‘Do you come here often?’ I asked a man as he sidestepped around me to the betting window.
‘Not working for my wife, are you?’ he replied.
‘No.’
But he wasn’t listening, he was busy counting out a wad of notes to hand over.
‘I know you,’ said one of the other two, the one in the Manchester United shirt. ‘You’re Sid Halley. Got any tips?’
Why did punters always believe that jockeys, or ex-jockeys, made good tipsters?
‘Keep your money in your pocket,’ I said.
‘You’re no bloody good,’ he said with a smile. ‘What brings you in here?’
‘Furthering my education,’ I replied, smiling back.
‘Come off it, all jockeys are punters, stands to reason, they control the results.’
‘What about the horses?’
‘They’d run round in circles without a driver.’
‘Do you really believe that jockeys control the results?’
‘Sure they do. If I lose, I always blame the jockey. I have to admit though that I won more on you than I lost.’
I suppose it was a compliment, of sorts.
‘What’s your name?’ I asked.
‘Gerry. Gerry Noble.’ He offered his hand and I shook it firmly.
‘Shame you had to give up,’ Gerry said. He glanced down at my left hand then up at my face.
‘One of those things,’ I said.
‘Bloody shame.’
I agreed with him, but life moves on.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Not your fault.’
‘Yeah, but I’m sorry all the same.’
‘Thanks, Gerry.’ I meant it. ‘Tell me, do you ever gamble on the internet?’
‘Sure,’ he replied, ‘but not often. Too bloody complicated, never can understand all that exchanges stuff. Much easier to give the man my ready cash,’ he nodded to the window in the corner, ‘and then, win or lose, at least I know where I stand. Don’t fancy using credit cards. I’d get into trouble too quick and too deep.’
‘Do you come here every day?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, pretty much,’ he said. ‘I work an early shift, start at four in the morning, finished by twelve. Then I come here for a few hours on my way home.’
‘Do you win?’
‘You mean overall?’
‘Whatever?’
‘I suppose, if I was honest, I have to say I lose on the whole. Not much and some days I win big.’ He smiled. ‘And the wins give me such a high that I forget the losses.’
‘But don’t you hate to lose?’
‘It’s cheaper than cocaine.’
I stayed for a couple more races and helped Gerry cheer home a long-priced winner on which he had heavily invested.
‘See what I mean!’ he shouted, giving me a high five. ‘Bloody marvellous!’
He grinned from ear to ear and I could see what he meant by a ‘high’. I used to have that feeling, too, whenever I rode a big winner. As he said, it was indeed ‘bloody marvellous’.
I had enjoyed his ready companionship.
‘See you!’ I called to him as I left, a simple goodbye said without any real expectation of seeing him again.
‘You know where to find me,’ he said, and went back to his deliberations.
When I got back to the flat, I connected my new answering machine to the telephone in my office. I recorded a greeting message and tested it by calling it from my mobile. I left myself a brief message and then tested the remote access feature. Perhaps I am a bit of a sceptic about electronics but I was pleasantly surprised that it worked perfectly.
I threw the old machine in the bin but not before extracting the cassette tape that still had Huw Walker’s messages recorded on it.
I was hiding all the wiring beneath my desk when the phone rang. I thought briefly about letting my new machine do the answering but instead I clambered up and lifted the receiver.
‘Hello,’ I said.
‘Sid! Great. I hoped you’d be there,’ said a voice. ‘I need your help and I need it fast.’
‘Sorry,’ I replied, ‘who is this?’
‘It’s Bill,’ said the voice.
‘Bill! God, sorry! I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.’
‘They haven’t banged me up for life yet, you know.’
‘But where are you?’ I asked him.
‘At home, where do you think, Dartmoor?’ He laughed but I could tell even over the telephone that it was a hollow laugh, the worry very close to the surface.
‘They let you go?’
‘Yup, insufficient evidence to charge me, at least for now. I’m out on police bail. I’m not allowed to leave the country and, more worrying, I’m not allowed on a racecourse.’
‘But that’s crazy,’ I said. ‘How can you earn your living if you can’t go racing?’
‘Doesn’t really matter. The bloody owners are queuing up at the gate to remove their horses.’ The forced cheerfulness had gone out of his voice. ‘That bastard Enstone was the first off the mark. Had two LRT horseboxes here at seven this morning to collect them all. Taken them to that other bastard, Woodward. They’re welcome to each other. His bloody lordship still owes me two months’ training fees for seven horses. That’s a lot of cash I could really do with but probably won’t get now.’
I knew this was always a trainer’s worst nightmare.
‘Three others owners came later but Juliet was wiser by then and wouldn’t let the horses go until their bills had been paid. She did well but didn’t get it all because she didn’t have the details, the damn police had taken so much away. I got back here about two thirty to find her having a stand-up row with one of the owners in the yard.’
‘How did they all know so quickly about you?’ I asked. ‘Your name hasn’t been on the news.’
‘That bastard Chris Beecher wrote a piece in today’s Pump.’ In Bill’s eyes there were lots of bastards about. He probably didn’t know that I was a real bastard, my window-cleaner father having fallen off a ladder to his death only three days before he had been due to marry my pregnant mother.
‘You don’t have to be a bloody rocket scientist to work out who he was writing about. And he had a copy of the paper couriered to each of my owners with the article marked round in red. Couriered! He’s a bloody sod.’
Indeed he was.
‘You didn’t tell him, did you, Sid?’ he asked.
‘I wouldn’t tell Chris Beecher if his trousers were on fire,’ I assured him.
‘No, I didn’t really think it was you.’
‘Did you get any sleep last night?’ I asked him.
‘None to speak of. I mostly sat in a room at the police station. They asked me a few questions about where I was last Friday. Bloody stupid. I was on the television at Cheltenham races, for God’s sake! Yes, they said, they knew. Why did they bloody ask then?
‘They also asked me about my marriage. Horrible things like did I beat my wife? I ask you, what sort of question is that? I said of course not. Then they asked me if I had ever smacked my children? Well, I have, the odd little clip around the legs when they’ve been really naughty. Made me sound like a bloody monster. They implied that it was just a small step from abusing children to murder. Abusing children! I love my kids.’
He yawned loudly down the receiver.
‘Bill,’ I said, ‘you’re exhausted, go to bed and sleep.’
‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I’ve too many things to deal with here. And I want to go and find Kate. I tried calling her mother twice but she puts the phone down on me. I’m going round to her place in a minute. Sid, I love Kate and the children and I want them back. And I didn’t kill Huw Walker.’
‘I know that,’ I said.
‘Thank God someone believes me.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, Sid, I called you because I need your help.’