‘I’m not saying another word,’ I said.
‘Aw, come on, Sid, me old mate, are there other bullets?’
‘One other bullet.’
‘Great!’ said Paddy. He thought he was getting somewhere. ‘Who was shot with it?’
‘No one.’
He looked disappointed. ‘Well, why is it important, then?’
‘Did I say it was important?’ I asked.
‘Stands to reason,’ he said. ‘Why else would ya get a professor?’
‘Look, I found another bullet and I wanted some advice about it, OK? Nothing important.’
‘Where did ya find it?’
‘Come on, Paddy, what is this — Twenty Questions? Leave it alone, will you?’
‘But where did ya find it?’
‘I said, leave it alone. I don’t want everyone to know.’
‘If ya tell me, I won’t have to go on asking questions now, will I?’
‘You could just stop asking questions anyway,’ I pointed out.
‘Bejesus, dat’s not me nature.’ He grinned at me.
‘I found a bullet in a sand bucket at Bill Burton’s stable yard, OK?’ I said. ‘I wanted it checked by a ballistics expert.’
‘But why?’ asked Paddy. ‘What did ya want him to check about it?’
‘I told you, Paddy, I don’t want everyone to know about it.’
‘But what did ya want him to check?’
I sighed. ‘If it was fired from the same gun as that which killed Bill Burton.’
He looked confused. ‘So, what if it had?’
Eventually, I told him everything. I told him that I was certain that Bill Burton had not killed himself and that he had been murdered. I told him about the gunpowder residue on Bill’s hand and sleeve and why there must have been a second shot fired. I told him about searching for the bullet and finding it. I made up a bit about having the bullet checked by my professor and about it having come from the same gun. I also told him that the police were now investigating Bill’s death as murder and not as suicide. I hoped I was right.
I told Paddy everything twice to ensure he had all the details and then I told him not to tell anyone else.
‘Ya can trust me,’ he said.
I hoped I could do just that.
I went in search of Charles and Rodney and found them in the bar drinking champagne.
‘So, have you passed your message?’ asked Charles.
‘Indeed I have. I only hope I didn’t make it so much of a secret that Paddy doesn’t actually tell. Now, what’s 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
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
‘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
