Peter Corris - The Big Score

I told him and it became clear that Jerry had spoken about having the fifty thousand Sanderson had on offer before he spoke to me.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ Fowler said. ‘I was starting to feel encouraged that you knew something of what he was up to. That means you wouldn’t be starting from scratch. But now you know that he intended to cheat you I suppose you’re not inclined to help.’

With the scotch working, I smiled at him. ‘Mr Fowler, you don’t imagine that I approve of all the people I work for, do you? Let alone like them.’

‘Then you’ll do it?’

‘Got your cheque book handy?’

Knowing that Jerry had planned to cut me out of the deal made it easier in a way. I could be objective about the job and not feel any obligation to him. The other thing was that I was in the loop already, although I hadn’t told Fowler about the attack on me. I wanted to sort out who had me in their sights and I figured I might as well get paid while I was doing it.

A while back I’d done some work for a bookmaker named Tim Turnbull. A missing daughter case that didn’t turn out too badly for all parties. I’d stayed vaguely in touch with him and had backed a couple of his tips successfully. I phoned him and arranged a meeting.

Tim lived in Paddington in a three-storey terrace with all the wrought iron, white pebbles and native garden you could wish for. He’d demolished a smaller house beside his own to provide garage space with a swimming pool and a lavish entertainment area. Tim’s parties were legendary.

I penetrated the layers of security and Tim led me into his den-cum-bar. The chairs were deep and comfortable, the bookshelves held a mix of racing books and hardback best-sellers, and the bottles of liquor were seductive in the subdued concealed lighting. It was mid-afternoon.

‘What’ll you have, Cliff?’

‘Light beer.’

‘Jesus, a couple of hundred grand’s worth of booze and you want light beer.’

‘If you have it, Tim.’

‘Smartarse. Of course I’ve got it. No one drinks seriously anymore.’

Tim was out to prove his point. He gave me a stubbie of Cascade Light and a glass and let some cognac glide into a crystal balloon for himself. I sniffed the air.

‘What happened to the Havanas?’

Tim, forty pounds overweight with a purple nose and florid complexion, scowled. ‘Had to give them up. Doctor’s orders.’ A reminder of this injunction damaged his sociability. ‘What can I do for you?’

I spun him a line about a client being unhappy after his dealings with Charley Sanderson. I said I wanted Tim’s opinion of Sanderson and how heavy he was likely to come down on anyone who got in his bad books. Turnbull had started out as a runner for his fathers SP book and he knew a bit about the rough side of the game. He seemed to enjoy letting his mind work along these lines.

‘Charleys a wimp,’ he said. ‘Wouldn’t have the guts to come down hard.’

‘What about getting someone to do the business for him?’

‘Nah. He’s afraid of the law. That’s one of the three things he’s afraid of.’

I had to play along. ‘The other two are…?’

‘His missus. A real dragon. Keeps him on a very tight leash. She’d be afraid of what might happen if he got into bad company like that Rivkin. Charley’s wife likes to move in respectable circles. The other thing he’s afraid of is going broke.’

‘Any risk of that?’

Tim looked around the room, at the wood panelling, teak bookcases, chromium and glass bar-signs of wealth too solid ever to be lost, you’d think, but he said, ‘It can all go down the gurgler really quick if things go wrong.’

‘That’s interesting. Not that this business my client’s pissed off about is that big a deal, but what would Sanderson do if his finances collapsed?’

Tim swilled his brandy and took a sip. ‘He’d wriggle out of it somehow.’

I finished my beer and got up. ‘Thanks, Tim. This is all between us, of course.’

Thinking about the old days and getting a sniff of a competitor’s problems had restored Tim’s good mood. He got to his feet and clapped me on the shoulder. ‘I remember how you played things so sweetly when I had that trouble with Kirsty. You protected all our arses. Whatever you say’s okay with me.’

I was flying by the seat of my pants, but I had to start somewhere. I could have trawled through some of Jerry Fowler’s mates, or people I knew in what they’ll probably soon call the criminal industry, to try to get a line on who might’ve knocked over Charley Sanderson’s stash. That would have taken time and expense. An approach through Charley Sanderson himself, stamped by Tim Turnbull as unlikely to have anyone killed, seemed the better option.

Big bookmakers are on the web with office phone numbers supplied. I made contact and arranged a meeting with Sanderson by posing as a journalist wanting a story. My mate Harry Tickener, who runs the Searchlight web newsletter, would cover for me. Searchlight operates on a shoestring and its motto is ‘We name the guilty men’. It does, too, and Harry has all his minimal assets protected from libel suits.

Important people, or people who think they’re important, don’t make same-day appointments, even if they’re publicity prone like Sanderson. My appointment was for late morning the following day.

I’m not a keen or constant punter and I couldn’t have named more than one or two horses then in the news. I bought a couple of papers just to acquaint myself with something of the racing scene and went in to the office. No assailants lurking.

I looked through the papers and then picked up the baton I’d left on my desk. It was about 70 centimetres long and retractable, the top half sliding into the bottom section which had a rubberised handle. Portable. It was ceramic and weighed about two kilos. It had four or five notches filed into it near the top. I slapped it against my palm quite softly and it hurt. I looked forward to returning it to its owner-the hard way.

For two men in the same profession, Tim Turnbull and Charles Sanderson couldn’t have been more unalike. Where Tim’s lifestyle fitted the image of the ‘colourful racing identity’, Sanderson’s was more like that of a chartered accountant. Tim’s operational centre was somewhere in his grand pile, Sanderson’s was in a Randwick office complex. Sterile was too warm a word for it. I was shown by a neatly dressed and scrubbed female secretary into a room that had all the personality of an empty stubbie. No books, no bar, just a desk and filing cabinets. It only lacked an eye chart on the wall to feel like a medical office.

Sanderson was a grey man in a grey room. He wore a grey suit and he barely acknowledged me as I walked in. Then he surprised me.

‘You’re not a journalist,’ he said.

‘How d’you know that?’

‘I’ve met too many of them over the years. I never saw one who looked like you. You’ve got the half-decent clothes but not the look or the manner.’

“What’s the manner?’

‘Stealthy. You don’t look stealthy. Have a seat and tell me quickly what you want before I have the security people up here.’

I sat in a well-worn chair and looked at him more closely. He was bald and freckled; he wore rimless glasses and his shoulders were narrow in the padded suit jacket. He looked as though he’d made a decision to remove colour from his person, his surroundings and his life. Except for his eyes behind the lenses. There was something alert, almost predatory about them. No red glow like in those of Anthony Hopkins’s Hannibal Lecter, but not dissimilar. This wasn’t a man to fool with and I wondered how Tim T had got it so wrong.

‘I’m a private detective,’ I said.