Crisis

12

About three in the afternoon, having dispensed with the car and driver, I walked from the Bedford Lodge Hotel along Bury Road past Oliver Chadwick’s house.

It was almost as much as I could do not to pop into Janie’s office and ask if she’d yet given my number to Kate. But best not to be seen to be too eager, I thought, and kept on walking towards the town centre, for I was a man on a mission and I had a difficult decision to make.

I had to decide on just one of the thirteen available.

It was a big question.

Which one?

Which one?

In which one of the thirteen betting shops in Newmarket would I make my bet?

I felt it was time to further my education. I’d never been in a betting shop before. Indeed, I’d never placed a bet in my life other than buying the occasional lottery ticket, and surely that didn’t count.

But that was all about to change.

I’d done a bit of homework on the internet, looking up odds and bet types.

I had naively believed that placing a bet was a straightforward exercise — you just choose the horse you think will be first in the race and hand over your stake money to the bookmaker, who will pay you out if the horse actually wins, or keep your stake for himself if it doesn’t.

Simple.

And, indeed, you can bet like that, but I found there are far more things to consider.

For a start, not every bookmaker offers the same odds. You need to search for the best available price, just like in every other type of shopping. There is no sense in making a bet at odds of five-to-one at one shop when another down the road is offering six-to-one.

And then not all bets are ‘win only’. In some races, you can back a horse to finish in the first three, or even in the first four. And there are other bets called forecasts, tricasts, exactas and perfectas, where multiple horses in the same race have to come in first and second, or first, second and third in any order, or in the right order.

I discovered that you can also place a single stake on several horses in separate races, called an accumulator bet, and there are many combinations of accumulators with exotic names such as Trixie, Lucky 15, Goliath, Patent, Canadian and Yankee, to name just a few.

There is even something called a ‘Heinz’, which consists of 57 separate bets on six horses, each running in a different race: 15 doubles, 20 trebles, 15 fourfold accumulators, 6 fivefold accumulators, and a single sixfold accumulator. Any two horses have to win to start paying out, with greater returns the more of them that triumph, and huge rewards if four, five or six of your selections come in.

However, for all of the glamorous methods of wagering your money, I thought back to what ASW had said to me: There’s no such thing as a poor bookmaker.

So punters beware.

My first port of call was the BP filling station on Bury Road, where I withdrew some cash from their ATM. Then, empowered by the wedge of banknotes in my pocket, I went in search of the betting shops.

The nearest one was Ladbrokes, opposite the Queen Victoria Jubilee Clock Tower at the top end of the High Street, its bright red and white frontage making it look more like a supermarket than a bookmakers, with special offers displayed on large posters in the window — two bets for the price of one.

I strode purposefully over to the door but found myself looking round furtively before opening it, checking that no one who knew me was watching, as if I were a naughty boy entering a den of iniquity, a hangout of wickedness and immorality.

I’m not sure what I expected to find — maybe a dark, smoke-filled room bustling with dubious individuals, all wearing hats and with their coat collars turned up, silently going about their business, handing over grubby handfuls of cash to a shirt-sleeved croupier behind a metal grill. Perhaps even with Paul Newman and Robert Redford on hand to relieve Robert Shaw of a briefcase full of twenty-dollar bills.

How wrong I was.

It was nothing at all like a scene from The Sting.

Instead, it was a sparsely populated, brightly lit airy space, statutorily smoke-free, with a light-oak floor and a scattering of easy chairs and stools upholstered in corporate Ladbroke tomato-red fabric.

On one side there was a glass-fronted booth for placing bets, and on the opposite wall, high up, a line of seven large television sets, some showing live horse and dog races, others displaying the odds of the runners. Under the TVs were pinned the various racecard pages from the Racing Post, with a wide shelf beneath for punters to lean on to write down their selections on the slips of paper provided, ready to hand in at the booth with their stake.

In addition, in the quiet corners, there were two electronic fixed-odds betting machines offering casino games such as roulette and blackjack, as well as the regular one-armed bandit spinning wheels.

It was an Aladdin’s cave, a whole new world, with new horizons to pursue.

What had I been doing all my life?

I was like a kid in a candy store.

I walked across to the booth.

‘Do you have odds for the Derby?’ I asked the young woman behind the glass.

‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘I’ll get them off the system. They’ve all changed now that Prince of Troy is confirmed as a non-runner.’

He’s more than a non-runner, I thought, he’s a non-existent.

She disappeared into the office behind and shortly reappeared with a printed sheet. She slid it across the counter under the glass.

‘They won’t all run,’ she said confidently. ‘Maximum of twenty in the Derby.’

I looked down at the list of horses on the sheet. There were thirty-eight of them in all, the favourite at the top, the outsiders at the bottom.

‘Those are ante-post odds,’ said the young woman, pointing at the sheet. ‘You lose your stake if the horse doesn’t run.’

‘Or doesn’t win?’ I replied.

‘Yeah, that as well,’ she said with a laugh. ‘No refunds.’

I scanned the list, looking for Orion’s Glory. He was nearly halfway down and quoted at a price of 33–1. Even I knew that was good, but maybe not quite good enough. I would shop around the other companies to see how they compared.

‘How often do the odds change?’ I asked.

‘The next scratch date is this coming Tuesday. The prices will shorten then for all of those left in. Then supplementary entries close on the Monday before the race. It would obviously change things dramatically if any horses are entered at that late stage. And the Dante tomorrow may cause a few fluctuations. Some of those are running in that.’ She nodded at the list in my hand.

‘But they won’t change in the next hour or so?’ I asked.

‘Not unless another favourite gets killed.’ She laughed.

‘Good for you, was it?’

‘Bloody marvellous. We’ve taken an absolute shedload on Prince of Troy to win the Derby, much of it since long before the Guineas when his price was really long. All the Chadwick lads came in here like clockwork, every week, to put more on him from their pay packets. They’ve been doing it for months. We’re their nearest shop. We stood to lose a bloody fortune if Prince of Troy won, which he probably would have.’

No wonder Ryan’s lads were so gloomy. It wasn’t just their pride that had taken a hit.

‘Manna from heaven, that fire was.’ She laughed again, louder this time.

I didn’t join in. I just stared at her.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, suddenly, hugely embarrassed. ‘It’s not right of me to laugh like that. I’m really sorry racing lost such a great horse in that manner.’

Don’t lie to me, I thought.

I looked down again at the list. ‘Is thirty-three-to-one your best price for Orion’s Glory?’

‘If that’s what it says.’

‘Not good enough,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I’ll take my twenty pounds elsewhere. I don’t like your attitude to the death of Prince of Troy. In fact, I might call Ladbrokes and complain.’

She was taken aback.

‘I’ll give you better odds,’ she said quickly. ‘How about forty-to-one? Just don’t say anything to head office. Please. I’ll lose my job.’

‘Can you change the odds just like that?’

‘I have some discretion,’ she said, implying she was more important than she actually was.

‘Make it fifty-to-one, then,’ I said, ‘and my lips will be sealed.’

She hesitated.

‘I’m sure that Mr Chadwick’s lads would also love to know that their nearest betting shop thinks it’s manna from heaven that Prince of Troy died in a fire, that it saved Ladbrokes a “bloody fortune”.’

‘You wouldn’t.’

‘Try me,’ I said, staring at her again.

She was descending into panic.

‘All right,’ she said finally. ‘Twenty quid on Orion’s Glory at fifty-to-one.’

‘Make that forty quid,’ I said, peeling another twenty-note from my bundle. I was unlikely ever to get these odds again, either here or at any of the town’s other betting shops.

She hesitated again but I pushed the two banknotes under the glass towards her and she eventually took them.

‘Two thousand pounds to forty,’ she said slowly while typing it into her computer. She passed over the printed betting slip. ‘You’ll get me sacked anyway.’

‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘You’ve taken a shedload from the Chadwick lads. You said so yourself. And that’s all now risk-free.’

I came out of the Ladbrokes betting shop with a real bounce in my step. I was already mentally spending my two thousand pounds. All that had to happen now was for Orion’s Glory to win the Derby. All?

I continued down the High Street and, just out of curiosity, I popped into the Paddy Power betting shop and asked for their odds for the Derby. Orion’s Glory was again quoted at 33–1.

‘Are these your very best odds?’ I asked the man behind the counter. ‘I got fifty-to-one for Orion’s Glory at Ladbrokes.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ he replied matter-of-factly. ‘Even thirty-threes is too generous in my view, but it’s head office, not me, that sets the prices.’ It sounded like he didn’t think much of head office. ‘I reckon he’ll be down in the twenties by tomorrow night, after the Dante. Orion’s Glory is a better horse than many people think.’

‘But he’s not running in the Dante,’ I said.

‘No, but others are and that will whittle some of them out of the market. I’d take the thirty-threes now if I were you before you miss the boat.’

‘Have you backed him yourself?’ I asked.

‘I take bets, mate, not make them.’

How pragmatic, I thought. And less expensive.

My next stop was Marks & Spencer — no, they haven’t opened a betting shop — I was also in need of some fresh socks and pants.

It was all well and good having a cabin-sized suitcase always on standby for an immediate departure, but it didn’t really contain enough for a whole week’s stay away. And I was fed up of having to wash out my socks each night and hang them to dry on the heated towel rail in the bathroom.

True, I could have sent them to the hotel laundry service. Indeed, ASW would have expected me to. But even I baulked at paying more to get a pair of socks washed than it cost to buy new ones, whoever was picking up the tab.

I bought two shirts and a pair of khaki chinos, as well as the new socks and pants. I also acquired a small cheap suitcase from Argos, as I’d need something to put my new clothes into, along with the wellington boots and coat that I’d purchased the day before.

My phone rang as I was paying for the suitcase.

‘Hi,’ said a voice. ‘Kate here.’

My heart went flip-flop.

‘Hi,’ I replied. ‘Where are you?’

‘At work.’

‘Where’s work?’ I asked.

‘Tatts.’

The way she said it made me think I should know what Tatts was, and where. And I was loath to show my ignorance by asking. I looked at my watch. It was five past four.

‘What time do you finish?’ I asked.

‘Any time from now on,’ Kate said. ‘It’s been a quiet day.’

‘Would you like to meet for a drink?’ I asked, fearing she’d have a million other things to do.

‘It’s a bit early for a drink,’ she said. ‘Even for me. How about tea at Nancy’s?’

‘Great. Who’s Nancy?’

‘Nancy’s Teashop. On Old Station Road. Say, in about twenty minutes?’

‘Lovely,’ I said. ‘Meet you there.’

‘Do you know where it is?’

‘I’ll find it,’ I said.

‘I’m sure you will. Bye.’ I could hear her laughing as she hung up the call.

‘Where’s Old Station Road?’ I asked the shop assistant in Argos.

‘Top of the high street and turn right at the roundabout,’ she replied. ‘You can’t miss it.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, and scuttled away with my suitcase, stuffing the dark green M&S bag inside it.

If I’d had a bounce in my step earlier, I was now floating on air as I hurried back to the high street and then up to the clock tower roundabout. I turned right into Old Station Road and easily found Nancy’s Vintage Teashop about a hundred yards down on the right-hand side.

I was there ahead of Kate and I sat down at a table close to the door so as not to be missed.

There were several groups there, including one of mothers with toddlers camped out on a big pink sofa in the window. Indeed, pinkness was the overriding perception, with pink napkins on the tables and pink aprons on the staff. But pink wasn’t the only colour; there were also pastel blues and yellows among the eclectic furnishings.

Four large cake stands, each covered with a voluminous glass bell-top, stood on the service counter with delicious-looking delights within, and there was a line of old-fashioned teapots on a shelf behind, each decorated with roses and other flowers such that they reminded me of chintz.

I studied the menu in its pink-and-white-striped folder and ordered Nancy’s Classic Afternoon Tea for two.

Kate arrived running and slightly out of breath.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ she said. ‘I got held up by a call.’

‘You’re not late,’ I said, standing up. ‘Perfect timing.’

In fact, perfect in every way, I thought, but decided it was far too cheesy to say so.

We sat down opposite one another with the table between us and I enviously eyed the mothers on the sofa sitting side by side.

‘I’ve ordered the classic afternoon tea for two,’ I said.

‘I hope you’re hungry. Janie and I usually order just one between us, with a second cup, and we can rarely finish everything even then.’

The waitress arrived with what could only be described as a feast fit for Henry VIII himself. A triple-decker plate piled high with finger sandwiches, fresh-baked scones and fancy cakes, plus a huge pot of strawberry jam, and enough clotted cream to feed the biblical five thousand.

‘I’ve given you a few extra scones,’ said the young waitress. ‘We close at five and we’ve got plenty left.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and watched as she went back out to the kitchen.

I looked at the mountain of food in front of me, and then at Kate, and we both burst out laughing.

‘Know of any starving children in the locality?’ I said.

We had both just about managed to stop giggling by the time the waitress returned with a silver tray on which sat two teacups, two saucers, a large teapot, milk jug, sugar basin and a strainer with stand, all of them in white china with pink roses on the sides. Just like the ones my grandmother used to own.

‘What an amazing place,’ I said to Kate. ‘Like stepping back fifty years.’

She looked down to the suitcase standing on the floor next to me.

‘Not leaving are you?’ she said with concern in her voice.

‘No.’ I laughed. ‘Quite the reverse. I’ve had to buy more clothes as I only arrived with an overnight bag. So I had to get something to put them in.’

‘Good,’ she said, and smiled broadly. ‘Don’t go away, ever.’

Wow! Thunderbolt City squared.