It was time to tell the whole truth, not just the edited version.
‘Dave Swinton was being blackmailed,’ I said.
He stared at me. ‘How do you know?’
‘He told me the day before he died, on the way to Newbury races.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’ He was cross and maybe he had a right to be.
‘I would have told the inquest,’ I said as a lame excuse. ‘I didn’t think it was relevant to your investigation if he had killed himself. But now...’
His look was enough to tell me that he thought it was relevant anyway.
‘Who was blackmailing him?’ he asked me.
‘I don’t know who. But I think Dave had found out. When he rang to ask me to come back to Lambourn on Sunday morning, he said that he now knew who it was. He wouldn’t tell me over the phone because he didn’t trust that someone else wasn’t listening to his calls. That’s why I went to see him.’
‘Was he being blackmailed because he purposely lost races?’
‘No,’ I said emphatically. ‘That’s what he was blackmailed into doing.’
‘So what else was it?’
I hesitated.
‘Come on, Mr Hinkley,’ said the detective impatiently. ‘Tell me now.’
‘I really don’t want to further denigrate the reputation of one of our sport’s greatest ambassadors. It may have nothing to do with his death.’
‘Let me be the judge of that,’ he said sternly.
He was right.
Of course he was right. If Dave Swinton had been murdered to prevent him saying who the blackmailer was, then why he was being blackmailed was more than just relevant to the investigation, it was crucial.
‘Dave told me that it was to do with tax. Something about not declaring income from extra payments he’d received for riding in races.’
‘Did he say how much these extra payments were?’
‘About two hundred thousand pounds,’ I said. ‘It seems that someone was threatening to report him to the authorities.’
‘How much did the blackmailer demand?’
‘That’s what’s strange. He didn’t want money. He just told Dave to lose a race.’
‘Mr Swinton was sure it was a man?’
‘He said a man called him and told him which race he must not win.’
I could see from his expression that DS Jagger thought it a very unlikely scenario. He had made it quite clear previously that he rated the purposeful loss of a horse race as rather trivial, and I suppose it was, compared with his daily diet of murder and rape.
‘Who would know about these extra payments?’
‘Just about every trainer and owner Dave Swinton rode for. It was general knowledge that he would demand an extra payment over and above the regular riding fee.’
‘But did they all know that he hadn’t paid tax on it?’
‘It seems that he always asked for the extra payments in cash. And it doesn’t take much imagination to realize why.’
‘Did Mr Swinton tell you all this?’
‘Not all of it,’ I said. ‘After Dave died, I spoke to a couple of trainers that he’d ridden for. They both told me, independently, about the extra payments. The only thing Dave told me was that he was being blackmailed for not paying tax on some money, not where the money came from.’
DS Jagger wrote in his notebook. ‘Mr Hinkley, you will have to make another formal statement and, this time, with all the relevant information included. Do I make myself clear?’
He was still cross with me.
‘Perfectly clear,’ I said.
‘I will arrange for one of my constables to come and take it. Will you be in here long?’
‘I’m told until Saturday,’ I said. ‘But I’m forming an escape committee.’
‘I’ll send my constable tomorrow,’ he said. ‘And be sure to tell him everything you can think of, whether you believe it’s relevant or not.’
‘Tell him to bring lots of paper,’ I said. ‘I’ll give him my life story.’
‘Be serious, Mr Hinkley.’
‘I am. If there’s one lesson I’ve learned during my time at the BHA it’s that there is no such thing as an isolated incident. Thoroughbred racing may be one of the largest industries in this country, but those involved — breeders, owners, trainers and jockeys — are like a close-knit family. Everybody knows everybody else and they’re all connected by blood, by marriage or by financial dependency.’
I wondered if I should tell him about Bill McKenzie and his ride on Wisden Wonder. And maybe about Leslie Morris and his large cash bets. Were they also relevant? Bill McKenzie had told me that he wasn’t being blackmailed but I wasn’t sure I believed him. He had definitely lost that race at Sandown on purpose, just as Dave Swinton had at Haydock. Were the two connected?
That’s what I should have been investigating this week, not lying in some hospital bed twiddling my thumbs.
Next to arrive was Paul Maldini, although it did take him a while to get in as one of the nurses had called hospital security when she found him loitering outside my room.
‘It must be your shady Italian ancestry,’ I said with a laugh as he was finally permitted to enter.
‘Bloody ridiculous,’ he said.
‘Not at all. I asked them to vet all my visitors. There is someone out there with a long thin carving knife, and I have no wish to meet him again, thank you very much.’
‘It’s very inconvenient, you being in here,’ he said, clearly irritated. Paul Maldini was not one for pleasantries like How are you feeling? or I’m glad you’re alive, he was only thinking of the work I was missing.
‘I’m not lying here out of choice, I can assure you, and it’s better than the alternative.’
‘What alternative?’
‘The morgue,’ I said. ‘It seems it was a close-run thing.’
I filled him in on most of the details without making the whole thing too melodramatic.
He was silent for a moment, perhaps thinking, as I was, that my present predicament was not quite so inconvenient after all. At least I would be coming back to the office eventually.
‘Do you have any idea who did it?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said. ‘But it might be the same person who shut me in the sauna last week.’
‘What sauna?’ he asked.
Oops! I’d forgotten that I hadn’t actually told Paul about the sauna incident. In fact, I hadn’t told him anything about my exchanges with Dave Swinton.
This could be awkward. Not least because I’d already told the police.
‘Someone locked me in a sauna,’ I said.
‘How odd,’ he said. ‘Where?’
I hesitated.
I’d have to tell him and face the music. ‘At Dave Swinton’s house.’
‘What were you doing at Dave Swinton’s house?’
I took as deep a breath as my stitches would allow. ‘I think I’d better explain everything from the beginning.’
I told him about Dave calling me early on Hennessy Saturday demanding to speak with me, and of my subsequent trip to Lambourn and Newbury.
Paul’s eyes widened when I recounted what Dave had said about purposely losing a race, and his eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline when I explained about the blackmail. By the time I disclosed the details of my return visit on Sunday morning, including being shut into and then escaping from the sweltering sauna, he was almost apoplectic.
‘Why the bloody hell didn’t you tell me all this before?’
‘When it was reported on the news that Dave had killed himself, it suddenly didn’t seem important. Why would I want to tarnish the glittering reputation of our hero with nasty rumours about race fixing and tax evasion when I had no real evidence that either was true?’
‘But he himself had admitted it,’ Paul said angrily. ‘We should have suspended him from riding immediately and convened a disciplinary panel.’