‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Jim asked. ‘Go to the police?’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But that would almost definitely involve breaking confidences.’ I laughed. ‘Perhaps I’ll just catch the murdering bastard myself.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Jim sarcastically, ‘you and whose army?’
23
I hadn’t imagined there would be so many policemen. They stood in groups of two or three inside each of the racecourse entrances with clipboards asking everyone who came in if they had been there the previous Wednesday, the day of Toby Woodley’s murder.
I had arrived at Kempton really early in order to help set up the equipment but now I wasn’t at all sure if the whole thing hadn’t been a waste of time.
With all these coppers around, surely only a fool would attempt to collect blackmail money. But the blackmailer had been the one to specify the time and place, and you couldn’t actually see the police from the car park.
I’d telephoned Austin Reynolds earlier, just to check that he wasn’t getting cold feet and also to finalize when and where he was to park his car. I had to take a chance that the blackmailer wouldn’t be made suspicious by Austin parking close to where the RacingTV scanner would be situated.
‘Park close to the big blue television outside-broadcast vehicles that are at the far side of the car park, near the fence behind the saddling boxes.’
‘How can I do that?’ Austin had asked. ‘Don’t I have to go where I’m told by the car park attendants?’
‘There won’t be any attendants,’ I’d said. ‘They don’t have them for the night meetings because parking is free and the crowds are small. People park where they like, mostly as close as they can to the enclosure entrances. There are always plenty of spaces. Arrive at precisely half past four, and enter by the racecourse main gate on Staines Road. Drive round towards the television vehicles and try to choose a space that has an unoccupied one alongside on its right. I promise you, the car park will not be busy, especially over an hour before the first race.’
‘All right.’ He hadn’t sounded very confident.
‘Austin,’ I’d said. ‘This is all you have to do, so do it right.’
I wasn’t at all sure that he would even turn up at Kempton, but he did, and at precisely the right time, turning his large blue BMW through the main gate at exactly four thirty.
I had been waiting for him out on Staines Road in the rented Honda Civic, and I now pulled out into the traffic and followed him into the racecourse car park and round towards the TV vehicles.
Austin parked in a free space just three away from the end of the scanner and I pulled the Honda into the space on his right, immediately alongside him. Perfect, I thought. I couldn’t have positioned the two cars better if I’d painted white crosses on the tarmac.
I climbed out of the Honda and walked directly to the scanner without looking once at Austin or his car. One never knew who was watching.
‘Ideal,’ said Gareth, one of the bright young RacingTV technicians who had been as keen as mustard to help out. ‘Anything for some bleedin’ excitement.’
Gareth had spent the morning and afternoon setting up all the camera equipment around the racecourse, and he would take it all down again later, after the racing had finished. He was only there in between times in case any part of the system actually broke down, when his job was then to fix it. He always joked that he was the only member of the broadcast team who actively wanted something to go wrong in order to alleviate the mind-numbing boredom of the actual programme.
Gareth didn’t really like racing, but he absolutely loved television cameras.
‘Can it be done?’ I’d asked him.
‘Course it can, me old sugar,’ he’d replied in his strong London accent. ‘I can do bloody anything when it comes to cameras. Mr Bleedin’ Magic, I am.’
And he was.
He hadn’t even wanted to know why I needed a particular car to be kept under constant observation. To him, it was clearly just a game and the reasons for it didn’t matter. ‘Ask no bleedin’ questions,’ he’d said, ‘and I’ll be told no bleedin’ lies.’
He’d set up one of the small hand-held cameras in the back of the Honda so that it pointed out of the side window behind the rear door, and he’d shown me how to park the car for maximum coverage. We now sat together in the scanner looking at a monitor that showed the images received from the camera through a link Gareth had established between the roof of the Honda and the signals-relay vehicle.
‘Bleedin’ marvellous,’ Gareth exclaimed, staring closely at the monitor. ‘Crackin’ good picture too, considerin’ it only uses a normal internet wireless link.’
The wide-angle lens on the camera meant we could see all the way down the far side of Austin Reynolds’s car, and right down to ground level, with a particularly good shot of the offside rear wheel, behind which I could already see the corner of a brown envelope sticking out.
‘Can you run that back?’ I asked Gareth.
‘Sure,’ he said, and the image jerked slightly as he put the recording into reverse on the screen. Even played backwards, it was clear for us both to see Austin Reynolds as he’d got out of his car, opened the back door, removed his coat from the back seat, closed the door, put on the coat, and then leaned down to place a brown padded envelope behind the rear wheel, before walking off towards the entrance to the enclosures.
‘What’s in the envelope?’ Gareth asked, his inquisitiveness getting the better of him for a moment.
‘Just some stones,’ I said.
‘Diamonds?’ Gareth was suddenly quite interested.
‘No such luck,’ I said, laughing. ‘Just a few pieces of ordinary gravel to stop it blowing away.’
Gareth didn’t ask me why Austin was placing a worthless envelope behind his rear offside wheel, which I was then going to such trouble to watch — ask no bleedin’ questions, and he’d be told no bleedin’ lies.
‘How about the other camera?’ I asked.
‘No problem,’ he said, looking at another image on his monitor. ‘I’ll just go and make a small adjustment.’
He disappeared outside and I watched on the monitor as the picture moved slightly to the left and Austin’s car came clearly into view with the racecourse entrance beyond. This second camera was attached to the side of one of the receiving-dome frameworks on the roof of the signals-relay vehicle that was parked alongside the scanner.
Gareth returned and seemed satisfied with his handiwork.
‘Right,’ he said. ‘That should do it. Good job we’ve got no girls tonight or we’d be needin’ that camera.’
‘Girls’ in this instance did not refer necessarily to womankind. It was the nickname for any presenters, male or female, who sat in a glass-fronted box overlooking the parade ring to describe the horses before a race. Someone had once stated that they had chatted away to each other like a pair of schoolgirls, and the nickname had stuck.
The use of such paddock boxes used to be routine but they are now mostly seen at only the big meetings, when one of the small cameras would be employed to briefly show the ‘girls’, mostly men and usually sitting side by side wearing headphones.
No girls tonight.
Oh, God! Don’t remind me.
The blackmailer took the envelope at seven thirty-five, just as the seven runners for the fourth race were being mounted in the parade ring, and at the precise moment when Austin Reynolds was giving his jockey a leg-up into the saddle.