I lifted my hand too late to stop him. Gowery’s and Lord Ferth’s intent faces both registered satisfaction. They knew as well as I did that what West had said was borne out on the film. Sensing that Squelch was going to run out of steam, I’d give him a short breather a mile from home, and this normal everyday little act was now wide open to misinterpretation.
Cranfield looked down at me, surprised by my reaction.
‘I gave him a breather,’ I said apologetically. ‘It shows.’
He sat down heavily, frowning in worry.
Gowery was saying to an official, ‘Show in Mr Newtonnards’ as if Cranfield hadn’t spoken. There was a pause before Mr Newtonnards, whoever he was, materialised. Lord Gowery was looking slightly over his left shoulder, towards the door, giving me the benefit of his patrician profile. I realised with almost a sense of shock that I knew nothing about him as a person, and that he most probably knew nothing about me. He had been, to me, a figure of authority with a capital A. I hadn’t questioned his right to rule over me. I had assumed naively that he would do so with integrity, wisdom and justice.
So much for illusions. He was leading his witnesses in a way that would make the Old Bailey reel. He heard truth in Charlie West’s lies and lies in my truth. He was prosecutor as well as judge, and was only admitting evidence if it fitted his case.
He was dispersing the accepting awe I had held him in like candyfloss in a thunderstorm, and I could feel an unforgiving cynicism growing in its stead. Also I was ashamed of my former state of trust. With the sort of education I’d had, I ought to have known better.
Mr Newtonnards emerged from the waiting-room and made his way to the witnesses’ end of the Stewards’ table, sporting a red rosebud in his lapel and carrying a large blue ledger. Unlike Charlie West he was confident, not nervous. Seeing that everyone else was seated he looked around for a chair for himself, and not finding one, asked.
After a fractional pause Gowery nodded, and the official-of-all-work near the door pushed one forward. Mr Newtonnards deposited into it his well-cared-for pearl-grey-suited bulk.
‘Who is he?’ I said to Cranfield. Cranfield shook his head and didn’t answer, but he knew, because his air of worry had if anything deepened.
Andrew Tring flipped through his pile of papers, found what he was looking for, and drew it out. Lord Plimborne had his eyes shut again. I was beginning to expect that: and in any case I could see that it didn’t matter, since the power lay somewhere between Gowery and Ferth, and Andy Tring and Plimborne were so much window-dressing.
Lord Gowery too picked up a paper, and again I had the impression that he knew its contents by heart.
‘Mr Newtonnards?’
‘Yes, my Lord.’ He had a faint cockney accent overlaid by years of cigars and champagne. Mid-fifties, I guessed; no fool, knew the world, and had friends in show business. Not too far out: Mr Newtonnards, it transpired, was a bookmaker.
Gowery said, ‘Mr Newtonnards, will you be so good as to tell us about a certain bet you struck on the afternoon of the Lemonfizz Cup?’
‘Yes, my Lord. I was standing on my pitch in Tattersall’s when this customer come up and asked me for five tenners on Cherry Pie.’ He stopped there, as if that was all he thought necessary.
Gowery did some prompting. ‘Please describe this man, and also tell us what you did about his request.’
‘Describe him? Let’s see, then. He was nothing special. A biggish man in a fawn coat, wearing a brown trilby and carrying race glasses over his shoulder. Middle-aged, I suppose. Perhaps he had a moustache. Can’t remember, really.’
The description fitted half the men on the racecourse.
‘He asked me what price I’d give him about Cherry Pie,’ Newtonnards went on. ‘I didn’t have any price chalked on my board, seeing Cherry Pie was such an outsider. I offered him tens, but he said it wasn’t enough, and he looked like moving off down the line. Well...’ Newtonnards waved an expressive pudgy hand, ‘... business wasn’t too brisk, so I offered him a hundred to six. Couldn’t say fairer than that now, could I, seeing as there were only eight runners in the race? Worse decision I made in a long time.’ Gloom mixed with stoicism settled on his well covered features.
‘So when Cherry Pie won, you paid out?’
‘That’s right. He put down fifty smackers. I paid him nine hundred.’
‘Nine hundred pounds?’
‘That’s right, my Lord,’ Newtonnards confirmed easily, ‘Nine hundred pounds.’
‘And we may see the record of this bet?’
‘Certainly.’ He opened the big blue ledger at a marked page. ‘On the left, my lord, just over half way down. Marked with a red cross. Nine hundred and fifty, ticket number nine seven two.’
The ledger was passed along the Stewards’ table. Plimborne woke up for the occasion and all four of them peered at the page. The ledger returned to Newtonnards, who shut it and let it lie in front of him.
‘Wasn’t that a very large bet on an outsider?’ Gowery asked.
‘Yes it was, my Lord. But then, there are a lot of mugs about. Except, of course, that once in a while they go and win.’
‘So you had no qualms about risking such a large amount?’
‘Not really, my lord. Not with Squelch in the race. And anyway, I laid a bit of it off. A quarter of it, in fact, at thirty-threes. So my actual losses were in the region of four hundred and eighty-seven pounds ten. Then I took three hundred and two-ten on Squelch and the others, which left a net loss on the race of one eight five.’
Cranfield and I received a glare in which every unit of the one eight-five rankled.
Gowery said, ‘We are not enquiring into how much you lost Mr Newtonnards, but into the identity of the client who won nine hundred pounds on Cherry Pie.’
I shivered. If West could lie, so could others.
‘As I said in my statement, my Lord, I don’t know his name. When he came up to me I thought I knew him from somewhere, but you see a lot of folks in my game, so I didn’t think much of it. You know. So it wasn’t until after I paid him off. After the last race, in fact. Not until I was driving home. Then it came to me, and I went spare, I can tell you.’
‘Please explain more clearly,’ Gowery said patiently. The patience of a cat at a mousehole. Anticipation making the waiting sweet.
‘It wasn’t him, so much, as who I saw him talking to. Standing by the parade ring rails before the first race. Don’t know why I should remember it, but I do.’
‘And who did you see this client talking to?’
‘Him.’ He jerked his head in our direction. ‘Mr Cranfield.’
Cranfield was immediately on his feet.
‘Are you suggesting that I advised this client of yours to back Cherry Pie?’ His voice shook with indignation.
‘No, Mr Cranfield,’ said Gowery like the North Wind, ‘The suggestion is that the client was acting on your behalf, and that it was you yourself that backed Cherry Pie.’
‘That’s an absolute lie.’
His hot denial fell on a lot of cold ears.
‘Where is this mysterious man?’ he demanded. ‘This unidentified, unidentifiable nobody? How can you possibly trump up such a story and present it as serious evidence? It is ridiculous. Utterly, utterly ridiculous.’
‘The bet was struck,’ Gowery said plonkingly, pointing to the ledger.
‘And I saw you talking to the client,’ confirmed Newtonnards.
Cranfield’s fury left him gasping for words, and in the end he too sat down again, finding like me nothing to say that could dent the preconceptions ranged against us.
‘Mr Newtonnards,’ I said, ‘Would you know this client again?’
He hesitated only a fraction. ‘Yes, I would.’
‘Have you seen him at the races since Lemonfizz day?’