I thought about the job Matt and I were on, and wondered what else I could have done that evening to further it. ‘Where is it?’
‘Some gallery near Bond Street – I’ve got the address. It’s a preview party for an exhibition by a horse sculptor. He’s rather good.’
I winced. ‘I don’t know if I can take another room full of leaping bronze nags.’
‘We could have dinner afterwards?’ Emma played her trump with a flourish.
Chapter Six
The party was pretty much what I’d expected – more appreciation of points of the horse than points of art. But at least there seemed to me to be genuine merit in some of the bronzes that went further than just figurative images of the thoroughbred.
The place was full to bursting with racing people who might have been expected to write cheques easily for at least a few thousand pounds if something took their eye. I’d already seen several of them at the races that afternoon.
While Emma had drifted off to talk to friends, I found myself standing beside an old acquaintance, Daniel Dunne, a racing mad estate agent I’d known since schooldays. We both found ourselves looking at Emma. Despite the sculpture on show, she was easily the most attractive object in the room.
‘I’m just about to buy a property for her father,’ Daniel said, in a way that implied he’d like to get his hands on Emma as part of the deal.
‘Where’s that?’ I asked, not really interested.
Daniel touched the side of his nose. ‘The deal’s not done yet, so I can’t say, but if it goes through, I guarantee he’ll be a very happy man.’
He drifted off, and I took the opportunity to duck out into Bond Street and find a quiet haven in a shop window recess where I could use my mobile in privacy. I punched Matt’s number and was answered almost at once.
‘How did it go?’ I asked.
‘Fine, I’ll tell you later. Why don’t you meet me at Harry’s Bar at nine?’
‘I thought you were with Sara?’
‘I am.’
‘But I’m with Emma.’
‘That’s okay.’ Matt sounded relieved. When I didn’t answer at once, he added, ‘I’ll pay.’
At a hundred quid a head, that made it a better proposition. ‘Fine. Nine o’clock.’
When I’d finished the call I decided I’d had enough of the preview party and went back inside, hoping that I might persuade Emma to leave.
To my relief, she was looking for me, already impatient. ‘God, what a load of stiffs,’ she said, not quietly enough. ‘No wonder I decided to go to the States. The Yanks may be naïve, but at least they’re not all full of crap.’
‘I gather you’ve been talking to someone who doesn’t agree with you?’
‘Don’t start,’ she said, then laughed. ‘Let’s go somewhere else.’
As we walked out, I told her we were meeting Matt later. She looked surprised.
‘It’s okay, he’s having dinner with a girl.’ I laughed. ‘You won’t believe it but he just asked her out when we met her in Harry Chapman’s office this morning.’
‘How amazing. I was beginning to wonder if he was gay.’
‘I think I’d have known before now if he were,’ I said. ‘Let’s go in here.’ I nodded at a small quiet pub that seemed to have got lost in the elegant canyons of Mayfair.
Once I’d got us both drinks, we sat on a comfortable sofa by a fake log fire.
‘This is cosee,’ Emma said in a Sybil Fawlty voice. ‘At least,’ she said, resuming her own, ‘it’s better than being pushed around by a lot of pompous, braying oafs.’
‘You aren’t in a very charitable mood, are you?’ I said. ‘What’s the problem?’
‘Seeing my father always winds me up.’
‘He’s not that bad, is he?’
Emma looked at me a moment. ‘The awful thing is that I’ve started to think maybe he isn’t my father at all.’
I put down the glass in my hand and stared at her. ‘That’s a bit radical.’
She shrugged. ‘It’s just that he and I are so different, it’s hard to imagine we have a single gene in common.’
‘I thought you were being serious for a moment.’
‘I am.’
She took a sip of her vodka. ‘Do you remember I told you the other day how my mother and I stayed with Frank Gurney in Menton – when Toby was doing his system at the casinos?’
‘Jane’s brother?’ I asked.
‘Yes.’
‘You think he and your mother were lovers?’
‘Well, whenever I was with them, I couldn’t help thinking it was much more like being with my mother and father than it was when we were with Daddy.’
‘That might just have been because they got on better.’
‘Yes, I realise that, but I don’t think that was all of it.’ She picked up a beer mat advertising Irish stout and flicked it into the fire, where it blazed fiercely for a few seconds. ‘Even at that age, I could sense something between them. If Mum hadn’t died soon after that, I’d have asked her.’
‘But if they got on so well, why didn’t your mother leave your . . . Lord T?’
‘I think she might have done if she’d lived but I don’t think she and Frank were lovers any more, and I suppose it might all have been too disruptive.’
‘How were your mother and Lord T getting on then?’
‘Not well. He can be a real brute when he wants to be.’
‘You mean, physically?’ I was quite shocked by the idea of the outwardly distinguished bastion of the Jockey Club beating up his wife in the privacy of their own mansion.
‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘He’s not quite that bad.’
By the time we joined Matt and Sara at Harry’s Bar, they had already been there a while.
‘Well?’ I asked Matt after he’d done the introductions.
He shrugged. ‘Dysart wasn’t very impressed.’ This was a lot for him to concede. ‘Brian Griffiths complained about our questioning.’
I was surprised; even by my standards, we’d been restrained. ‘Do you think he exaggerated?’
‘I don’t know, but Dysart wasn’t too happy,’ Matt said dismissively.
If we lost the job, and nothing else came out of last night’s trip, at least it might serve to cut Matt’s overwhelming confidence down to size. ‘Suits me,’ I said lightly. ‘Anyway, Emma’s starving, so let’s order.’
Emma and I left before Matt and Sara. How he was planning to spend the rest of the evening was none of my business, but I had decided to drive Emma home.
I was too preoccupied with the problems of both our current jobs to relax with her; besides, though she showed every sign of being pleased to see me again, I sensed she’d react better to a patient approach.
I drew up outside her flat in a Belgravia mews. She threw me a quizzical glance. ‘Drink?’
‘No, thanks. I’ve got to get back to check things at the office.’
‘What, now?’
‘We’ve got two big contracts on the go. We’re spread a bit thin at the moment.’
I saw a momentary frown on her face; she didn’t believe me, but she wasn’t going to question it. I kissed her gently on the lips and waited until she was safely inside the house before driving off.
I spent the night alone in Notting Hill and drove to our offices near Reading first thing next morning. On the way, I tried to raise Matt on the phone, but there was no answer.
Monica greeted me with a smile, a cup of coffee and a string of messages, all of which I delegated to Jason. In my own small office, I made out a full report of the previous day’s race won by Toby’s napped horse.
It was the tipster’s twenty-third consecutive winner, excluding three who had beaten themselves either by falling or suffering some other unpredictable mishap. None of the racing journalists had yet offered a plausible explanation for the record-breaking run – not surprisingly, I thought, unless they wanted to be sued for libel.
I spent the next hour
carefully studying the digital shots of the race and people on the course and reviewing every other race won by Toby’s nominations, but came no nearer a theory.
I was trying to decide what our next move should be when Matt finally came in. I knew better than to try and quiz him on his activities the night before and instead passed him my report. He read through it quickly, with his usual concentration.
‘What were you looking for, exactly?’ he asked.
‘Anything that might give us a lead.’
‘And?’
‘Nothing. Frankly, it looked like a pretty straight run race to me, and the form horse won.’ I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Do you know, I sometimes think maybe Toby is just very good at his job.’
‘For God’s sake, the chances are right off the board. Look, I know you won’t like this but we’re not getting anywhere otherwise. I think we should bug Toby’s place.’
‘Which one?’
‘Both. At least if there’s any discussion about his choices with anyone else, we should hear it.’
I was reluctant to go along with this. ‘As far as I know, he just spends a few hours a day entering new data on that program of his. I doubt he consults anyone else.’
‘Simon, if he’s cheating – and logically he has to be – he’s bound to talk to someone about it. Deception on that scale takes a lot of organising.’
‘All right,’ I said, resigned. ‘We’ll do it. I can probably do Wetherdown and you could do London, if you go when he’s out and the cleaner’s in. She doesn’t know you, and it shouldn’t be hard to think of an excuse.’
‘Fine. We’ll have to mike close to his phones, rather than in them. They’re too easy to detect inside the mechanism.’
‘But suppose he uses his mobile?’
‘If he does, that’s too bad. We could still get a print out of the calls he makes; that wouldn’t be difficult. And if we do what I say, we might hear something useful. Besides, we’ll be able to hear anything else that’s said in the rooms where we place them.’ Matt stood up decisively. ‘I’ll go and sort it out.’
Within the hour he was back with two DAT-recorders and six ultra-compact radio microphones which we could place in both Toby’s residences. The mikes would be tuned to the sound-activated tape-recorders hidden nearby. That way we’d be able to pick up at least one side of all Toby’s telephone conversations, and most of any that took place in his flat or in his country house.
Privately, I was doubtful about the efficiency and value of such an exercise, but we didn’t have much else going for us and at this stage anything was worth a try.
Chapter Seven
‘Simon, what are you doing here again so soon?’ Toby asked as he opened the door to me; I wasn’t sure if I’d heard a note of suspicion in his voice.
‘I need to borrow a tie, as a matter of fact. I was on my way from your mother’s to a meeting in Swindon when I realised I’d come out without one.’
He raised one eyebrow a fraction as he opened the door wider. ‘Come in then. I was just going out, but I’ll see what I can find.’
He showed me into his drawing room and disappeared upstairs. Once I could hear him moving about in his bedroom, I took out one of my magnetic bugs and attached it beneath the lip of an old carriage clock which stood beside the phone.
Toby still seemed to be busy upstairs, so I slipped into the kitchen and placed the second bug behind the phone there.
I needn’t have hurried. In the time he took to fetch the tie, I felt I could have rewired the whole house; he’d obviously chosen it very carefully.
‘Don’t lose it,’ he said when he came back down into the drawing room and handed me a wide, garish-looking strip of silk. ‘It’s one of my favourites.’
I promised I wouldn’t, and left, glad that I didn’t actually have to wear the thing.
I drove a few miles to the side of the downs, from where I could still see Toby’s house. I parked and waited until I saw him drive away. With no pretence at caution, as if I’d forgotten something, I went back to his house and hammered on the door to make certain there was no one else around. But no one came and I guessed it was safe to have a snoop around for a suitable spot to place the sophisticated compact DAT-recorder Matt had given me. It came with its own powerful battery pack and I found a place to tuck the whole apparatus under the eaves of an open-fronted barn, where I could easily recover the tapes.
To check that everything was working, I pulled out my mobile and punched in Toby’s number. The hidden mike immediately picked up the ringing in the house and triggered the DAT-recorder, which dutifully registered Toby’s message. It ran on for another ten seconds before it acknowledged that was all there was, and clicked itself off.
That evening, as Toby had insisted, I watched him being interviewed on TV by a witty but aggressive chat show host who all but accused him of cheating, though stopping just short of libel. To his credit, Toby didn’t even begin to get ruffled. He revealed next to nothing about his methods of selection, which could only have added to the fascination of anyone interested. And I guessed that the millions of punters following him didn’t give a damn how he was picking his winners, so long as he kept on doing it.
He looked handsome and likeable in the studio, and I wondered why producers hadn’t made more of him. He came across well, apparently modest and as surprised by his success as anyone else. But the interview had highlighted his extraordinary lucky run. I didn’t doubt that a vast horde of new punters would be trying to get through to his line next morning.
The following day, Toby’s selection was running at Newbury, and I intended to have a close look at it. It was one of the big days of the season and I set off early to avoid the traffic.
As I was on my way, Matt phoned to say he was about to ring the bell to Toby’s London flat in Hay’s Mews, Mayfair. A few minutes later, I pulled into a lay-by on the A34, picked up my mobile and dialled Toby’s London number.
When Mrs Hackney, his affable cockney housekeeper answered, I kept her talking for what I hoped was long enough for Matt to position two more midget microphones. He had arrived ostensibly to deliver a case of wine purportedly from a satisfied customer, confident that it was heavy enough to ensure he would have to carry it up to the flat.
I drove on to Newbury race-course, parked and went to look for Larry Johnson. Larry was one of our most resourceful employees. I’d got him a press badge and assigned him to photograph as many people as possible around Toby’s nomination of the day, giving me a chance to focus on other aspects of the running. He was where we’d arranged to meet, near the lorry park. I checked he remembered all the details of the horse we were watching and left him to wait for it to arrive.
I didn’t see Toby until much later. He was standing by the paddock for the second last race in which his nap was running.
‘If I’d known you were coming racing, I’d have brought your tie,’ I said, as I leaned on the rail beside him.
‘Just bring it back when you’re passing,’ he said with unusual curtness. I sensed he was nervous about something.
‘What’s the matter?’
He shook his head. ‘You’ve no idea how heavy the pressure is to keep coming up with winners. There’s so much going on to our naps now that I’d probably be lynched if I hit a losing run.’
‘Our naps?’ I asked sharply.
‘You know,’ he back-tracked, ‘my company’s. It’s got to stop soon, though,’ he muttered.
But his horse won, to a mighty cheer from the stands.
‘Well done,’ I said. ‘Twenty-four in a row.’
He nodded, but didn’t answer. Restraining an urge to ask more, I left him in the stands and went to watch the horse come back.
I left the race-course before the last and on my way home called in to see how Nester was settling in at his new home. When Jane had asked me to move him, I’d arranged to have him trained at Derek de Morlay’s yard, about half a mile from Wetherdown.
Apart from his stabl
e and lad, nothing much had changed for Nester. He would be training on the same gallop, and Jane’s feed merchant had agreed to carry on supplying his hay and hard feed.
The horse seemed almost happier in his new stable. Derek’s yard was smaller than Wetherdown – more a converted farmyard, with a lot of dogs, chickens and goats roaming around. There was so much for Nester to look at, he hadn’t even begun to dig his box up.
I left him with a pat and a Polo mint, though he hardly noticed; the head lad was just beginning to feed, and Nester could hear the buckets rattling.
I told Derek that I’d be coming to ride out in the morning, and left the yard to drive round to Jane’s.
Jane had been disappointed to see Nester go. She had put a lot of work into him and taken a great deal of care and patience with his recovery. I was also sure she realised he was coming back to his best.
But she was glad to see me, and as we talked about her ideas for his continued training, she mixed us a couple of throat-chilling dry Martinis and we settled down in her office. Soon the conversation turned to Toby’s latest winner.
‘Do you know how he does it?’ I asked.
She shook her head. ‘He always had an eye, of course. Even when he was fourteen or fifteen it wasn’t unheard of for him to pick four winners in an afternoon from the paddock; but he could never have done that on the form alone. I haven’t a clue how he’s getting it right so consistently now.’
‘Poor chap’s in misery,’ I said. ‘If his nap loses, he’s worried he’ll be lynched; if it wins, he seems to feel guilty for having got it right again.’
Jane nodded. ‘I know, I’ve seen the pressure on him. I told him to give it up if it’s such a strain. He rather pointedly replied he had to make his own way in life, and there was no way he was going to walk away from the kind of money he was earning from it now. The only certainty is that it will all go pear-shaped sooner or later – there’s no other way for it to go. Anyway,’ she said, with a change of tone, ‘how’s Emma? I gather you’re seeing a bit of her now she’s back.’
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