by Roger Keevil
THE ODDS
ON
MURDER
by
Roger Keevil
THE ODDS ON MURDER
an Inspector Constable murder mystery
by
Roger Keevil
Copyright © 2016 Roger Keevil
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission of the publisher, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside these terms should be sent to the publisher.
[email protected]
www.rogerkeevil.co.uk
To Patsy, the finest horse in the business, from Arthur
‘The Odds On Murder’ is a work of fiction and wholly the product of the imagination of the author. All persons, events, locations, organisations and horses are entirely fictitious, and are not intended to resemble in any way any actual persons (or horses) living or dead, events, locations or organisations. Any such resemblance is entirely coincidental, and is wholly in the mind of the reader.
Who knew?!
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 3
Chapter 2 10
Chapter 3 17
Chapter 4 22
Chapter 5 27
Chapter 6 33
Chapter 7 39
Chapter 8 45
Chapter 9 51
Chapter 10 60
Chapter 11 67
Chapter 12 74
Chapter 13 80
Chapter 14 87
Chapter 15 93
Chapter 16 98
THE INSPECTOR CONSTABLE MURDER MYSTERIES 104
Chapter 1
To a resounding flourish from the State Trumpeters, the carriage procession turned into the Royal Enclosure in front of the main stand at Goodwell Park. The opening day of the Glamorous Goodwell race meeting was under way.
*
“Copper, isn’t it?”
Detective Sergeant Dave Copper, a fraction over medium height and, to his regret, a fraction more over medium weight, looked up from his race card to find himself being addressed by a slightly stooped but still tall individual, immaculate in formal dress. The silver hair was crowned with a gleaming silk top hat. The craggy face, with a hawk-like nose and a pair of piercing grey eyes, wore the tan of an outdoors-man. “Er … that’s right.”
“Thought so. Try never to forget a face, you know. Specially when they’ve done me a good turn, so to speak.”
“It’s … er … it’s very good of you to say so.” Copper tried not to let it show on his face that he was desperately racking his brains to identify the other man.
“And I don’t know if you’re aware, but we got all the pictures back in the end. Every single one of them. Even the Tintoretto. Undamaged. Thanks to some smart work by you and your colleagues.”
The penny dropped. “We managed to round up the whole gang, sir. And it wasn’t just your house they targeted. It was a pretty big operation. I was just a small cog in the machine.”
“Well, anyway, caught sight of you, and just thought I’d mention my appreciation.” The older man looked over his shoulder to where a mature woman, elegantly clad in cream lace and wearing one of her signature feather-trimmed cartwheel hats, could be heard discoursing knowledgeably in her deep voice as to the merits of a passing thoroughbred to a much younger man and a small group of fluttering attendants. “And now I’d better get back to HRH before she completely intimidates my grandson.” He held out a grey-gloved hand. “Good to have seen you again, Mr. Copper.” A glance at the two men standing alongside the sergeant. “I hope you and your friends enjoy yourselves.”
Copper took the proffered hand. “Thank you, my lord.”
“Who on earth was that old boy?” enquired one of Copper’s companions, regarding the retreating back in some astonishment.
“Bit more respect from you, young Pete, if you don’t mind,” replied Copper, grinning at the expression on his friend’s face. “You’re standing on that old boy’s grass. That just happens to be the Earl of Warke. He owns the racecourse.”
“So how come you know an earl, for crying out loud?” was the incredulous reaction of the third of the trio. “Bit above your pay grade, isn’t it?”
Copper smiled. “It’s all perfectly simple, Matt. You probably don’t remember that case a while back when a gang was going around stealing pictures from country houses? It could have been before you joined up. It was before I got made up to sergeant, and I was still in Intelligence. Anyway, I got sent to Lord Warke’s place after he had the break-in, and I happened to be the one who took his statement. That’s all.”
“So we don’t have to bow and scrape and call you ‘sir’?” laughed his colleague.
“Not just yet,” responded Copper. “Mind you, watch out when I pass my inspector’s exams!” An announcement over the loudspeaker system interrupted proceedings to draw the crowd’s attention to the start of the next race, and the three joined the general drift towards the rails. “Anyway, enough shop. Let’s see if we can win some money.”
*
“It’s a mug’s game, you know.”
“Guv?” Dave Copper looked up from his keyboard, glad of the opportunity to take a break from entering a mind-numbing series of statistics into a crime report which, he suspected, probably nobody would ever read.
“What you were going on about earlier,” said Detective Inspector Andy Constable. He took a sip from the mug of tea in front of him and pushed away the pile of files on his desk, leaned his long frame back in his chair, stretched out his legs, and raised his arms expansively, only to stop short with a sudden ‘Ow!’.
“You okay, guv?”
“Yes, I’m fine,” grunted Constable. “I just forget sometimes, that’s all, and it catches me. Don’t worry about it.”
“And it’s ages since you had the stitches out, isn’t it?”
“And that will teach me not to get in the way of a knife-wielding maniac, won’t it, sergeant?” said Constable with a smile at his junior. “As I said at the time, I shall be leaving all the dangerous stuff to you in future. Anyway, as I recall, we weren’t talking about me. We were talking about you and your determination to dive headlong into penury as the result of an uncontrollable gambling habit.”
“I’m not sure I’d put it quite like that, sir,” protested Copper. “It’s only a bit of fun.”
“You say that now,” replied Constable. “That’s how it starts. Just you bear in mind that chap at the Queen’s Theatre and the trouble he got into.”
“I’d hardly call a couple of quid in the station sweepstake on the winner of the Five Thousand Guineas an uncontrollable gambling habit, guv. Anyway, I seem to remember you buying a ticket in the sweep for the Grand National.”
“Yes,” agreed Constable, “and where did it get me? Nowhere. Blasted animal chucked off its jockey at the second fence, and then carried on blithely round the entire course, getting in everyone else’s way, and then crossing the line first, looking maddeningly pleased with itself.”
“Yes, but if the jockey had managed to stay on board, you’d have scooped the pool, sir.”
“Too many ifs, Copper.
I should have learnt the lessons of my youth.”
“How do you mean, guv?”
The inspector flexed his shoulder as if to ease out the last of the discomfort. “I remember when I was a little kid. We quite often used to go round to my grandparents’ on a Saturday morning. Well, there was always cake. My grandmother was the most brilliant cook. A couple of my uncles used to play for the village football team, and quite often in the winter the whole family would go and watch them on a Saturday afternoon, and then we’d go back and my grandmother would put on a huge sit-down tea for about fifteen or twenty of us.” A sigh of reminiscence.
“Don’t quite see where this fits in with the gambling, sir.”
“Ah. No. I digress. Back to Saturday mornings. Because whenever we got there, there would be my grandad, together with a couple of uncles …”
“Same uncles?”
“Big family,” smiled Constable. “Plus a couple of family friends who were sort of courtesy uncles. Anyway, there they would all be, gathered around the dining table in a cloud of cigarette smoke, morning papers spread out all over the cloth, open at the racing pages, and they’d be poring over all the details, talking about form and picking out their fancies. Very intense stuff – I swear Eisenhower and his generals had less trouble planning D-Day. And then once the decisions had been made, off someone would go to the betting shop, list of runners and bundle of banknotes in hand, to place the bets. And then they’d all be glued to the television all afternoon.”
“And the result was …?”
“The result was very much what you’d expect it to be. The bundle of banknotes which came back from the bookies’ at the end of the day was almost always considerably smaller than the bundle which went. But there was at least one positive outcome.”
“What was that, then, sir?”
“Grandad and the uncles got to be quite close friends with the bookie. He used to turn up in his Jag every so often with a bottle of scotch. I think he must have been grateful to the family for helping to keep him in the style to which he had become accustomed. So be warned, young David!” intoned Constable in solemn accents, a smile taking the seriousness out of his words. “There tends to be only one winner in the horse-racing world, and it probably isn’t you.”
“I shall take the warning to heart, sir,” grinned Copper. “Although I still reckon a day at the races isn’t going to wreck me financially.”
“And you’re going with …?”
“Couple of guys from the control room, guv. Pete Radley and Matt Cawston.”
“Those reprobates,” muttered Constable. “Well then, you deserve all you get.”
Copper elected not to hear the comment. “Anyway, we got chatting in the canteen, after they’d sold me the ticket. They said they were going on the day, and why didn’t I come along? And I had a day off due, and I’ve never actually been to the races before, so I thought, why not?”
“So you’ll be there, sat on your tartan blanket, eating ham sandwiches and guzzling cans of lager.”
“Hardly, guv. Nothing but the best. Pete knows someone who knows someone, and he’s managed to wangle us some tickets for the VIP enclosure. Formal gear, the lot.”
Andy Constable, who had been taking a further sip of his tea, very nearly choked. “You in a top hat?” he spluttered in incredulity. “Now that is a sight I would pay good money to see!”
“Then you’d better check out Facebook on the day, hadn’t you, sir?” responded Copper a touch huffily, unconsciously ruffling his already tousled hair even further. “I expect the guys will be posting some photos.”
“Looks as if this couple of quid of yours is going to turn into quite an expensive outing, if you’re going to be hiring formal togs,” remarked Constable. “I’m assuming you don’t have a topper stashed away at the top of the wardrobe alongside your old uniform helmet?”
“As it happens, guv, Pete got us a very good group hire rate from the shop in the precinct. And the tickets get us free entry to the hospitality marquee, so we’re good to go.”
“Well, in that case, I can’t see that I can possibly have any objections,” chuckled Constable. “When is it again?”
“Next Wednesday, guv.”
“Well, we’ll struggle through without you somehow. But in the meantime, shouldn’t you be getting back to that fascinating pile of figures in front of you?”
“What, as my penance in advance for daring to go off and enjoy myself, sir? Is that it?”
“Something of the sort, sergeant. But I dare say you’ll get your reward in heaven.”
“Lucky old me, sir.” Copper bent his head once more to his task. “I’d settle for just one winner at decent odds.”
*
“Can’t help it, guys,” beamed a delighted Dave Copper as he turned back to his friends, a small but satisfying wad of banknotes in his hand. “Put it down to beginner’s luck.”
“That’s twice you’ve done that,” grunted Pete Radley, crumpling his worthless betting slip as the three walked away from the bank of on-course bookmakers.
“Yes, but only because I won by accident on the first one,” countered Copper. “I said I was just going to have one bet for fun and then pack it in. And then I only picked the first one because I liked the name.”
“‘Run Rabbit Run’!” scoffed Matt Cawston. “Daft name for a horse! And no form at all. And then the blasted thing comes in at 20-1! And by rights, with that pedigree, it should still be running at half past five.”
“Ah, the old jokes are the best,” retorted Copper, in no way put down by his colleagues’ reactions to his good fortune. “Anyway, guys, I did give the bookie a chance to get some of his money back. It’s not my fault if ‘Smack The Pony’ did the business as well. And it was only 5-1 this time, so I reckon this is as good a time to pack it in as any, before my luck runs out completely. I’m not a believer in the old ‘never-two-without-three’ theory. And in any case, I’ve already got a horse in the Five Thousand Guineas, haven’t I?”
“What was it you drew again?” asked Pete.
“Something called ‘Last Edition’. Don’t know a thing about it. I meant to look it up on the net when I drew the name at the station, but I forgot.”
“Who’s up?”
“Up?”
Pete cast his eyes upwards and tutted. “Remind me never to take you racing again. I mean who’s the jockey?”
“Oh. I do remember that. Chap called Elliott. But I didn’t look him up either. Sorry.”
“Hmmm. He’s not bad,” said Pete. “Middling sort of form. I don’t think he’s ever won anything special. Bit like the horse, really. Unlike mine. Brilliant animal. So don’t get your hopes up, because ‘Teddy The Bear’ is going to walk it.”
“And I’ve got ‘Stumblebum’,” reported Matt glumly, “so I might as well go home now. That thing couldn’t win a race if you fed it rocket fuel.”
Copper laughed. “So we’ve got one ‘yes’, one ‘no’, and one ‘don’t know’. That sounds like a reasonable spread of possibilities.” He glanced at his watch. “You know, all this winning gives a man a thirst. If you’re not fussed about watching the next one, what say we repair to the hospitality marquee, and I’ll treat us to a little snifter before the big race?”
“Repair? A snifter?” echoed Pete incredulously. “What sort of language is that? You sound like something out of a Bertie Wooster story. I reckon you’ve been working with your guv’nor for too long. Either that, or you’re mixing with too many earls.”
“So you don’t fancy a jar?”
“Did I say that?” grinned Pete in reply. “And as it’s your treat. Come on, Constable Cawston. It’s not very often you get a sergeant offering to stand you a drink. You might as well take advantage of it.” He led the way in the direction of the large white marquee whose proudly-fluttering red-and-gold banners announced the fact that ‘De Sade Champagne is honoured to sponsor the 5000 Guineas Steeplechase’.
Inside the tent, a profusion of
crystal chandeliers, enormous and opulent flower arrangements, swathes of pink and white fabric draped across to form a ceiling, and a generous scatter of tables and chairs adorned with brocade cloths and bows, created the impression that there was about to be a society wedding reception on the lawns of a great country house. A hubbub arose from the large throng filling the marquee, the women in dresses ranging from the chic to the bizarre, with hats to match which ran the gamut from the tiniest and most frivolous feathered fascinators to huge constructions of straw and chiffon which looked as if they required neck muscles of iron to support. By contrast, the ladies’ escorts were almost uniformly drab in their grey and black formal wear, with only here and there a vivid waistcoat or coloured stock to enliven the picture. Waiters clad in the red-and-gold colours of the sponsoring house circulated in a perpetual ballet, bearing trays laden with glasses of champagne.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen,” smiled the tall and impossibly glamorous blonde hostess at the entrance, after a discreet glance to ensure that the visitors’ badges entitled them to admission to her privileged domain. “Welcome to the De Sade Marquee. Please make yourselves comfortable. If you would like some refreshments, please take a seat and one of my colleagues will be happy to serve you from the buffet. And of course the complimentary bar is at your disposal, if by chance you prefer something other than champagne.”
“I’m guessing,” murmured Copper to his colleagues, as they made their way towards the bar which stretched the full length of one side of the marquee, “that your usual half of bitter may not be on offer here.”
“And once again you fall on your feet,” observed Pete. “This generous offer to buy us drinks out of your winnings is going to cost you absolutely zilch. And since young Matt here so very kindly volunteered to do the driving today …”
“Oh, lucky me,” murmured the junior officer.
