“Surely he wasn’t killed because of his work.” Jessica looked shocked. “I thought it must be to do with his private life.”
“I don’t think they have the slightest idea why he was killed,” said Patrick Lyall. “That’s why they’re asking about everything.”
There was a slight commotion outside in the lobby as someone not on the company staff list tried to gain access. He was being barred by our rather overbearing uniformed guard. I could see through the glass door that the would-be visitor was Andrew Mellor, the company solicitor. Lyall & Black was too small to have a full-time company lawyer of its own so we used Andrew, who worked in a legal practice around the corner in King William Street.
Patrick saw him as well and went over to the door.
“It’s all right, officer, Mr. Mellor is our lawyer.”
“But he’s not on my list,” said the uniformed policeman adamantly.
“It was I who provided that list and I forgot to add Mr. Mellor.”
Reluctantly the policeman stood aside and allowed the visitor to enter.
“Sorry, Andrew,” said Patrick. “It’s all a bit of a nightmare here at present.”
“Yes, so I can see.” Andrew Mellor looked around at the sea of faces. “I’m so sorry to hear about Herb Kovak. Unbelievable business.”
“And bloody inconvenient too,” interjected Gregory, who had been mostly quiet since his altercation with the chief inspector earlier. “But I’m glad you’re here.” I wondered if Gregory had asked Andrew to come around to be present during his interview. “We’ll have to talk outside.” Gregory began to ease himself up from one of the armchairs.
“Actually, Gregory,” said the lawyer, putting up a hand to stop him, “it’s not you I have come to see. I need to talk to Nicholas.” Fifteen pairs of eyes swiveled around in my direction. “Do you mind?” he said to me, holding out his arm towards the door.
I could almost feel the stares on my back as I went outside into the lobby with Andrew. We went past the lifts and around a corner so that the prying eyes in Lyall & Black could no longer see us through the glass door and the policeman on guard couldn’t hear our conversation.
“Sorry about this,” he said, “but I have something to give you.”
He pulled a white envelope out of his jacket inside pocket and held it out to me. I took it.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Herb Kovak’s Last Will and Testament.”
I looked up from the envelope to Andrew’s face.
“But why are you giving it to me?” I asked.
“Because Herb named you in it as his executor.”
“Me?” I said, somewhat taken aback.
“Yes,” Andrew said. “And you are also the sole beneficiary of his estate.”
I was astonished. “Has he no family?”
“Obviously none that he wanted to leave anything to.”
“But why would he leave it to me?” I asked.
“I’ve no idea,” Andrew said. “Perhaps he liked you.”
Little did I realize at the time how Herb Kovak’s legacy would turn out to be a poisoned chalice.
3
On Tuesday I went to the races-Cheltenham Races, to be precise. But this was no pleasure outing, it was work.
Racing can be a funny business, especially amongst the jockeys.
Competition is intense. It always has been. Before the advent in 1960 of the racing patrol films to aid the stewards in catching the wrongdoers, stories abounded of jockeys who would cut off a rival, giving them no room, literally putting a horse and rider through the wings of a fence in order to help their own chances of winning. And riding whips have not always been employed solely to strike the horses but have left their mark on jockeys too. On one famous occasion at Deauville in France, Lester Piggott, having dropped his own whip, took one from one of the other jockeys during the race, to help him ride a tight finish.
But once the race is run, whatever the result, there exists a camaraderie between these men and women who risk their lives five or six times an afternoon for the entertainment of others. And they look after their own.
Such it was with me.
My erstwhile opponents who, during my riding days, would have happily seen me dumped onto the turf if it meant that they could win a race, were the first to express their concern and support when I’d been injured.
When I had been forced to retire at the ripe old age of twentyone, it had been a handful of my fellow jocks who had arranged a testimonial day for me at Sandown Park to raise the funds needed to pay my university tuition fees. And it had been the same individuals who had clamored to become my first clients when I’d qualified as an IFA.
Since then I had acquired a bit of a reputation as horse racing’s very own financial adviser. Nearly all my clients had some connection with racing, and I had a near monopoly within the jockeys’ Changing Room that I believed had much to do with a shared view of risk and reward.
So I now regularly spent a couple of days a week at one racetrack or another, all with Patrick and Gregory’s blessing, making appointments to see my clients before or after, and occasionally during, the racing.
Cheltenham in April has a touch of “after the Lord Mayor’s Show” about it-rather an anticlimax following the heady excitement of the four Steeplechasing Festival days in March. Gone were the temporary grandstands and the acres of tented hospitality village. Gone too was the nervous energy and high anticipation of seventy thousand expectant spectators waiting to cheer home their new heroes.
This April meeting may have been a more sedate affair in the enclosures, but it was no less competitive on the track with two of the top jockeys still vying to be crowned as the champion for the current season that concluded at the end of the month. Both were my clients, and I had arranged to meet one of them, Billy Searle, after racing.
Part of the government’s anti-money-laundering requirements was that financial advisers had to know their clients, and Lyall & Black, as a firm, reckoned that a face-to-face meeting with every client should occur at least annually, in addition to our regular three-monthly written communications and twice-yearly valuations of their investments.
I had long ago decided that expecting racing folk to come to a meeting in the London offices was a complete waste of time. If I wanted them as clients-and I did-then I would have to come to see them, not vice versa. And I had found that seeing them at their place of work, the racetracks, was easier than chasing them down at home.
I had also discovered that being regularly seen at the races was the best way to recruit new clients, which was why I was currently standing on the terrace in front of the Weighing Room, warming myself in the midday April sunshine, more than ninety minutes before the first race.
“Hi, Foxy. Penny for your thoughts? What a lovely day, eh? Did you see the National yesterday?” Martin Gifford was a large, jovial, middle-ranking racehorse trainer who always joked that he had never made it as a jockey due to his large feet. The fact that he stood more than six feet tall and had a waist measurement that a sumo wrestler would have been proud of seemed to have escaped him.
“No,” I said, “I missed it. I was stuck in the office all day. I just saw the short report on the television news. But I’d been at Aintree on Saturday.”
“Bloody rum business, that was,” Martin said. “Fancy postponing the Grand National just because some bastard got themselves killed.”
He had obviously been reading the papers.
“How do you know he was a bastard?” I asked.
Martin looked at me strangely. “Because it said so in the paper.”
“I thought you knew better than to believe what you read in the papers.” I paused, deciding whether to go on. “The person murdered was a friend of mine. I was standing right next to him when he was shot.”