Blood at the Bookies

Twenty-Three

“Is that Carole Seddon?”

“Yes.”

“Are you feeling lucky?”

“I’m sorry, who is this speaking?”

“It’s Gerald. Gerald Hume.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t recognize your voice.” She should have done. Those precise, clipped tones were very distinctive. “How nice to hear from you.”

“Have you finished the Times crossword?”

“I did most of it over breakfast. About three clues left. But please don’t – ”

“Carole.” He sounded aggrieved by the imputation. “There is honour among crossword-solvers. I would never give away an answer to a fellow cruciverbalist, unless specifically asked to do so. And if someone did ask me for an answer, I have to confess that I wouldn’t regard that person as a proper cruciverbalist.”

“Good. We understand each other.”

“So I revert to my original question. Are you feeling lucky?”

“I don’t think I ever feel lucky,” Carole responded with rather dispiriting honesty.

“I was referring to the likelihood of your being successful on the horses today.”

“I don’t think I’m ever likely to be successful on the horses.”

“Why not? You have a keen analytical mind.”

“That’s as may be. The fact remains that the only way of being successful on the horses is by putting bets on them, and since I never put bets on them, my chances of success in that arena are correspondingly diminished.” Strange, she thought, how whenever she spoke to Gerald, her locutions became as mandarin as his own.

“But if you were to come down to the betting shop and make some investments, your chances would be correspondingly increased.”

“But why should I come down to the betting shop?”

“Because you might enjoy it.”

“I don’t think that’s a good enough reason.” For anything, her puritan upbringing might have added.

“Then a better reason might be that I have some information regarding the woman about whom you questioned me during our last encounter.”

“Melanie Newton?”

“The very same.”

“I’ll be down there straight away.”

He was sitting in his usual seat, in pin-striped suit and tie, his briefcase at his side and ledger open on the table in front of him. “Ah, Carole,” he said, rising politely to greet her. “I am so glad you could make it.”

The environment still felt alien to her. The walls covered with newspaper spreads, the banks of television screens, the eternal pinging of the games machines, Chinese waiters chattering in one corner. The only other women in the place were the girl behind the counter and the woman Jude had identified as Pauline.

“Well, what is it you have to tell me?” she asked, rather brusquely.

“Before we do that, I would appreciate your input into the knotty problem of the two-ten at Towcester.”

“Toaster?” Carole echoed in bewilderment, thinking of a kitchen appliance.

“Towcester as in the Northamptonshire town, whose racecourse is set in the Easton Neston Estate. Towcester being one of those English place names which so charmingly befuddle foreign visitors. In the same way that Leominster and Bicester can confuse the unwary. And indeed with British surnames there are many whose pronunciation is similarly at odds with their spelling. One need only mention ‘Chumley’ spelt ‘Cholmondley’, “Dee-ell’ spelt ‘Dalziel’ and ‘Fanshaw’ spelt ‘Fetherstonehaugh’…though there is further confusion with the last, because some owners of that surname do insist on pronouncing it ‘Feather-stone-haugh’”

Carole couldn’t help smiling. “Yes, Gerald, I think I’ve got your point.”

“I am delighted to hear it. So, the two-ten at Towcester…a treat for lovers of alliteration everywhere.”

“I’d really rather you’d just told me – ”

He raised a hand that was at once deferential and commanding. “After the two-ten at Towcester.” He held out a copy of The Times, folded back to show the relevant runners and riders. “Because of the recent frost, the going will be quite hard, which factor I am sure will affect your assessment of the race, Carole.”

“Gerald, I know nothing about horse racing.”

“Perhaps you don’t have a great deal of education in the matter of horse racing, but you do have an instinct for the sport.”

“I don’t. It doesn’t interest me.”

“Carole, would you do me the kindness of approaching this race as if it were a crossword puzzle?”

“I would, if a horse race had any features in common with a crossword puzzle.”

“It has many. In a horse race there are many variables, but only one answer.”

“Yes, but – ”

“And one reaches that answer by a process of deduction and elimination.”

She couldn’t help being intrigued as well as amused. “Could you spell that out to me a little?”

“Very well.” He pointed down to the list of runners. “Here we have twelve horses, only one of whom is going to win the race.”

“Yes.”

“So, before we commence on the process of deduction, let us deploy our skills of elimination.”

“Remove from consideration the ones that have no chance?”

“Exactly. And to do this we look at the recent form.”

“Where is that?”

“In front of the horse’s name. The position in which they finished in their previous races. You see, that list of numbers.”

“So that one with ‘4-6-5-6-0’…?”

“In its last race it was unplaced – that’s the nought. In the previous one it came sixth, the one before that fifth, the one before that sixth again, the one before that fourth.”

“Not much of a prospect then?”

“No.”

“And what about this one? This has got letters too. Look…” She spelt them out. “‘0-F-F-P-0-P’.”

“That, Carole, is an even worse prospect. The zeros, as you know, mean that the horse was unplaced. And ‘F’ stands for ‘fell’.”

“The horse fell?”

“Yes. And ‘P’ means ‘pulled up’.”

“Sorry, I don’t know what that means.”

“The horse was doing so badly that the jockey pulled it up. In other words, it didn’t complete the course.”

“Ah. So in the form, letters are bad news?”

“Yes. ‘OFFPOP’…” He spoke the word as an acronym “…is not the horse to back. And there’s another letter to watch out for, which is ‘U’.”

“What does that mean?”

“‘Unseated rider’.”

“Again bad news?”

“Very.”

“So this one, Conjuror’s Rabbit, whose form is ‘33211’, is a much better bet.”

“Which is why it’s the odds-on favourite. Look, it’s down to thirteen to eight on.”

“All right, well, looking at the form, I would say there are seven of these horses that can be ruled out completely.”

“Excellent. You’re catching on to the idea.”

“In fact, I’d say that Conjuror’s Rabbit is definitely going to win.”

“Maybe.”

“Why maybe? It’s obvious, Gerald. Look at the form.”

“Ah, but because of that form, because of those two recent wins in particular, the handicapper is making the horse carry more weight.”

“What, a heavier jockey?”

“More likely weights put into the saddle.”

“That seems rather a dirty trick. It’s punishing success, isn’t it? A horse wins and immediately something’s done to make it less likely to win next time.”

“That’s how it works, yes. But if one didn’t have some compensatory system of that kind, the same horses would win all the time.”

“Well, that’d be fairer.”

“It might be fairer, but it would remove the excitement from the racing. The thrill of the unpredictable.”

“Generally speaking, I don’t find unpredictability thrilling.”

“Oh, Carole, I’m sure you do.”

“I don’t. So, anyway, this poor Conjuror’s Rabbit is now carrying too much weight to have a chance of winning?”

“No, no, it has a very good chance of winning. That’s why it’s favourite. And the ground’s in its favour.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Back to what I was saying about the going. The overnight frost has made the ground hard, so it’s easier for a heavy horse to move over it. If it were muddy, the weight would make a bigger difference.”

“Oh. I see what you mean about variables. Having to think not just about the horse’s recent form, but also the weight it’s carrying, not to mention the weather.”

Gerald Hume chuckled. “And that’s just the start of it. There’s also to be considered the horse’s breeding, the length of the race, which jockey’s up on him, the horse’s state of health, how well the trainer’s yard is currently doing…I could go on.”

“I think I get the point. But I’m not sure that your crossword analogy is quite valid. There the only real variables are the number of words in the English language.”

“Yes, but you narrow those down in the same way. No, it can’t be this word because the second letter’s got to be an ‘m’. No, it can’t be that one, because the seventh letter isn’t a ‘j’. And so you go on till you reach the one, inevitable solution.”

Carole smiled at her new friend. “I can see why it appeals to you, Gerald. And I can see why photography appeals too.”

“Ah, do you want me to start on the variables that have to be considered when taking the perfect photograph? There’s the shutter speed, the light, the – ”

She held her hand up to stem the anticipated deluge. “No need. I’ll take your word for it.”

“So, after all that exegesis of the form book, it is now two eight and fifty-three seconds. Are you going to make an investment on the two-ten at Towcester?”

“Well, I’m sure Conjuror’s Rabbit is going to win.”

“And are you going to put your money where your mouth is?”

“Why not?” She opened her handbag, took out her purse and held up a two-pound piece.

“Last of the big spenders,” said Gerald Hume.

“Would you mind putting it on for me when you put your bet on?”

“Very well.” He went to the counter. Carole tried not to look self-conscious. She needn’t have worried. Nobody was interested in what she looked like.

“So,” she asked, as Gerald returned, “have you done the favourite too?”

“No.”

“So what have you done?”

“Ssh. They’re under orders. I’ll tell you when the race is over.”

They watched, along with the rest of the crowd, including Pauline, the Chinese waiters and Wes and Vie. The decorators were noisy with ‘Go on, my son!’ Conjuror’s Rabbit showed his class from the start, easing himself into third early on and holding that position until they turned into the straight with two fences to jump. Finding another gear, he moved smoothly forward to overtake the two ahead of him and sailed over the penultimate obstacle. Then, six lengths ahead, with the race at his mercy, he approached the last. Carole began to get a distant inkling of what the attraction of gambling might be about.

But the calculation of her modest winnings was interrupted. Suddenly Conjuror’s Rabbit seemed to break his stride. He crashed into the top of the last fence, stumbled on landing and neatly deposited his jockey on to the ground. The second horse, a twenty-to-one outsider called Draggle Tail, clumsily crossed the last fence and had enough momentum to reach the winning post first.

“Well, that’s stupid,” said Carole. “You can’t apply any logic to something like that. What a very unsatisfactory exercise – two pounds straight down the drain.”

“Not unsatisfactory for everyone,” said Gerald slyly.

“What do you mean?”

“I had a fiver on Draggle Tail.”

“What? But why? What possible logic could there be in that? No, I’m afraid your analogy with crosswords is completely destroyed by what’s just happened.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“How so?”

“I backed Draggle Tail because ‘Draggle’ is, all but for one letter, an anagram of ‘Gerald’.”

“And you call that logic? So much for all your talk of ‘mathematical probabilities’.”

Carole was still fuming when Gerald Hume returned from the counter with his winnings. “Having dragged me down here,” she said sniffily, “to squander my hard-earned pension, you will now perhaps have the goodness to give me the information that you have about the betting shop’s mystery woman.”

“Oh yes,” he said, with a twinkle. “That would only be fair, wouldn’t it?” He sat down on a blue plastic seat beside her. “The woman you refer to is Melanie Newton, who has an address in Fedborough.”

“Yes, except that she has moved from that address, and has apparently split up with her husband and could be anywhere.”

“So you’ve no other means of contacting her?”

“I got a mobile number for her, but she doesn’t answer it.”

“Have you left a message?”

“No. I don’t want to put her off. If she thinks we’re on the trail, that might be a prompt for her to make herself scarce.”

“Yes. Assuming she has something to hide. Which is rather a big assumption. You have no real reason to think Melanie Newton is involved with wrong-doing of any kind.”

“No,” Carole agreed. Though in her mind the scale of Melanie Newton’s wrong-doing had been increasing disproportionately. “The trouble is, with only a mobile number as a means of contact, she could be anywhere in the world.”

“Well, Carole, I am glad to be able to say that I can narrow the focus down a bit from the whole world.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

“Melanie Newton is in Fethering – or at least was in Fethering yesterday.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I saw her.”

“Not in here? Is the betting shop open on Sundays?”

“It is, but it wasn’t in here that I saw her. As I believe I mentioned at our first meeting, I live in River Road. And I am fortunate in that I live in one of the houses with a sea view. For this reason, to maximize that view, my sitting room is upstairs, and I was sitting there yesterday afternoon setting up some shots with my camera. I never tire of taking pictures of the view from my window at different times of year. While I was engaged in this activity, I noticed hurrying towards me from the direction of the river a woman whom I thought I recognized as Melanie Newton. She looked somewhat unkempt, and I could not be sure that it was her until she was virtually opposite my house. But when I saw her that close, there was no doubt. Thinking of your eagerness to identify her, I regretted that I had not had the presence of mind to take a picture of her. But still, the chance was gone, so I returned to my own photography.”

He paused, relishing the hold he had over her attention. Carole had to use great control not to ask what happened next.

“Well,” Gerald Hume continued in his own time, “luck was on my side…as I must say it appears to have been this afternoon with the triumph of Draggle Tail…” Carole could have done without such excursions in his narrative, but again kept her calm and her silence. “Because a mere quarter of an hour later, I saw Melanie Newton returning the way she had come, this time bearing two loaded carrier bags from Allinstore, which I’m sure you know to be the – ”

This time Carole cracked. “I know what Allinstore is!”

She spoke with such vehemence that Gerald Hume picked up speed. “Anyway, I saw her coming towards me, I had time, and the outcome is: that I took a photograph of her.”

“Do you…?” she asked tentatively.

“Of course I do.” Gerald Hume reached down for his briefcase, lifted it up on to the table and opened it. He took out an envelope containing a colour print.

Carole had not seen the woman before. But at least she now knew what Melanie Newton looked like.