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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.’
    ‘Yes,’ I said. I knew most of this from discussions Tony and I had had during the last fourteen days. ‘But where do I fit in?’
    Tony looked around him as if making sure no one was lurking and listening. He also lowered his voice.
    ‘For some time I have had my suspicions that we have an informant in our ranks.’
    ‘Mmm,’ I mused. ‘Corruption within the anti-corruption agency. Not good.’
    ‘Indeed not,’ Tony said.
    ‘How do you know?’ I asked.
    ‘I don’t know ,’ Tony said. ‘I only have suspicions. My racing team have initiated several operations only to discover that the target has got rid of the evidence
just before we turn up. At first I thought it was bad luck, but it has happened too often.’
    ‘What sort of operations?’ I asked.
    ‘We recently raided the barns of a trainer who we believed was employing illegal immigrants as grooms, mostly Mexicans, paying them well under the minimum wage and in cash to avoid federal
payroll taxes and Social Security dues. We had done our homework and were pretty sure we had the trainer dead to rights. All we needed was to catch the illegals in the act.’
    ‘But you found none?’ I said.
    ‘Not one. Vanished like mist in the morning sunshine.’ Tony held his hands out, palms uppermost. ‘On another occasion we received a tip from a disgruntled ex-employee that a
Maryland horse farm was using an unlicensed antibiotic together with equine growth hormone on a newly born foal in order to determine if they made the foal grow faster and larger. This practice
would be unlawful under the US Animal Welfare Act, but we were involved because it would also constitute a fraud on the future buyer of the foal. So the team arrived one day at