Perhaps being stuck in Newmarket with the horses wasn’t so bad after all.
‘Anything else?’ ASW asked again.
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘A few tips might be handy. I might go to the races on Thursday for the very first time in my life.’
‘My only tip is to keep your money in your pocket,’ ASW said with certainty. ‘There’s no such thing as a poor bookmaker.’
‘I thought you liked to gamble,’ I said, surprised.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘But not on horses. My whole life’s been a gamble but I prefer it when the odds are stacked in my favour, not against them. If I were to gamble seriously, I’d have to be the bookmaker.’ He laughed. ‘Right, I’ll get those research results emailed to you as soon as possible.’
We disconnected.
What I would really like, I thought, was Zoe Robertson’s mobile phone records, but not even the Simpson White Research Team could get those, not without breaking the law, and that would open up a whole new can of worms. Information obtained illegally was not only rightly excluded from any court case, but the fact that it had been gathered in the first place tended to taint everything else, however clean and legitimate the rest might be.
At six o’clock I walked along from my room to the hotel bar and ordered a Newmarket Gin with tonic.
It was difficult to believe that it was still Tuesday and I’d been here for only thirty hours. It felt like so much longer.
After my meeting with DCI Eastwood, I had spent some of the afternoon walking through the town purchasing a few essential articles, like wellington boots, a pair of thick socks and a coat. Even in mid-May, it could be very cold in the mornings.
It was difficult, if not impossible, to get away from horses and horse racing in Newmarket and it was not for nothing that locals referred to it as ‘HQ’.
The red-brick Jockey Club headquarters building, with its life-size statue of the horse Hyperion on display outside, dominates the western end of the High Street. Nowadays, it is little more than a private club where one can rent out its grand rooms for weddings, but once this was where the power of British racing was housed and exercised, where the Stewards of the Jockey Club would sit round a horseshoe-shaped table and decide on the future of those suspected of misdemeanours in the sport of kings. Reputations and livelihoods were at stake as the accused were made to stand on a small piece of carpet between the jaws of the table to hear their fate, hence coining the phrase ‘to be carpeted’.
Such power had the members of the Jockey Club in the mid-nineteenth century that, with the coming of the railway, they insisted that a tunnel be bored to preserve the lower part of the Warren Hill training grounds. The kilometre-long Warren Hill Tunnel is still in use today and, despite its name, it’s probably the only rail tunnel in rural England built under a piece of totally flat land.
Newmarket, for all its racing grandeur, remains a small metropolis, with a human population of only some twenty thousand souls, yet it boasts no fewer than thirteen separate betting shops. But perhaps the most bizarre indication that this is a one-industry — if not a one-horse — town is that the local undertakers have a window display that not only features sober gravestones in black and white marble, but also a blue-painted jockey-sized coffin adorned all over with horse-racing scenes.
I took my drink and wandered round the hotel bar looking at the photographs and artwork hanging on the walls. As expected, nearly all were of sporting scenes but one chronicled the history of the hotel. It had initially been built as a hunting lodge in the eighteenth century, then converted to a racing stables in the nineteenth, before becoming a hotel and spa in the mid-twentieth.
‘Mr Foster?’ said a soft female voice, bringing me back to the here and now from the history lesson.
‘Yes?’ I said, looking down at two young women sitting at a corner table, empty champagne flutes in front of them.
‘Janie Logan,’ one of them said. ‘I work for Ryan Chadwick. I saw you at Castleton House Stables this morning.’
‘Of course,’ I said, remembering the head of tight red curls.
‘This is Catherine, my sister. It’s her birthday.’
‘Happy birthday,’ I said. ‘Can I get you both another drink?’
The two looked at each other and an unspoken message clearly passed between them.
‘Sure,’ Janie said. ‘We have time. Thank you.’
‘Champagne?’ I asked, looking at their empty glasses.
The women looked at each other again, then up at me.
‘That would be lovely.’
I put my own drink down on the table and took their empties to the bar.
‘Two more champagnes, please,’ I said to the barman.
‘They had Prosecco before,’ he replied drily, raising a questioning eyebrow.
In a flash, all my insecurities over women rose to the fore. Did I get them another Prosecco and perhaps be thought of as a cheapskate? Or did I buy the real McCoy and risk being considered too pretentious?
Decisions, decisions. Which way did I jump?
‘Champagne,’ I said. After all, that was what I’d offered them.
He poured the golden bubbles into two fresh glasses and I carried them over to the table.
‘Join us,’ Janie said, pulling up another chair.
‘Thank you. I will.’ I sat down and picked up my gin and tonic. ‘Cheers, and happy birthday, Catherine.’
We drank the toast.
‘Oh, that’s lovely,’ Catherine said after taking a sip. ‘A real treat. Thank you. And please call me Kate. Only our mum calls me Catherine, and also Janie when she’s being bossy.’
‘All right, Kate,’ I said. ‘I will.’
She looked deeply into my eyes and smiled.
It did nothing for my insecurity.
I was flustered. It was not a condition I was familiar with. In my work I was confident, assured and positive, some might even say arrogant, so why did the presence of a pretty girl smiling at me create such a quivering-jelly feeling in my stomach?
‘So, are you two off to a birthday party?’ I asked, then instantly regretted it, sure that they would think me too forward, as if I was asking myself to go with them.
‘Just a small dinner with friends and family,’ Kate said. ‘I’m too old now for parties.’
She looked about thirty.
‘What nonsense,’ I said. ‘My mother says there’s nothing like a good party and she’s in her sixties.’
What am I doing? I thought, in absolute horror.
Dating rule number one: Never ever talk about your mother.
Change the subject, and fast.
‘So, Janie,’ I said. ‘How long have you worked for Ryan Chadwick?’
‘Five years now with Mr Ryan,’ she said. ‘Since he took over. I came with the yard.’ She laughed. ‘I went to work for Mr Chadwick when I left school. There’s nothing I don’t know about the place.’
‘The fire must have come as a big shock,’ I said.
‘Massive. Those poor horses.’ There were now tears in Janie’s eyes. ‘I can’t bear to think how they suffered. Especially Prince of Troy. He was our great hope. Lovely horse.’ She took a tissue from her handbag and blew her nose.
‘Janie’s mad about horses,’ Kate said. ‘Always has been.’
‘Did you ever ride them?’ I asked.
‘Sure,’ Janie replied. ‘I worked there first as a stable lad. Did my two and rode them out every morning. Happy days.’