Dick Francis's Gamble - Felix Francis [78]
“Are Mr. Patrick and Mr. Gregory back from lunch yet?” I asked.
“They didn’t go to lunch,” she said. “They’ve gone to a funeral. They’ll be gone for the rest of the day.”
“That was rather sudden,” I said.
“Death often is,” she replied.
“Whose funeral is it?” I asked.
“A client of Gregory’s,” she said. “Someone called Roberts. Colonel Jolyon Roberts.”
13
What?” I said. “What did you say?”
“Colonel Jolyon Roberts,” Mrs. McDowd said again. “Mr. Patrick and Mr. Gregory have gone to his funeral.”
“But when did he die?” I asked. I’d been talking to him only on Saturday at Sandown Races.
“Seems he was found dead early yesterday morning,” she said. “Heart attack, apparently. Very sudden.”
“The funeral is mighty sudden too,” I said, “if he only died yesterday.”
“Jewish,” she said by way of explanation. “Quick burial is part of their culture and usually within twenty-four hours. Something to do with the heat in Israel.”
She was a mine of information, Mrs. McDowd. The heat in England in April isn’t quite as intense as that in a Jerusalem summer, but, I supposed, traditions are traditions.
And I’d never realized that Jolyon Roberts had been Jewish. But why would I?
“Are you sure it was a heart attack?” I asked her.
Never mind the chief inspector’s suspicious mind, I thought, mine was now in overdrive.
“That’s what I heard from Mr. Gregory,” said Mrs. McDowd. “He was quite shocked by it. Seems he’d only been talking to Colonel Roberts on Monday afternoon.”
“I thought Mr. Gregory was away for a long weekend.”
“He was meant to be,” she said, “but he came back on Monday. Something urgent cropped up.”
“OK,” I said, “I’ll call Mr. Patrick on his mobile.”
“The funeral service is at three,” she said.
I looked at my watch. It was well past two-thirty.
“I won’t call him until afterwards,” I said. “Where is it?”
“Golders Green,” she said. “At the Jewish cemetery, in the family plot.”
I disconnected and sat on the bed for a while, thinking.
Herb Kovak had accessed the Roberts Family Trust file, and the Bulgarian investment details, and, within a week of doing so he’d been murdered. I’d sent an innocent-looking e-mail to a man in Bulgaria about the same development and, four days later, someone turned up on my doorstep trying to kill me.
And now Jolyon Roberts, with his questions and doubts about the whole Bulgarian project, conveniently dies of a heart attack the day after speaking to Gregory about it, as I had told him he should.
Was I going crazy or was a pattern beginning to appear?
A hundred million euros of EU money was a lot of cash.
Was it enough to murder for? Was it enough to murder three times for?
I decided to call Detective Chief Inspector Tomlinson, if only to try to get some more information about the death of Jolyon Roberts.
“Are you suggesting that this Colonel Roberts was murdered?” he asked in a skeptical tone.
Suddenly, the whole idea appeared less plausible.
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’d love to hear what the pathologist said.”
“Assuming there was an autopsy.”
“Surely there would be,” I said. “I thought all sudden deaths were subject to postmortems.”
“But why do you believe he was murdered?”
“I’m probably wrong,” I said.
“Tell me anyway,” the chief inspector said with a degree of encouragement. “And I promise not to laugh.”
“Murder is pretty uncommon, right?”
“I’ve seen more than my fair share on Merseyside.”
“But generally,” I said, “for us non–homicide detectives, I’d say it was a pretty rare thing to know a murder victim. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“OK, I agree. Murder is uncommon.”
“Well,” I said, “if I’m right and Colonel Roberts was murdered, then I’ve known two murder victims and both of them have been killed within the past two weeks, and I nearly became the third.” I paused.
“Go on,” he said.
“So I looked to see what connection Herb Kovak had with Colonel Roberts and also with myself.”
“Yes?” he said with greater eagerness.
“Lyall and Black, for one thing,” I said. “Herb Kovak and I work for the firm and Colonel Roberts was a client, although not a client