Дик Фрэнсис - Break In

‘Your father made you come back here,’ I said, as we drove along Sea View Lane. ‘Wouldn’t let you go home?’

‘It’s so unfair.’ There was self-pity in his voice, and also acceptance. The exile had been earned, I thought, and Hugh knew it.

‘Tell me, then,’ I said.

‘Well, you know him. He’s your father-in-law. I mean, no, he’s your sister’s father-in-law.’

I breathed deeply. ‘Maynard Allardeck.’

‘Yes. He caused it all. I’d kill him, if I could.’

I glanced at the good-looking immature face, at the dimples. Even the word kill came oddly from that mouth.

‘I mean,’ he said in an aggrieved voice, ‘he’s a member of the Jockey Club. Respected. I thought it was all right. I mean, he and Dad are patrons of the same charity. How was I to know? How was I?’

‘You weren’t,’ I said. ‘What happened?’

‘He introduced me to his bookmaker.’

Whatever I’d imagined he might say, it wasn’t that. I rolled the car to a halt in a parking place which at that time on a Sunday November morning was deserted. There was a distant glimpse of shingle banks and scrubby grass and sea glittering in the early sun, and nearby there was little but an acre of tarmac edged by a low brick wall, and a summer ice-cream stall firmly shut.

‘I’ve got a video camera,’ I said. ‘If you’d care to speak into that, I’ll show the tape to your father, get him to hear your side of things, see if I can persuade him to let you go home.’

‘Would you?’ he said, hopefully.

‘Yes, I would.’

I stretched behind my seat for the bag with the camera. ‘Let’s sit on the wall,’ I said. ‘It might be a bit chilly, but we’d get a better picture than inside the car.’

He made no objection, but came and sat on the wall, where I steadied the camera on one knee bent up, framed his face in the viewfinder and asked him to speak straight at the lens.

‘Say that again,’ I prompted, ‘about the bookmaker.’

‘I was at the races with my parents one day and having a bet, and a bookmaker was saying I wasn’t old enough and making a fuss, and Maynard Allardeck was there and he said not to worry, he would introduce me to his own bookmaker instead.’

‘How do you mean, he was there?’

Hugh’s brow furrowed. ‘He was just standing there. I mean, I didn’t know who he was, but he explained he was a friend of my father.’

‘And how old were you, and when did this happen?’

‘That’s what’s so silly. I was twenty. I mean, you can bet on your eighteenth birthday. Do I look seventeen?’

‘No,’ I said truthfully. ‘You look twenty.’

‘I was twenty-one, actually, in August. It was right back in April when I met Maynard Allardeck.’

‘So you started betting with Maynard Allardeck’s bookmaker... regularly?’

‘Well, yes,’ Hugh said unhappily. ‘He made it so easy, always so friendly, and he never seemed to worry when I didn’t pay his accounts.’

‘There isn’t a bookmaker born who doesn’t insist on his money.’

‘This one didn’t,’ Hugh said defensively. ‘I used to apologise. He’d say never mind, one day, I know you’ll pay when you can, and he used to joke... and let me bet again...’

‘He let you bet until you were very deeply in debt?’

‘Yes. Encouraged me. I mean, I suppose I should have known... but he was so friendly, you see. All the summer... Flat racing, every day... on the telephone.’

‘Until all this happened,’ I said, ‘did you bet much?’

‘I’ve always liked betting. Studying the form. Picking the good things, following hunches. Never any good, I suppose, but probably any money I ever had went on horses. I’d get someone to put it on for me, on the Tote, when I was ten, and so on. Always. I mean, I won often too, of course. Terrific wins, quite often.’

‘Mm.’

‘Everyone who goes racing bets,’ he said. ‘What else do they go for? I mean, there’s nothing wrong with a gamble, everyone does it. It’s fun.’

‘Mm,’ I said again. ‘But you were betting every day, several bets a day, even though you didn’t go.’

‘I suppose so, yes.’

‘And then one day,’ I said, ‘it stopped being fun?’

‘The Hove Stakes at Brighton,’ he said. ‘In September.’

‘What about it?’

‘Three runners. Slateroof couldn’t be beaten. Maynard Allardeck told me. Help yourself, he said. Recoup your losses.’

‘When did he tell you?’

‘Few days before. At the races. Ascot. I went with my parents, and he happened to be there too.’

‘And did you go to Brighton?’

‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘Rang up the bookmaker. He said he couldn’t give me a good price, Slateroof was a certainty, everyone knew it. Five to one on, he said. If I bet twenty, I could win four.’

‘So you bet twenty pounds?’

‘No.’ Hugh looked surprised. ‘Twenty thousand.’

‘Twenty... thousand.’ I kept my voice steady, unemotional. ‘Was that, er, a big bet, for you, by that time?’

‘Biggish. I mean, you can’t win much in fivers, can you?’

You couldn’t lose much either, I thought. I said, ‘What was normal?’

‘Anything between one thousand and twenty. I mean, I got there gradually, I suppose. I got used to it. Maynard Allardeck said one had to think big. I never thought of how much they really were. They were just numbers.’ He paused, looking unhappy. ‘I know it sounds stupid to say it now, but none of it seemed real. I mean, I never had to pay anything out. It was all done on paper. When I won, I felt great. When I lost I didn’t really worry. I don’t suppose you’ll understand. Dad didn’t. He couldn’t understand how I could have been so stupid. But it just seemed like a game... and everyone smiled...’

‘So Slateroof got beaten?’

‘He didn’t even start. He got left flat-footed in the stalls.’

‘Oh yes,’ I said. ‘I remember reading about it. There was an enquiry and the jockey got fined.’

‘Yes, but the bets stood, of course.’

‘So what happened next?’ I said.

‘I got this frightful account from the bookmaker. He’d totted up everything, he said, and it seemed to be getting out of hand, and he’d like to be paid. I mean, there were pages of it.’

‘Records of all the bets you’d made with him?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Winners and losers. Many more losers. I mean, there were some losers I couldn’t remember backing; though he swore I had, he said he would produce his office records to prove it, if I liked, but he said I was ungenerous to make such a suggestion when he’d been so accommodating and patient.’ Hugh swallowed. ‘I don’t know if he cheated me, I just don’t. I mean, I did bet on two horses in the same race quite often, I know that, but I didn’t realise I’d done it so much.’

‘And you’d kept no record, yourself, of how much you’d bet, and what on?’

‘I didn’t think of it. I mean, I could remember. I mean, I thought I could.’

‘Mm. Well, what next?’

‘Maynard Allardeck telephoned me at home and said he’d heard from our mutual bookmaker that I was in difficulties, and could he help, as he felt sort of responsible, having introduced me, so to speak. He said we could meet somewhere and perhaps he could suggest some solutions. So I met him for lunch in a restaurant in London, and talked it all over. He said I should confess to my father and get him to pay my debts but I said I couldn’t, he would be so angry, he’d no idea Id gambled so much, he was always lecturing me about taking care of money. And I didn’t want to disappoint him, if you can understand that? I didn’t want him to be upset. I mean, I expect it sounds silly, but it wasn’t really out of fear, it was, well, sort of love, really, only it’s difficult to explain.’