Syndicate

Chapter 7

‘Are you all right?’ Georgina asked, coming back from the ladies. ‘You look like you’ve just seen a ghost.’

‘I’m fine,’ I said, waving a hand at her. ‘I’m just tired.’

‘Mmm, me too.’ She yawned and sat down next to me.

I didn’t tell her about the phone call — of course I didn’t. It would have sent her into a wild panic — as it had me.

Was it real or just a prank? Had the person on the other end of the line, man or woman, really taken Amanda from our home and deposited her in Pangbourne? And, in particular, was the threat to kill her next time real? What did the person want me to do? What did he or she mean by ‘In the future, you will do as I say’? Had I not done something they had asked for in the past?

My thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of a man in black trousers and a white shirt, with Security emblazoned across each black epaulette. He also had an identity card hanging on a lanyard around his neck.

‘Mr and Mrs Newton?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘I’m Justin from hospital security. Please come with me.’

We stood up and followed him through two sets of double doors to a bank of lifts.

‘The police have given instructions that no one should speak to your daughter other than the medical team,’ Justin said formally as the lift doors closed behind us. ‘Anyway, she’s fast asleep. She has been sedated.’

‘Sedated? Why?’ Georgina asked.

‘You will have to ask the doctors that. It seems she was quite agitated when she was brought in.’

‘Just seeing her will be great,’ I said, trying to be positive.

He pushed the button for the fourth floor, where we followed him down a brightly lit corridor to the general admissions ward. He placed his identity card against a small device on the left-hand wall, and the door opened automatically towards us.

‘You will need to be quiet now,’ Justin said in a whisper.

We nodded.

He led us around a corner to a side room where another similarly dressed security guard was sitting on a chair outside the door. He stood up.

‘Your daughter is in here,’ Justin said. ‘We will open the door for you to see her, but you must not go in or make any noise. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ we whispered together.

He opened the door and stood aside.

The ceiling light was dimly lit, and in its glow we could see Amanda lying asleep on her back in the bed, her long blonde hair spreading out over the pillow on either side of her head. She looked quite calm but, at the same time, somehow very vulnerable.

‘Oh, my darling,’ Georgina cried softly. She tried to move forward into the room but Justin, the security man, put out his hand to block her.

‘Sorry,’ he said firmly. ‘No one is allowed in here.’ He pulled the door shut. ‘My colleague will show you out now. We are changing shift.’

‘Thank you,’ I said to him. ‘It is good to see her being so well looked after.’

We were escorted back to the A&E department.

‘I want to stay,’ Georgina said. ‘So I’m here when she wakes up.’

‘My love,’ I said. ‘We have to go home and get some sleep ourselves. We will be no use to Amanda if we are so tired we can’t keep our eyes open.’

‘But she might need me.’

‘The hospital staff will look after her. And the police will want to interview her before we can see her anyway. Come on — let’s go home. We can come back in the morning.’

She didn’t want to — I could see that — but she eventually allowed me to steer her out to our car, which unsurprisingly didn’t have a parking ticket on the windscreen.

James was still not in bed when we arrived home, but he was fast asleep.

All the lights were still on throughout the house, and he was snoring gently on the sofa in the sitting room. I picked up a throw from the footstool and placed it over him.

‘Let him be,’ I said to Georgina. ‘He’s going to have quite a hangover in the morning.’

As was I, but not from drinking.

Georgina had dozed all the way home from Reading, but my mind had been sharp and awake, and asking questions.

Who had phoned me? What did they want me to do?

And — perhaps the most pressing of the questions I was trying to answer — should I report the call to the police?

Part of my brain said, Of course you must because it’s a police matter.

But another part said, No, you mustn’t because it might put Amanda in danger.

The man — I thought of the caller as a man because I doubted that a woman would have had the strength to carry Amanda away — hadn’t actually told me not to call the police. Was that because he was confident of not being identified even if I did?

Georgina and I went to bed, turning out the light at half past five, when the sun had already been up for more than half an hour, and was shining brightly against our bedroom window.

Even though I had been awake now for over twenty-four hours, I couldn’t sleep, endlessly tossing and turning as I tried to get the squeaky voice out of my head.

I must have eventually gone to sleep, because I was awakened by my phone ringing on my bedside table. In trepidation I picked it up. The screen showed me the time was eight-thirty. It also gave me the name of the caller — Owen Reynolds. Relieved, I answered it.

‘Morning, Owen,’ I said.

‘Morning, Chester. I hope I’m not too early.’ Eight-thirty was positively late for a trainer who would be up at five o’clock every day. ‘Did your party go well?’

‘It was definitely one I will never forget,’ I replied. ‘What can I do for you?’

‘Eleanor and I are having a bit of a bash here at five o’clock this afternoon, to celebrate the Derby win. It’s mostly for my stable staff and some neighbours from our village, but we thought it would be nice to also invite the owning syndicate, and yourself and Georgina, of course. Potassium will also parade. But I need the syndicate members’ telephone numbers to invite them.’

‘No problem,’ I said. ‘I’ll email them over to you.’

‘Great. Could you also bring the trophy with you, for display?’

‘I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Great,’ he said again. ‘See you later.’

He disconnected and I lay back on the pillow, holding my mobile. The last thing I really wanted to do was to drive over to Owen’s yard and be full of bonhomie, but it came with the territory.

I continually needed more and more syndicate members, as those I had were becoming older, and some had dropped off the list altogether, either through death or because they couldn’t afford horse ownership in their retirement.

Winning the Derby was the best marketing tool I could have ever asked for, and much of it would be done by word of mouth from the existing syndicate. Hence I needed to be there to press their flesh and get across the message that it was Victrix that gave you wings, at least with the horses.

Owning racehorses is all about dreaming.

Most owners — nay, almost all of them — lose money. Certainly, no one does it to make a fortune. Buying a racehorse, whether it be outright or with others in a syndicate, is to buy into a certain lifestyle.

Make no mistake, I was in the luxury-goods market. Owning racehorses isn’t cheap, but it is a price that some are prepared to pay to live the high life. And occasionally they strike it rich — like owning the winner of the Derby.

It was the slot-machine logic. Everyone knows that the casinos have fixed the systems so that, over time, slots never pay out as much cash as they consume. That’s why they’re known as ‘one-arm bandits.’ But still people play them. Partly for the thrill of the gamble but also in the knowledge that, maybe this time, they will hit the jackpot.

And the Las Vegas casinos absolutely love it when someone actually does win a million dollars of their money on a giant slot machine. They know that, with the publicity such a win generates, tens of thousands more punters will flood through their doors to try their luck.

So here I was, hoping for the same thing.

Potassium’s win in the Derby, and the publicity it would generate, should have prospective syndicate members queuing at my door, chasing the same dream.

Hence, I would go to Owen Reynolds’s stable yard at five o’clock, although whether I could convince Georgina to come with me was another matter. She hadn’t wanted to do much recently. She blamed her hormones, as she had done for most things for quite a long while now. ‘It’s the menopause,’ she would say, as if that was the excuse for everything, as indeed it might be. And pause was certainly the right word. Our whole lives together as a married couple seemed to be ‘on pause.’

I looked across at her, and decided to leave her sleeping. She could do with the sleep, something else she often couldn’t get enough of because of the hormones rampaging through her body. We would hear soon enough if there was any news from the Royal Berkshire Hospital.

I threw on a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and went downstairs.

James was still on the sofa in the sitting room, but he was just about awake, sitting up and holding his head.

‘Morning, James,’ I said. ‘How’s the hangover?’

‘Don’t ask,’ he replied. ‘Did you see Amanda?’

‘Only briefly.’

‘Did she tell you what happened?’

I shook my head. ‘She’d been sedated. But I hope to hear from her soon.’

Or from the police, I thought.

I went through the kitchen and to my office, to send Owen the email with the Potassium syndicate members’ telephone numbers. I was sure none of them would object to me sharing their personal information — not under the circumstances.

I sat at my desk for a while, answering the mass of congratulatory emails I had received from a large number of people, especially from members of my other syndicates, who seemed genuinely happy that a Victrix horse had won the Derby, even if it wasn’t the one they actually owned shares in.

As I was just finishing, someone rang the front door bell.

I had installed one of those security systems that showed a video on my mobile phone of who was there. I could also talk to them.

‘Hello,’ I said, looking at the image of a woman in her thirties, standing on the porch.

‘Is that Mr Newton?’ she said. ‘Mr Chester Newton?’

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘I’m Detective Sergeant Christine Royle of Thames Valley Police.’ She held up her police warrant card to the camera so I could read it. ‘Can I come in?’

‘Just a minute.’

I rushed through the kitchen and the hallway to the front door.

DS Royle was not alone. Standing by her car was a younger man.

‘This is DC Abbot.’

I showed the two of them into the house, then through into the kitchen, where we sat at the table.

‘Have you spoken to my daughter?’ I asked.

‘Indeed, we have,’ said the detective sergeant. ‘We’ve come straight here from the hospital.’

‘Is she all right?’ I asked with concern.

‘She was fine when I left her,’ the DS replied. ‘She’s now resting.’

‘What did she say happened?’

‘That’s the problem. She told me she has no memory of anything that occurred yesterday evening. The last thing she can remember is getting dressed for your party. She claims to have no recollection of how or why she ended up in hospital. I am hoping that some of her memory might return later. But blood tests have shown she has both cocaine and ketamine in her system.’

‘Ketamine? Isn’t that a drug used by vets on horses?’

‘It’s also an anaesthetic for humans and is widely used for relieving acute pain due to injury. But it’s also taken illegally by some people as a recreational drug. And it can make people do the strangest of things, sometimes totally out of character. Mr Newton, are you aware that your daughter is a drug user?’

‘I wasn’t. Not until last night when her boyfriend admitted that they had both snorted some cocaine before the party.’

‘And ketamine?’

‘Not that I was aware of,’ I said. ‘But I wouldn’t put anything past Darren Williamson. Why don’t you ask him? He was arrested here last night for possessing cocaine. The officers said he’d been taken to Oxford.’

‘He has since been released with a caution,’ the DS said.

‘When?’ I asked.

‘In the early hours, after your daughter had been located. There was no reason to detain him any longer. There’s been a major disturbance in Oxford City Centre overnight, which involved rioting and looting. It always seems to happen when the weather is hot and people drink too much. Anyway, numerous arrests were made, and Mr Williamson was released to make room in the cells.’

At this point Georgina walked into the kitchen in her dressing gown.

‘I thought I heard voices down here,’ she said. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Amanda’s fine. These people are detectives. They’ve come to ask us some questions about last night.’

The detective sergeant stood up. ‘I’m DS Royle and this is DC Abbot. I assume you are Mrs Newton?’

‘Yes,’ said Georgina. ‘I am.’

‘I’ve just been telling your husband that your daughter has no memory of the events of last evening. At least, that’s what she’s been telling us.’

‘Don’t you believe her?’ Georgina asked sharply.

‘Should I have any reason not to?’ asked the DS.

‘None,’ Georgina replied emphatically.

She would always defend her daughter.

The detective took a notebook from her jacket pocket and opened it. ‘Could you both please give me an account of events last evening, in particular, prior to your daughter going missing? Especially anything unusual.’

I wondered if winning the Derby counted as unusual.

I went through everything I could remember, from the time I had arrived home from Epsom until the moment I had been unable find Amanda for the speeches. I also described the actions taken afterwards to try and find her.

‘Have you anything to add, Mrs Newton?’ asked the detective.

‘Nothing,’ Georgina replied. ‘I think Chester has covered everything.’

The detective closed her notebook.

‘I will need a list of the names and addresses of all your guests. I believe you told the constables last night that you could provide one.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I have an Excel file. I’ll go and print it out.’

I went through to my office, printed the list from my computer, and took it back to the kitchen.

‘Don’t forget to cross off my mother, and also Richard and Sarah Bassett,’ Georgina said. ‘They didn’t come.’

I put a line through their names and then handed the list to the detective.

‘You seem to be taking this matter very seriously,’ I said to her. ‘Do you really think that my daughter just had a bad drug trip and wandered off, or is there something you’re not telling us?’

The DS hesitated. So there was something else.

‘I think we have a right to know,’ I said. ‘We are her parents.’

‘But your daughter is over eighteen. She’s now an adult, able to make her own decisions, and she is also entitled to her privacy, even from her parents. But are either of you aware if your daughter was in the habit of injecting herself with anything?’

‘Like what?’ Georgina asked, somewhat alarmed.

‘Drugs.’

‘As I told you, we were not aware of her taking any drugs,’ I said. ‘Why do you ask?’

The DS hesitated again, as if deciding whether to tell us. In the end she clearly made up her mind to do so. ‘It would appear that there is an injection puncture mark on her skin.’

‘Whereabouts on her skin?’ Georgina asked.

‘On her neck,’ said the detective. ‘Close to her jugular vein.’

‘Her jugular vein!’ I said. ‘How could anyone inject themselves there?’

‘You’d be surprised. Some addicts regularly inject into their jugulars when they can no longer find a suitable vein anywhere else.’

‘But that’s ridiculous,’ I said. ‘Someone else must have injected her.’

‘With what?’ Georgina asked.

‘Ketamine,’ the DS replied.

‘What’s that?’ asked Georgina, now deeply worried.

‘An anaesthetic. Blood tests show it is in her system, and she is also displaying some of the after-effects of ketamine, in particular amnesia and confusion.’

‘But is she all right now?’ I asked.

‘She’s better this morning, but because of the ketamine, we are now treating her disappearance as a possible abduction.’

‘Only a possible abduction?’ I said. ‘What other explanation could there be?’

‘We are still looking into that.’

See how easy it was for me to take your daughter, the squeaky voice had said. In the future, you will do as I say, or next time she’ll come home in a body bag.

I debated again whether I should tell this police officer about that call.

‘Tell me,’ I said to her casually. ‘If someone receives a nuisance call with No Caller ID shown on their phone, can the police find out who made it?’

She looked at me. ‘Why do you want to know?’

‘No reason,’ I said. ‘I just wondered.’

‘It’s technically possible but it’s complicated because of privacy laws. And it also depends on the caller’s number having been properly registered. Most nuisance callers use unregistered burner phones, which makes it impossible to trace them.’

So there was absolutely no point in me telling the detective about the call I’d received from Squeaky Voice. It wouldn’t lead to him being traced, and it might put Amanda in greater danger.

‘Have you been receiving nuisance calls?’ asked DS Royle, her detective antennae clearly quivering wildly.

‘No,’ I said quickly. ‘But as the owner of yesterday’s Derby winner, I’m worried I might. You know. Begging calls and such. I’ve heard of it happening to others.’

‘Let us know if it happens, and we’ll see what we can do about it.’

DS Royle handed me one of her business cards with her direct dial telephone number printed on it.

‘Thank you,’ I said, putting the card in my wallet. ‘So, when can we collect Amanda?’

‘She is free to leave the hospital at any time,’ replied the detective sergeant blandly. ‘But it’s for her to decide where she goes when discharged. Are you sure she will agree to come home with you?’

‘Absolutely certain,’ Georgina said.

But was there something else the detective wasn’t telling us?