Nothing happened, so I went over and banged on it again.
The door still wasn’t opened, but the window above my head was.
Darren stuck his head out and looked down. ‘What the fuck do you want?’
‘Is Amanda all right?’ I asked.
‘Of course she is,’ he said. ‘Why wouldn’t she be?’
‘We have been unable to call her.’
‘I changed her phone number. She doesn’t want to speak to you.’
‘I would like to hear that direct from her, not just from you.’
His head disappeared inside, and presently Amanda’s replaced it.
‘Go away, Dad,’ she said.
‘Your mother is worried about you,’ I said, waving towards where Georgina was still sitting in the car. ‘She’s been trying to call you.’
‘I’m fine. Now go away. You’re only making things worse.’
Amanda’s head withdrew, and in turn, Darren’s appeared again.
‘You heard her. Now, piss off.’
‘Tell Amanda to call her mother.’
The window was shut with a bang. I stood staring up at it for several long seconds, forlornly hoping that Amanda would reappear and ask to be taken home. But she didn’t.
I went and climbed back into the car.
‘Now what?’ I asked.
‘Can’t we report him to the police?’ Georgina asked.
‘What for?’
‘For kidnapping my little girl.’
‘But it is Amanda’s choice to live with him,’ I said in exasperation. ‘You heard what she said yesterday. And the law states that she’s now an adult who should be capable of making her own decisions.’
I started the car and drove us home in silence.
However, there was one thing Amanda had said that really worried me. You’re only making things worse. Did that imply that things were already not good? Otherwise, how could my presence have made them worse?
I knew that Darren’s behaviour was controlling — he had already shown that — so was he keeping Amanda in his flat against her will? Was she actually too frightened of him to leave?
There had been far too many examples shown on the news of young women being murdered by their controlling and jealous boyfriends when everyone else was asking, ‘Why didn’t she just walk out and leave him?’ But it wasn’t usually that easy. Trying to leave might have been what caused the murder in the first place.
It was almost midnight by the time I switched out my bedside light, not that my thoughts had any intention of allowing me to go to sleep.
I tossed and turned for at least a couple of hours, wondering about who was watching me, and why, as well as how I could get Amanda out of Darren Williamson’s flat and back home to her mother.
Georgina had sobbed all the way home and had then proceeded to cry herself to sleep.
I knew from experience that it was best just to leave her to her own demons and not try to soothe her with banal platitudes about how everything would turn out all right in the end. She would have simply accused me of not knowing what I was talking about — and she might well have been correct.
I, too, must have drifted off eventually, as the next thing I knew, I was being awakened by the alarm going off on my phone.
I sleepily reached out to stop it, not wanting to believe that it was already six-thirty, not when I felt I had been asleep for only five minutes.
But it wasn’t six-thirty. It was still dark outside.
And it wasn’t the alarm that was going off — my phone was actually ringing.
I was instantly wide awake.
I leapt out of bed, picked up my phone, and took it with me into the bathroom, so as not to wake Georgina.
No Caller ID was displayed on the screen.
I turned the phone to silent mode, and the sound of the ringing stopped, but it went on vibrating in my hand.
I moved my finger over the slider but then decided against answering it.
Instead, I turned the phone off completely and went back to bed.
I was damned if I was going to dance to Squeaky Voice’s tune.
Chapter 12
He rang me again at nine o’clock, when I was between calls to the trainers.
‘Don’t you ever call me again at night,’ I said. ‘In fact, don’t ever call me again at any time.’
‘I’ll call you whenever I like,’ said the squeaky voice. ‘And you’d better answer.’
‘What do you want?’ I asked.
‘You will enter Potassium into the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot in July.’
At least he had done his homework this time. The King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes was for horses three years and older, so Potassium was eligible.
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Just do it,’ said the voice, with a touch of irritation.
‘No.’
‘You will do as I say.’ His irritation was greater.
‘The trainer and I consider that the race is too long,’ I said. ‘Why would we enter our horse into a race we don’t think it can win?’
‘You will enter it anyway. But it will definitely not run.’
‘If I have no intention of running the horse, why would I bother to enter it in the first place? It would be a total waste of the entry fee.’
Which, at over five grand, was not cheap.
‘If you value your daughter’s life, you will enter Potassium in that race.’
And with that, he hung up.
I sat there for some time, simply holding my phone.
Why would Squeaky Voice want me to enter Potassium in a race and then not run him?
It had to be because of ante-post betting.
To bet on a horse ante-post meant to bet on it before the day of the race. All bookmakers and betting shops take ante-post bets, but only on the big races, such as the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes.
From the bettors’ perspective, the advantage is that the offered odds are usually longer, that is, they offer a better rate of return if the horse wins. However, the major disadvantage is that if your horse doesn’t even run, for any reason whatsoever, you lose your stake.
For some races, such as the Grand National, the biggest betting race of the year, bookmakers quote ante-post prices on some horses even before the race entries close — often several months before. Betting on them that early might be at higher odds, but it can be really risky. If your chosen horse isn’t even entered for the race, you still lose your stake.
If Potassium was entered for the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, he would almost certainly be the favourite, irrespective of the fact that Owen and I thought the race was too far for him. After all, he had won the Derby, and that was also over a mile and a half.
If Squeaky Voice was a bookmaker, he could offer higher odds on Potassium than the other bookmakers and rake in every ante-post bet he could, in the sure knowledge that the horse wouldn’t be a declared runner, so he’d never have to pay out on it winning. The same was true for anyone laying the horse on the internet betting exchanges.
With hundreds of millions of pounds being staked on a race as big as the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes, only a small slice of the action could prove to be extremely profitable. Except, of course, it was strictly against the rules for anyone to know ahead of time that the horse definitely wouldn’t run, and yet still to take bets on it.
Even if Squeaky Voice was not a bookmaker, nor did he lay horses on the internet exchanges, knowing for sure that Potassium definitely wouldn’t be a runner was also an advantage. Odds of the other horses would be higher simply because Potassium was entered for the race, so any bets made on them would be at a fraudulently inflated price.
I looked up the closing date for entries to the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes. It was in a week’s time.