Luca was already waiting for me as I pulled the trolley to our pitch.
“Where’s Betsy?” I asked.
“She’s not coming,” he said. “In fact, I don’t think she will be coming again, ever.”
“Oh?”
“She packed up yesterday and moved out of my flat,” he said.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not meaning it.
“I’m not,” he replied.“Not really.” He paused.“I suppose I’ll miss her.” He paused again. “I’ll definitely miss her in bed. Wow, she was so good.” He smiled at me.
“Too much information, Luca,” I said, laughing. “Far too much information.”
We set up the stuff in silence for a while.
“I suppose we’ll need a new junior assistant now,” Luca said.
“Yes,” I said. “Any ideas?”
“There’s a lad at the electronics club who might be good.”
“I don’t want any juvenile delinquents.”
“He’s a good lad at heart,” said Luca. “He just fell in with the wrong crowd.”
“Talking about the electronics club,” I said, “did you tell the police about that microcoder thing?”
“Oh yeah,” he said. “Sorry about that.”
“I should think so too. I nearly got arrested yesterday.”
“God! I’m sorry. I didn’t even know Jim was a copper until after he’d asked.”
“Tell me about it,” I said.
“This chap, Jim, who also helps at the club, he called me up yesterday morning and asked about that black-box device thing you gave me to look at. Jim had helped me to investigate it. He was the bloke who fixed it up to the oscilloscope. So he just casually, like, asks me where I got it from, and I told him that you gave it to me. I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong to say so, but Jim then says his boss will be most interested. So I ask him who his boss is, and he says some chief inspector or something.”
“You could have bloody warned me,” I said, fighting with the catch that held our board up.
“Sorry,” he said. “Jim called right in the middle of my own domestic crisis. Betsy had just accused me, point-blank, of sleeping with her sister, Millie.”
I stopped what I was doing and looked at him in surprise. Perhaps I might forgive him for not remembering to tell me about PC Jim.
“And have you?” I asked, intrigued.
“That’s none of your business,” he said, laughing. “But, no, not exactly.”
“And what the hell does that mean?” I said.
“I kissed her. Only once, mind. At her birthday party. You know, we went there from Ascot. But Betsy caught us.”
“Oh come on,” I said. “Everyone kisses the birthday girl at her own party.”
“Not with tongues,” he said. “And not out in the garden, behind a bush.”
“Ah,” I replied. That explained a lot. Betsy had been cool towards Luca ever since that party, and now I knew why.
“So what are you going to do?” I asked him.
“Nothing,” he said. “Leave things to settle for a while, I think. Then I’ll see how the land lies.”
“She may not have you back,” I said.
“Back? Are you crazy? I just thought I’d better let things calm down before I asked Millie out.” He grinned at me, and I wasn’t sure whether he meant it or if he was just trying to shock his new business partner. Knowing Luca, it was probably both.
It was a lovely summer’s evening at the races with a large crowd, many of them eager to have a flutter on the horses, and most of them in summer-casual dress of shorts and T-shirts. It was a far cry from the morning-dress formality of Royal Ascot, and much more fun. The bars were soon doing brisk business, helped by the unusually warm weather, and before long there was a party atmosphere all around the betting ring.
Luca and I worked continuously, taking bets and paying out winners without a break, one of the disadvantages of not having a junior assistant. But busy as it was, it was still one of those times when being a bookmaker was a real joy.
No one really becomes a bookie unless they have a bit of the showman in them. I just loved standing on my platform shouting out the odds and bantering with the crowd.
“Come on, mate,” shouted one heavyweight punter at me, “call that fair to have Ellie’s Mobile at only three-to-one?” He looked up at the name at the top of our board. “How can we ‘Trust Teddy Talbot’ when you only offer it at that price?”
“If you’ll ride it, you can have it at tens,” I shouted back at him.
All his mates roared with laughter.
“He couldn’t ride a bike,” one of them shouted.
“Not without bending it,” shouted another.
“Give me twenty on the nose,” said the heavyweight, thrusting a note in my direction.
“Twenty pounds to win, number two, and make it at four-to-one,” I said to Luca over my shoulder. “Special favor.”
“Cheers,” said the man, surprised. “You’re a real gent.”
I didn’t know about that, but, if I couldn’t repay a bit of initiative and color, then I was in the wrong business.
Ellie’s Mobile, the favorite, romped home to win by four lengths at a starting price of three-to-one, cheered with great gusto by the ten-strong band of well-oiled mates, who had stayed near our pitch to watch the race.
“Well done,” I said to the big chap, who was beaming from ear to ear.
“My God!” he said loudly to whoever would listen.“I’ve actually got one over on a bookie.”
“That makes a change,” chipped in one of the others.
They all guffawed, and ordered more beer.
“Weighed in,” sounded the public-address system.
I paid the big man his eighty pounds in winnings plus his twenty-pound stake.
“Cheers,” he said again, stuffing the cash into a pocket. “I’ll trust Teddy Talbot any day of the week.”
Giving him a better price had cost me twenty pounds. But the man and his nine friends more than repaid that amount in losing stakes in the remaining races. And they did so with smiles on their faces.
In fact, the whole evening was fun, with plenty of punters and a good mix of favorites and outsiders winning the races. Our overround, the measure of our overall profit, hovered around nine percent throughout, and both Luca and I were tired but happy as we packed up the equipment onto our little trolley after the last race.
“Where are you parked?” I asked him.
“In the center,” he said. “And you?”
“Up there.” I pointed. “Where are we the rest of the week?”
“Worcester tomorrow afternoon, Thursday evening and Friday afternoon at Warwick, then Leicester on Saturday,” Luca said. He always remembered what we had arranged better than I. We sat down about once every six weeks or so to plan the time ahead, and it was getting near to when we would have to do it again.
“Better put everything in my car, then,” I said.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I’ll give you a hand.”
We dragged the trolley up the hill to the parking lot near the main entrance where I had left my car. All around us were happy racegoers also making their way to their vehicles in the late-evening sunshine. One of the reasons why evening racing was so popular was that, even in southern England, the sun didn’t set until well after nine o’clock for two whole months during midsummer.
“How about your young delinquent friend?” I asked as we pulled on the trolley handle. “Can he come with you sometime this week so I can meet him?”
“I’ll find out,” Luca said. “And he’s not a delinquent. He’s a nice boy, or I wouldn’t even suggest it.”
“OK, OK,” I said, smiling. “Ask him if he’d like to come and watch us one day this week. What’s his name?”
“Douglas,” he said. “Douglas Masters.”
His name didn’t sound like that of a juvenile delinquent, but who was I to know? Kipper didn’t exactly sound like a killer’s name either, but it was.