Under Orders (23 page)

There was no need to search this paper. You would have had to be blind to miss it. They must have been short of news.

Under a ‘Pump Exclusive’ banner on the front page was the headline ‘MURDER OR SUICIDE?’ with the sub-headline ‘HALLEY ORCHESTRATES THE INVESTIGATION’. The article beneath described in detail everything I had revealed to Paddy. They ‘quoted’ Professor Aubrey Winterton as saying that the bullet definitely came from the same gun that had been used to kill Bill Burton. They even managed to state that Sid
Halley was confident that an arrest was imminent. I put that down to Paddy’s tendency for exaggeration.

‘That’s what I call shouting from a street corner,’ said Marina. ‘Is it true?’

‘Not about the arrest. And some of the rest is guesswork.’

No one could be in any doubt that I had blatantly ignored the message that Marina had received the evening she was beaten up. Even I had not expected my game to work so well that it would make the front page. I thought a paragraph in Chris Beecher’s column or an inch or two on the racing page would have been all I could have hoped for. This much coverage made me very nervous but it was too late now;
The Pump
printed more than half a million copies a day.

I double-checked the locks, removed my arm and went to bed. Neither Marina nor I felt in the mood for nookie.

In the morning we took extra care going to the car. I had reiterated to the staff downstairs at the front desk that no one, repeat no one, was to be allowed up to my flat without their calling me first. Absolutely, they had agreed.

I dropped Marina at work, though not before taking a few detours to see if we were being followed. Rosie, the petite bodyguard, was waiting for Marina in the Institute foyer. She waved at me as I drove away.

I pointed the Audi towards north-west London and went to see Frank Snow.

Harrow School is actually in Harrow on the Hill, a neat little village perched, as its name suggests, on a hill surrounded by suburban London. It seems strangely isolated from its great
metropolitan neighbour as if it has somehow remained constant throughout its long history whilst life changed elsewhere around it. The village is mostly made up of the many school buildings with the Harrow School Outfitters being the largest store in the High Street.

I eventually found the right office under a cloister near the school chapel and Frank Snow was there, seated at a central table sticking labels on a stack of envelopes.

‘For the old boys’ newsletters,’ he said in explanation.

He was a tall man with a full head of wavy white hair. He wore a tweed jacket with leather patches on the elbows and looked every inch the schoolmaster.

‘Would you like a coffee?’ he asked.

‘Love one, thank you.’

He busied himself with an electric kettle in the corner while I wandered round looking at the rows of framed photographs on the walls. Many of them were faded black-and-white images of serious-looking, unsmiling boys in straw boaters. Others were more recent, in colour, of sports teams in striped jerseys with happier faces.

‘Milk and sugar?’

‘Just a little milk, please,’ I said.

He pushed the pile of envelopes to one side and placed two steaming mugs down on the end of the table.

‘Now, how can I help you, Mr Halley?’

‘I was hoping you could give me some background information on one of your old boys.’

‘As I explained to you on the telephone,’ he said, ‘we don’t discuss old boys with the media.’ He took a sip of his coffee.

‘As I explained to you,’ I replied, ‘I’m not from the media.’

It was not the most auspicious of openings.

‘Well, who are you then?’ he asked.

I decided against telling him that I was a private detective as I thought that might have been even lower on his scale than the media.

‘I’m assisting the Standing Cabinet Sub-Committee on Legislative Outcomes in their consideration of internet gambling as part of the new Gambling and Gaming Act.’

If you can’t blind them with science, I thought, baffle them with bullshit.

‘I beg your pardon?’ he said.

I repeated it.

‘I see.’ He didn’t appear to.

‘Yes. One of your old boys runs an internet gambling website and I was hoping you might be able to tell me about his time at Harrow.’

‘I’m not sure that I can. Our records are confidential, you know.’

‘Don’t worry about the Data Protection Act,’ I said. ‘This is an official inquiry.’

It wasn’t, but he wouldn’t know that.

‘I can assure you, Mr Halley, that our records have been confidential far longer than that piece of legislation has been on the statute book.’

‘Of course,’ I said. I had been put in my place.

‘Now who exactly are you asking about?’

‘George Lochs,’ I said. ‘At least, that’s what he calls himself now. When he was at Harrow he was –’

‘Clarence Lochstein,’ Frank Snow interrupted.

‘Exactly. You remember him, then.’

‘I do,’ he said. ‘Has he been up to no good?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘No reason.’

‘What can you tell me about him?’ I asked.

‘I’m not sure. What do you want to know?’

‘I heard that he was expelled for taking bets from the other boys.’

‘That’s not exactly true,’ he said. ‘He was sacked for striking a member of staff.’

‘Really?’ I said. ‘Who?’

‘His housemaster,’ he said. ‘As you say, Lochstein and another boy were indeed caught taking bets from the other boys and, it was rumoured, from some of the younger, more avant-garde members of Common Room.’

He paused.

‘Yes?’

‘It was in the latter days of corporal punishment and the headmaster instructed the boys’ housemasters to give each of them a sound beating. Six of the best.’

‘So?’

‘Lochstein took one stroke of the cane on his backside and then stood up and broke his housemaster’s jaw with his fist.’ Mr Snow stroked his chin absentmindedly.

‘You were his housemaster, weren’t you?’

He stopped stroking his chin and looked at his hand. ‘Yes, I was. The little swine broke my jaw in three places. I spent the next six weeks with my head in a metal brace.’

‘So Lochstein was expelled,’ I said. ‘What happened to the other boy?’

‘He took his beating from his housemaster.’

I raised my eyebrows.

‘No, not me.’

‘And the boy was allowed to stay?’

‘Yes,’ said Mr Snow. ‘His father subsequently gave a large donation to the school appeal which was said by some to be conscience money.’

‘Do you remember the boy’s name?’

‘I can’t recall his first name but his surname was Enstone.’

‘Peter Enstone?’ I asked.

‘Yes, I think that’s it. His father was a builder.’

Well well well, I thought. No wonder the Enstones had known George Lochs for ever. And, I thought, Lochs has a history of punching people in the face.

Frank Snow had little else of interest to give me. Harrow had done its best to keep the whole matter out of the Press and, at the time, had closed ranks. Lochstein was not even in the official list of old boys that Frank showed me.

We spent a companionable ten minutes or so together and he gave me a short tour of the photographs on the walls.

‘These,’ he said indicating the black-and-white ones, ‘are from before the First World War. Harrow was a pretty severe place then so I suppose they didn’t have much to smile about. These others are the rugby teams I used to coach, the Under 16s. They were my boys and some of them still come in to see me. Makes me feel so old to see how they’ve changed. A few even have their own boys here now.’

I thanked him for his time and for the coffee. He seemed disappointed that I didn’t want to see more of the hundreds of pictures he had stacked in a cupboard.

‘Perhaps another time,’ I said, moving towards the door.

‘Mr Halley,’ he said.

‘Yes.’ I turned.

‘I hope you do find that Lochstein has been up to no good.’

‘I thought Public Schools stood up for their former pupils, no matter what.’

‘The school might, but I don’t. That one deserves some trouble.’

We shook hands.

‘If you need anything further, Mr Halley, don’t be afraid to ask.’ He smiled. ‘I still owe Lochstein a beating – five strokes to be precise.’

Revenge was indeed a dish best eaten cold.

On my way back to central London I made a slight detour to Wembley Park to take a look at the Make A Wager Ltd office building. I had their address from the Companies House website but nevertheless it took fifteen minutes of backtracking around an industrial estate to find it. I must get satellite navigation, I thought. Perhaps on my next car. I parked round the corner and walked back.

The office building was pretty nondescript. It was a simple rectangular red-brick structure of five floors with a small unmanned entrance lobby at one end. An array of mobile phone masts sprouted up from the flat roof and there were security cameras pointing in every direction.

A notice next to the entrance intercom stated that visitors for Make A Wager Ltd should press the button and wait. Visitors, it seemed, were not encouraged.

There was little to show that it was the headquarters of a multi-million-pound operation other than the line of expensive cars and big powerful motorbikes in the small car park opposite the door. I looked at the cars. The nearest was a dark blue
Porsche 911 Carrera with GL21 as its number plate. So George was in.

Shall I be bold? I asked myself. Shall I go in and see him? Why not? Nothing to lose, only my life.

I pressed the button and waited.

Eventually a female voice said, ‘Yes?’ from the speaker next to the button.

‘Sid Halley here to see George Lochs,’ I said back.

‘Just a minute,’ said the voice.

I waited some more.

After at least a minute, the voice said, ‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I was passing and I thought I would drop in to see George. I know him.’

‘Just a minute,’ said the voice again.

I waited. And waited.

‘Take the lift to the fourth floor,’ said the voice and a buzzer sounded.

I pushed the door open and did as I was told.

George/Clarence was waiting for me when the lift opened. I remembered him from our meeting in Jonny Enstone’s box at Cheltenham. He was lean, almost athletic, with blond hair brushed back showing a certain receding over the temples. But he was not wearing his suit today. Instead he sported a dark roll-neck sweater and blue denim jeans. He hadn’t been expecting guests.

‘Sid Halley,’ he said, holding out a hand. ‘Good to see you again. What brings you to this godforsaken part of north London?’

Was I suspicious or was there a hint of anxiety in his voice? Or maybe it was irritation?

‘I was passing and I thought I’d come and see what your offices looked like.’

I don’t think he believed me, but it was true.

‘There’s not much to show,’ he said.

He slid a green plastic card through a reader on the wall that unlocked the door to the offices on the fourth floor. He stood aside to allow me in.

‘Have you been in this building long?’ I asked.

‘Nearly five years. At first we were only on one floor but we’ve gradually expanded and now we occupy the whole place.’

There were thirty or so staff sitting at open-plan desks along the windows, each with a computer screen shining brightly in front of them. It was quiet for a room with so many people. A few hushed conversations were taking place but the majority were studying their screens and tapping quietly on their keyboards.

‘On this floor we have our market managers,’ said George in a hushed tone. ‘Have you seen our website?’

‘Yes,’ I said, equally hushed.

‘You know then that you can gamble on just about anything you like, just as long as you can find someone to match your bet. Last year, we managed a wager between two young men concerning which of them would get his respective girlfriend pregnant quickest.’ He laughed. ‘We ended up having to get doctors’ reports to settle it.’

‘That’s crazy,’ I said.

‘But most of our markets are less personal than that. The staff here look at the incoming bets and try to match them if the computer doesn’t do it automatically. And there are always special events that need a human brain to sort out. Computers
can be very clever but they like the rules to be absolutes. Just yes or no, no maybes.’

‘Where are the computers?’ I asked, looking around.

‘Downstairs,’ he said. ‘The first and second floors are full of computer hardware. We have to keep them in climate-controlled conditions with massive air conditioners.’

‘My computer’s forever crashing,’ I said.

‘That’s why we continually back up everything. And we have more than one main-frame machine. They check on each other all the time. It’s very sophisticated.’

I could sense that George was bragging. He was clearly enjoying showing me how clever he was.

‘Do you do on-line gaming as well as exchange wagering?’

‘Yes, but not from this office. We have a Gibraltar-based operation for that. More cost effective.’

I suspected it was also more tax effective.

‘Why the interest?’ he asked.

‘No real reason,’ I said.

‘Is there anything specific you came here to find out?’

‘No. I’m just naturally inquisitive.’ And nosy.

I wandered a little further down the office.

‘Is this all the staff you have?’ I asked.

‘Nooo,’ he said, amused. ‘There are lots more. The accounts department is on the floor below here and there must be fifty personnel there. Then we have the technical staff who live amongst the machines on the lower floors. Then the ground floor has the company security staff, and a canteen.’

‘Quite a set-up,’ I said, sounding impressed. And I was.

‘Yes. We operate here twenty-four hours a day every day of the year. There are always duty technicians on standby in case of problems with the machines. We can’t afford for the system
to go down. It’s not good for business. Now, is there anything else you want, Sid? I’m very busy.’

His irritation was beginning to show through more sharply.