“Fifty pounds on Brent Crude,” said a voice in front of me.
I looked down. “Hi, A.J.,” I said, noticing the fancy blue-and-yellow-striped vest he was wearing. “Sorry, what did you say?”
“Fifty on Brent Crude,” A.J. repeated.
“Fifty pounds to win number one,” I said over my shoulder, glancing at our prices board, “at fifteen-to-eight.” There was considerable surprise in the tone of my voice.
The ticket appeared and I passed it over.
“They’re off,” said the race commentator over the public-address system, announcing the start of the race.
“It’s back,” said Luca. “Now, is that a coincidence or what?”
“Phones too?” I asked.
“Yup.” He repeatedly pushed the buttons.
No coincidence, surely.
Lifejacket, horse number six, finished third in a close race with the second horse, both of them ten lengths behind the winner, number one, Brent Crude, the favorite, who was returned at the surprisingly long odds of fifteen-to-eight, or nearly two-to-one. Brent Crude had been the real class horse in the race, with every newspaper and TV pundit singing his praises. He had been expected to start at evens at best, and quite likely at odds-on.
“I reckon there’s been a bit of manipulating of the starting price going on here,” said Luca with a huge grin. “Serves them right.”
“Who?” said Betsy.
“The big-chain bastards,” I said to her.
Luca nodded laughing. “I think someone has been playing them at their own game.”
“What do you mean?” asked Betsy.
“Someone has managed to stop the big companies from contacting their staff on the racetrack to make bets with us.”
“So?” she said, clearly none the wiser.
“So someone has been placing largish bets on several horses,” I said, “to shorten their odds, which would, in turn, lengthen the price on the favorite.”
“I still don’t get it,” said Betsy.
“Suppose,” I said, “that really large bets were being placed in the betting shops on Brent Crude, all of them at the official starting price, then the shops wouldn’t have been able to contact their staff to get them to bet on him on the course and shorten his price.”
“It must have driven them bonkers in the shops to see the starting price lengthen,” said Luca, “just when they wanted it to shorten. All their big bets would have been at the starting price whether they were part of the scam or not.”
“Isn’t that illegal?” asked Betsy.
“Probably,” I said. “But the big companies are forever controlling the starting prices. I think they just got a taste of their own medicine.”
“It’s almost certainly illegal to interrupt communications,” said Luca. “But I think it’s brilliant.”
“But how can they do that?” asked Betsy.
“What?” I said.
“Disrupt all the phones.”
“I know it can be done,” Luca said. “I saw it on a television program. They used an electronic jammer. The police can do it too. I know that. When there was a bomb scare at Aintree one year, they shut down all the phone systems, left everyone completely stranded. Perhaps this was the same thing, but I doubt it. We would be evacuating the racetrack by now.”
“How did the prices change in the last few minutes before the off?” I asked him.
He consulted his microprocessing friend.
“Lifejacket came right in from four-to-one to two-to-one,” he said. “Five other horses tightened as the race approached, but Brent Crude drifted all the way from even money to fifteen-to-eight. He was very nearly not even the favorite.”
“That’s a lot,” I said.
“Yeah,” said Luca, “but there was a whisper in the ring that he was sweating badly in the paddock. Colic was even mentioned.”
I knew, I’d heard the talk. “Was it true?” I said.
“Dunno,” he said, grinning again. “I doubt it.”
5
There was an unusual feeling of bonhomie amongst the bookies in the ring as we waited to see who had been taken to the cleaners. Except, that is, for the on-course teams from the big outfits, who had been as much in the dark as the rest of us and who would, no doubt, carry the blame for something over which they had had no control.
Rumors abounded, most of which were false, but by the end of the day there was pretty strong evidence that all the big boys had been hit to some extent. That was, if they ever paid out. Bookmakers in general, and the betting shop chains in particular, didn’t like losing and were quick to refuse to honor bets. They seemed to believe that fixing the starting prices was their right and privilege, and theirs alone.
From our own point of view, it hadn’t made a whole lot of difference. I had taken two large bets of a thousand pounds each, with quite a few smaller ones following as punters chased the big money. Three-quarters of that had been laid by Luca with other bookies as their prices had tumbled, and he had laid a little more on the Internet during the actual running of the race. Both the horses that had been heavily backed with us had lost, of course, whilst we had taken only a very few last-minute wagers on the favorite on which we’d had to pay out, including that fifty pounds to win from A.J. Most of the bets with us on Brent Crude had been taken earlier in the day when his price had been even money, not fifteen-to-eight. Unlike the betting shops, we always paid out at the price offered at the time of the bet and not on the starting price. A satisfactory result all around, I thought. And a bloody nose to the bullies to boot. Now, that was a real bonus.
Luca, Betsy and I were still in good spirits as we packed up for the day after the last. There had been no repeat of the earlier excitement, but the betting ring was still buzzing.
“A great day for the little man,” said Larry Porter.
“They’ll cry foul, you know,” said Norman Joyner from behind me.
“Probably,” Larry agreed. “But it’ll make them uncomfortable, and it’s fun while it lasts.”
“They might want to change the system,” I said.
“Not a chance,” Norman said. “The current system lets them do whatever they like with the odds. Except today, of course. They will probably now demand more security for their communications.”
“Give them carrier pigeons,” I said, laughing.
“Then the fixers will have shotguns to shoot them down,” said Larry. “Where there’s a will, they’ll find a way.”
In the First World War, British soldiers were mentioned in dispatches for shooting down the enemy’s carrier pigeons. Reliable communications had always been the key to success, one way or the other.
Luca and I hauled the trolley up the slope to the grandstand and then on through to the High Street outside. Betsy carried our master, the computer, in its black bag.
“No drinks at the bandstand bar tonight?” I said to them.
“No,” said Luca. “We’re going straight from here to a birthday party.”
“Not either of yours?” I said in alarm, thinking I had missed it.
“No,” he said, smiling. “Betsy’s in March and mine was last week.”
So I had missed it. “Sorry,” I said.
“No problem,” he said. “Wouldn’t know when yours was either.”
No, I thought. It wasn’t something I advertised. Not for any good reason, but because my private life was just that-private.
“Millie, my kid sister, she’s twenty-one today,” said Betsy. “Big family party tonight.”
“I hope you have fun,” I said. “Wish Millie a happy twenty-first from me.”
“Thanks,” she said warmly. “I will.”
I thought about my own kid sisters in Australia and wondered if anyone had told them yet that their father was dead.
Luca, Betsy and I made it to the parking lot, on this occasion unmolested, and we loaded our gear into the capacious Volvo station wagon. Then they both started to move away.
“Don’t you need a lift?” I said to them.