Bloodline

14

I had just closed my eyes and drifted off to sleep when I was awakened again by the nurse to do her half-hourly check.

‘There are two people outside in the waiting room who want to see you,’ the nurse said as she listed the latest results on a chart. ‘That policeman said we weren’t to let anyone in, but they’ve been here for ages and they say they absolutely won’t go home without seeing you first.’

‘Who are they?’ I asked.

‘Two women,’ said the nurse. ‘One of them says she’s your sister.’

Clare, I immediately thought. But, of course, it couldn’t be Clare. It had to be Angela.

‘Would you please ask them to come in,’ I said, smiling at her. ‘I don’t think that policeman meant to keep my family out.’

‘If you’re sure,’ she said.

‘Perfectly sure,’ I replied. ‘And I won’t tell him if you don’t.’

She smiled back at me. ‘All right, then. I’ll go and get them.’

Indeed, it was Angela, and she had Emily with her, both of them looking worried, and tired.

‘You should both still be at Tatiana’s party,’ I said to them in my croaky voice.

‘That finished hours ago,’ said Angela. ‘In fact, it pretty much finished when you hit the gatepost.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ I croaked.

‘Don’t be.’ Angela laughed. ‘At least it stopped everyone drinking.’

‘I wasn’t drunk,’ I said. And that was now official. I’d been breathalysed when I’d first arrived at the hospital and had passed with ease.

‘So what happened?’ asked Emily. ‘Nick told us something about you being strangled.’ I could tell from the tone of her voice that she clearly thought that Nick had been mistaken.

I wondered how much I should tell them. And how much they would believe. Attempted murders in rural Hertfordshire were hardly common, but I couldn’t really lie to them, especially as I assumed the police would soon be round asking them questions.

‘There was someone waiting for me in the car,’ I croaked, ‘in the back seat. He tried to strangle me.’

The two women looked suitably shocked.

‘Was he trying to rob you?’ Angela asked.

‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Although it was a funny way to do it if he was. I actually think he was trying to kill me.’

‘But why would anyone want to do that?’ Emily asked.

I decided against mentioning anything to them about Mitchell Stacey or my affair with his wife. Clare had been the only member of the Shillingford family privy to that information, and I rather hoped to keep it that way.

‘I’ve no idea,’ I said. ‘The police are investigating. They told me they’ll search my car for fingerprints.’

‘It was all wrapped up in blue plastic,’ Angela said, nodding. ‘And then it was taken away on a lorry. It took them ages and it didn’t please the caterers, I can tell you.’ She smiled. ‘They couldn’t get their van out of the drive. There was a flaming row between them and the police.’

‘So what happens now?’ Emily asked. ‘How much longer are you going to be stuck here?’

‘I don’t really know. I’m waiting for the doctor to do his round.’

‘I’ll go and find someone,’ Emily said, and she disappeared through the curtains.

‘God, you gave us all such a fright,’ said Angela, taking my hand. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you as well.’ She was crying and she wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her jacket. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be,’ I said.

Clare’s death was still very raw for all of us. Our emotions were on a knife-edge. One minute we could weep or laugh, and the next moment we could fly into a rage.

Emily returned with the doctor. I knew from personal experience that saying no to Emily was difficult, in fact, I now fervently wished I’d said yes to her. It might have saved all this bother.

‘How are you feeling?’ asked the doctor.

‘Fine,’ I croaked. ‘Apart from a sore neck and a croaky voice.’

‘Your vitals are good and stable,’ he said, looking at the chart. He came forward and examined my neck. ‘You were very lucky. Your larynx is only bruised and not fractured. I see no reason why you can’t go home, but you shouldn’t be left alone for the next twelve hours or so. Asphyxia patients can sometimes develop cerebral oedemas and they are very dangerous.’

‘What’s a cerebral oedema?’ Angela asked him.

‘A fluid build-up that causes the brain to swell in the skull. It’s very nasty and often the last person to realize they have one is the patient. But I don’t think you’ll have a problem. I would have expected to see something by now if you were.’

‘We’ll look after him,’ Emily said, holding my hand.

‘Fine,’ said the doctor. ‘I’ll get the discharge papers. But get him back here immediately if he starts to act strangely or slurs his words.’

The doctor went out of the cubicle and I swung my legs over the side of the couch. I looked at my watch. It was a quarter past three.

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

‘Where to?’ Angela asked as we sat in her Volvo in the hospital car park. She was in front while Emily and I were sitting together in the back and, yes, I had checked the car was empty of potential stranglers before we’d opened the doors.

‘You can’t come back to our house. We’re full with Brendan and Gillian, and their boys. Not unless you want to sleep in the marquee with Tatiana and her friends.’

‘We’ll go to my place,’ Emily said decisively. ‘I’ll look after him.’

I could see Angela giggling via the rear-view mirror. I suspected that this had been a rehearsed exchange.

‘Where is your place?’ I asked Emily.

‘In Royston,’ she said. ‘About a mile from Nick and Angela.’

‘I need to be at Newmarket racecourse in under four hours, and Royston’s in totally the wrong direction.’

‘But surely you’re not going to do the show now,’ said Angela.

‘Why not?’ I said. ‘As long as my voice doesn’t get any worse, I’ll be fine.’

‘But someone has just tried to kill you.’

‘All the more reason for going on.’

‘You’re crazy.’

‘Maybe I am,’ I said. ‘But I’ll be damned if I am going to sit back and do nothing. Someone tried to kill me tonight and I’m bloody well going to find out who it was.’ I yawned, which I discovered was not very pleasant when one had a sore windpipe. ‘Please take me to Clare’s cottage. I’ll try and get some sleep, and I’ll order a taxi to collect me in the morning. I need to change my clothes anyway. I can hardly go on the Morning Line wearing this.’

I saw Angela look at Emily in the mirror. Their little plan was falling apart and I could tell that they didn’t particularly like it.

‘Look,’ I croaked. ‘I am not trying to be evasive. I promise. I would more than happily go to Emily’s place under different circumstances but, right now, I’d like to go to Clare’s cottage.’

‘One of us would have to stay with you,’ Angela said. ‘The doctor was pretty insistent.’

‘It had better be me who stays with Mark,’ Emily said. ‘Nick will be wondering where you are already.’ She laughed. ‘He’s probably in the marquee trying to keep those drunken randy boys away from Tatiana.’

‘Don’t even joke about it,’ Angela said. ‘All right, Mark, you win. Clare’s cottage it is.’

She started the Volvo and pointed it towards Newmarket.

In the end, all three of us stayed at Clare’s cottage, Angela having been assured by Nicholas on the telephone that all was well both at their house and in the marquee, where Tatiana was safely cocooned amongst her girlfriends.

Angela and Emily slept together in the guest room while I settled down on the sofa in the sitting room downstairs. I suppose it would have been all right to use Clare’s bed but I sensed an air of collective relief when I had volunteered to be on the sofa.

Even though it was almost four o’clock by the time I turned out the light, I found it difficult to sleep. My mind was racing with too many unanswered questions, the uppermost ones being who had tried to kill me and why.

I had told DCI Perry about Mitchell Stacey, but did I really believe he could be responsible? He had certainly shown an ugly side to his nature in the car parks both at Newmarket and at Stratford, but he was a bull-in-a-china-shop sort who would surely confront me man to man rather than sneaking up and trying to strangle me to death anonymously.

But what other suspects did I have?

None.

And what could anyone else gain by killing me?

Surely Iain Ferguson didn’t imagine that his career would advance more quickly if I was, quite literally, taken out of the picture?

I must have drifted off to sleep eventually because the next thing I knew I was wide awake and listening hard for the noise that had awakened me.

There had been a metallic clank. Or had I dreamed it?

I lay in the dark, listening. There it was again, and it was outside.

I quietly stood up from the sofa and went over to the window, my heart again pounding hard inside my chest.

I pulled back the heavy curtains to find that it was daylight and people were already up and about. Racing folk start work early and the metallic clanks had been the sound of Geoffrey Grubb’s stable staff fetching metal buckets of water for the horses.

I laughed at myself. I must be getting paranoid.

I looked at my watch. It was half past six, I’d been asleep for only about two hours. But it was high time I got myself moving if I wasn’t going to be late.

I went into the kitchen and made myself a cup of instant coffee, which went some way to waking me up properly. Then I made two more cups and took them up to the guest bedroom.

Angela and Emily were both still fast asleep, and it took me about a minute of gentle prodding to wake one of them.

‘Go away,’ Angela said, putting her head under the pillow.

‘I need to go in ten minutes,’ I said. ‘Shall I take your car? I could be back by ten past nine.’

‘Do what you like,’ she murmured.

I collected some clothes and my electric razor from my suitcase and went into the bathroom to shower, shave and dress. A feeling of lumps in my throat that had persisted all the previous night had finally begun to ease and my voice seemed a little more normal. And the little red spots in my eyes and on my face had almost faded away to nothing.

I emerged from the bathroom to find Emily standing there wrapped in a sheet, hopping from foot to foot.

‘We’re both coming with you,’ she said. ‘Though God knows why. Angela’s said something about dropping you off and then going home.’

‘But I need to go right now.’

‘So do I. I’m bursting.’ She grinned, pushed past me and closed the bathroom door.

I laughed. I decided I could get to like Emily, maybe to like her a lot. Just as long as someone didn’t succeed in killing me first.

‘What do you mean, someone tried to murder you? That’s the worst excuse I’ve ever heard for someone being late.’

‘It’s not an excuse,’ I said. ‘It’s true.’

I could tell that Lisa, the Morning Line producer, didn’t believe a word I’d said and she was clearly not happy. I’d only been five minutes late but there was another crisis going on with the programme’s main guest, who was going to be much later.

‘Someone really did try to strangle me last night,’ I said, ‘and I wonder if it has anything to do with the murder of Toby Woodley at Kempton on Wednesday.’

That shut her up, but only briefly.

‘And does it?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’

‘So where’s the story in that?’ she asked flatly. ‘You could at least have arrived with a smoking gun, or a knife with Toby Woodley’s blood on it.’

‘How about a bruised neck?’ I asked. ‘And a croaky voice?’

‘Not visual enough. But the voice may be a problem. We’ll have to say you’ve got a cold.’

‘Why not tell the truth?’

‘Too complicated,’ she said. ‘Now, have you done your homework on the two-year-olds?’

The big race at Newmarket that afternoon was the Millions Trophy, the richest contest for two-year-old horses in Europe.

‘Of course I have,’ I replied, knowing full well that I hadn’t really done enough. But I knew all the horses well from having seen them run previously.

‘Good, because you might have to talk about them for much longer than planned if that bloody Austin Reynolds doesn’t turn up.’

‘Austin Reynolds?’ I said, surprised. ‘I thought the guest was Paul James.’

‘Paul had a fall last night at Wolverhampton and has cried off. Austin agreed to step in but now he’s called to say his car won’t start and he’ll be late.’

‘But he only lives in the town,’ I said. ‘Can’t someone go and fetch him?’

‘Seems he’s coming up from London.’ She didn’t sound pleased.

Austin Reynolds, the nearly man of British racing, was the trainer of Tortola Beach, one of the runners in that afternoon’s big race.

Tortola Beach had been one of the definites that I’d found in the RacingTV database. Clare had purposely ridden it to lose in a race at Doncaster the previous August.

And Austin Reynolds also trained Bangkok Flyer.

‘Thirty minutes to air time, everybody,’ shouted Matthew, the floor manager.

‘I must get back to the scanner,’ Lisa said and hurried off.

To the untrained eye, the next twenty-five or so minutes may have looked a bit chaotic but, in fact, they were precisely choreographed.

Cameras moved from side to side and then back and forth in rehearsal, all under the control of the programme director who was sitting out in the scanner and communicating with the cameramen via their headphones.

‘Fifteen minutes to on-air,’ shouted Matthew.

The presenters were wired up with microphones and earpieces, each of us rehearsing what we would say for sound levels, and then checking with Lisa that we could all hear the talk-back and that she could also hear us.

Then we sat in our positions for final checks on camera angles while someone applied dabs of powder to those parts of our faces that were shining too much under the powerful lights.

‘Five minutes to on-air,’ shouted Matthew.

And still there was no sign of Austin Reynolds.

‘Four minutes,’ shouted Matthew.

I went over in my head once again what I planned to say about each of the horses in the big race.

‘Three minutes.’

‘Mark,’ Lisa said into my ear, ‘we’ll come straight to you after the weekly round-up to discuss the fillies’ race and also the Scoop6 Cup at Ascot. We’ll have to hope that Austin is here by the first commercial break, and we’ll do the Millions Trophy after that.’

‘OK,’ I said, shuffling madly through my copy of the Racing Post to find the relevant pages.

‘Two minutes.’

One of the staff placed a Morning-Line-branded cup full of coffee in front of each of the presenters.

‘One minute.’

There was nothing quite like live television to raise the pulse.

Nothing, that is, except being strangled.

Austin Reynolds finally arrived on the set just before the second commercial break, by which time there was less than ten minutes left of the programme. I could imagine Lisa pulling her hair out in the scanner.

‘Get him in during the break,’ she said into all our ears.

Fortunately it was Lisa’s practice always to have far more content available than we could ever have fitted into the alloted time. Most weeks we ran well behind the printed schedule and things at the end always had to be either dropped or postponed to another week.

This time we were glad of it, to fill in for the missing interview with Austin that had been expected to last about fifteen minutes but would now be less than five.

‘Five minutes to shut-up,’ said the production assistant into my ear.

‘So, Austin,’ I said. ‘How do you rate your chances this afternoon with Tortola Beach in the big race?’

‘He should run well,’ Austin said, smiling. ‘Let’s just say, I’m hopeful.’

‘So you think he’ll stay the seven-furlong trip?’ I asked. ‘Let us have a look at his last run at Doncaster seven weeks ago. And, remember, that was over only six furlongs.’

‘Cue VT,’ Lisa said on the talk-back.

The now-familiar film of Tortola Beach running at Doncaster in August appeared on the screen in front of us. I continued to speak over the images. ‘Tortola Beach seemed certain to win from here, but he fades badly in the last two hundred yards to be third.’ I didn’t need to watch the film again to know what happened in the race. Instead, I watched Austin’s face closely for any reaction to it.

‘That’s true,’ Austin said. ‘But that run was inconsistent with his work at home, when he’s shown good stamina even over a mile.’

‘Three minutes to shut-up.’

The VT ended.

‘Cue Mark. Camera two.’

The on-air light on the camera in front of me glowed red.

‘Did my sister, Clare, who was riding him there, say anything to you after the race which might have explained why he faded so badly?’

‘No,’ Austin said. ‘She had no explanation for it at all. As I said, it was contrary to what he’s done elsewhere. And it’s not that he doesn’t like to be in front. He’s usually a natural front runner. I think it must have been a one-off. Perhaps he was just having a bad day.’

‘Two minutes to shut-up.’

‘OK, Mark,’ Lisa said into my earpiece. ‘Wind up the interview and also close the show.’

‘Well, let’s hope he proves you right this afternoon,’ I said, smiling at Austin. ‘Tortola Beach is currently fourth favourite, quoted by most bookmakers at nine-to-one, and my money will certainly be on his nose to win.’

‘One minute to shut-up,’ said the voice in my ear.

‘I think you’ll get a good run for your money,’ said Austin. ‘And I’d like to say how sorry I am that Clare will not be riding him today. I can’t believe she’s gone. She’s a great loss to our sport.’

‘Thirty seconds.’

‘Thank you very much, Austin,’ I said. ‘I think we all miss her. I know I certainly do.’

‘Twenty seconds.’

‘And good luck to you this afternoon with Tortola Beach.’

‘Ten seconds, nine, eight...’

I turned to face camera two as the countdown continued in my ears. ‘I hope you will join us this afternoon for seven races here on Channel 4 from both Newmarket and Ascot, as well as a special bonus, the Two-Year-Old Trophy from Redcar. And it all starts at one fifty-five. See you then. Bye-bye.’

‘...two, one, shut-up,’ said the production assistant on the talk-back just as the red light on the camera in front of me went out and the programme credits appeared on the screen.

‘Well done, everybody,’ said Lisa. ‘A bit disjointed but we had no choice. Mark, tell that bloody Austin Reynolds to get a new car. With a name like that you’d think he’d know something about cars.’

‘Will do,’ I replied. ‘Austin. Lisa, the producer says thank you so much for coming. She’s still down in the production van.’ And I could hear her laughing in my ear over the talk-back.

An audio technician came over and relieved me of my microphone and earpiece, and then he removed Austin’s microphone as well. One should always assume a microphone was live — a lesson that some politicians never seemed to learn.

Austin started to get up but I asked him to stay with me just for a minute or two. So we sat next to each other on the sofa, while the rest of the crew began dismantling the lights and packing away the cameras and other equipment around us.

‘How often did Clare ride for you?’ I asked.

‘Oh, quite often,’ Austin replied. ‘When she was up at the northern tracks and not riding for Geoff Grubb. These days, I tend to run most of mine on the Yorkshire circuits as many of my owners are from there. I always liked Clare to ride my horses if she could. She rode lots of winners for me.’

‘Yes,’ I said quietly. ‘But how often did she stop them winning for you?’