Tip Off (30 page)

‘Hell, Esmond. What's happening?' I asked, trying to refocus my attention.

‘I've just had another session with your horse. I wanted to let you know that there are definite signs of improvement.'

Despite the pressures of my current mission, I felt a surge of relief that Esmond, normally restrained in his prognoses, was prepared to say that things were getting better.

‘Any idea how long it will be?' I asked, thinking of Nester's truncated training programme.

I could almost hear him shrug his shoulders. ‘Impossible to say.'

‘Will he be able to run in . . .'

‘In the Queen Mum Chase? Maybe. He should be able to canter by tomorrow.'

I thanked Esmond for letting me know there were at least signs of improvement, but when I'd put the phone down, I still couldn't feel happy about it. With a sigh, I was turning my attention to leaving the M4 when my phone bleeped again.

‘Hello?'

‘Hi, Simon. We're at the bottom of the M11.' Matt's voice carried an undertone of tension. ‘Our man's got his foot down. Where are you?'

I told him, and agreed to try to catch him up. ‘Anything from the others?'

‘Nope. I've called them off and sent them on into London to look round any of the places Lincoln might go, see if they can pick up a lead.'

‘Good,' I agreed. ‘Do you think this guy's heading for Newmarket?'

‘Maybe.'

‘If he spent time hanging around Portman Square yesterday, it would have to be a hell of a coincidence if he wasn't waiting to see someone coming or going from the Jockey Club – if he was parked in sight of it?'

Matt agreed.

‘Ten to one he's going to Newmarket. I'll see you there.'

 

Ninety minutes later, I was hammering along the road into Newmarket.

Matt had phoned me to say that he and Larry were sitting in his car outside the Equine Forensic Laboratory.

I found them parked discreetly, a hundred yards from the low building, and stopped a little further up the other side of the quiet road.

I guessed that Matt had a clear view of the main entrance while, through intermittent trees, I could see a side entrance. From the refuse bins by it, I guessed it was the rear door of a small canteen.

I dialled Matt.

‘What's your plan?'

‘Sit here and wait for the time being.'

‘Have you seen anything to tell you why he's gone in there?'

‘Nope.'

‘Anything on Lincoln?' I asked.

‘Not yet. We . . .'

I cut him short. ‘He's just come out!' I hissed. ‘Can you see him?'

‘No. Where?'

I'd spotted our man emerging from the side door. I had recognised him at once from the photograph Matt had sent down the line to the office, and from the earlier shot with Tresidder.

Greeves – Head of Security! That was who he was, one time brother-officer of Lord Tintern, as well as Gervaise Brown and Sgt. Tresidder. Of course, I'd seen the face before: thirty-five years younger in the regimental photograph we'd seen at both Toby's and then at Tresidder's place.

With an abrupt mental somersault, it occurred to me that Toby must have known these people as a child, when his father was still in the army and involved in the regiment's social life. I winced at the prospect that Toby was, after all, the link in the chain between Tresidder and Greeves, who now seemed as anxious to find Lincoln as we were.

I watched as Greeves walked away from the door. I could see that he was concealing something under his tweed jacket.

He walked swiftly across an expanse of tidily cut grass, fringed with silver birch and tall shrubs. I had a clear view of him now, as he took a manilla envelope from inside his jacket and dumped it into one of the large industrial garbage bins which served the canteen kitchen. He took a quick glance around before he slipped back through the door.

I reconnected with Matt. ‘He came out – very suspiciously – and chucked an envelope into the rubbish bins round my side of the building.'

‘You're certain it was him?'

‘Five ten – ginger tweed jacket, fawn trousers, receding grey hair.'

‘That's him. Go in and ask to talk to him. We can watch the exits if he does a runner.'

‘Fine, but see if Larry can get round to the wheelybins at the back and find the envelope. It might be important.'

 

I got out of the car with my heart racing and hurriedly devised a strategy as I crossed the road and walked between the tall iron gates.

Inside, I was greeted by a new receptionist.

‘Morning,' I breezed. ‘I was here a few weeks ago. Saw a chap . . . I can't remember his name. Fiftyish, grey hair, going a bit thin?' I laughed, praying Dr Poulton didn't suddenly turn up. The young woman smiled back but offered no help. ‘Sort of gingery tweed jacket . . .?'

‘That'll be Captain Greeves,' the receptionist said, glad to be of assistance. ‘Security.' Her hand hovered over the switchboard. ‘Who shall I say?'

‘Jeffries,' I answered, suddenly thinking that he might well have seen me before, ‘from the BHS.'

She flicked a switch and waited a moment. ‘Captain Greeves? Mr Jeffries from the BHS in reception for you . . . All right. I'll tell him.

‘He's a bit tied up, he says, but he'll try not to keep you waiting too long.'

Nervously, I hoped that Matt and Larry had all possible exits covered. And I cursed my stupidity for using my own name. Tresidder might well have identified me as one of the people who'd grabbed his converted camera at Newbury the previous Saturday after Tahiti Bride had won.

As I jittered inside, the woman behind the reception desk was staring at me; I made an effort to force a friendly grin and turned away to survey the attractive garden in front of the building.

‘Mr Jeffries?'

I spun back to find the man we'd been pursuing looking at me uncertainly but without any apparent suspicion. It seemed he didn't have a clue who I was.

‘Captain Greeves.' I held out my hand, which he took automatically. I hoped that the receptionist hadn't spotted that he obviously hadn't met me before. ‘I wondered if we could talk, er . . . privately – a security matter?'

‘Of course,' he said smoothly. ‘There's a meeting room here we can use.' He opened a door into the same room in which I'd talked with Poulton.

He closed the door behind us and waved me to one of the chairs, sitting down opposite me. ‘You're from the BHS?' His voice was a sharp, clipped tenor with no regional tinge to it.

‘There's no problem there,' I evaded the question. ‘What I wanted to ask you about was some dope-testing results. I keep a few horses and my trainer's concerned that she ran one which was inadvertently administered Dermobian just before a race. She was never informed that this had been revealed in a post-race test.'

‘Dermobian?' He looked doubtful. ‘Are you sure?'

‘There's no question about it. Our vet is adamant it should have shown up. He's very concerned and has asked me to look into it.'

I detected a faint reluctance in his reaction. ‘I could check it for you, but I can assure you that even a minute trace of Dermobian would be detected. It's a banned substance, and any horse with it would have the race taken off it. What was the horse called, and when did it run?'

‘Sox O'Dee, Towcester, the thirteenth of last month.'

The colour on Captain Greeves's face had faded from florid to monochrome as if I'd turned a knob on a television.

‘Sox O'Dee?' he said hoarsely, staring at me.

‘That's right. And there were one or two other cases where I'd heard a positive test might have been expected.'

His Adam's apple jerked in his throat.

I pressed. ‘And runners in other races: Tahiti Bride's last weekend, and before that Free Willy's at Cheltenham and Musicmusic at Sandown. Sergeant Tresidder was at all those meetings, wasn't he?'

He was collapsing before my eyes. His jaw quivered and he didn't even try to answer.

‘A man's been murdered, you do know that?' I prompted.

He was on the brink of saying something, but needed another push.

‘Do you want to talk about it?' I asked evenly. ‘Somewhere else?'

He took a deep noisy breath. ‘Who are you exactly?'

‘A friend of Toby Brown's. I'm not a policeman – I was working for the Jockey Club. I'm not now.'

I stared at him as frankly as I could and held my breath.

‘What do you want?'

‘I want to know who killed Toby.'

‘What about the other one?'

‘You mean Connor McDonagh?'

He nodded.

‘The police said he died from a diabetic attack.'

‘Do you believe them?'

‘I don't know, but McDonagh's not my main concern.'

Greeves took a deep breath. ‘I won't talk to you here. Give me ten minutes to sort things out and I'll see you out on the heath,' he said abruptly. ‘By the Devil's Dyke.'

‘Fine. The people who followed you here from Lincoln's place are outside – they'll be right behind you.'

 

I crouched by the window of Matt's car. ‘Did you get the envelope?'

‘We did.'

‘What was in it?'

‘Five sheets of paper, each with a different bar-code photocopied on to it,' Matt said with satisfaction.

I grinned. ‘We've got him!'

‘Could be.' Matt nodded. ‘There's a good chance they're covered with his prints.'

 

Greeves was waiting for me, a hundred yards from the road. In the lee of the great earthwork thrown up by eighth-century Angles jealous of their fertile land, I saw him, sensibly wrapped up in a big sheepskin coat against the wind whipping across the open landscape. He was standing with his face to the east where a late lot of horses were walking home.

When I was a few yards from him, I called against the wind. ‘Captain Greeves.'

He turned, looking pathetically grateful for my use of his obsolete military title. But he only nodded his acknowledgement.

‘So,' I said in a businesslike way, ‘how much do you want to tell me?'

His gaze followed the retreating race-horses. ‘You know about Tresidder – it was his idea.'

‘To mask the samples taken from horses he'd drugged?'

‘No, not to mask them. Simply to swap them for clean samples.'

‘How did you know which ones to swap?'

‘The samples come to us in bottles with just a bar-code on. The lab informs the Jockey Club of the bar-code reference of any sample that's shown up positive; it's up to them to identify which horse and which race.'

‘Sure, but how did you know the bar-codes?'

Greeves seemed to have an abrupt change of heart about his sudden outburst of honesty. ‘Why should I tell you all this?'

‘To clear your own conscience, I should think. Why did you do all this in the first place?'

‘Why does anyone do anything dishonest?'

‘For lots of reasons, but I suppose you mean money?'

Greeves nodded and seemed, I thought, to become more dignified. ‘If you don't mind, I'd rather walk while we talk about this.'

‘Sure,' I agreed, and we headed north along a track at the foot of the dyke.

Once we had covered half a dozen yards, Greeves heaved a sigh, audible over the wind on this sheltered side of the earthwork. ‘I've made a lot of bad decisions,' he said, shaking his head. ‘God knows I was doubtful at the time, but somehow you don't imagine how out of hand these things will get. Now I'm being hounded from all sides by people to whom I owe money.'

He took a deep, shaky breath before he went on. ‘I made the mistake of marrying for the second time at forty-five. My wife's a lot younger than me, and very ambitious; not that she started very far up the social scale – she even thought marrying a passed over captain was a step up. But she was very attractive and I was flattered, and let myself be pushed into every money-sucking scheme she came up with – holidays in the Caribbean, ski-ing in Switzerland, and now private schools for the two boys. I only had a miserable pension and then, by a miracle, I got the job here.'

He stopped walking; I turned to him. I could see in his eyes the despair of a man who knew he was completely washed up. I nodded to encourage him.

‘It's not a bad job,' he went on after a moment, resuming his steady pace along the edge of the dyke. ‘Not difficult, not arduous, and not badly paid – considering. Of course, they pay a little over the odds to be sure of getting the right “type” – someone who can talk to the stewards and all the other ridiculous snobs who seem to run everything to do with horses in this country.'

His voice had assumed a bitter note. It sounded as if he might start crying at any moment. I sensed he was making no effort to resist the inevitable.

‘How did you know the bar-codes?' I gently pressed.

He sniffed. ‘Tresidder gave them to me.'

‘How did he get hold of them?'

‘I've no idea.'

‘Well, how did he get them to you?'

‘He either faxed them or sent them in the post.'

‘Yes,' I agreed. ‘We already have the ones you threw out this morning.'

He spun his head to look at me, appalled at first, then he seemed resigned to the inevitability of his own disgrace.

‘I presume you had a pretty good idea of which horses' samples you were handling?'