I thought that explained a lot.
"I don't think Mr. Garraway is overimpressed by his trainer drinking your brandy until all hours of the night."
"Oh, that's not the problem," she said. "I think it's because Peter and Jackson had a bit of a stand-up row earlier. Over some business project they're working on together. I didn't really listen."
"What sort of business?" I asked.
"Financial services or something," she said. "I don't really know. Business is not my thing." She laughed. "But Peter must do very well out of it. We go and stay with them occasionally, and their house makes this place look like a weekend cottage. It's absolutely huge."
"Where is it?" I asked.
"In Gibraltar."
9
The Silver Pines Nursing Home was a modern redbrick monstrosity built onto the side of what had once been an attractive Victorian residence on the northern edge of the town of Andover, in Hampshire.
"Certainly, sir," said one of the pink-uniformed lady carers when I asked if I might visit Mr. Sutton. "Are you a relative?"
"No," I said. "I live in the same road as Mr. Sutton. In Hungerford."
"I see," said the carer. She wasn't really interested. "I think he's in the dayroom. He sits there most mornings after breakfast."
I followed her along the corridor into what had once been the old house. The dayroom was the large bay-windowed front parlor, and there were about fifteen high-backed upright armchairs arranged around by the walls. About half of the chairs were occupied, and most of the occupants were asleep.
"Mr. Sutton," called the pink lady walking towards one elderly gentleman. "Wake up, Mr. Sutton. You've got a visitor." She shook the old boy, and he slowly raised his head and opened his eyes. "That's better." She spoke to him as if he were a child, then she leaned forwards and wiped a drop of dribble from the corner of his mouth. I began to think that I shouldn't have come.
"Hello, Mr. Sutton." I spoke in the same loud manner that the lady had used. "Do you remember me?" I asked. "It's John, John from Willow Close." Unsurprisingly, he stared at me without recognition. "Jimbo and his mum send their love. Has your son, Fred, been in yet today?"
The pink lady seemed satisfied. "Can I leave you two together, then?" she asked. "The tea trolley will be round soon if you want anything."
"Thank you," I said.
She walked away, back towards the entrance, and I sat down on an empty chair next to Old Man Sutton. All the while, he went on staring at me.
"I don't know you," he said.
I watched with distaste as he used his right hand to remove a set of false teeth from his mouth. He studied them closely, took a wooden toothpick from his shirt pocket and used it to remove a piece of his breakfast that had become stuck in a crevice. Satisfied, he returned the denture to his mouth with an audible snap.
"I don't know you," he said again, the teeth now safely back in position.
I looked around me. There were six other residents in the room, and all but one had now drifted off to sleep. The one whose eyes were open was staring out through the window at the garden and ignoring us.
"Mr. Sutton," I said, straight to his face. "I want to ask you about a man called Roderick Ward."
I hadn't been sure what reaction to expect. I'd thought that maybe Old Man Sutton wouldn't be able to remember what he'd had for dinner last night, let alone something that happened nearly a year previously.
I was wrong.
He remembered, all right. I could see it in his eyes.
"Roderick Ward is a thieving little bastard." He said it softly but very clearly. "I'd like to wring his bloody neck." He held out his hands towards me as if he might wring my neck instead.
"Roderick Ward is already dead," I said.
Old Man Sutton dropped his hands into his lap. "Good," he said. "Who killed him?"
"He died in a road accident," I said.
"That was too good for him," the old man said with venom. "I'd have killed him slowly."
I was slightly taken aback. "What did he do to you?" I asked. It had to be more than throwing a brick through his window.
"He stole my life savings," he said.
"How?" I asked.
"Some harebrained scheme of his that went bust," he said. He shook his head. "I should never have listened to him."
"So he didn't exactly steal your savings?"
"As good as," Mr. Sutton replied. "My son was furious with me. Kept saying I'd gambled away his inheritance."
I didn't think it had been the most tactful of comments.
"And what exactly was Roderick Ward's harebrained scheme?" I asked.
He sat silently for a while, looking at me, as if deciding what to tell. Or perhaps he was trying to remember.
He again removed his false teeth and studied them closely. I wasn't at all sure that he had understood my question, but after a while he replaced his teeth in his mouth and began. "I borrowed some money against my house to invest in some fancy investment fund that Roderick Bastard Ward guaranteed would make me rich." He sighed. "All that happened was the fund went bust and I now have a bloody great mortgage, and I can't afford the interest."
I could understand why Detective Sergeant Fred had been so furious.
"What sort of investment fund was it?" I asked.
"I don't remember," he said. Perhaps he just didn't want to.
"So how come Ward threw a brick through your window?" I asked.
He smiled. "I poured tea in his lap."
"What?" I said, astonished. "How?"
"He came to tell me that I'd lost all my money. I said to him that there must be something we could do, but he just sat there, arrogantly telling me that I should have realized that investments could go down as well as up." He smiled again. "So I simply poured the hot tea from the teapot I was holding straight into his lap." He laughed, and his false teeth almost popped out of his mouth. He pushed them back in with his thumb. "You should have seen him jump. Almost ripped his trousers off. Accused me of scalding his wedding tackle. Wish now I'd cut them off completely."
"So he went out and threw the brick through your window?"
"Yeah, as he was leaving, but my son saw him do it and arrested him." He stopped laughing. "But then I had to tell Fred the whole story about losing the money."
So he had lost his money about a year ago. Before the same fate had befallen my mother.
"Mr. Sutton," I said. "Can you remember anything at all about the investment fund that went bust?"
He shook his head.
"Was it an offshore fund?" I asked.
He looked quizzically at me. The term offshore clearly hadn't rung any bells in his memory.
"I don't know about that," he said. "I don't think so."
"Did it have anything to do with Gibraltar?" I asked.
He shook his head once more. "I can't remember." He began to dribble again from the corner of his mouth, and there were tears in his eyes.
It was time for me to go.
Saturday morning dawned crisp and bright, with the winter sun doing its best to thaw the frosty ground. The radio in the kitchen reported that there was to be a second inspection of the course at Newbury at nine o'clock to decide whether racing could go ahead. Apparently, the takeoff and landing areas of every jump had been covered overnight, and the stewards were hopeful the meeting could take place.
I, meanwhile, was crossing my fingers that it would be abandoned.
I had spent more than an hour in the racing tack room on Friday afternoon doing my best to try to ensure that Scientific's reins would part during his race. My mother had shown me which one of the bridles had the Australian noseband fitted, and I had been dismayed to see its pristine condition. As my mother had said, horses from Kauri House Stables didn't go to the races with substandard tack.
I had thought that it would be an easy task to bend the leather back and forth a few times inside the nonslip rubber sleeve until it broke, leaving only the rubber holding the reins together. The rubber should then part in the hustle and bustle of the race when the jockey pulled on the reins.