another think coming.”
Luca smiled broadly. “Right,” he said. “Great.”
“But first we need to know which of the big outfits resorts to use of the heavy mob.”
The rest of the evening was quiet in comparison, with not a single bullyboy to be seen. Business was brisk, with the largely young crowd eager to be tempted into the evils of gambling.
Many of them were actually there for the pop concert that was taking place in front of the grandstand after racing rather than for any particular love of the sport. But that didn’t deter them from having a bet on the horses, a flutter on the gee-gees, first.
The evening was conducted in huge good humor, helped by a continuous flow of alcoholic beverages and a string of tight finishes. I was almost able to ignore the dull ache in my guts that refused to go away completely, in spite of me swallowing a couple of painkillers.
A young woman stood in front of me, wearing tight blue jeans and a skimpy top that displayed a pleasing amount of sun-bronzed midriff.
“Remember me?” she said.
I looked up from her midriff to her face “At Ascot last week,” I said. “Black-and-white hat. I didn’t recognize you without your finery on.”
She laughed, and I laughed back. Then she blushed. I remembered that too.
“Come on, Anna,” said a young man who was pulling at her arm. The damn boyfriend, I assumed.
He pulled her away with him, and I watched them go. Fleetingly, she turned once and waved at me before disappearing into the throng. At least someone thought of her bookie as a human being.
“I don’t think Betsy will be coming back,” said Luca over my shoulder. Perhaps he had also watched the young woman being pulled away by her boyfriend, and it had reminded him of his own perilous romantic position.
“Do you want to go and find her?” I asked him. “I’ll manage on my own for a while.”
“In your dreams,” he said, slapping me on the shoulder.
That was a good sign, I thought.
“Do you want to go anyway?” I said.
“Nah,” he said. “She’ll come back if she wants to. I’m not going to go running after her. To tell you the truth, I don’t really care if she comes back or not.”
I cared. Luca was much more fun without her.
“Are you staying on after?” he said.
“If you mean am I waiting to listen to the concert, then, no, I’m not.”
“Are you going straight home?” he asked.
“Why?” I had intended going to see Sophie if it wasn’t too late.
“I was hoping for a lift. We came in Betsy’s car, and she’s probably gone home now without me. We were going to stay for the concert, but I don’t want to anymore.” He paused. “At least I’ve missed the little horrors at the electronics club.”
Was it really only a week since I had given the microcoder to Luca to take to the club? It seemed like a month.
“Sure,” I said. “I’ll give you a lift, but you might need to get the train the last bit. I was hoping to go and see Sophie if we’re not too late.”
“Ned, it’s fine,” he said. “I’ll get the train home from here. It’s no problem.”
I tried to think of the stations on the line to High Wycombe.
“I could drop you at Beaconsfield,” I said. “That’s on my way.”
“No, it’s not,” he said. “And it would take you ages to get to the station. I’ll go on the train from here. Honestly, it’s no problem.”
“OK,” I said, somewhat relieved. I would be pushed to get to the hospital for the end of the news anyway.
The last race of the evening was a five-furlong sprint for two-year-old maidens.“Maiden” didn’t imply the sex of the animal, there were male maidens too. A maiden was a horse that had yet to win a race. Many of these maidens had never even been on a racetrack before, let alone won a race on one. Only one horse in the field had good previous form, finishing second twice, on one occasion just a neck behind the blossoming two-year-old star of the year. Naturally, the horse, East Imperial, was a short-priced favorite when the betting opened.
“Don’t even think of disrupting the Internet tonight,” I said seriously to Luca.
He didn’t deny it but stood there looking at me with his jaw hanging open.
“You’ll catch flies like that,” I said.
He snapped his mouth shut.
“How did you know?” he said.
“It didn’t take rocket science,” I said. But, in truth, I