I paused, knowing I was using a light form of words because the next bit was going to fall like lead.
'On the same day, at Kempton, Commander Wainwright asked me to look into the same four syndicates, which I must say had been manipulated so thoroughly that it was a wonder they weren't a public scandal already.'
The smooth faces registered surprise. Sid Halley was not the natural person for Commander Wainwright to ask to look into syndicates, which were the normal business of the Security Section. 'Lucas Wainwright told me that all four syndicates had been vetted and OK'd by Eddy Keith, and he asked me to find out if there was any unwelcome significance in that.'
For all that I put it at its least dramatic, the response from the cohorts was of considerable shock. Racing might suffer from its attraction for knaves and rogues, as it always had, but corruption within the headquarters itself? Never.
I said, 'I came here to Portman Square to make notes about the syndicates, which I took from Eddy Keith's files, without his knowledge. I wrote the notes in Lucas's office, and he told me about a man he'd sent out on the same errand as myself, six months ago. That man, Mason, had been attacked, and dumped in the streets of Tunbridge Wells, with appalling head injuries, caused by kicks. He was a vegetable, and blind. Lucas told me also that the man who had formed the syndicates, and who had been doing the manipulating, was a Peter Rammileese, who lived at Tunbridge Wells.'
The faces were all frowningly intent. 'After that I… er… went away for a week, and I also lost the notes, so I had to come back here and do them again, and Eddy Keith discovered I'd been seeing his files, and complained to you, Sir Thomas, if you remember?'
'That's right. I told him not to fuss.'
There were a few smiles all around, and a general loosening of tension. Inside me, a wilting fatigue.
'Go on, Sid,' Sir Thomas said.
Go on, I thought. I wished I felt less weak, less shaky, less continuously sore. Had to go on, now I'd started. Get on with it. Go on.
I said, 'Well, Chico Barnes, who was here with me on Tuesday…' They nodded. 'Chico and I, we went down to Tunbridge Wells, to see Peter Rammileese. He was away, as it happened. His wife and little son were there, but the wife had fallen off a horse and Chico went to the hospital with her, taking the little boy, which left me, and an open house. So I… er… looked around.'
Their faces said 'Tut tut', but none of their voices. 'I looked for any possible direct tie-in with Eddy, but actually the whole place was abnormally tidy and looked suspiciously prepared for any searches any tax men might make.'
They smiled slightly.
'Lucas warned me at the beginning that as what I was doing was unofficial, I couldn't be paid, but that he'd give me help instead, if I needed it. So I asked him to help me with the business of Trevor Deansgate, and he did.'
'In what way, Sid?'
'I asked him to write to Henry Thrace, to make sure that the Jockey Club would hear at once if Gleaner died, or Zingaloo, and to tell me, so that I could get a really thorough post mortem done.'
They all nodded. They remembered.
'And then,' I said, 'I found Peter Rammileese on my heels with two very large men who looked just the sort to kick people's heads in and leave them blinded in Tunbridge Wells.'
No smiles.
'I dodged them that time, and I spent the next week rolling around England in unpredictable directions so that no one could really have known where to find me, and during that time, when I was chiefly learning about Gleaner and heart valves and so on, I was also told that the two big men had been imported especially from Scotland for some particular job with Peter Rammileese's syndicates. There was also some rumour of someone high up in the Security Service who would fix things for crooks, if properly paid.'
They were shocked again.
'Who told you that, Sid?' Sir Thomas asked.
'Someone reliable,' I said, thinking that maybe they wouldn't think a suspended jockey like Jacksy as reliable as I did.
'Go on.'
'I wasn't really making much progress with those syndicates, but Peter Rammileese apparently thought so, because he and his two men laid an ambush for Chico and me, the day before yesterday.'
Sir Thomas reflected. 'I thought that was the day you were going to Newmarket with Lucas to see the Caspars. The day after you were here telling us about Trevor Deansgate.'
'Yes, we did go to Newmarket. And I made the mistake of leaving my car in plain view near here all day. The two men were waiting beside it when we got back. And… er… Chico and I got abducted, and where we landed up was at Peter Rammileese's place at Tunbridge Wells.'
Sir Thomas frowned. The others listened to the unemotional relating of what they must have realised had been a fairly violent occurrence with a calm understanding that such things could happen.
There had seldom been, I thought, a more silently attentive audience.
I said, 'They gave Chico and me a pretty rough time, but we did get out of there, owing to Peter Rammileese's little boy opening a door for us by chance, and we didn't end up in Tunbridge Wells streets, we got to my father-in-law's house near Oxford.'
They all looked at Charles, who nodded. I took a deep breath. 'At about that point,' I said, 'I… er… began to see things the other way round.'
'How do you mean, Sid?'
'Until then, I thought the two Scotsmen were supposed to be preventing us from finding what we were looking for, in those syndicates.'
They nodded. Of course.
'But supposing it was exactly the reverse… Supposing I'd been pointed at those syndicates in order to be led to the ambush. Suppose the ambush itself was the whole aim of the exercise.'
Silence. I had come to the hard bit, and needed the reserves I didn't have, of staying power, of will. I was aware of Charles sitting steadfastly beside me, trying to give me his strength.
I could feel myself shaking. I kept my voice flat and cold, saying the things I didn't like saying, that had to be said.
'I was shown an enemy, who was Peter Rammileese. I was given a reason for being beaten up, which was the syndicates. I was fed the expectation of it, through the man Mason. I was being given a background to what was going to happen; a background I would accept.'
Total silence and blank, uncomprehending expressions.
I said, 'If someone had savagely attacked me out of the blue, I wouldn't have been satisfied until I had found out who and why. So I thought, supposing someone wanted to attack me, but it was imperative that I didn't find out who or why. If I was given a false who, and a false why, I would believe in those, and not look any further.'
One or two very slight nods.
'I did believe in that who and that why for a while,' I said. 'But the attack, when it came, seemed out of all proportion… and from something one of our attackers said I gathered it was not Peter Rammileese himself who was paying them, but someone else.'
Silence.
'So, after we had reached the Admiral's house, I began thinking, and I thought, if the attack itself was the point, and it was not Peter Rammileese who had arranged it, then who had? Once I saw it that way, there was only one possible who. The person who had laid the trail for me to follow.' The faces began to go stiff. I said, 'It was Lucas himself who set us up.' They broke up into loud, jumbled, collective protest, moving in their chairs with embarrassment, not meeting my eye, not wanting to look at someone who was so mistaken, so deluded, so pitiably ridiculous.
'No, Sid, really,' Sir Thomas said. 'We've a great regard for you…' The others looked as if the great regard was now definitely past tense,'… but you can't say things like that.'