Before he left we had continued our little chat and it had lasted somewhat longer than the ten minutes I had promised, and we had moved into his kitchen.

After the arrival of that damning email in July, Jimmy had heard nothing for a month. Letting him sweat, I thought. Then Valance had approached him in the car park at Beverley races and given him a printout copy of the girl’s passport.

‘I was absolutely shitting myself. I thought someone must have sent the passport information to him and he was about to blow everything wide open with a police investigation. But he just told me quietly that my secret was safe with him, provided, of course, that I did as I was told. Only later did I finally work out that it had to have been him who had set the whole thing up in the first place.’

‘And how many times has he told you to stop a horse?’ I asked.

‘God knows. Too many. Maybe twenty or thirty.’

I took that to mean at least thirty.

‘So not just for Simon Paulson?’

‘No. For several trainers.’

‘Was Gary Bremner one of those?’

‘I don’t think so. Right bloody shame about him.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed. But a right bloody shame was only the half of it.

‘How do you find out which horses you have to stop?’

‘He calls me on a different phone to the usual and just says the name of a horse. That’s all, but I know what it means.’

Exactly the same as for Simon Paulson.

‘And do all the trainers know that their horses aren’t going to win?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t exactly ask them, now do I? But Paulson obviously knew. That was made clear to me last week at Catterick with Night Shadow. He wanted out of that one due to your snooping.’

‘But the trainers must realise you don’t win when you could have?’

‘I’m pretty good at stopping them. I’ve had no trouble with the stewards.’

He wasn’t that good, I thought, because I’d spotted it. But there again, I’d known where to look.

‘But it must be very damaging to your career.’

‘Too bloody right it is. Up until this year I was thinking I might go places, possibly down south to a lucrative stable, maybe even to Lambourn, but word is getting around this season that Jimmy Shilstone has lost his touch. I’ve heard it on the jockey grapevine. Keeps mistiming his runs, they say, and he fails to win when he should. But what can I do?’

‘Well,’ I’d said. ‘The first thing you do is try your best on Oscar Mike this afternoon. Win if you can.’

He had stared at me. ‘Are you fucking crazy? Valance will shop me to the cops in a heartbeat.’