Dick Francis - Twice Shy

Philosophically I loaded YORK and worked through the three races for which there were programs, and found that in two of them the highest-scoring horse had won. Three winners from the four races I'd worked through. Incredible.

With a feeling of unreality I loaded EPSOM and went painstakingly through the four races for which there were programs; and this time came up with no winners at all. Frowning slightly I loaded NEWBU for Newbury and from a good deal of hard accurate work came up with the win factors of the race in which Angelo had backed the absolute no-hoper Pocket Handbook.

Pocket Handbook, who had finished exhausted and tailed-off by at least thirty lengths, was at the top of the win-factor list by a clear margin.

I stared distrustfully at the rest of the scores, which put the race's actual winner second from the bottom with negligible points.

'What's the matter?' Ruth Quigley said, busy at her own machine and not even glancing my way.

'Parts of the system are haywire.'

'Really?'

I loaded GOODW and sorted through five races. All the top scorers were horses which in the events had finished no nearer than second.

'Are you hungry?' Ruth said. 'Three-thirty. Sandwich?'

I thanked her and went with her into her small kitchen where I was interested to see that her speed stopped short of dexterity with slicing tomatoes. She quite slowly, for her, made fat juicy affairs of cheese, chutney, tomatoes and corned beef which toppled precariously on the plate and had to be held in both hands for eating.

'Logical explanations exist,' she said, looking at my abstracted expression. 'Human logic's imperfect. Absolute logic isn't.'

'Mm,' I said. 'Ted showed me how easy it is to add and delete passwords.'

'So?'

'It would be pretty easy, wouldn't it, to change other things besides?'

'Unless it's in ROM. Then it's difficult.'

'ROM?'

'Read only Memory. Sorry.'

'He showed me how to List things.'

'You've got RAM, then. Random Access Memory. Change what you like. Kids' stuff.'

We finished the sandwiches and returned to the keyboards. I loaded the Newbury file, chose the Pocket Handbook race and listed the program piece by piece.

LIST 1200-1240 I typed, and in front of the resulting screenful of letters, numbers and symbols sat figuring out the roots of trouble.

1200 PRINT "TYPE IN PRIZE MONEY IN CURRENT SEASON"

1210 INPUT W: IF W

1220 IF W› 1000 THEN T=T: IF W› 5000 T=T

1230 IF W › 10000 THEN T=T: IF W › 15000 THEN T=T

1240 GOSUB

Even to my ignorant and untutored eyes it was nonsense. Liam O'Rorke wouldn't have meant it, Peter Keithly wouldn't have written it, Ted Pitts would never have used it. In plain language, what it was saying was that if the season's winnings of a horse were less than one thousand pounds, the win factor score should be increased by 20, and if they were more than one thousand, and however much more, the win factor score would not increase at all. The least successful horses would therefore score most highly on that particular point. The weighting was topsy-turvy and the answers would come out wrong.

With the hollow certainty of what had happened staring me in the face, I loaded the Epsom file and searched the Lists of the programs for the four races on which Angelo had lost. In two cases the weightings for prize money were upside down.

Tried Goodwood. In three of the five listed races, the same thing.

Depressed beyond measure, I loaded the files for Leicester and Ascot, where races were to be held during the week ahead. Typed in the names of all the races to be run there and found there were programs for eight of them: one at Leicester, seven at Ascot. Listed each of the eight programs in sections, and found that in four of them the score for amassing much prize money was nought, and the score for prize money of under one thousand pounds was anything up to 20.

There were programs for some races at all the tracks which I knew for a certainty were not fourteen years old. Modern races, introduced since Liam O'Rorke had died.

The programs were no longer pure O'Rorke, but O'Rorke according to Pitts. O'Rorke updated, expanded, renewed. O'Rorke, on these particular tapes, interfered with, falsified, mangled. Ted Pitts- one had to face it- had wrecked the system before he'd handed it to me… and had delivered me defenceless to the wrath of Angelo Gilbert.

I thanked the frustrated and brilliant Miss Quigley for her day-long patience and drove home to Cassie.

'What's the matter?' she said immediately.

I said wearily, The ess aitch I tee has hit the fan.'

'What do you mean?

'Angelo thinks I've tricked him. That the betting system I gave him is wrong. That it produces too many losers. Well so it does. Normally it must be all right but on these tapes it's been altered. Ted Pitts has rigged so many of the programs that anyone using them will fall flat on his greedy face.' And I explained about the reversed scores for winning, which produced scatty results. 'He may also have changed some of the other weightings to get the same effect. I've no way of knowing.'

She looked as stunned as I felt. 'Do you mean Ted Pitts did it on purpose?

'He sure did.' I thought back to the time he'd taken to make me 'copies'; to the hour I'd spent sitting by his pool talking to Jane, leaving him, at his own request, to work alone.

'But why?' Cassie said.

'I don't know.'

'You didn't tell him, did you, what you wanted the tapes for?'

'No, I didn't.'

She said doubtfully, 'Perhaps it might have been better if you'd said how vital they were.'

'And perhaps he wouldn't have given them to me at all if he'd known I had Angelo locked in the cellar. I mean, I thought he might not want to be involved. Most people wouldn't, with something like that. And then, if he was like Jonathan, he might have changed the weightings anyway, just to prevent Angelo from profiting. You never know. Jonathan himself would somehow have tricked Angelo again. I'm sure of it.'

'You don't think Ted Pitts asked Jonathan what he should do, do you?'

I thought back and shook my head. 'It was before nine in the morning when I went to the Pitts's house. That would make it about one a.m. in California. Even if he had his number, which I doubt, I don't think he would have telephoned Jonathan in the middle of the night… and Jonathan anyway sounded truly disappointed when I told him I'd given Angelo the tapes. No, Ted must have done it for his own reasons, and by himself.'

'Which doesn't help much.'

I shook my head,

I thought of the certainty with which I'd gone to Harry Gilbert's house on the previous day. Hell's teeth, how wrong could one be, how naive could one get?

If I warned Angelo not to use the tapes in the week ahead he would be sure I had tricked him and was scared to death of his revenge.

If I didn't warn him not to use the tapes, he would most likely lose again and be more sure than ever that I'd tricked him…

If I wrung the right answers out of Ted Pitts and told them to Angelo, he would still think I had deliberately given him useless tapes – on which he had already lost.

Ted Pitts was in Switzerland walking up mountains.

'Would you care,' I said to Cassie, 'for a long slow cruise to Australia?'

Jane Pitts on the telephone said, 'No, terribly sorry, he moves about and stops in different places every night. Quite often he sleeps in his tent. Is it important?'

'Horribly,' I said.

'Oh dear. Could I help?'

'There's something wrong with those tapes he made for me. Could you by any chance lend me his own?'

'No, I simply can't. I'm frightfully sorry but I don't know where he keeps anything in that room and he positively hates his things being touched.' She thought for a few minutes, puzzled but not unwilling, friendly, anxious to help. 'Look, he's sure to call me one day soon to say when he'll be home. Would you like me to ask him to ring you?'