Dick Francis's Damage by Felix Francis Read Free Book Online Page B

operating table in southwest London?
    Well, of course it did.
    As they say, life has to go on.
    Using the internal computer network, I looked up Graham Perry’s BHA file.
    He was forty-one and he had held a trainer’s license for the past seven years, having previously been the assistant trainer to Matthew Unwin.
    That alone made me sit up straight and pay attention.

5
    A ccording to the nurse I spoke to on the telephone, Faye was brought back to her room at three o’clock, having spent the preceding hour gradually waking from the anesthetic in the recovery ward. All I was told was that she was back and that the operation had been a success, whatever that might mean. Probably that she was still alive.
    I was also informed that there would be no word on what had actually been done to my sister’s insides until the following day. It seemed that the top-guy surgeon was currently busy poking his fingers into someone else’s guts.
    But thankfully Faye was awake and
comfortable
, although that must be a relative term after having had bits of her removed.
    â€œNo visitors today,” said the nurse with authority, “other than immediate family.”
    I thought brothers were pretty immediate, but, in this case, it apparently meant spouses only or, failing that, the parents or children of the patient.
    Quentin, as expected, did not call to tell me how things had gone. Maybe he didn’t know either, but a call to confirm that the operation was over and successful would have been nice.
    I went back to studying the Perry file.
    Graham James Perry had come into racing as an eighteen-year-old conditional jockey, a trainee, under the stewardship of a young Duncan Johnson. According to the records, he’d had fifteen rides under rules in his first season, twenty-seven in his second, and just twelve in his third, at which point he had given up his jockey’s license.
    He won only two of the fifty-four races in which he rode, so jockeyship was clearly not his strong suit. However, he had remained on the staff at the Johnson stable for the next six years before disappearing off the BHA radar. Perhaps he had gone to work abroad for a while because, five years later, he resurfaced as Matthew Unwin’s assistant, before taking on a trainer’s license himself, at age thirty-four, when he took over a yard near the village of Tilston in Cheshire.
    His progress since then had been steady rather than spectacular. He had built his string from just ten horses in his first season up to a recent figure of twenty-eight, and he’d had some moderate success in races at the smaller tracks, in particular at his local track, Bangor-on-Dee, where he was the second leading trainer in the current season.
    It was ages since I’d been racing at Bangor-on-Dee.
    I consulted the fixture list and discovered there was a meeting the coming weekend. I decided to go north by train on Friday morning, spend the evening at the local pub in Tilston, before attending the racing on Saturday afternoon.
    I used my computer to look up the train times from Euston. Then I fixed a room at the Queen Hotel in Chester, opposite therailway station, and arranged for a rental car—something fairly small and inconspicuous.
    â€”
    I TOOK the Central Line from Holborn to Bethnal Green and followed Kenneth’s directions to his front door. I pushed the bell button marked
K. Calderfield
and was rewarded by a metallic-sounding voice emanating from the grille alongside.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œIt’s Jeff Hinkley,” I said, leaning forward.
    â€œThird floor,” came the reply, accompanied by a buzzing as he released the door lock.
    I went in and climbed the stairs. Ken was waiting for me on the third-floor landing.
    â€œCome in,” he said, leading me into his sitting room. “Do you want some tea?”
    â€œI’d rather have a beer. It’s been a long day at the office.”
    He disappeared and returned