Bloodline

‘Why couldn’t he simply be his accomplice who’s taken over?’

‘Partly because I don’t think that Toby was the sort of man to have an accomplice, and also because of the missing briefcase.’

‘The famous Woodley briefcase.’

‘Infamous, more like,’ I said. ‘I’d like to bet that, far from just containing his sandwiches, that briefcase held his blackmail notes and the details of all his victims. That’s why he was always so protective of it. And someone else is now using what they found to go on with the blackmail.’

‘So what are you going to do about it?’ Jim asked. ‘Go to the police?’

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘But that would almost definitely involve breaking confidences.’ I laughed. ‘Perhaps I’ll just catch the murdering bastard myself.’

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Jim sarcastically, ‘you and whose army?’

23

I hadn’t imagined there would be so many policemen. They stood in groups of two or three inside each of the racecourse entrances with clipboards asking everyone who came in if they had been there the previous Wednesday, the day of Toby Woodley’s murder.

I had arrived at Kempton really early in order to help set up the equipment but now I wasn’t at all sure if the whole thing hadn’t been a waste of time.

With all these coppers around, surely only a fool would attempt to collect blackmail money. But the blackmailer had been the one to specify the time and place, and you couldn’t actually see the police from the car park.

I’d telephoned Austin Reynolds earlier, just to check that he wasn’t getting cold feet and also to finalize when and where he was to park his car. I had to take a chance that the blackmailer wouldn’t be made suspicious by Austin parking close to where the RacingTV scanner would be situated.

‘Park close to the big blue television outside-broadcast vehicles that are at the far side of the car park, near the fence behind the saddling boxes.’

‘How can I do that?’ Austin had asked. ‘Don’t I have to go where I’m told by the car park attendants?’

‘There won’t be any attendants,’ I’d said. ‘They don’t have them for the night meetings because parking is free and the crowds are small. People park where they like, mostly as close as they can to the enclosure entrances. There are always plenty of spaces. Arrive at precisely half past four, and enter by the racecourse main gate on Staines Road. Drive round towards the television vehicles and try to choose a space that has an unoccupied one alongside on its right. I promise you, the car park will not be busy, especially over an hour before the first race.’

‘All right.’ He hadn’t sounded very confident.

‘Austin,’ I’d said. ‘This is all you have to do, so do it right.’

I wasn’t at all sure that he would even turn up at Kempton, but he did, and at precisely the right time, turning his large blue BMW through the main gate at exactly four thirty.

I had been waiting for him out on Staines Road in the rented Honda Civic, and I now pulled out into the traffic and followed him into the racecourse car park and round towards the TV vehicles.

Austin parked in a free space just three away from the end of the scanner and I pulled the Honda into the space on his right, immediately alongside him. Perfect, I thought. I couldn’t have positioned the two cars better if I’d painted white crosses on the tarmac.

I climbed out of the Honda and walked directly to the scanner without looking once at Austin or his car. One never knew who was watching.

‘Ideal,’ said Gareth, one of the bright young RacingTV technicians who had been as keen as mustard to help out. ‘Anything for some bleedin’ excitement.’

Gareth had spent the morning and afternoon setting up all the camera equipment around the racecourse, and he would take it all down again later, after the racing had finished. He was only there in between times in case any part of the system actually broke down, when his job was then to fix it. He always joked that he was the only member of the broadcast team who actively wanted something to go wrong in order to alleviate the mind-numbing boredom of the actual programme.

Gareth didn’t really like racing, but he absolutely loved television cameras.

‘Can it be done?’ I’d asked him.

‘Course it can, me old sugar,’ he’d replied in his strong London accent. ‘I can do bloody anything when it comes to cameras. Mr Bleedin’ Magic, I am.’

And he was.

He hadn’t even wanted to know why I needed a particular car to be kept under constant observation. To him, it was clearly just a game and the reasons for it didn’t matter. ‘Ask no bleedin’ questions,’ he’d said, ‘and I’ll be told no bleedin’ lies.’

He’d set up one of the small hand-held cameras in the back of the Honda so that it pointed out of the side window behind the rear door, and he’d shown me how to park the car for maximum coverage. We now sat together in the scanner looking at a monitor that showed the images received from the camera through a link Gareth had established between the roof of the Honda and the signals-relay vehicle.