nuts.’
He took another drink of coffee.
‘Anyway, what with all the problems and the lack of money compared to when I was riding, Kate and I started to row. Usually it was about nothing, or something so small I can’t even remember now. We would laugh about how silly we were and then go to bed and make it up. But recently things have been worse.’ He stopped and looked at me. ‘Why am I telling you all this?’
‘You don’t have to,’ I replied. ‘But carry on if it makes you feel better. I won’t tell anyone.’ Especially not Chris Beecher.
‘I’ve heard that you can keep a secret,’ he said, looking at my false hand. Far too many people, I thought, had heard that story.
‘It all came to a head on Thursday night.’ He seemed relieved to be able to tell someone. ‘For some time now Kate has been coming to bed late, really late, one or two in the morning. Well, I have to be up at five thirty for the horses so I’m usually in bed by ten, ten thirty at the latest.’
He finished his coffee.
‘Well, that doesn’t do much for your love life, I can tell you. If I tried to wake up when she came to bed, she would shy away from me. It was as if she didn’t want me even to touch her. So about ten o’clock on Thursday I said to her that I wanted her to come to bed now. She said something about wanting to watch some programme on the telly. So I said to her, “Why are you so frigid these days? You used to love sex. Is there anything wrong?”’
He paused and looked out of the window. The memory obviously hurt.
‘I thought she might have a medical problem or something. I only wanted her to get back to the old ways. Then she said something I’ll never forget.’ He stopped and I sat and waited as his eyes filled with tears and he fought them back by swallowing hard a couple of times.
‘She said that Huw Walker didn’t think she was frigid.’
‘Oh.’
‘I thought she must be joking.’ he said, ‘but she started to goad me. Said that he was a much better lover than me and that he knew how to satisfy a woman. I still didn’t believe it so I went to bed. But I couldn’t sleep. She never did come to bed that night. She packed some things for her and the children and left while I was out with the first lot. I came back to find the house empty.’
He stood up and leant against the sink, looking out at the stables beyond.
‘It isn’t the first time she’s left,’ he went on. ‘Third time since Christmas but before it was only for one night each time. I wish she’d come home.’
He stopped and began to cry.
‘Is that why you were so angry with Huw on Friday?’ I asked, hoping he would continue talking.
He turned round and wiped his eyes with his shirt sleeve. ‘I tried to be as normal as possible, so I went to the races — it was Cheltenham, after all. I hoped Kate would come home while I was out. And I still didn’t really believe her about Huw Walker. I thought she had just said it to upset me.’
‘What changed your mind?’ I asked quietly.
‘I was about to give him a leg-up on to Candlestick in the first when he turned to me and said, “Kate called me. Sorry, mate.” I was stunned. I just stood there unable to feel my legs. Juliet, you know, Juliet Burns my assistant, she had to do everything. I stood in the paddock for the whole race.’ He laughed sardonically. ‘My first winner at the Festival and I never saw it.’ His laughter died. ‘I was still there when Candlestick returned to the winner’s enclosure. I hadn’t moved an inch. Juliet came and fetched me. Sort of woke me up. Then I lost it. God, I was so mad with that bastard! I could have killed him.’
The enormity of what he’d said hung in the silence.
He looked at me for several seconds that seemed much longer, then he looked down at his hands. ‘When I heard he was dead, I was glad. But now, well you know, I don’t really want that.’
But he is, I thought.
‘Who would want him dead?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know. I thought everyone loved him. Perhaps some jilted girl killed him.’
Unlikely, I thought. It was too clinical, too professional.
‘Did he win or lose to order?’ I asked.
Bill’s head came up fast. ‘My horses are always trying to win,’ he said, but he didn’t sound totally convincing.
‘Come on, Bill,’ I said. ‘Tell me the truth. Did Huw and you ever fix races?’
‘Candlestick was sent out to do his best and to win if he could.’
It wasn’t what I had asked.
‘The Stewards had me in after the race. They were furious that I had been shouting at Huw in the unsaddling enclosure.’ He laughed. ‘They were particularly annoyed that all my effing and blinding had gone out live on the television. Apparently there had been more replays of that than of the race. Bringing the sport into disrepute, they said. Stupid old farts. Anyway, they accused me of being angry with Huw for winning on Candlestick. I told them it wasn’t anything to do with that, it was a personal matter, but they insisted that I must not have wanted the horse to win. I told them that that wasn’t true and I’d had a big bet on him. Luckily I was able to prove it there and then.’
‘How?’ I asked.
‘On their computer. I logged on to my on-line betting account and was able to show them the record of my big bet on Candlestick to win.’
‘How did they know that you hadn’t had another bet on him to lose?’
He grinned. ‘They didn’t.’
‘So had you?’
‘Only a small one to cover my stake.’
‘Explain,’ I said.
‘Well, I have an account with make-a-wager.com, the internet gambling site,’ he said.
I remembered my meeting with George Lochs at Cheltenham.
‘The site allows you to make bets or to lay, that is to take bets from other people. They’re known as the exchanges as they allow punters to exchange wagers.’ He was clearly excited. ‘So I can place a bet on a horse to win. Or I can stand a bet from someone else who wants to bet on the horse to win, which means I effectively bet on it to lose. The Triumph Hurdle — Candlestick’s race last Friday — is a race that you can gamble on ante-post, which means you can bet on the race for weeks or months ahead.’ I nodded; one didn’t need to be a gambler to know all about ante-post betting.
‘Because you lose your money if the horse doesn’t run, the odds are usually better. Prices are even better before the entries close because you’re also gambling that the connections will choose to enter the horse for the race in the first place. Then lots of the horses that are entered never actually run.’ He briefly drew breath. ‘The entries for the Triumph Hurdle close in January, but I put a monkey on Candlestick to win at 30 to 1 way back in November.’
‘So if he won, you’d win fifteen thousand,’ I said. A monkey is gambling slang for five hundred.
‘Right,’ he said, ‘but if he didn’t win I would have lost my five hundred. So on Thursday morning, I bet on him to lose to cover my stake.’
‘How exactly?’ I asked.
‘I took a bet of a monkey at sevens. So if the horse won I would win fifteen thousand minus the three and a half thousand I would have to pay on the other bet, and if he didn’t win I was even. I would have lost my win stake but made it back on the lay bet. Understand?’
‘Sure,’ I replied. ‘You stood to win eleven and a half thousand against a zero stake.’ And win he had.
‘Piece of piss,’ he laughed. ‘Money for old rope. But you lose badly if the horse doesn’t run so I only tend to do it if I am pretty sure my horse will actually run and it has a reasonable chance, which means the starting price will be a lot shorter than the ante-post price. On Friday, Candlestick’s starting price was down to 6 to 1.’
‘Do you ever make money if the horse loses?’ I asked.
‘Well,’ he paused a moment as if deciding whether to continue. Discretion lost. ‘I suppose I do sometimes, when I know a horse isn’t too well or hasn’t been working very well. Occasionally I will run a horse I really shouldn’t. Say if it’s got a cold or a bit of a leg.’
