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sir,’ he sounded even less sorry and more determined. ‘That doesn’t get you through here.’
    I was reprieved at that moment by the managing director of the racecourse, who I assumed was hurrying as usual from one minor crisis to another.
    ‘Sid,’ he said with genuine warmth, ‘how are you?’
    ‘Fine, Edward,’ I replied, shaking his hand. ‘But having a little difficulty getting up to Lord Enstone’s box.’
    ‘Nonsense,’ he said, winking at the young man. ‘Be a sad day for all of us when Sid Halley can’t get everywhere on this racecourse.’
    He put his arm round my shoulder and guided me into the lift.
    ‘How’s the investigation business?’ he asked as we rose to the fifth floor.
    ‘Busy,’ I said. ‘These days I seem to be working more and more away from the racecourse, but not this week, obviously.’
    ‘Done a lot of good for racing, you have. If you need any help, just ask. I’ll send you a pass that’ll get you everywhere on this racecourse, even into my office.’
    ‘How about the jockeys’ changing room?’
    ‘Ah.’ He knew as well as I did that the jockeys’ changing room was off limits to everyone except the jockeys riding that day and their valets, the men who prepared their equipment and clothes. Even Edward wasn’t technically allowed in there on race days.
    ‘Almost everywhere,’ he laughed.
    ‘Thanks.’
    The doors opened and he rushed off.
    Lord Enstone’s box was bursting at the seams. Surely all these people don’t have badges for this box, I thought, as I forced myway in. They could obviously talk their way past the spiky-haired young man better than I.
    Those lucky few with boxes at Cheltenham on Gold Cup day invariably found that they had all sorts of dear friends who wanted to come and visit. That these ‘dear friends’ turned up only once a year didn’t seem to embarrass them at all.
    A waitress offered me a glass of champagne. As a general rule, I held drinks in my real right hand but it made shaking hands so complicated, and I felt that I should use my left more to justify the large amount of money I had spent to acquire it. So I very carefully sent the correct impulses and the thumb of my left hand closed just enough around the stem of the glass. I had often shattered even the best crystal by not knowing how hard to grip with my unfeeling digits to prevent a glass from falling out. It could be humiliating.
    Charles had spotted me across the throng and made his way to my side.
    ‘Got a drink, good,’ he said. ‘Come and see Jonny.’
    We squeezed our way out on to the balcony that ran the length of the grandstand in front of the glass-fronted boxes. The view from here across the racecourse and beyond to the hills was magnificent, even on a dull day.
    Three men were standing close together at the far end of the balcony, their heads bowed as they talked. One of them was Jonny. Jonny was our host, Lord Enstone. Another was Jonny’s son, Peter. The third I knew only by reputation. I had never actually met George Lochs. He was in his thirties and already a big player in the internet gambling business. His company, make-a-wager.com, while not being the market leader, was expanding rapidly and, with it, so was young George’s fortune.
    I had once been commissioned by the Jockey Club to doa background check on him, a routine procedure for those applying for bookmaking licences. He was the second son of a bookie’s runner from north London. He’d won a free scholarship to Harrow where, apparently, the other boys had laughed at his funny accent and the way he held his knife. But the young George had learned fast, conformed and flourished. Except that he hadn’t been called George then. He had been born Clarence Lochstein, named by his mother after the Duke of Clarence. Not Albert, Duke of Clarence, elder son of Edward VII, who supposedly died of pneumonia in 1892 although the rumours persist that he was poisoned to prevent his being arrested for being Jack