Under Orders (22 page)

‘You could just stop asking questions anyway,’ I pointed out.

‘Bejesus, dat’s not me nature.’ He grinned at me.

‘I found a bullet in a sand bucket at Bill Burton’s stable yard, OK?’ I said. ‘I wanted it checked by a ballistics expert.’

‘But why?’ asked Paddy. ‘What did ya want him to check about it?’

‘I told you, Paddy, I don’t want everyone to know about it.’

‘But what did ya want him to check?’

I sighed. ‘If it was fired from the same gun as that which killed Bill Burton.’

He looked confused. ‘So, what if it had?’

Eventually, I told him everything. I told him that I was certain that Bill Burton had not killed himself and that he had been murdered. I told him about the gunpowder residue on Bill’s hand and sleeve and why there must have been a second shot fired. I told him about searching for the bullet and finding it. I made up a bit about having the bullet checked by my professor and about it having come from the same gun. I also told him that the police were now investigating Bill’s death as murder and not as suicide. I hoped I was right.

I told Paddy everything twice to ensure he had all the details and then I told him not to tell anyone else.

‘Ya can trust me,’ he said.

I hoped I could do just that.

I went in search of Charles and Rodney and found them in the bar drinking champagne.

‘So, have you passed your message?’ asked Charles.

‘Indeed I have. I only hope I didn’t make it so much of a secret that Paddy doesn’t actually tell. Now, what’s with this fizz?’

‘We got the winner of the second race, but this bloody bottle of bubbles cost us more than our winnings,’ said Charles with a grin. ‘Help yourself.’

I did and much enjoyed their company for a while, without Paddy snapping at my heels.

I left the races after the third in order to get back to Lincoln’s Inn Fields to collect Marina at five thirty.

She came bounding out across the pavement and into the car. Rosie was standing in the entrance and I waved to her as we drove away.

‘Rosie is like a chaperone,’ said Marina. ‘She won’t even let me go to the loo without her.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Have you had a good day?’

‘Much the same as always,’ she said, sighing. ‘In fact, I’ve had enough of this job. We heard today that somebody likes the results so much that the project, which was originally only for three years, is going to be extended for another couple of years at least. They want me to stay for the extension but I’m not sure if I will.’

‘What will you do instead?’

‘Don’t know.’

‘Something in London?’

There must have been some concern in my voice.

‘I’m thinking of leaving my job,’ she said, ‘not you.’

She stroked my arm. That was all right then.

There was nothing about any second bullet or the Sid Halley theories on the Chris Beecher page of
The Pump
on Wednesday morning. I had bought a copy on my way back to the flat after taking Marina to work. Rosie had been waiting for her at the front door and Marina had rolled her eyes at me as she climbed out of the car. I had laughed.

I parked the car in the garage under the building, went upstairs and searched the paper from start to finish. Nothing.

I was beginning to doubt my assessment of Paddy’s character when Charles telephoned me.

‘I’ve just had a call from someone who said that you had said that he could check with me the name of the ballistics professor you had consulted.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘And did you give them his name?’

‘I couldn’t remember it.’ He laughed. ‘So I made another one up. Rodney is now Professor Aubrey Winterton, retired from the University of Bulawayo – I could remember that bit.’

Aubrey Winterton/Reginald Culpepper, it didn’t matter so long as no one was able to show that he didn’t exist.

‘And did this individual have an Irish accent?’ I asked.

‘No,’ said Charles, ‘he did not.’

‘I wonder who he was.’

‘I dialled 1471 to get his number and then I phoned back,’ said Charles.

‘And?’

‘The number was for
The Pump
. I got through to the switchboard.’

‘Thank you, Charles.’ I was impressed. ‘If you need a job, you can be my new assistant.’

‘No thanks,’ said Charles. ‘I like to give orders, not take them.’

‘Be my boss then.’

He laughed and disconnected.

Good old Paddy, I thought. I knew he wouldn’t be able to resist telling.

Bejesus, dat was his nature.

I spent the morning writing a preliminary report for Archie Kirk.

I hadn’t actually discovered any link between internet gambling and organised crime but I reported that I did believe there was potential for the craze of gambling on-line, and especially on-line gaming, to be abused by criminals.

The end user of the service, that is the gambler logged on to sites with his or her home computer, is placing a large amount of trust in the website operators to run their service properly and fairly.

For example, a game of roulette conducted on-line requires the player to place stakes on a regular roulette table pattern: numbers 1–36, 0 and 00, red and black, odd and even, and so
on. The wheel, however, is a creation of the computer and does not actually exist, and neither does the ball. How can the player be sure that the computer-generated ‘ball’ will move randomly to fill one of the slots on the computer-generated ‘wheel’? It would seem that without this trust between player and wheel the game would not profit, but players of current sites seem to accept this trust without question. I knew that the computers used were extremely powerful machines and, no doubt, they could be used to calculate, as the ‘ball’ was rolling, which number would provide for the lowest payout by the ‘house’ and ensure that the ‘ball’ finished there.

Similarly, in all games of dice or cards, the ‘roll’ of the ‘dice’ or the ‘deal’ of the ‘cards’ are computer images and consequently have the potential to be controlled by a computer and not be as random as the players might hope and expect.

I concluded that, as many of these operations are run from overseas territories, it remained to be seen if regulations there were sufficient. I believed that the current trend for self-regulation left much to be desired.

As to the question of internet ‘exchanges’, as used for betting on horse racing and other sports, I concluded that the scope for criminal activity was no more prevalent than that which existed in regular bookmaker-based gambling. The significant difference was that, whereas in the past only licensed bookmakers were effectively betting on a horse to lose, anyone could now do so by ‘laying’ a horse on the exchanges. It was potentially easier to ensure a horse lost a race than won it. Over-training it too close to a race or simply by keeping it thirsty for a while and then giving it a bellyful of water just before the off, were both sure ways to slow an animal down. Speeding it up was far more difficult, and far more risky.

The Jockey Club and the new Horseracing Regulatory Authority have rules forbidding those intimately connected with horses to ‘lay’ on the exchanges. However, I knew from Bill that ‘there were ways’, even though I had not yet found out how he had layed Candlestick in the Triumph Hurdle. Some trusty friend was all he had needed. Even untrustworthy friends would do it for a cut of the winnings.

The commission-based exchanges appeared to be such high-profit businesses, without there being any risk of ‘losing’ on a big gamble, that the temptation for them to meddle with results, and hence punter confidence, seemed to be minimal. But regulator vigilance was essential as there would always be those who would try to beat the system unfairly.

I finished the report by saying that my investigations of individual on-line gambling operations would continue and a further report would be prepared in due course.

I was reading it through when the phone rang.

‘Is that Sid Halley?’ asked a Welsh voice.

‘Yes,’ I replied.

‘Good. This is Evan Walker here, see.’

‘Ah, Mr Walker,’ I said. ‘How are things?’

‘Not good, not good at all.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ I said. ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’

‘Did Bill Burton kill my son?’

‘No, I don’t believe so, but I’m still trying to find out who did.’

‘They won’t let me have Huw’s body for burial. Say they need it until after the inquest. I asked them when that would be and they said it could be months.’ He sounded distraught. ‘Can’t stop thinking of him in some cold refrigerator.’

I wondered whether it was worse than thinking of him in the cold ground.

‘I’ll have a word with the policeman in the case,’ I said. ‘Perhaps he can give me a better idea of when you can have a funeral.’

‘Thank you. Please phone me as soon as you find who killed him.’

I assured him that I would. And I’d shout it from the roof-tops, too.

I arrived to pick up Marina from Lincoln’s Inn Fields at half past five.

I’d spent the afternoon doing chores around the flat and getting my hair cut around the corner. Such was my desperation to move my investigation forward that I had a crazy idea of collecting hair off the floor of all the barbers in London to test for a DNA match with Marina’s attacker. Then I had remembered that Marina had said I would need the follicles too so cut hair was no good. Back to square one.

I had called Chief Inspector Carlisle at the Cheltenham police station but he was unavailable so I left him a message asking him to call me on my mobile, and he did so as I waited outside the Research Institute for Marina to appear.

‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but we can’t release Walker’s body for a while longer in case we need to do more tests.’

‘What tests?’ I asked him. ‘Surely you’ve done all you need in nearly two weeks?’

‘It’s not actually up to us. It’s the coroner who makes the decision when to release a body.’

‘But I bet he’s swayed by the police.’

‘The problem is that in murder cases there have to be extra tests done by independent pathologists in case there’s a court case and the defence require further examination of the body. In the past, bodies have sometimes had to be exhumed for defence tests.’ He made it sound like a conspiracy.

‘But you might not have a court case for months or even years.’

‘The coroner has to make a judgement call and two weeks is definitely on the short side.’

‘But surely there’s no doubt as to the cause of Huw Walker’s death?’ I asked.

‘Don’t you believe it,’ said Carlisle. ‘I’ve known defence lawyers insisting that the victim died of natural causes just before he was shot, stabbed or strangled by the defendant. If it was up to me, I’d sentence some lawyers to the same term as their clients. Conniving bastards.’

I was somewhat amused by his opinion of the English legal profession but I supposed, in his job, all trials came down to conflicts of us versus them, with truth and justice as secondary considerations.

‘So can you guess when Huw’s father can have his son’s body for burial?’ I asked. ‘He wants to make plans for the funeral.’

‘Maybe a week or two more,’ said Carlisle. ‘The inquest into Burton’s death will open next Tuesday in Reading. After what you told me on Monday, the inquest will be adjourned but, nevertheless, the coroner in the Walker case may then make an order which will allow his burial to proceed, though he won’t allow a cremation.’

‘I think Mr Walker is planning for a burial,’ I said. ‘He wants to put Huw in his local chapel graveyard next to his mother and brother.’

‘That’s good.’

‘So you did take some notice of what I told you on Monday?’

‘What do you mean?’ he said.

‘You said the Burton inquest will be adjourned.’

‘Well, I did have a word with Inspector Johnson. He took a little convincing but at least he’s considering it.’

‘What?’

‘That Burton may have been murdered.’

‘That’s great,’ I said.

‘Don’t get too excited. He’s only considering it because, as one of the first on the scene, you’re bound to be called as a witness at the full inquest and he knows you’ll raise it. So Johnson is considering it so that he won’t be surprised by the coroner’s questions. He is still pretty convinced that Burton killed himself.’

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘And are you?’

‘I don’t get paid to think about other coppers’ cases. But, if I were a betting man, which I’m not, I’d bet on your instinct over his.’

It was quite a compliment and I thanked him for it.

‘I haven’t yet been asked to appear at the inquest,’ I said.

‘Tuesday will only be the preliminaries. The Reading coroner will open and adjourn until a later date when the investigations are complete. You’ll be summoned then.’

‘Could you speak with the Cheltenham coroner’s office about Huw Walker’s body?’ I asked

‘I’ll enquire,’ he said, ‘but I won’t apply pressure.’

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘Any news on the bullet I gave you?’

‘Same gun,’ he said. ‘Forensics came back with the confirmation this afternoon. No real surprise.’

‘No,’ I agreed, but I was relieved nevertheless.

*

Marina and I spent a quiet evening at home in front of the television eating ready-made and microwaved shepherd’s pie off trays on our laps.

‘You know those street corners I was going to ring my bell on?’ I said.

‘Yes.’

‘Well, tomorrow’s
Pump
may have a certain ding-dong about it.’

‘Are you saying that I should be extra-careful tomorrow?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘And always.’

‘Rosie hardly leaves my side.’

I wished that Rosie were a seventeen-stone body-builder rather than a five-foot two size six.

‘I think I’ll go and get
The Pump
now,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow’s papers are always on sale at Victoria Station about eleven at night. They’re the first edition that normally goes off to Wales and the west of England.’

‘You be careful, too,’ said Marina.

I was. I avoided dark corners and kept a keen eye on my back. I made it safely to the news-stand outside the station and then back to Ebury Street without incident.