all due respect, sir,’ answered Finbar back, his head rising, ‘this horse has speed and stamina. It just wasn’t his day today.’
‘So everyone keeps telling me,’ he laughed out loud, taking a step towards Barry Broadbent threateningly. Slightly startled, Barry lurched back and lost his footing on the turf. He stumbled backwards, and Martin, Fierce Temper’s groom, ran forward, just catching Barry before he fell headlong.
The old man drew a hand across his forehead and stared grimly at Oswald. ‘You may pay our yard training fees, but that doesn’t give you the right to behave like a spoilt child,’ he said, lifting his cane in the air to point at Oswald.
Undeterred, Oswald swiped a hand at the wavering cane, knocking it from Barry’s hand.
Suddenly Fierce Temper gave a loud snort and reared up on his hind legs, his hooves coming down just inches from Oswald’s head.
‘Damn you, man! Can’t you control him?’ he yelled at Finbar, who was struggling to stay in the saddle as the horse kicked out backwards, whinnying and rolling his eyes.
At that moment, Jennifer and Philip Watchorn arrived, along with Venetia trotting along beside them in her high heels. ‘Come on now, stop all this,’ said Philip Watchorn, seeming to address the horse as much as the two men.
Venetia went over to Fierce Temper and, with soft words and gentle hands, began to calm him down again. ‘You did wonderfully boy, didn’t you?’ she cooed, lovingly stroking his nose. ‘There are greater things to come for you, I’m sure.’ She looked up at Finbar and smiled at the jockey, who was just grateful to be in one piece.
‘Well, we’re not in the winner’s enclosure just yet,’ smiled Philip Watchorn, timidly putting out a hand to pat the gleaming rump of his horse, ‘but we soon will be, won’t we lad, eh Barry?’ He helped the old man to his feet and handed him his cane.
‘Now come on, everyone, let’s get this young man unsaddled. Then let’s all go for a glass of champagne. I think we deserve it.’
‘I still bloody can’t believe it,’ said Oswald once again as he settled back into the passenger seat of Philip Watchorn’s helicopter. They were preparing to go back to the heliport in Battersea. ‘I knew he’d get a race ban, that bloody jockey,’ he grumbled to himself.
‘Will you just stop it?’ laughed Jennifer Watchorn, patting him on the knee good-naturedly as she buckled his safety belt. ‘I think Fierce Temper is doing incredibly well, considering the majority of the horses belong to rich Arabs and come from the super-yards.’
‘That’s right,’ agreed Philip, ‘you know we weren’t getting into this particularly seriously. We’ve got one horse, not three hundred. We were supposed to be doing this for friendship, for the hobby, a bit of hospitality. Remember?’
The helicopter blades chopped into life and whirled into the air, leaving Newmarket behind; a tiny black dot in the sky as it made its journey south towards London. Oswald’s mood began to calm as they passed over the green belts of Cambridgeshire and Bedfordshire towards the metropolis. Oswald was staying that night at his Cadogan Garden house rather than making the two-hour journey down to Huntsford. Epsom really is so much more convenient, he thought, shaking his head as he put his key into the royal-blue front door.
He walked in and flung his jacket over a Chippendale chair and stalked into the kitchen, breathing a sigh of relief that Gretchen, the forgetful Ukrainian housekeeper, had remembered he was coming and had filled the fridge accordingly. He helped himself to some big chunks of granary bread and a thick slab of venison pâté and went to sit down in the drawing room with a bottle of claret.
The house, which was only used four or five evenings a month, felt cold and unlived-in. A little bit chilly, he thought, stoking up the fire. He put on his sheepskin-lined slippers and reclined back on the mustard damask sofa to read that day’s Racing Post. That horse had better start earning some money, he thought, shaking his head slowly. Watchorn might not be in this seriously, Oswald mused, but he certainly was. OK, so he wasn’t the Aga bloody Khan with six hundred horses, but if the one he did have was a winner, he would be up there with the best.
Even though the yard fees and training costs were split three ways, Oswald was still feeling the enormous financial burden of ‘just’ one world-class racehorse. It was about time they started winning some decent purses. He knew that Barry Broadbent did not like to field a runner without it having some hope of success. But sod that, he thought angrily, he would tell him to put Fierce Temper in for as many races as possible this season. After all, if you don’t shoot, you don’t score. So the bloody creature might be knackered by the end of the season, but a good run could make BWC Holdings upwards of half a million pounds.
Oswald was just beginning to doze off, having downed the bottle of wine and polished off at least half a pound of the pâté. He was disturbed from his light slumber by the irritating ring of his mobile phone. He picked it up and heard a soft, almost muffled voice. Was that an Irish accent, he wondered, as the caller said his name.
‘Yes? Yes?’ replied Oswald, ‘who is this?’
There was a long silence, disturbed only by some buzzing interference on the line.
‘Is there anyone there?’ snapped Oswald, irritated now, rubbing one eye groggily.
‘Oswald Balcon had better learn some manners,’ said the voice softly but menacingly, ‘Or else –’
‘Or else what?’ asked Oswald shortly, his voice raised to get over the crackling line.
‘Or else,’ said the voice quietly, ‘we’re going to kill you.’
Camilla cursed herself. What had possessed her to take the lonely B-roads on the route back to London rather than the motorway? It had seemed like a good idea to drive through the pretty Lincolnshire countryside rather than down the busy M1, but now she was exhausted; all she wanted was to get back to the flat, creep under her goose-down duvet and drift asleep. That prospect seemed a long way off as she pulled her slate-grey Audi to a stop at a lonely crossroads, craning her neck to read a signpost. Dammit, even Bedford was still forty-eight miles away.
It was getting dark, a sooty dusk had seeped over the fields that stretched flat for miles on either side of her. She let the car window purr down, giving her face a blast of cold air. What a day, she sighed, glancing at the time on the dashboard clock: 8.35 p.m. It seemed a lot later. Camilla was used to long stressful days debating in court, but this was something harder, more personal. The Selection Weekend at the Tory Party’s residential centre in Melton Mowbray had been gruelling – more like a mental assault course than an away-day. Hours of interviews and psychometric testing to gauge her suitability as an approved candidate. Had she appeared ambitious or ruthless? Confident or cocksure? She had answered honestly on her views on Europe, foreign policy, education – but were they close enough to the party line? It was just the first rung on the political ladder and she really hadn’t thought it’d be so rigorous. There were so many duff MPs in Parliament; how they had managed to jump through all those hoops?
Feeling tired and thirsty, she reached over for a bottle of mineral water on the passenger seat, wedging it between her knees to unscrew the top. She took a long gulp, her heavy eyelids closing for just a moment as it soothed her gravelly throat. Opening her eyes again, she saw a large van approaching fast behind her, its headlights blaring in the dark. As she quickly tried to screw the lid of the bottle back on, it slipped from her grip and tipped over on her lap. Just then, the van moved to overtake her.
Its driver had misjudged the width of the lane and it came within inches of her Audi. Instinctively, she turned the steering wheel away, trying to pull her car as close to the side of the road as she could.
As the car’s wheels bounced off the verge, the water bottle rolled on her thighs, spilling cold ribbons of liquid over her