Under Orders sh-4

by Dick Francis

  As to the question of internet ‘exchanges’, as used for betting on horse racing and other sports, I concluded that the scope for criminal activity was no more prevalent than that which existed in regular bookmaker-based gambling. The significant difference was that, whereas in the past only licensed bookmakers were effectively betting on a horse to lose, anyone could now do so by ‘laying’ a horse on the exchanges. It was potentially easier to ensure a horse lost a race than won it. Over-training it too close to a race or simply by keeping it thirsty for a while and then giving it a bellyful of water just before the off, were both sure ways to slow an animal down. Speeding it up was far more difficult, and far more risky.

  The Jockey Club and the new Horseracing Regulatory Authority have rules forbidding those intimately connected with horses to ‘lay’ on the exchanges. However, I knew from Bill that ‘there were ways’, even though I had not yet found out how he had layed Candlestick in the Triumph Hurdle. Some trusty friend was all he had needed. Even untrustworthy friends would do it for a cut of the winnings.

  The commission-based exchanges appeared to be such high-profit businesses, without there being any risk of ‘losing’ on a big gamble, that the temptation for them to meddle with results, and hence punter confidence, seemed to be minimal. But regulator vigilance was essential as there would always be those who would try to beat the system unfairly.

  I finished the report by saying that my investigations of individual on-line gambling operations would continue and a further report would be prepared in due course.

  I was reading it through when the phone rang.

  ‘Is that Sid Halley?’ asked a Welsh voice.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied.

  ‘Good. This is Evan Walker here, see.’

  ‘Ah, Mr Walker,’ I said. ‘How are things?’

  ‘Not good, not good at all.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

  ‘Did Bill Burton kill my son?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe so, but I’m still trying to find out who did.’

  ‘They won’t let me have Huw’s body for burial. Say they need it until after the inquest. I asked them when that would be and they said it could be months.’ He sounded distraught. ‘Can’t stop thinking of him in some cold refrigerator.’

  I wondered whether it was worse than thinking of him in the cold ground.

  ‘I’ll have a word with the policeman in the case,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he can give me a better idea of when you can have a funeral.’

  ‘Thank you. Please phone me as soon as you find who killed him.’

  I assured him that I would. And I’d shout it from the roof-tops, too.

  I arrived to pick up Marina from Lincoln’s Inn Fields at half past five.

  I’d spent the afternoon doing chores around the flat and getting my hair cut around the corner. Such was my desperation to move my investigation forward that I had a crazy idea of collecting hair off the floor of all the barbers in London to test for a DNA match with Marina’s attacker. Then I had remembered that Marina had said I would need the follicles too so cut hair was no good. Back to square one.

  I had called Chief Inspector Carlisle at the Cheltenham police station but he was unavailable so I left him a message asking him to call me on my mobile, and he did so as I waited outside the Research Institute for Marina to appear.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but we can’t release Walker’s body for a while longer in case we need to do more tests.’

  ‘What tests?’ I asked him. ‘Surely you’ve done all you need in nearly two weeks?’

  ‘It’s not actually up to us. It’s the coroner who makes the decision when to release a body.’

  ‘But I bet he’s swayed by the police.’

  ‘The problem is that in murder cases there have to be extra tests done by independent pathologists in case there’s a court case and the defence require further examination of the body. In the past, bodies have sometimes had to be exhumed for defence tests.’ He made it sound like a conspiracy.

  ‘But you might not have a court case for months or even years.’

  ‘The coroner has to make a judgement call and two weeks is definitely on the short side.’

  ‘But surely there’s no doubt as to the cause of Huw Walker’s death?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Carlisle. ‘I’ve known defence lawyers insisting that the victim died of natural causes just before he was shot, stabbed or strangled by the defendant. If it was up to me, I’d sentence some lawyers to the same term as their clients. Conniving bastards.’

  I was somewhat amused by his opinion of the English legal profession but I supposed, in his job, all trials came down to conflicts of us versus them, with truth and justice as secondary considerations.

  ‘So can you guess when Huw’s father can have his son’s body for burial?’ I asked. ‘He wants to make plans for the funeral.’

  ‘Maybe a week or two more,’ said Carlisle. ‘The inquest into Burton’s death will open next Tuesday in Reading. After what you told me on Monday, the inquest will be adjourned but, nevertheless, the coroner in the Walker case may then make an order which will allow his burial to proceed, though he won’t allow a cremation.’

  ‘I think Mr Walker is planning for a burial,’ I said. ‘He wants to put Huw in his local chapel graveyard next to his mother and brother.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘So you did take some notice of what I told you on Monday?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he said.

  ‘You said the Burton inquest will be adjourned.’

  ‘Well, I did have a word with Inspector Johnson. He took a little convincing but at least he’s considering it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That Burton may have been murdered.’

  ‘That’s great,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t get too excited. He’s only considering it because, as one of the first on the scene, you’re bound to be called as a witness at the full inquest and he knows you’ll raise it. So Johnson is considering it so that he won’t be surprised by the coroner’s questions. He is still pretty convinced that Burton killed himself.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘And are you?’

  ‘I don’t get paid to think about other coppers’ cases. But, if I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d bet on your instinct over his.’

  It was quite a compliment and I thanked him for it.

  ‘I haven’t yet been asked to appear at the inquest,’ I said.

  ‘Tuesday will only be the preliminaries. The Reading coroner will open and adjourn until a later date when the investigations are complete. You’ll be summoned then.’

  ‘Could you speak with the Cheltenham coroner’s office about Huw Walker’s body?’ I asked ‘I’ll enquire,’ he said, ‘but I won’t apply pressure.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Any news on the bullet I gave you?’

  ‘Same gun,’ he said. ‘Forensics came back with the confirmation this afternoon. No real surprise.’

  ‘No,’ I agreed, but I was relieved nevertheless.

  *

  Marina and I spent a quiet evening at home in front of the television eating ready-made and microwaved shepherd’s pie off trays on our laps.

  ‘You know those street corners I was going to ring my bell on?’ I said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, tomorrow’s Pump may have a certain ding-dong about it.’

  ‘Are you saying that I should be extra-careful tomorrow?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And always.’

  ‘Rosie hardly leaves my side.’

  I wished that Rosie were a seventeen-stone body-builder rather than a five-foot two size six.

  ‘I think I’ll go and get The Pump now,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow’s papers are always on sale at Victoria Station about eleven at night. They’re the first edition that normally goes off to Wales and the west of England.’

  ‘You be careful, too,�
�� said Marina.

  I was. I avoided dark corners and kept a keen eye on my back. I made it safely to the news-stand outside the station and then back to Ebury Street without incident.

  There was no need to search this paper. You would have had to be blind to miss it. They must have been short of news.

  Under a ‘Pump Exclusive’ banner on the front page was the headline ‘MURDER OR SUICIDE?’ with the sub-headline ‘HALLEY ORCHESTRATES THE INVESTIGATION’. The article beneath described in detail everything I had revealed to Paddy. They ‘quoted’ Professor Aubrey Winterton as saying that the bullet definitely came from the same gun that had been used to kill Bill Burton. They even managed to state that Sid Halley was confident that an arrest was imminent. I put that down to Paddy’s tendency for exaggeration.

  ‘That’s what I call shouting from a street corner,’ said Marina. ‘Is it true?’

  ‘Not about the arrest. And some of the rest is guesswork.’

  No one could be in any doubt that I had blatantly ignored the message that Marina had received the evening she was beaten up. Even I had not expected my game to work so well that it would make the front page. I thought a paragraph in Chris Beecher’s column or an inch or two on the racing page would have been all I could have hoped for. This much coverage made me very nervous but it was too late now; The Pump printed more than half a million copies a day.

  I double-checked the locks, removed my arm and went to bed. Neither Marina nor I felt in the mood for nookie.

  In the morning we took extra care going to the car. I had reiterated to the staff downstairs at the front desk that no one, repeat no one, was to be allowed up to my flat without their calling me first. Absolutely, they had agreed.

  I dropped Marina at work, though not before taking a few detours to see if we were being followed. Rosie, the petite bodyguard, was waiting for Marina in the Institute foyer. She waved at me as I drove away.

  I pointed the Audi towards north-west London and went to see Frank Snow.

  Harrow School is actually in Harrow on the Hill, a neat little village perched, as its name suggests, on a hill surrounded by suburban London. It seems strangely isolated from its great metropolitan neighbour as if it has somehow remained constant throughout its long history whilst life changed elsewhere around it. The village is mostly made up of the many school buildings with the Harrow School Outfitters being the largest store in the High Street.

  I eventually found the right office under a cloister near the school chapel and Frank Snow was there, seated at a central table sticking labels on a stack of envelopes.

  ‘For the old boys’ newsletters,’ he said in explanation.

  He was a tall man with a full head of wavy white hair. He wore a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and looked every inch the schoolmaster.

  ‘Would you like a coffee?’ he asked.

  ‘Love one, thank you.’

  He busied himself with an electric kettle in the corner while I wandered round looking at the rows of framed photographs on the walls. Many of them were faded black-and-white images of serious-looking, unsmiling boys in straw boaters. Others were more recent, in colour, of sports teams in striped jerseys with happier faces.

  ‘Milk and sugar?’

  ‘Just a little milk, please,’ I said.

  He pushed the pile of envelopes to one side and placed two steaming mugs down on the end of the table.

  ‘Now, how can I help you, Mr Halley?’

  ‘I was hoping you could give me some background information on one of your old boys.’

  ‘As I explained to you on the telephone,’ he said, ‘we don’t discuss old boys with the media.’ He took a sip of his coffee.

  ‘As I explained to you,’ I replied, ‘I’m not from the media.’

  It was not the most auspicious of openings.

  ‘Well, who are you then?’ he asked.

  I decided against telling him that I was a private detective as I thought that might have been even lower on his scale than the media.

  ‘I’m assisting the Standing Cabinet Sub-Committee on Legislative Outcomes in their consideration of internet gambling as part of the new Gambling and Gaming Act.’

  If you can’t blind them with science, I thought, baffle them with bullshit.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

  I repeated it.

  ‘I see.’ He didn’t appear to.

  ‘Yes. One of your old boys runs an internet gambling website and I was hoping you might be able to tell me about his time at Harrow.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I can. Our records are confidential, you know.’

  ‘Don’t worry about the Data Protection Act,’ I said. ‘This is an official inquiry.’

  It wasn’t, but he wouldn’t know that.

  ‘I can assure you, Mr Halley, that our records have been confidential far longer than that piece of legislation has been on the statute book.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. I had been put in my place.

  ‘Now who exactly are you asking about?’

  ‘George Lochs,’ I said. ‘At least, that’s what he calls himself now. When he was at Harrow he was — ’

  ‘Clarence Lochstein,’ Frank Snow interrupted.

  ‘Exactly. You remember him, then.’

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘Has he been up to no good?’

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘No reason.’

  ‘What can you tell me about him?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure. What do you want to know?’

  ‘I heard that he was expelled for taking bets from the other boys.’

  ‘That’s not exactly true,’ he said. ‘He was sacked for striking a member of staff.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. ‘Who?’

  ‘His housemaster,’ he said. ‘As you say, Lochstein and another boy were indeed caught taking bets from the other boys and, it was rumoured, from some of the younger, more avant-garde members of Common Room.’

  He paused.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It was in the latter days of corporal punishment and the headmaster instructed the boys’ housemasters to give each of them a sound beating. Six of the best.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Lochstein took one stroke of the cane on his backside and then stood up and broke his housemaster’s jaw with his fist.’ Mr Snow stroked his chin absentmindedly.

  ‘You were his housemaster, weren’t you?’

  He stopped stroking his chin and looked at his hand. ‘Yes, I was. The little swine broke my jaw in three places. I spent the next six weeks with my head in a metal brace.’

  ‘So Lochstein was expelled,’ I said. ‘What happened to the other boy?’

  ‘He took his beating from his housemaster.’

  I raised my eyebrows.

  ‘No, not me.’

  ‘And the boy was allowed to stay?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Snow. ‘His father subsequently gave a large donation to the school appeal which was said by some to be conscience money.’

  ‘Do you remember the boy’s name?’

  ‘I can’t recall his first name but his surname was Enstone.’

  ‘Peter Enstone?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, I think that’s it. His father was a builder.’

  Well well well, I thought. No wonder the Enstones had known George Lochs for ever. And, I thought, Lochs has a history of punching people in the face.

  Frank Snow had little else of interest to give me. Harrow had done its best to keep the whole matter out of the Press and, at the time, had closed ranks. Lochstein was not even in the official list of old boys that Frank showed me.

  We spent a companionable ten minutes or so together and he gave me a short tour of the photographs on the walls.

  ‘These,’ he said indicating the black-and-white ones, ‘are from before the First World War. Harrow was a pretty severe place then so I suppose they didn’t have much to smile about. These others are the rugby teams I used to coach, the Under 16s. T
hey were my boys and some of them still come in to see me. Makes me feel so old to see how they’ve changed. A few even have their own boys here now.’

  I thanked him for his time and for the coffee. He seemed disappointed that I didn’t want to see more of the hundreds of pictures he had stacked in a cupboard.

  ‘Perhaps another time,’ I said, moving towards the door.

  ‘Mr Halley,’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’ I turned.

  ‘I hope you do find that Lochstein has been up to no good.’

  ‘I thought Public Schools stood up for their former pupils, no matter what.’

  ‘The school might, but I don’t. That one deserves some trouble.’

  We shook hands.

  ‘If you need anything further, Mr Halley, don’t be afraid to ask.’ He smiled. ‘I still owe Lochstein a beating — five strokes to be precise.’

  Revenge was indeed a dish best eaten cold.

  On my way back to central London I made a slight detour to Wembley Park to take a look at the Make A Wager Ltd office building. I had their address from the Companies House website but nevertheless it took fifteen minutes of backtracking around an industrial estate to find it. I must get satellite navigation, I thought. Perhaps on my next car. I parked round the corner and walked back.

  The office building was pretty nondescript. It was a simple rectangular red-brick structure of five floors with a small unmanned entrance lobby at one end. An array of mobile phone masts sprouted up from the flat roof and there were security cameras pointing in every direction.

  A notice next to the entrance intercom stated that visitors for Make A Wager Ltd should press the button and wait. Visitors, it seemed, were not encouraged.

  There was little to show that it was the headquarters of a multi-million-pound operation other than the line of expensive cars and big powerful motorbikes in the small car park opposite the door. I looked at the cars. The nearest was a dark blue Porsche 911 Carrera with GL21 as its number plate. So George was in.

  Shall I be bold? I asked myself. Shall I go in and see him? Why not? Nothing to lose, only my life.

  I pressed the button and waited.

  Eventually a female voice said, ‘Yes?’ from the speaker next to the button.

  ‘Sid Halley here to see George Lochs,’ I said back.