Tip Off

  Tip Off

  JOHN FRANCOME

  headline

  www.headline.co.uk

  Copyright © 1999 John Francome and Mike Bailey

  The right of John Francome to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Apart from any use permitted under UK copyright law, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  First published as an Ebook by Headline Publishing Group in 2010

  All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  eISBN : 978 0 7553 7629 2

  This Ebook produced by Jouve Digitalisation des Informations

  HEADLINE PUBLISHING GROUP

  An Hachette UK Company

  338 Euston Road

  London NW1 3BH

  www.headline.co.uk

  www.hachette.co.uk

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ex-National Hunt Champion Jockey John Francome is a broadcaster on racing for Channel 4 and is fast establishing himself as one of the front runners in the racing thriller stakes. He lives in Berkshire.

  His previous bestsellers have all been highly praised:

  ‘Francome provides a vivid panorama of the racing world . . . and handles the story’s twist deftly’

  The Times

  ‘Francome can spin a darn good yarn’

  Racing Post

  ‘Thrills, twists and turns on and off the racecourse. Convincing and beguiling’

  Irish Independent

  ‘Move over Dick Francis, here’s competition’

  Me magazine

  ‘A thoroughly convincing and entertaining tale’

  Daily Mail

  ‘The racing feel is authentic and it’s a pacy, entertaining read’

  Evening Standard

  ‘Irresistibly reminiscent of the master . . . a most readable yarn’

  Mail on Sunday

  ‘Thrills to the final furlong . . . Francome knows how to write a good racing thriller’

  Daily Express

  ‘Mr Francome adeptly teases to the very end and cleverly keeps a few twists up his sleeve until the closing chapters’

  Country Life

  Chapter One

  I’d never much cared for Toby Brown. He’d always been too arrogant and pleased with himself for my liking. That’s how he’d been when we’d first met as ten year olds at school. Twenty-five years on, not much had changed.

  I was sitting on a battered wooden bench amid the sweaty air and nervous clamour of the changing room at Fontwell Park. Outside, the ground was heavy and the sky had the shade and texture of soggy porridge. There were ten minutes to kill before the amateur chase, and I wasn’t looking forward to it.

  I’d picked up a Racing Post from the seat beside me and one of Toby’s quarter page advertisements had caught my eye.

  ‘The Best Tipster in the Country’ was how he modestly described himself. But then, he’d managed somehow to name seventeen winners in his last twenty selections and post a hefty profit. I didn’t dispute the claim – a friend on the newspaper had told me all the tipping services were closely monitored. Besides, everyone in racing was talking about it.

  Punters up and down the country were following him like kids after the Pied Piper, and for the first time in their corporate histories the big bookies were losing money like water down a drain. I guessed Toby was loving it.

  He’d always been a clever dick – very quick with figures. At school he’d been best at everything from French to football, which may partly have accounted for the faint resentment I’d harboured towards him ever since.

  I still saw him from time to time, when we would nod a greeting and talk a little about mutual friends. We got along all right because there was no point in falling out with him; besides, his mother, Jane, trained my horses.

  But, like everyone else, I was still very curious to know how, in the past few weeks, he’d tipped a string of winners way beyond the scope of mere good luck.

  The bell above my head jangled sharply through the steamy room to tell jockeys to get ready for the next race. As I pulled on my helmet, I felt the usual minor eruptions in my innards. It wasn’t so much physical danger I feared as the possibility that I was going to go out and make a fool of myself publicly, yet again.

  Nester, my mount, was frankly too good for me. He was a classy chaser and I was a less than moderate amateur. Under normal circumstances his trainer wouldn’t have let me into his stable, let alone allowed me to ride him on a race-course. I was on him today only because I happened to own him. Officially the horse was called Better By Far; the nickname by which he was affectionately known came from his habit of shoving all the straw in his stable into one corner to make himself a comfortable bed.

  If it hadn’t been for me, Nester would have arrived at the knacker’s a year ago and ended up as the contents of a greyhound’s dinner bowl. For that alone, I reckoned I deserved at least one race on him.

  The trouble with my riding was that I simply wasn’t a natural. From the start, I’d found this lack of ability frustrating and acutely embarrassing, but I was determined to beat it.

  I was competent at most of the sports I’d tried, but it seemed that none of the skills from these translated through to race-riding. Like a lot of late starters, I’d spent too much time worrying about the mechanics of the job, instead of just getting on with it, and no matter how much I tried to relax, I knew from the videos that I still rode as if I was in the advanced stages of rigor mortis.

  There were always so many things to remember: grip with your knees; keep your head and shoulders low; don’t pull the horse in the mouth; don’t hold your reins too tight – except, of course, if your horse pecks after a fence, when you have to hold them as tight as you can.

  I’d spent hours feeling like a fool on a simulator, trying to remember everything I’d been told. My friend and business partner, Matt James, came to watch a few times; he tried to encourage me with the opinion that I’d progressed from embarrassingly awful to just awful. My style may not have improved a lot since then, but I had grown a thicker hide and excused myself with the fact that I’d never even sat on a horse until I was eighteen, by which time the suppleness of youth was beginning to wear off.

  When the starter let us go for the two-and-a-half mile handicap chase, Nester felt so good I found I could leave all these negative thoughts behind. If the old racing adage were true – that it’s good horses that make good jockeys – then Nester should make me a champion.

  Two years before, he’d been conside
red the outstanding novice of the season. He’d proved it by winning the Arkle Trophy at Cheltenham, when Lord Tintern still owned him.

  The first time I’d schooled him myself, a few months ago, he’d taken my breath away – quite literally. Before that, I’d had no idea what a top-class horse felt like. I was used to plodders who tried to get as close to a fence as they could, to minimise the effort they’d need to get over it. Nester, by contrast, always wanted to take off at least a stride sooner than I expected.

  But this was his first race over fences in nearly two years. Jane Brown had made her orders quite clear that morning. I was to sit three or four lengths off the pace, and get a lead for a mile or so to keep him well within himself.

  But that wasn’t at all how it happened.

  After a huge jump at the first fence I found myself right at the front, and from the moment Nester’s feet touched down I knew I would be no more than a passenger for the rest of the race.

  I guessed that Jane was sitting at home cursing me, but the threat of her wrath was far outweighed by the thrill of riding a top-class steeplechaser. I’d never come across anything like Nester’s massive strength. He was powering through the deep ground and leaping each fence as if he were jumping from a springboard. I was having the ride of my life.

  It didn’t last.

  As the race progressed, my confidence grew. I was learning that a really good horse didn’t need to be told precisely where to take off. Nester had such ability that he seemed able to reach the fence from just about anywhere.

  As we galloped easily towards the first downhill fence, going away from the stables, I was more concerned with my style and how I looked to the people in the grandstand than I was about where Nester was going to take off. For a few brief, happy moments, I even convinced myself that I looked like a professional.

  I pushed forward and committed myself to a magnificent leap for the benefit of the spectators. I wanted to give them dramatic proof that Mr S. Jeffries had become an amateur to be reckoned with.

  Then, too late, I found there was a limit even to Nester’s talents. With abrupt stubbornness, he put in a short one.

  If my legs had been gripping properly I’d have had no problem, but I’d prepared myself for a huge leap. When finally Nester was airborne, I was already halfway up his neck; as he popped over the fence, I lost my irons and dropped neatly over his right shoulder.

  I’d owned up to my mistake before I hit the deck. Blaming myself because it wasn’t the first time. Cursing because Nester had been going so well, and I’d mucked it up.

  All this went through my head in the fraction of a second it took for me to leave the saddle and thud into the mercifully soft Sussex turf.

  As my hip dented the ground, I instinctively curled up into a ball while the rest of the field galloped past. When I could hear they’d all gone, I picked my whip out of the grass and walked dejectedly to the side of the track where the St John’s Ambulance had just pulled up.

  The driver leaped out. ‘Are you okay?’ he called breathlessly, running around the front of his vehicle towards me.

  ‘Yes, yes. I’m fine, thanks. Soft landing.’

  I declined a lift back to the changing room; it was only a short walk. But I had to put up with a ribbing from a spectator who’d been watching from the middle of the course. It wasn’t meant maliciously, but it hurt just the same.

  I’d been disappointed when Jane had said she’d be unable to make it for Nester’s first outing in his new colours; I’d wanted the support.

  Now I was deeply relieved she hadn’t been there. I didn’t doubt she’d seen my dismal performance on the Racing Channel, but at least I had time to prepare my excuses before I spoke to her again.

  As the race finished, Nester pulled up with the other runners, looking none the worse for having galloped riderless for almost a circuit.

  Sally, the girl who looked after him, caught hold of his reins and checked him for cuts. When I came up, she wouldn’t even look me in the eye. I couldn’t blame her. ‘Sorry I buggered that up, Sal.’

  ‘That’s all right, Mr Jeffries.’ She still didn’t look at me but let half a smile flicker across her lips.

  Feeling depressed, despite Nester’s obviously complete return to fitness, I walked back to the weighing room to shower and change. After a quick cup of tea, I went out to my car and got in. I picked up the phone to check for messages. There was only one, from Matt.

  ‘If you’re still alive, can you come into the office about six?’

  If my partner needed to see me that urgently, it would be something important and I needed a distraction from my fall. I dialled, got Matt’s answerphone and told it I’d be there.

  I drove towards Reading and tried to push the frustrations of the afternoon to the back of my mind. I knew for the rest of the season I’d have to be satisfied with using my meagre riding skills on Baltimore, my other horse.

  He was a hunter chaser, also housed with Jane at a friendly discount. He was beginning to look quite businesslike under her regime, and she had agreed that he could run at Ludlow in a fortnight’s time. She was, she said, far more worried about my fitness than the horse’s. After my performance this afternoon, she’d have good reason to worry about my riding skills, too.

  Angrily, I thumped the heels of my hands on the steering wheel. I would bloody well learn to ride properly, if it killed me!

  Chapter Two

  I walked into our company’s new, hi-tech offices to be greeted with a dewy smile by Monica, our receptionist-cum-secretary. ‘Bad luck, Simon.’

  ‘I wish it was just bad luck – more a case of bad jockey, I’m afraid.’

  Jason Williams, who was our office manager and did most of the work in the firm, saw me through the window of his own cubby-hole. He came out, grinning.

  ‘The bad news is you fell off,’ he said. ‘The good news is I was too late to get a bet on – so I’m twenty quid up.’

  It was this positive attitude of Jason’s that had persuaded my partner and me to take him on soon after we had launched our technology protection service.

  ‘Glad to hear it, but why are you two still here?’

  ‘Just wrapping up a couple of new contracts,’ Jason said happily, thinking of his bonus.

  I nodded encouragingly and walked to the closed door on the far side of the reception area.

  I found Matt James in his office, sitting at a functional grey steel desk.

  At thirty-six, he was a year older than me, but seemed to have ten years’ more experience. Cool detachment and good judgement accumulated over fifteen years in the army showed in his ice-blue eyes. He was a private man, tricky to get close to. His ambitions were obscure, his priorities contradictory, and his relationships with women sporadic and secretive.

  His antidote to sedentary work consisted of hard, relentless games of squash, in which I’d never beaten him, and long solo treks across the mountains of marginal Britain. Tough, supremely fit, quick-limbed and quick-witted, there was no one I’d rather have had on my side in a crisis.

  Two years ago, he and I had set up as partners in a new security company, specialising in the protection of commercial information. We hadn’t made our fortune yet, but from a shaky base we were beginning to build a reputation.

  Although we’d been friends since our school days at Marlborough, we didn’t have a lot in common. Matt had gone on to command tanks in a cavalry regiment and a squadron in the SAS, while I’d gained a 2:2 in history at Durham and spent the next ten years as an insurance broker at Lloyd’s.

  We also had very different tastes in recreation and women. That was just as well as neither of us was married and he was a good-looking man by any standards. But we had always shared a passionate interest in racing and a keen desire to beat the bookies.

  On his face that evening was a grin as large as any I’d seen in the twenty years I’d known him.

  ‘Either someone’s just handed you a monster cheque,’ I said, ‘or there’s a
girl under that desk.’

  ‘I wish there were,’ Matt laughed, and shook his mop of sandy hair, ‘but you were right first time. Tomorrow morning Salmon Leisure Plc will be handing me a substantial cheque.’

  ‘Toby hasn’t done it again?’ I asked, incredulous.

  Matt nodded. ‘Good old Toby, and not such a bad price today: nine to four. Mind you, it should have been double that but I suppose it came right in as soon as Toby napped it. I wonder how the hell he does it?’ Matt shook his head.

  ‘I should think every bookie in the country’s tearing their hair out wondering that.’

  Matt had been following Toby’s tips for a few months, and over the recent spectacular run of winners had allowed himself to plough back a good proportion of his winnings into each subsequent bet.

  His blue eyes gleamed at me across his desk. ‘Anyway, I’m not complaining,’ he said with a satisfied grin. ‘But look, I’m sorry, Simon – in my excitement, I forgot to ring and tell you the appointment I made for you has been moved.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, disappointed. ‘Who’s it with?’

  ‘One of your contacts – Emma’s father, in fact. He rang to ask if you could meet him this evening on Jockey Club business.’ Matt glanced at me. ‘Why are you looking so surprised?’

  Emma Birt was a girl I wanted to see more of. Her father, Lord Tintern, was a senior steward at the Jockey Club. ‘I’ve been trying to get a toe in that door ever since we started,’ I said. ‘The security guys in the Jockey Club guard their territory very jealously. But I’ve been working on old Tintern for the last few months.’ I nodded, pleased with myself. ‘Maybe all my arse-licking has finally paid off. Mind you,’ I winced guiltily, ‘our relationship could go sour if Nester stays sound and finds his old form.’