Bloodline

In spite of my protestations, Emily came with me.

‘For a start,’ she said. ‘I need to drive my car. You’re not insured for it.’

I thought I probably was through my own insurance, but I could see that there was no way I was going to convince her not to come.

She drove through Newmarket, then out on the Bury Road towards Austin Reynolds’s training establishment, where she parked on the gravel driveway in front of his mock-Georgian mansion.

‘Please wait in the car,’ I said to Emily firmly. ‘It will be difficult enough to get him to talk to me alone. He certainly won’t do so with someone else listening.’

Grudgingly, she agreed and sat rigidly holding the steering wheel while I went to ring the front doorbell.

‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ Austin said, carelessly opening the door before he saw who it was. ‘Leave me alone.’

He tried to close the door again, but I had my foot up against it.

‘I only want to ask you a few questions.’

‘I haven’t got time,’ he said. ‘We’ve got the Ingrams staying and we’re having a small celebration here this evening. In fact, I thought you were the caterers arriving. Come back tomorrow.’

Mr and Mrs Joshua Ingram were the owners of Tortola Beach.

‘Perhaps the Ingrams might be interested to know why their horse didn’t win at Doncaster in August.’

‘I thought you said you weren’t blackmailing me.’

‘I’m not,’ I said.

‘That sounded like blackmail to me.’

‘It will only take a few minutes.’

He thought for a moment. ‘Go round to my office. Down the side.’ He pointed to his right. ‘I’ll come and let you in there.’

Reluctantly, I removed my foot from his door and he closed it.

‘Down the side,’ I shouted to Emily, and she drove down behind me as I crunched over the gravel.

Austin Reynolds’s office was attached to the back of his house, looking out towards the stable-yard beyond, and he was already standing at the external door, holding it open.

‘Who’s in the car?’ he asked.

‘Just a friend.’ I was suddenly very glad that Emily was with me. This felt a bit like walking into the lion’s den.

I followed Austin into his office. There was not a lion to be seen.

‘What do you want?’ he asked, sitting down behind his large oak desk.

‘I want to know who is blackmailing you.’

‘So do I.’

‘But you must have some idea.’

‘None,’ he said. ‘All I received were notes.’

I removed from my pocket the piece of paper that I’d found in Clare’s freezer and laid it out on the desk in front of him.

‘Were they like this?’ I asked.

He looked at it briefly and nodded. ‘Pretty much, except mine accused me of laying horses to lose.’

‘Did they arrive with DVDs?’

‘The first one did.’

‘How many have you received?’ I asked.

‘Three.’

‘And what did you do about them?’

‘Paid up,’ he said. ‘At least I did for the first two. Whoever it was didn’t ask for very much, so I paid.’

I was amazed.

‘Except now,’ he said, ‘I’ve been asked for more and I don’t like it.’

‘What do you mean?’

He looked at his watch and stood up. ‘I’ve got to go and get changed.’

‘Not yet,’ I said forcefully, pointing a finger at him. ‘Answer my questions first.’ He sat down again heavily. ‘What did you mean by being asked for more?’

‘It was that bloody race at Wolverhampton,’ he said angrily. ‘I wish I’d never run the damn horse.’

‘Brain of Brixham?’

‘Yes.’

‘But surely that was a genuine error on Clare’s part?’

‘Yes, it was.’

‘So why are you being blackmailed over it? Why didn’t you just go to the police?’

‘Clare wanted to,’ he said.

‘So why didn’t you?’ I asked. He said nothing but just sat looking down at his desk. ‘Was it because you had indeed layed the horse to lose?’

He looked up at me. ‘Not a lot,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’d thought old Brainy would run really well so I had a big bet on him to win. Too big, really. Then I started to have cold feet about it, especially when he seemed a bit off colour on the morning of the race.’

‘So you layed him on the internet?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Though not using my own name, of course. And just to limit my losses if he didn’t win.’

Austin and I both knew that trainers laying their own horses was strictly against the Rules of Racing, and would be punished by a lengthy ban from the sport.

‘I didn’t lay the full amount. I still stood to lose a lot if Brainy didn’t win.’

That probably wouldn’t have made much difference to an enquiry.

‘It was very stupid,’ he said. ‘I know that.’

‘But not as stupid as arranging with Clare to stop Tortola Beach at Doncaster.’

‘That was all her idea,’ he said. ‘When she found out I’d layed Brainy at Wolverhampton she said there was a much better way of stopping a horse winning, one that nobody would ever discover.’

Except me, that was.

‘So did Clare pay the two hundred pounds?’ I said, pointing at the note.

‘I paid it for her to stop her going to the police,’ Austin said miserably, ‘along with two hundred from me. That bloody mistake of Clare’s has cost me a fortune, what with the loss of prize money and my big bet, not to mention the blackmail.’

‘How about the second note? When did that come?’

‘About six weeks ago.’

‘Asking for the same amount?’ I asked.