“Yes, but you narrow those down in the same way. No, it can’t be this word because the second letter’s got to be an ‘m’. No, it can’t be that one, because the seventh letter isn’t a ‘j’. And so you go on till you reach the one, inevitable solution.”
Carole smiled at her new friend. “I can see why it appeals to you, Gerald. And I can see why photography appeals too.”
“Ah, do you want me to start on the variables that have to be considered when taking the perfect photograph? There’s the shutter speed, the light, the – ”
She held her hand up to stem the anticipated deluge. “No need. I’ll take your word for it.”
“So, after all that exegesis of the form book, it is now two eight and fifty-three seconds. Are you going to make an investment on the two-ten at Towcester?”
“Well, I’m sure Conjuror’s Rabbit is going to win.”
“And are you going to put your money where your mouth is?”
“Why not?” She opened her handbag, took out her purse and held up a two-pound piece.
“Last of the big spenders,” said Gerald Hume.
“Would you mind putting it on for me when you put your bet on?”
“Very well.” He went to the counter. Carole tried not to look self-conscious. She needn’t have worried. Nobody was interested in what she looked like.
“So,” she asked, as Gerald returned, “have you done the favourite too?”
“No.”
“So what have you done?”
“Ssh. They’re under orders. I’ll tell you when the race is over.”
They watched, along with the rest of the crowd, including Pauline, the Chinese waiters and Wes and Vie. The decorators were noisy with ‘Go on, my son!’ Conjuror’s Rabbit showed his class from the start, easing himself into third early on and holding that position until they turned into the straight with two fences to jump. Finding another gear, he moved smoothly forward to overtake the two ahead of him and sailed over the penultimate obstacle. Then, six lengths ahead, with the race at his mercy, he approached the last. Carole began to get a distant inkling of what the attraction of gambling might be about.
But the calculation of her modest winnings was interrupted. Suddenly Conjuror’s Rabbit seemed to break his stride. He crashed into the top of the last fence, stumbled on landing and neatly deposited his jockey on to the ground. The second horse, a twenty-to-one outsider called Draggle Tail, clumsily crossed the last fence and had enough momentum to reach the winning post first.
“Well, that’s stupid,” said Carole. “You can’t apply any logic to something like that. What a very unsatisfactory exercise – two pounds straight down the drain.”
“Not unsatisfactory for everyone,” said Gerald slyly.
“What do you mean?”
“I had a fiver on Draggle Tail.”
“What? But why? What possible logic could there be in that? No, I’m afraid your analogy with crosswords is completely destroyed by what’s just happened.”
“No, it isn’t.”
“How so?”
“I backed Draggle Tail because ‘Draggle’ is, all but for one letter, an anagram of ‘Gerald’.”
“And you call that logic? So much for all your talk of ‘mathematical probabilities’.”
Carole was still fuming when Gerald Hume returned from the counter with his winnings. “Having dragged me down here,” she said sniffily, “to squander my hard-earned pension, you will now perhaps have the goodness to give me the information that you have about the betting shop’s mystery woman.”
“Oh yes,” he said, with a twinkle. “That would only be fair, wouldn’t it?” He sat down on a blue plastic seat beside her. “The woman you refer to is Melanie Newton, who has an address in Fedborough.”
“Yes, except that she has moved from that address, and has apparently split up with her husband and could be anywhere.”
“So you’ve no other means of contacting her?”
“I got a mobile number for her, but she doesn’t answer it.”
“Have you left a message?”
“No. I don’t want to put her off. If she thinks we’re on the trail, that might be a prompt for her to make herself scarce.”
“Yes. Assuming she has something to hide. Which is rather a big assumption. You have no real reason to think Melanie Newton is involved with wrong-doing of any kind.”
“No,” Carole agreed. Though in her mind the scale of Melanie Newton’s wrong-doing had been increasing disproportionately. “The trouble is, with only a mobile number as a means of contact, she could be anywhere in the world.”
“Well, Carole, I am glad to be able to say that I can narrow the focus down a bit from the whole world.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Melanie Newton is in Fethering – or at least was in Fethering yesterday.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I saw her.”
“Not in here? Is the betting shop open on Sundays?”
“It is, but it wasn’t in here that I saw her. As I believe I mentioned at our first meeting, I live in River Road. And I am fortunate in that I live in one of the houses with a sea view. For this reason, to maximize that view, my sitting room is upstairs, and I was sitting there yesterday afternoon setting up some shots with my camera. I never tire of taking pictures of the view from my window at different times of year. While I was engaged in this activity, I noticed hurrying towards me from the direction of the river a woman whom I thought I recognized as Melanie Newton. She looked somewhat unkempt, and I could not be sure that it was her until she was virtually opposite my house. But when I saw her that close, there was no doubt. Thinking of your eagerness to identify her, I regretted that I had not had the presence of mind to take a picture of her. But still, the chance was gone, so I returned to my own photography.”
He paused, relishing the hold he had over her attention. Carole had to use great control not to ask what happened next.
“Well,” Gerald Hume continued in his own time, “luck was on my side…as I must say it appears to have been this afternoon with the triumph of Draggle Tail…” Carole could have done without such excursions in his narrative, but again kept her calm and her silence. “Because a mere quarter of an hour later, I saw Melanie Newton returning the way she had come, this time bearing two loaded carrier bags from Allinstore, which I’m sure you know to be the – ”
This time Carole cracked. “I know what Allinstore is!”
She spoke with such vehemence that Gerald Hume picked up speed. “Anyway, I saw her coming towards me, I had time, and the outcome is: that I took a photograph of her.”
“Do you…?” she asked tentatively.
“Of course I do.” Gerald Hume reached down for his briefcase, lifted it up on to the table and opened it. He took out an envelope containing a colour print.
Carole had not seen the woman before. But at least she now knew what Melanie Newton looked like.
? Blood at the Bookies ?
Twenty-Four
“But surely, Jude, it suggests that she lives down by the river.”
“It could do.”
Carole found herself infuriated by her neighbour’s reaction. “It must do. Look, she walks up River Road to the High Street, does her shopping in Allinstore, then walks back down towards the river. She must live down there.”
“I agree, she might do, but we don’t know that for certain. She could have just parked her car down by the
