Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [2]
“No,” I said. “Absolutely not. Everyone liked Herb. He was always smiling and happy. He was the life and soul of any party.”
“How long did you say you have known him?” asked the detective.
“Five years. We joined the firm at the same time.”
“I understand he was an American citizen.”
“Yes,” I said. “He came from Louisville, in Kentucky. He used to go back to the States a couple of times a year.”
Everything was written down in the inspector’s notebook.
“Was he married?”
“No.”
“Girlfriend?”
“None that I knew of,” I said.
“Were you and he in a gay relationship?” the policeman asked in a deadpan tone of voice, his eyes still on his notes.
“No,” I said, equally deadpan.
“I’ll find out, you know,” he said, looking up.
“There’s nothing to find out,” I said. “I may have worked with Mr. Kovak, but I live with my girlfriend.”
“Where?”
“Finchley,” I said. “North London.”
I gave him my full address, and he wrote it down.
“Was Mr. Kovak involved in a gay relationship with anyone else?”
“What makes you think he was gay?” I asked.
“No wife. No girlfriend. What else should I think?”
“I have no reason to believe Herb was gay. In fact, I know he wasn’t.”
“How do you know?” The policeman leaned towards me purposefully.
I thought back to those rare occasions when Herb and I had spent any time together, sometimes in hotels where we would be staying overnight at financial conferences. He had never made any sort of pass at me, and he had occasionally chatted up the local girls and then boasted about his conquests over breakfast. It was true that I’d never actually seen him in a sexual situation with a woman, but I hadn’t seen him with a man either.
“I just know,” I said weakly.
“Hmm,” said the inspector, clearly not believing me and making another note in his book.
But did I really know? And did it matter?
“What difference would it make anyway?” I asked.
“Lots of murders have a sexual motive,” said the detective. “Until we know differently, we have to explore every avenue.”
I t was nearly dark before I was finally allowed to leave the racetrack, and it had also started raining. The courtesy shuttle service to the distant park-and-ride parking lot had long since ceased running, and I was cold, wet and thoroughly fed up by the time I reached my Mercedes. But I sat for some while in the car before setting off, once more going over and over in my mind the events of the day.
I had picked Herb up from his flat at Seymour Way in Hendon soon after eight in the morning and we had set off to Liverpool in great good humor. It was to be Herb’s first trip to the Grand National, and he was uncharacteristically excited by the prospect.
He had grown up in the shadow of the iconic twin spires of Churchill Downs racetrack, the venue of the Kentucky Derby and spiritual home of all American Thoroughbred racing, but he had always claimed that gambling on the horses had ruined his childhood.
I had asked him to come to the races with me quite a few times before but he had always declined, claiming that the memories were still too painful. However, there had been no sign of that today as we had motored north on the motorway chatting amicably about our work, our lives, and our hopes and fears for the future.
Little did we know then how short Herb’s future was going to be.
He and I had always got on fairly well over the past five years but mostly on a strictly colleague-to-colleague level. Today had been the first day of a promising deeper friendship. It had also been the last.
I sat alone in my car and grieved for my newfound, but so quickly lost, friend. But still I had no idea why anyone would want him dead.
My journey back to Finchley seemed to be never-ending. There was an accident on the M6 north of Birmingham with a five-mile backup. It said so on the radio, sandwiched between endless news bulletins about the murder of Herb and the cancellation of the Grand National. Not that they mentioned Herb by name, of course. He was just referred to as “a man.” I assumed the police would withhold