Kickback Read online

  ‘No, home. I fancy an early night,’ replied Dixon.

  Jane smiled.

  It was dark and pouring with rain by the time they reached Bridgwater on the M5. Dixon had been deep in thought for most of the drive north.

  ‘Have you heard the phrase ‘laying to lose’ before, Jane?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.

  ‘Irregular betting patterns and horses that rarely win. The two must be connected but how do you make money out of holding your horses back?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Either you bet on the joint or second favourite winning or it’s this laying to lose thing.’

  ‘Or both.’

  ‘Funny that Hesp’s horse won when he knew we were watching, isn’t it?’

  ‘Very.’

  ‘And Tanner’s clearly got something going on the side with J Clapham Racing. It could be that Noel was going to...’

  ‘Either that or he was doing it too, don’t forget,’ said Jane.

  ‘Yes. Clapham would lose his licence if it came out.’

  ‘At the very least.’

  ‘And where the bloody hell did the money come from for that iPad and camera, I wonder?’

  ‘And the PlayStation, don’t forget.’

  ‘That’s fifteen hundred quid’s worth.’

  ‘Maybe he was still selling himself?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Maybe he was,’ replied Dixon. ‘Either way, we need to know where his money was coming from because it sure as hell wasn’t coming from his wages, was it?’

  ‘No.’

  They arrived home just after 5.30pm. Jane went for a shower while Dixon fed Monty and then powered up his laptop. He opened a web browser and searched Google for ‘laying to lose’. He scrolled down through the results and clicked on fivewinners.com. He was still reading their Free Guide To Laying Horses when Jane got out of the shower. She tiptoed up behind him, wrapped in her towel. Her blonde shoulder length hair was wet and straggly, freed of its usual ponytail.

  ‘Are you coming to bed?’

  ‘I’m not tired yet,’ said Dixon.

  ‘Who said anything about sleeping?’

  ‘Oh right,’ replied Dixon, shutting the lid of his computer.

  Dixon lay in the dark listening to the sound of Jane breathing. She was dozing next to him, her head on his pillow. He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead.

  ‘What is it?’ she said, stirring.

  ‘We need to take that dog out and get something to eat.’

  Monty had long since given up scratching at the door and gone back downstairs.

  ‘We do,’ replied Jane.

  ‘How about the Red Cow?’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  ‘Did you find out what laying to lose is?’ asked Jane.

  They were sitting at their usual table in the corner of the lounge bar at the Red Cow. Monty was stretched out on the floor by their feet.

  ‘Yes. Stick with me for a minute. Imagine a high street bookmaker. You walk in and back Midnight Blue for ten quid at odds of two to one. You place the bet and the bookie accepts it. Are you with me so far?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If Midnight Blue wins, the bookie returns your stake to you and pays you twenty quid winnings. If Midnight Blue loses he keeps your stake. Right?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Now, imagine yourself standing behind the counter in the bookmaker’s shop. I come in and want to back Midnight Blue for ten quid and you want to accept that bet because you think Midnight Blue will lose. Ok?’

  Jane Nodded.

  ‘So, now if Midnight Blue wins you return my stake to me and pay me my winnings. If Midnight Blue loses you keep my stake.’

  ‘Still with me?’

  Yes.’

  ‘Well, that’s how laying to lose works. You can only do it on the online betting exchanges, websites like Bet29, but it means you can act as the bookie and accept bets others want to place.’

  ‘So, if you know the horse is going to lose...’

  ‘You can clean up. Exactly.’

  ‘And that’s the irregular betting patterns?’

  ‘We’ll find out tomorrow but it must be. It would explain why Hesp’s horses never win, wouldn’t it?’

  Five

  Dixon spent most of the journey watching the world flash by. Jane dozed and listened to music, apart from the occasional trip to the buffet car. They had left his Land Rover at Taunton Station and caught the fast train to London, arriving just after 10.00am. Jane looked at her watch.

  ‘On time.’

  ‘Near enough,’ replied Dixon.

  He had never liked travelling by train and it had been some time since it had last been forced on him. It was the feeling of not being in control at high speed. He always insisted on sitting with his back to the direction of travel so that if the train crashed he would not be cut in half by the table. He was also convinced that the available leg room had reduced dramatically since his last trip. They had at least had the table to themselves as far as Reading.

  One question had troubled Dixon for much of the journey. Noel had worked for Hesp for eighteen months according to his sister, Natalie, so he must have known about the betting scam for some time and been an active participant in it. It’s possible he was even making a few quid on the side, as Kevin Tanner appeared to be doing. It would explain the iPad and PlayStation. If that was right why threaten to blow the whistle on it now? Dixon had to consider the troubling possibility that it was not the motive for Noel’s murder.

  ‘Let’s take the Tube.’

  ‘I thought you didn’t like travelling by train?’

  ‘Tubes are different.’ It struck Dixon as odd, even as he said it, but it was true. He did enjoy the London Underground and put it down to an old film with Donald Pleasence as a Detective Inspector investigating a series of gruesome murders on the Tube. He thought it best not to tell Jane about it.

  They got on the Bakerloo Line and changed onto the Central Line at Oxford Circus. Holborn Station was only two stops along so they stood for the short ride. Dixon was holding the handrail with his left hand.

  ‘Your arm’s better then?’ asked Jane.

  Dixon looked down at his left shoulder.

  ‘I suppose it must be, yes. A bit.’

  The London office of the British Horseracing Authority was at 75 High Holborn. They walked along until they reached two glass doors between a coffee shop with an exotic name Dixon didn’t recognise and a pub called the Red Lion. He looked at his watch. It was 10.30am.

  ‘Too early for the pub, let’s try the coffee.’

  They sat in the window, Jane with a latte and Dixon a hot chocolate. He hadn’t had breakfast and needed the sugar.

  ‘Let’s assume for a minute that the betting thing is not the motive for Noel’s murder...?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What else could it have been?’

  ‘Sex,’ said Jane.

  ‘Sex?’

  ‘Well, it could’ve been, couldn’t it? He was a rent boy, after all.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Maybe he was blackmailing someone, or threatening to?’

  Dixon thought about what Jon Woodman had said in the early hours of the previous Tuesday morning.

  ‘He knew something and was going to go public with it...something big...’

  ‘Who said that?’ asked Jane.

  ‘That’s what Jon told me Noel had said to him.’

  ‘And that’s all he said?’

  ‘Yes. They were on Skype. Jon was in Afghanistan.’

  ‘Could mean anything that,’ replied Jane.

  ‘It could.’

  Dixon finished the dregs of his hot chocolate.

  ‘C’mon, let’s get next door.’

  The offices of the British Horseracing Authority were on the second floor and, once past the security guard, Dixon and Jane took the lift. They were met by an outstre
tched hand when the doors opened.

  ‘Adam Spiers. Did you have good trip up?’

  ‘Yes, thank you. I’m Nick Dixon and this is Detective Constable Jane Winter.’

  They shook hands with Spiers and then produced their warrant cards.

  ‘Follow me,’ said Spiers.

  They walked past the reception area and into a large interview room on the left. Dixon doubted that Spiers had worn a pin striped suit just for them and wondered what his other meetings were about that day. Spiers himself was in his forties with thick dark hair. He clearly enjoyed his food too.

  ‘Coffee or tea?’

  ‘Tea would be lovely,’ said Jane, ‘the coffee next door was...’

  ‘Ah, sorry, should’ve warned you about that.’

  ‘Tea for me too, please,’ said Dixon.

  Spiers picked up the telephone on the table.

  ‘Sonia, could we have three teas in here, please? Thanks.’ He replaced the handset and turned to Dixon and Jane. ‘Tell me about the murder then.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m limited in what I can say at this stage, as I’m sure you’ll appreciate, suffice it to say that Noel was dead before he was thrown into the stable and a good deal of effort had gone into making it look like the horse had kicked him to death.’

  ‘Really. And do you have a motive?’

  ‘It’s early days but we have reason to believe that he was about to go public with some information and that may be why he was killed.’

  ‘What information, I wonder?’

  ‘At the moment we don’t know but one possibility is the irregular betting patterns you mentioned when we spoke yesterday, of course. We thought about possible doping too but Michael Hesp insisted he was clean.’

  ‘He is. We do regular checks for that, as you’d expect. He’s not so squeaky clean when it comes to betting.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Dixon.

  ‘How much do you know about backing and laying?’ asked Spiers.

  ‘We’re learning fast but treat us as beginners for these purposes.’

  ‘Ok. Well, everything changed with the advent of the internet betting exchanges. Bet29 and such like. Back in the old days you could only back a horse to win with a traditional bookmaker, either on course or on the high street.’

  Jane was making notes.

  ‘Now you can go online and effectively be the bookmaker. Not only can you back a horse to win but you can accept someone else’s bet to win if you think the horse is going to lose. That’s laying. It’s a risky business though.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘A traditional bookie is laying all of the horses in the race, isn’t he?’

  ‘I suppose he is,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘And he does so at odds guaranteed to give him a profit whichever horse wins. Ok?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But if you’re laying on the betting exchanges, the likelihood is you’ll be laying just the one horse and if it wins you could be in deep shit.’

  Dixon nodded.

  ‘Let me give you an example. Take a horse at odds of eight to one. You lay it for a tenner. If it loses, you keep the backer’s tenner. But if it wins, you pay out eighty quid, which is a big hole in your bank.’

  ‘Why take the risk then?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Ok, well, let’s say you have a race with nine runners. If you’re trying to back the winner you’ve got to find the right one out of the nine. But, if you’re laying, any one of the other eight will do it for you.’

  ‘Sounds easy when you say it like that.’

  ‘It is easier but a couple of winners in quick succession and you can be in deep trouble.’

  ‘I see that,’ said Dixon.

  ‘There’s a blanket ban on trainers laying their own horses and I’m not suggesting that Hesp has been doing that. But someone has been making a good deal of money laying his horses and they never win, as you know.’

  ‘One did yesterday,’ said Dixon.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. At Exeter. His first horse lost. Then I let him know we were there and, lo and behold, his second horse won.’

  ‘Someone will have lost a lot of money on that, I expect,’ said Spiers. ‘You’ll not be popular.’

  ‘Tell me about these irregular betting patterns,’ said Dixon.

  ‘We monitor all betting live in real time from our HQ at Newmarket. We look for patterns that shouldn’t be there. It’s all in this file, which is a copy you can keep, but what we’ve seen is large lay bets on Hesp’s horses and sometimes corresponding back bets on the joint or second favourite.’

  ‘How large is large?’ asked Jane.

  ‘Sometimes up to five thousand pounds. They’re clever though. They know we’ll be watching so they feed the money into the market over several hours. Occasionally one of Hesp’s horses will run with nothing unusual about the betting at all.’

  ‘And you don’t think it’s him.’

  ‘No, there’s someone behind him. He denied all knowledge of it, as I said on the phone.’

  ‘And we can keep this file?’

  ‘Yes, that’s a copy for you.’

  Dixon opened it.

  ‘There’s a copy of Hesp’s interview transcript in there too,’ said Spiers. ‘Those are the betting spreadsheets.’

  ‘Talk me through one these entries then, so I know what’s going on,’ said Dixon.

  ‘Sure. What you’re looking at are the volumes, the money, matched up on the exchange at the different odds and the times too.’

  ‘Matched up?’

  ‘Yes. That’s where someone places a back bet and it’s matched with someone willing to lay it at those odds.’

  ‘I see,’ said Dixon.

  ‘The odds will be changing the whole time, as you can see. Someone may place a back bet at odds of five to one and the layer may wait until another person tries to back at four to one before accepting it. It’s like bidding, really. A financial market of sorts.’

  ‘Bloody complicated,’ said Dixon.

  ‘It can be,’ replied Spiers. ‘There are software packages you can buy that will do it for you and hundreds of different systems out there for picking winners and losers. There are even laying tipsters.’

  ‘When we were at Exeter yesterday Hesp’s groom phoned one of the on course bookies and he immediately changed the odds on Hesp’s horse from two to one to four to one...’

  ‘I expect he told the bookie the horse wouldn’t be winning. He could safely increase his odds then and outbid the other on course bookies.’

  ‘So, on the second of Hesp’s horses, when he knew we were there, the groom phoned the bookie and this time he shortened the odds...’

  ‘Because he knew the horse might win this time,’ said Spiers.

  ‘Then he went to the Bet29 website…’

  ‘That would have been to back the horse himself at the highest odds he could find to limit his losses. What he pays out on the course is covered by what he wins on Bet29. It’s hedging his bets.’

  Dixon shook his head.

  ‘There’s a lot of money changing hands, Inspector, sometimes millions on a single race. That’s why we take the integrity of the sport so seriously.’

  ‘I can see that, Mr Spiers. Thank you, you’ve been very helpful.’

  ‘What happens now?’ asked Spiers.

  ‘Well, I’m investigating the murder, as you know, but anything I find relevant to the betting side of things will be passed on to you, certainly,’ replied Dixon.

  ‘It’d be helpful to have a statement from you about yesterday at Exeter.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  Once out on the pavement, Dixon took out his phone and rang Louise Willmott.

  ‘Louise, we’re on our way now. We’ll be back by 4.30pm. Pick up Hesp, Kevin Tanner and J Clapham Racing. Arrest them on suspicion of the murder of Noel Woodman and stick them in a cell until we get there. I’ll ring DCI Lewis now and he’ll rustle you up some help.’

  They took a
taxi and arrived at Paddington in time for the 1.03pm train to Taunton.

  ‘We’ll get in about ten to three,’ said Dixon.

  ‘What about lunch?’ asked Jane.

  ‘There’ll be a buffet car.’

  They found an empty table and settled in for the journey, Dixon sitting with his back to the direction of travel and Jane sitting opposite him. She took the view that in a crash at one hundred plus miles an hour it really wouldn’t matter which side of the table she was sitting on.

  ‘What did you make of that?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘Complicated stuff,’ replied Jane, ‘but the bits that struck me were the sums of money involved and the fact Spiers thinks there’s somebody behind Hesp.’

  ‘Quite.’

  ‘One thing’s for sure, if it was this that Noel was going to blab about then it’s certainly motive enough to kill him.’

  ‘It is. So, what about this somebody?’

  ‘Could be anybody, couldn’t it? A gambling syndicate, organised crime...’

  ‘It’s not gambling though is it? There’s no gamble involved. It’s cheating, pure and simple.’

  ‘That leaves organised crime then,’ replied Jane.

  Dixon looked out the window at the backs of the houses passing by as the train moved slowly west out of inner London. He reached into his trouser pocket and took out a coin.

  ‘Heads or tails?’

  ‘Tails,’ said Jane.

  Dixon flicked the coin into the air, caught it and laid it flat on the back of his left hand.

  ‘Tails it is. What d’you want for lunch?’

  ‘Where is everybody then, Louise?’ asked Dixon.

  ‘In the cells, Sir.’

  ‘All suitably outraged, no doubt?’

  ‘Mr Clapham was but I got the impression the other two were expecting a visit from us.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Clapham and Hesp have requested a solicitor. They’re on the way now.’

  ‘Tanner first then, I think. Then Clapham. We’ll let Hesp sweat. Well done, Louise.’

  Dixon and Jane were waiting in an interview room when Tanner was led in by a uniformed officer. He was small, much the same size as Noel and no doubt wanted to be a jockey some day, thought Dixon. He had short blonde hair and had clearly come straight from the stables. His jodhpurs were grubby and his wellington boots covered in mud.