Under Orders

with this fizz?’

‘We got the winner of the second race, but this bloody bottle of bubbles cost us more than our winnings,’ said Charles with a grin. ‘Help yourself.’

I did and much enjoyed their company for a while, without Paddy snapping at my heels.

I left the races after the third in order to get back to Lincoln’s Inn Fields to collect Marina at five thirty.

She came bounding out across the pavement and into the car. Rosie was standing in the entrance and I waved to her as we drove away.

‘Rosie is like a chaperone,’ said Marina. ‘She won’t even let me go to the loo without her.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Have you had a good day?’

‘Much the same as always,’ she said, sighing. ‘In fact, I’ve had enough of this job. We heard today that somebody likes the results so much that the project, which was originally only for three years, is going to be extended for another couple of years at least. They want me to stay for the extension but I’m not sure if I will.’

‘What will you do instead?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Something in London?’

There must have been some concern in my voice.

‘I’m thinking of leaving my job,’ she said, ‘not you.’

She stroked my arm. That was all right then.

CHAPTER 14

There was nothing about any second bullet or the Sid Halley theories on the Chris Beecher page of The Pump on Wednesday morning. I had bought a copy on my way back to the flat after taking Marina to work. Rosie had been waiting for her at the front door and Marina had rolled her eyes at me as she climbed out of the car. I had laughed.

I parked the car in the garage under the building, went upstairs and searched the paper from start to finish. Nothing.

I was beginning to doubt my assessment of Paddy’s character when Charles telephoned me.

‘I’ve just had a call from someone who said that you had said that he could check with me the name of the ballistics professor you had consulted.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘And did you give them his name?’

‘I couldn’t remember it.’ He laughed. ‘So I made another one up. Rodney is now Professor Aubrey Winterton, retired from the University of Bulawayo — I could remember that bit.’

Aubrey Winterton/Reginald Culpepper, it didn’t matter so long as no one was able to show that he didn’t exist.

‘And did this individual have an Irish accent?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Charles, ‘he did not.’

‘I wonder who he was.’

‘I dialled 1471 to get his number and then I phoned back,’ said Charles.

‘And?’

‘The number was for The Pump. I got through to the switchboard.’

‘Thank you, Charles.’ I was impressed. ‘If you need a job, you can be my new assistant.’

‘No thanks,’ said Charles. ‘I like to give orders, not take them.’

‘Be my boss then.’

He laughed and disconnected.

Good old Paddy, I thought. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist telling.

Bejesus, dat was his nature.

I spent the morning writing a preliminary report for Archie Kirk.

I hadn’t actually discovered any link between internet gambling and organised crime but I reported that I did believe there was potential for the craze of gambling on-line, and especially on-line gaming, to be abused by criminals.

The end user of the service, that is the gambler logged on to sites with his or her home computer, is placing a large amount of trust in the website operators to run their service properly and fairly.

For example, a game of roulette conducted on-line requires the player to place stakes on a regular roulette table pattern: numbers 1-36, 0 and 00, red and black, odd and even, and so on. The wheel, however, is a creation of the computer and does not actually exist, and neither does the ball. How can the player be sure that the computer-generated ‘ball’ will move randomly to fill one of the slots on the computer-generated ‘wheel’? It would seem that without this trust between player and wheel the game would not profit, but players of current sites seem to accept this trust without question. I knew that the computers used were extremely powerful machines and, no doubt, they could be used to calculate, as the ‘ball’ was rolling, which number would provide for the lowest payout by the ‘house’ and ensure that the ‘ball’ finished there.

Similarly, in all games of dice or cards, the ‘roll’ of the ‘dice’ or the ‘deal’ of the ‘cards’ are computer images and consequently have the potential to be controlled by a computer and not be as random as the players might hope and expect.

I concluded that, as many of these operations are run from overseas territories, it remained to be seen if regulations there were sufficient. I believed that the current trend for self-regulation left much to be desired.

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