Silks (18 page)

‘You,’ I said, turning and looking into her blue eyes.

She blushed, the crimson colouring spreading up from her neck and over her face.

‘Did you know,’ I said, ‘that if you are naked you blush all over your body.’

‘Bastard,’ she said. She turned away and laughed.

‘What are you doing tonight?’ I asked her.

‘I’m not coming to another of your awful dining-in nights, that’s for sure.’

We laughed together.

‘I have to admit that it was a bit of a disaster,’ I agreed. ‘But I’m sure the next one will be better.’

‘Forget it,’ she said. ‘I had always thought lawyers were boring, and now I know they are.’

‘You just haven’t met the right lawyers,’ I said.

She paused and smiled at me. ‘Oh yes I have,’ she said.

Wow, I thought. The bus had made a round trip. Now do I get on?

Sadly, I didn’t spend the evening with Eleanor, nor the night.

In fact, I spent very little time with her at all. Her bleep went off as we were still on the balcony and she rushed off to find a quiet spot to make a call, returning only briefly to tell me that she had to go back to Lambourn. There was an emergency at the hospital, something about a prize stallion and a twisted gut.

‘Will you be here tomorrow?’ I shouted after her rather forlornly as she rushed away.

‘Hope so,’ she called back. ‘Call me on the mobile in the morning.’

Suddenly she was gone. I was surprised at how disappointed I felt. Was I really ready after seven and a half years? Don’t rush things, I told myself.

I spent much of the rest of the afternoon drifting between the box upstairs and the parade ring. I had intended to use the time to familiarize myself with the surroundings, the sounds and the smells of the Festival in mental preparation for the race the following day. Instead, I spent most of the time thinking about Eleanor, and about Angela. They were quite different but in many ways they were the same. Eleanor was blonde
with blue eyes whereas Angela had been dark with brown, but they both had a similar sense of humour, and a love for life and fun.

‘Which one do you fancy?’

I looked at the man standing next to me who had spoken. I didn’t know him.

‘I beg your pardon?’ I said.

‘Which one do you fancy?’ he said again, nodding at the horses. We were leaning up against the rail of the parade ring where the horses for the next race were walking round and round.

‘Oh,’ I said in sudden understanding. ‘Sorry, I don’t even know what’s running.’

He lost interest in me instantly, and went on studying the horseflesh on parade in front of him prior, no doubt, to making an investment with the bookies.

I went back upstairs to the box, telling myself to snap out of this daydreaming and pay attention to the racing.

‘How’s he doing?’ Francesca Dacey whispered in my ear as she stood behind me to watch the race on the balcony.

‘Fed up,’ I said, turning slightly. ‘But otherwise OK.’

‘Say hi to him for me if you get the chance,’ she whispered again before moving away to her left and talking to another of the guests.

The World Hurdle, the big race of the day, was a three-mile hurdle race for horses with stamina for the long distance, especially the uphill finish in the March mud. And stamina they had. Four horses crossed the last obstacle in line abreast and each was driven hard for the line, the crowd cheering them on with
fervour, the result to be determined only by the race judge and his photographs.

There was a buzz in the crowd after the horses swept past the winning post, such had been the exhilarating effect of the closest of finishes; the adrenalin still rushed round our veins, our breathing was still just a tad faster than normal. Such moments were what brought the crowds back time and again to Cheltenham. The best horses, ridden by the best jockeys, stretching to reach the line first. Winning was everything.

‘First, number seven,’ said the announcer to a huge cheer from some and a groan of misery from others. Reno Clemens on horse number seven stood bolt upright in his stirrups and punched the air, saluting the crowd, who roared back their appreciation. How I longed for it to be me doing just that the following afternoon.

Most of the guests rushed off to watch the winner come back to the unsaddling enclosure, where he would receive a fresh wave of cheering and applause. I, however, decided to stay put. I had done my share of aimlessly wandering the racecourse wishing that Eleanor had been with me to share it.

The lunch table had been pushed up against one wall and was now heaving under large trays of sandwiches and cakes ready for tea. I looked longingly at a cream-filled chocolate éclair and opted instead for the smallest cucumber sandwich I could find.

‘I hear you are a lawyer,’ said a female voice on my right.

I turned to find Deborah Radcliffe standing next to me. Why did I think she didn’t like lawyers? Maybe it was the way she looked down her nose at me. Lots of people didn’t like lawyers, that is until they got themselves into trouble. Then their lawyer became their best friend, maybe their only friend.

‘That’s right,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘I’m a barrister.’

‘Do you wear a wig?’ she asked.

‘Only in court,’ I said. ‘Lots of my work is not done in courts. I represent people at professional disciplinary hearings and the like.’

‘Oh,’ she said, as if bored. ‘And do you represent jockeys at enquiries?’

‘I have done,’ I said. ‘But not very often.’

She seemed to lose interest completely.

‘How is Peninsula?’ I asked her.

‘Fine, as far as I know,’ she said. ‘He’s now at Rushmore Stud in Ireland. In his first season.’

Retired at age three to spend the rest of his life treated like royalty, passing his days eating, sleeping and covering mares. Horse paradise.

‘But he wasn’t born himself at Rushmore?’ I said.

‘Oh no,’ she replied. ‘We bred him at home.’

‘Where’s home?’ I asked her.

‘Near Uffington,’ she said. ‘In south Oxfordshire.’

‘Where the White Horse is,’ I said. The Uffington White Horse was a highly stylized Bronze Age horse figure carved into the chalk of the Downs a few miles north of Lambourn.

‘Exactly,’ she replied, suddenly showing more interest in me. ‘I can almost see White Horse Hill from my kitchen window.’

‘I’ve never actually seen the horse,’ I said. ‘Except in photos.’

‘It’s not that easy to see unless you get up in the air,’ she said. ‘We are forever getting tourists who ask us where it is. They seem disappointed when you show them the hill. The horse is almost on the top of it and you can’t even see it properly if you walk up to it. Goodness knows how they made it in the first place.’

‘Perhaps it was the fact that they couldn’t see it properly that made it such a weird-looking horse,’ I said.

‘Good point,’ she said.

‘Do you remember Millie Barlow being there when Peninsula was born?’ I asked.

‘Who?’ she said.

‘Millie Barlow,’ I repeated. ‘She was the vet who was present.’

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘We have foals being born all the time. We have a sort of maternity hospital for horses. They come to us to deliver, especially if they are to then be covered by a local stallion.’

‘But I would have thought you would remember Peninsula,’ I said.

‘Why?’ she said. ‘We didn’t know at the time that he would turn out so good. He had good breeding but it was not exceptional. We were just lucky.’

It made sense. After all, the world knows that William Shakespeare died on 23 April 1616, but it is not known for sure exactly where and on which day he was born, although it is often assumed, for neatness, to be the same day of the year as his death. All that is actually recorded is that he was baptized on 26 April 1564.

‘Why do you ask about this vet?’ Deborah asked me.

‘It’s just that she killed herself last June and I wondered if you remembered her at Peninsula’s birth,’ I said.

‘Not that vet who killed herself during the party?’ she said.

I nodded.

‘I remember her doing that, of course,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t know it was the same vet who had been there to foal Peninsula.’

‘So you didn’t see a photo of her with Peninsula after the birth?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said emphatically. ‘Why? Should I have done?’

‘It seems to have gone missing,’ I said.

‘Sorry,’ she said, losing interest again. ‘I can’t help you.’

A large group of the other guests suddenly returned to the box for their tea and I decided to go back outside onto the balcony rather than be continuously beguiled by the chocolate cream éclairs.

I woke early the following morning with butterflies rather than éclairs hovering in my stomach. I was used to that feeling. It happened almost every time I had a ride in a race but this time it was something special. The Foxhunter Chase at Cheltenham is known as the amateur riders’ Gold Cup. It is run over the same course and distance as its big brother, although, while the Gold Cup had the highest prize money at the Festival, the Foxhunter Chase had the lowest. But it wasn’t the prize money that mattered. For me as a jockey, winning the Foxhunters would be like winning the Gold Cup, the Grand National and the Derby all rolled into one.

I spent some of the morning on the phone, chasing some information for the Mitchell case that we had requested several weeks before. As a matter of course we had received copies of Scot Barlow’s bank statements with the rest of the prosecution disclosure, but I had also asked for those of his sister, Millie. The bank had kicked up a bit of a fuss about confidentiality and I had needed to go back to court and argue in front of a judge as to why they were needed.

It had now been two weeks since the hearing. I had referred to our Defence Case Statement in so far as we believed that Mitchell had been framed and that therefore, in our opinion,
some unknown third party had been involved in the crime. Thus Barlow’s bank statements had been needed to determine if any unusual or relevant transactions had occurred between him and an unknown third party. I further pointed out that Millie Barlow, sister of the victim and lover of the accused, had, according to her friends, seemed quite well off prior to her suicide the previous June. More well off than might have been expected from her salary alone. I had argued that she might have been receiving an allowance from her brother, a successful sportsman who, at the time, had been earning near the top of his profession. Millie Barlow’s bank statements were needed therefore to cross reference with his, so as to be able to eliminate transactions on his statements made by him to her during her lifetime.

I was not altogether sure if the judge had believed me, or even if he had understood my argument, but he could see no reason why the bank statements of a suicide, whether or not she was the sister of a murder victim, should still have been covered by the bank’s confidentiality policy, and he made an order for the bank to produce them. He clearly rated suicides lower than criminals.

However, the bank was being very slow in complying with the order. Arthur had finally found me a telephone number that didn’t connect to an overseas call centre, so I rang Bruce Lygon and asked him to telephone the bank and tell them that, unless the statements were on my desk by Monday morning, we would have no option but to go back to the judge and argue that the bank was in contempt. I also told Bruce to ensure that he dropped into his conversation that the punishment for criminal contempt of court was a two-year term of imprisonment and/or an unlimited fine.

Bruce called me back within five minutes. He was laughing. He had clearly laid on thick the bit about a prison sentence and the bank’s commercial director had promised him absolutely that the statements would be couriered to our chambers this very day. I congratulated him.

Next I called Eleanor.

‘Hello,’ she said, sounding sleepy.

‘Late night?’ I asked.

‘More like early morning,’ she said. ‘I was in theatre until nearly four.’

My heart sank. I had so hoped she would be there to see me ride.

‘Are you coming today?’ I asked without any real hope.

‘Probably not,’ she said. ‘Believe it or not, but I’m still technically on call if there’s another emergency. I must get some sleep sometime.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I suppose so.’

‘I’ll try and be there if I can,’ she said. ‘What time is the race?’

‘Four,’ I said.

‘If I don’t make it, I’ll make sure I watch it on the telly,’ she said. ‘Call me after. OK?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘OK.’

‘From the winner’s circle,’ she said.

‘I hope so,’ I replied with more of a smile in my voice.

‘I must dash,’ she said. ‘Good luck.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, but the line was already dead.

I surprised myself by the degree of my disappointment. Angela had always hated watching me ride. She used to say that she couldn’t eat beforehand and that her stomach was twisted into knots by the fear that I would be injured. I had almost stopped riding altogether towards the end of her life as I could
see how much she hated it. After she died I had slowly returned to the saddle, using early mornings on Paul Newington’s gallops as a sort of therapy for the agony and the loneliness. It had been a natural progression to return to riding in races as well.

Now I wished so much that Eleanor would be there this afternoon. But perhaps she would hate it too, and maybe, I thought with hope, for the same reason.

I arrived at the racecourse early to miss the traffic. I had stayed the night in a small hotel on Cleeve Hill overlooking the track. It was where I should have been a year ago and the couple who owned and ran the place had been very happy to have pocketed my non-refundable 100 per cent deposit and then re-let the room when I couldn’t make it. To their credit, they had eagerly accepted my booking for this year, perhaps in the hope of again making a sizable profit. There was not a hotel room within fifty miles of Cheltenham that wasn’t filled and pre-purchased at least twelve months in advance for these four days.

I parked my rented car in the jockeys’ car park, made my way into the racecourse enclosures, through to the weighing room and then on into the inner sanctum, the jockeys’ changing room. I slung my bag of kit on a peg and walked out onto the weighing-room terrace, feeling completely at home amongst the crowd of trainers, journalists and other jockeys. This was where I loved to be, not in some musty courtroom where the pace of the action was so slow as to be painful.