I used the period of my confinement to regain my strength and determination. Tom was allowed to receive letters in prison and I wrote to him regularly, urging him not to give up hope. Unfortunately, I didn't have much concrete news to offer him.
Despite all her efforts, Amy had made no headway in finding out what had happened to Corcoran. The staff at the hotel were unable to be specific about when he had last been seen and the police were unenthusiastic to the point of lethargy in their attempts to trace his movements. As far as they were concerned, the file on the Edward Pryde case was firmly closed. Corcoran, it seemed, had disappeared back into the shadows from which he had so briefly emerged, taking with him Tom's best chance of an acquittal.
It was Amy's idea that we should go and confront Brennan. Attack, she reasoned, was the best form of defence, and as my solicitor she could always volunteer to show him Corcoran's statement and ask him to comment on it. The worst he could do was kick us out of his house. After my experiences on the race track, I didn't share her confidence in his good nature, and finally reconciled myself to getting hold of some sort of firearm, however illegal. It proved easier than I expected. A quiet word with James Thackeray and one of his numerous 'contacts' produced a small revolver – no questions asked. James had been sufficiently shaken by my story of the blood-stained knife to overcome any qualms about aiding and abetting my attempt to protect myself. We didn't tell Amy.
I managed to find out that the Irishman had recently moved to a village just outside Newbury and was living there with his girlfriend. There was very little National Hunt racing on and he was spending his mornings schooling horses for one or two local trainers. We decided to call in unannounced early one Tuesday evening.
To say Brennan was displeased to see us was an understatement. He tried to slam the door in our faces, but I managed to wedge my walking stick inside and with great reluctance he agreed to let us come in. It is a curious sensation, facing a man whom you suspect to be a murderer. But the gun in my handbag was very reassuring. Brennan, belligerent as ever, went straight on the attack himself:
'What the hell do you mean, coming to my home uninvited?' His girlfriend now appeared from the kitchen and she was treated to a mouthful of abuse as the jockey waved her away.
'We won't be long,' said Amy. 'We want you to read this, please.' She thrust Corcoran's statement into his hands. The Irishman took it reluctantly and turned his back on us as he read it. It seemed to take him forever. When he had finished he walked into the kitchen and returned, smirking and clutching a newspaper cutting.
'So your Mr Corcoran says he saw me that evening at the pub and I was following your late husband?'
'That's right. What were you doing that night then, Brennan?'
He laughed. 'Have a look at this, my darlings.' He shoved the cutting at me. It was a photograph of Brennan and a number of other jockeys in dinner jackets, captioned 'Top jockeys celebrate at Racing Club dinner in aid of charity'.
'Do you see the date?'
It was the night that Edward had disappeared.
'Nothing personal, but if you ask me, this fellow Corcoran has taken you for a bigger ride than any horse has ever done, and that's saying something.'
As we returned to the car, Amy put her arm around me. 'I think the time has come when we really have to put this into the hands of professionals. Neither of us has the time to try and track down Corcoran and you really have to pick up the pieces of your life; you owe that much to Freddie. What do you think?'
Reluctantly, I agreed. Tom's lawyers were prepared to make unlimited funds available to track down Corcoran. But until he had been found there was no likelihood of any appeal succeeding. Even then, that didn't mean my safety would be assured. Hadn't I been declared dead, just like Edward?
Chapter 18
I had planned to return to Lambourn some time in the middle of July. The doctors had given me the all clear to start riding again and I had been getting myself fit by running but I wanted to have at least a couple of weeks' riding work on some flat horses so that I would be a hundred per cent fit for the start of the season at the beginning of August.
The news on the Corcoran front was bitterly disappointing. Private detectives had been unable to locate any trace of him whatsoever either in England or in Ireland. He had literally disappeared into thin air. In my last letter to Tom I had not been able to think of any good news to give him. All of the horses had now left his yard and, except for the head lad, all of the staff had gone as well. Tom had decided not to let Jamie Brown go until he was certain that there was no chance of his release, but as time went on, the chances of that happening seemed to become ever more remote. The only consolation as far as I was concerned was that during the past six weeks not one attempt had been made on my life. Something must have happened; something that I didn't know about to make whoever wanted me dead change his or her mind. I still kept the gun, though, just in case.
After the trial my name had faded from the newspapers, but since I still had to earn my living as a jockey, James had kindly suggested that the
'It would just let people know you're still alive,' he had said.
We were due to move back in on the Monday, and on the Saturday before, the
That night I had Amy and James to dinner to thank them for all their efforts on Tom's behalf and to discuss what steps we could now take to help him. His appeal had been fixed for the end of November and as a grim reminder of his predicament, Amy had brought with her the bronze statuette that had played such a fateful part in his conviction. The police had handed it back to her as my solicitor and it even still had its exhibit number attached to the jockey's arm. I was reluctant to have it on view in the house and put it in the cupboard under the staircase.
Not surprisingly, the talk about Tom cast a shadow on the evening, although Amy was determined to cheer me up. She was going to spend the night with her parents and devote Sunday to preparing for a trial at Winchester Crown Court on the Monday. Her client was accused of bigamy and was alleged to have three separate families in different parts of the country. James asked whether the maximum penalty for this offence was three mothers-in- law and Amy made us roar with laughter as she read out selected extracts from her client's statement to the police, one of a number of documents in the file she had brought down from London with her and which she refused to leave outside in the car. According to Amy, her client wanted to plead guilty and on no account was his counsel to ask the court for leniency. The prospect of a long jail sentence was, he considered, infinitely preferable to facing his three spouses.
It was well after midnight when they left and I locked the front door after them. For a woman and child alone, the security in the house was hopelessly inadequate and I resolved to change the lock and have a couple of bolts fitted. As I tidied up, I came across the file that Amy had brought with her: she had obviously forgotten it after finishing off James's bottle of champagne. Feeling inquisitive I sat down and perused the contents for the next half hour. I could well understand, after reading his wives' statements, why the client was so anxious to go inside.
I went up to bed feeling a good deal more relaxed than I had for some time and I popped into Freddie's room to see if he was fast asleep and give him one last good night kiss. As I stroked his hair and looked down on his angelic little face, I realised that for his sake alone there was much to live for. I went next door, undressed and slipped into bed. It was an odd and unnerving experience being back there for the first time since Edward's murder and I could hardly believe that it was the first night I had ever slept without him in this house. I hugged the pillow and pretended it was Tom. Then, less romantically, I checked that my gun was safely tucked underneath.
