‘I sensed that there are things that you didn’t want to talk about in there,’ he said.
‘Yes. There’s something I want Frame to do for me while we’re heading down to Surrey. It may have been covered already, but if not it needs to be.’ He explained his requirement.
‘No problem,’ Grey assured him. ‘Let’s get back . . . unless there’s something else you want to discuss in private.’
‘Actually,’ said Skinner, ‘there is one thing. Sewell and Hassett: what does the future hold for them? They’re traitors, but you can’t put them on trial: imagine the public reaction if the truth ever came out. Your service would be taken apart: God, the government could fall. For the same reason, you can hardly turn them loose either. It’s not like the old days, when you could quietly swap them for a couple of our people in Soviet hands. So what happens to them?’
‘You don’t really want a straight answer, do you?’ Grey replied.
‘Not if it’s too distasteful for you, Evelyn. What I was getting round to asking is what incentive these men have to co-operate with me? Why should they tell me a single bloody thing when they know that their futures are strictly limited?’
‘There’s no good reason I can see, I admit. Are you saying that there’s no point in your interviewing them?’
‘No, I’m saying I’d like to be able to incentivise them.’
‘In what way?’
‘I’d like to let them see a glimmer of hope: nothing glamorous, you understand, but an alternative, at least, to a faked kidnapping in the Middle East and footage on a website of them having their heads sliced off with a knife.’
Grey’s laugh was like a rattle in his throat. ‘A posting as a librarian to the consulate in Uzbekistan, for example?’
‘Something like that. A shitty existence but at least a continuing existence.’
‘Offer it by all means, but whether they’ll believe you, that’s another matter. You realise, too, that I can’t guarantee that anything you may promise will happen.’
‘Yes, but they will believe it. What else do they have to hold on to?’ Skinner headed for the door.
Twenty-eight
‘Mr Charnwood,’ Bandit Mackenzie asked, ‘how long had you worked for Gareth Starr?’
The wiry clerk looked at him across the cafe table. ‘Seven years,’ he said. ‘Seven years and six months.’
‘Were you friendly, or was it just a boss-employer relationship?’
‘We didn’t visit each other’s houses, if that’s what you mean, but we’d have a pint together after work now and again.’
‘Did anyone else ever join you? Did he have any other associates that you were aware of?’
‘No; as far as I know, after his wife left him his circle took in me, Big Ming, and occasionally Oliver Poole, the lawyer. In the pub, it was often just the two of us.’
‘So you got on.’
‘Sure. Gary valued me, and he let me know it. I’m good at what I do, better than most.’
‘What was your job?’
‘I took the bets, and I kept an eye on how things were going on each race, looking out for fluctuations.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Heavy betting on a particular horse or dog: outsiders usually. In the business you get a lot of rumours, alleged whispers out of stables and the like, about specific runners. Tips that they’ve been run down the park in their last couple of races . . .’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘The jockey doesn’t try too hard. As a result, the horse doesn’t get a lot of weight lumped on it by the handicapper; when they reckon it’s peaked in training and it’s nicely off on the weights, they turn it loose.’
‘That’s illegal, isn’t it?’
‘It’s well against the rules, that’s for sure,’ Eddie Charnwood conceded.
‘Does it happen a lot?’
‘I doubt whether it actually does, but the whispers are enough. When they start in your shop and you see money being piled on an outsider, you can’t afford to ignore it, especially if you’re a small operator like Gary. It’s not just punters that get taken to the cleaners.’
‘If you see it happening, is there anything you can do about it?’
‘Sure. We can lay it off: spread the action out to bigger bookies to limit our risk.’
‘I see.’ Mackenzie smiled awkwardly. ‘I’m an innocent when it comes to gambling, I’m afraid. My grandfather, on my mother’s side, was a big punter, bigger than he could afford, and not very good at it. It caused a lot of problems: my mum never forgot it, and she made bloody sure I didn’t inherit the habit.’
‘Good for her.’
‘How are you for coffee?’ the detective asked. ‘Want another?’
Charnwood glanced at his mug. ‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ He had suggested the meeting place, just off Bonnington Road, as it was close to his home at Powderhall and to the late Gary Starr’s shop.
‘Have you had any whispers recently, any runs on outsiders?’
‘No. There’s been a lot of publicity about race-fixing in the last couple of years and a lot of people have been done, so the rumour mill’s been quiet lately.’
‘Any big losers?’
‘Not as far as I know. Where we are we tend not to get big bets. To tell you the truth we don’t encourage them either. We’re a local bookie’s, Mr Mackenzie: our customers are people of modest means.’
‘So you have plenty of them?’
‘Enough.’
‘You must have. Gary Starr made a good living, enough for a nice house up in Trinity.’
‘I suppose. Gary did the totals at the end of the day: I can’t tell you for sure how much he was clearing.’
‘What happens now?’
‘What?’ The detective’s question seemed to take Charnwood by surprise.
‘Well, you’re out of a job as far as I can see. There’s nobody to carry on the shop, unless you and Smith can take it over yourselves.’
Charnwood laughed softly. ‘Big Ming may be a closet philosopher, but there’s no way I’d go into business with him. I won’t deny that since Saturday the thought’s gone through my mind of getting in touch with Mr Poole and asking him if he’d consider renting the shop to me for six months, to see how I managed on my own, but I don’t think I’m going to do that.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’d be a gamble, that’s why not. I’m like you, Mr Mackenzie: I see the other side of betting. Sure there are the bright eyes of the winners, but there are far more of the others, the ones with hurt and disappointment written all over their faces. That’s why I don’t bet myself, not any more at any rate. If I took on the shop, it would be the biggest punt I ever had, and if I was laying odds, they’d have to be against my succeeding. Five years ago, I might have thought differently, but today . . . there’s competition that we never had before, with Internet bookies and now super-casinos on the horizon. Gary managed to hold on because the shop’s well sited, and because around here there are still people who like to come out for the afternoon and put their bets on over the counter. But they’re dying out. I don’t think he could have held on here for ever, and I don’t think I’d last either. I could be wrong, but I have a wife and a wee boy, and I can’t put them at risk by trying it. So I’ll get a job somewhere else, with one of the bigger bookies, probably.’
‘Are you fairly sure of that?’
‘Yes. I made a few phone calls this morning: I’ve got an interview already. Gary was known about town, and so am I.’
‘Good luck to you, then.’ Mackenzie stood. ‘Come on, let’s walk round to the shop and you can open that safe for me.’
