Dick Francis's Gamble (14 page)

“You haven't seen me, all right!” I said.

“Don't involve me in your sordid little affairs,” he said rather haughtily. “I'm not putting my career at risk for you.”

Rory could be a real pain sometimes.

“Rory,” I said. “When, and if, you ever qualify to be an IFA, you can then start talking about your career. Until then, shut up!”

Rory knew that I knew that he had failed his qualifying exams twice and he was now in the Last Chance Saloon. He sensibly kept quiet.

I took off my suit jacket and hung it on the back of my chair. Then I sat down at Herb's desk and pulled open the top drawer.

“What are you doing?” Rory asked somewhat arrogantly.

“I'm going through Herb's desk,” I said. “I'm his executor and I'm trying to find the address of his sister.” He wasn't to know that Herb's sister was in Hendon. Rory ignored me and went back to his one-handed typing.

There was no sign of Sherri's address but there were two more MoneyHome payment slips lurking in a drawer and this time not torn up into squares. There was also another of the sheets with handwritten lists on both sides, just like the one Chief Inspector Tomlinson had shown me in Herb's flat. I carefully folded them all up and put them in my pocket.

Apart from that, the desk was almost too clean. No screwed-up papers or chocolate bar wrappers.

I wasn't surprised. In fact, I was amazed there had been anything at all. I would have expected the police would have stripped it completely bare on the Monday after his death.

I looked around the cubicle. Some of the staff personalized their bulletin boards with family pictures or souvenir postcards sent by friends on holiday, but there had never been any such personal items pinned to Herb's, not even a picture of Sherri. There was only the usual mandatory company telephone directory, and a small key pinned to the board with a thumbtack. I looked at it closely but left it where it was. A key without a lock wasn't much use.

And there was nothing of interest in his wastebasket either, as it was completely empty. It would be. Even if the police hadn't emptied it, the office cleaners had been there since Herb had last sat at this desk on the previous Friday afternoon.

I walked along the corridor and put my head right into the lion's den.

Now, Gregory, as a senior partner, did qualify for an office of his own, but, fortunately for me, this particular lion was still out to lunch. I sat down in his chair and looked at his computer screen. As I had hoped, he hadn't bothered to log out from his session when he went to lunch. Most of us didn't. The office system was great when it was working, but it took so long to boot up that we all tended to leave it on all day.

I typed “Roberts Family Trust” into Gregory's computer, and it instantly produced the details of the file on his screen with the date of the original investment prominently displayed at the top. The access list in the right-hand corner showed me that Gregory himself had looked at the file only that morning, at ten twenty-two a.m. precisely, no doubt in a lull from searching the offices for me. I just hoped he wouldn't notice that his computer had accessed it again at one forty-six p.m.

However, it was one of the other names on the recent-inquiry list I found most interesting. It showed that Herb Kovak had accessed the file just ten days previously. Now, why had Herb looked at one of Gregory's client files? It would have been most improper, just as it was for me to be looking at it now. Perhaps Herb had also had some suspicions about the Bulgarian investment. I wondered what they had been. It was too late to ask.

I would have loved to print out the whole file, but unfortunately the office server used a central printing system that recorded who had asked for what to be printed. How could I explain away an apparent request from Gregory when he was out to lunch? More to the point, how would I explain sitting at Gregory's desk and using his computer if he returned unexpectedly early?

I instinctively looked at my watch. It was ten to two. I reckoned I should be safe for at least another twenty minutes, but I had no intention of being even half that long.

I flipped through the pages of the file trying to find the names of the Bulgarian agents involved in the project, but it was a nightmare, with PDF scans of the relevant documents all in the local Cyrillic script. It might as well have been in Chinese. I couldn't read any of the words, but I could read what I thought was a telephone number written in regular digits. I copied it down on the back of one of Herb's MoneyHome payment slips. It began “+359,” which I knew from looking at the Internet earlier was the international code for Bulgaria.

I looked again at my watch. Two o'clock.

I opened Gregory's e-mail in-box and did a search for “Bulgaria.” There were six e-mails, all from September two years ago. I glanced through them but nothing seemed amiss. They were about European Union money, and they were all from the same source. I copied down the e-mail address of the sender, uri_joram@ec .
europa.eu
, and also that of the recipient, dimitar.petrov@bsnet .co.bg. Gregory had been copied into the correspondence but there was no sign of any replies. I took a chance and forwarded the e-mails to my private e-mail address, then I deleted the forwarded record from Gregory's “Sent” folder. I wished I could have e-mailed myself the whole Roberts file, but our security system wouldn't allow it.

I reluctantly closed Gregory's in-box and the Roberts Family Trust file and checked that the screen appeared the same as when I had first arrived.

I slipped out into the corridor, and no one shouted a challenge or questioned what I had been doing in Gregory's office.

As everywhere in the offices, the corridor outside was lined with cardboard document boxes holding the paper transaction reports. I searched for the box containing those for the date at the top of the computer file.

Mrs. McDowd may not have liked policemen very much, and she was definitely too nosy about the staff's lives and families, but she was very methodical in her filing. All the boxes were in chronological order with dates clearly written in marker pen on the ends.

I lifted up the box with the correct date and dug through its papers until I found the correct transaction report and associated paperwork. I pulled them out, folded them and stuffed them into my trouser pocket alongside Herb's MoneyHome payment slips, before putting the box carefully back in the same place I'd found it.

I glanced at my watch once more: twenty past two. Where had those twenty minutes gone? Time I was away. But why did I suddenly feel like a thief in the night? I'd done nothing wrong. Or had I? Maybe I should just go and see Jessica straightaway when she returned from lunch. But the client, Jolyon Roberts, had specifically asked me to have a discreet look rather than initiate a possible fraud investigation that would, as he put it, drag the good name of the Roberts family through the courts.

Nevertheless, whatever else I might do, I didn't want to be in the offices when Gregory returned from his restaurant.

I went back into my office to collect my jacket.

“Leaving already?” said Rory sarcastically. “What shall I tell Gregory?”

I ignored him.

As I walked down the corridor towards the reception area I realized with a heavy heart that I'd left it too late. I could hear Gregory and Patrick talking. I would just have to face the music.

“Ah, there you are Foxton,” Gregory announced at high volume. “I've been looking for you all morning.”

I was so mesmerized by Gregory that I hardly took any notice of a man standing to the side of him and next to Patrick, but the man suddenly stepped forward right in front of me.

“Nicholas Foxton,” the man said. “I arrest you on suspicion of the attempted murder of William Peter Searle.”

I
spent the afternoon waiting in an eight-foot-by-six holding cell at the Paddington Green Police Station not quite knowing what to think.

The man in the office had identified himself as another detective chief inspector, this one from the Metropolitan Police.

I'd missed his name. I hadn't really been listening.

I did, however, remember him advising me that I didn't have to say anything, with the proviso that it might harm my defense if I didn't mention something when questioned that I later relied on in court. I'd been too shocked to say anything anyway. I had just stood there with my mouth open in surprise as a uniformed policeman had applied handcuffs to my wrists and then led me down in the lift to a waiting police car.

William Peter Searle, the chief inspector had said when I was arrested.

That had to be Billy Searle.

So Billy had been right about one thing.

Thursday had been too late.

I suppose I couldn't really blame the police for arresting me. Hundreds of witnesses had heard Billy shouting the previous afternoon at Cheltenham. “Why are you trying to murder me?” had been his exact words, even if the
Racing Post
had distorted them somewhat.

I hadn't been trying to murder him, but I hadn't taken him seriously either.

But to whom could Billy have owed so much money? Clearly, someone who was prepared to try to kill him for nonpayment by the Wednesday-night deadline.

I sat on one end of the cell's fixed concrete bed and went on waiting. But I wasn't particularly worried. I knew I had nothing to do with Billy's or anyone else's attempted murder and surely it would be only a matter of time before the police discovered that.

First Herb Kovak and now Billy Searle. Could the two be connected?

 

 

T
hursday afternoon dragged on into early evening, and I was left alone in the cell, still waiting.

For the umpteenth time I looked at my wrist to check the time and, for the umpteenth time, saw no watch.

It had been removed when I was “checked in” to the custody suite by the custody sergeant, along with my tie, my belt, my shoelaces and the contents of my pockets, including Herb's MoneyHome payment slips and the transaction report from the box outside Gregory's office.

The cell door opened, and a white-shirted policeman brought in a tray that held a covered plate and a plastic bottle of water.

“What time is it?” I asked.

“Seven o'clock,” he said without looking at his watch.

“How much longer am I going to be kept here?” I asked.

“The DCI will see you when he's ready,” replied the policeman, who then placed the tray down next to me on the concrete bed and went out. The door clanged shut behind him.

I looked under the cover. Fish and chips. And quite good too.

I ate the lot and drank the water. It took about five minutes.

And then I waited some more, counting the bricks in the walls in an attempt to alleviate the boredom. It failed.

 

 

T
he detective chief inspector finally opened the cell door long after the barred and frosted-glass window had turned from daylight to night black.

“Mr. Foxton,” he said, coming into the cell. “You are free to go.”

“What?” I said, not quite taking it all in.

“You are free to go,” the detective said again, standing to one side of the door. “We will not be charging you with any offense.” He paused as if not being quite able to say the next bit. “And I'm sorry for any inconvenience that may have been caused.”

“Sorry!” I said. “Sorry! I should bloody well think you are sorry. I've been treated like a common criminal.”

“Mr. Foxton,” the chief inspector replied, somewhat affronted. “You have been treated exactly in accordance with the laid-down regulations.”

“So why was I arrested?” I demanded.

“We had reason to believe you were responsible for the attempted murder of the jockey, William Searle.”

“So what's happened that now makes you so sure I'm not responsible for it?” I was purposefully making myself appear angry. It might be the only chance I would have of asking the detective for some answers, and I wanted to take advantage of his defensive position.

“I am persuaded that you could not have been present when Mr. Searle was attacked. You have an alibi.”

“How do you know?” I said. “You haven't asked me any questions.”

“Nevertheless,” he replied, “I am satisfied that it was not possible for you to have committed the attack. So you are free to go.”

I didn't move.

“How are you satisfied that I couldn't have done it?” I asked with persistence.

“Because it is physically impossible for you to have been in two places at the same time. That's what having an alibi means. ‘Alibi' is a Latin word meaning ‘somewhere else,' and you were somewhere else when the attempt was made on Mr. Searle's life.”

“So where was this attack?” I asked. “And when?”

The chief inspector looked uncomfortable, as if he didn't particularly like answering questions. No doubt he was more relaxed asking them.

“Mr. Searle was deliberately knocked off his bicycle on the road outside his home in the village of Baydon in Wiltshire, at exactly five minutes past seven this morning. He is currently in a critical condition at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon.”

“And how are you so sure I was somewhere else at exactly five minutes past seven this morning?” I asked.

“Because you were at 45 Seymour Way in Hendon exactly fifty-five minutes later,” he said. “You were interviewed at that address at precisely eight o'clock by Detective Chief Inspector Tomlinson of the Merseyside Police. There is no way you could have traveled the seventy-two miles from Baydon to Hendon in fifty-five minutes, and especially not at that time of the morning during the rush hour.”