I could sense that George was bragging. He was clearly enjoying showing me how clever he was.
‘Do you do on-line gaming as well as exchange wagering?’
‘Yes, but not from this office. We have a Gibraltar-based operation for that. More cost effective.’
I suspected it was also more tax effective.
‘Why the interest?’ he asked.
‘No real reason,’ I said.
‘Is there anything specific you came here to find out?’
‘No. I’m just naturally inquisitive.’ And nosy.
I wandered a little further down the office.
‘Is this all the staff you have?’ I asked.
‘Nooo,’ he said, amused. ‘There are lots more. The accounts department is on the floor below here and there must be fifty personnel there. Then we have the technical staff who live amongst the machines on the lower floors. Then the ground floor has the company security staff, and a canteen.’
‘Quite a set-up,’ I said, sounding impressed. And I was.
‘Yes. We operate here twenty-four hours a day every day of the year. There are always duty technicians on standby in case of problems with the machines. We can’t afford for the system to go down. It’s not good for business. Now, is there anything else you want, Sid? I’m very busy.’
His irritation was beginning to show through more sharply.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Sorry. Many thanks for showing me around.’
And, oh yes, by the way, could I have a hair, please?
I followed him to the door and could see no convenient blond hairs lying on his dark sweater, and none helpfully sticking up from his head just waiting to be plucked out. This wasn’t as easy as Marina had suggested, especially one-handed.
We stopped in the doorway.
‘I see you’re on the front page of
I hoped he couldn’t see the sweat that broke out on my forehead.
‘So I saw,’ I replied, trying to keep my voice as normal as possible.
‘Are you having any luck with your investigation?’ he said.
‘I’m making steady progress,’ I lied.
‘Well, I hope you get to the bottom of it. I liked Huw Walker.’
‘How well did you know him?’ I asked.
Suddenly it was his turn to have a sweaty brow. ‘Not very well. We spoke a few times.’
‘What about?’ I asked.
‘Nothing much. About his chances, you know, in passing.’
‘It’s not very sensible for a man in your position to be asking jockeys about their chances in races, is it?’
He was beginning to get rattled. ‘There was nothing in it, I assure you.’
I wasn’t convinced that I could take his assurances at face value.
I applied more pressure. ‘Are the Jockey Club aware that you ask jockeys about their chances in races?’
‘Now look here, Halley, what are you accusing me of?’
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘It was
‘I think you ought to go now,’ he said.
He didn’t hold out his hand. I looked into his eyes and could see no further than his retinas. Whatever he was thinking, he was keeping it to himself.
I wanted to ask him what he had been doing last Friday evening around eight o’clock. I wanted to know if he had scratch marks on his neck beneath the high roll collar of his sweater. And I wanted to know if he had ever owned a.38 revolver.
Instead, I rode the lift down and went away.
Back at Ebury Street, I parked the car in the garage. Instead of going straight up to my flat, I walked to the sandwich bar on the corner to get myself a late lunch of smoked salmon on brown bread with a salad.
I was paying across the counter when my mobile rang.
‘Hello,’ I said, trying to juggle my lunch, the change and the telephone in my one real hand.
A breathless voice at the other end of the line said, ‘Is that you, Sid?’
‘Yes,’ I replied, then with rising foreboding, ‘Rosie? What is it?’
‘Oh God,’ she said, ‘Marina’s been shot.’
CHAPTER 15
‘What?’ I said numbly, dropping my change.
‘Marina’s been shot,’ Rosie repeated.
I went cold and stopped feeling my legs.
‘Where?’
‘Here, on the pavement outside the Institute.’
‘No,’ I said, ‘where on her body?’
‘In her leg.’
Thank God, I thought, she’s going to be all right.
‘Where is she now?’ I asked.
‘Here, by the ambulance,’ said Rosie. ‘They’re desperately working on her on the pavement. Oh God, there’s so much blood. It’s everywhere.’
Maybe my relief was premature. My skin felt clammy.
‘Rosie,’ I said urgently, ‘go and ask the ambulancemen which hospital they’ll be taking her to.’
I could hear her asking.
‘St Thomas’s,’ she said.
‘Go with her. I’m on my way there.’
She hung up. I looked at my phone in disbelief. This can’t be happening. But it was.
Nature has evolved a mechanism for dealing with fear, or hurt. Adrenalin floods into the bloodstream and hence throughout the body. Muscles are primed to perform, to run, to jump, to escape the danger, to flee from the source of the fear. I could feel the energy coursing round my body. I had felt it all too often before when lying injured on the turf after a bad fall. The desire to run was great. Sometimes, when injured, the urge to flee was so overpowering that injuries could be forgotten. There were well-documented incidents of people who had been horribly maimed in explosions running away from the scene on legs from which the feet had been blown clean away.
Now, in the sandwich bar, this adrenalin rush had me turning back and forth not knowing if I was picking up my lunch or retrieving my dropped change or what. For quite a few wasted seconds I was completely disorientated.
‘Are you all right, mate?’ asked the man behind the counter.
‘Fine,’ I croaked, hardly able to unclench my teeth.
I stumbled out of the shop and fairly sprinted back to my car. I pressed the button that opened the garage and yelled at the slowly opening gate to hurry up.
I drove as quickly as I could to St Thomas’s Hospital, which is on the other side of the Thames from the Houses of Parliament. ‘Quickly’ is a relative term in London traffic. I screamed at tourists outside Buckingham Palace to get out of the way, and cursed queues of taxis in Birdcage Walk. Bus lanes are for buses, and sometimes for taxis too, but not for cars. I charged along the bus lane on Westminster Bridge and didn’t care if I got a ticket.
In spite of two jumped traffic lights and numerous near misses, I made it unscathed to the hospital’s casualty entrance. I pulled the car on to the pavement and got out.
