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

had implied that his life would be in danger if he didn’t repay it by the following evening. I would have normally dismissed such a threat as melodramatic nonsense but now, after the events at Aintree the previous Saturday, I wasn’t so sure.
    Should I tell someone about our conversation? But who? The police would probably want some evidence, and I had none. I also didn’t want to get Billy into trouble. Jockeys who owe money would always be suspected of involvement with bookmakers. Perhaps Billy’s need for urgent cash was completely legitimate. Maybe he was buying a house. I knew that estate agents could be pretty determined in their selling methods, but surely they didn’t threaten murder to close a deal.
    I decided to do nothing until I’d had a chance to discuss it with Patrick. Besides, I would need to inform him before I could start the process of liquidating Billy’s assets.
    I looked at my watch. It was already past six o’clock, and the office would be closed. I’d have to speak to Patrick about it in the morning. Nothing could be done now anyway, the markets in London were also long closed for the day.
    Instead, I went to stay with my mother.
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    H ello, darling,” she said, opening her front door. “You’re far too thin.”
    It was her usual greeting, and one that was due to her long-standing pathological fear that I was anorexic. It had all started when I’d been a fifteen-year-old who had been desperate to be a jockey. I’d never been very short so I had begun starving myself to keep my weight down. But it hadn’t been due to anorexia, just willpower. I had always loved my food, but it seemed that my body, and my mind, had now finally trained themselves to stay thin.
    As a rule, I never really thought about food and, if left to my own devices, there was little doubt that I would have become undernourished through neglect. But my mother saw to it that I didn’t. She would literally send food parcels to Claudia with strict instructions to feed me more protein, or more carbohydrate, or just more.
    â€œHello, Mum,” I said, ignoring her comment and giving her a kiss. “How are things?”
    â€œSo-so,” she replied, as always.
    She still lived near Cheltenham but not in the big house in which I had grown up. Sadly, that had had to be sold during my parents’ acrimonious divorce proceedings in order to divide the capital between them. My mother’s current home was a small whitewashed cottage, hidden down a rutted lane on the edge of a small village just north of the racetrack with two double bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs, and a single open-plan kitchen/ dining room/living room downstairs, the levels connected by a narrow, twisting, boxed-in staircase in the corner, with a leverlatched door at the bottom.
    The cottage was an ideal size for her enforced solitary lifestyle, but I knew she longed still to be the charming hostess in the grand house, a role in which she had excelled throughout my childhood.
    â€œHow’s your father?” she asked.
    Her inquiry was a social nicety rather than a true request for information. She probably thought that I’d appreciate her asking.
    â€œHe’s fine,” I replied, completing the duty. At least I assumed he was fine. I hadn’t spoken to him for more than a fortnight. We really didn’t have much to say to each other.
    â€œGood,” she said, but I doubt that she really meant it. I thought she would almost certainly have also replied “Good” if I’d told her he was on his deathbed. But at least she had asked, which was more than he ever did about her.
    â€œI’ve bought you some fillet steak for dinner,” she said, turning the conversation back to my feeding habits. “And I’ve made some profiteroles for pudding.”
    â€œLovely,” I said. And I meant it. As usual, when coming to stay with my mother, I