Blood at the Bookies

Seventeen

On a day when she had been feeling less good about herself Carole Seddon might have balked at Gerald Hume’s suggestion that their meeting that evening should take place in the Crown and Anchor. The proposed encounter did have elements of a ‘date’ about it, and the pub’s landlord was one of the very few men in Fethering who had ever shown an emotional interest in her. In less certain moods she might have agonized about some awkward scene arising between the two men. But that Friday evening Carole had no qualms about the venue. For a start, her affair with Ted Crisp was long over and their relationship had settled down into an easy friendship. Besides, the Crown and Anchor did have certain advantages. Apart from anything else, she would be on home territory and not far from High Tor, should the meeting prove to be uncomfortable. After all, she knew nothing about Gerald Hume.

He was sitting in one of the alcoves nursing a half-pint of lager when she arrived. Dressed, as ever, in pinstriped suit and tie, his briefcase on the banquette beside him. Carole greeted Ted Crisp immediately, to establish her familiarity with the pub. Now the moment had arisen, it gave her a slight frisson actually to be in a pub talking to an ex-lover when she was about to meet another man.

She sat down while Gerald Hume went to the bar to buy her requested Chilean Chardonnay, and wondered what kind of man he would prove to be. She wasn’t worried about finding out, though, just intrigued.

“Perhaps,” he announced when he had supplied her drink, “I should explain why I wanted to meet up with you.”

Ib her surprise, Carole found herself saying, “I don’t think you need to especially. As you said on the phone, it’s nice for us to have a chance to talk.”

“Yes.”

He hesitated, still seeming to feel he should provide some explanation, so she moved on, “Did you have a good day on the horses?”

“A profit of three pounds fifty pence.” He spoke in a considered manner, as if carefully selecting each word with a pair of tweezers.

“And is that a good day?”

“Would you regard three pounds fifty pence as adequate recompense for five hours’ work?”

“No, I suppose not. So you do think of what you do in the betting shop as work, do you?”

“Well, it’s the only work I have now.”

“I heard a rumour that you used to be an accountant.”

“That’s a very unusual rumour to hear.”

“In what way unusual?”

“Because it’s accurate. Very few rumours in Fethering share that quality.” Carole smiled. He clearly knew the area well. “Yes,” he went on, “I was an accountant with the same company for thirty-six years. They then deemed that I was no longer fit to be an accountant.”

Carole didn’t quite like to ask for amplification, but seeing her reaction he provided it. “No, no skulduggery on my part, no embezzlement of funds. Merely a company policy of retirement at sixty. Drinks with colleagues, a hastily mugged-up speech from my new much younger boss, the presentation of an unwanted carriage clock and ‘Goodbye, Mr Hume.’ So, given the fact that I used to spend eight hours of every weekday in the office, that did leave rather a large gap in my life.”

“Surely there were other things you could have done?”

“I suppose so. I could have set up in private practice. I could have offered my Services as treasurer for various local societies. But such options did not appeal to me. My pension was adequate and I had made some prudent though not very adventurous investments over the years. So I didn’t need to do anything else to make money.”

“Isn’t retirement when people are supposed to devote themselves to their hobbies in a way that they previously never had time for?” asked Carole, reflecting that in her own case this hadn’t worked out. The only hobby she had was being an amateur detective and that was one she had developed after she retired.

“Perhaps. And I am quite a keen photographer. But I can’t do that every day. I get bored, so it remains just a hobby. Spending time in the betting shop, however, does impose some kind of structure on my life. It also enables me to study the vagaries of horse racing over a sustained period.”

“You mean you…‘study the form’? Is that the right expression? And, incidentally, Gerald, I should tell you here and now that, whatever impression I may have given to the contrary yesterday, I know absolutely nothing about horses.”

“That, Carole, was abundantly clear.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t help being disappointed. She thought the way she’d behaved the previous day had been pretty damned convincing.

“Anyway, you asked if I study the form, and yes, I do do a certain amount of that, but I am more interested in the mathematical probabilities involved in the business.”

“Do you mean you are trying to work out a foolproof system to win on the horses?”

Gerald Hume chuckled. “If I were doing that, today’s profit of three pounds fifty pence might suggest that my system is as yet far from foolproof. But you’re right in a way. I am trying to draw some conclusions from the many races that I watch every day. I analyse the results and, yes, there is the hope that such analysis might lead to a more informed pattern of investment.”

“And do you ever have big wins?”

“A few hundred pounds now and then. But such days are rare.”

“I still can’t quite understand why you do it.”

“No, it may seem inexplicable. There is a commonly held view that racing is a mug’s game, that there are too many variables for any kind of logical pattern to be discernible. But the attempt to impose order on such chaos does sometimes bring me the same kind of satisfaction that I used to derive during my working life from balancing columns of figures. Perhaps because my life has followed a relatively predictable course, I am fascinated by the random. Maybe, in my own perhaps pernickety way, I am trying to impose logic on the random.”

“I see.” And now she almost did.

“And it keeps me off the streets.” He smiled rather wanly. “I’m not sure how I would fill my time without my regular attendance at the betting shop.”

There was a moment of silence before Gerald Hume, realizing the danger of sounding pitiable, abruptly changed the direction of the conversation. “Still, enough about me. I don’t have nearly that amount of information about you yet, Carole.”

“No.”

Her retirement from the Home Office and divorce were established with the minimum of comment.

“I see,” said Gerald. “I never married.”

“Is that a cause for regret?”

“Rarely. I think I am probably not designed for connubial bliss. I tend to be rather analytical in all my dealings, which may lead to a level of detachment in my behaviour. And I have been given to understand that marriage requires engagement with the partner rather than detachment from them.”

“I think that is usually thought desirable, yes.”

Carole was touched by his quaintness, and found her own speech beginning to echo the formality of his. She had also by now realized that Gerald Hume wasn’t and never would be a ‘date’. The attraction between them was not physical, it was purely intellectual. This revelation did not bring her even the mildest flicker of disappointment. In fact it reassured her, clarified her feelings.

“May I go off on a complete tangent, Gerald…?”

“By all means.”

“…and ask whether you do crosswords?”

As Carole knew he would, he confirmed that he did. “I do the Times and the Telegraph every morning before I go to the betting shop. One might imagine, given my interest in numbers, it would be the Su Doku that monopolized my attention, but no, it’s words. Maybe because words are more resonant than numbers, because they carry with them a greater burden of semi-otic information. And do I gather you are also an aficionado of the crossword…?”

“I usually do the Times,” said Carole.

“I knew you would.” This confirmation of his conjecture seemed to make him particularly happy. “I am very glad that we have met, Carole. I think there are a lot of similarities in our personalities.”

Deciding that this was not a completely undiluted compliment, she moved on to another possible area of mutual interest. “Gerald, have you ever applied your analytical mind to the subject of crime?”

He smiled with relish. “I most certainly have. I enjoy the process of deduction, very similar in fact to that required in the solution of a crossword. But I’m afraid the crime writing I favour is of an older generation. The so-called Golden Age, when authors played fair with their readers in regard to plotting. Though contemporary crime fiction may have gained in psychological reality, that has always been at the expense of the puzzle element. And for me it is in the puzzle that the appeal of the genre lies.”

“But have you ever applied your deductive powers to a real crime?” asked Carole.

“Might you be thinking of the recent regrettable incident, which occurred at the place where I spend a large portion of my days?”

“I was thinking of that, yes, Gerald.”

“Hm. The first time I have been so close to a murder, outside of fiction. I’m afraid, in my professional life – though accountants may frequently be thought to get away with murder…” He let out a small dry laugh at this small dry joke “…they are – perhaps fortunately – rarely involved in the real thing.”

“So have you joined in the increasingly popular Fethering pastime of trying to work out whodunit?”

“I have.” He sighed. “But without much progress. I regret in this instance the Almighty Author has provided us with an inadequacy of information. Dame Agatha would never have been so parsimonious with the clues. Though we habitues of the betting shop were witnesses to one part of the tragedy – and your friend Jude witness to a further part – we have very few facts that link the poor young man to his penultimate destination.”

“Were you particularly aware of him when he came in that afternoon?”

“I can’t say that I was, Carole. Yes, I noticed a young man I had not seen before come into the shop. The noise of the hailstorm was very loud when the door was opened, so I looked in his direction. But I very quickly returned to my investments. I can’t honestly say that the young man made any impression on me at all.”

“Gerald, you said then that you had not seen the victim before…”

“That is correct, yes.”

“But last week’s visit was the second time he had been in the betting shop.”

“Was it?” The ex-accountant looked genuinely amazed by this news. “I had certainly never seen him before.”

“And you are there most days during opening hours?”

“Well, not opening hours – betting shops tend to be open for an increasingly long time these days – but I’m there during afternoon racing hours. I tend to arrive about half an hour before the first race and stay there until after the last.”

“And would you say you tend to notice everyone who comes in and out?”

“I do. I make a point of that. My researches into the randomness of gambling are obviously related to the demographic profile of the people who participate.”

“So you’re sure you’d never seen Tadek before last week?”

“Tadek?”

“I’m sorry, Tadeusz Jankowski was always called Tadek.”

“I understand. No, I had definitely never encountered him before last week. When was he seen?”

“Round the beginning of last October.”

Gerald Hume’s brow clouded as he tried to explain the anomaly, but then it cleared. “Last October, yes. I remember now. I was unwell. I had a serious throat infection which kept me to my bed for a few days. I think it must have been during that period. Did Ryan the Manager see him?”

“It was while Ryan was on holiday.”

“So how do you know the young man was in there?”

Carole explained about Jude’s conversation with Pauline.

“Ah yes. That would make sense. Pauline never does much in the way of gambling, but she always keeps her eyes on everything that’s going on. A habit that she learnt from her late husband.”

“Oh?”

“He was a fairly considerable crook. Or so Fethering gossip has it…and this is another instance when I would be inclined to believe Fethering gossip.”

“Jude said that Pauline was one of very few women who go into the betting shop.”

“That is true. It is more of a male enclave…though a lot of the ladies put in an appearance round the Derby or Grand National. Or down here when Glorious Goodwood is on, of course.”

A new thought came suddenly to Carole. “Ooh, that reminds me. Other women in the betting shop!”

“I’m sorry?”

“Apparently when Tadeusz Jankowski went into the betting shop last year, he spoke to a woman who was often in there. Another regular. Very well-dressed, middle-class woman…does that ring any bells, Gerald?”

“Well, there are one or two fitting that description who come in from time to time…”

“This one used to be very regular, but then stopped coming…round about last October. Any idea who it might be?”

Gerald Hume beamed as the recollection came to him. “Oh yes. I know exactly who you mean. I’m sorry, with her not having been in for a few months, I’d completely forgotten about her. But yes, she fits your description exactly.”

“Did you ever talk to her?”

“No. She kept herself to herself.”

More or less exactly what Pauline and Ryan had said. Carole asked, without much hope, “So you wouldn’t know her name, would you?”

This question produced another beam. “As a matter of fact I do. Melanie Newton.”

“But if you didn’t speak to her, how do you know that?”

Gerald Hume’s expression combined shame with pride as he replied, “One day when she was in the betting shop, she had made a note of her fancies on an envelope. When she went, she screwed it up and left it on a shelf. I’m afraid, out of pure curiosity – and because she seemed rather different from the average run of betting shop habitue – I uncrumpled the envelope and looked at it.”

“So do you have an address for her too?” asked Carole excitedly.

Gerald shook his head apologetically. “I’m afraid I don’t have a photographic memory for such things. Though I do have a vague recollection that she lived in Fedborough.”

Carole still felt good about herself when she got back to High Tor at about eight o’clock. She had a new lead. Melanie Newton. She was going to share the good news with Jude, when she remembered that her friend was out seeing some theatre show at Clincham College.

But as well as a new lead, she thought she might have something else. Though Gerald Hume would never be a lover (which was, if she was honest with herself, quite a relief), it was not impossible that over time he could turn into a very good friend.