“Come home with me now, and we’ll sort this out tonight. We can call Gregory from there.”
The train pulled into Esher Station.
Esher was the station for Sandown Park racetrack. Had it really been only nine days since I had alighted here to go to speak to Jolyon Roberts?
And two days later Jolyon Roberts was dead.
“No,” I said, jumping up. “I’ll call you tomorrow morning in the office.”
I rushed through the glass dividing door and then stepped out onto the platform just before the train’s doors closed shut behind me.
I didn’t want Patrick telling Gregory where I was-not tonight, nor any other night.
18
By the time I made it back to Lambourn, all three of the ladies were in bed, and the house was in darkness save for a single light left on for me in the kitchen. It was only fair, and I had called from a public phone box at Paddington to tell them not to wait up.
I realized I was hungry.
I looked at the clock hanging above the range. It was ten to eleven, and I’d had nothing to eat since a hurried slice of toast at six o’clock in the morning. All day my stomach had been so wound up with worry that I hadn’t even thought about food. My mother would not have been pleased.
I raided Jan’s fridge and made myself a thick cheese sandwich.
I then sat eating it at the kitchen table, washing it down with a glass of orange juice.
It had been a good day, I decided. I still just had a job and I had finally spoken to Patrick about my concerns. Whether or not he believed me was another matter. But surely he was duty-bound to start an investigation and bring Jessica Winter into the loop, whatever he might think of my cloak-and-dagger tactics.
But would I then be any safer?
If Gregory, or whoever, was trying to kill me in order to prevent an investigation into the fraud being started, then I should be out of danger once it had because killing me then would only reinforce the need for the investigation to continue. Unless, of course, he felt he had nothing more to lose and killed me out of revenge for uncovering his scheme.
Either way, I was going to lie low for a few more days yet.
Tuesday dawned bright and sunny, which matched my temperament. Talking to Patrick had set my mind more at ease, and I really felt I was getting somewhere at last.
In spite of being the final one to bed, I was the first up and downstairs, making myself instant coffee, by the time Jan appeared.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come up on the Downs to watch the horses?” she said. “It’s a beautiful day, for a change.”
I thought about it.
“I can lend you a hat and sunglasses,” she added with a laugh. “As a disguise.”
“OK,” I said. “I’d love to. I’ll just take some tea up to Claudia.”
“There’s plenty of time,” Jan said. “First lot doesn’t pull out until seven-thirty, and even then I give them a good head start. Be ready by about seven forty-five. We have breakfast afterwards.”
I glanced up at the clock. It was only five to seven.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll be ready.”
I took the tea and coffee up to our room and sat on the bed.
“Morning, sleepyhead,” I said to Claudia, gently shaking her shoulder. “Time to wake up.”
She rolled over onto her back and yawned. “What time is it?”
“Seven,” I said. “And it’s a beautiful morning, so I’m going up on the Downs with Jan to watch the horses work.”
“Can I come too?” Claudia asked.
“I’d love you to,” I said. “But how are you feeling?”
“Better every day,” she replied. “I just wish…” She tailed off.
“I know, I know,” I said. “But everything will be just fine. You’ll see.”
I leaned down and gave her a hug and a kiss.
“I do so hope you’re right,” she said.
This cancerous Sword of Damocles seemed to cast a shadow over our every waking moment. We were living in limbo, and as far as I was concerned the sooner she started the chemotherapy, the better. These weeks of doing nothing just seemed to invite the cancer to grow within her.
To my mind, there was nothing more revitalizing to the soul than a bright, sunny spring morning on the gallops. My only sadness was that I was watching the horses work from inside Jan’s Land Rover rather than from the saddle.
God, how I still ached to ride, to sit again astride half a ton of Thoroughbred racehorse, and to gallop once more at full pelt with the wind in my face.
I watched with envy as Jan’s stable staff brought the horses up the hill towards us, side by side in pairs, some racing flat out and others at half or three-quarter pace. Just to hear the sound of their hooves thudding into the turf was enough to give me goose bumps, and to raise my pulse.
How cruel had been my neck injury to rob me of such delight.
But I supposed I shouldn’t be too downhearted. At least my broken neck hadn’t killed me, unlike someone else I could think of.
I didn’t wear Jan’s offered sunglasses, but I did don one of her ex-husband’s old trilbies, with the brim pulled firmly down, and with my coat collar turned up. And I was careful not to get too close to the horses. I could easily recognize some of Jan’s longserving stable staff and I was still wary of them seeing me, if only to prevent DCI Flight from turning up with his handcuffs.
Claudia had no such qualms and walked across the grass to be nearer the horses.
Standing there, I watched her in the sunshine as she shook her hair out of a woolly hat and let it blow free in the wind.
How strange things had been over the previous few weeks. I had thought I was losing her to another man and now I feared losing her to illness. There was no doubt that the cancer had brought us closer together. I loved her more now than ever. I would stay alive for her, I promised myself. And she must live for me.
She turned towards me and waved, her long hair blown in streaks across her face. In spite of it, I could tell she was laughing with joy, living for the moment.
I waved back.
In two or three weeks’ time, all that gorgeous hair would start to fall out, and she would absolutely hate it, but I suppose it was a relatively small price to pay for more life, and more love.
After lunch, I took the car out to call Chief Inspector Tomlinson. In the light of the episode at the Swindon pub, I decided that calling on the run was the best policy, hence I started to dial the chief inspector’s number as I was traveling at seventy miles an hour eastwards along the M4 motorway between Newbury and Reading. But the phone rang in my hand before I had a chance to complete the number.
“Nicholas Foxton,” I said, answering.
“Hello, Mr. Foxton, it’s Ben Roberts.”
“Yes, Ben,” I said. “How can I help?”
“My father has changed his mind. He’d now like to talk to you.”
“Great,” I said. “When and where?”
“He wonders if you would like come to Cheltenham Races tomorrow evening as his guest. It’s the Hunter Chase evening meeting, and he’s hired a private box. He says he would like to talk to you at the end of the evening’s
