Odds Against Read online

  ‘Babes in the Wood,’ remarked Jones-boy, in great good humour from having got the best of the slanging match. He helped Dolly and me pick up the photographs, shuffled them back into the box in no sort of order, and departed grinning.

  ‘Chico,’ said Dolly severely, ‘you ought to know better.’

  ‘The bossy-mother routine bores me sick,’ said Chico violently.

  Dolly bit her lip and looked away. Chico stared at me defiantly, knowing very well he had started the row and was in the wrong.

  ‘As one bastard to another,’ I said mildly, ‘pipe down.’

  Not being able to think of a sufficiently withering reply fast enough Chico merely scowled and walked out of the room. The show was over. The office returned to normal. Typewriters clattered, someone used the tape recorder, someone else the telephone. Dolly sighed and began to draw up her list for Seabury. I sat and thought about Leo. Or Fred. Unproductively.

  After a while I ambled upstairs to Bona Fides, where the usual amount of telephone shouting filled the air. George, deep in a mysterious conversation about moth-balls, saw me and shook his head. Jack Copeland, freshly attired in a patchily faded green sleeveless pullover, took time out between calls to say that they were sorry, but they’d made no progress with Kraye. He had, Jack said, very craftily covered his tracks about ten years back. They would keep digging, if I liked. I liked.

  Up in Missing Persons Sammy said it was too soon for results on Smith.

  When I judged that Mark Witney would be back in his house after exercising his second lot of horses, I rang him up and asked him to lend me his hack, a pensioned-off old steeplechaser of the first water.

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘What for?’

  I explained what for.

  ‘You’d better have my horse box as well,’ he commented. ‘Suppose it pours with rain all night? Give you somewhere to keep dry, if you have the box.’

  ‘But won’t you be needing it? The forecast says clear and dry anyway.’

  ‘I won’t need it until Friday morning. I haven’t any runners until Seabury. And only one there, I may say, in spite of it being so close. The owners just won’t have it. I have to go all the way to Banbury on Saturday. Damn silly with another much better course on my door-step.’

  ‘What are you running at Seabury?’

  He told me, at great and uncomplimentary length, about a half blind, utterly stupid, one paced habitual non-jumper with which he proposed to win the novice chase. Knowing him, he probably would. We agreed that Chico and I should arrive at his place at about eight that evening, and I rang off.

  After that I left the office, went across London by underground to Company House in the City, and asked for the files of Seabury Racecourse. In a numbered chair at a long table, surrounded by earnest men and women clerks poring over similar files and making copious notes, I studied the latest list of investors. Apart from Kraye and his various aliases, which I now recognised on sight from long familiarity with the share transfer photographs, there were no large blocks in single ownership. No one else held more than three per cent of the total: and as three per cent meant that roughly two and a half thousand pounds was lying idle and not bringing in a penny in dividends, it was easy to see why no one wanted a larger holding.

  Fotherton’s name was not on the list. Although this was not conclusive, because a nominee name like ‘Mayday Investments’ could be anyone at all, I was more or less satisfied that Seabury’s Clerk was not gambling on Seabury’s death. All the big share movements during the past year had been to Kraye, and no one else.

  A few of the small investors, holding two hundred or so shares each, were people I knew personally. I wrote down their names and addresses, intending to ask them to let me see Bolt’s circular letter when it arrived. Slower than via Zanna Martin, but surer.

  My mind shied away from Zanna Martin. I’d had a bad night thinking about her. Her and Jenny, both.

  Back in the office I found it was the tail-end of the lunch hour, with nearly all the desks still empty. Chico alone was sitting behind his, biting his nails.

  ‘If we’re going to be up all night,’ I suggested, ‘we’d better take the afternoon off for sleep.’

  ‘No need.’

  ‘Every need. I’m not as young as you.’

  ‘Poor old grandpa.’ He grinned suddenly, apologising for the morning. ‘I can’t help it. That Jones-boy gets on my wick.’

  ‘Jones-boy can look after himself. It’s Dolly…’

  ‘It’s not my bloody fault she can’t have kids.’

  ‘She wants kids like you want a mother.’

  ‘But I don’t…’ he began indignantly.

  ‘Your own,’ I said flatly. ‘Like you want your own mother to have kept you and loved you. Like mine did.’

  ‘You had every advantage, of course.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  He laughed. ‘Funny thing is I like old Dolly, really. Except for the hen bit.’

  ‘Who wouldn’t?’ I said amicably. ‘You can sleep on my sofa.’

  He sighed. ‘You’re going to be less easy than Dolly to work for, I can see that.’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Don’t kid yourself, mate. Sir, I mean.’ He was lightly ironic.

  The other inmates of the office drifted back, including Dolly, with whom I fixed for Chico to have the afternoon free. She was cool to him and unforgiving, which I privately thought would do them both good.

  She said, ‘The first official patrol will start on the racecourse tomorrow at six p.m. Shall I tell them to find you and report?’

  ‘No,’ I said definitely. ‘I don’t know where I’ll be.’

  ‘It had better be the usual then,’ she said. ‘They can report to the old man at his home number when they are starting the job, and again at six a.m. when they go off and the next lot take over.’

  ‘And they’ll ring him in between if anything happens?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. As usual.’

  ‘It’s as bad as being a doctor,’ I said smiling.

  Dolly nodded, and half to herself she murmured, ‘You’ll find out.’

  Chico and I walked round to my fiat, pulled the curtains, and did our best to sleep. I didn’t find it easy at two-thirty in the afternoon: it was the time for racing, not rest. It seemed to me that I had barely drifted off when the telephone rang: I looked at my watch on my way to answer it in the sitting-room and found it was only ten to five. I had asked for a call at six.

  It was not the telephone exchange, however, but Dolly.

  ‘A message has come for you by hand, marked very urgent. I thought you might want it before you go to Seabury.’

  ‘Who brought it?’

  ‘A taxi driver.’

  ‘Shunt him round here, then.’

  ‘He’s gone, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Who’s the message from?’

  ‘I’ve no idea. It’s a plain brown envelope, the size we use for interim reports.’

  ‘Oh. All right, I’ll come back.’

  Chico had drowsily propped himself up on one elbow on the sofa.

  ‘Go to sleep again,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to go and see something in the office. Won’t be long.’

  When I reached the Racing Section again I found that whatever had come for me, something else had gone. The shaky lemon coloured table. I was deskless again.

  ‘Sammy said he was sorry,’ explained Dolly, ‘but he has a new assistant and nowhere to park him.’

  ‘I had things in the drawer,’ I complained. Shades of Sammy’s lunch, I thought.

  ‘They’re here,’ Dolly said, pointing to a corner of her desk. ‘There was only the Brinton file, a half bottle of brandy, and some pills. Also I found this on the floor.’ She held out a flat crackly celophane and paper packet.

  ‘The negatives of those photographs are in here,’ I said, taking it from her. ‘They were in the box, though.’

  ‘Until Jones-boy dropped it.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ I put the packe
t of negatives inside the Brinton file and pinched a large rubber band from Dolly to snap round the outside.

  ‘How about that mysterious very urgent message?’ I asked.

  Dolly silently and considerately slit open the envelope in question, drew out the single sheet of paper it contained and handed it to me. I unfolded it and stared at it in disbelief.

  It was a circular, headed Charing, Street and King, Stockbrokers, dated with the following day’s date, and it ran:

  Dear Sir or Madam,

  We have various clients wishing to purchase small parcels of shares in the following lists of minor companies. If you are considering selling your interests in any of these, we would be grateful if you would get in touch with us. We would assure you of a good fair price, based on today’s quotation.

  There followed a list of about thirty companies, of which I had heard of only one. Tucked in about three-quarters of the way down was Seabury Racecourse.

  I turned the page over. Zanna Martin had written on the back in a hurried hand.

  This is only going to Seabury shareholders. Not to anyone owning shares in the other companies. The leaflets came from the printers this morning, and are to be posted tomorrow. I hope it is what you want. I’m sorry about last night.

  Z.M.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Dolly.

  ‘A free pardon,’ I said light-heartedly, slipping the circular inside the Brinton file along with the negatives. ‘Also confirmation that Ellis Bolt is not on the side of the angels.’

  ‘You’re a nut,’ she said. ‘And take these things off my desk. I haven’t room for them.’

  I put the pills and brandy in my pocket and picked up the Brinton file.

  ‘Is that better?’

  ‘Thank you, yes.’

  ‘So long, then, my love. See you Friday.’

  On the walk back to the flat I decided suddenly to go and see Zanna Martin. I went straight down to the garage for my car without going up and waking Chico again, and made my way eastwards to the City for the second time that day. The rush hour traffic was so bad that I was afraid I would miss her, but in fact she was ten minutes late leaving the office and I caught her up just before she reached the underground station.

  ‘Miss Martin,’ I called. ‘Would you like a lift home?’

  She turned round in surprise.

  ‘Mr Halley!’

  ‘Hop in.’

  She hopped. That is to say, she opened the door, picked up the Brinton file which was lying on the passenger seat, sat down, tidily folded her coat over her knees, and pulled the door shut again. The bad side of her face was towards me, and she was very conscious of it. The scarf and the hair were gently pulled forward.

  I took a pound and a ten shilling note out of my pocket and gave them to her. She took them, smiling.

  ‘The taxi-man told our switchboard girl you gave him that for bringing the leaflet. Thank you very much.’ I swung out through the traffic and headed for Finchley.

  She answered obliquely. ‘That wretched chicken is still in the oven, stone cold. I just turned the gas out yesterday, after you’d gone.’

  ‘I wish I could stay this evening instead,’ I said, ‘but I’ve got a job on for the agency.’

  ‘Another time,’ she said tranquilly. ‘Another time, perhaps. I understand that you couldn’t tell me at first who you worked for, because you didn’t know whether I was an… er, an accomplice of Mr Bolt’s, and afterwards you didn’t tell me for fear of what actually happened, that I would be upset. So that’s that.’

  ‘You are generous.’

  ‘Realistic, even if a bit late.’

  We went a little way in silence. Then I asked ‘What would happen to the shares Kraye owns if it were proved he was sabotaging the company? If he were convicted, I mean. Would his shares be confiscated, or would he still own them when he came out of jail?’

  ‘I’ve never heard of anyone’s shares being confiscated,’ she said, sounding interested. ‘But surely that’s a long way in the future?’

  ‘I wish I knew. It makes a good deal of difference to what I should do now.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Well… an easy way to stop Kraye buying too many more shares would be to tell the racing press and the financial press that a take-over is being attempted. The price would rocket. But Kraye already holds twenty-three per cent, and if the law couldn’t take it away from him, he would either stick to that and vote for a sell out, or if he got cold feet he could unload his shares at the higher price and still make a fat profit. Either way, he’d be sitting pretty financially, in jail or out. And either way Seabury would be built on.’

  ‘I suppose this sort of thing’s happened before?’

  ‘Take-overs, yes, several. But only one other case of sabotage. At Dunstable. Kraye again.’

  ‘Haven’t any courses survived a take-over bid?’

  ‘Only Sandown, publicly. I don’t know of any others, but they may have managed it in secrecy.’

  ‘How did Sandown do it?’

  ‘The local council did it for them. Stated loudly that planning permission would not be given for building. Of course the bid collapsed then.’

  ‘It looks as though the only hope for Seabury, in that case, is that the council there will act in the same way. I’d try a strong lobby, if I were you.’

  ‘You’re quite a girl, Miss Martin,’ I said smiling. ‘That’s a very good idea. I’ll go and dip a toe into the climate of opinion at the Town Hall.’

  She nodded approvingly. ‘No good lobbying against the grain. Much better to find out which way people are likely to move before you start pushing!’

  Finchley came into sight. I said. ‘You do realise, Miss Martin, that if I am successful at my job, you will lose yours?’

  She laughed. ‘Poor Mr Bolt. He’s not at all bad to work for. But don’t worry about my job. It’s easy for an experienced stockbroker’s secretary to get a good one, I assure you.’

  I stopped at her gate, looking at my watch. ‘I’m afraid I can’t come in. I’m already going to be a bit late.’

  She opened the door without ado and climbed out. ‘Thank you for coming at all.’ She smiled, shut the door crisply, and waved me away.

  I drove back to my flat as fast as I could, fuming slightly at the traffic. It wasn’t until I switched off the engine down in the garage and leaned over to pick it up that I discovered the Brinton file wasn’t there. And then remembered Miss Martin holding it on her lap during the journey, and me hustling her out of the car. Zanna Martin still had Brinton’s file. I hadn’t time to go back for it, and I couldn’t ring her up because I didn’t know the name of the owner of the house she lived in. But surely, I reassured myself, surely the file would be safe enough where it was until Friday.

  TWELVE

  Chico and I sat huddled together for warmth in some gorse bushes and watched the sun rise over Seabury Racecourse. It had been a cold clear night with a tingle of nought degrees centigrade about it, and we were both shivering.

  Behind us, among the bushes and out of sight, Revelation, one-time winner of the Cheltenham Gold Cup, was breakfasting on meagre patches of grass. We could hear the scrunch when he bit down close to the roots, and the faint chink of the bridle as he ate. For some time Chico and I had been resisting the temptation to relieve him of his nice warm rug.

  ‘They might try something now,’ said Chico hopefully. ‘First light, before anyone’s up.’

  Nothing had moved in the night, we were certain of that. Every hour I had ridden Revelation at a careful walk round the whole of the track itself, and Chico had made a plimsole-shod inspection of the stands, at one with the shadows. There had been no one about. Not a sound but the stirring breeze, not a glimmer of light but from the stars and a waning moon.

  Our present spot, chosen as the sky lightened and some concealment became necessary, lay at the furthest spot from the stands, at the bottom of the semi-circle of track cut off by the road which ran across the c
ourse. Scattered bushes and scrub filled the space between the track and boundary fence, enough to shield us from all but closely prying eyes. Behind the boundary fence were the little back gardens of the first row of bungalows. The sun rose bright and yellow away to our left and the birds sang around us. It was half past seven.

  ‘It’s going to be a lovely day,’ said Chico.

  At ten past nine there was some activity up by the stands and the tractor rolled on to the course pulling a trailer. I unshipped my race glasses, balanced them on my bent up knees, and took a look. The trailer was loaded with what I guessed were hurdles, and was accompanied by three men on foot.

  I handed the glasses to Chico without comment, and yawned.

  ‘Lawful occasions,’ he remarked, bored.

  We watched the tractor and trailer lumber slowly round the far end of the course, pause to unload, and return for a refill. On its second trip it came close enough for us to confirm that it was in fact the spare hurdles that were being dumped into position, four or five at each flight, ready to be used if any were splintered in the races. We watched for a while in silence. Then I said slowly, ‘Chico, I’ve been blind.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘The tractor,’ I said. ‘The tractor. Under our noses all the time.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So the sulphuric acid tanker was pulled over by a tractor. No complicated lifting gear necessary. Just a couple of ropes or chains slung over the top of the tanker and fastened round the axles. Then you unscrew the hatches and stand well clear. Someone drives the tractor at full power up the course, over goes the tanker and out pours the juice. And Bob’s your uncle!’

  ‘Every racecourse has a tractor,’ said Chico thoughtfully.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So no one would look twice at a tractor on a racecourse. Quite. No one would remark on any tracks it left. No one would mention seeing one on the road. So if you’re right, and I’d say you certainly are, it wouldn’t necessarily have been that tractor, the racecourse tractor, which was used.’

  ‘I’ll bet it was, though.’ I told Chico about the photographed initials and payments. ‘Tomorrow I’ll check the initials of all the workmen here from Ted Wilkins downwards against that list. Any one of them might have been paid just to leave the tractor on the course, lying handy. The tanker went over on the evening before the meeting, like today. The tractor would have been in use then too. Warm and full of fuel. Nothing easier. And afterwards, straight on up the racecourse, and out of sight.’