Bloodline

At that point a neat little woman opened the office door and put her head through the gap.

‘Austin,’ she said in a cross tone, ‘will you please come and look after our guests.’

‘Just coming, dear,’ Austin said, standing up.

The neat little woman removed her head and closed the door.

‘Please go now,’ he was almost pleading with me.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘But let me know when you receive the payment instructions.’ I smiled at him. ‘Then we can try and catch the bastard, and without involving the police or the racing authorities.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ he asked. ‘What have you got to gain?’

‘I’m trying to find out why my sister died. Your secrets are safe with me as long as Clare Shillingford’s good reputation remains intact.’

Emily was still waiting for me in her car.

‘I was about to send in the cavalry,’ she said as I climbed in beside her. ‘You’ve been ages.’

I looked at my watch. I’d actually been in Austin’s office for only half an hour. Somehow it had seemed longer.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘It was important.’

‘How important?’ she asked. ‘Is that man the blackmailer?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘he isn’t.’

‘Then who is?’

I sighed. ‘I wish I knew.’

Dammit, I thought. I’d been so busy asking Austin about the blackmail notes that I’d forgotten to ask him about the running of Bangkok Flyer at Lingfield on the day Clare had died.

That race had been the start of all of this. Would Clare have died, I wondered, if I hadn’t witnessed that race and confronted her at Haxted Mill?

Why oh why hadn’t I answered my telephone that night?

Emily started the car engine. ‘Where to now?’ she said.

‘I like you being my driver,’ I said with a forced laugh, trying to put my guilt and self-pity back in their boxes.

‘I can think of better things I’d rather be of yours.’

‘Good,’ I said, smiling genuinely. ‘Let’s go back to Clare’s cottage.’

‘Great idea,’ she said. ‘That champagne will be nice and cold by now.’

‘Tell me all about it,’ Emily said as we snuggled down together on Clare’s sofa with the bottle of chilled champagne.

‘About what?’ I asked.

‘About why your sister was being blackmailed, and why finding that note suddenly meant we had to go and see that man.’

‘Austin Reynolds,’ I said.

‘That’s the one.’

How much did I want to tell her? How much could I trust her? I hadn’t even known her yet for twenty-four hours. But she had seen Clare’s blackmail note. Was it not better to tell her something rather than have her ask other people?

‘It’s all nonsense, really,’ I said. ‘Clare was being blackmailed for something she hadn’t even done.’

‘In that race?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘All Clare did was confuse the position of the winning post. It was a genuine mistake but someone thinks she did it on purpose.’

‘So what’s the problem?’ Emily said. ‘ “Publish and be damned.” If she did nothing wrong, I can’t understand how she was being blackmailed.’

Nor could I, but things weren’t that simple.

‘And, anyway,’ Emily said, ‘it surely can’t matter any more, now that she’s dead.’

‘The man I went to see is also being blackmailed, and he’s very much alive.’

Her eyes opened wider in delight. ‘It’s just like something on the television.’

Yes, I thought, but who’s writing the script?

‘So what has the man done?’ Emily asked eagerly. ‘He can’t be being blackmailed for the same mistake that Clare made.’

‘No, he’s not. But he did do something that was wrong,’ I said. ‘He’s the trainer of the horse and he placed a bet that it wouldn’t win that race.’

‘So? What’s wrong with that? I thought that betting on horses was not only legal, it was almost compulsory.’

‘Racehorse trainers are allowed to bet that their horses will win a race, but not that they will lose it. It would be too easy for them to make sure a horse didn’t win by simply not training it properly or giving it too hard a gallop too close to the race.’

‘But surely that’s not serious enough to be blackmailed over.’

‘The maximum penalty for a trainer betting on his own horse to lose is a ban from all racing for ten years. It is a very serious offence.’

‘Well, then the man’s an idiot,’ Emily said. ‘And perhaps he deserves it.’

There was a lot of sense in what she said, but the whole story would come out and Clare was bound to be implicated. And, after the Daily Gazette articles on Tuesday and Wednesday, her memory would be tainted for ever.

‘Are you going to inform the racing authorities?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not if I can help it.’

‘Why not?’

I refilled our glasses while I thought through my answer.

‘My sole aim is to discover why Clare died. Everything else is irrelevant. I couldn’t care less whether Austin Reynolds loses his training licence, his reputation and his big house. He’s been a fool, but I don’t think he’s a real crook.’

I paused and sipped my champagne.