I remembered an owner who was surprised to hear from his trainer that his horse had ‘a bit of a leg’ when he expected that it had four full ones. ‘A bit of a leg’ was a euphemism for heat in a tendon, a sure sign of a slight strain. To run a horse in such a condition was quite likely to cause the horse to ‘break down’, that is, to pull or tear the tendon completely, requiring many months of treatment and, at worst, the end of a racing career.
Bill would know, as I did, that the powers-that-be in racing, while allowing trainers to bet on their horses to win, forbid them to bet on them to lose.
‘So the Stewards only saw the win bet on your account?’ I said.
‘Bloody right,’ he said.
‘So how did you take the lose bet on Thursday?’
‘There are ways,’ he grinned again.
I wondered how big a step it was from running an under-the-weather horse that was likely to lose, to running a horse that was fit and well that would also lose because the jockey wasn’t trying. I was getting round to asking such a pivotal question when we were interrupted by the arrival of vehicles in the driveway, the gravel scrunching under their tyres.
‘Who the hell can that be at this time?’ said Bill, moving to look out of the window.
It was the police.
In particular, it was Chief Inspector Carlisle of Gloucestershire CID, together with several other policemen, four of them in uniform.
Bill went to meet them at the back door.
‘William George Burton?’ asked the Chief Inspector.
‘That’s me,’ said Bill.
‘I arrest you on suspicion of the murder of Huw Walker.’
CHAPTER 6
‘You must be having a joke,’ said Bill. But they weren’t.
The Chief Inspector continued, ‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Bill didn’t say anything but just stood there with his mouth open.
They weren’t finished.
One of the other plain-clothes policemen came up and arrested him again, this time on suspicion of race fixing. Same rights. Bill wasn’t listening. He went very pale and looked as though he might topple over. He was stopped from doing so by two of the uniformed officers who stood each side and held him by the arms as they led him to one of the cars.
Bill looked back over his shoulder at me standing in the doorway. ‘Tell Juliet to feed the horses,’ he said. A policeman wrote it down.
‘I’ll stay here until she comes,’ I said.
‘She lives down the road. Look after things, will you?’
‘OK.’
He was bundled into the car and driven away. Seven policemen remained.
‘You again, Mr Halley.’ Chief Inspector Carlisle made it sound like an accusation.
‘You again, Chief Inspector,’ I replied in the same tone.
‘What brings you here?’ he asked.
I decided not to tell him that I, too, was looking for Huw Walker’s killer. ‘Visiting my friend,’ I replied.
The policemen started to come in through the door.
‘What do you think you are doing?’ I asked.
‘We’re going to search this house,’ said Carlisle. ‘As Mr Burton has been arrested, we have a right of search of his premises. We would be most grateful if you would vacate the property now, Mr Halley.’
I bet you would, I thought. ‘I believe that Mr Burton has the right to have a friend present during any such search and, as he told me to look after things, I intend to remain.’
‘As you wish,’ said Carlisle, not showing any obvious disappointment. ‘But please keep out of our way.’
Instead, I fetched my digital camera from my car and took mega-pixel shots of the policemen as they systematically worked their way through the house. My presence was clearly an irritation to Carlisle who stamped around me and tut-tutted every time my camera flashed.
‘Is that really necessary?’ he finally asked.
‘I thought you had to make a detailed record of the search,’ I replied. ‘I’m just helping out. I’ll e-mail you a complete set of the pictures.’
‘Do you know if Mr Burton owned a gun?’ he asked. ‘In particular, a.38 inch revolver.’
‘No, but I think it most unlikely.’
I knew Bill would never give his children toy guns for Christmas or birthdays as he thought it would teach them to be violent. I couldn’t imagine that he would own a real one.
By the time Juliet Burns and the other stable staff arrived at four thirty for evening stables, the police had removed all Bill’s computer equipment from his desk, sealed it in large clear plastic bags, and loaded it into one of their vehicles. I was photographing them as they were bagging up his business record books when Juliet walked into the office.
‘Hello, Sid — what the bloody hell’s going on?’ she demanded.
‘And who are you, madam?’ asked Chief Inspector Carlisle, coming into the office before I could answer.
‘Juliet Burns, assistant trainer, and who the hell are you, and what the hell are you up to?’ She directed the last question at the uniformed policeman who went on filling his bag with papers off Bill’s desk.
‘I’m Chief Inspector Carlisle, Gloucestershire CID. We are searching these premises in the course of our investigations.’
‘Investigations into what?’ she demanded loudly. ‘And where’s Mr Burton?’
‘He is helping us with our enquiries.’
I wondered if being taught ‘police speak’ was part of the training.
‘Into what?’ she asked again.
‘Into a suspicious death at Cheltenham last Friday.’
‘You mean Huw Walker?’
‘Indeed.’
‘And you think Bill did it? Ha!’ She laughed. ‘Bill wouldn’t hurt a fly. You’ve got the wrong man.’
‘We have every reason to believe that Mr Burton had a powerful motive for killing Mr Walker,’ said Carlisle.
‘What motive?’ I asked. Their heads turned towards me.
Carlisle seemed to realise that he had given away too much information. ‘Er, none of your business, sir.’
On the contrary, I thought, it was very much my business.
‘Have you been speaking to Mrs Burton?’ I asked him.
‘That’s none of your business, either,’ he replied. But I could see that he had. He had known that Kate and the children were not in the house when he had arrived. There had been no female police officers in his party. He had expected Bill to be here on his own.
So I assumed Carlisle’s ‘powerful motive’ was that Kate had told him that she was having an affair with Huw and that Bill had found out about it on Thursday evening. On Friday, Huw had turned up dead with his heart like a colander and Kate must have thought Bill was responsible. Not an unreasonable conclusion, I thought. No wonder she’d not come home. She believed her husband was a murderer.
Juliet stood with her hands on her hips. I hadn’t seen her since she was a child but I’d known her family for years. She may have been small in stature but inside her petite frame was a giant of a woman trying to get out. Her mother had died bringing her into the world and she had been raised by her blacksmith father and her four elder brothers, growing up as the youngest in a household dominated by men. Childhood had consisted of wrestling in
