Tip Off by John Francome

dinner later, and he wanted me to hear from her directly what she’d just been telling him.
    I sensed that Sara was already regretting her indiscretion but had let herself get caught up in Matt’s urgency to find out what had happened to Toby.
    We sat around the table in the basement office, but Sara couldn’t sit for long. She gratefully took the drink I offered her and started to walk up and down the room.
    â€˜I shouldn’t be telling you this,’ she started. ‘But after what’s happened . . .’
    â€˜Come on,’ Matt said quietly. ‘No one’s ever going to know it came from you.’
    â€˜They’d better not,’ she said, and took a deep breath. ‘Yesterday, Toby Brown napped a horse that opened in the morning at ten to one. Of course, a pile of money went on it in the first few minutes, and every one pulled it in to fives then twos. The small firms were all phoning, desperate to unload some of it. It won, of course. Matt knows because he backed it.’ She glanced at him with marked fondness. ‘Right after that, Leslie, the finance director, came in to see Harry. He was white as a sheet. He told Harry they were going to have to do something, and spelt out what the firm had lost on Toby’s naps over the last three weeks.’
    â€˜How much was that?’ I asked.
    â€˜Over ten million.’
    â€˜Bloody hell!’ I said, looking at Matt, who nodded.
    â€˜I know,’ he said, ‘it sounds incredible, but you can believe it. The punters are hardly bothering with the other races now.’
    â€˜That’s right.’ Sara nodded. ‘I heard Harry shouting, “How much longer can we go on losing like this?” And Leslie said no more than a week, or they were going to have to realise some assets.’ Sara shrugged. ‘I don’t know the state of their balance sheet from day to day, but I should think it very likely they’ve swallowed up all their cash reserves and cranked up their borrowings to near the limit.
    â€˜It’s a very tricky situation. You see, the profit from the betting shops is what paid for the hotel chain. Historically, they’ve consistently made a lot of money – until now, that is. But if they decided to sell the shops, they’d have to sell them very cheap because of the losses they’re making; and if they didn’t sell, and Toby’s run continued, they would go bust.
    â€˜They’ve had buyers knocking at their door for most of the individual hotels, and several for the group as a whole. I guess the UK hotel market is still undersubscribed.’
    â€˜That’s why they can charge such ridiculous prices,’ I said, nodding.
    â€˜But Harry wouldn’t let that happen. Don’t forget – he came with the hotels.’
    â€˜So what did he do?’
    â€˜He came out and asked me to arrange a meeting yesterday afternoon with the chief executives of the other three big bookmakers. I made damn’ sure I was around when they got there. I didn’t hear everything they said, but the gist of it was that they were going to deal with Toby. They reckoned they had no other choice.’
    â€˜How were they going to deal with him?’ I urged.
    â€˜I’m afraid I don’t know. I missed the details; they clammed up when I was in the room.’
    I looked at Matt. ‘What do you think it means?’
    â€˜Could be anything. Did you get the tape from his flat?’
    â€˜Yes, but I haven’t listened to it yet.’
    â€˜Have you talked to Tintern?’
    â€˜No,’ I admitted. I’d been trying to put it off until I had something constructive to report. I couldn’t help thinking that we should find Toby before we spoke to Lord Tintern. ‘Let’s play the tape first,’ I said, hoping that might reveal something.
    I pulled the small cassette from my pocket and slotted it into a DAT-deck.
    It looked from the amount of