by Dick Francis
She looked at the windows as a route of escape.
‘Don’t even think about it, Juliet,’ I said.
She didn’t appear to be listening, so I shouted at her. ‘If you run away I’ll hand the whole lot over to the police.’
Her gaze swung round to my face. ‘And if I don’t?’ she said. Her brain was still ticking under all the external panic.
‘Then we’ll see,’ I said. ‘But I make no promises.’
‘I didn’t shoot your girlfriend,’ she said, still standing by the door.
I could see Chris desperately wanting to say something. I shook my head fractionally to stop him.
‘I know that,’ I said. ‘Marina was shot by a man. But you do know who it was, don’t you, Juliet?’
There was no reply.
‘Come and sit down again.’ I went over and took her arm, and led her back to the chair. ‘That’s better,’ I said as she sat down.
I sat down on a stool facing her, but not in the way of the camera.
‘And the same man murdered Huw Walker, didn’t he?’ I said.
She sat very still, looking at me. She said nothing.
‘And also Bill Burton?’
Again no response.
‘In this very room. And you were here at the time.’
‘No,’ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. ‘That’s not true. I wasn’t here.’
‘But you didn’t find Bill in the morning like you said, did you?’
‘No.’
She began to cry and buried her head in her hands.
‘There have been lots of tears,’ I said. ‘The time has come, Juliet, to stop the crying and tell the truth. The time to put an end to this madness. To do no more damage.’
She rocked back and forth. ‘I never thought he would kill Huw Walker, or Bill,’ she said.
‘Who was it?’ I asked.
Still she didn’t reply.
‘Look, Juliet, I know you’ve been sleeping with someone. I found some of his clothes in a drawer beside your bed and his hair was also in the hairbrush. So I have his DNA and it matches that of the man who attacked Marina the first time, in Ebury Street. You won’t be able to protect George Lochs even if you won’t tell us he’s the murderer.’
She sat up and looked at me again. ‘George?’ she said. ‘You think it’s George Lochs?’
‘He bought you the clothes,’ I said.
‘You don’t know, do you?’ she said, almost sneering.
‘Know what?’
‘George is gay. He’d never sleep with me. I’ve got the wrong bits.’
It was my turn to stand with my mouth open. ‘Why, then, did he buy you the clothes?’ I asked.
‘As thank-you presents.’
‘For what?’
She didn’t answer. I stood up and walked round behind her.
‘Did George give you something every time you told him a horse wasn’t going to win?’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘I mean that it was you that was fixing the races, wasn’t it? It never was Bill. And George Lochs would have loved to have had the information so that he could adjust the odds on his website.’
‘Why would I fix races?’ she asked.
‘That I don’t know yet,’ I said, ‘but it has to be you that was doing it.’
‘But how could I?’ she said.
‘Because it was you that was responsible for helping the lads prepare the horses ready for running. Fred Manley told me that you had wanted that particular job and had badgered Bill until he gave you the task. Fred said that you also insisted on “putting them to bed” the night before they ran.’
I went back round in front of her.
‘And it was you that insisted on helping to groom each runner early in the morning of the race. You plaited their manes and polished their hooves. You took a pride in their presentation.’
She nodded. ‘We won lots of “best turned out” awards.’
‘But it also gave you the opportunity to keep the horses thirsty. You threw away their water the night before a race and again in the morning. You only then had to ensure that the horses had a good drink just before the race. If the water in their bellies didn’t slow them down, then the lack of water for nearly twenty-four hours beforehand would have done so.’
She hung her head again.
‘And when horses ran at the northern tracks, you didn’t go with them, did you, so you paid Huw Walker to make sure they didn’t win. But they still ran slightly better in the north because Huw was only trying to stop them winning, second was fine, but your little water trick slowed them right down. Some of them in the south finished last.’
Chris was now the one with an open mouth. He was almost rubbing his hands with glee at the scoop he would have.
‘But why,’ I asked, ‘did you only stop Lord Enstone’s horses? And then not every time they ran? Did you really do it for a few dresses?’
‘I don’t even like the dresses. I never wear them. I should have got rid of them. They only clutter the place up. They were George’s idea. He loves designer wear and thinks everyone else does too. He bought me something whenever he made a good profit from a race where one was stopped. He could make an absolute fortune out of some races, sometimes more than a hundred thousand, especially if we stopped the favourite.’
‘We?’ I asked. ‘Who are we?’
She didn’t answer.
‘Juliet,’ I said, ‘I need to know his name or I will call the police and I won’t tell them that you’ve helped me. Quite the reverse, in fact. And, be sure, they will find out who it is anyway. We have his DNA, and his fingerprints must be all over your cottage. It will only be a matter of time before he’s caught, and it will be your fault if he does any harm to anyone else in the meantime.’
‘Will… will I go to prison?’ she asked in a faltering voice.
I don’t think she had been listening to me. ‘Probably,’ I said. ‘You certainly will if you don’t cooperate. I’ll do a deal with you. I’ll do my best to keep you out of prison if you tell us everything, but I can’t promise. At the very least, I will try to ensure you don’t get charged with murder.’
Her head came up fast. ‘But I didn’t kill anyone.’
‘So who did?’ I asked.
‘Peter did.’ She said it so softly I hardly heard her.
‘Peter?’ I said. ‘Peter Enstone?’
‘Yes.’
Suddenly everything came out. Juliet unburdened the great secret that had been eating away at her. Chris still sat silently in the corner, listening intently. He had by now produced a notebook and was scribbling furiously as Juliet spoke.
She told us the lot.
She started at the beginning with her first meeting with Peter Enstone when she had been working at Bill’s for only a few weeks. It was very clear that she had fallen head over heels for Peter and soon they were lovers.
‘He said that no one must know, especially his father,’ she said. ‘It was all very exciting.’ She smiled.
Peter’s father, Lord Enstone, was a social climber par excellence. I expect that the daughter of a blacksmith with no family means was not what he would have had in mind as a suitable match for his son. No wonder Peter had wanted the affair kept quiet.
‘Peter said wouldn’t it be funny if we were able to influence the running of his father’s horses just by wanting to. We used to sit in bed some afternoons watching the racing, holding the television remote and pretending that we were using it to control the horses like robots. Turn up the volume to make it go faster, turn it down to go slower. Push the off button to make it fall. Silly, really.’
She stopped.
‘Look,’ she said, ‘can I have a drink of something?’
‘Water OK?’ I asked.
‘Fine.’
I gave the key to Chris who unlocked the door and went out to the kitchen to fetch some. Juliet sat silently waiting for his return while I stood guard at the door, but I thin
k her desire to run had gone. Chris came back and I relocked the door and put the key back in my pocket in case I was wrong. Juliet drank half the glass then sat holding it in both hands on her lap.
‘Go on,’ I said, sitting down again on the stool in front of her.
‘I remember saying to Peter that there was a way to control the horses for real,’ she continued. ‘But I only said it as a joke. I remembered my father telling me of a betting coup at the local point-to-point where a horse was stopped by giving it a big drink just before the start. He always said that water didn’t show up on any dope test.’
She took another drink of the evil stuff.
‘Peter became very excited by the idea. He doesn’t like his father. He hates the way he still tells him what to do even though Peter is over thirty. And he didn’t have a happy childhood. Lord Enstone tells people that Peter’s mother died but that isn’t true — well, it is now, but it wasn’t the reason for her leaving his father. She died a long time after that. By then, she had divorced Peter’s father and had claimed mental and physical cruelty to do so. I hate him.’
‘So when did you start to fix the races?’ I asked.
‘A few months after I first met Peter,’ she said. ‘God, I was nervous the first time. I was sure everyone would know what I was doing but it was really very easy. The lads would always do what I said, so I’d send them off to do something while I poured the water away. I would then feed the horses. As you know, oats and the horse nuts make the horses thirsty so they drink during and after eating. I simply took away their water. It was dead easy.’ She smiled again.
It was not a new trick but she was undoubtedly pleased with herself for having managed to do it without being detected — at least, until now.
It seemed like more unnecessary mental and physical cruelty to me. She was no better than Peter’s father. Worse even, as a horse has no means of escape. I could feel the anger rising in me again. Anger at the callous nature of this person who had been trusted to look after the horses, but had been the cause of great distress for them instead.
‘But soon it stopped being a game,’ she said. ‘Peter became obsessed with being in control of his father’s horses. It gave him such power to know when they would do well and when they would not.’
Huw had told Kate it was more about power than money.
Juliet was almost gabbling now. Now she had started there was no stopping her. ‘Lord Enstone liked his horses to run up at Newcastle or Kelso and at the other northern tracks when he was up there at home for the weekends. I couldn’t go up there with them, but Peter was specially keen that the horses should be stopped when he knew his father was going to be at the races with all his mates — so he would be shown up when the horse lost. So he paid Huw Walker to stop some. I told him it was stupid to get someone else involved, but he was absolutely determined. He said he needed Huw to get at the horses in the north.
I wondered how long it would take Juliet to work out that Peter had probably only bedded her to get at the horses in the south.
‘Then it all started to go wrong,’ she said. ‘Huw Walker said he was afraid that people would say that he was fixing races. He wanted out, but Peter told him that if he didn’t do as he was told then he would fix him good and proper, so much so he would get warned off by the Jockey Club.’
‘But surely that would have been the same for Peter?’ I said.
‘As you know, professional jockeys are not allowed to bet but Peter placed bets on the other horses in the races that Huw was going to fix and used an account that could be traced back to Huw. Peter had it as a hold over him. Unless Huw did as he was told, Peter said he would anonymously tell the Jockey Club where to look to see Huw’s name on the account.’
‘Why didn’t Huw report Peter to the Jockey Club himself?’ I asked.
‘When Huw threatened just that, Peter said that no one would believe him, that they would just see it as an attempt to shift the blame, and they would be more likely to warn him off for life. I don’t know whether they would have, but it frightened Huw enough.’
‘How many races did Huw fix?’ I asked.
‘Only a few,’ she said. ‘Maybe eight or ten, all in the north.’
A little greed had been his undoing.
‘He had wanted out after only two,’ said Juliet.
A very little greed, indeed.
‘Then Huw said he would tell Peter’s father what we were doing if we didn’t stop, or at least stop involving him. Peter went mad and threatened to kill him. I didn’t think he meant it, but…’ She stopped.
‘Peter shot Huw at Cheltenham,’ I said.
She nodded. ‘I didn’t know anything about it at the time, I swear, but Peter told me afterwards that it was during the Gold Cup when everyone was watching the race either live or on the big screens near the paddock. He said no one noticed him and Huw going off for a chat.’
And some shooting practice, I thought.
‘And I suppose the crowd noise at the end of the race would have drowned out the noise of the shots,’ I said, ‘but it was still a hell of a chance.’ Perhaps he’d used a silencer, I thought.
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but Peter was desperate. He’s terrified that his father would find out about the race fixing and go and change his will just before he drops off the perch.’
‘Is he likely to drop off the perch?’ I asked.
‘He’s got cancer,’ she said. ‘Didn’t you know? It’s prostate cancer and he’s had some treatment but it isn’t working. Peter doesn’t think he’ll last much longer, a year maybe, and he’s shitting himself in case the old man cuts him off without a bean for fiddling with his horses.’
So it was about money, after all. It usually was.
‘And how about Bill?’ I said.
‘Peter started a rumour some time ago that Bill Burton was involved in race fixing.’
‘Why?’ I asked her.
‘He said that it would keep the heat away from us if anyone started asking too many questions.’
Seemed to me to be like waving a red flag, bringing needless attention.
‘Peter was so excited when Bill got arrested,’ she said. ‘He reckoned that the only thing better than getting away with something was to have someone else convicted for it.’
Peter Enstone wasn’t the nicest of people.
‘He was annoyed when the police released Bill. He said that it meant that they didn’t really think he’d done it.’
‘But why did Peter kill Bill?’ I asked. ‘He’d done nothing to deserve that.’
‘He wanted to get the police to think that Bill had killed himself after killing Huw. So they would stop looking for Huw’s murderer.’ She looked at me. ‘And it would have worked, too, if you hadn’t stuck your damn nose in.’
‘Did you see him do it?’ I asked her.
‘No, absolutely not,’ she cried, ‘I didn’t know that he was going to kill him. I’m not a murderer.’
I still wasn’t sure about that.
‘So what happened that night?’ I asked her.
‘Peter rang me to say that he had to talk to Bill urgently,’ she said, ‘about his father’s horses going to another trainer.’
‘But the horses had already gone to Andrew Woodward,’ I said.
‘I know, but Peter told me that he was going to help Bill get them back.’
I wasn’t sure I believed her.
‘So what happened?’ I asked again.
‘I tried to get Bill on the phone but he’d gone out,’ she said.
To see Kate, I thought, at Daphne Rogers’ place.
‘Peter picked me up from home,’ she continued, ‘and we spent ages in the driveway waiting for Bill to come back, which he finally did at about half past ten.’
‘Then what did you do?’ I asked.
‘Bill was a bit surprised to see us, I can tell you. “What on earth are you doing here at this time of night?” That’s what he said. He was all smiling and joking. He asked us in
for a drink so we went into the den. Bill poured himself a Scotch and Peter asked me to go and make him a coffee in the kitchen as he was driving.
To get her out of the way, I thought.
‘I was in the kitchen waiting for the kettle to boil,’ she said, ‘and there was a loud bang and the next thing I know Peter comes out to the kitchen all frantic like and hyper. He said that would sort out the police. I asked him what he’d done.’
She began to breathe more quickly at the memory.
‘He didn’t reply,’ she went on. ‘He just stood there laughing and saying that that would show them. So I went into the den and saw Bill.’
Or what was left of him, I thought. She glanced up at the faint stain on the wall.
‘I couldn’t believe that he had killed him.’ She held her head in her hands. ‘I was bloody mad with Peter. I didn’t want Bill dead and I had absolutely nothing to do with it. It wasn’t my idea and I’m not taking the bloody blame for it.’
‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’ I asked her.
‘I wanted to, I wanted to,’ she said. ‘I told Peter that I was going to call the police right there and then but he said the same thing would happen to me if I did. I thought he was joking but I didn’t do it. I was really frightened of him that night.’
With good reason, I thought. I also wondered if that was the first ounce of truth she had told for a while. I wasn’t at all sure that I believed her account of how Bill died.
‘Did Peter say how he managed to shoot Bill in the mouth?’ I asked.
‘Peter said that when he pulled out the gun Bill was absolutely terrified of him,’ she said. ‘He was pleased about that and he has talked about it over and over again since. Peter says Bill was scared shitless. Apparently Bill just sat there shaking with his mouth open, so Peter just shot him through it.’
‘So what happened next?’ I prompted.
‘I was in a complete panic but Peter was dead calm,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why but he kept saying he wanted to fire another shot so that it looked like Bill had killed himself but there had to be no second bullet found. He wanted to fire it out the window but I thought he might hit one of the horses in the stables.’