Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [65]
I wasn’t going to argue with him. I was pretty certain myself that if the reports of the arrest of the CEO of the Internet gambling site was anything to go by, Herb would have faced racketeering charges in the United States if they had known what he was up to.
I also showed the chief inspector the stack of unsigned credit cards, but he seemed far more interested in the MoneyHome payment slips.
“So where do we go from here?” I asked.
“I will take these slips and try and get MoneyHome to at least divulge which of their offices the money was sent from. The transfer number should be enough to do that. Then we will have to painstakingly try to find out whose initials are on the sheets of paper.”
“You really think this must have something to do with Herb’s murder?” I asked.
“Don’t you?” he said. “We’ve no other leads to go on. You never know, perhaps Mr. Kovak was blackmailing one of his ‘clients,’ threatening to tell the U.S. authorities about their illegal gambling. So they killed him.”
“There goes that suspicious mind of yours again, Chief Inspector.”
“Suspicion is all we have at the moment,” he said seriously. “And there’s precious little of that in this case.”
There was a heavy knock at the front door.
“That will be my sergeant,” the chief inspector said. “He’s come to drive Miss Kovak and me to Liverpool.”
Claudia and I watched them go.
“That poor girl,” Claudia said, holding my hand. “Her family are all dead. She’s alone in the world.”
At least she’s healthy, I thought. How typical of my gorgeous Claudia to think of others when she had enough of her own troubles to worry about.
“Do you fancy going out to lunch?” I asked.
“Lovely,” she said.
“Luigi’s again?”
“It’s a bit unimaginative,” she said. “But, why not? I like it there.”
I drove us home and we again walked around the corner to our favorite restaurant. On this occasion the proprietor, Luigi Pucinelli, was present.
“Ah, Signor Foxton and the lovely Signorina Claudia. Buongiorno . . . welcome,” he said, being his usual effusive self. “Table for two? Bene. Follow me.”
He showed us to our favorite table in the window.
“We don’t often see you for lunch,” Luigi said in his Italian accent, adding an eh to every word that ended in a consonant.
“No,” I said. “It’s a special treat.”
“Eccellente,” he said with a flourish, giving us the menus.
“Grazie,” I said to him, playing the game.
Luigi was no more Italian than I was. I had met his mother one night in the restaurant and she had told me with a laugh that Luigi Pucinelli had been born Jim Metcalf in a hospital just up the Tottenham High Road, not five miles away.
But good luck to him, I thought. The food and service at Luigi’s were superb, and his restaurant thrived, authentic Italian or not.
Claudia chose the antipasto for us to share as a starter, with saltimbocca alla pollo to follow, while I decided on the risotto al funghi.
We ate the antipasto in silence.
“Speak to me,” Claudia said. “This is not the last meal of the condemned, you know.”
I smiled at her. “No, of course not.”
But we were both nervous.
Nervous of what tomorrow morning would bring.
I ordered a taxi to take us to the hospital that evening at seven o’clock.
“Why do you need to go in the night before?” I asked Claudia as we made our way down the Finchley Road.
“Something about wanting to monitor me overnight before the operation so they have something to compare the readings with afterwards.”
“What time is the op in the morning?” I asked.
“The surgeon said it would be first thing, just as soon as he’s finished his early-morning rounds.”
That meant it could be anytime, I thought.
In my experience, and I had plenty of it from my racing days, doctors and surgeons were about as good at time keeping as a London bus in the rush hour.
“At least we won’t have to wait all day,” I said, smiling at her.
She gave me a look that said she would be quite happy to wait all year.
“It’s better to get it done, and then at least we will know what we’re up against.”
“I know,” she said.