Free Come to Grief by Dick Francis Page A

is motive,” I said. “I went to see all the owners. None of the colts was insured. Nor was Rachel Fems’s pony, of course.”
    He said interestedly, “Did you think it was an insurance scam?”
    “It jumps to mind, doesn’t it? Theoretically it’s possible to insure a horse and collect the lucre without the owner knowing anything about it. It’s been done. But if that’s what this is all about, perhaps someone in an insurance company somewhere will see the piece in The Pump and connect a couple of things. Come to think of it,” I finished slowly, “I might send a copy to every likely insurance company’s board of directors, asking, and warning them.”
    “Good idea,” he said. “Does insurance and so on really take the place of racing? It sounds a pretty dull life for you, after what we used to do.”
    “Does television replace it for you?”
    “Not a hope.” He laughed. “Danger is addictive, wouldn’t you say? The only dangerous job in television is reporting wars and—have you noticed?—the same few war reporters get out there all the time, talking with their earnest, committed faces about this or that month’s little dust-up, while bullets fly and chip off bits of stone in the background to prove how brave they are.”
    “You’re jealous.” I smiled.
    “I get sodding bored sometimes with being a chat-show celebrity, even if it’s nice being liked. Don’t you ache for speed?”
    “Every day,” I said.
    “You’re about the only person who understands me. No one else can see that fame’s no substitute for danger.”
    “It depends what you risk.”
    Hands, I thought. One could risk hands.
    “Good luck, Hotline,” Ellis said.
    It was the owners of two-year-old colts that had the good luck. My telephone jammed and rang nonstop all evening and all night when I got home after the Derby, but the calls were all from people enjoying their shivers and jumping at shadows. The moonlight shone on quiet fields, and no animal, whether colt or two-year-old thoroughbred or children’s pony, lost a foot.
    In the days that followed, interest and expectation dimmed and died. It was twelve days after the Derby, on the last night of the Royal Ascot meeting, that the screaming heebie-jeebies re-awoke.

4
    On the Monday after the Derby, I trailed off on the one-day dig into the overblown reference and, without talking to the lady-employer herself (which would clearly have been counterproductive) , I uncovered enough to phone the tight-fisted trainer with sound advice.
    “She wants to get rid of him without risk of being accused of unfair dismissal,” I said. “He steals small things from her house which pass through a couple of hands and turn up in the local antique shop. She can’t prove they were hers. The antique shop owner is whining about his innocence. The lady has apparently said she won’t try to prosecute her houseman if he gets the heck out. Her testimonial is part of the bargain. The houseman is a regular in the local betting shop, and gambles heavily on horses. Do you want to employ him?”
    “Like hell.”
    “The report I’ll write and send to you,” I told him, “will say only, ‘Work done on recruitment of staff.’ You can claim tax relief on it.”
    He laughed dryly: “Anytime you want a reference,” he said, pleased, “I’ll write you an affidavit.”
    “You never know,” I said, “and thanks.”
    I had phoned the report from the car park of a motorway service station on my way home late in the dusky evening, but it was when I reached Pont Square that the day grew doubly dark. There was a two-page fax waiting on my machine and I read it standing in the sitting room with all thoughts of a friendly glass of scotch evaporating into disbelief and the onset of misery.
    The pages were from Kevin Mills. “I don’t know why you want this list of the great and good,” he wrote, “but for what it’s worth and because I promised, here is a list of the guests entertained by Topline