Under Orders (17 page)

‘How do you know?’ I asked him.

‘According to Johnson, there was only one spent cartridge in the cylinder.’

‘But the murderer could have replaced one of the empty cartridges with a new one.’

‘Then why wasn’t a second bullet found?’ Carlisle asked.

‘Perhaps Inspector Johnson wasn’t really looking for one.’

I went to Newbury races still turning over and over in my head whether I should, or would, ask around about Huw Walker and Bill Burton again. It was one thing to discuss the matter with Carlisle but somehow to continue to sow seeds of doubt over the guilt-driven suicide theory here at the races might be considered reckless and ill-advised after the previous evening’s little message to Marina.

I waved my plastic hand at the man at the gate who waved back and beckoned me in like a long-lost friend. I parked in the trainers’ and jockeys’ car park, as usual.

A large Jaguar pulled up alongside my car and Andrew Woodward climbed out.

‘Hello, Sid,’ he said. ‘How are things?’

‘Fine, thank you, Mr Woodward.’ I’d never called him Andrew.

‘Good.’ He didn’t really sound as if he meant it. ‘I’m told that I should consult you.’

‘What about?’ I asked.

‘A reference. I’m appointing a second assistant at my yard. I’ve too many horses for just one now.’

I remembered that Jonny Enstone had transferred his allegiance and there were probably others too.

‘What can I do for you?’

‘Everyone tells me that I should get the applicants checked out by Halley.’ His tone implied that he didn’t agree. ‘I reckon I’m a good judge of character and I think I’ve made up my mind but, as you’re here, will you?’

‘Will I what?’

‘Will you give me an opinion of my chosen candidate?’

‘I’ll give you one for free if I know anything about him.’

‘Her, actually. Girl called Juliet Burns. Used to work for Burton.’

‘I know her,’ I said.

Hasn’t taken her long to look for a new job, I thought.

‘Well, what do you think?’

‘I don’t know her very well, but I was a friend of her father and I knew her as a child. I’ve met her at Burton’s place a couple of times recently.’ I didn’t tell him that one of them was immediately after she had found her boss with half his head blown away.

I recalled the evening she did the stable round. ‘She seems to get on with the horses all right. I could do a more detailed check on her references, if you’d like.’

‘I knew it would be a waste of time to ask you. Anyone could have told me that,’ he sneered. ‘I don’t know what people see in you – you’re just an ex-jockey.’

He turned to walk away.

‘I know that two of your lady owners pay you no training fees and that you only use their names to market your yard.’

He turned back slowly. ‘That’s rubbish,’ he said.

‘You own the horses yourself.’

There was nothing illegal in it but it was a minor deceit of the betting public that was not approved of by the Jockey Club. I decided it would be prudent not to mention to him that I also knew he was having an affair with one of the ladies in question.

‘You’re only guessing,’ he said.

‘As you like.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I just know.’ I didn’t tell him that the lady owner he was not having the affair with had supplied me with both bits of information because she was jealous of the other.

‘Who else knows this?’ he demanded.

‘No one,’ I said, ‘not yet.’

‘Keep your bloody mouth shut, do you hear, or you’ll regret it.’ He turned and strode away towards the racecourse entrance.

Damn, I thought. Why did I rise to that little insult? Why did I feel the need to show him that I was not
just
an ex-jockey? Why had I made an enemy of him when friends are what I needed to do my job? That was stupid, very stupid.

I spent a depressing afternoon avoiding Andrew Woodward and not mentioning Huw Walker or Bill Burton to anyone. Even the weather conspired to deepen my depression by turning from a bright crisp morning into a cold damp dull afternoon and I had no coat. I’d left it in London due to our hasty departure the previous evening.

Andrew Woodward won the big race and stood beaming in the rain as he received the trophy on behalf of one of his non-paying owners who had had the good sense not to be present.

Beaming, that is, until he saw me watching him. I had carelessly allowed myself to be in view and his expression of thunder showed that his antipathy towards me had deepened.

I’d actually been daydreaming about how I might pluck out
one of his unsuspecting hairs to check on his DNA. He had very few remaining on the top of his head and kept those firmly out of sight beneath a brown trilby. It wasn’t going to be as easy as Marina had suggested to acquire the necessary follicles, not from him anyway.

I retreated out of his eye-line and found myself standing on the weighing room steps next to Peter Enstone who was dressed in breeches and boots.

‘Hello, Peter,’ I said. ‘What are you riding?’

‘Hi, Sid. I’m on a no-hoper in the last. A waste of space called Roadtrain.’

‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks.’ He turned to go inside, into the warm.

‘Oh, Peter,’ I called after him, ‘do you know how long your father has been a director of Make A Wager Ltd?’

I already knew the answer to my question from the Companies House website but I wanted to see if Peter knew of the connection.

‘Oh, for years,’ he said. ‘Dad helped George set up the company. He’s been a director right from the start. Non-executive.’

‘Did he know George before the company was formed?’

‘Absolutely. We’ve known George for ever. Sorry, Sid, must dash.’

He disappeared into the changing room, the holy of holies that I was no longer able to enter.

So Jonny Enstone and George Lochs/Clarence Lochstein go back a long way. How did they meet? I wondered.

I sought out Paddy O’Fitch. If anyone here knew the answer it would be him.

‘Hi, Paddy.’ I found him in the bar under the Berkshire Stand.

‘Hello, Sid, me old mucker. D’ya fancy a Guinness?’

‘No, Paddy, but I expect you do.’

I ordered a pint of the black stuff for him and a diet Coke for me. It was an unwritten rule that if I were seeking information it would cost me a drink, at least.

He took a long draught, finally appearing for breath with a creamy-white moustache that he wiped away on his left sleeve.

‘Now, Sid,’ he grinned, ‘what is it ya’d be after?’

‘Jonny Enstone.’

‘Ah,’ he said, ‘the good lord. What’s he done to ya?’

‘Nothing. In fact, I recently had lunch with him.’

‘Did ya indeed,’ he said. ‘Did he pay?’

‘Absolutely. We were discussing business.’

‘What business?’

‘His, not yours,’ I said with a smile.

‘Come on, Sid,’ he said, ‘I’m the very model of discretion.’

Indiscretion is more like it, I thought. Paddy knew everything there was to know about racing and racing people but he liked others to know he did, so he was forever telling little secrets to anyone who would listen. He didn’t do it with any malice, he just did it.

‘How about George Lochs?’

‘Ah,’ he said again, ‘young Lochs. Bit of a calculator on legs, he is. Real whiz kid.’

‘What might connect George Lochs and Jonny Enstone?’ I asked.

‘What’s this, a quiz?’

‘Do you know?’

‘Come off it, Sid. Ask me another. Dat one’s far too easy.’

‘What’s the answer then?’

‘It’s make-a-wager.com.’ He smiled broadly. He knew I was impressed. There was a swagger in his manner as he downed the rest of his pint.

‘Fancy another?’ I asked.

‘To be sure,’ he said. ‘I’m not driving today. Got a lift.’

I ordered him another Guinness and I had another Coke. I was driving.

‘So what about the good lord and young Lochs?’ he asked, after testing the new pint.

‘I only wondered how they met,’ I said.

‘Enstone helped Lochs set up his business. Years ago now. Must be seven or eight at least. Apparently, he put up some money to help start the company and so he became a director. Still is, I think.’

I nodded; I had learned as much from Companies House. ‘But how did George Lochs know him to ask for the help in the first place?’

‘What are ya up to?’ Paddy looked at me quizzically. ‘What are ya investigating? Is there a fiddle going on?’

‘No, nothing like that, I’m just curious. I met them together at Cheltenham and thought them an odd couple.’

‘Both bloody ruthless, if ya ask me,’ he said.

‘So you don’t know how they met then?’

‘I didn’t say dat.’ He smiled again. ‘Rumour has it that Peter Enstone knew Lochs first and introduced him to his father. I don’t know how Peter met him.’

‘Oh, interesting.’ I made it sound as though it wasn’t that interesting. I finished my drink. ‘Thanks, Paddy. See you at Aintree?’

‘Absolutely. Wouldn’t miss the National.’

‘See you there, then. Bye.’ I turned to go.

‘Is dat all ya want?’ he said. ‘Was dat really worth a couple of Guinnesses?’

‘Not everyone measures things so precisely,’ I said. ‘Maybe I just wanted to buy a mate a couple of drinks. For old time’s sake.’

‘Don’t be bloody daft,’ he said and laughed.

I hung around for the rest of the afternoon managing not to run into Andrew Woodward. I saw in the racecard that he had a runner in the last so I decided to leave immediately after the race to avoid meeting him again in the car park. I hoped that he would still be busy unsaddling his horse.

Roadtrain, the mount of Peter Enstone, the no-hoper, the waste of space, won by ten lengths at a canter. I glanced at the Tote payout information. Roadtrain had started at odds of 10 to 1 in a five-horse race. If that didn’t ring some alarm bells in the Stewards’ room nothing would.

I decided not to wait around to find out and made my way with the throng to the exits, coming up behind an unsteady Paddy O’Fitch.

‘Hello again, Paddy,’ I said. ‘Are you all right?’

‘To be sure I am,’ he said with a slur. ‘But I tink I’ve had a bit too much. All your bloody fault, forcing drink down me throat.’

He wobbled and grabbed hold of an iron fence.

‘Are you sure you’ll be OK?’ I asked again.

‘I’ll be fine just as soon as me bloody lift arrives.’ He peered into the faces of those behind me making their way to the car park.

‘Who’s giving you a lift?’ I asked.

‘Chris Beecher. We’re neighbours.’

Are you indeed? I thought.

‘I’ll leave you here, then.’ I had no wish to see Chris Beecher today, or any other day.

‘Right.’ He sagged against the fence. I left him there, still scanning approaching faces with unfocussed eyes. He’d be fine.

Marina was feeling much better when I returned to Aynsford, although the bruising around her eyes looked even worse than it had that morning. She and Charles were in the little sitting room and had already started drinking.

‘Sun’s over the yardarm, I see,’ I said, giving Marina a kiss.

‘Just a small sharpener before I change for dinner,’ said Charles. He waved at the drinks cupboard. ‘Help yourself.’

I poured myself a small Scotch with plenty of water. I was determined to take it easier that evening.

‘Have you had a good day?’ Marina asked.

‘No, not really,’ I said. ‘I had a row with a trainer who I should have kept as a friend, and I was cold and miserable all afternoon. Did you?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact we did.’ She smiled across at Charles, who smiled back at her.

‘You two look as thick as thieves,’ I said.

‘We’ve been talking about last night,’ said Charles.

‘About the attack?’ I asked.

‘Yes,’ said Marina, ‘and also about your fears for me.’

I glared at Charles but he didn’t seem to notice.

‘Your Marina, here,’ he said, ‘is a truly lovely girl. I think I’m falling in love again.’

‘You’re too old,’ I said.

‘Sid!’ said Marina. ‘That’s not very nice. I do believe you’re jealous.’

‘Nonsense.’ But I was. However, not in the way she thought. I wasn’t so jealous of Charles liking Marina, more the other way round. Charles was
my
friend,
my
mentor. He was
my
agony aunt, or uncle, and had been now for years. I felt that our conversations should have been in confidence. Not that I would keep secrets from Marina. I just wanted to be the one to tell her myself.

I shook my head and thought that I was being silly. These two people were, to me, the most precious things in the world. Why should I not want them to love each other? So why did I feel so resentful that they had been talking together without me there to act as the intermediary? I told myself to stop being such a fool, but I wouldn’t listen.

‘So what have you two decided?’ I asked rather haughtily. I heard the tone of my own voice and I didn’t like it. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’

Marina looked at me. I could feel her stare. She could usually read me like a book and I was sure that all my inner thoughts were, even now, passing through the ether between us.

‘We’ve decided nothing,’ she said. ‘That’s for you to do.’

She spoke softly and comfortingly and I knew that she knew what had just happened. It didn’t faze her one bit. She smiled at me and I felt like an idiot.

‘It’s all right,’ she said.

‘What’s all right?’ asked Charles.

‘Everything,’ I said standing up. ‘Do you want a refill?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you.’

I poured a generous whisky and a splash of Malvern Water into his glass and he leaned back contentedly in his chair.

‘More for you, my darling?’ I asked Marina.

‘Just a little.’

I looked deeply into her eyes. ‘I do so love you,’ I said.

‘I love you more,’ she replied.

Everything was indeed all right.

Mrs Cross had left us smoked salmon and cream cheese cornets as a starter and a beef casserole in the Aga for our main course. The cornets were small and one-mouthful size so they didn’t need cutting. I silently thanked dear, thoughtful Mrs Cross. She always took the one-handed embarrassment out of eating. Marina cooked some rice and we ate in the dining room, formally at the table with silver cutlery and cut-glass crystal. I had never once known Charles to have a meal on his lap.