Dick Francis's Gamble

“Do you have any runners today?” I asked Jan. At least I could be certain that, this time, she hadn’t come to the races just to see me.

“One in the big chase,” she said. “Ed’s Charger. Not much chance but the owner insisted.” She rolled her eyes up into her head, and I laughed. “Still got your sense of humor, then?”

“Why shouldn’t I have?” I asked.

“Seems everyone you talk to gets themselves murdered or attacked. I hope it doesn’t happen to me.”

So did I. She might have indeed been just about old enough to be my mother, but she was still a very attractive woman. Had I been a tad too hasty, I wondered, in turning down her offer?

Jan went into the Weighing Room to find the jockey who was riding her horse while I leaned on the rail of the paddock and looked up Ed’s Charger in the race program. I noticed it was to be ridden by Mark Vickers, my client and, now with Billy Searle out of the running, the champion jockey-in-waiting.

Billy’s attempted murder had certainly been convenient for Mark’s championship ambitions, but I didn’t really believe that the attack in Baydon had been arranged for that purpose. True, there had been the infamous incident when one Olympic ice skater had allegedly arranged for the leg of her rival to be broken so as to better her own chances, but attempted murder was surely a step too far, if indeed that was what it had been. And there was the unanswered question of the hundred thousand pounds and, in particular, to whom it had been owed by Billy, and why.

“Hi, Foxy. Penny for your thoughts?” said a voice behind me and I groaned inwardly. Martin Gifford was the last person I wanted to see.

I turned around and forced a smile at him. “Just working on my next murder,” I said. “Do you fancy being the victim?”

Martin looked really worried for a fraction of a second before he realized I was joking.

“Very funny,” he said, regaining his composure. “Tell me, what was it like being arrested?”

“A laugh a minute,” I said. “And you didn’t bloody help by telling the Post you thought I knew more about the Aintree killing than I was letting on. And why did you tell them that Herb Kovak was my best friend when I specifically told you he was only a work colleague?”

“I only told them what I believed to be true,” he said selfrighteously.

“Bastard,” I said. “You made it all up and you know it.”

“Now, come on, Foxy,” he said. “You weren’t being completely honest with me. The truth, remember, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.”

“Bollocks,” I said forcefully. “We were not in court, and what makes you think you have a divine right to know everything about everybody anyway? You’re the most indiscreet man on a racetrack. You couldn’t keep a secret if your life depended in it.”

I knew as soon as I’d said it that it had been a mistake. Martin Gifford was all I’d said he was, but he was also the sort of person one needed to keep on one’s side and I’d probably just lost him as an ally forever. But I didn’t care. I’d had my fill of him over the years, and I looked forward to him not coming up every time he saw me and offering me a penny for my thoughts.

“Well, if that’s what you think,” he said haughtily, “you can bugger off.” And with that he turned and walked away with his nose held high. It had been a fairly weak riposte but no less accurate for that.

Jan came back out of the Weighing Room and over the grass to where I was standing. I watched her walk towards me with slightly renewed interest. She saw me looking at her and wiggled her hips.

“Changed your mind then, lover boy?” she said quietly as she came up close to me.

“No,” I said. But had I?

“Pity,” she replied. “Are you sure you won’t come over to my place for a ride?”

“I told you I couldn’t. I can’t take the chance with my neck.”

“Not that sort of ride, silly.” She smiled. “I’d give you a ride where it wouldn’t be your neck that would have to take its chances.” She leaned forward suggestively over the paddock rail, rubbing her bottom up against my leg.

“Jan, behave yourself!” I said.

“Why should I?” she asked, laughing. “I’m a rich divorcee, remember? By definition, we’re not meant to behave ourselves. Fancy a fuck?”

“Jan!” I said. “Please stop it.”

“My,” she said, abruptly standing bolt upright next to me. “I do believe you’re embarrassed. What an old- fashioned, strange boy you are.”

I was certainly old-fashioned, but was I really strange?

Maybe I was, but did that mean I wanted Jan as a lover?

No, I suddenly decided, it did not.

I wanted Claudia.

My real reason for coming to Sandown had been to see Jolyon Roberts.

According to the morning paper, one of the horses running in the third race was owned by Viscount Shenington, and I hoped it was one of those he co-owned with his brother.

I looked out for Colonel Roberts on the grandstands during the first and second races but, not surprisingly, I couldn’t see him. The fine weather had helped to bring out a good Saturday crowd at Sandown for one of the very few mixed meetings of the year, that is where both flat and jumping contests were scheduled side by side on the eight-race program. Indeed, the first event of the day was a special one-mile flat race where jockeys from both codes raced against one another in a sort of Flat V Jump championship.

I went down to the parade ring before the third race and, sure enough, Jolyon Roberts was there, standing on the grass in the center with a group of three men and two ladies, none of whom I recognized.

I maneuvered myself next to a gap in the rails, through which I assumed the Roberts party would eventually need to pass, and waited.

He saw me when he was about five strides away and, if he was shocked or surprised, he didn’t show it. However, I did detect a very slight shake of the head as he looked me square in the eye.

As a true gentleman, he stepped to the side to allow the others in his party to pass through the exit first.

“Chasers Bar after the sixth,” Jolyon Roberts said quietly but distinctly, and straight at me, as he went through the gap, not breaking his Guard’s step. I stood still and watched as he caught up to one of the ladies and took her arm. He didn’t look back at me. His words may have been softly spoken, but his message had been crystal clear: “Don’t stop me now, I’ll speak with you later in private.”

I was in the Chasers Bar well ahead of him. In fact, I watched the sixth race on one of the wall-mounted television sets so as to ensure I could get a table discreetly situated in the corner farthest from the door, and away from the bar.

I sat, watching the entrance, with two glasses of wine in front of me, one red and one white.

Jolyon Roberts appeared, stopped briefly to look around, then strode purposefully over and sat down opposite me.

“Sorry about this, sir,” I said. “But I had no other way of contacting you.”

“What do you have to tell me?” he said.

“Drink?” I asked, indicating the wine.

“No thank you,” he said. “I don’t. Never have.”

“Something soft?” I asked.

“No, nothing, thank you.”

“What a shame about your horse,” I said.

It had fallen at the second hurdle and broken a leg.

“These things happen,” he said. “My wife was more upset about it than me. To be honest, it solved the problem of what to do with the damn thing. It couldn’t have won the race if it’d started yesterday.” He chuckled at his own joke, a habit I found slightly irritating. “Now, tell me what you’ve found.”

“Nothing much, I’m afraid,” I said, taking a large sip of the white wine. “Except that if it is a fraud, it’s a much bigger fraud than either of us thought.”

“In what way?” he asked.