Twice Shy

'I'm Ted Pitts,' he said, holding out a wet hand. 'I can't see a damn thing without my glasses.'

I shook the hand and smiled into the unfocussed eyes. Jane walked round with some heavy black frames which converted the brown fish into an ordinary short-sighted mortal, and he dripped round the pool beside me to where his towel lay on a lounging chair.

'William Derry?' he said, blotting water out of his ears.

That's right.'

'How's Jonathan?'

'Sends his regards.'

Ted Pitts nodded, towelled his chest vigorously and then stopped abruptly and said, 'It was you who told me where to get the form books.'

All those years ago… information so casually given. I glanced around the amazing house and asked the uppermost question. 'The betting system on those tapes,' I said. 'Did it really work?'

Ted Pitts's smile was of comprehensive contentment. 'What do you think?' he said.

'All this-'

'All this.'

'I never believed in it,' I said, 'until I came here the other day.'

He towelled his back. 'It's fairly hard work, of course. I shunt around a good deal. But with this to come back to… most rewarding.'

'How long…' I said slowly.

'How long have I been gambling? Ever since Jonathan gave me the tapes. That first Derby… I borrowed a hundred quid with my car as security to raise some stake-money. It was madness, you know. I couldn't have afforded to lose. Sometimes in those days we had hardly enough to eat. It was pretty well desperation that made me do it, but of course the system looked mathematically OK and it had already worked for years for the man who invented it.'

'And you won?'

He nodded, 'Five hundred. A fortune. I'll never forget that day, never. I felt so sick.' He smiled vividly, the triumph still childlike in its simplicity. 'I didn't tell anybody. Not Jonathan. Not even Jane. I didn't mean to do it again, you see. I was so grateful it had turned out all right, but the strain…' He dropped the damp towel over the arm of a chair. 'And then, you know, I thought, why not?'

He watched his daughters dive into the pool with their arms round each other's waists. 'I only taught for one more term,' he said calmly. 'I couldn't stand the head of the Maths department. Jenkins, his name was.' He smiled, 'It seems odd now, but I felt oppressed by that man. Anyway, I promised myself that if I won enough during the summer holidays to buy a computer, I would leave at Christmas, and if I didn't, I'd stay and use the school's computer still, and be content with a wager now and then.'

Jane joined us, carrying a pot of coffee. 'He's telling you how he started betting? I thought he was crazy.'

'But not for long.'

She shook her head, smiling. 'When we moved out of our caravan into a house – bought it outright with Ted's winnings – then I began to believe it would last, that it was safe. And now here we are, so well off it's embarrassing, and it's all thanks to your dear brother Jonathan.'

The girls climbed dripping out of the pool and were introduced as Emma and Lucy, hungry for breakfast. I was offered bran flakes, natural yoghurt, wheat germ and fresh peaches, which they all ate sparingly but with enjoyment.

I ate as well, but thought inescapably of Angelo and of Cassie alone with him in the cottage. Those planks would hold… they'd kept him penned in for two whole days. No reason to think they'd fail this morning… no reason, just a strong feeling that I should have persuaded her to wait with Bananas.

It was over coffee, when the girls were again swimming and Jane had disappeared into the house, that Ted said, 'How did you find me?'

I looked at him. 'Don't you mean why?'

'I suppose so. Yes.'

'I came to ask you to let me have copies of those tapes.'

He breathed deeply and nodded. 'That's what I thought.'

'And will you?'

He looked at the shimmering pool for a while and then said, 'Does Jonathan know you're asking?'

'Yeah. I asked him where the tapes were now, and he said if anyone knew, you would. You and only you, he said.'

Ted Pitts nodded again and made up his mind. 'It's fair. They're his, really. But I haven't any spare tapes.'

'I brought some,' I said. They're out in the car. Can I fetch them?'

'All right.' He nodded decisively. 'I'll change into dry clothes while you're getting them.'

I fetched the computer-type tapes I'd brought for the purpose, and he said, 'Six? You'll only need three.'

'Two sets?' I suggested.

'Oh. Well, why not?' He turned away. 'The computer's downstairs. Would you like to see it?'

'Very much.'

He led the way into the body of the house and we went down some carpeted stairs to a lower floor. 'Office,' he said succinctly, leading the way into a normal-sized room from which one could see the same wide view of London as upstairs. 'It's a bedroom really. Bathroom through there,' he pointed. 'Spare bedroom beyond.'

The office was more accurately a sitting-room with armchairs, television, bookshelves and pinewood panelling. On an upright chair by one wall stood a pair of well-used mountain climbing boots, with the latest in thermal sleeping bags still half in its carton on the floor beside them. Ted followed my glance. 'I'm off to Switzerland in a week or two. Do you climb?'

I shook my head.

'I don't attempt the peaks,' he said earnestly. 'I prefer walking, mostly.' He pulled open a section of the pine panelling to reveal a long counter upon which stood a host of electronic equipment. 'I don't need all this for the racing programs,' he said, 'but I enjoy computers…' and he ran his fingers caressingly over the metal surfaces with the ardour of a lover.

'I've never seen those racing programs,' I said.

'Would you like to?'

'Please.'

'All right.' With the speed of long dexterity he fed a tape into a cassette recorder and explained he was putting the machine to search for the file 'Epsom'. 'How much do you know about computers?' he said.

'There was one at school, way back. We played "Space Invader" on it.'

He glanced at me pityingly. 'Everyone in this day and age should be able to write a simple program. Computer language is the universal tongue of the new world, as Latin was of the old.'

'Do you tell your students that?'

'Eh… yes.'

The small screen suddenly announced 'READY?' Ted pressed some keys on the keyboard and the screen asked 'WHICH RACE AT EPSOM?' Ted typed DERBY, and the screen in a flash presented: EPSOM: THE DERBY. NAME OF HORSE?

He put in his own name and randomly answered the ensuing questions, ending with:

TED PITTS. WIN FACTOR: 24

'Simple,' I said.

He nodded. 'The secret is in knowing which questions to ask, and in the weighting given to the answers. There's nothing mysterious about it. Anyone could evolve such a system, given the time.'

'Jonathan says there are several of them in the United States.'

Ted nodded. 'I've got one of them here.' He opened a drawer and brought out what looked like a pocket calculator. 'It's a baby computer with quite elegant programs,' he said. 'I bought it out of curiosity. It only works on American racing, of course, because one of its bases is that all tracks are identical in shape, left-handed ovals. It is geared chiefly to prize money. I understand that if you stick to its instruction book religiously you can certainly win, but of course like Liam O'Rorke's system you have to work at it to get results.'

'And never back a hunch?'

'Absolutely not,' he said seriously. 'Hunches are hopelessly unscientific.'

I looked at him curiously. 'How often do you go to the races?'

'To the races themselves? Practically never. I watch them, of course, on television, sometimes. But you don't need to, to win. All you need are the form books and objectivity.'

It seemed to me a dry view of the world where I spent my life.

Those beautiful creatures, their speed, their guts, their determination, all reduced to statistical probabilities and microchips.

'These copies of yours,' he said, 'do you want them open, so that anyone can use them?'