“What did that copper want yesterday afternoon?” Betsy asked me.

“Just a few more questions about getting mugged on Tuesday,” I replied matter-of-factly. Even though I had initially asked Betsy to take over for just a few minutes, I had actually left her and Luca for the whole of the last race. They had also had to pack up all our equipment on their own while I had spoken with Detective Chief Inspector Llewellyn for well over an hour. But it was not often that a man discovers that his mother was murdered by his father.

I thought back to what the detective chief inspector had told me.

“Your mother was strangled,” he’d said. It had turned me icy cold on one of the hottest days of the year.

“But how do you know that my father was responsible?” I’d asked him.

“Well,” he’d said, “it seems it was suspected when he suddenly disappeared at the same time. According to the records, some people thought he must have killed himself as well, though no body was ever found, of course. But the DNA match has proved it.”

“How?” I asked, although I was dreading the answer.

“Your mother apparently scratched her attacker, and his skin was found under her fingernails. At the time of the murder, DNA testing wasn’t available but the evidence samples were kept. During a cold-case review about five years ago, a DNA profile of the killer was produced and added to the national DNA database. As we have now discovered, it matches your father exactly.” He had said it in a very deadpan manner, unaware of the torment such knowledge was creating in my head.

In less than a single twenty-four-hour period, I had first met my father and realized that I was not the orphan I thought I had been for the past thirty-seven years, watched helplessly while my newfound parent was fatally stabbed, and, finally, discovered that he had been nothing more than a callous murderer, the killer of my mother. It wasn’t my father’s life that was the soap opera, it was mine.

“Do they have any idea who did it?” asked Betsy, suddenly bringing me back from my daydreaming.

“Did what?” I asked.

“The mugging, stupid.”

“Oh,” I said. “No, I don’t think so. They didn’t say so anyway.”

“Probably some kids,” she said. She was little more than a kid herself. “Larking about.”

I didn’t think that murder was exactly larking about, but I decided not to say so. Family secrets were best kept that way-secret.

The afternoon seemed to slip by without me really noticing. Luca had to keep reminding me to pay attention to our customers.

“For God’s sake, Ned,” he shouted in my ear, “get the bloody things right.” He exchanged yet another inaccurate ticket. “What’s wrong with you today?”

“Nothing,” I replied. But I felt lousy, and my mind was elsewhere.

“Could have fooled me,” he said. “You never normally make mistakes.”

I did, but I was usually more expert at covering them up. “Sophie’s not good,” I said. It was the easy excuse. Luca knew all about Sophie’s condition. I may have wanted to keep it a secret, even from him, but that had been impossible over the years. Too often I had been forced to take days off work in order to be with her. Luca Mandini was a licensed bookmaker in his own right, and he’d often covered for me, first with a friend and, more recently, with Betsy, who could hardly conceal her excitement when she knew I would be away.

“Sorry,” Luca said. He never asked for details. He seemed almost embarrassed. “Bloody hell,” he suddenly shouted.

“What is it?” I asked, alarmed.

“Internet’s gone down again,” he said, stabbing his keyboard with his finger.

I looked at my watch. A little less than five minutes to go before the Gold Cup was due to start.

“How about the phones?” I asked him, turning around.

He was already pushing the buttons on his mobile.

“Nothing,” he said, looking up at me. “No signal. Same as before.”

I turned and looked around the betting ring at the other bookmakers, especially those to my right along the Royal Enclosure rail. Outwardly, there appeared to be no sense of alarm. Business was being carried on as usual. I could see a few of the boys from the big outfits pushing buttons on their phones with no success. One or two of them dashed away to seek other forms of communication with their head offices, and the man from the Press Association who was responsible for setting the starting prices had come down from his place in the stands to look at the bookies’ boards. No Internet connection also meant he didn’t get the necessary information directly to his computer screen.

“Two monkeys, six horse,” said a punter in front of me.

A “monkey” was betting slang for five hundred pounds, two monkeys was a thousand, or a grand. It was a fair-sized bet, and bigger than most, but, over the year, we took lots of bets of a thousand pounds or more, so it was not that unusual. However, I took a careful look at my customer. Was it a coincidence, I wondered, that our biggest bet of the day was laid just seconds after the Internet and the phones went off?

There was nothing about the man that made me think that he was up to no good. He was a regular racegoer, with a white shirt open at the neck and fawn chinos. I didn’t recognize him as one of the regular boys from the big outfits, but I would know him again, I made sure of that.

I glanced up at our board as I relieved him of the bundle of fifty-pound notes he held out to me. Horse number six, Lifejacket, was quoted at four-to-one.

“Four thousand-to-one thousand on horse six,” I said over my shoulder. “OK with you, Luca?”

There was a pause while Luca consulted with his digital mate.

“We’ll take it at seven-to-two,” he said slowly.

“Seven-to-two,” I said to the man in the white shirt and chinos.

“OK,” he said. He didn’t seem to mind the change in odds.

“A grand at seven-to-two, horse number six,” I said.

Luca pushed the computer keys, and the ticket popped out of the printer. I gave it to the man, who moved on to Larry Porter and appeared to make another bet there.

“A grand on six at fours,” shouted Luca. He was laying the bet with Norman Joyner, another bookmaker whose pitch was in the line behind us, and he was trying to do so at a better price than we had just offered to the man. But Norman was wise to his attempt.

“Hundred-to-thirty,” Norman called back. The price offered on horse number six was rapidly on its way down.

“OK,” said Luca. “I’ll take it.”

There was no money passed, no ticket issued. Norman Joyner was a regular on the Midlands tracks where we did most of our business, and while none of us may have actually been friends, one bookmaker’s word to another was still his bond.

“Internet still down?” I asked over my shoulder.

“Yup,” said Luca.

There was beginning to be a touch of panic in the ring. Technicians from the company that provided the Internet links were running around in circles, seemingly not knowing where to look for a solution. Frowns on the faces of those from the betting office chains reflected their concern that something was “afoot.”

“Fifty pounds on Brent Crude,” said a voice in front of me.

I looked down. “Hi, A.J.,” I said, noticing the fancy blue-and-yellow-striped vest he was wearing. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“Fifty on Brent Crude,” A.J. repeated.

“Fifty pounds to win number one,” I said over my shoulder, glancing at our prices board, “at fifteen-to-eight.” There was considerable surprise in the tone of my voice.

The ticket appeared and I passed it over.

“They’re off,” said the race commentator over the public-address system, announcing the start of the race.

“It’s back,” said Luca. “Now, is that a coincidence or what?”

“Phones too?” I asked.

“Yup.” He repeatedly pushed the buttons.