Front Runner (17 page)

“No,” I said. “Any luck with the CCTV at the hospital?”

“Nothing useful. His face was covered, so it's difficult to get a positive ID. And there's not much more we can do.”

It was pretty clear that he was signing off on the investigation. I suppose I couldn't blame him. On average, there were more than a hundred murders each year in London to be solved. I was just thankful that I hadn't been one of them.

“Are you still in contact with D.S. Jagger at Thames Valley?” I asked.

“Not lately. Is there anything new?”

“Not that I'm aware of,” I said. “But it wasn't by chance that Lawrence and his chum tried to kill me. They knew me by name and I feel it may be tied to the previous attempt to kill me at Dave Swinton's place.”

“Does D.S. Jagger know you think that?”

“It's in my statement.”

“Then I'm sure he will look into it.”

It didn't sound very positive to me.

Coordination was one of the major problems with having so many different police forces: Thames Valley were investigating the Swinton death, British Transport Police would be responsible for looking into the Lawrence incident at Victoria, and D.I. Galvin himself was a member of the Metropolitan force.

The only common denominator seemed to be
me
.

—

I
WENT
HOME
to my apartment on Wednesday morning despite the urging of Faye to stay a while longer in Richmond.

“I need some clean clothes,” I said.

“I
do
have a washing machine, you know. Or I could fetch some for you.”

“Faye, my darling, the man who was trying to kill me is himself dead. It will be perfectly safe for me to go back home now.”

I wondered if I was trying to convince myself as much as I was her.

“But you said he was a paid killer,” she said in desperation. “How do you know there won't be someone else paid to kill you?”

Good point.

“I'll be careful,” I said.

Hence, I made Faye drive slowly past my apartment twice in order for me to check that there was no one lurking outside my front door.

It did nothing to ease her state of anxiety.

When I was finally satisfied that there were no miscreants hiding in the bushes, she parked outside and helped me carry my stuff, being careful first to check that nobody was waiting for me within.

Faye went into every room. The place was deserted.

Nevertheless, she was reluctant to leave and I had to shoo her away, assisted, in the end, by a traffic warden who threatened to give her a ticket if she didn't move her car.

I stood on the sidewalk and waved at her as she drove off, wondering if I was doing the right thing. But I couldn't hide away in Richmond forever. I had to confront my fears and get on with my life because if I didn't, I'd have no chance of finding out who was behind it all and why.

—

I
FINALLY
UNPACKED
the boxes, removing things slowly, piece by piece, from where they lay in the hallway so as not to carry
anything heavy. I also washed the stack of dirty dishes in the sink and cleaned the place from one end to the other, including removing slimy fingerprint powder from all the surfaces in the kitchen and hall.

After three hours' work, interspersed with several lengthy rests, the apartment looked almost presentable, but I was exhausted. I slumped down into an armchair in my living room and put my feet up on the freshly polished coffee table.

I really did need to get my strength back.

My landline phone rang.

I stared at it. Not again.

“Hello,” I said gingerly, picking it up.

“Just checking you're all right,” said Faye over the line.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “I'm fine,” I said. “I've been clearing up. You wouldn't recognize the place.”

“But you're meant to be taking it easy.”

“Don't fuss,” I said. “You hate it when I fuss over you.”

“That's different,” she said. “I don't need to be told to take things easy. You do.”

“OK,” I said, admitting defeat. “I promise to take things easy.”

One should never make promises one can't keep.

I
was following Faye's instructions and was taking things easy at home, my feet up on the sofa, watching highlights of cricket from Australia, when Detective Inspector Galvin telephoned around lunchtime on Thursday.

“I think we may have Darryl Lawrence's accomplice in custody,” he said. “I'm not certain, but his height and shape fit the man in the hospital CCTV images.”

“That's great,” I said. “But can you hold him on such flimsy evidence?”

“Currently, he's under arrest on suspicion of the murder of Darryl Lawrence. CCTV footage at Victoria shows him entering the Tube station with Lawrence and leaving it again on his own after the incident.”

“Does it actually show him pushing Lawrence under the train?”

“Sadly, no, but we do have a couple of eyewitnesses. The Transport Police have now handed the case over to us. We've arranged an old-fashioned lineup for this afternoon. Would you come and see if you recognize him from the attack at your apartment?”

“Where?” I asked.

“Charing Cross Police Station. Come to the main entrance on Agar Street at three o'clock.”

“I'll be there.”

—

C
HARING
C
ROSS
Police Station is built in a triangular shape with a fully enclosed courtyard in the middle. Eight men were standing in a line across the center of the courtyard, each of them holding a card with a number on it from 1 to 8.

“Now, take your time, sir,” said the uniformed police sergeant who'd accompanied me outside. “Walk down the full line and have a good look at each man. If you recognize anyone, please go back and touch him on the shoulder or you may come and tell me his number.”

I started walking slowly along the line of men, looking at their faces.

All of them were of roughly the same height and build, and each was dressed in everyday clothes and a balaclava. None of them was conveniently wearing red sneakers.

But I didn't need that clue. I easily recognized the man who had held me in my hallway as Darryl Lawrence had repeatedly thrust his knife into my torso. Even though I'd been unable to provide D.I. Galvin with a description at the time and I'd said that I couldn't remember what he looked like, I knew him instantly. He was holding card number 3.

I went on down the whole line, looking closely at each of them in turn. I was quite certain that I had never seen the other seven men before.

I went back to number 3 and touched him on the shoulder.

“Are you sure?” asked the sergeant.

“Positive,” I said. “This is the man who held me in my apartment while I was being stabbed.”

The man had previously been standing up very straight and looking into the distance well above my head. Now he moved his eyes down to meet mine. They were cold, like ice, with no emotion in them whatsoever. Eyes are sometimes described as the windows to the soul. If so, this man had no soul at all. The windows were black and uncaring.

I wondered what was going on in the brain behind them.

He said nothing as he was led away by two burly constables back into the building.

D.I. Galvin, who had been watching the proceedings from the far side of the courtyard, now walked over to join me.

“Well done,” he said. “You picked out the right one.”

“There was absolutely no doubt,” I said. “What's his name?”

“Gary Banks. He has previous convictions for violence.”

“How about the other two witnesses?” I asked. “Did they pick him out?”

“One did, one didn't.”

“Is that enough?” I asked.

“Probably not. But identification on its own is never enough.”

“Does that mean he'll walk?” I asked with concern. I didn't fancy Mr. Banks coming after me again. “I'd feel a lot safer knowing he's locked up.”

“That will be up to the CPS and the magistrates. We do have a little bit more on him—the hospital CCTV images and the fact that he was arrested wearing red sneakers with white soles and laces might help.”

“I looked for those,” I said with a smile.

“That would have been a bit too obvious. We needed you to
pick him out without those to help you.” He smiled back at me. “And we will continue to interview him, of course. So far, he's replied
No comment
to every question he's been asked, but we'll see. We have a few alternatives to try.”

“Thumbscrews?” I asked.

“Only verbal ones, sadly.”

—

O
N
F
RIDAY
MORNING
,
I caught a train to Ascot races for the first day of the last major meeting before Christmas. It had been almost two weeks since I'd been on a racetrack. That had been at Sandown on the day before I'd been stabbed.

That was also where I had first met Henrietta Shawcross, the day of the giggles over lunch in Derrick and Gay Smith's box.

Thirteen days ago.

In some respects, it felt like much longer; in others, like only yesterday.

I hadn't seen Henri since she'd been to Richmond on Monday evening and I'd spoken to her only on the telephone for a few minutes.

“I'm sorry,” she'd said when I complained I was being neglected. “It's my busiest time of the year. Everyone is having Christmas parties and needing staff. I've worked solidly every day this week, and every evening except Monday. All I want to do afterward is go home and go straight to sleep.”

Sleep, I'd thought.

All I wanted to do was “sleep” with her.

“We will spend lots of time together next week,” she'd said.

“Shouldn't I be booking my flights?” I'd asked.

“Don't worry, I've done all that. We leave on Wednesday.”

“Where to?” I'd asked.

“The Cayman Islands.”

It all seemed surreal as I struggled up the hill to the racetrack on a typical December day of dampness and wind. The Cayman Islands seemed as far away as the moon.

I had to stop at least twice to rest.

I was beginning to wish that I had heeded my sister's advice to take things more easily and to watch racing on the television.

But there was nothing like actually
being
where the action was happening. On television, one saw only what the producer decided was relevant, whereas I preferred to look elsewhere, perhaps to see what someone didn't want me to.

I went through the racetrack entrance turnstiles using my official BHA pass and made a direct line for the coffee bar on the concourse level of the imposing grandstand. It wasn't so much a drink that I needed but a place to sit down. The walk up from the station had tired me out more than I'd thought it would.

Now, you
must
be careful,
the nurse had said at the hospital clinic the previous morning when I'd gone to have the stitches out.
We don't want you back in here again, now do we?

No, I'd thought. We don't.

As I was sitting, drinking my coffee, my phone rang. It was D.I. Galvin.

“Banks has been charged with manslaughter,” he said.

“Why not murder?” I asked.

“He says he didn't push Lawrence under the train on purpose. It was an accident.”

“And you believe him?” I asked with sarcasm in my voice.

“Of course not. But we were in danger of getting nothing and having to let him go since our time was almost up. Everything
was circumstantial. The fact that the second witness couldn't pick him out rather negated the one that could. He wasn't saying anything at all, so we offered him a deal and he took it.”

“I didn't think plea bargaining was allowed in the UK.”

“It wasn't like one of those U.S. deals. There was no mention of a specific sentence or anything. We simply gave Banks the opportunity to agree with us that Lawrence's death was manslaughter, not murder. His solicitor must have thought we had a stronger case than we actually did because he advised Banks to agree. He has since been chatting away, telling us all about how in the crush on the platform he only slightly nudged his dear old friend Darryl, who then stumbled accidently, falling under the train.

“It's all a load of old hogwash. Banks knows it, the solicitor knows it and I know it. But it does mean that Banks has confirmed his association with Lawrence and that was crucial for your case. What the solicitor doesn't know is that we are now going to arrest Banks for the attempted murder of you—twice over. We'll see what he has to say about that.”

“Ask him if he knows a man called Leslie Morris,” I said.

“Why?”

I told him briefly about my inquiries into the fixed races and how Morris had placed the suspect bets at Sandown.

“The attempts on my life may have been to stop me investigating.”

“OK,” he said. “I'll try it.”

“Will Banks be taken into custody?” I asked. That was far more important to me than anything else at the moment.

“Sure to be.”

“Well done,” I said. “Please keep me informed.”

“Will do.”

He hung up.

With Lawrence dead and Banks in jail, I suddenly felt a lot safer.

—

P
ART
OF
THE
REASON
I'd come to Ascot was because I thought I'd detected a pattern in the races that had been lost on purpose.

Dave Swinton had ridden Garrick Party at Haydock Park in a lesser race on the day of the Grade 1 Betfair Chase. The same had been true for Bill McKenzie's ride on Pool Table on the same card as the Paddy Power Gold Cup. True, Wisden Wonder's race at Sandown had been on a Friday, not a Saturday, but it had been the first day of the Tingle Creek Festival and a sizable crowd had attended, plus there had been a large number of bookmakers in the betting ring.

Someone trying to bet seventeen thousand pounds in cash would have stuck out like a sore thumb at, say, Newton Abbot on a Wednesday, when the seagulls would have outnumbered the genuine punters, and there would be only a half-dozen or so bookies to bet with. But among a big crowd, and with some serious money about, no one would raise an eyebrow.

Were there more races than just the three I had spotted? Were more jockeys involved than just Dave Swinton and Bill McKenzie?

I had spent most of Thursday afternoon researching race results and watching video recordings. I was looking for favorites that hadn't won on days when large crowds would have been present.

Somewhat surprisingly, it was quite common for even very short-priced favorites not to win. Looking back for the past four
months, I found seventeen horses that had started at odds shorter than two-to-one that had failed to win a race on the same card as the week's main feature.

My list included two at Newbury on the same day that Dave Swinton had won the Hennessy Gold Cup on Integrated. One of those, Global Expedition, had started the Grade 2 Long Distance Hurdle at the incredibly short price of seven-to-four-on and had then finished a bad third of the six runners, well beaten by seven and eighteen lengths.

It was the first time Global Expedition had not won in his seven starts over hurdles and I remember the result being a considerable shock. However, I had been at Newbury that day, had watched the race live and hadn't noticed anything questionable about the horse's running at the time.

I studied the video of the race over and over again, but however many times I watched it, and from whichever camera position, I couldn't establish that the horse had been deliberately prevented from winning by its rider. The jockey appeared to have made every effort to stay in touch with the leader, yet to no avail.

I concluded that there was nothing suspicious. Global Expedition simply hadn't performed on that day in the same way as he had in the past.

Perhaps the horse had been feeling a touch unwell or was merely not in the mood to race. Racehorses were not machines. If they always ran exactly as their ratings suggested, racing would quickly die as everyone would pick the same horse to back.

It was the healthy dose of unpredictability that made racing so exciting.

But there had been another heavily backed loser that had run on Hennessy day, in the first race, a two-and-a-quarter-mile novice handicap chase.

Electrostatic had started as the six-to-four favorite, but not only did he fail to win the race, he failed to jump even two of the thirteen fences. He'd been pulled up immediately after the first with, as the jockey claimed, a saddle that had slipped to the side.

The racetrack stewards had questioned the trainer about the care that had been taken when saddling the horse. The trainer had blamed the starter's assistant, who had supposedly tightened the horse's girth at the start. He, in turn, was adamant that the girth had been both tight and secure.

The jockey, Willy Mitchell, had told the inquiry that he'd had no alternative but to pull up Electrostatic. He would have fallen off if the saddle had slipped any farther, perhaps causing some of the other runners to be brought down.

No action had been taken by the stewards other than to warn both the trainer and the starter's assistant to be more vigilant of the problem in future and to commend the jockey for his quick reactions in preventing a serious incident.

I watched the video of the race, many times and from every available angle.

There was no doubt that in some of the TV images the saddle had slipped to the left, but they were taken long after the horse had stopped. It was impossible to tell if the slipping had occurred prior to the horse being pulled up. The footage seemed to show that the saddle had been in the right position as the horse had taken off at the first, although I couldn't be sure it hadn't moved on landing, as that wasn't shown.

Was it just my suspicious mind or had the jockey moved the saddle on purpose only after he'd pulled up at the most conveniently distant point from both the start and the grandstand?
There was no real way of knowing without confronting Willy Mitchell and hoping for some sort of reaction.