Dick Francis's Gamble (10 page)

Five million may not be that much to Jolyon Roberts and his family trust, but it was a fortune to most people.

“Do these pictures show a factory and new homes?”

“Yes, they do, and they show more houses under construction,” he said. “Gregory Black showed them to me. But what am I to believe, the photos or my only nephew?”

“There must be a simple explanation,” I said. “Why don't you go and ask Gregory about it? I am sure he will have invested your money wisely.”

“I've already approached him, and he just told me not to be so silly, of course the factory has been built. But Benjamin is adamant. He says that no Balscott Lighting Factory exists anywhere in Bulgaria.”

“So what do you want me to do?” I asked him.

“Find out the truth.”

“But why me?” I asked. “If you think there is a fraud being perpetrated then you should go to the police, or to the financial services regulators.”

He sat and looked at me for a moment.

“Because I trust you,” he said.

“But you hardly know me.”

“I know you much better than you might realize.” He smiled. “I've been watching your career every step of the way since you first rode that winner for my cousin. And I normally pride myself on being able to spot the good'uns from the bad'uns. That is why I am so concerned about this project. After all, it was me who persuaded my brother, Viscount Shenington, that the family trust should invest in something that appeared so worthwhile. I just need to know what is going on.”

“Sir,” I said. “I am under an obligation to report it if I find that there is a fraud or even if there is misrepresentation in advertising an investment.”

“Mmm, I see,” he said, stroking his chin. “My brother and I are most concerned that the good name of the Roberts family should not be dragged through the courts. He is in favor of simply writing off the investment and saying nothing. However . . .” He stopped.

“You feel responsible?” I asked.

“Exactly,” he said. “But I would prefer it if you could be very discreet. If this
is
a scam, well, to be honest, I would rather not have everybody know that I've been a fool.”

“Especially your brother.”

He looked me in the eye and smiled. “Trustworthy, and wise.”

“But I will have to talk to Gregory about it,” I said.

“Can you not have a little look at things first without telling anybody? I am sure that someone with your keen nose for a good investment will be able to spot a rotten egg pretty quickly if there's one to find.”

I laughed. “I think you have the wrong person. My nose isn't that keen.”

“Oh, I think it is,” Jolyon Roberts replied. “I have a friend who's forever telling me about all the money you've made for her in films and theater.”

“I've just been lucky,” I said.

“Yes,” he said, smiling. “You and Arnold Palmer.”

I looked at him quizzically.

“You're too young,” he said, laughing. “Arnold Palmer the golfer.”

“What about him?” I asked.

“When a reporter once asked him why he was so lucky in golf, he famously replied, ‘It's a funny thing, the harder I practice, the luckier I get.'”

But my luck was about to run out.

T
rue to his word, Detective Chief Inspector Tomlinson sent a car to collect me from home on Thursday morning and he was waiting at Herb Kovak's flat when I arrived and he was waiting at Herb Kovak's flat when I arrived at eight a.m. sharp.

“Ah, good morning, Mr. Foxton,” he said, opening the front door and offering his hand. “And how is your toe today?”

“It's fine,” I said honestly. “It doesn't hurt at all.”

And I'd forgotten to limp.

“Nasty things, ingrown toenails,” he said. “Had one myself years ago. Hurt like hell.”

“Luckily, I'm a quick healer,” I said. “Now, how can I help?”

He stepped to the side, and I walked past him and into the hallway of Herb's flat. I still thought of it as Herb's flat although, I supposed, it was now technically mine, or it would be in due course.

“Are you certain Mr. Kovak was not in personal financial difficulties?” the chief inspector asked while closing the front door.

“No, I'm not certain, but I have no reason to think he was. Why do you ask?”

He waved a stack of papers towards me.

“What are they?” I asked.

“Credit card statements,” said the chief inspector.

“So?”

“Mr. Kovak appears to have had more than twenty separate credit cards, and, according to these statements, at his death, he owed nearly a hundred thousand pounds on these cards alone.”

I could hardly believe it. Not only because Herb was in so much debt but also because his debt was on credit cards. If anyone knew how expensive it was to borrow on plastic, then a financial adviser would. Even with interest rates historically low, the annualpercentage rate on credit cards was typically between sixteen and twenty percent, with some even as high as thirty. Borrowing money on credit cards was a mug's game. The interest charges alone on a debt as big as that would be around fifteen hundred a month. That was about half what Herb was taking home in salary, after the usual deductions for tax and National Insurance.

If Herb had owed nearly a hundred thousand on credit cards, then his flat must surely be mortgaged to the hilt. It certainly wouldn't end up being mine, more likely the bank's.

And yet he'd always had plenty of money in his pocket. He was extravagant even in his spending, always wearing new clothes and dining out being the norm. It didn't make sense.

“Can I have a closer look at those?” I asked the chief inspector, reaching out for the papers.

He handed them over, and I skimmed through the first three or four statements. There was no doubt that the outstanding balance on each was very large and, in some cases, close to the maximum limit, but that did not show the full picture, not by a long way. I looked through the rest. They were all the same.

“Didn't you notice something unusual about these?” I asked.

“Notice what?” said the chief inspector.

“There are no interest payments from previous months. All these charges, on all of these statements, they're all new.”

I turned a statement over to look at the detailed breakdown and to see what Herb had spent a hundred thousand pounds on in a month and was shocked again. There were no purchases, as such, just payments to and from a plethora of Internet gambling and online casino sites. Masses of them. I looked through all the statements and they were the same. Many of the payments were quite modest but one or two ran into the thousands. Quite a few of the betting sites had actually paid money back to the accounts, but most showed a deficit. Overall, Herb had been a loser not a winner, nearly a hundred-thousand-pound-a-month loser.

All the statements showed clearly that the previous month's balances had been settled in full by the due date. I mentally added them up. As well as still owing almost a hundred thousand, Herb had paid nearly the same amount in gambling debts to the cards during March alone. Where had he obtained that sort of money? And how on earth had he had the time to gamble on so many different sites with so many different credit cards while working full-time at Lyall & Black? It sure as hell didn't make any sense.

As Claudia had said, you never really knew what even your closest friends were up to. Could this compulsive online gambling somehow be the reason that Herb was killed? The totals may have been large but the individual entries on the statements were modest, and certainly not big enough to initiate murder.

“There are some other things I would like you to have a look at,” said the chief inspector. “You may be able to help me understand them.”

He turned and walked down the hallway, turning left through a door. I followed him.

Herb's living room was in true bachelor-pad fashion, with half of it taken up by a single deep armchair placed in front of a large wall-mounted flat-screen television. On the far side of the room was a large desk, with a laptop computer, a printer and three piles of papers in metal baskets.

It was some of the papers that the chief inspector wanted me to look at.

“We need your permission as Mr. Kovak's executor to remove certain items that we believe may help with our inquiries. These, for example. But we would like your opinion on them first.”

He handed me two sheets of paper covered entirely on both sides by handwritten lists with columns of what appeared to be dates with amounts of money alongside, together with a further column of capital letters. “Could they have something to do with Mr. Kovak's work?”

I studied the lists briefly.

“I doubt it,” I said. “They are handwritten and we do everything on computer. I think these could be amounts of money.” I pointed at the center two columns. “And these look like dates.”

“Yes,” he said. “I worked that much out. But do you know what they are?”

“Do they correspond to the amounts on the credit card statements?” I asked.

“No. I looked at that. None of the figures are the same.”

“How about last month's statements?” I said. “Most of these dates are last month.”

“We have been unable to locate any statements other than those you have seen. But some of the dates on this list would have been for the statements we have, and none of the amounts match.”

“Then I'm afraid I can't help you,” I said. “I don't recognize any of the amounts and, individually, most are far too small to be anything to do with Mr. Kovak's work. We always work in thousands, if not tens of thousands. Most of these are hundreds.” I looked once more at the lists. “Could that third column be people's initials?”

The chief inspector looked. “It might be. Do you recognize any of them? For example, do they match any of your work colleagues?”

I scanned through the list. “Not that I can see.”

“Right,” he said suddenly, as if making a decision. “With your permission we will take these papers away, together with the credit card statements, Mr. Kovak's laptop computer and these other things.”

The chief inspector waved a hand towards a box on a side table near the door. I went over and looked in. The box contained various bits and pieces, including Herb's American passport, an address book, a desk diary and a folderful of bank statements. It was all rather sad.

“It's fine by me,” I said. “But you do know that his computer won't give you access to Mr. Kovak's work files?”

“So I believe.”

“He would have been able to access the office files and e-mails through his laptop, but no records of them would have been stored on it. The laptop would have merely been acting as a keyboard and a screen for the firm's mainframe computer in Lombard Street.”

“Nevertheless,” said the chief inspector, “it is our policy to search through such a device for any correspondence that might have a bearing on his death. I trust you are happy with that.”

“Absolutely,” I agreed.

“Good,” he said, folding the computer flat and placing it in the box with the other things.

“But can I make copies of that credit card stuff before you take it away? I do know that one of the first tasks for executors is to close the bank accounts and pay the debts of the deceased but goodness' knows where I will get a hundred thousand to do that. How much did he have in the bank?”

“Not that much,” said the chief inspector.

“Do you mind if I look?” I asked.

“Not at all,” he said. “I understand from Mr. Kovak's lawyer that it will be yours anyway.”

I pulled the folder of bank statements out of the box and looked at the most recent ones. The balance was quite healthy, but, as DCI Tomlinson had said, it didn't run to anything like a hundred thousand. More like a tenth of that. I unclipped the last statement from the folder and made a photocopy using the printer/copier on the desk. I then photocopied all the credit card statements, and both sides of the two sheets of handwritten figures, before handing them all back to the policeman.

“Thank you,” he said. “I just need your signature on this form to give us permission to remove these items, and I have a receipt for them to give you.”

He handed me the form, which I signed, and the receipt, which I put in my pocket.

“Bloody paperwork,” he said, taking back the form. “These days we have to be so damn careful to do everything exactly according to the book or some clever-dick defense lawyer will claim that any evidence we find is not admissible in court. I can tell you, it's a bloody nightmare.”

Although better on the whole, I thought, than the police marching in anywhere they liked, in their size-twelve boots, taking away any stuff they wanted without permission and for no good reason.

He packed his paperwork into the box along with the other things. “Now, Mr. Foxton,” he said, “could you just wander round the flat to satisfy yourself that we have left the place in reasonable order and also to check that nothing appears out of place or is missing.”

“I'm happy to have a look,” I said, “but I've never been in here before so I don't know what it looked like before you arrived.”

“Please, anyway,” he said, putting his hand out towards the door.

He followed me as I went around the flat, looking briefly in each of the two bedrooms, the bathroom and the well-fitted kitchen. Nothing to my eye appeared out of place, but of course it wouldn't.