“Nothing,” he said, looking up at me. “No signal. Same as before.”
I turned and looked around the betting ring at the other bookmakers, especially those to my right along the Royal Enclosure rail. Outwardly, there appeared to be no sense of alarm. Business was being carried on as usual. I could see a few of the boys from the big outfits pushing buttons on their phones with no success. One or two of them dashed away to seek other forms of communication with their head offices, and the man from the Press Association who was responsible for setting the starting prices had come down from his place in the stands to look at the bookies’ boards. No Internet connection also meant he didn’t get the necessary information directly to his computer screen.
“Two monkeys, six horse,” said a punter in front of me.
A “monkey” was betting slang for five hundred pounds, two monkeys was a thousand, or a grand. It was a fair-sized bet, and bigger than most, but, over the year, we took lots of bets of a thousand pounds or more, so it was not that unusual. However, I took a careful look at my customer. Was it a coincidence, I wondered, that our biggest bet of the day was laid just seconds after the Internet and the phones went off?
There was nothing about the man that made me think that he was up to no good. He was a regular racegoer, with a white shirt open at the neck and fawn chinos. I didn’t recognize him as one of the regular boys from the big outfits, but I would know him again, I made sure of that.
I glanced up at our board as I relieved him of the bundle of fifty-pound notes he held out to me. Horse number six, Lifejacket, was quoted at four-to-one.
“Four thousand-to-one thousand on horse six,” I said over my shoulder. “OK with you, Luca?”
There was a pause while Luca consulted with his digital mate.
“We’ll take it at seven-to-two,” he said slowly.
“Seven-to-two,” I said to the man in the white shirt and chinos.
“OK,” he said. He didn’t seem to mind the change in odds.
“A grand at seven-to-two, horse number six,” I said.
Luca pushed the computer keys, and the ticket popped out of the printer. I gave it to the man, who moved on to Larry Porter and appeared to make another bet there.
“A grand on six at fours,” shouted Luca. He was laying the bet with Norman Joyner, another bookmaker whose pitch was in the line behind us, and he was trying to do so at a better price than we had just offered to the man. But Norman was wise to his attempt.
“Hundred-to-thirty,” Norman called back. The price offered on horse number six was rapidly on its way down.
“OK,” said Luca. “I’ll take it.”
There was no money passed, no ticket issued. Norman Joyner was a regular on the Midlands tracks where we did most of our business, and while none of us may have actually been friends, one bookmaker’s word to another was still his bond.
“Internet still down?” I asked over my shoulder.
“Yup,” said Luca.
There was beginning to be a touch of panic in the ring. Technicians from the company that provided the Internet links were running around in circles, seemingly not knowing where to look for a solution. Frowns on the faces of those from the betting office chains reflected their concern that something was “afoot.”
“Fifty pounds on Brent Crude,” said a voice in front of me.
I looked down. “Hi, A.J.,” I said, noticing the fancy blue-and-yellow-striped vest he was wearing. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“Fifty on Brent Crude,” A.J. repeated.
“Fifty pounds to win number one,” I said over my shoulder, glancing at our prices board, “at fifteen-to-eight.” There was considerable surprise in the tone of my voice.
The ticket appeared and I passed it over.
“They’re off,” said the race commentator over the public-address system, announcing the start of the race.
“It’s back,” said Luca. “Now, is that a coincidence or what?”
“Phones too?” I asked.
“Yup.” He repeatedly pushed the buttons.
No coincidence, surely.
Lifejacket, horse number six, finished third in a close race with the second horse, both of them ten lengths behind the winner, number one, Brent Crude, the favorite, who was returned at the surprisingly long odds of fifteen-to-eight, or nearly two-to-one. Brent Crude had been the real class horse in the race, with every newspaper and TV pundit singing his praises. He had been expected to start at evens at best, and quite likely at odds-on.
“I reckon there’s been a bit of manipulating of the starting price going on here,” said Luca with a huge grin. “Serves them right.”
“Who?” said Betsy.
“The big-chain bastards,” I said to her.
Luca nodded laughing. “I think someone has been playing them at their own game.”
“What do you mean?” asked Betsy.
“Someone has managed to stop the big companies from contacting their staff on the racetrack to make bets with us.”
“So?” she said, clearly none the wiser.
“So someone has been placing largish bets on several horses,” I said, “to shorten their odds, which would, in turn, lengthen the price on the favorite.”
“I still don’t get it,” said Betsy.
“Suppose,” I said, “that really large bets were being placed in the betting shops on Brent Crude, all of them at the official starting price, then the shops wouldn’t have been able to contact their staff to get them to bet on him on the course and shorten his price.”
“It must have driven them bonkers in the shops to see the starting price lengthen,” said Luca, “just when they wanted it to shorten. All their big bets would have been at the starting price whether they were part of the scam or not.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” asked Betsy.
“Probably,” I said. “But the big companies are forever controlling the starting prices. I think they just got a taste of their own medicine.”
“It’s almost certainly illegal to interrupt communications,” said Luca. “But I think it’s brilliant.”
“But how can they do that?” asked Betsy.
“What?” I said.
“Disrupt all the phones.”
“I know it can be done,” Luca said. “I saw it on a television program. They used an electronic jammer. The police can do it too. I know that. When there was a bomb scare at Aintree one year, they shut down all the phone systems, left everyone completely stranded. Perhaps this was the same thing, but I doubt it. We would be evacuating the racetrack by now.”
“How did the prices change in the last few minutes before the off?” I asked him.
He consulted his microprocessing friend.
“Lifejacket came right in from four-to-one to two-to-one,” he said. “Five other horses tightened as the race approached, but Brent Crude drifted all the way from even money to fifteen-to-eight. He was very nearly not even the favorite.”
“That’s a lot,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Luca, “but there was a whisper in the ring that he was sweating badly in the paddock. Colic was even mentioned.”
I knew, I’d heard the talk. “Was it true?” I said.
“Dunno,” he said, grinning again. “I doubt it.”
