.
‘I see,’ Ferth said slowly. ‘These papers do, in fact, look very convincing.’
‘Then you see why I acted on them,’ Gowery said eagerly, with a little too much relief.
‘I can see why you should consider doing so… after making a careful check.’
‘I did check.’
‘To what extent?’
‘Well… the package only came four days before the Enquiry. On the Thursday before. I had the Secretaries send out the summonses to Newtonnards, Oakley and West immediately. They were asked to confirm by telegram that they would be attending, and they all did so. Newtonnards was asked to bring his records for the Lemonfizz Cup. And then of course I asked a Stipendiary to ask the Totalisator people if anyone had backed Cherry Pie substantially, and he collected those affidavits… the ones we produced at the Enquiry. There was absolutely no doubt whatsoever that Cranfield had backed Cherry Pie. He lied about it at the Enquiry. That made it quite conclusive. He was entirely guilty, and there was no reason why I should not warn him off.’
Ferth stopped the recorder. ‘What do you say to that?’ he asked.
I shrugged. ‘Cranfield did back Cherry Pie. He was stupid to deny it, but admitting it was, as he saw it, cutting his own throat. He told me that he backed him – through this unidentified friend -with Newtonnards and on the Tote, and not with his normal bookmaker, because he didn’t want Kessel to know, as Kessel and the bookmaker are tattle-swapping buddies. He in fact put a hundred pounds on Cherry Pie because he thought the horse might be warming up to give everyone a surprise. He also put two hundred and fifty pounds on Squelch, because reason suggested that he would win. And where is the villainy in that?’
Ferth looked at me levelly. ‘You didn’t know he had backed Cherry Pie, not at the Enquiry.’
‘I tackled him with it afterwards. It had struck me by then that that had to be true, however hard he had denied it. Newtonnards might have lied or altered his books, but no one can argue against Tote tickets.’
‘That was one of the things which convinced me too,’ he admitted.
He started the recorder. He himself was speaking and now there was a distinct flavour in his voice of cross examination. The whole interview moved suddenly into the shape of an Enquiry of its own. ‘This photograph… didn’t it seem at all odd to you?’
‘Why should it?’ Gowery said sharply.
‘Didn’t you ask yourself how it came to be taken?’
‘No.’
‘Hughes says Oakley took the money and the note with him and simply photographed them in his flat.’
‘No.’
‘How can you be sure?’ Ferth pounced on him.
‘No!’ Gowery said again. There was a rising note in his voice, the sound of pressure approaching blow-up.
; ‘Who sent Oakley to Hughes’ flat?’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know.’
‘But you’re sure that is a genuine photograph?’
‘Yes. Yes it is.’
‘You are sure beyond doubt?’ Ferth insisted.
‘Yes!’ The voice was high, the anxiety plain, the panic growing. Into this screwed up moment Ferth dropped one intense word, like a bomb.
‘Why?’
CHAPTER TWELVE
The tape ran on for nearly a minute. When Gowery finally answered his voice was quite different. Low, broken up, distressed to the soul.
‘It had… to be true. I said at first… I couldn’t warn them off if they weren’t guilty… and then the package came… and it was such a relief… they really were guilty… I could warn them off… and everything would be all right.’
My mouth opened. Ferth watched me steadily, his eyes narrowed with the pity of it.
Gowery went on compulsively. Once started, he needed to confess.
‘If I tell you… from the beginning… perhaps you will understand. It began the day after I was appointed to substitute for the Disciplinary Steward at the Cranfield-Hughes Enquiry. It’s ironic to think of it now, but I was quite pleased to be going to do it… and then… and then…’ He paused and took an effortful control of his voice. ‘Then, I had a telephone call.’ Another pause. ‘This man said… said… I must warn Cranfield off.’ He cleared his throat. ‘I told him I would do no such thing, unless Cranfield was guilty. Then he said… then he said… that he knew things about me… and he would tell everyone… if I didn’t warn Cranfield off. I told him I couldn’t warn him off if he wasn’t guilty… and you see I didn’t think he was guilty. I mean, race-horses are so unpredictable, and I saw the Lemonfizz myself and although after that crowd demonstration it was obvious the Stewards would have Cranfield and Hughes in, I was surprised when they referred it to the Disciplinary Committee… I thought that there must have been circumstances that I didn’t know of…and then I was asked to take the Enquiry… and I had an open mind… I told the man on the telephone that no threats could move me from giving Cranfield a fair judgement.’
Less jelly in his voice while he remembered that first strength. It didn’t last.
‘He said… in that case… I could expect… after the Enquiry… if Cranfield got off… that my life wouldn’t be worth living… I would have to resign from the Jockey Club… and everyone would know… And I said again that I would not warn Cranfield off unless I was convinced of his guilt, and that I would not be blackmailed, and I put down the receiver and cut him off.’
‘And then,’ Ferth suggested, ‘You began to worry?’
‘Yes.’ Little more than a whisper.
‘What exactly did he threaten to publish?’
‘I can’t… can’t tell you. Not criminal… not a matter for the police… but…’
‘But enough to ruin you socially?’
‘Yes… I’m afraid so… yes, completely.’
‘But you stuck to your guns?’
‘I was desperately worried… I couldn’t… how could I…? take away Cranfield’s livelihood just to save myself… It would have been dishonourable… and I couldn’t see myself living with it… and in any case I couldn’t just warn him off, just like that, if there was no proof he was guilty… So I did worry… couldn’t sleep… or eat…’
‘Why didn’t you ask to be relieved of the Enquiry?’
‘Because he told me… if I backed out… it would count the same with him as letting Cranfield off… so I had to go on, just in case some proof turned up.’
‘Which it did,’ Ferth said dryly. ‘Conveniently.’
‘Oh…’ Again the anguish. ‘I didn’t realise… I didn’t indeed… that it might have been the blackmailer who had sent the package. I didn’t wonder very much who had sent it. It was release… that’s all I could see… it was a heavensent release from the most unbearable… I didn’t question…I just believed it… believed it absolutely… and I was so grateful… so grateful…’
Four days before the Enquiry, that package had come. He must have been sweating for a whole week, taking a long bleak look at the wilderness. Send a St Bernard to a dying mountaineer and he’s unlikely to ask for the dog licence.
‘When did you begin to doubt?’ Ferth said calmly.
‘Not until afterwards. Not for days. It was Hughes… at the dance. You told me he was insisting he’d been framed and was going to find out who… and then he asked me directly who had sent Oakley to his flat… and it… Wykeham it was terrible. I realised… what I’d done. Inside, I did know… but I couldn’t admit to it myself… I shut it away… they had to be guilty…’
There was another long silence. Then Gowery said, “You’ll see to it… that they get their licences back?’
‘Yes,’ Ferth said.
‘I’ll resign…’ He sounded desolate.
‘From the Disciplinary Committee, I agree,’ Ferth said reasonably. ‘As to the rest… we will see.’
‘Do you think the… the blackmailer… will tell… everyone… anyway, when Cranfield has his licence back?’
‘He would have nothing to gain.’
‘No, but…’
‘There are laws to protect you.’
‘They couldn’t.’
‘What does he in fact have over you?’
‘I… I… oh God.’ The tape stopped abruptly, cutting off words that were disintegrating into gulps.
Ferth said, ‘I switched it off. He was breaking down. One couldn’t record that.’
‘No.’
‘He told me what it was he was being blackmailed about. I think I am prepared to tell you also, although he would hate it if he knew. But you only.’
‘Only,’ I said. ‘I won’t repeat it.’
‘He told me…’ His nose wrinkled in distaste. ‘He told me that he has… he suffers from… unacceptable sexual appetites. Not homosexual. Perhaps that would have been better… simpler… he wouldn’t nowadays have been much reviled for that. No. He says he belongs to a sort of club where people like him can gratify themselves fairly harmlessly, as they are all there because they enjoy… in varying forms… the same thing.’ He stopped. He was embarrassed.
‘Which is what?’ I said matter-of-factly.
He said, as if putting a good yard of clean air between himself and the world, ‘Flagellation.’
‘That old thing!’ I said.
‘What?’
‘The English disease. Shades of Fanny Hill. Sex tangled up with self-inflicted pain, like nuns with their little disciplines and sober citizens paying a pound a lash to be whipped.’
‘Kelly!’
‘You must have read their coy little advertisements? “Correction given.” That’s what it’s all about. More widespread than most people imagine. Starts with husbands spanking their wives regularly before they bed them, and carries right on up to the parties where they all dress up in leather and have a right old orgy. I don’t actually understand why anyone should get fixated on leather or rubber or hair, or on those instead of anything else. Why not coal, for instance… or silk? But they do, apparently.’
‘In this case… leather.’
‘Boots and whips and naked bosoms?’
Ferth shook his head in disbelief. ‘You take it so coolly.’
‘Live and let live,’ I said. ‘If that’s what they feel compelled to do… why stop them? As he said, they’re not harming anyone, if they’re in a club where everyone else is the same.’
‘But for a Steward,’ he protested. ‘A member of the Disciplinary Committee!’
‘Gives you pause,’ I agreed.
He looked horrified. ‘But there would be nothing sexual in his judgement on racing matters.’
‘Of course not. Nothing on earth as unsexual as racing.’
‘But one can see… he would be finished in the racing world, if this got out. Even I… I cannot think of him now without this… this perversion… comin
g into my mind. It would be the same with everyone. One can’t respect him any more. One can’t like him.’
‘Difficult,’ I agreed.
‘It’s… horrible.’ In his voice, all the revulsion of the normal for the deviation. Most racing men were normal. The deviation would be cast out. Ferth felt it. Gowery knew it. And so did someone else…
‘Don’t they wear masks, at this club?’ I asked.
Ferth looked surprised. ‘Why, yes, they do. I asked him who could know about him… in order to blackmail him… and he said he didn’t know, they all wore masks. Hoods, actually, was the word he used. Hoods… and aprons…’ He was revolted.
‘All leather?’
He nodded. ‘How can they?’
‘They do less harm than the ones who go out and rape small children.’
‘I’m glad I…’ he said passionately.
‘Me too,’ I said. ‘But it’s just luck.’ Gowery had been unlucky, in more ways than one. ‘Someone may have seen him going in, or leaving afterwards.’
‘That’s what he thinks. But he says he doesn’t know the real names of any of his fellow members. They all call each other by fanciful made up names, apparently.’
‘There must be a secretary… with a list of members?’
Ferth shook his head. ‘I asked him that. He said he’d never given his own name to anyone there. It wasn’t expected. There’s no annual subscription, just ten pounds in cash every time he attends. He says he goes about once a month, on average.’
‘How many other members are there?’
‘He didn’t know the total number. He says there are never fewer than ten, and sometimes thirty or thirty-five. More men than women, usually. The club isn’t open every day; only Mondays and Thursdays.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In London. He wouldn’t tell me exactly where.’
‘He wants… needs… to keep on going,’ I said.
‘You don’t think he will!’
‘After a while. Yes.’
‘Oh no…’
‘Who introduced him to the club, do you know?’