‘Those people,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘appear to have let the warehouse several years ago to some army surplus suppliers, without informing us or paying fees due to us. We have received no instructions from them, then or since, regarding any further letting or sub-letting.’
‘Ta ever so,’ I said, and went grinning out to the street.
The words on the paper, which had so fussed the agents in retrospect, were ‘National Construction (Wessex) Ltd’, or in other words the mythical builders invented by Ownslow and Glitberg.
I picked up the rush reprint enlargements of Hilary’s photographs, and walked along to the office. All quiet there, as usual on Saturdays, with undone work still sitting repoachfully in heaps.
Averting my eyes, I telephoned to the police.
‘Any news?’ I said; and they said no there wasn’t.
‘Did you trace the owner of the van?’ I asked. No, they hadn’t.
‘Did it have an engine number?’ I said. Yes, they said, but it was not the original number for that particular vehicle, said vehicle having probably passed through many hands and rebuilding processes on its way to the warehouse.
‘And have you asked Mr Glitberg and Mr Ownslow what I was doing in a van inside their warehouse?’
There was silence at the other end.
‘Have you?’ I repeated.
They wanted to know why I should ask.
‘Oh come off it,’ I said. ‘I’ve been to the estate agents, same as you.’
Mr Glitberg and Mr Ownslow, it appeared, had been totally mystified as to why their warehouse should have been used in such a way. As far as they were concerned, it was let to an army surplus supply company, and the police should direct their enquiries to them.
‘Can you find these army surplus people?’ I asked. Not so far, they said. They cleared the police throat and cautiously added that Mr Glitberg and Mr Ownslow had categorically denied that they had imprisoned Mr Britten in a van in their warehouse, or anywhere else, for that matter, as revenge for the said Mr Britten having been instrumental in their custodial sentences for fraud.
‘Their actual words?’ I asked with interest. Not exactly. I had been given the gist.
I thanked them for the information, and disconnected. I thought they had probably not passed on everything they knew, but then neither had I, which made us quits.
The door of Trevor’s private office was locked, as mine had been, but we both had keys for each other’s rooms. I knew all the same that he wouldn’t have been pleased to see me searching uninvited through the papers in his filing cupboard, but I reckoned that as I’d had access to them anyway while he was on holiday, another peep would be no real invasion. I spent a concentrated hour reading cash books and ledgers; and then with a mind functioning more or less as normal I checked through the Denby Crest figures yet again. I had made no mistake with them, even in a daze. Fifty thousand pounds of clients’ trust funds were missing. I stared unseeingly at ‘Lady and Gentleman in a Carriage’ and thought bleakly about consequences.
There was a photo-copier in the outer office, busily operated every weekday by Debbie and Peter. I spent another hour of that quiet Saturday morning methodically printing private copies for my own use. Then I put all the books and papers back where I’d found them, locked Trevor’s office, and went down to the store in the basement.
The files I was looking for there were easy to find but were slim and uninformative, containing only copies of audits and not all the invoices, cash books and paying-in books from which the accounts had been drawn.
There was nothing odd in that. Under the Companies Act 1976, and also under the value added tax system, all such papers had to be kept available for three years and could legally be thrown away only after that, but most accountants returned the books to their clients for keeping, as like us they simply didn’t have enough storage space for everyone.
I left the files where they were, locked all the office doors, sealed my folder of photo-copies into a large envelope, and took it with me in some depression to Kempton Park.
The sight of Jossie in her swirly brown skirt brought the sun out considerably, and we despatched grapefruit juice in amicable understanding.
‘Dad’s brought the detestable Lida,’ she said, ‘so I came on my own.’
‘Does she live with you?’ I asked.
‘No, thank God.’ The idea alarmed her. ‘Five miles away, and that’s five thousand miles too close.’
‘What does the ever-sick secretary have to say about her?’
‘Sandy? It makes her even sicker.’ She drank the remains of her juice, smiling over the glass. ‘Actually Sandy wouldn’t be so bad, if she weren’t so wet. And you can cast out any slick theories about daughters being possessive of their footloose fathers, because actually I would have liked it rather a lot if he’d fallen for a peach.’
‘Does he know you don’t like Lida?’
‘Oh sure,’ she sighed. ‘I told him she was a flesh-eating orchid and he said I didn’t understand. End of conversation. The funny thing is,’ she added, ‘that it’s only when I’m with you that I can think of her without spitting.’
‘Appendicitis diverts the mind from toothache,’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Thoughts from inside little white vans.’
‘Half the time,’ she said, ‘I think you’re crazy.’
She met some friends and went off with them, and I repaired to the weighing room to change into breeches, boots, and Moira Longerman’s red and white colours. When I came out, with my jacket on over the bright shirt, Binny Tomkins was waiting. On his countenance, the reverse of warmth and light.
‘I want to talk to you,’ he said.
‘Fine. Why not?’
He scowled. ‘Not here. Too many people. Walk down this way.’ He pointed to the path taken by the horses on their way from parade ring to track: a broad stretch of grass mostly unpopulated by racegoing crowds.
‘What is it?’ I said, as we emerged from the throng round the weighing room door, and started in the direction he wanted. ‘Is there something wrong with Tapestry?’
He shook his head impatiently, as if the idea were silly.
‘I want you to give the horse an easy race.’
I stopped walking. An easy race, in those terms, meant trying not to win.
‘No,’ I said.
‘Come on, there’s more...’ He went on a pace or two, looking back and waiting for me to follow. ‘I must talk to you. You must listen.’
There was more than usual scowling bad temper in his manner. Something like plain fear. Shaking my head, I went on with him, across the grass.
‘How much would you want?’ he said.
I stopped again. ‘I’m not doing it,’ I said.
‘I know, but... How about two hundred, tax free?’
‘You’re stupid, Binny.’
‘It’s all right for you,’ he said furiously. ‘But if Tapestry wins today I’ll lose everything. My yard, my livelihood — everything.’
‘Why?’
He was trembling with tension. ‘I owe a lot of money.’
‘To bookmakers?’ I said.
‘Of course to bookmakers.’
‘You’re a fool,’ I said flatly.
‘Smug bastard,’ he said furiously. ‘I’d give anything to have you back inside that van, and not here today.’
I looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Tapestry may not win anyway,’ I said. ‘Nothing’s a certainty.’
‘I’ve got to know in advance,’ he said incautiously.
‘And if you assure your bookmaker Tapestry won’t win, he’ll let you off the hook?’
‘He’ll let me off a bit,’ he said. ‘He won’t press for the rest.’