betting shops, he resented the implication that Charlesworth could cover the same ground with a few telephone calls. Worst of all would be, of course, if Charlesworth proved to have succeeded where he had failed.
No. He corrected this. It'd be a blow to his amour-propre, but the worst thing of all would be if this investigation which he had begun to regard as very much his own should finally grind to a halt.
Charlesworth lived in the highest of a quartet of flats carved out of a tall Victorian terraced house near the town centre. It was somehow curiously depersonalized, feeling more like a hotel suite than a permanent residence. The only personal touches were a set of racing prints on one of the lounge walls and a framed photograph of a group of young men in rugby kit, with one of them holding a large cup.
When Seymour introduced himself at the door, Charlesworth had regarded him with cold assessing eyes before letting him in. Not a man you could get close to, thought Seymour. There was something reserved and watching about him, a mind calculating the odds and at the same time sardonically amused at the absurdity of the race.
'Drink?' said Charlesworth. ‘I could manage a beer,' said Seymour, sitting on a rather hard armchair.
Charlesworth poured him a lager. He took nothing himself.
'Cheers,' said Seymour, taking a sip. 'Did you have any luck, sir?'
'Luck?' said Charlesworth as though it were not a word he was acquainted with. 'In the whole of this city there was only one bet placed which linked those three horses last Friday, and that was for a hundred pounds, and the punter concerned is well known by name and in person.'
'Ah,' said Seymour. 'No luck then.'
'How old are you, son?' asked Charlesworth.
It was an unexpected question, but Charlesworth was not the kind of man whose unexpected questions could be ignored.
'Twenty-three,' said Seymour.
'And you like your work?'
'Yes, sir.'
'Ambitious?'
'Yes, sir.'
What was all this about? wondered Seymour. Was he being sounded out for a bribe? The story of Dalziel's troubles, suitably embellished, was all over the station by now. According to this, the bookie had the fat man in his pocket; was he now looking to invest in the future?
If so, should not Seymour perhaps be flattered by being singled out as a prospective high-flier?
'I had a son,' said Charlesworth abruptly.
'Sir?'
'He was twenty-three when he died. Nearly. Another week and he'd have been twenty-three.'
'I'm sorry,' said Seymour helplessly. He finished his beer and made as if to rise, but something in Charlesworth's hard, set face told him that he was not yet excused.
'You interested in racing? Apart from professionally, that is?' asked Charlesworth.
'Well, yes. I like to go when I get the chance. And I like a bet,' said Seymour, glad to re-enter the realm of casual conversation, even if it might lead to some kind of offer which he hoped he'd have the strength and the sense to refuse.
'It's a mug's game,' said Charlesworth dismissively. 'Punters are mugs. Bookies can be mugs as well, but it takes another bookie to do that.'
Seymour laughed, deciding this must be a joke, but Charlesworth didn't even smile. Seymour wasn't sure what the subject was but he decided to change it.
'Nice prints,' said the young detective. 'Worth a bob or two if they're genuine.'
'They're what they look like,' said Charlesworth ambiguously. 'That's the most you can say about anything, isn't it?'
'I suppose so, sir,' said Seymour, using his interest in the prints as an excuse to rise and study them more closely, with a view to making an early exit.
'I had a Stubbs once. You know Stubbs?'
'I've heard of him,' said Seymour. 'That'd be really valuable, wouldn't it?'
'I let my wife take it,' said Charlesworth. 'She liked it. My son liked it too. So when we divorced, I let her take it.'
Seymour wandered round the room, showing great interest in long stretches of light green emulsion paint, till he arrived at the team photograph.
'Is this your son here?' he said, stabbing his finger at the youth holding the cup. 'I can see the resemblance.'
'No,' said Charlesworth. 'That's me.'
Seymour looked more closely. There was no writing on the photograph, but now he looked, he could see that the cut of the shorts, not to mention the hair, suggested a distant era.
'Rugby, isn't it?' he said.
'Yes. The Mid-Yorkshire cup,' said Charlesworth.
'Hold on,' said Seymour, peering even more closely. One of the figures in the back row, a large solid young man, well-muscled and with the grin of a tiger, looked familiar.
'That's never…' he said doubtfully.
'Your Mr Dalziel? Oh yes,' said Charlesworth. 'We go back a long way.'
'My God!' said Seymour, delighted. 'He hasn't changed much. I mean, he's put on a lot of weight, but you can still see…'
'He's changed,' interrupted Charlesworth brusquely. 'We all change, given the chance.'
'Yes, sir,' said Seymour. 'Well, thanks again for your help. I'd best be getting back. It's a pity, but I think we'll just have to give up on this one; I reckon it was always a long shot…'
'You give up easy, son,' said Charlesworth.
'Sorry?'
'There's no record of this bet, so what you decide is that this bet wasn't made. Is that the way Andy Dalziel teaches you to think?'
'I'm not sure what you mean,' said Seymour. 'I mean, if there's no record…'
'That means there's no record. It doesn't mean there was no bet.'
'I see,' lied Seymour, resuming his seat.
Charlesworth tossed him another can of lager and smiled. It wasn't much of a smile, but there was something of genuine feeling in it, a promise of spring in a wintry sky.
'Two reasons why there should be no record,' he said. 'One: the bookie 'lost' it. Now this sometimes happens with some bets, with some bookies. There's a ten per cent tax on all bets. So you can see the incentive to 'lose' a few: not only do you cut down on your income tax, you get to keep the ten per cent as well.'
'But,' said Seymour, 'surely there's no point in a bookie 'losing' a winning bet, if you follow me. I mean, what he pays out he'll want to keep on record, won't he?'
'That's right,' said Charlesworth approvingly. 'Mr Dalziel'd be proud of you. So what's the second reason a bet might not be recorded?'
'Because,' said Seymour, screwing up his face in concentration, 'because it wasn't placed with a regular bookie!'
'Right.'
'You mean, this particular bet might've been placed with a street-corner bookie?'
'There's a lot of them about. Pubs, clubs, factories, offices; the betting shops drove them out of business to start with, but the ten per cent tax has given them new life. Tax-free betting's very attractive to the regular punter. This old boy of yours was a regular, was he?'
'I gather so,' said Seymour. 'But it doesn't help much, not unless we can lay our hands on the joker concerned.'
'If it's a street-corner job, then you'll be pushed,' said Charlesworth.
'What's the alternative?'
Charlesworth shook his head sadly.
