As I had suspected, even though there were some guests, the hospitality area at a jumps meeting was far from full and I was able to secure a table in a quiet corner, well away from where the others were enjoying a champagne reception near the viewing balcony.
I went over to the waitresses’ station and one of them poured me a couple of glasses of white wine.
‘I can’t have anything to drink,’ Bill said. ‘I’m having enough trouble with my weight as it is. Lack of riding is making me flabby.’
‘Drink it,’ I said, handing him one of the glasses. ‘You need it.’
And, I thought, it might loosen his tongue.
He drank it down in just a few large gulps, and I waved at the waitress to bring him another.
‘Tell me what’s going on.’
‘I can’t,’ he said pitifully.
‘Are you sure you’re not being blackmailed?’ I asked.
He took a gulp of wine from his new glass.
‘No.’ He sighed. ‘Not for money, anyway.’
‘Is someone making you ride to lose?’
He didn’t say anything, he just nodded slightly, as if not voicing the admission somehow made it less damaging.
‘How?’
‘I love my wife,’ he said gloomily. ‘She’s five months pregnant and I absolutely adore her. And Oscar, my son. He’s now nearly two.’
‘I’m sure you do,’ I said, not immediately realizing the significance.
‘I don’t want to lose them,’ he said, looking down at the table with tears running down his cheeks.
‘Why would you?’ I asked.
‘There are some photos,’ he said. ‘This man calls me and says he’ll send them to my Julie unless I lose the races.’
So he was being blackmailed after all.
‘What are the photos of?’
He looked up at me. ‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘Me and a girl.’
‘Have you seen them?’
‘No. I don’t want to. But the man swears he has them.’
‘Where and when were they taken?’ I asked.
‘In May,’ he said. ‘I went to Paris to ride in the Grand Steeple-Chase. I was in a hotel near the track and I got picked up by some bird in the bar. The next thing I know it’s the morning and I’m waking up in bed next to her, and both of us are stark-bollock naked. I must have had more red wine than I’d realized because I don’t really remember much, but this geezer on the phone says he’s got some graphic pictures of me and the girl having sex.’
‘Didn’t you ask to see them?’ I asked. ‘He may be bluffing.’
‘Does it matter?’ he said. ‘Even if he just tells my missus that I’ve been sleeping with some French floozy, with or without pictures, she’d hit the roof and I’d be out on my ear.’
‘Was it a set-up?’
‘Yeah, ’course it was. I remember being flattered by her attention. It seemed harmless enough. And I was a long way from home. At first we were just laughing and chatting. And drinking. Then she was all over me, kissing me and such. I never intended screwing her or anything, but...’ He tailed off.
‘Whose bed?’ I asked. ‘Hers or yours?’
‘Mine. Upstairs in the hotel. I don’t even remember going up to the room, let alone doing anything with her when I got there.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘I’m bloody finished, aren’t I? My job’s going down the Swanee over this Wisden Wonder business. And my marriage will be in ruins too. I might as well go and top myself.’
He downed the rest of his wine.
‘Come on, Bill,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to talk like that.’
‘Isn’t there? My life’s over either way.’
I felt sorry for him because it did rather sound like he’d been specifically targeted.
‘I’ll see what I can do for you,’ I said. ‘In the meantime, tell me about riding Pool Table at Cheltenham. Was that another race you were told to lose?’
He hung his head, as if in shame. ‘That was the first time.’
‘How were you contacted?’ I asked.
‘By phone,’ he said. ‘I got a call at home one night when I’m watching telly. My missus was there in the room with me. It was bloody awful. I couldn’t believe what the man was saying. My mouth went completely dry and I remember going hot and cold all over. I started sweating and such. I was convinced Julie must be able to tell just by looking at me. I’ve never felt so wretched in my whole life.’
‘Was it by phone every time?’ I asked.
‘It’s only been twice,’ he said. ‘Stopping one, that is. Not twice with other girls. That was just the once, and I’d give anything for that not to have happened at all.’
‘Do you know who it was who called?’
‘He didn’t give his name,’ Bill said.
There was something about his tone of voice that made me think he did know.
‘Was it a man called Leslie Morris?’ I asked.
He looked up at me sharply.
‘When I asked you about him before, you said you’d never heard of him, but you blushed, so I knew you were lying. So was it Morris who called you?’
He looked down again at the empty wineglass in his hand.
Then he nodded. ‘He didn’t actually say so, but I think it was him.’
‘Why did you lie to me about knowing him?’ I said.
‘Because I was worried about what he might say to you.’
‘Have you known him long?’ I asked.
‘Only since May. It was his bloody horse I went to Paris to ride. Morris called me out of the blue after Aintree. He was dead keen for me to go — paid my fare and everything, although, at the time, I couldn’t think why he bothered. Useless nag finished tailed-off last.’
So Morris had been lying about that too. Bill McKenzie had indeed ridden his horse, but in France. I silently berated myself for not having checked the French records as well as those for the UK and Ireland.
‘So Morris was over there with you?’
‘Yeah, together with his son. Nasty piece of work he is, I can tell you.’
‘Does Morris know about the girl?’ I asked.
‘I reckon he might.’
I believed there was no might about it. I’d wager my life savings that, not only did Morris know about it, he’d set it up. He’d probably arranged for the girl to get McKenzie drunk or, more likely, to slip him a mickey. Rohypnol maybe.
Easy.
Help him up to his room, remove all his clothes, lie him on the bed with the naked girl in a few compromising positions on top, snap a few photos just to be sure, and, hey presto, he had cause for blackmail and control. Rohypnol even caused temporary amnesia as a side effect so he wouldn’t have remembered much, but just enough not to question that it had happened.
Bill probably never even had sex with the girl. He’d have been incapable. But how would he be able to convince his wife of that?
‘Who else knows?’ I asked.
‘No one,’ he said. ‘I’ve not mentioned it to a soul before you. Please don’t tell anyone.’ He was begging me. ‘I don’t want Julie finding out.’
‘There may be nothing for her to find out about,’ I said. ‘If you don’t remember anything happening, then it’s quite likely that nothing actually did happen. Especially if you were unconscious.’
‘I chatted up the girl in the first place,’ he said gloomily.
‘If every wife divorced her husband simply because he’d chatted up some other girl, there’d hardly be a single marriage left intact.’
‘You don’t know my Julie. She can be very jealous.’
More fool her, I thought. But, then, I wouldn’t have wanted Henri chatting up some other man at the wedding in Kent.
I wondered what she was doing right now.