Enquiry - By Dick Francis Page 0,66

be five rungs down involving him in a messy Enquiry.

‘There’s one other thing…’ I hesitated. ‘Would you… could you… do me a considerable favour?’

‘Depends what it is.’ He sounded cautious but not truculent. A smooth, experienced character.

‘I can’t offer much in return.’

He chuckled. ‘Warning me not to expect tip offs when you’re on a hot number?’

‘Something like that,’ I admitted.

‘O.K. then. You want something for strictly nothing. Just as well to know where we are. So shoot.’

‘Can you remember who you told about Cranfield backing Cherry Pie?’

‘Before the Enquiry, you mean?’

‘Yes. Those bookmaker colleagues you mentioned.’

‘Well…’ he sounded doubtful.

‘If you can,’ I said, ‘Could you ask them who they told?’

‘Phew.’ He half breathed, half whistled down the receiver. ‘That’s some favour.’

‘I’m sorry. Just forget it.’

‘Hang on, hang on, I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it. It’s a bit of a tall order, though, expecting them to remember.’

‘I know. Very long shot. But I still want to know who told the Stewards about the bet with you.’

‘You’ve got your licence back. Why don’t you let it rest?’

‘Would you?’

He sighed. ‘I don’t know. All right then, I’ll see what I can do. No promises, mind. Oh, and by the way, it can be just as useful to know when one of your mounts is not fit or likely to win. If you take my meaning.’

‘I take it,’ I said smiling. ‘It’s a deal.’

I put down the receiver reflecting that only a minority of bookmakers were villains, and that most of them were more generous than they got credit for. The whole tribe were reviled for the image of the few. Like students.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Oakley didn’t come. No one came. I took the chair from under the door knob to let the world in with the morning. Not much of the world accepted the invitation.

Made some coffee. Tony came while I was standing in the kitchen drinking it and put whisky into a mug of it for himself by way of breakfast. He’d been out with one lot of horses at exercise and was waiting to go out with the other, and spent the interval discussing their prospects as if nothing had ever happened. For him the warning off was past history, forgotten. His creed was that of newspapers; today is important, tomorrow more so, but yesterday is nothing.

He finished the coffee and left, clapping me cheerfully on the shoulder and setting up a protest from an Oakley bruise. I spent most of the rest of the day lying flat on my bed, answering the telephone, staring at the ceiling, letting Nature get on with repairing a few ravages, and thinking.

Another quiet night. I had two names in my mind, juggling them. Two to work on. Better than three hundred. But both could be wrong.

Saturday morning the postman brought the letters right upstairs, as he’d been doing since the era of plaster. I thanked him, sorted through them, dropped a crutch, and had the usual awkward fumble picking it up. When I opened one of the letters I dropped both the crutches again in surprise.

Left the crutches on the floor. Leant against the wall and read.

Dear Kelly Hughes,

I have seen in the papers that you have had your licence restored, so perhaps this information will be too late to be of any use to you. I am sending it anyway because the friend who collected it is considerably out of pocket over it, and would be glad if you could reimburse him. I append also his list of expenses.

As you will see he went to a good deal of trouble over this, though to be fair he also told me that he had enjoyed doing it. I hope it is what you wanted.

Sincerely,

Teddy Dewar.

Great Stag Hotel, Birmingham.

Clipped behind the letter were several other sheets of varying sizes. The top one was a schematic presentation of names which looked at first glance like an inverted family tree. There were clumps of three or four names inside two-inch circles. The circles led via arrows to other circles below and sometimes beside them, but the eye was led downwards continually until all the arrows had converged to three circles, and then to two, and finally to one. And the single name in the bottom circle was David Oakley.

Behind the page was an explanatory note.

‘I knew one contact, the J. L. Jones underlined in the third row of circles. From him I worked in all directions, checking people who knew of David Oakley. Each clump of people heard