was that as I had admitted we were lovers, the police were intending to call me as a witness for the prosecution. According to Amy I was lucky. I had been a short head away from joining him in the dock as an accessory or accomplice. She ended the call by telling me that in the morning the police were going to apply for a warrant to search the cottage.
'Is there anything you don't want them to see?' she asked.
'Of Edward's? Nothing I can think of. They're welcome to it all.'
I lay in bed and thought of Tom. When I was an amateur, and he first started giving me rides, I thought his interest was solely platonic, a kind of peace gesture in the light of Edward's antagonism towards him. Unlike Edward, he obviously enjoyed any success I had. He was fun to be with and I found his good humour and enthusiasm a welcome antidote to Edward's ever-increasing depression and short temper. Our affair just blossomed one day.
We had driven down to Devon and Exeter where I was riding a horse for Tom in a handicap chase. When we arrived at the course, there was thick fog and racing was abandoned. Tom suggested that we went for lunch in a nearby hotel just on the edge of Dartmoor. It was cold outside and there was an enormous log fire burning on one side of the restaurant. We both had a bit too much to drink, and during lunch, Tom reached across for my hand and told me how much he loved me. I hadn't really known what to say. I wasn't certain whether I loved him but at that moment knew that I wanted to go to bed with him.
Ten minutes later, after having booked a room, we were upstairs in a warm bedroom. As soon as the door was closed, Tom pulled me gently towards him. He then took my face in his hands and kissed me softly on the lips.
'I've been wanting to do this for months.'
I didn't say anything but pulled him back against me and we began kissing again. Our tongues darted in and out, exploring and licking. He then moved his hands gently down my neck and began to undo the top buttons of my blouse. Once he had undone them far enough, I almost stopped breathing with excitement as he moved his hands slowly inside. As he began caressing my breasts, he moved his head lower, his tongue exploring the inside of my ear, and then started to kiss my neck. From being almost breathless, I was now breathing heavily and my nipples began to ache as they hardened. I hadn't felt so good in ages, and moved my hand under his jumper and began to unbutton his trousers. As I slipped my hand under the elastic of his boxer shorts and started to run my fingers gently over his smooth skin, I could hear his breathing quicken. From then on, we had all but torn the clothes off each other and had made wonderful love on the carpet.
I hadn't felt any guilt at all, and after that we had made love as often as possible, and wherever possible, until I realised that it had to stop because I had been putting my own interests above my son's. If Edward found out, he'd make sure we both suffered: I couldn't live with myself if Freddie was hurt because of my infidelity.
I had at least kept Tom's letters and now and then I used to take them from their hiding place and recall our times together. The letters! I shot up in bed. They were hidden in the cottage and their contents would be extremely damaging to Tom if the police were to find them. I had no option but to go and recover them. I dressed and slipped out of the back door of the house.
It was well past two in the morning when I arrived at the cottage. I drove past to make sure the police weren't watching it and parked the car a hundred yards down the road. I was terrified as I pushed open the front door and tiptoed across to the stairs. I didn't want to turn on the lights and decided to fetch a torch from the kitchen. I then went up to the spare room. I put my hand up the chimney of the fireplace in the corner, which we never lit. There was a small alcove inset into the wall; I'd discovered it by chance a couple of years previously. I felt about for the small package of letters. It was a month since I had last taken it out. I fumbled around on the edge of the ledge but could not feel anything. Just as I began to panic, my fingers brushed against the package. I heaved a sigh of relief. I must have pushed it further back than usual on the last occasion. I shone the torch on the packet and opened it. One last nostalgic look through before I burned them. But instead of the bundle of envelopes, I found only a few newspaper cuttings and a photograph, taken on holiday some years before, of me – naked from the waist up. I was smiling at the camera but it was Edward who had had the last laugh.
Chapter 6
The next day the papers were full of the news. THE CHALK PIT MURDER screamed one headline; BODY IN THE BOOT another; and even
To start with, I needed to know the name of the bookmaker who had laid Cartwheel so disastrously at Cheltenham, and also how the
That morning, Tom was remanded in custody at Newbury Magistrates' Court and, according to Amy, the committal hearing was due to take place the following week. Pressure from on high meant that the trial would probably be heard within a couple of months. I felt angry and impotent but realised that neither emotion would be of much use to Tom in his present predicament.
Accepting Amy's advice, I spent the week at Ralph Elgar's refusing to take any calls. That didn't stop a journalist from one of the tabloids calling at the house and slipping through the letter box a grubby piece of paper on which was scribbled an offer for the exclusive rights to my life story. He had even spelt my surname wrongly. When I didn't reply, it was taken as a signal that the money wasn't enough and – an increased offer soon followed. Fifty thousand pounds, provided I gave full intimate details of my sex life and posed topless! Both letters ended up in the fire.
It was just as well I had decided not to ride for a week, as not one trainer had called wanting my services. Ralph told me bluntly that the gossip on the racetrack was that I'd been having an affair with Tom, and that when Edward refused to give me a divorce, I'd encouraged Tom to murder him. So the wrong person was on trial. Even Ralph was shaken when I admitted that Tom had been my lover. Suddenly it seemed everyone had at least one fond memory of Edward Pryde, whereas I was being written off as too ambitious for my own good. It was at times like these that wives rein in their husbands and no one could afford to be heard, at least in public, to adopt a forgiving attitude towards adultery. After all, that sort of thing could so easily become an epidemic.
I left it to Amy to keep me in touch with the latest developments in the police enquiries. I nurtured the forlorn hope that something at least might come of their questioning of the names in the diary, enough to establish that I wasn't lying and that other people had a motive for wanting Edward dead.
Unfortunately it only took a couple of days before I was relieved of that illusion. According to Amy's information, the police tried to interview Michael Corcoran in Tom's yard but to no avail. It appeared that he had failed to return to the lads' hostel after a day off and had not been heard of since. No one seemed unduly perturbed, as it was fairly common for stable lads to up and leave without any notice and my initial reaction was that Edward's death had given Corcoran the chance to start his life afresh. I can't say I blamed him really.
They had also approached Sir Arthur Drewe and Lord Pryde. According to Amy's source at Scotland Yard, they had both blown a fuse on being questioned, and Pryde had threatened to have Wilkinson kicked out of the force if he persisted in such an offensive and outrageous line of enquiry. Hardly surprising when you think about it: the death of a blackmailer must be a great relief to his victims.
Finally, they had carried out a cursory check on the records of all the major bookmakers, which had revealed only a handful of bets in the name of Edward Pryde. For some reason they had chosen to overlook the fact that, if I was to be believed, he was avoiding off-course betting tax and in such circumstances you would hardly expect the
