hard. Her stables in Lambourn were full, with about seventy horses in training, and, as I knew from experience, she ran the place with great efficiency and determination.
Jan had been one of my clients now for three years, ever since she had acquired a substantial sum from her ex during a very public High Court divorce case.
I adored her, and not just for her patronage. Perhaps I should accept her invitation to a dirty weekend away, but that would then have changed everything.
“How’s my money?” she asked.
“Alive and kicking,” I replied.
“And growing, I hope.” She laughed.
So did I. “How was the preview?”
“Fabulous,” she said. “I took my daughter, Maria, and a college friend of hers. We had a really wonderful time. The show was terrific.”
At my suggestion, Jan had invested a considerable sum in a new West End musical based on the life of Florence Nightingale set during the Crimean War. The true opening night was a week or so away, but the previews had just started, and I’d read some of the newspaper reports and prereviews. They had been somewhat mixed but that didn’t always mean the show wouldn’t be a success. The
“Some of the prereviews are not great,” I said.
“I can’t think why,” Jan replied with surprise. “That girl that plays Florence is gorgeous, and what a voice! I think she’ll make me a fortune. I am sure the proper reviews after the first night will be fabulous.” She laughed. “But I’ll blame my financial adviser if they aren’t and I lose it all.”
“I hear he has broad shoulders,” I said, laughing back.
But it wasn’t necessarily a laughing matter. Investing in the theater had always been a high-risk strategy and fortunes had been lost far more often than they’d been won. Not that investing in anything was certain. It was always a gamble. I had known some seemingly cast-iron and gold-plated investments go belly-up almost without warning. Shares in big established companies were usually safe, with expected steady growth, but that was not always the case. Enron shares had fallen from a healthy ninety dollars each to just a few cents within ten weeks, while Health South Inc., once one of America’s largest health care providers, had lost ninety-eight percent of its value on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day. Both those collapses had been due to fraud or dodgy accounting practices, inflating their revenues and profits, but business catastrophes can have the same effect. BP shares fell in value by more than fifty percent in a month when an oil platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico even though the costs associated with the explosion, and the subsequent oil clearup, represented far less than half the company’s assets.
Could such a calamitous loss have resulted in Herb’s murder?
I couldn’t believe it was possible.
Patrick Lyall held regular meetings, usually on a Monday, when investment plans for our clients were discussed. All his assistants were present, and that included Herb and myself. We were expected to research the markets and put forward investment suggestions-for example, the new musical that I had recommended to Jan Setter-but the firm’s rule was clear and simple: none of our client money could be invested in any product without the prior approval of either Patrick or Gregory.
Our exposure to BP losses had been mostly through personal pension schemes, and, bad as it was, the risks had been well spread, with no individuals actually losing their shirts, or even as much as a tie. Certainly not enough, I thought, to murder their adviser.
“You should come and ride out for me,” said Jan, bringing my daydreaming back to the present. “First lot goes out at seven-thirty on Saturdays. Come down on a Friday and stay the night. You’d enjoy it.”
Now, was that an invitation to a dirty weekend or not?
And yes, I would enjoy it. The riding, that is. At least I think I would have. But I hadn’t sat on a horse in eight years.
I could remember so clearly the devastation I had felt when told I couldn’t be a jockey anymore. I had been sitting at an oak table in the offices of the British Horse Racing Authority in High Holborn, London. Opposite me were the three members of the medical board.
I could recall almost word for word the brief announcement made by the board chairman. “Sorry, Foxton,” he had said, almost before we were all comfortable in our chairs, “we have concluded that you are, and will permanently remain, unfit to ride in any form of racing. Consequently, your jockey’s license has been withdrawn indefinitely.” He had then started to rise, to leave the room.
I had sat there completely stunned. My skin had gone suddenly cold and the walls had seemed to press inwards towards me. I had expected the meeting with the board to be a formality, just another necessary inconvenience on the long road to recovery.
“Hold on a minute,” I’d said, turning in my chair towards the departing chairman. “I was told to come here to answer some questions. What questions?”
The chairman had stopped in the doorway. “We don’t need to ask you any questions. Your scan results have given us all the answers we need.”
“Well,
I could recall the look of surprise on his face that a jockey, or an ex-jockey, would talk to him in such a manner. But he did come back and sit down again opposite me. I asked my questions and I argued myself hoarse, but to no avail. “Our decision is final.”
But, of course, I hadn’t been prepared to leave it at that.
I’d arranged to have a second opinion from a top specialist in neck and spinal injuries to help me win my case. But he only served to confirm the medical board’s findings, as well as frightening me half to death.
“The problem,” he told me, “is that the impact of your fall occurred with such force that your atlas vertebra was effectively crushed into the axis beneath. You are very lucky to be alive. Extraordinarily lucky, in fact. Quite apart from the main fracture right through the axis, many of the interlocking bone protrusions that helped hold the two vertebrae together have been broken away. Put in simple terms, your head is balanced precariously on your neck, and the slightest trauma might be enough to cause it to topple. With that neck, I wouldn’t ride a bike, let alone a horse.”
It hadn’t exactly been encouraging.
“Is there nothing that can be done?” I’d asked him. “An operation or something? How about a metal plate? I still have one in my ankle from a previous break.”
“This part of the neck is a difficult area,” he’d said. “Far more complicated than even an ankle. There are so many planes and degrees of movement involved. Then there is the attachment of the skull, not to mention the inconvenience of having the nerves for the rest of your body passing right through the middle of it all, indeed the brain stem itself stretches down to the axis vertebra. I don’t think a metal plate would help and it would certainly be another problem you could do without. In normal life, your muscles will hold everything together and your neck should be fine, just try not to have a car crash.” He’d smiled at me. “And, whatever you do, don’t get into a fight.”
For weeks afterwards I had hardly turned my head at all, and, for a while, I’d gone back to wearing a neck brace to sleep in. I remember being absolutely terrified to sneeze in case my head fell off, and I hadn’t even been near a horse, let alone on one’s back. So much for being a carefree risk taker. The Health and Safety Executive had nothing on me when it came to my neck.
“I’d love to come and watch your horses work,” I said to Jan, returning once again to the present. “But I’m afraid I can’t ride one.”
She looked disappointed. “I thought you’d love it.”
“I would have,” I said. “But it’s too much of a risk with my neck.”
“What a bloody shame,” she said.
Bloody shame was right. I longed to ride again. Coming racing every week was a pleasant change from spending all my time in a London office, but, in some ways, it was a torment. Each day I chatted amicably to my
