‘Couldn’t they indict Robinson for anything?’ Tony asked.
‘Purchasing medicines without a prescription?’ Nigel raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s hardly grand theft auto. You or I could do the same on the Internet.’
‘Then why all the cloak-and-dagger stuff in some deserted lay-by?’ I asked. But I already knew the answer. Whereas the drugs purchased may have not been illegal according to the Misuse of Drugs Act, both diuretics and laxatives were banned substances for jockeys under the Rules of Racing.
‘Does Jimmy Robinson have trouble with his weight?’ I asked.
‘Doesn’t every jockey?’ Nigel replied.
It was true.
Rises in racing weights had never kept up with the increasing height and bulk of the population as a whole. Before diuretics were added to the list of banned substances in 1999, their use had been widespread by jockeys of all abilities to control their weight.
One former champion jockey once joked to me about taking a handful of pee-pills every day as his only breakfast. ‘The trouble was,’ he said, ‘they made me so dehydrated I got dreadful cramps. On one occasion I remember being given a leg-up in the paddock and being unable to get my left foot into the iron because of it. Had to bump-trot the horse all the way to the start before it eased.’
Another told me he regularly used laxatives, taking them by the packet-full. ‘Explosive decompression,’ he’d said with a laugh. ‘I’d pebbledash the ceiling if I wasn’t careful.’
I’d asked him what the jockeys did now that those drugs had all been banned. ‘Fingers down the throat, mate,’ he’d said. ‘Eat to ease the hunger pain then throw it all back up again so as not to put on any weight. Not clever really.’
‘Can’t do much for their teeth.’
‘Teeth?’ He’d laughed again. ‘Bugger the teeth. Most of those get knocked out in falls anyway.’
I dragged my mind back to the matter in hand.
‘Surely Jimmy would know we would test him for diuretics,’ I said.
‘The police lab says this is something new. Still a thiazide, whatever that means, but a synthetic version. Perhaps Jimmy thought it wouldn’t show up in a test. And maybe he’s right.’
‘Why do these bloody drug firms keep muddying the water with new compounds?’ I sighed. ‘Don’t they realise we’re trying to stop the cheats?’
‘Apparently millions of people take diuretics every day for heart problems and high blood pressure.’
‘I’m one of those,’ Tony said meekly, tapping his jacket pocket.
I suppose I couldn’t realistically blame the drug companies for making our life difficult, not if they were doing good for millions.
I sighed again. ‘So why did the supplier run? And why pull a knife?’
‘He claims he didn’t know what was in the packet,’ Nigel said.
‘So they caught him then?’
‘My police contact said the man walked out of the woods with his arms in the air when he heard the dogs coming. He’d got rid of the knife by then, of course, and the cops weren’t about to launch a massive search for a weapon that hadn’t been used. The man claimed he was only an intermediary, delivering a sealed package for a friend.’
‘So why did he run?’
‘He says that he was told the package contained drugs and he’d assumed they were illegal.’
He hadn’t been the only one.
I was now even more relieved that Tony hadn’t had a ‘piece’ in the lay-by. I could imagine the furore that would have followed the shooting of a man who was supplying perfectly legal medication.
‘It seems odd to me that he just happened to have a knife in his pocket. Surely that’s not normal.’
Tony waved a dismissive hand as if to say that it was quite normal where he came from.
The man’s car had been removed to a forensic laboratory to be searched and, according to Nigel’s police chum, no illegal substances had been found. The man was free to pick it up whenever he wanted to.
The phone on my desk rang. I answered it.
‘Jeff, it’s Paul Maldini,’ said a voice down the line. ‘I need you in my office, right away.’
Oh God, I thought. The chief superintendent must have called.
‘On my way,’ I said.
‘And Jeff, bring Tony with you.’
‘And Nigel?’ I asked.
‘No. Only you and Tony.’
How odd, I thought. It had been Nigel and me who had been responsible for setting up this sorry affair, not Tony. He had simply been an innocent observer to the disaster. It didn’t seem fair that he should be facing the firing squad alongside me.
Tony and I made our way along the corridor to Paul’s office. It felt to me like we were two miscreant schoolboys who had been summoned to the headmaster’s study after having been caught smoking behind the bike sheds — hugely apprehensive and not a little frightened.
‘Ah, come in, come in, both of you,’ Paul said as I knocked and opened his door. ‘Sit down.’ He waved at the two chairs in front of his desk.
I thought the condemned always had to stand to receive their punishment.
Tony and I sat down.
‘Now, Jeff,’ Paul said, smiling and nodding at Tony, ‘Tony here has something to ask you.’
‘Eh?’ I was unsure what was going on.
‘I’d like you to come to the States,’ Tony said, half turning towards me.
‘Eh?’ I said again. ‘Isn’t this about the Jimmy Robinson affair?’
‘No,’ Paul said. ‘It is not.’
‘Didn’t the police chief superintendent call you?’ I asked.
‘As a matter of fact, he did,’ Paul replied. ‘And quite cross he was too. So I reminded him of all the things we had done right in the past and that we had acted in good faith in asking for their help in this case. I told him we had nothing to apologise for.’
‘What did he say to that?’ I asked.
‘Not much.’ Paul laughed as if amused by the memory. ‘I suspect they might not be so helpful in future, but we can live with that. Now, let’s move on. Tony spoke to me last evening and I’ve just had a meeting with the chief executive and the chairman and they have given their approval for his proposal.’
‘What proposal?’ I asked, confused.
I felt like I was living in a parallel universe. I had been expecting to get a severe telling-off and yet here was Paul Maldini, a man with an infamous temper, smiling and joking as if I was flavour of the month.
‘I would like you to come and work for me,’ Tony said.
I turned in my chair and stared at him.
‘Permanently?’
‘For as long as it takes,’ he replied.
‘For as long as what takes?’
‘Let me start from the beginning,’ Tony said. ‘But what I’m about to tell you is highly confidential and cannot be discussed outside the three of us. Not even the BHA chairman and chief executive have the full picture. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Absolutely,’ I said, even though I thought he was being rather melodramatic. As an ex-army intelligence officer, one thing I did know was how to keep a secret.
‘You are aware that I am Deputy Director at FACSA, an agency dedicated to preventing corruption in sport.’ He pronounced it ‘Facsa’, as a word rather than speaking out each of the letters in turn.
I nodded.
‘We have the particular task of keeping US horseracing free of organised crime. As you may know, unlike here in the UK with the BHA, there is no national racing authority in the US. Each of our states has its own rules and is responsible for enforcing them. My federal agency was set up to provide a nationwide focus on anti-corruption, and the Thoroughbred horse industry, both racing and breeding, represents a significant part of our efforts. We even have a special section dedicated to it.’