We watched the video all the way through, all thirty-one minutes, and it was just as Marcus had described it, only better. Sure, the voices had been somewhat muffled by the teapot and, even with the volume turned up to maximum, I still couldn’t catch every word, but to make up for that there were crisp, sharply focused images of Valance in full colour, first telling Marcus off for having won when he’d been told not to, and then, as a true bonus, describing how Valance would in future give the details of other horses he wanted stopped from winning.

And thanks to Marcus’s shammed lack of understanding, we even got to see and hear that part from Valance three times.

I clapped my hands with satisfaction. We had him.

But how could we use it without also incriminating the young conditional jockey?

‘I’ll have one too, if you like,’ said Chico. ‘Just to be on the safe side.’

‘Okay. Good idea.’ And I used AirDrop to transfer another copy of the video to Chico’s phone.

Once we had checked that both the new copies were as good as the original, I called Marcus and told him he was safe to delete his.

‘No way,’ he said. ‘I’m going to keep this little baby. I reckon I could use it to my advantage.’

‘Don’t show it to Valance,’ I warned him urgently. ‘Or even tell him about it.’

‘Why not?’ he replied. ‘I’ve been thinking about it ever since you left. If he knows I’ve got this, I can simply tell him that if he posts the video he has of me onto social media, or sends a copy to the BHA, this one will follow on straight away afterwards, and with bloody bells on. It might keep him off my back.’

‘Now, Marcus, listen,’ I said with as much gravitas as I could muster. ‘It’s a very dangerous game you’re playing. Remember what happened to Gary Bremner?’

‘He killed himself.’

‘But I don’t believe it was suicide. Don’t you remember what you said to me in our first phone call about Gary Bremner maybe also thinking he was quite able to look after himself?’

‘I didn’t mean nothing by it.’

‘Well, I’m sure Valance actually murdered Bremner because he was threatening to go to the BHA. So if I were you, Marcus, I’d be very careful indeed before I made threats of any sort to Mr Anton Valance.’

‘Murder? Fucking hell.’ I could hear his voice quivering at the other end.

‘Like I told you, just carry on as normal,’ I said. ‘And call me immediately if he tells you to stop a horse, but don’t, under any circumstances, call him. Do you understand?’

‘Bloody right I do.’

I hung up and sat there thinking about what must be going on in his head.