‘So he’s here right now?’ I asked.
‘Certainly is,’ Keith said. ‘Arrived back from Louisville last evening for today’s racing.’
‘Here at Belmont?’
He nodded. ‘We race here throughout May, five days a week. Mr Raworth is coming over from the track to see everyone at four, so don’t be late.’
I could see that ‘don’t be late’ was going to be my mantra as long as I was here.
I went back to the bunkhouse and lay on my bed to do some thinking.
The full FACSA team, including Tony Andretti and myself, had flown back to Washington on Sunday morning as originally planned, on the government-owned jet, a converted Boeing 737 fitted out with thirty business-class seats. It wasn’t quite Air Force One but it was very comfortable nonetheless.
I purposely sat well away from Tony, with him up near the front and me down the back next to Larry Spiegal.
On the flight I had gone round to most of the agents individually to thank them for their hospitality and to say goodbye.
‘You leaving us already?’ Larry had said. ‘You’ve hardly had time enough to spit.’
‘I’m afraid I have to,’ I’d replied, smiling. ‘I can’t spend my life gallivanting around the world in private jets like you lot. I have work to do in London.’
We had landed at Andrews around midday and most of the agents had dispersed immediately to their homes, eager to catch up with wives and children for what remained of the weekend.
I had hung around until the last of the agents had departed then I’d called Tony Andretti. He, meanwhile, had been collected by Harriet, but they now returned to where I was waiting at a secluded spot outside the base main gate.
I slung my suitcase onto the back seat and climbed in after it.
‘Where to?’ Tony asked.
‘No idea,’ I said. ‘Where do you suggest?’
‘Our place?’ Harriet asked.
‘Do you have neighbours?’
‘Sure,’ Tony said. ‘Why?’
I had always been obsessed with my own security, to the extent of being paranoid. But that paranoia had helped keep me alive through three long tours in war-ravaged Afghanistan and subsequently, working undercover for the BHA.
‘I don’t want anyone to see you and me together. You never know who’s watching or who they will talk to.’
‘The neighbours don’t need to see you,’ Harriet said. ‘We can drive straight into the garage. You lie down on the back seat.’
‘OK,’ I said.
So, perhaps against my better judgement, I had gone home with Tony and Harriet to Fairfax, Virginia, where I had spent the next two days hiding from their neighbours, studying bank statements, growing my beard and making plans to become a groom.
‘Why Raworth’s?’ Tony had asked when I’d told him where I was going for a job.
‘Partly because George Raworth trains at Belmont Park. Do you remember telling me that FACSA had conducted a raid on a barn at Belmont last October but had found nothing, the whole place having been steam cleaned?’
‘Of course,’ Tony had said. ‘That was the raid that Jason Connor was so furious about.’
‘Can you recall the name of the trainer?’
‘Man called Mitchell, Adam Mitchell. But he’s now gone from Belmont permanently. He went back to Florida after that trouble and NYRA were glad to see the back of him. We interviewed him in Miami about Jason Connor and how he had been tipped off regarding our raid, but he wasn’t talking. It was a total dead end.’
‘How about his grooms?’
‘They mostly went down with him to Florida. We interviewed some of them too, but they all said they knew nothing. I think they were frightened of Mitchell. That’s why Connor tracked down the one at Laurel, he didn’t go with the others and was apparently prepared to talk, but now even he’s disappeared.’
‘And what that groom said to Connor is anyone’s guess.’
‘Exactly.’
‘There may still be some of Mitchell’s past grooms at Belmont, working for other trainers. I could try to find them.’
‘Seems like a long shot to me,’ Tony had said. ‘Is that the only reason to work for George Raworth?’
‘No. I also want to go there because he won the Kentucky Derby and he has since indicated that he intends to run three horses in the Preakness, including the Derby winner, Fire Point.’
‘What difference does that make?’
‘To start with, it means I may have more chance of getting to Pimlico, but mostly I’m curious as to whether his other two will actually be trying to beat Fire Point, or will they only be there to spoil the chances of the other runners.’
‘You’re a cynic.’ Tony had laughed.
‘Maybe I am. But I believe there is something very fishy about the way those three competitors conveniently all fell ill on the very morning of the Derby.’
‘The track veterinarian didn’t think so,’ Tony had said. ‘He said that it was not uncommon for horses to go off their food and run a fever, especially when being moved around. But, I grant you, it looks a bit suspicious for those three to have fallen ill on that particular day.’
I’d read the vet’s interim report. Not that I’d really understood much of it. It had all been a bit too scientific for me and it didn’t answer the most important question, which was what was wrong with the horses. One of his paragraphs had stuck in my mind: Antigenic drift of antigenically heterologous viruses may reduce the degree and duration of protection conferred by previous infection or vaccination.
The phrase ‘blinding with science’ came to mind. At least I could understand the last bit.
‘Does he think it may have been a new strain of equine influenza?’
‘He doesn’t know yet,’ Tony had replied. ‘Apparently he has to wait for the horses to produce antibodies and then test for those, rather than for the virus itself. It takes a few days.’
But, if it was equine influenza, one of the most infectious diseases around, why hadn’t it infected more of the horses? What was so special about those three? Other than, of course, they were three of the most fancied runners in the Kentucky Derby.
I thought that fact alone was sufficiently suspicious for me to go to work in Raworth’s stable, in order to find out.
My roommate returned from wherever he’d been at about ten minutes to four as I was still lying on my bed. He rushed into our room, grabbed some boots from his locker and was pulling them on before he even noticed me.
He was a short man that I took to be in his fifties. He looked up at me.
‘Hola,’ he said, totally unfazed to find another man in his bedroom. ‘Mi nombre es Rafael Diaz. Y tu?’
‘Paddy,’ I replied. ‘Paddy Murphy. From Ireland.’
‘Mexicano,’ Rafael said, pointing a finger at his chest. ‘Vine aquí hace diez años.’
I shook my head. ‘No Español.’
He had exhausted my Spanish by asking my name.
He smiled broadly, exposing the few teeth that still remained in his head, which themselves appeared to be in need of some urgent dental treatment.
‘Mexican,’ he said in heavily accented English. ‘I came to here ten years.’
I climbed down from my bunk and shook his hand. He grinned some more. ‘We go work. No late. Mr Keith say boss come.’
‘Yes,’ I said, looking at the watch on my wrist.
It was five minutes to four.
Don’t be late, Keith had said.