Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [7]
When it was snatched away from me, I suffered badly from withdrawal symptoms. An alcoholic with the d.t.’s had nothing on me.
In those first few months I tried hard to put on a brave face, busying myself with buying the house and getting ready for my studies, cursing my luck and telling everyone that I was fine; but inside I was sick, shaking and near suicidal.
Another shower was about to fall out of the darkening sky as I hurried the last few yards along the road to my house with the newspaper.
In keeping with many of my neighbors, I had arranged early on to concrete over my small overgrown front lawn, converting it into an off-road parking space that was now occupied by my aging Mercedes SLK sports car. I had excitedly bought the car brand-new with my percentage from the Grand National win. That had been ten years and more than a hundred and eighty thousand miles ago, and, in truth, I was well past needing a change.
I opened the trunk and looked down at the two coats lying there. The previous evening the sight of Herb’s blue cashmere had almost been too much for me to bear, but now it appeared as just an overcoat without a home.
I picked them both up, slammed the trunk shut and hurried inside as the first large drops of rain began to wet my hair.
I hung my coat on one of the hooks behind the front door and wondered what I should do with Herb’s. He wouldn’t be needing it now but I supposed it belonged to his family and would go back to them eventually.
In the meantime, I hung it up next to mine in my hallway.
I am not quite sure why I went through the pockets. Maybe I thought that he might have left his flat key there as he had been wearing the coat when he had locked his door the previous morning.
There was no key but there was a piece of paper deep in the left-hand pocket. It had been roughly folded over and screwed up. I flattened it out on the wall.
I stood there in disbelief reading the stark message written on the paper in black ballpoint capital letters:
YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT YOU WERE
TOLD. YOU MAY SAY YOU REGRET IT, BUT
YOU WONT BE REGRETTING IT FOR LONG.
Did that mean Herb had been the real target? Had the assassin actually shot the right man? And if so, why?
2
I spent much of Sunday reading and rereading the message on the paper, trying to work out whether it actually was a prediction of murder or just an innocent communication with no relevance to the events at the Grand National the previous afternoon.
YOU SHOULD HAVE DONE WHAT YOU WERE
TOLD. YOU MAY SAY YOU REGRET IT, BUT
YOU WONT BE REGRETTING IT FOR LONG.
I dug out the business card that I had been given at Aintree by the detective: Inspector Paul Matthews, Merseyside Police. I tried the number printed there, but he wasn’t available. I left a message asking him to call me back.
I wondered what it was that Herb should have done, what he had been told to do. And for what, and to whom, had he expressed regret?
I gave up trying to work it out and read about the murder in the Sunday Times. I thought again about calling our boss, but he would read about it in the papers and would find out soon enough that the victim had been his senior assistant. Why spoil his Sunday?
I knew all too well from my time as a jockey that one should never believe what one reads in newspapers, but, on this occasion, I was surprised how accurate the reports were as far as the factual information was concerned. The Sunday Times correspondent clearly had a good link direct to Merseyside Police headquarters, but not so good that he could actually name the victim. And he had little or no information about any motive, but that didn’t stop him speculating.
“Such a clinical assassination has all the hallmarks of a gangland organized crime ‘hit.’” He went on to suggest that a reason the name of the victim was being withheld was possibly because he was a well-known criminal, and the police didn’t want potential witnesses not to bother coming forward.
“That’s rubbish,” I said out loud.
“What’s rubbish?” Claudia asked.
I was sitting