Front Runner (2 page)

He pulled the Jaguar into a space in the jockeys' parking area.

“Do you want my advice?” I asked.

“Not really,” he said, leaning his head down on the steering wheel.

I gave it to him anyway. “Go to the revenue and tell them you made an error of omission on your tax return and you want to correct it. Pay the tax. That will be an end to it. I'll try and forget what you've told me.”

“And if I don't?”

“Then you'd be a fool. If someone has that information, they will use it. They may not go to the authorities directly, but they will use it nevertheless. Perhaps they will try and sell it to a newspaper. You'd be right in the shit. Much better that you go to the tax man before they do.”

“But I shouldn't have to pay tax on gifts. It's not like they were earnings.”

He sounded as if he was trying to convince himself rather than me.

“Go and ask your accountant if you need to declare them.”

“Bloody accountants,” he said, sitting back in the seat. “You don't want to tell them anything if you don't want the tax man to know it. In spite of the fact that it's me that pays their bill, my lot seem to work exclusively for the government, always telling me I can't claim for all sorts of things I think are essential for my job.”

“Get a new firm, then. And do it now.”

And maybe, I thought, it was one of his accountant team who knew about his tax-return omission who was trying to make a bit of extra cash on the side.

“How much money did the blackmailer demand?” I asked him as we walked toward the racetrack entrance.

“That's what was odd,” Dave said. “He didn't ask for money, he just said that I mustn't win the race.”

“Which race?”

He didn't answer.

D
ave Swinton and I were waved through by the Newbury racetrack gateman, who recognized Dave and almost touched his forelock. “Morning, Mr. Swinton,” he said without bothering to look at the jockey's pass hanging around Dave's neck. He inspected my authorization more closely. It had my name, my photo and the words
BHA Integrity Investigator
marked in black print. The gateman scowled. No one, it seems, likes a policeman, not even a racing policeman.

“How did the blackmailer contact you?” I asked when we were out of earshot.

“He rang my cell.”

“Did you see his number?” I asked.

“It said
Withheld
.”

Of course it would.

“What did he say?”

“He told me to lose a race.”

“Yes,” I said with some impatience, “but what exactly did he say? What were his actual words?”

“He said I had to lose the race or he'd spill the beans to the tax man that I'd received big gifts from owners that I hadn't declared.”

“Did he use those precise words?”

“Yeah, near enough.”

“He must have told you which race to lose,” I said.

“He just said not to win on—” He stopped.

“On what?” I encouraged.

“Never you mind.”

“But I do mind, Dave. Goddam it, I'm trying to help you.”

“Then forget I ever said it.”

He hurried off toward the weighing room and into the safety of the jockeys' changing room. Theoretically, my BHA credentials meant that I could have followed him in there, but I was sure it wouldn't do any good. And it wouldn't help me make any friends. I may have had an absolute right of entry into every part of the racetrack, but such entitlement was to be used most sparingly, if at all. If I invaded their personal space, any moral authority I might currently possess among the jockeys would evaporate faster than ether on a hot plate.

Instead, I meandered around, enjoying the “feel” of the racetrack on the morning of a big race—especially during this relatively quiet time before the bulk of the racegoers began spilling off the special trains, surging through the entrances, filling the bars and raising the expectation level to fever pitch.

It was a while since I had been to Newbury, but it remained one of my favorite courses. The flat terrain gave spectators a good view of all the action from the grandstands, and the long final stretch, with four stiff fences to the finish, provided a keen challenge for both horse and jockey.

The track at Newbury didn't just have a
long
homestretch, it was also very wide. These two features combined to produce a foreshortening optical illusion that made the winning post always appear closer than it actually was, tempting the inexperienced or
unwary to make a final effort too soon, only to find that the post was still on the horizon and more patient jockeys were sitting quietly behind, ready to pounce.

Conversely, waiting too long could be a disaster as well. No jockey receives more abuse than one who leaves it to too late and then just fails to get up on a fast finisher.

This was supposedly my weekend away from work, but I was never completely off-duty when on a racetrack. I walked around with my eyes and ears firmly open, watching and listening for anything that shouldn't be there. It was habit, I suppose, and one I couldn't shake off—not that I was trying very hard.

I went through the Berkshire Stand and then on to the betting ring, where the lines of bookmakers were busily setting up on their pitches, erecting their electronic price boards and logging their computers on to the racetrack's wireless network. How things had changed since the days of chalk and the big ledger recording books that had given these men their name.

I went back into the grandstand to warm up and get myself a coffee. I was still desperately thirsty after my stint in Dave's sauna. How he could go without anything to drink at all was beyond me, especially as he was, even now, running around the nearly two-mile-long course in a sweat suit, trying to remove yet another pound of liquid from his system.

The enclosures began to fill quickly as the expected crowd of over seventeen thousand arrived in droves and I wandered among them, listening for any snippets of information that might be useful.

“Jeff Hinkley?” called a voice behind me.

I turned. A shortish, well-dressed man with swept-back gray hair was walking toward me with his hand held out. I shook it warmly.

“Mr. Smith,” I said. “How lovely to see you again.”

“Call me Derrick, please.”

Derrick Smith was a leading owner whose many horses in training had included the great Camelot, winner of both the Two Thousand Guineas and the Derby.

Derrick introduced me to the person he was with, a tall gray-haired man, smartly dressed in a fawn overcoat with a brown velvet collar over a tweed suit.

“Jeff Hinkley, this is Sir Richard Reynard.” He said it in a manner that made me think I should know who Sir Richard Reynard was.

I didn't.

“Good to meet you,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Are you all set for next week?” Derrick asked.

“Definitely,” I said. “Thank you. I'm looking forward to it.”

He had asked me for lunch in his box at Sandown on the following Saturday as a thank-you for uncovering and foiling a plot to kidnap one of his horses on the eve of Royal Ascot in June.

“Good,” he said.

“Do you have any runners today?” I asked Derrick.

“No. Richard and I are here as guests of Hennessy. Why don't you come up with us and have a drink? I'm sure they won't mind.”

“I'm hardly dressed for it.” They were in suits but I had on only a sports jacket and no tie.

“Nonsense. You'll be fine.”

The three of us rode up together in the lift to the fourth level of the Berkshire Stand and into the large Hennessy Cognac hospitality area, where a champagne cocktail was thrust into my hands.

The room was already half full and many of the faces were known to me.

And I was clearly known to several of them. There were even a few cautious glances in my direction from the few with whom I'd had professional contact—me as an investigator and they as the investigated.

“Godfrey,” Derrick called to the chairman of the cognac company, taking him by the arm and forcing him to turn toward us, “have you met Jeff Hinkley? He's the man who saved my horse at Ascot.”

Godfrey, or Viscount Marylebone as he was more formally known, was our host. He shook my offered hand with a quizzical look on his face that suggested he was desperately trying to remember the guest list.

I wasn't on it.

“Thank you for the drink, my Lord,” I said. “Mr. Smith brought me in with him but I won't be staying long.”

Godfrey was not very good at concealing his relief. “Nice to meet you,” he said, but he was already looking over my shoulder toward some of his other guests, those who were expected. He moved away toward them. Derrick Smith, meanwhile, had turned away to speak to someone else and had taken Sir Richard Reynard with him.

I took the opportunity to go out onto the viewing balcony. It wasn't often that I had the chance to look over a racetrack from such an exalted position. I was usually down on the lower levels in pursuit of lesser mortals.

There were two men outside braving the cold and they were in earnest conversation, their heads bowed together. The shorter of the two was very angry with the other, as he was making very plain. “You're a total fucking idiot!” I heard him say. “You absolutely shouldn't be here. You shouldn't even be in the country. It's far too risky.”

“No one will ever know,” said the other man.

“
I know
, and that in itself is bad enough,” replied the first.

At that moment, the two seemed to notice my presence and instantly stopped talking. One of them even pointedly turned away from me so I couldn't see his face.

“Sorry,” I said. “Don't mind me. I'm just getting some air.”

They just stood there, waiting, so I went back inside.

The room was by now getting very full indeed and people were beginning to move toward their places at the tables that were laid for lunch. Time to go, I thought.

I looked around for Derrick Smith and for Lord Marylebone to say my good-byes, but they were both busy talking to others at the far end of the room, so I worked my way toward the exit to leave quietly. Sir Richard Reynard was standing there on his own, next to the coatrack.

“Please say good-bye to Mr. Smith for me,” I said to him.

He looked at me and nodded.

As I turned toward the door, I glanced back through the windows toward the balcony. The two men were still deep in discussion, but this time I was able to see both their faces.

I whipped my iPhone out of my pocket and took a quick long-distance photo of them. As I'd lifted the phone, they both happened to look straight at me, so I had a good shot of their full faces.

One never knew when such things might be useful.

—

H
AVING
NO
LUNCH
,
added to his run around the course, must have done the trick because Dave Swinton had evidently met his hundred-forty-four-pound target.

At a quarter to three, I watched as he emerged from the
weighing room wearing Integrated's black, red and white colors and went to join the horse's owner and trainer in the parade ring.

The Hennessy Cognac Gold Cup, run at Newbury each year on the last Saturday in November, is one of the most prestigious races on the calendar.

The two steeplechases that every owner, trainer and jockey are desperate to win are the Cheltenham Gold Cup and the Grand National, but the Hennessy would maybe come in an equal third alongside the likes of the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park on Boxing Day, and the Queen Mother Champion Chase.

Hence, the mixture of excitement and anticipation in the Newbury parade ring was palpable, with some owners shifting from foot to foot, unable to keep still in their nervousness as they waited on the grass.

The same was true for the jockeys.

For the up-and-coming, this was one of those days when careers could be made or lost, while the old hands looked worryingly over their shoulders at the young whippersnappers who would cheerfully take their jobs without a heartbeat of hesitation.

Finally, an official rang the bell for the jockeys to get mounted and, one by one, they took their proper places on the horses' backs, completing a transformation from diminutive bystanders to gods.

I stood by the rail as the horses made their way from the ring out to the track.

“Good luck,” I called to Dave as he passed.

He looked down at me and smiled but said nothing. I thought he looked unwell, with the deep-set eyes, hollow cheeks and thin lips of one who was undernourished and dehydrated.

This was his fourth ride of the afternoon, any one of which
would have left most normal men exhausted. Dave, meanwhile, had had no breakfast and no lunch, not even a drink of water.

No wonder he looked unwell.

—

I
NTEGRATED
WON
the Hennessy by a nose in the tightest of photofinishes, Dave Swinton employing all his magic to urge the horse to stretch its neck at just the right moment to pip the favorite to the line.

The crowd went wild, and they continued to cheer as Dave maneuvered Integrated into the unsaddling space reserved for the winner, his gaunt pre-race appearance having been banished by a huge smile and a hefty dose of adrenaline.

He was still grinning as he walked toward me on his way back into the weighing room, his saddle over his arm.

“Now,
that's
why I do it,” he said. “Bloody marvelous.”

“No question of you losing that one, then?” I said.

The smile vanished for a second but quickly returned, although this time it didn't quite reach to his eyes.

“Not a chance.”

F
or the second morning running, Dave Swinton woke me by calling before seven o'clock.

“Jeff, I need to talk to you.”

“That's what you said yesterday,” I replied.

“Yes, I know. I'm sorry. But I
do
need to talk to you now.”

“Talk to me on the phone,” I said.

“No. It has to be face-to-face.”

“Then you'll have to come to London to see me. You wasted my time yesterday and I have no intention of allowing it to happen again.”

“I can't come to London,” he said. “I've got five rides later today and I need to take a spell in the sauna first. I celebrated the Hennessy with a steak last night and it's made me fat.”

Whatever words could have been chosen to describe him,
fat
was not one of them.

“Look, Dave,” I said, “there's little point in me coming all the way to Lambourn again unless you're going to tell me what's going on. And I mean everything that's going on. Yesterday was a total waste of time.”

“You got to see me win the Hennessy—that wasn't a waste of time.” I could visualize him grinning at the other end of the line.

“Yeah, OK. That was good,” I agreed. “Well done.”

“So will you come?”

I sighed.

“Promise me you have something important to tell me.”

“I have,” he said. “For a start, I know who it is.”

“Who
who
is?” I asked.

“You know, what we talked about yesterday. I know who it is.”

I assumed he meant that he knew who was blackmailing him.

“Then tell me now, on the phone.”

“You've got to be kidding, mate,” he said. “I don't trust these things anymore.”

I suppose I couldn't really blame him. Dave Swinton had been one of those whose phone had been previously hacked by a tabloid Sunday newspaper.

“OK,” I said with resignation. “I'll come, but you had better not be messing with me again.”

“I'm not,” he said. “I promise. But come right now. I've a ride in the first race at Towcester and that's at twelve forty-five, so I have to be gone from here by half past ten, absolute latest.”

—

T
HE
TRAINS
on Sunday were not as frequent or as fast as they had been the day before, and I had to change at Reading to catch a local that seemed to take forever to get to Hungerford.

There was just one taxi waiting outside the station and I beat another would-be fare down the stairs from the platform to the road by only a little more than Integrated had won the Hennessy.

“I'm going to Lambourn,” I said to the loser, a white-haired
man with a walking stick, who I reckoned was in his early seventies. “Do you want to share?”

He shook his head. “No thanks, I'm going the other way.”

I was half inclined to allow the older man to take the taxi, but I was in serious danger of missing Dave altogether if I was delayed any more. Rather ashamedly, I climbed in and slammed the door shut.

“I'm the only taxi working in Hungerford today,” said the driver as we drove away. “He'll be there for quite a while—until I get back, I shouldn't wonder.”

Was the driver trying to make me feel even worse? If so, he was succeeding.

—

T
HE
TAXI
pulled up in front of Dave's front door, which was wide open.

I was tempted to ask the driver to wait for me, but then I thought about the old man waiting at the station. So I paid the fare and the taxi hurried away, spinning its wheels slightly on the gravel driveway. Dave would have to give me a lift to a station on his way to the Towcester races.

“Anyone in?” I called through the open door.

There was no answer.

I stepped through the door and shouted again. “Dave. It's me, Jeff.”

No reply. Perhaps he hadn't heard me. It was a big house that Dave had once shared with an attractive young wife and the hope and expectation of having children, but she had long ago left him and now he lived alone in this mansion.

I went down the long hallway to the kitchen. That too was deserted.

“Dave,” I called again loudly.

Still no reply.

He must be in the sauna, I thought. That's why he can't hear me.

I opened the door from the back hall into the garage and I could instantly feel the heat, and the door to the sauna was open.

I took off my quilted anorak and hung it over the handlebars of a bicycle.

“Dave,” I called again. “It's Jeff.”

I walked over and put my head through the sauna door. No one was in there.

I was just about to turn around when a heavy shove from behind sent me sprawling forward onto the hot wooden benches.

“Hey!” I shouted. “What are you doing?”

But no one answered. The only sound was of the wooden door of the sauna being slammed shut behind me.

I tried to push it open but it wouldn't move.

“Open the door,” I said loudly, banging on it with my fist.

There was no response.

“Dave, please open the door.” I used a much more measured and reasonable tone, but still no answer.

I was hot. Damn hot.

I removed the cashmere sweater I had put on to ward off the late-November chill, but it made no difference to the searing heat in my nose, mouth and chest.

The readout of the thermometer on the wall showed 110 Celcius, five degrees hotter than when I had been in this sauna the previous day and that had been almost more than I could bear then.

I pushed hard on the door, but it wouldn't move so much as a millimeter.

“Open the bloody door,” I shouted once more. Again, no reply.

I could hear footsteps. Someone was moving about in the garage.

“Dave,” I shouted, “is that you? Let me out. It's too damn hot in here.”

Again, no reply, but I knew someone was there. I could hear the garage door being opened.

“Let me out,” I shouted again, this time banging my fist on the wooden wall of the sauna.

A car engine was started close by, the noise of it suddenly filling the space around me. The smooth hum of the Mercedes, I thought, not the roar of the Jaguar. The volume of it diminished as the car was reversed out of the garage, and dropped considerably more as I heard the garage door being closed again.

“Let me out,” I shouted once more while banging on the sauna's door, but nobody did.

My anxiety level rose considerably when I heard the car being driven away—whoever had shut me into this furnace was leaving me here.

I patted my pant pockets, hopeful of finding my phone, but I knew it was in my coat and that was hanging on the bicycle in the garage outside.

By this time, I was sweating profusely and my clothes were becoming wet and clinging to my body. I peeled off my shirt, pants, shoes and socks so that I was wearing only my underpants, but it did nothing to cool me down. If anything, the effort required made me feel even hotter.

I needed to get out of this heat, and soon.

I could already feel my heart pumping rapidly in my chest as it sent blood to my extremities to try to cool my core temperature. Sadly, far from cooling me, the heat from the sauna was making the blood under my skin even hotter and circulation was
taking that heat back to my heart, further warming my core and causing the heart to beat yet faster.

It was a positive feedback loop that would be broken only when my heart gave up this no-win struggle and ceased to pump at all or my brain started to cook. Either way, I'd be dead.

I threw myself against the door, striking it with my shoulder, but again it refused to budge. I tried kicking it, to no avail. All that happened was that I became hotter still.

And I was thirsty.

There was a small wooden pail about a quarter full of water on the floor, together with a wooden ladle. I went down on my knees and used the ladle to drink some of the hot liquid. It did little to diminish the dryness of my mouth.

I had been in the sauna for only five minutes or so, but time was already running out. If I didn't get away from this heat soon, it would be too late.

OK, I thought, time for some strategy.

If I couldn't get out, I had to disable the source of the heat.

An open-topped metal box stood in the corner of the sauna, about a foot square and thirty inches high. It was full to the brim with gray rocks, each about the size of a clenched fist, and they were far too hot to touch.

I searched around the side of the box looking for an electric cable, but it was fitted tight to the corner, the power coming straight through the wall.

I tried to move the box but it was too hot to touch, so I kicked at it as hard as I could, which made no impression whatsoever.

And still it poured out heat.

Using my shirt and sweater as oven gloves, I took the rocks out, stacking them on one of the bleached wooden benches. There were twenty rocks and underneath them was a flat metal
tray. I tried to get my fingers around the edges of the tray to lift it up, but it was much too hot to touch unprotected and my fingers were too big and cumbersome when covered.

I grabbed my house key from my pant pocket and used it to lever the tray up.

Below were four spiral heating elements much like those found on some electric stoves except that these were positioned vertically, as opposed to horizontally, and each was glowing red-hot.

Try as I might, I couldn't touch them even with my clothes acting as gloves. The heat cut instantly through the material, and one leg of my pants even caught fire. I used my shoe to beat out the flames on the floor.

By now, I was desperate.

If anything, removing the rocks and the tray had made things worse, as I was now feeling the radiant heat directly from the elements.

I was tempted to throw the bucket of water over the elements in hopes of causing a short circuit, but I might need that water to drink.

I picked up one of the rocks and threw it hard at the elements. One of them bent slightly, but it continued to glow.

I tried another rock and then a third. It wasn't enough.

The heat was beginning to overwhelm me and I was getting close to panic.

Calm down,
I told myself,
take some deep breaths.

I tried to take my own advice but the air was so hot it made me cough violently.

I went back to taking small, slow, shallow breaths. Somehow, the coughing fit had helped me to refocus on the matter in hand rather than on the fearsome outcome that awaited me.

I put my socks and shoes back on, stood on one of the benches
and tried kicking down on the three rocks that were now sitting on top of the elements. As I did so, I could smell the rubber soles of my running shoes melting.

One of the elements went out and that gave me heart to continue.

I jumped onto the rocks with both feet, bending all the elements down.

There was an almighty flash in the box beneath me and everything went dark. I had clearly caused a short, and a fuse must have blown. The elements went out, but, unfortunately, the light fixture on the wall went out too, plunging the sauna into darkness. But that worry was more than offset by the relief of cutting off the heat.

Not that my troubles were over—not by a long way. For a start, my right leg was being burned by something inside the metal box, my core temperature remained extremely high and my heart was beating so fast it felt in danger of bursting out of my chest.

And I was still sweating buckets.

I quickly climbed out of the box, feeling my way back onto the bench and then onto the floor, where I lay down on the wooden slats. It was the coolest spot.

Gradually, the temperature began to drop.

I noticed it because, unbelievably, I began to shiver.

I searched around in the darkness for my shirt and put it on.

It was now time to get out of this prison.