Silks by Dick Francis, Felix Francis Page B

down again but he paced round the room like a caged tiger.
    ‘I’ll tell you what I do remember,’ he said to my back. ‘I remember that I’ve never been in Scot Barlow’s house. Not on Monday. Not ever. I didn’t even know where the little bastard lived.’
    ‘What about the text message?’ I said. ‘The one saying you were coming round to sort him out.’
    ‘I didn’t send any bloody text message,’ he replied. ‘And certainly not to him.’
    Surely, I thought, the police must have the phone records.
    He walked around in front of me and sat down again.
    ‘It doesn’t look too good, does it?’ he said.
    ‘No, Steve, it doesn’t.’ We sat there in silence for a few moments. ‘Who would gain from Barlow’s death?’ I asked him.
    ‘Reno Clemens must be laughing all the way to the winning post,’ he said. ‘With Barlow dead and me in here, he’s got rid of both of us.’
    I thought it unlikely that Clemens would go to the extent of murder and a frame-up to simply get rid of his racing rivals. But hadn’t someone once tried to break the leg of a skating rival for that very reason?
    ‘I didn’t do it, you know.’ He looked up at me. ‘Not that I’m sorry he’s dead.’
    ‘What was there between you two?’ I asked. ‘Why did you hate him so much?’ I thought that I wouldn’t ask him about the incident in the showers at Sandown. Not yet. Much better, at the moment, if absolutely no one knew I had seen Barlow lying in the shower, and what he had said to me.
    ‘I hated him because he was a sneaky little bastard,’ Steve said.
    ‘But just how was he sneaky?’ I asked.
    ‘He just was.’
    ‘Look, Steve,’ I said. ‘If you want me to help you, you will have to tell me everything. Now why was he sneaky?’
    ‘He would sneak to the stewards if anyone did anything wrong.’
    ‘How do you know?’ I asked. ‘Did he ever sneak on you?’
    ‘What, to the stewards?’
    ‘Yes,’ I said, imploring. ‘To the stewards.’
    ‘Well, no,’ he said. ‘Not on me to the stewards, but he was a bastard nevertheless.’
    ‘But why?’ I almost shouted at him, spreading my arms and hands open wide.
    He stood up again and turned away from me. ‘Because,’ he said in a rush, ‘he told my bloody wife I was having an affair.’
    Ah, I thought. That would account for the hatred. Steve went on without turning round. ‘Then she left me and took my kids away.’
    Ah, again.
    ‘How did Barlow know you were having an affair?’ I asked.
    ‘I was having it with his sister,’ he said.
    ‘Do the police know about this?’
    ‘I bleeding well hope not,’ he said, turning round. ‘Now that would give me a bloody motive, wouldn’t it?’
    ‘When did all this happen?’ I asked him.
    ‘Years ago,’ he said.
    ‘Are you still having the affair with Barlow’s sister?’ I asked.
    ‘Nah, it was just a fling,’ he said. ‘Finished right there and then, but Natalie, that’s my wife, she wouldn’t come home. Went and married some bloody Australian and they now live in Sydney. With my kids. I ask you, how am I meant to see them when they’re half the world away? It’s all that bastard Barlow’s fault.’
    I thought that a jury would not necessarily agree with his assessment.
    ‘And what about the betting slips found on the prongs of the fork?’ I said.
    ‘Nothing to do with me,’ Steve said.
    ‘But they had your name on them,’ I said.
    ‘Yeah, and would I be so stupid as to leave them stuck on the bloody fork if I had planted it in Barlow’s chest? Don’t be bloody daft. It’s obviously a sodding stitch-up. Surely you can see that?’
    It did seem to me that the police must think Steve to be very stupid indeed if they were so certain he had done it based on that. Or perhaps they had forensic evidence that we didn’t yet know about. We would discover in due course, during pre-trial disclosure but, for the time being, we could only guess. Either way, it would be worth pursuing the matter at