Front Runner (4 page)

The media must have been briefed by Detective Sergeant Jagger.

I watched on the screen as two firemen with hoses were shown approaching the vehicle, but it was some time before they made any noticeable impression on the firestorm, such was the intensity of the flames.

My phone rang again.

“Jeff? It's Paul. Have you seen the dreadful news about Dave Swinton?”

Paul Maldini was head of operations in the Integrity Department of the BHA and my immediate boss. It was very unlike him to call me on a Sunday.

“I'm watching it now,” I said. “Appalling, isn't it?”

“Really awful,” he agreed. “I can't believe it.” He paused. “Find out what you can, will you?”

“In what way?” I asked.

“Make sure there's nothing that will come back to bite us in racing.”

“Do you think there might be?”

“I've no idea, but it can't be good for the sport for our pinup boy to end up as a human torch.”

“No,” I agreed.

“So just have a look, will you?” he said. “Root around a bit, in your usual confidential manner, and get back to me.”

I wondered how much I should tell Paul at this stage about my conversations with Dave in the sauna and in his car.

Paul Maldini was never the most subtle of men. If I told him that the champion jockey had admitted not winning a race on
purpose, he would initiate a full-scale investigation and any chance of having a
Root around a bit, in my
usual confidential manner
, would be lost. If I also told him that Dave had actually tried to kill me, he would have had the whole department mobilized and blundering around like bulls in a china shop. The chances of finding out the truth would be lost forever.

I'd probably tell him in the end, but just not yet.

I'd been in trouble before for not telling Paul everything I was thinking or doing right away, but I had good reason to be reticent. He was very good at the day-to-day nitty-gritty of the Integrity Service—checking that runners in races were actually the horses they were said to be, ensuring the smooth running of the drug testing of the winners, checking that trainers and jockeys conformed to the administrative rules for racing and the like. However, he had little or no understanding of the undercover work I was usually occupied with.

Things to him were either black or white, never gray.

I was gaining a reputation for keeping those in racing on the straight and narrow, not by stewards' inquiries and bold publicity after some wrongdoing, but by quiet words and gentle warnings before any formal proceedings were warranted. Not that I didn't write formal reports—I did. But sometimes, to Paul's huge annoyance, the identification of the individuals concerned was somewhat vague and ambiguous.

“I saw Dave at Newbury yesterday,” I said to Paul. “We spoke briefly.”

“Did he give you any indication he intended to kill himself?”

“None at all,” I said. “And we don't know for sure that he did.”

“Looks like it to me,” he said. “What else could it be?”

Murder, I thought, but didn't say so. “We don't even know for certain that it was Dave Swinton in that burning car.”

“Who else would it be?” Paul said. “It was his car.”

“I suppose the autopsy will tell us,” I said, “if there's enough left of him to work with.”

I shuddered once more as the news channel again showed the burning car, even if the TV company had now belatedly edited out the most gruesome images.

“Just let me know if you turn up anything that could be harmful to the reputation of racing.”

“OK,” I said. “Will do.”

He hung up.

I went on watching the news coverage, transfixed by the awfulness of the situation.

The reporters assumed it was suicide, but the big question that they kept asking, and that no one could answer, was
WHY would Dave Swinton kill himself?

Why indeed? Surely throwing a race was not reason enough, even if he had admitted it to me.

So-called experts were dragged in front of the TV cameras to discuss depression and how a seemingly highly successful person could have so many private demons that it drove him to end everything.

Not that Dave would be the first, not by a long shot. There was an extensive roll of A-list Hollywood actors, best-selling novelists, chart-topping musicians, as well as medal-winning sportsmen, who had all taken their own lives.

There had even been a previous suicide of a top jockey when Fred Archer, the sporting superstar of his generation, winner of over two and a half thousand races and thirteen times champion jockey on the flat, shot himself in 1886, aged just twenty-nine.

But, somehow, the television images made this suicide seem worse than those that had gone before. It had been shown in all its horror and misery.

The pinup boy of British racing—that's how Paul Maldini had referred to Dave Swinton and it was an accurate description.

His death was something that wouldn't send just ripples through racing, it would be a tsunami.

F
aye didn't look very well when she opened the front door of her house overlooking Richmond Green.

“Are you OK?” I asked with concern.

“You know that I have good days and not-so-good days?” she said. “Well, this is one of the not-so-good, that's all. It's all to do with the drugs I have to take. They make me feel sick.”

“I thought you were off the chemo.”

“I am. These are drugs designed to boost my red blood count. The chemo does more than kill the cancer—apparently, it's not too good for my bone marrow either.” She sighed. “Such is life . . . and death. Anyway, enough about me. What have you been up to?”

“Same old stuff,” I said to her. “Nothing very interesting.”

Nothing very interesting except someone trying to kill me.

We went through into her kitchen.

“Tea?” she asked. “Or coffee? Or would you prefer wine?”

I looked at my watch. It was twenty past four.

“It's never too early on a Sunday,” Faye said, smiling. “I'd like some.”

“Great,” I said. “So would I.”

She took a bottle of sauvignon blanc from the fridge and poured two generous glasses.

“I need this,” she said. “Somehow, alcohol helps reduce the feeling of nausea I get from the pills. I often have a brandy if it gets too bad.”

“Why don't you take the pills with a glass of brandy?” I said. “Then you probably won't feel sick in the first place.”

She laughed. “I can hardly have a glass of brandy to take pills when I wake up in the morning.”

“Why not?” I said. “It must be better than feeling ill all day.”

She laughed again. “Perhaps I'll try it, though I'm not sure what Q would say.”

“Tell him it's medicinal.”

“What's medicinal?” Quentin asked, coming into the kitchen.

“Having brandy for breakfast,” I said.

“British soldiers in the First World War were given tots of rum for breakfast,” Quentin said. “And most of the officers had cases of brandy sent out to them from home. Or whisky. Masses of it. It helped them cope.”

“So were they all drunk when they went over the top?”

“Absolutely,” Quentin said. “A double ration of rum was issued to the men before they were off. Otherwise, they wouldn't have gone.”

“There you are,” I said to Faye with a smile. “So you
can
have brandy for breakfast.”

“To help me cope?” She burst into tears.

It was a reminder of how close to the edge Faye's life had become, always living in dread of a return of the cancer. Treatment was ever more effective and the statistics were steadily improving, but, deep down, even those patients given the final
all clear from the disease lived with the fear that it would get them, in the end. That it would only be a matter of time. This year, next year, sometime—but not
never
.

I waited a second for Quentin to move, but, when he didn't, I went over and put my arm around Faye's shoulders.

“I'm sorry,” she said, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. “Occasionally, it all gets to be too much.”

“You have nothing to be sorry about,” I said. “It's us who should be sorry for making light of something so serious.”

Faye took a deep breath. “I'm fine now,” she said. “Now, what would you like for tea?”

—

T
HE
THREE
OF
US
ate hot buttered crumpets, washed down not with Earl Grey but with sauvignon blanc.

I felt the whole situation was unreal. Just six hours ago, I had been fighting for my life and yet here I was genteelly eating crumpets in Richmond upon Thames.

“Quentin,” I said between mouthfuls, “what's the maximum prison sentence for attempted murder?”

“Life,” he said confidently. “Attempted murder, by definition, indicates a conscious resolve to take someone's life. In fact, time served in jail can sometimes be longer for attempted murder than for murder itself. Some murder convictions occur when there was no desire to cause a death—for example, when the accused only intends to injure but the victim then dies. But intent to actually kill is crucial and is a requirement for an
attempted
murder conviction.” Quentin never answered a question in five words if fifty could be used. “Why do you ask?”

“No real reason,” I said. “It's just something to do with a case I'm investigating for the BHA.”

He lost interest. Racing was not high on Quentin's agenda, as he regularly told me. He considered all sport to be the recreation of the proletariat and not worthy of someone of his standing.

“And how was your game of golf this morning?” I asked pointedly.

“Humph!” he snorted. “What a waste of time.”

“Did you win?” I asked, enjoying his discomfort.

“No,” he said. “The Lord Chief Justice won, but only because I let him. I had no idea he was so bad at golf. I thought I was the world's worst player, but even I had to four-putt from eight feet on the last green to ensure he won by a stroke.”

I laughed.

“It's not that funny,” he said. “I was trying to get myself noticed.”

I actually thought that Quentin Calderfield, QC, couldn't fail to get himself noticed. He was one of the most successful and flamboyant Queen's Counsels around. QC, QC, was how he was known by everyone at the Bar, but he was also renowned for some of his conservative opinions.

But what he really meant by getting himself noticed was that he was trying to get himself promoted to judge—in his assessment, a promotion well overdue. It seemed never to occur to him that some of his more old-fashioned views on modern life, in particular to do with sexuality and race, may have been a factor in his current omission from the bench.

“And were you noticed?” I asked.

Quentin clearly didn't like the tone of my voice, which, in truth, was slightly mocking. “We will have to wait and see,” he said, tight-lipped. He then excused himself and went back to his study.

“I wish you two got on better,” Faye said after he'd gone.

“We get on all right,” I said, although it wasn't true. “And I'll definitely call him if I ever need a lawyer.”

“Do you think that you will need a lawyer?” she asked.

“Probably one day.”

She pulled a face at me. She didn't like my line of work.

“Do you want to stay for supper?”

I knew that she was only asking because she felt sorry for me. Lydia's departure had been almost as big a disappointment for Faye as it had been for me. She desperately wanted me to be happy and saw it as her job to get me married off before she succumbed to the cancer. In her eyes, Lydia would have made the perfect sister-in-law.

“Thanks, but no thanks. I'd better get back.”

I wondered why I'd said that. My apartment would be cold and lonely. I'd become used to domestic life as a couple and I missed the homey comforts of having a mate, especially one who enjoyed cooking as much as Lydia had.

“You're welcome to stay,” Faye said. “We're only having pasta and pesto. I can easily make enough for three.”

“OK,” I said. “Pasta and pesto would be lovely.”

—

D
AVE
S
WINTON
'
S
apparent suicide was the only topic of conversation at the BHA offices on Monday morning and there was genuine sadness among the staff.

Dave had been popular with everyone in racing, not least because of his famed good looks together with the humility that had accompanied his stunning ability on a horse. The previous December there had been a huge surge of support from the racing community to vote for him in the Sportsman of the Year
contest and it had carried him to an easy victory. It was something that had given the whole of racing a boost.

There was not only sorrow for his loss but also bewilderment that he could kill himself, and especially in such a horrendous fashion.

“But why would he do such a thing?” said one of the young female receptionists, who was in tears. “He surely had everything to live for.”

I decided not to enlighten her about Dave's attempt to kill me. Not so much out of any sense of not wishing to speak ill of the dead or to add to her pain, but more because I doubted that she would believe me. In fact, I reckoned that no one would believe me, so I kept quiet.

While the collective grief caused others to spill out into corridors and stairwells to share their anguish, I shut myself away in my office and spent the morning studying the videos of all the races that Dave Swinton had ridden in but not won during the preceding week.

I thought back to what he had said to me in his Jaguar at the Newbury races:
I had twenty-eight rides and ten winners last week, so I lost eighteen races
.

Finding the eighteen races was easy using the BHA database and I watched the RaceTech video recordings of each of them.

Dave had finished second in six, third in four and had not placed in the other eight, falling in two of them, once at the last fence when clear in front.

I watched all the available footage, including the side and head-on angles, but there was nothing I could see that indicated that a horse had been prevented from winning on purpose. That was not to say it hadn't happened. Dave Swinton was a genius in
the saddle and I was sure that if he had wanted to lose a race deliberately, he could have done so in such a manner that no one would have easily been able to spot it.

I studied the starting prices to see if there was a particularly unusual result, but that line of inquiry wasn't especially fruitful, not least because such was his following among the punters that all Dave Swinton's mounts tended to start at much shorter prices than their past form might warrant. Indeed, of the eighteen horses on which Dave had failed to win last week, fourteen had started as favorites or joint favorites.

I delved further into the archives, looking at the recordings of other races, to compare how his recent mounts had run previously.

After four hours glued to the screen, I came up with three possibles, although I had my doubts about each of them.

The first was at Haydock Park the previous Saturday. He'd ridden a horse called Garrick Party to third place in a three-mile chase. There was little or no doubt that, going to and after the last fence, Dave had tried his best to achieve the best possible result, but the damage had already been done by then.

Garrick Party was a well-known front runner who had won a couple of races before by setting off in front and trying to hold on to a lead all the way to the line. Timeform described him as being “one-paced, with no finishing turn-of-foot.”

As far as I could tell from the database, Dave had ridden him in three of his previous runs, including one of the victories. On all those occasions, he had set off in front and established a lead, in one case such a lead that at the halfway point in the race he had been a whole fence ahead of the other horses.

Why, then, at Haydock, had Dave opted to ride a waiting race, holding him up in the pack in a slowly run affair?

The racetrack stewards on the day had called in both trainer and jockey to explain the running of the horse. According to the notes in the file, the stewards had accepted the explanation offered that the horse had been held back due to a concern that the heavy going would have burned him out too quickly in such a long race if he had been allowed to run so freely in the early stages.

But the horse had run exactly in that manner, and won, in a three-mile chase at Fontwell Park in September when the ground had been almost waterlogged and the going was described as “bottomless.” And Dave Swinton had ridden it that day too.

The second possible race had been at Ludlow two days after the one at Haydock. Dave had ridden a horse called Chiltern Line and he had become badly boxed in on the final turn and had been forced to drop back to get around other horses. He had subsequently failed to make up the lost ground, finishing second by half a length.

The only thing that made it of note was that Dave Swinton was such a good tactician in a race that getting himself badly boxed in was something almost unheard of. If it had been almost anyone else in the saddle, I wouldn't have looked at it twice.

Had Dave allowed himself to get boxed in on purpose? But if he'd been determined not to win the race, how could he have been sure that he would be boxed in? Perhaps that was the genius of the man.

The third race was the one in which he had fallen at the last fence, even though part of me couldn't understand how anyone, stuntmen aside, would cause a horse to fall on purpose, especially when the fall in question had been such a bad one.

Dave had been well in front on a horse called Newton Creek
in a novice chase, also at Ludlow, when he had asked the horse to shorten and put in an extra stride when coming toward the last fence. The horse had run only once before over fences and was still very green in his jumping. The message for an extra stride got through to him far too late, which then left him perilously close to the fence. Newton Creek did his best to rise but caught the obstacle square across his shoulders, causing Dave Swinton to be ejected forward from the saddle. The horse, meanwhile, completed a spectacular half somersault over the fence before landing heavily on his back.

Dave had been extremely fortunate not to have had half a ton of horse landing right on top of him.

The only reason I was slightly suspicious was that, in my opinion, there had been no need to put in the extra stride in the first place. Again, it was the proven consummate skill of the jockey that made me think that either Dave had not been concentrating properly or he had caused the horse to fall on purpose.

But falls of that nature were almost always nasty, so why anyone would cause one intentionally was beyond me. Maybe it had been out of desperation not to win. Such was the severity of the fall that, according to the stewards' official report of the race, Newton Creek had lain, winded and motionless, on the ground for nearly five minutes. The spectators in the stands must have feared the worst before the horse finally rose to his feet and walked away.