Bloodline

11

‘Now, Mr Shillingford, are you absolutely sure that Mr Woodley was alive when you first saw him in the car park?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Quite sure. He was leaning against the white van and he moved his head round to look at me when I spoke to him.’

I was sitting in a cubicle of a mobile police incident room that had been parked in a corner of the Kempton Park racecourse car park, well away from where a square white tent now stood over the spot where Toby Woodley had died.

And I was cold.

‘Can’t you get me something warmer?’ I asked the detective who was asking the questions. ‘I’m freezing in this.’ I fingered the white nylon coverall I had been given to put on when my clothes had been removed and bagged for forensic purposes. I had also been made to stand ignominiously shivering in my underpants as a masked forensic officer, also dressed from head to foot in white nylon, had examined my skin, hair, fingernails and mouth for any clues.

‘There’s a tracksuit on its way from the station,’ said the detective, ‘and a pair of trainers.’ He gesticulated at another policeman who had been sitting quietly listening to our conversation. The second policeman stood up and went out of the cubicle, closing the door behind him.

If the rest of me was cold, my feet were like ice blocks, resting as they were on the freezing metal floor of the glorified caravan.

‘Did Mr Woodley say anything to you?’ the detective asked once again.

‘No,’ I repeated. ‘I told you, he just slid down the side of the van and died.’

‘So why did you tell the paramedic that Mr Woodley had been stabbed?’

‘Because of the blood on the van,’ I said patiently. ‘I just presumed he’d been stabbed.’

‘I see,’ he said, making a note.

‘And was he?’ I asked.

‘Was he what?’

‘Stabbed?’

‘The post mortem examination will determine that, sir,’ the detective said formally.

The second policeman came back into the cubicle and sat down again on the same upright chair as before. He shook his head and I took that to mean the tracksuit and trainers were not yet here. I went on shivering.

‘When can I go home?’ I asked the detective.

‘That will be up to my superintendent,’ he replied unhelpfully.

I looked at my watch. It was well past eleven o’clock and nearly two hours since Toby Woodley’s life had expired.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘Could you please tell your superintendent that I need to go home now. I’ve got to be up tomorrow in time to go to work.’

‘And what is your work, sir?’ the detective asked.

‘I’ve already told you.’ My patience was beginning to run rather thin. ‘I’m a race commentator and TV presenter. I was commentating here tonight and I found Mr Woodley in the car park as I was leaving. I tried to help him but I couldn’t. He died in spite of another man and me giving him artificial respiration. That’s all I can tell you. And now,’ I said, standing up, ‘I’d like to go home.’

The detective remained sitting in his chair and looked up at me.

‘Mr Shillingford,’ he said, ‘have you read today’s Daily Gazette?’

I sat and looked back at him. ‘Am I under arrest?’ I asked.

‘No, of course not,’ the detective said, smiling. ‘We just need you to remain here a while longer, to help us with our enquiries.’

‘And how about if I say I’m going home anyway?’

‘That wouldn’t be wise,’ he said.

No. Then I probably would be arrested.

I thought back over the interview.

‘You haven’t asked me why I think Mr Woodley was attacked.’

‘No, sir,’ said the detective without elaborating.

‘Why not?’ I asked.

‘All in good time, sir,’ he replied.

We sat in silence for a while and I wondered what the police were doing that took so long. Looking for a knife, I supposed. That’s it, I thought, they couldn’t arrest me for stabbing Toby unless they could find the knife because otherwise there was no way I could have done it.

And maybe they wouldn’t ask me why I thought Toby had been stabbed until they knew whether I could have done it or not. Perhaps it would affect how they asked their questions.

I sat there hoping the killer had taken the murder weapon away with him. Knowing my luck, he’d have thrown it away under my car.

Someone came into the cubicle carrying a folded tracksuit and a pair of trainers. Thank goodness, I thought. My feet had lost all feeling.

I was left alone briefly to change but the detective and his sidekick soon returned, accompanied this time by another man who was clearly their boss — the superintendent.

‘Mr Shillingford,’ he said. ‘Detective Superintendent Cullen.’ He held out his hand towards me and I shook it. ‘I’m sorry you have been asked to stay here for so long. I hope my boys have been looking after you?’ He smiled.

No knife, I thought.

‘They have been charming,’ I said, smiling back. Two could play at this game. ‘And thank you for the tracksuit.’ We both smiled again.

Another chair was brought in and we all sat down, although the cubicle was hardly big enough for the four of us.

‘Can you think of any reason why Mr Woodley would be murdered?’ the superintendent asked.

‘Other than over today’s front page of the Daily Gazette?’ I said. There was little point in not mentioning it, and I thought it would be better if I did so first.

‘Exactly. Other than that.’

‘Lots of them,’ I said.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘I can think of lots of reasons why someone might want to murder Toby Woodley. He was a horrible little man who preyed on other people’s weaknesses.’ I paused briefly. ‘I’d have happily stuck a knife into his back.’

‘And did you?’ he asked seriously.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Someone else seems to have done it for me.’

‘Is that an admission of a conspiracy?’

‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘But if you’re expecting me to grieve over Toby Woodley, you’ll be disappointed. I hated the little creep.’

‘I understand,’ he said slowly, ‘that you have been telling people here this evening that he was nothing more than an insect that needed stamping on. Is that right?’

‘Quite right,’ I said. ‘Because he’s been trashing my late sister’s reputation with his lies and I couldn’t do anything about it.’

‘Someone may have.’

‘Well, it was not me.’

‘What were the revelations about you that Mr Woodley was going to write about?’

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ I said. ‘I was rude to him at Stratford races yesterday and I expect he was planning to make up some nonsense about me in revenge.’

‘How were you rude to him?’

‘I basically told him he was a little shit,’ I said. ‘Because he was.’

Superintendent Cullen looked down at his notebook, then up at me.

‘Are you happy he’s dead?’

I sat there and looked at each of the three policemen in turn.

‘I tried to save his life, didn’t I? I put my mouth over his — over the mouth of someone I hated and despised — and I breathed into him.’ I instinctively wiped my mouth with the sleeve of the tracksuit. ‘Of course I’m not happy he’s dead. But, equally, I’m not especially sad about it either.’

They finally let me go at about half past midnight after I had agreed and signed a full account of the incident, as I remembered it. But they kept hold of my clothes, my shoes and, much to my annoyance, my car.

‘I need my car,’ I said.

‘None of the cars close to the white van have been moved,’ the superintendent said to me. ‘We need to search the area again properly in daylight and I’m not prepared to damage any forensic evidence that may be present by moving the cars.’

‘But how am I going to get home?’ I asked. ‘Especially at this time of night.’

‘I’ll get a car to take you.’

‘Thank you. How about my clothes?’ I asked. ‘And my shoes?’

I was rather fond of those shoes.

‘You’ll get them back in due course.’

I didn’t like to ask how long ‘in due course’ might be. Years, probably, particularly if they provided evidence that was pertinent to a prosecution.

‘I’ll need my car tomorrow morning,’ I said. ‘I’ve got to get to Warwick races.’

‘Don’t push your luck, Mr Shillingford,’ the superintendent said, but with a smile. ‘You’re lucky to be getting a lift home, and I could always change my mind. Ever heard of trains? Leave your car keys and your details with my sergeant and he’ll contact you when you can retrieve your car.’

I didn’t push my luck. I gave my car keys to his sergeant.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

I was driven in an unmarked police car by a driver who didn’t say a word to me all the way from Kempton to Edenbridge. He dropped me outside my front door, again in silence, and drove off.

I let myself in and then sat in my sitting-room- cum-kitchen-cum-dining-room-cum-office with a stiff whisky. I didn’t often drink spirits but I didn’t often have someone die with their head in my lap.

Who would have wanted to kill Toby Woodley?

Sure, there were lots of people, myself included, who might rejoice at his passing, but I couldn’t imagine that anyone would actually kill him over something he had written in the paper. As Jim Metcalf had said, everyone knew the Daily Gazette was nothing more than a glorified rumour mill, and no one really believed any of it.

So why was Toby Woodley dead? And did his death have anything to do with his pieces in the paper about Clare? Or was it totally unrelated? Indeed, were the deaths of Toby Woodley and Clare Shillingford entirely isolated incidents for which the only common factor was me?

I sat for a while pondering such questions but without coming up with any useful answers.

I knocked back the rest of my whisky and went to bed.

What I needed most was someone to talk to, someone to bounce some ideas off. In the past that would have been either Clare or Sarah.

I lay in the darkness missing both of them hugely.

On Thursday morning I caught a train from Edenbridge to London and then another from London to Warwick.

I usually went everywhere by car and it made quite a change for me to sit and watch the world go by through the carriage window.

I bought a stack of newspapers at Edenbridge station and spent the journey reading everything I could find about the murder of Toby Woodley in the Kempton racecourse car park. There was precious little that I didn’t know already.

Only the Racing Post named me as one of the two men who had tried to save Toby’s life. I wondered how much flak I would receive from my colleagues for that.

The Daily Gazette, in contrast, named me as someone who was helping the police with their enquiries, which I suppose had been true at the time the paper had gone to press late the previous evening. The Gazette also speculated as to why one of its star reporters — their words — had been so cruelly cut down in the prime of his life. Was it something to do with the Daily Gazette’s on-going investigation into race fixing? Without actually saying so directly, the paper had used the obvious association of the Shillingford name to imply that it must have been me who had killed Toby Woodley to shut him up.

Perhaps I should contact my solicitor and sue them. But I knew of others who had sued the Daily Gazette and, even though a few of them had won sizable damages, they always lost in the end. Newspapers in general were relentless and vindictive, and the Gazette led the way on both counts, hounding its detractors for ever with every slight misdemeanour, every speeding ticket, every marital indiscretion, even every faux pas being splashed across its front page in large bold type.

I took a taxi from Warwick station to the racecourse.

I was early.

I climbed up the stairs to the commentary box and sat silently looking out across the racecourse. There was a good hour and a half to go before the first race but I needed to think. In particular, I needed to think once again about why Clare might have killed herself, and also why anyone would murder Toby Woodley.

The phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Superintendent Cullen’s sergeant.

‘Mr Shillingford,’ he said, ‘did Mr Woodley have a black leather briefcase with him last night when you first saw him in the racecourse car park?’

‘I didn’t really notice,’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘Mr Woodley was seen with it earlier in the racecourse press area, but now it’s missing.’

‘So was it a robbery that went too far?’ I asked.

‘Possibly,’ the sergeant replied. ‘We are trying to determine if the theft of the briefcase was the reason for the attack on Mr Woodley, or whether it was taken afterwards by a third party.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t help you. I don’t remember seeing any briefcase.’

He thanked me anyway, and also told me that my car was now ready for collection and that the keys would be in the Kempton Park racecourse office, which was open late as they were racing there again that evening.

‘Thanks,’ I said, not really meaning it. Not having my car was a bore. I’d better look up the return train times from Warwick to London.

The sergeant hung up.

So the meeting at Kempton tonight was going ahead.

Just as it had been with Clare, Toby Woodley’s demise had been but a minor blip in the ever-moving symphony of life in general that played on regardless. Were we each so insignificant, I thought, that our death would mean nothing more to most people than a slight inconvenience over collecting a car?

Clare’s death certainly meant more to me than that.

I still couldn’t believe she had gone for ever.

I listed in my head, yet again, the only reasons I could muster to explain why she would have killed herself and, yet again, I came up with precious few.

She must have been depressed. Surely people who kill themselves must be depressed. But depressed about what?

I kept coming back to the question of the elusive boyfriend. She had definitely been seeing someone — more than that, she’d been sleeping with him. I thought back to our conversation at that last dinner: What a lover! she had said, and she’d grinned like the cat who’d got the cream. But she’d refused point-blank to say who it was, and I felt she’d become quite aggressive about it when I’d pressed her.

So who was Clare’s great lover and was he one of the two men that Carlos, the bellman, had seen go to her room?

But why hadn’t he come forward to grieve with the family?

He might be married, I thought. Or perhaps the affair had finished sometime between dinner and eleven thirty that night. Was that the reason she had jumped?

Or had it been to do with her riding?

Had someone else spotted what I had seen in the race at Lingfield? Maybe somebody had threatened to tell the racing authorities. I thought back again to something else Clare had said that night: I can’t imagine a time when I couldn’t ride any more. I wouldn’t want to go on living.

And how about Toby Woodley?

Were his death and Clare’s connected? Had someone killed him to shut him up? Had there been more truth to his articles than I’d given him credit for? Was there, indeed, a betting syndicate that had made a fortune laying Brain of Brixham in April?

I didn’t think there could be. For a start, the internet exchanges would have told the British Horseracing Authority if there had been any unusual betting patterns on that race, particularly as Clare had been suspended for riding carelessly in it.

Perhaps Toby Woodley hadn’t got the details completely right but, nevertheless, someone had thought he’d been close enough.

Overall, I was frustrated by my lack of information. I hoped that the Hilton Hotel’s CCTV film or the guest list from the Injured Jockeys Fund gala dinner might give me some clues.

Provided I could get hold of them.

I collected my car from Kempton at eight o’clock that evening, having cadged a lift from Warwick with a south-coast trainer who didn’t mind a brief detour off the M25.

‘It’s the least I could do,’ he said. ‘I was very fond of Clare.’

He dropped me at the gates of the Kempton car park and I walked through to the racecourse office. The only signs of the previous day’s murder were the white tent still covering the spot where Toby had died, and a very large number of police officers standing around holding clipboards.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ called one of them as I emerged from the office with my car keys. ‘Were you here yesterday evening?’

‘Yes, I was,’ I said. ‘I’m collecting my car, which was kept here. I was interviewed last night by Superintendent Cullen.’

He still wrote down my name and address on his clipboard. ‘Is there anything else you’ve remembered since you were interviewed that might be useful to us?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

He let me go and I walked towards my car, which someone had moved over to the fence near the exit.

I felt slightly uneasy.

Less than twenty-four hours ago someone had been murdered in this car park. Stabbed in the back. While there was easily light enough to see the cars, there were plenty of dark shadows in which someone could be hiding. The hairs on the back of my neck stood upright and I spun round to check.

There was nobody there.

I laughed at myself. Of course there was nobody there.

Even a psychopath would surely think twice about murdering someone here with this many policemen about.

But I did walk right round my old Ford before I opened it, and I also checked the back seat to make sure no one was lurking there with intent.

They weren’t. Not this time.