Death at the Post

By Trevor L. White

A racing crime novel based on the
doping of racehorses with the
anabolic steroid trenbolone, to
build muscle, stamina and speed, to
gain the winners share of stakemoney
by Australian trainersbut
this story is mostly fiction.

ANOTHER BLOCK BUSTER STORY
By Trevor L White

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Jul 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477146231

Trevor L. White

n/a

Book preview

Death at the Post

Trevor L. White

Copyright © 2012 by Trevor L. White.

ISBN:           Ebook                  978-1-4771-4623-1

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

0800-891-366

www.xlibris.co.nz

[e-mail]

700377

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

A racing crime novel based on the doping of racehorses with the anabolic steroid trenbolone, to build muscle, stamina and speed, to gain the winners share of stake-money by Australian trainers . . . but this story is mostly fiction.

ANOTHER BLOCK BUSTER STORY

By Trevor L White

ISBN 0-476-01216-3

‘Bloody Jim Manners!’ he interrupted, his face twisting into a snarl. ‘Damn it—is he still around. Can I never get rid of that bastard!’ He ripped a sheet of paper from a pad and pounded it into a small ball.

‘Well, you can now,’ said Dalton, pulling up a chair. ‘He’s dead.’

‘Thank the devil for that,’ he grunted.

‘He was murdered.’

‘I didn’t do it.’ He swivelled his chair round and viciously fired the paper comet into the rubbish tin. If he missed it would have gone into orbit. ‘Two or three years ago I could’ve done it cheerfully.’

‘Tell me about Manners.’

‘What’s to tell, the uncommunicative bastard! Put myself out on a limb for him, I did, and bloody near got sacked in the process.’ He leaned forward and pointed a finger as long as an asteroid belt. ‘Manners reckoned—and I can just about recall his exact words—he’d been touched by a Mafia associate.’ The pointing finger was withdrawn and he skimmed the hand over his hair. ‘Touched? Touched in the head more like.’

*     *     *

‘I have information that Manners had knowledge of a racing swindle. Have you heard of any such assumptions?’

‘No, but Sir Russell Compton’s my lighthouse on that subject—gives me my first warnings of trouble,’ the chief steward replied.

*     *     *

She looked a ravishing beauty and had the figure to match. Perhaps she was only having him on, if so, an enticing game, one he would enjoy. His meal that night went down rather well.

*     *     *

About the author’s other books

DANGEROUS DOLLARS 

ISBN 0-473-09072-4

Criminals couldn’t wait to get their hands on the new Euro dollar. Britian’s Croad brothers gang were already organised to do do.

Scotland Yard detective Dalton was being assisted to catch them by Interpol’s top man or was he?

Dalton relying on his own hunches to solve the case, finds himself on a whirlwind investigation centred in Europe, dodging bullets, and ambushes, surviving car chases and death threats, to finally solve the case and win his lady.

KILL MAKER 

ISBN: 978-1-4520-5630-2 (sc)

Three plots each woven into a fast moving story of intrigue, murder, scheming and double-cross. Involving the mastermind of the London Tube bombing, the IRA bombings and the robbers of Ireland’s biggest bank. Let Scotland Yard detective Dalton find the answers and revenge the killing of his parents and partner.

COWBOY TO FREEDOM

McCoy’s sales yard brought thousands of longhorn cattle to Sabilene to start the Chisholm Trail drive to northern markets. Sheriff Dan Lyons and his two deputies Travis and Deighton had to deal with hundreds of wild cowboys. And with the cowboys came the saloons, the booze, the girls, the gamblers, the gunfighters, stage coach robbers, bank robbers and rustlers.

Acknowledgements

for information and assistance

Steve Railton, past chairman of stewards Queensland Principal Club.

The Australian rules of racing. The Weekend Australian. The Sun-Herald.

The Sunday Telegraph. The Police Services of the UK. RCA—horse racing UK.

British Horse Racing Board. National Office of Animal Health UK.

My editor Lesley Marshall who turns stories into books.

Dennis Markham, chief racing writer Adelaide Advertiser.

Alan Ramsay, Warren Shaw, Trevor Knight, John Bailey. Frances Stevens, MA

Chapter One

When Dalton walked into his office he saw the message straight away. Mike Sloane wanted to see him. He hesitated, wondering if he had time to grab a quick cup of coffee, and then decided against it

Chief Superintendent Sloane was one of the London Metropolitan Police Force’s top men. The hierarchy of New Scotland Yard didn’t like Sloane as he kept pinching the services of their best investigators and their specialists. It was rumoured he had political contacts.

Driving over to see him, Dalton thought back over his recent cases—the London dockyard bombings that killed his parents, and before that the Euro dollar swindle—and wondered how he could help him.

Sloane looked up from his desk, pushed aside papers and placed his hands in a come-clean fashion on the desk pad. His grey eyes probed but he didn’t say anything, so Dalton spoke first. ‘You wanted to see me, sir?’

‘That’s right. Sit down, Sergeant. I’ve had you seconded to the Metropolitan Police Force to assist us in a rather unusual case.’ He picked up a manila file and flipped it open. ‘I’ve read your personal file, Dalton, and I’m impressed. Distinction at the Police Academy, followed up by some good case work.’ He leaned back in his leather chair and stroked his chin. ‘H’mm. Meticulous reporting of the facts and ending up catching those responsible. I like that.’ He pushed the file aside, slid another slim folder across his desk and thumbed it open.

Dalton tried not to grin at such unusual praise. Sloane was known to have a hard streak in him, pen pusher or not. So he looked away to hide his glee, concentrating on the carefully placed black-and-white photographs hung on the wall behind Sloane. A younger Mike Sloane, about Dalton’s own age of thirty-four was featured accepting awards for bravery. Dalton glanced back at Sloane’s dissatisfied face, the slight paunch, and decided there and then he wasn’t going to end up a desk-wallah. Dalton liked being out on the street investigating crimes, and the day he gave that up he’d leave the Yard.

‘You might already have heard about Jim Manners, the racing inspector.’ Sloane saw the puzzled look cross Dalton’s face. ‘He was found dead on the race track early this morning.’

Dalton’s head jerked up in surprise. ‘Manners dead! Wasn’t he an undercover agent working for the Yard? What happened?’

‘He did assist the Yard sometime ago. He was murdered.’ Sloane’s tone was matter of fact. ‘I haven’t got the full details. The body was discovered at the Kempton Park racecourse, near the winning post.’ Sloane wheezed slightly, took out his handkerchief and blew into it. A swift glance didn’t reveal any space dust. ‘It was thought Manners might have been onto a Mafia racetrack swindle of some kind. At least that’s what his Scotland Yard controller suspected at one time, and that’s why you’re here, Dalton, to pick up on it.’ He paused briefly. ‘Both his Kempton Park racecourse office and his home have been ransacked—someone was looking for something.’

‘I’m not only investigating a murder, but I’m going to have a look at what’s going on in the racing industry?’

‘That about sums it up, except that Detective Sergeant Philip Benton will be assisting.’ His bushy eyebrows lifted as he handed over the folder. ‘Not much to go on, I’m afraid, so you’ll both have your work cut out.’

He could be right—the racing industry had a reputation of being a fairly closed shop. Who wanted Manners dead and why? The first person to see would be Manners’s former controller, Inspector Newman and then D.S. Benton, Sloane’s man in the case.

Dalton’s knock on the plain panel door was followed by a muffled, ‘Come in.’

Inspector Newman, his long grey hair tied at the back in a pigtail, swung off his chair to welcome him. Dalton had seen him about the building and knew he had the reputation of being a bit unorthodox.

‘Detective Sergeant Warren Dalton, is it?’ Newman said stretching out a thin hand and giving Dalton a sponge handshake. ‘Yeah, I’ve seen you around, Dalton. What’s your problem?’

‘Jim Manners—’

‘Bloody Jim Manners!’ Newman interrupted, his face twisting into a snarl. ‘Damn it—is he still around—can I never get rid of that bastard! Take a seat.’ Looking down, he ripped a sheet of paper from a pad and pounded it into a small ball.

‘Well, you can now,’ Dalton said, pulling up a chair and dropping his athletic frame into it. ‘He’s dead.’

‘Dead?’ He jerked his eyes up and caught a nod of confirmation. ‘Thank the devil for that,’ he grunted.

‘He was murdered.’

‘I didn’t do it.’ His chair swivelled round and he viciously fired the paper comet into the rubbish tin. If he’d missed it would have gone into orbit. ‘Two or three years ago I could have done it cheerfully.’

‘Tell me about Manners.’

‘What’s to tell, the uncommunicative bastard! Put myself out on a limb for him, I did, and bloody near got sacked in the process.’ He leaned forward and pointed a finger as long as an asteroid belt. ‘Manners reckoned—and I can nearly recall his exact words even now—he’d been touched by a Mafia associate.’ The pointing finger was withdrawn and he skimmed the palm over his hair. ‘Touched? Touched in the head more like.’

‘When was that?’ Dalton asked.

‘Oh, about two, three years ago.’ He stood up, he ferreted through a filing cabinet, extracted a thin manila folder, plonked it on his desk, spun his chair, sat down and began leafing through. ‘I thought it might lead to something big for a while. One of his rare reports mentioned the Mafia meddling in medical experiments to improve the health of animals; horses in particular… even hinted that the experiments could be fronting a racing swindle if they were successful. I requested more information from him.’ He consulted the back page of the file. ‘But I received only one more report—four months later. Four months! Can you believe it? My boss was extremely unhappy to say the least because I’d convinced him to keep Manners on the payroll. Manners strung me along good and proper.’

‘What did that last report have to say?’ Dalton enquired, hoping for a glimmer of light, just something of value.

‘Bloody nothing! His Mafia informant—if indeed it really was the Mafia—had stopped all contact with him.’ He flipped the file towards Dalton. ‘Here, take it. Contact lost. That’s all Manners filed in.’ He shuddered. ‘The boss blew his stack—wasting taxpayers’ money he called it and I got a written reprimand. If Manners had ever come my way again I’d have given the little prick a piece of my mind.’

‘Did Manners have any enemies?’

‘How would I know? Though he had one—me!’ He jerked his head back, twisted his face into a leering grin, the movements causing his pigtail to bob up and down.

‘Why did you employ Manners in the first place?’

‘He’d helped us solve a Mafia case a few years before. It involved smuggling drugs into the country using horseboxes, and he supplied details that would’ve taken us days to obtain without him. We came to look on him as an expert in his field.’

‘He was that good, eh?’

‘Yeah—he could’ve joined my section full-time but for his one big hurdle. He wouldn’t file reports, bugger him!’

Newman didn’t have anything further to add but as Dalton reached for the doorknob to let himself out he heard him ask, ‘Well, who killed Manners?’

‘I don’t know, but I’ll find out.’

It was time to meet Detective Sergeant Philip Benton, at Kempton Park racecourse. After introductions in the crime-scene office, Benton, apologetically informed Dalton, ‘The forensic boffins haven’t finished at the scene—they’re still gathering information and will have to make up their reports.’ He gave a shrug of exasperation; the boffins had turned up late and rockets were exchanged on both sides.

‘Oh, sure, I won’t bother them then.’ Dalton looked around. ‘Pretty good set-up you have here.’ There were three people operating computers, two on phones, two more attending to pin-boards, and others working with filing cabinets and at desks.

‘Not too bad. I’ve also got staff canvassing the area,’ Benton said with a touch of pride.

‘Perhaps we could work out between us how best to handle this case. Sloane wants me to work on Manners’ background and with the racing authorities. I take it you both agreed to that?’

Relief flooded Benton’s face. He’d never worked with a Yard member before and had understood them to be prickly beasts. ‘Yes. My priority is to establish how, when and where. We thought you could stick to the why—seeing Manners worked as an agent for the Yard you would know more about him—and between us we should find who did it.’

Dalton didn’t tell him that the Yard knew sweet Fanny Adams about Manners. ‘How was he killed?’

‘We know he was shot in the back of the head—a Mafia-style killing—but there were other injuries too. The autopsy report will tell us—when we get it.’

‘That’s interesting.’

‘Why do you say that?’

He told Benton of his meeting with Inspector Newman and about the Mafia link.

‘That’s interesting,’ mimicked Benton bringing a laugh that relieved some of the tension between them. Having come to an amicable arrangement about their roles, Dalton didn’t linger, saying he had work to do—needing to close off a few files back at the Yard before putting all his effort into the new assignment.

Back in his office he received a phone call from Sir Russell Compton, inviting him to attend the next day’s monthly meeting of racecourse inspectors. Compton said he’d heard about Manners’ death and that as Dalton was one of the detectives working on the case this was an opportunity to meet some of the people that could assist him. Dalton didn’t ask how he’d found out, feeling sure this was Sloane working in the political background. Sloane, mused Dalton, was shrewd enough to keep the planets spinning.

At nine on Wednesday morning Dalton was parked outside Stratford House, a ten-storey concrete insurance building constructed like a launching pad with few outstanding features. The Racecourse Association rooms were on the third floor. He’d purposely arrived an hour early, and prevailed upon the receptionist to let him wait in the conference room so as to see and meet each of the racing inspectors as they arrived.

It was a large Edwardian-style room, its wood-panelled walls adorned by pictures of racehorses bearing jockeys that flourished the colours of famous owners, in the course of winning a selection of classic English races. In the centre of the room was a large oval table capable of seating up to twenty people.

The first person to enter was the chairperson himself, Sir Russell Compton. An elderly man aged about sixty, ample paunch, greying pushed-back hair and wearing a dark striped double-breasted suit. ‘Welcome, Detective Dalton, very glad you could come,’ he said with a friendly smile. ‘It’s a bad thing when one of your own is murdered.’

‘Not good,’ Dalton concurred.

‘Had the trademark of a Mafia slaying, according to this morning’s newspapers.’

‘Yes—tall on headlines and short on facts as we say in the trade.’ Benton had given little away. ‘What kind of man was Manners?’ he asked, seeking to get a clip-on to tag the victim’s profile.

‘Jim? Oh, he ‘d been involved in racing for many years—first as a stable hand, then as a racing club committee member, and for the last ten years as an inspector. Dedicated to his job he was, always trying to help owners and trainers to further their interests. He’d recently been helping trainers by advising on the use of drugs for treating horses’ ailments. Always trying to help and sympathetic to their requirements yet never lost sight of what the rules of racing were trying to achieve… a sport that was fair to all concerned. He’ll be sorely missed,’ he said, bowing his head a little.

‘Did people like him? I mean, he had a lot of authority. Probably upset a few… ‘

‘No.’ He backed away slightly. ‘Highly respected in racing quarters he was, never heard a bad word spoken against him.’

‘You mentioned the use of drugs. Did he ever carry out experiments in animal health treatments?’

‘With drugs?’ He stepped back further.

‘Possibly with drugs,’ amended Dalton cagily.

‘Never!’ Compton fired back sharply.

‘Without drugs?’

‘Never!’ His shoulders stiffened and he shifted on his feet.

‘He assisted trainers with the use of drugs… you said,’ Dalton reminded him.

‘Oh, I see now where you are coming from.’ He relaxed. ‘No,’ he said moving confidentially closer, ‘the information and advice he gave out was learnt from attending manufacturers seminars on animal remedies. He only passed the information on.’

Dalton wondered about that too, but decided to change the subject. ‘How many racing inspectors are there?’

‘Fifteen, and they should all be here this morning. Here come some now—go and make yourself known. I must leave you as we have another guest arriving to address the meeting.’

Sir Russell departed, heading for a small man who looked as if he’d lost his way. Dalton introduced himself to each racecourse inspector as they arrived. Some he already knew since they were ex-police officers, and welcomed the opportunity to renew acquaintances.

The meeting commenced and ran smoothly enough. Respect was paid to the late Jim Manners as a highly regarded servant of the racing industry, and then Dalton was introduced to everyone and sought their assistance to bring Manners’ killer to justice.

Angello Adamson, a representative of Bookmakers Incorporated was the guest speaker. He was slim with a dark complexion, and his manner and speech brought to mind the Sicilian Mafia—or the worst side of Chicago, which was where his firm was headquartered. He gave an interesting address on how his firm had detected a change in the winning patterns of some trainers. It appeared they were winning more frequently, and just as regularly Bookmakers Incorporated was losing huge sums of money. This made Dalton sit up and take notice. However Adamson received a cool reception from the inspectors since he was obliquely accusing them of not doing their job—which he somehow saw as being solely to prevent his firm from losing money.

Then Lester Mercer, a racing inspector from Wolverhampton who’d been at school with Dalton, got up and accused Adamson of employing the Mafia to warn off trainers who’d been having more than their fair share of winners. He even said Adamson had warned off two trainers personally. And after the warnings, accidents had occurred.

That stirred the meeting up. Angello Adamson vigorously denied causing accidents and became so aroused he began to look like a caricature of a Mafia hit man. His firm must be hurting really bad money wise.

Dalton was glad when Mercer came up to him after the meeting. ‘Well, if it isn’t Wiry Dalton!’ Mercer said, using a nickname given to Dalton many years ago when he’d been a strong but skinny kid. He inwardly winced. ‘So you’re a copper now, are you?’

‘That’s right. Good to see you again, Lester.’ Dalton held his gaze taking in the brown tweed sports coat with leather patches on the elbows, the dark green military drill trousers, and the brown riding boots. ‘So why do you think it’s the Mafia behind some of these accidents, Lester?’

Mercer cocked his head, his slim, weather-beaten face and brown eyes giving him the look of a wily gamekeeper, then scanned the room before coming closer. ‘There’re too many listening around here. However, I’ve got my suspicions about what’s going on and I’ve sent a report to the Racecourse Association’s chief racing steward. Come and see me.’

‘Okay—when?’

‘Say around lunchtime on Friday at my Wolverhampton Racecourse office.’

Dalton inclined his head. ‘I’ll be there.’

‘Good, and afterwards I’ll give you a tour of a racing stable if you want.’

‘Great. Will it be at a stable whose trainer was warned by Adamson or where an accident occurred?’

Mercer stepped even closer to Dalton, talking directly into his left ear. ‘I’ll take you to John Mossely’s Tawny Hills stable,’ and whispered, ‘he was warned off.’ His eye caught someone else’s and he drew back.

‘Wait a minute, Lester. Who was the second trainer who was warned?’

‘Mace Downs from the Shirley Downs stable,’ he said as he edged away, and then hurried to meet up with Sir Russell Compton.

Dalton considered he’d made a good start, and that it was time to talk to Angello Adamson to see what could be spun off him. He’d noticed Sir Russell Compton speaking to the man earlier but now Adamson was alone, shunned and about to depart.

‘Excuse me, Mr. Adamson.’

Adamson turned towards the speaker and when he saw whom it was his shoulders slumped in despair.

Dalton put out a friendly hand of greeting, which was taken without enthusiasm. ‘I won’t take too much of your time. Did you know Jim Manners?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ he said defensively.

‘I’m interested