“But won’t your mates’ numbers show up on caller ID?” I said. “I don’t want them traced.”
“So I’ll get my mates to withhold their numbers, or they can call from the pay phones in Wycombe,” he said. “It’s dead easy.”
“OK,” I said. “Fix it.”
Larry Porter arrived and began to set up his pitch alongside ours.
“Have you got the equipment?” I asked him.
“Yes. All set,” Larry said. “Bill’s coming separately, later.”
Bill, I assumed, was the man I had seen at Ascot in the white shirt and fawn chinos who had placed the “two monkeys” bet with me when the Internet and phones had gone down just before the Gold Cup.
The maiden hurdle was the fifth race of the afternoon, and I became more and more nervous as the clock ticked around to four-thirty, race time. Monday-afternoon racing anywhere was always quiet, and today was no exception. But the lack of activity in the betting ring did nothing to help settle the butterflies in my stomach.
In all, the bookmaker turnout was reasonable. I counted sixteen of us in the main betting ring, and there were a few others over near the course, all of us chasing the meager pickings from the sparse Monday crowd. But other than Larry and Norman, I didn’t recognize any of the other bookies, as we were at the northern extent of our usual patch and wouldn’t normally be standing at Bangor.
At long last, it was nearing the maiden hurdle race time. The horses were in the saddling boxes and the punters were beginning to make their selections. There were nineteen runners, with Pool House the fairly short-priced favorite at six-to-four. The horse had raced three times previously and finished second on the last two occasions. And today it was being ridden by the many-times-champion jockey who had made the journey from Lambourn especially to ride this one horse, so he, for one, expected it to win. And all the newspapers agreed with him.
With the horses in the parade ring, and with precisely six minutes to go before the scheduled start time, I nodded imperceptibly to Larry, who pushed his out-of-sight switch to turn on the phone jammer. At the same time, I nudged Luca, who activated his virus on the racetrack’s Internet server, effectively putting it out of action and isolating the track from the outside world.
I thought of the thirty juvenile delinquents and hoped that they were all poised to place their bets.
A man in a white shirt and fawn chinos suddenly appeared in front of me. Bill, I assumed.
“Grand on number four,” he said, thrusting a wad of banknotes towards me.
Number four was the second favorite.
“Grand on number four at three-to-one,” I said loudly over my shoulder.
“Offer at eleven-to-four,” Luca said equally loudly.
“OK,” said the man. I gave him the TALBOT AND MANDINI-printed ticket, and the price changed on our board.
“Give me a monkey on four at threes,” Luca bellowed at Larry Porter.
“You can have it at five-to-two,” Larry shouted back.
“OK,” said Luca, who then turned the other way towards Norman Joyner. “Give me a monkey on number four,” he shouted even louder.
“Fine,” shouted Norman back. “At nine-to-four.”
Within less than a minute, the price of horse number four was tumbling all over the betting ring and, as a result, the price of Pool House, the favorite, was tending to drift longer.
The panic from the boys from the big outfits wasn’t as dramatic as it had been at Ascot, but it was fairly impressive nonetheless. They rushed around trying desperately to get their phones to work but without success. I saw one of them rush off to use the pay phone, but he was soon back with a frustrated look on his face.
But they had all clearly been well briefed after the incident at Ascot. They clearly knew that the price of the hot favorite had, on that occasion, lengthened during the time when the Internet and phones were down. They would also know that when the favorite then won, they all got hit badly because all the bets in the High Street betting shops were paid out on the starting price, and that had been artificially made too high.
Consequently, the big-firm boys, those with the cash in their pockets, now took it upon themselves, in the absence of orders from their head offices, to back the favorite heavily, to bring its price down again to six-to-four.
There was almost panic to get their money on with the ring bookies before the start. I took a number of big bets, and, reluctantly, we brought the price of Pool House down from seven-to-four, first to thirteen-to-eight, then to six-to-four and finally to eleven-to-eight, before the off. The horse had actually started at shorter odds than it would have if we had done nothing.
The race began, and Larry switched off his phone-jamming device while Luca cured the Internet server of his virus.
“That didn’t bloody work, did it?” said Larry angrily. “Now, if the favorite goes on and wins, I stand to lose a packet.”
But the favorite didn’t win.
A complete rank outsider called Cricket Hero beat it by two lengths and was returned at the surprisingly long starting price of a hundred-to-one and without a single cheer from the watching crowd. We hadn’t taken a single bet on the horse, so, from the paying-out point of view, it was a very satisfactory result and went some way to make up for our lack of business in the previous races.
“Hold the fort a minute,” I said to Luca.
I went over to watch Cricket Hero being led into the winner’s unsaddling enclosure. There was a distinct lack of enthusiastic applause from those who had turned up to see the horses come in, but there would have been very few amongst them, if any, who would have backed it. The horse’s connections, however, were absolutely delighted and beaming from ear to ear as their horse circled around and around, steaming gently from under its blanket. I looked in the race card to see what they had down as the name of the trainer. Miles Carpenter, it said, from Ireland.
I leaned on the rail close by to the person I assumed was Mr. Carpenter. He was smiling like the cat that got the cream.
“Well done, Mr. Carpenter,” I called to him.
He turned and took a stride towards me. “Thanks,” he said in a thick Irish accent.
“Nice horse,” I said, nodding at the bay, but the truth was it didn’t look that good. Compared to the other horses, whose well-groomed rumps had shone in the summer sunshine, the winner’s coat had been allowed to grow rather long and, in places, was matted and dull. His tail was a jumble of knots and his hooves were not nicely blackened like most racehorses’ when they run. In fact, the horse looked like an old nag. That’s partly why his price had been so high. No one wants to bet on a horse that doesn’t look good in the parade ring. Generally speaking, horses that don’t look very well don’t run very well either.
But appearances can be deceptive.
“Yes,” he replied with a big smile, coming a step closer. “I think he’s going to be a champion.”
I spoke directly to him, quietly but quite clearly. “Oriental Suite, I assume.”
The smile instantly disappeared from his face.
“And you,” I went on, “must be Paddy Murphy.”
“And who the fuck are you?” he said explosively, coming right up to me and thrusting his face into mine.
“Just a friend,” I said, backing away and smiling.
“What do you want?” he snarled.
“Nothing,” I said. I turned away, leaving him dumbstruck behind me.
He had already given me what I wanted. Confirmation that Oriental Suite was indeed now called Cricket Hero. Not that I had really needed it.