‘I thought you always worked undercover.’
‘I used to, but things change.’
It was a consequence of being a long time in the job. When I’d first started as an investigator at the BHA, fresh out of the army, I worked my entire time incognito, often using false beards and glasses to ensure that, even if I were seen, no one would recognise me again. But gradually, over time, my name and face were slowly put together by the racing fraternity and my covert work was now limited, although I could still occasionally get away with it provided I employed some of my more elaborate disguises.
It was a situation I was not happy with. I had enjoyed living in the shadows, rather than in the spotlight.
For some time I had even considered leaving the BHA altogether, packing up and moving abroad, possibly to Australia, to start again where my face was unknown.
The two policemen returned from the woods empty-handed, which didn’t please Tony.
‘They should have caught him,’ he said to me. ‘Your cops need to be fitter.’
I thought that was rather rich coming from him. Tony could hardly run fast enough to catch a cold. He had clearly put on far more than the odd pound since his days on the force.
‘We’ll have to call the dogs out,’ one of the policemen said. ‘They’ll soon find him.’
‘Get a helicopter up,’ Tony said, almost as an order. The policeman shook his head. ‘No point. Even their heat-seeking cameras can’t see through that lot.’
I looked past him into the trees. It was, in fact, more of a plantation than a natural wood, with evergreen firs standing cheek by jowl for as far as I could see, which wasn’t very far at all due to a lack of illumination beneath the trees. If visible light couldn’t penetrate the cover, it was no surprise that infrared would be unable to do so either.
‘Do you need us any more?’ I asked.
‘Not here,’ said the senior officer. ‘But you will each need to give a statement concerning this operation. Can you do that on a Section 9 Form?’
‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I have one on my laptop.’
Section 9 of the UK Criminal Justice Act 1967 allowed written statements to be accepted by a court as evidence, provided they obeyed certain conditions. The Section 9 Form wasn’t absolutely essential but it contained the necessary declarations of truthfulness and I was happy to oblige. The police had been uncharacteristically helpful so far and I had no wish to upset them.
‘Come on, Tony,’ I said. ‘Let’s go home.’
Tony was my shadow, as he had been for the past two and a half weeks. His official title was Deputy Director at the Federal Anti-Corruption in Sports Agency (FACSA) based in Washington, DC, and he was on a fact-finding mission to the UK to learn how the integrity service operated at the BHA.
He and I had instantly liked each other and I had enjoyed having him around, while he, in turn, had developed a love for British steeplechasing, and especially for the Grand National.
Ten days previously, Tony and I had travelled north by train from London to Liverpool for the big race.
He couldn’t get over the excitement that a single jumping race could generate in the population as a whole, with everyone discussing the relative merits of the forty runners, and every workplace running its own sweepstake.
‘At home in the States, steeplechase racing is mostly a small-town affair, run by farmers out in the boondocks. You’d be lucky to have more than a couple of tents in a field somewhere with some temporary bleachers. Nothing like this.’ He had waved his hand expansively at Aintree’s towering grandstands and the impressive media centre.
‘Over seventy thousand will be here today,’ I’d said, as Tony had shaken his head in disbelief, ‘with tens of millions more watching live on television.’
And the Grand National itself had certainly lived up to all the hype with the eight-to-one favourite catching the long-time leader on the line to win by a nose in a photo finish.
‘Amazing,’ Tony had said repeatedly, as the victor was loudly cheered all the way to the winner’s circle, flanked by two police horses. ‘Is all your jump racing like this?’
‘No,’ I’d said, laughing. ‘You should try a wet winter Wednesday at Hexham. Two men and a dog if you’re lucky.’
I had gone to the National not for any specific reason but simply to watch and listen, to gather intelligence and, maybe, to defuse any trouble before it started. At least that’s what I’d told myself, although I had mostly wanted to show off one of the great showpieces of British racing to my American guest.
He had not been disappointed.
Back in the lay-by, a police van arrived with a pair of vicious-looking German shepherds barking loudly through the rear windows.
Nigel, Tony and I stood watching as the excited, snarling dogs were removed from the vehicle by their handler, a mountain of a man with hands as large as any I had ever seen. He crouched down to cuddle each dog in turn, allowing them to nuzzle their snouts into his neck, sharp teeth and all.
Rather him than me, I thought.
After this moment of tenderness, it was time for work.
The dogs were first taken over to the car that belonged to the fugitive and given a few moments to register his scent. Then they were off into the woods, the strain on their leads almost pulling over the handler. A smaller man would have had no chance.
‘I’m glad I’m not the one they’re chasing,’ Nigel said. ‘Did you see those bloody fangs?’
We all laughed but with a slight nervousness — it was really not a joking matter.
‘I’ll miss all this excitement,’ Tony said to us with a smile as we climbed into Nigel’s car. ‘I’m back to being stuck at my boring desk from next Monday.’
‘Don’t you get out into the field at all?’ I asked.
‘Not much any more. I’m getting too old. And too fat.’ He guffawed loudly and clasped his hands round his substantial midriff. ‘Nowadays I have a team of young pups like you to do all my legwork.’
He remained unusually quiet and pensive all the way back to London, a smile never leaving his face. He didn’t elaborate on what was occupying his mind and I didn’t press him. He would tell me if he wanted to.
He didn’t. Not then, anyhow.
2
‘Diuretics!’
‘Yup. Mostly diuretics together with a few laxatives.’
‘No cocaine?’
‘Not even a dusting.’
‘Amphetamines? Or ecstasy?’
‘Nope. Nothing.’
‘Bugger!’
It was the following morning in my office at BHA headquarters in Central London. Nigel was giving Tony and me the bad news about the contents of the handed-over package.
‘The cops aren’t very happy about it either, I can tell you,’ Nigel said. ‘My contact says they’ve dropped the investigation and released Jimmy Robinson with no charges and an abject apology. The chief superintendent is really angry and intends to call Paul Maldini to give him what for.’ Paul Maldini was Head of Operations at the BHA — our boss. ‘He claims we’ve made them look like foolish amateurs.’
To be fair, I suppose we had. But we had also made fools out of ourselves.
Nigel had received a tip-off from one of his regular cluster of covert informants that Jimmy Robinson was again dealing in drugs. Perhaps I had been naïve or careless in assuming that the drugs in question were unlawful, but Jimmy had previous form in that respect. I had called in the police and, with much pushing on my part, the matter had eventually gone right to the top with the Director General of the National Crime Agency applying to the Home Secretary for a communication intercept warrant on Robinson’s mobile telephone. That’s how we knew where and when to wait for the hand-over.