‘Because I think that the time for using the Red Telephone Hotline has passed. This situation needs to be concluded face to face.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just watch. But you stay here as backup.’

And with that, I walked round from behind the building, opened the door and went in.

Asquith and Valance instantly stopped shouting at each other, and both stared at me.

This section of the building was used as a storeroom of stock for the gift shop and for some outdoor tables and chairs. The two men were at the far end close to the back wall, but I stopped just inside the door, some six or eight feet away from them.

‘Good evening, gentlemen,’ I said into the sudden silence. ‘I think it is high time the three of us had a little talk.’

‘What about?’ Valance snapped angrily. ‘I ’ave absolutely no intention of ever speaking or listening to you. Go away.’

I could tell that Asquith was irritated. I wasn’t sure if it was with my arrival or because of Valance’s point-blank refusal to negotiate.

‘Let us hear what the man has to say,’ Asquith said slowly.

Valance clearly didn’t like it, but he kept quiet. The pecking order between the two had become apparent, with, as I had suggested to Chico, Asquith as top man and Valance as the accomplice.

‘It is time for your fun and games to cease.’

‘Fun and games?’ Asquith asked in a sarcastic tone.

‘You know exactly what I mean. Messing around with the results of horse races and defrauding the public.’

‘And how are we supposed to be doing that?’ Asquith asked, all innocently.

‘You know perfectly well. By blackmail and extortion of jockeys and trainers, and then breaking their bones when they don’t do as you tell them.’

‘I think you must be mistaken,’ Asquith said. ‘I have no knowledge of any of that. How about you, Anton? Do you know what he’s on about?’

‘No idea at all,’ Valance replied, but he didn’t sound as convincing as his boss.

This summit meeting was not going quite as I had planned. But I wasn’t finished yet.

‘Funny that,’ I said, not laughing. ‘I have been outside listening to you two arguing for the past half an hour, so I know you’re lying.’ I held up my phone towards Asquith. ‘I have it all recorded, all that stuff about how angry you are that Anton here led me to your house in East Witton, and what a mistake he’s made in breaking Marcus Capes’s collarbone.’

He wasn’t to know that I hadn’t actually been able to record anything intelligible from outside, but I was recording what was said now.