by Sam O'Brien
The desk phone cut the air with a shrill ring. Andrew jumped. Reluctantly, he picked up.
“What the fuck are you doing in my office?” barked Charles.
Andrew threw his eyes about. Were there cameras in here? Relax, he told himself. Don’t get paranoid: Susan put the call through. He cleared his throat. “I’m going over Lord Fowler’s matings again.”
“Oh, right. OK.”
“Um, did the Earl tell you what happened yesterday?” he said, hastily changing the subject.
“No. What are you talking about?”
“Oh, well it’s probably best he tells you.”
“For God’s sake, spit it out.”
Andrew immediately regretted bringing it up, but if he hadn’t, that might have made Charles suspicious in the long run. He swallowed hard. “Well, basically, somebody pulled up to the house in the afternoon and threw a balloon full of blood at the door.”
There was silence for a moment. Then, “Do you know who it was?”
“Er, no, no. No idea. I didn’t see him. Neither did the Earl; he only saw the car. The police don’t seem too bothered about it.”
“The police? Oh, fucking hell. Look, I’ll deal with it all when I get back. Can you tell Terry to pick me up tomorrow evening?”
“Sure, no problem.”
“How’s everything on the farm?”
“Great. Sires start covering tomorrow and mares’re foaling without a problem. Um, how did your trip go?”
“Oh, very good. I’ve done a deal to simulcast British racing in China with Tote betting.”
“Sorry, did I hear you correctly?”
“Yes, you did. My connection’s setting it all up. It’ll bring millions into racing’s coffers.”
My connection. An image on a grainy photo popped into Andrew’s head. “Er, that’s marvellous!” he blurted.
“Not a word to anyone, Dixon.”
“Of course.”
“I’ll tell you the rest when I get back. Any gossip on the airwaves?”
“Not a thing. Come to think of it, I don’t think anyone knows you’re in China.”
“Good.” The line went dead.
Andrew hung up and realised his heart was pounding. As he put the cuttings back in the folder, his eye was drawn to a small article on a page dominated by the November Open race meeting at Cheltenham. The Turkish Jockey Club president had been killed in a hit and run outside a busy Istanbul restaurant.
Andrew remembered that Charles had brokered the sale of six British stallions to the Turks that year, just before Christmas. He recalled the frantic rush to get all the paperwork done and the horses out of quarantine and onto the plane before the year ended. Andrew had been relieved to see the stallions leave the English gene pool, not a decent sire among them in his opinion. He’d never understood how Charles got fifteen million for them. Surely not?
Then again, it had taken him a month to accept that his father had really said and done all those things, even after the evidence was paraded all over the national newspapers.
Andrew stumbled back to his own office in a blur, vaguely aware of Susan trying to tell him something. Flopping into his chair, he called Jess. Voicemail. He couldn’t bring himself to leave a message. He would call her tonight.
He sat there shaking his head, reminded of the day the news had broken about his father. Jacko Dixon was caught trying to leave his bailed-out bank with a golden parachute of ten million pounds, yet he still couldn’t account for the lost pension funds. A disgruntled secretary had leaked the story to the press, along with mobile phone footage revealing how the cavalier banker conspired with the board to take “his” money and slip away quietly. He could be heard saying: “Fuck the people, they were queuing up to invest and now they have the gall to complain that it didn’t pay off?” In the fallout from the scandal, the bank had to sack him and press charges to save face. He’d escaped jail, but the courts seized his estate and forced him to make a public apology. Andrew had barely believed it, even when he had seen the footage on a TV show.
Jacko Dixon now spent his days in denial: golfing and anticipating a return to the world of high finance.
Maybe Andrew had been drawn to Charles as some kind of surrogate father-figure, similar in so many ways to his own.
Andrew’s stomach was spinning like a washing machine. He sighed. It would be nice to get drunk and blot it out for a few hours, but that was probably what his mother thought every afternoon, and it never really solved anything for her.
Instead, he pulled a Directory of the Turf off the bookshelf, and looked up a number. His hands shook with fear as he searched.
Chapter 18
Whip and Spurs Public House, Stetchworth, Suffolk
That afternoon, Andrew pulled his cap down and slipped into the corner booth. Through the window he watched the road, waiting for the green Bentley to pull in. His palms and armpits were clammy and the second hand on his watch seemed to operate in slow motion. It was five past four and the place was deserted, except for a pickled-looking man slumped at the bar, boring the landlord with bitter rantings about when he told so-and-so how to train such-and-such to win the Derby. Of course, the trainer didn’t take his advice and the horse didn’t win. Bloody fools, the lot of them.
Andrew whipped his gaze to the door as the hinges creaked. George Fellowes greeted the landlord with a forced smile, ordered a gin and tonic, and folded his lanky frame into the seat opposite Andrew. He pulled off his battered trilby and tossed it on the table.
Even in the poor light of the old pub, Andrew could see the man was gaunt and his nose and cheeks were near purple and mapped with veins. He stared at Andrew with barely concealed anger.
“You requested the meeting. What do you want?” he spat.
Andrew shrugged in an effort to appear relaxed. “I’m not really sure.” He stared at Fellowes. “What’s your problem with Charles and me?”
“Pah,” Fellowes waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t play dumb. You wouldn’t have called me if you didn’t already suspect. Unless he put you up to it?”
“He’s not even in the country. If he was, there’s no way I’d have agreed to meet this close to home. Tell me what you know – or think – and I’ll tell you what I suspect. Fair enough?”
“Quite simply, I believe that your boss killed my wife.”
Andrew stared, his mouth open.
“Oh, I don’t imagine for a second he did it himself. Probably got a Slipstream savage to do it while he was having dinner somewhere public, but he was behind it.”
“Why would he do that?”
Fellowes cocked his head to one side like an animal regarding a strange object. “Think about it.”
“I’ve done little else the past few hours. Your wife was appalled by the excessive overproduction in the thoroughbred racehorse. She saw it as damaging to the breed and made noises about restricting stallion bookings, but – no offence – people laughed at her. Nobody took her seriously.” He paused, looking downcast. “Even if she was right. Because even now, after the market crash, we’re still covering too many mares.”
Fellowes sat up, surprised. “That’s a change of heart by the Brockford boy.”
“Yeah well, long story. Anyway, that’s not the point. Why would Charles kill somebody that nobody was listening to, even if he disagreed with her politics?”
“What you don’t know was that Catherine was taken seriously by a growing number of people. She had nearly every small breeder in the Thoroughbred Breeders’ Association on her side, and she had an animal welfare group poised to put pressure on Westminster. Catherine argued that the American Standardbred gene pool had been destroyed by the use of artificial insemination coupled with unrestricted mare numbers for their stallions, and that the thoroughbred would be weakened by similar reckless overproduction, even if AI remained illegal. She was on the cusp of a breakthrough before…” His voice lost steam and Andrew saw his eyes moisten. He took a long pull on his gin.
> “I know that pompous git Bartholomew got wind of her plans, because I heard him blowing about it in the Jockey Club Rooms one evening. He’s another Buckham crony.”
“Yes, but–”
“Oh, come on, Dixon. You know how fanatical Charles is about Brockford. Your whole business model depends on large books of mares for your sires. If Catherine had succeeded, you’d have had to shut up shop.”
Andrew chewed his lip, then he nodded, conceding the point. “Correct. But so might a lot of other farms.”
“No other farm that I can think of is controlled by someone like Charles Buckham,” he leaned in close to Andrew. “What do you know about Charles’ army days?”
“Not a lot really. Life Guards, SAS. The first Iraq war, Serbia. That’s it; no details. You know, from time to time, I have wondered exactly what he got up to.”
“I don’t know many details either, but I do know this: my brother served alongside him in The Regiment.”
“The SAS?”
“Yes. There was an incident in the Kuwaiti desert, during the invasion.”
“Go on.”
“Piers Bartholomew might be the richest, and Rupert Calcott the meanest, but Charles is the real commander. He outranked the others in The Regiment. He covered up the Kuwait incident for his pal Calcott. The details are sketchy, but supposedly Calcott’s unit ended up at the wrong RV point, two SAS men were killed, dozens of innocent Iraqis were murdered, and their village burnt to the ground to cover it all up. During the inquiry, Charles said his unit received a distress call and arrived to find their comrades under heavy fire, they joined the fight and that was that,” he took another drink. “The thing is: word got around that that wasn’t what happened at all – soldiers gossip amongst themselves like everyone else – but Charles silenced those directly involved. It wasn’t too difficult really. The brass were only too happy to buy the tidy story and avoid tarnishing The Regiment’s heroic image.”
“Holy shit!”
“Indeed. So you see, Buckham and Calcott got a taste for it back then: murder without consequence. And now they have far more power than you can possibly imagine.”
Andrew looked quizzically at the wretched face in front of him.
“They have our Prime Minister’s ear. Eddie Brookson went to Eton with them. And Calcott, through Slipstream and its subsidiaries, has a finger in every pie and a private army to do his bidding.”
“What about Piers?”
“Huh, I know on the outside he seems like a bit of a jolly hockey sticks type, and he’s certainly more humane than the other two – at least he used to be – but he’s a shrewd tactician. He’s very good at keeping himself out of harm’s way; rumour has it his NCOs nicknamed him Teflon.” He paused. “Charles is the boss. He’s a dangerous man, Dixon. Watch him. Watch yourself.”
“Why don’t you go to the police with all this?”
“Haven’t you been listening? Me, go up against them? I can’t prove a thing. The police’d dismiss me as a paranoid, grief stricken old fool who watches too many films. I did approach a local journalist, but he virtually told me to seek psychiatric help. Huh! Anyway, I don’t really… That is to say, I’m not really… Not since Catherine died. You, on the other hand…” His voice trailed off.
Andrew decided not to press the man further. “OK, so here’s what I suspect: I’m sure that Charles had a guy beaten up just to get a better percentage on the sale of four yearlings.”
“Who?”
“Billy Malone – Irish guy. Trainer, agent, general moneygrubber.”
“Oh yes, I remember that. Little devil had enemies everywhere.”
“That’s what everyone says, but I’m sure it was Charles.” Andrew recounted the whole episode to Fellowes. “Also, I think he had the Turkish Jockey Club president done in so he could get a bunch of useless sires sold to Turkey.”
“Nothing would surprise me.”
Andrew felt strange, he rubbed his temples. “That brings the suspected body count to two. Plus all those Kuwaitis, and God knows how many guys he’s beaten up…”
His head started to spin, and he dashed to the toilet as vomit gushed into his mouth. It was not a pleasant thought: assistant to a murderer. Andrew wondered if Jamie knew. Was that why he drank? More blotting out of reality?
He rinsed himself and returned to the table. “Sorry about that. I, I…” He shrugged, lost for words.
Fellowes almost smiled. “Now you know how I feel every day. All that knowledge and no bloody proof.”
Andrew cleared his mind. It was time for action. “I’ve a friend who’s a DS in the Met. I’ll go and have a chat with her, figure out a way to get him – them. There has to be something we can do. But please, George, no more blood balloons. Just lie low and take it one day at a time.”
Fellowes scoffed. “So you’re giving the orders now, are you?”
Andrew frowned. “No, but your version of deranged grief isn’t going to get us anywhere.”
Fellowes nodded begrudgingly and put his hat on.
Andrew continued, “I’ll have to go back to work as if nothing’s wrong, keep doing my job, and see what happens.”
Fellowes stood and turned to leave, then he stuck out a hand. Andrew shook it. “Thank you for listening and believing,” said the widower.
“You’re welcome. Oh, by the way, what’s with the tarot cards?”
“My daughter was into them when she was a teenager. I thought they might get you thinking.”
“Maybe it worked.”
Andrew heard the large engine growl as the Bentley pulled away. He downed his Coke and walked out. His head down and mind full, he almost bumped into a man locking his car right outside the door. He rounded the corner, got into his Lotus, and took the Newmarket road.
* * *
John Smith was locking his old Ford when he felt someone brush his shoulder and hustle past. Looking up, he called, “Oi, watch where you’re going!” and thought there was something familiar about the younger man disappearing round the corner.
Moments later, he saw a green Lotus zip onto the road, headed for Newmarket. He tut-tutted, shaking his head. “You’ll end up in a ditch at that rate, Dixon.”
He ordered a pint of his favourite ale and phoned his brother Terry to give him all the latest gossip.
Chapter 19
That night six mares foaled. Terry never got to bed so he left word for Andrew that he would sleep until the afternoon.
At seven am, the breeding season started with a bang. All eight stallions covered mares and the farm bustled with lorries and trailers. Andrew supervised the matings, greeted breeders and lorry drivers who brought their mares, and showed them the refreshments in the waiting room. Afterwards, he dashed to the office to check contracts and phone clients.
Next, he checked the newborn foals and did his usual rounds of the farm. He felt like a military officer directing manoeuvres, and was so busy that he pushed all thoughts of Charles’ deeds to the back of his mind. The thrill of running a busy stud farm like a well-oiled machine filled his brain with satisfaction, as it did every breeding season.
When he returned to his farm cottage for a quick sandwich, he read a newspaper article announcing a forthcoming trade agreement between Britain and China. The spectre of Charles reappeared.
Andrew rubbed his temples and made plans. Terry had to pick up Charles that evening, but he’d be back in time to attend to any foalings. So Andrew called Jess and arranged to pop down to London. He couldn’t help but smile when he heard her voice.
They sat on her sofa with the pizza box between them. Jess crossed her athletic legs underneath her and sat enthralled as Andrew recounted the events of the last two days.
“Bloody hell,” she said. “That’s some story, but you’ve got no evidence. Nothing. What do you want to do about it?”
He shrugged. “I was hoping your copper’s brain might help me.”
She nibbled on a slice of pizza, lost in thought.
; He looked at his watch. “Charles should be back by now. Oh, that reminds me, I’m beginning to doubt his intentions with this whole Tote-China deal.”
“You what?”
“Oops! Charles swore me to secrecy,” he said, smirking. He told her what Charles had said on the phone. “Lately, I don’t believe Charles’d do anything for the common good. If he’s telling me that he’s buying the Tote to put more money in racing’s coffers, then it’s probably just a cover story. More likely he’s doing it to line his own pockets. Oh yeah, and he’s got a high-ranking Chinese official in his pocket.”
“How d’you know that?”
He told her about Ling.
“You sure about all this?”
“Well, I don’t think it’s coincidence.”
Jess looked doubtful. “I don’t know, Andrew. Do you think the Chinese’ll ever allow gambling on the mainland?”
He sucked air between his teeth. “People’ve been waiting for that to happen for decades, but Charles was confident. So I guess Ling’s making it happen.”
“Hang on, you’re telling me that your boss is buddies with our PM and the next Chinese VP?”
“Seems like it.”
“OK, assuming for a second that it’s all true. Then, like I said, what do you want to do about it? The Turkish thing’s a no-go; even if you had evidence, it’s not our jurisdiction. True, the Fellowes case is still unsolved, but I can’t imagine any detective’s going to want to dig it out again unless there’s a serious lead. And again, all you have is a theory. Come on, Andrew, even if he gave the order, it’d be impossible to pin it on him unless you got the goon that did it, and even then…”
“I know Jess, really I do, but I can’t let it go.” He rubbed his face in his hands. “Would you let it go if you thought you worked for a murderer?”