Bloodline

19

I was not at all sure how I managed to commentate on the juvenile hurdlers.

My eyes had watched the horses being mounted in the parade ring but none of the data received had reached my conscious brain. My mind had been racing with too much other information and too many unanswered questions.

Had Toby Woodley been murdered at Kempton Park races because of the blackmail?

I didn’t even properly learn the jockeys’ colours as the horses circled at the start and, suddenly, the race was under way. I had to keep glancing down to my racecard to see which horse was which as they jumped the two hurdles in the straight for the first time.

Had it been one of Toby Woodley’s blackmail victims that had done us all a favour?

It was not proving to be my greatest ever commentary. Concentrate, I told myself as the horses swept right-handed away from the grandstand to start their second circuit. For God’s sake, concentrate!

But how could Toby Woodley have sent a blackmail note to Austin Reynolds on Thursday when he’d been murdered on Wednesday night?

The horses galloped down the back of the course and on at least two occasions I called one of them by the wrong name, using ‘Woodley’ when the horse was properly called ‘Woodmill’.

Could Toby Woodley have posted the note on Wednesday evening after the last collection so that it hadn’t been franked until Thursday?

The horses turned into the finishing straight for the second and final time and, by now, even the crowd knew the colours better than I did. But, thankfully, I called the correct names of the leading pair as they jumped the last hurdle together up-sides.

But Harry Jacobs had said that he’d only received his latest note yesterday. Could that note really have taken three days to arrive?

The two horses fought out another close finish, flashing past the winning post with hardly a cigarette paper between them.

‘Photograph, photograph,’ called the judge once more.

Or, had Toby Woodley had an accomplice, who was now acting on his own?

Harry Jacobs insisted on going back to the bar after the third race.

‘I need another drink,’ he said.

‘Don’t you think you’ve had enough, Harry?’ I said. ‘Especially if you’re driving later.’

‘I have a driver. I haven’t got a licence.’

Probably lost it, I thought, from having too many boozy days at the races.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘But a couple of things first. Are you sure that note arrived at your home yesterday?’

‘Absolutely certain,’ Harry said. ‘It’s the sort of thing you remember.’

‘Do you still have the envelope it came in?’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I threw it away. Why?’

‘I wanted to see when it was posted and whether it was sent first or second class.’

‘First class, I think,’ he said. ‘But I couldn’t be certain. Sorry.’ He stood up. ‘Now, where’s that drink?’

All three of us went down the stairs from the grandstand shed but, while Harry peeled off towards the bar to order more champagne, Emily and I went through the betting hall to the parade ring to see the horses for the next race, a tricky handicap hurdle with eighteen runners.

‘Are all your days as thrilling as this?’ Emily asked as I stood silently by the paddock rail making notes on my racecard.

I looked sideways at her. ‘Do I detect a touch of sarcasm?’

‘Would I?’ she said, smiling broadly.

‘It’s not every day you come across blackmail,’ I said.

‘No,’ she said laughing. ‘Only every other day.’

‘Real blackmail, I mean, not that stuff you watch on the television.’

‘At least that’s exciting.’

‘How about if I told you that I knew who’d been sending the notes.’

‘Who?’ she said, her eyes opening wider in anticipation.

‘I’ll tell you over dinner.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘tell me now.’

‘Over dinner,’ I said firmly. ‘I need to concentrate on the horses.’

‘Well, in that case, I’ll go and join Harry in the bar.’

‘I thought you said you were driving,’ I said.

‘So?’ She turned and walked away, looking back just once and waving before she disappeared into the bar.

I turned my attention back to the eighteen different sets of silks in front of me and started to sort out which set belonged to which horse.

We stopped at six thirty for an early dinner at the Three Horseshoes, a charming thatched pub at Madingley, near Cambridge.

‘How lovely,’ Emily said as we walked in. ‘A romantic dinner for two. I can’t remember when I last did this.’

‘What about last night?’ I said.

‘I’d hardly call a take-away from the local Chinese a romantic dinner.’

I smiled at her. ‘But, if I remember correctly, it became quite romantic afterwards.’

She laughed. ‘You just got lucky.’

We were shown to a quiet table by the window overlooking the garden and the car park beyond amongst the trees.

After the unwanted attentions of Harry Jacobs all afternoon, I was really looking forward to a couple of hours of uninterrupted time of just the two of us. I’d even left my phone in Emily’s car.

‘Well?’ said Emily eagerly after we’d ordered. ‘Who’s the blackmailer?’

‘A journalist called Toby Woodley.’

She seemed disappointed. ‘And who is he?’

‘Who was he, you mean. He was murdered in the car park at Kempton Park racecourse last Wednesday evening. And I was there when he died.’

Emily’s interest was suddenly reawakened. ‘Did you kill him?’

‘No, of course not,’ I said. ‘But whoever did may have been a victim of his blackmail.’

‘See,’ she said. ‘I told you it was just like those mysteries on the television.’

‘There’s a problem, though,’ I said. ‘Toby Woodley was killed on Wednesday evening and Harry’s blackmail note didn’t arrive until Saturday. Harry thought it was sent first class, which means that in all likelihood it was posted on Friday, or on Thursday at the earliest.’

‘So,’ said Emily, leaning forward, ‘who posted it if this Woodley fellow was already dead?’

‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘And I think the same person may have inserted the extra zero at the end of the amount. It seems to me that the notes had already been printed and the extra zero was added as an afterthought. It was the same on the one shown to me by Austin Reynolds.’

‘But how do you know it was Toby Woodley who sent the first ones?’

This might be awkward, I thought.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘you know the man we parked next to?’

‘The one whose wife you’ve been sleeping with?’

‘Yes, that one.’ It was definitely awkward. ‘His wife told me.’

‘When?’ she squealed.

‘This afternoon. I called her when you were up in the box with Harry.’

‘My God! You are a sneaky bastard,’ Emily said with a laugh. She leaned back in her chair. ‘I should drive home right now and leave you here.’

‘I told you it was over between us.’ I was trying to sound honourable and trustworthy. Even though I’d only met Emily forty-eight hours ago, I suddenly realized that I absolutely didn’t want to lose her.

‘Anyway, what did she say?’

‘She told me that she’d received a blackmail note demanding two hundred pounds to keep quiet about the affair. A note just like the others.’

‘But how did she know who it was from?’

I thought back to my conversation with Sarah. ‘She was told to leave used twenty-pound notes in a brown envelope under her car in the car park at Newbury races, as the others had been. But, instead of the money, she only put strips of torn-up newspaper in the brown envelope, and then she hid and watched to see who collected it. It was this man Toby Woodley.’

‘What did he do when she didn’t pay?’ Emily asked.

‘I think he was going to write about us in his newspaper. He said something last week about being good to me. It seems his editor wouldn’t let a story run because of Clare having just died. I now think the story must have been about me and Sarah Stacey. I think he then told her husband about us to get back at her for not paying.’

‘Nice chap,’ Emily said. ‘No wonder someone murdered him.’

A waitress arrived with our starters.

‘Do you fancy some wine?’ I asked.

‘Of course I do,’ Emily said, ‘but, as you so prudently pointed out, I’m driving.’

‘We could always leave the car and get a taxi.’

‘And then how would I get to work in the morning?’

‘Where is work?’ I asked.

‘Cambridge. I work in the university engineering department as a research assistant.’

It was now my turn to say ‘Wow!’

‘I’m currently helping with a research project into developing needle-less injections. It’s really interesting.’

‘So are you an engineer?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said. ‘I’m more of a medic. But I’m not a doctor. I only did a biomedical degree.’

It sounded pretty good to me.

‘So I need my car in the morning to get to work.’

I suppose I would need a car too. I would have to sort that out, along with lots of other things. Thankfully, I had the day off.

‘And I need to go home tonight,’ Emily said. ‘I haven’t got my things for the morning.’

‘Do you need to collect your white coat?’ I asked flippantly.

She smiled and shook her head. ‘No. But I do need my university pass, and I can hardly go into the lab dressed like this, so I’m going home tonight to Royston.’

I wondered if I was being given the brush-off. I rather hoped not.

‘You can come with me if you like,’ she said, ‘but I’m definitely sleeping in my own bed, with or without you.’

‘With,’ I said. ‘But I have to go back to Clare’s cottage first to collect my stuff.’

Emily smiled broadly. ‘That’s fine, then. We’ll make a detour.’

We ate our starters with just fizzy water as the accompaniment.

‘So, tell me,’ Emily said. ‘Who’s the second blackmailer, the one who posted the note to Harry after this Woodley fellow was killed?’

‘I wish I knew. But whoever he is, he’s rather more greedy. Toby Woodley never asked anyone for very much, that’s why most of them paid him.’

‘And do you think he asked all sorts of people for two hundred pounds?’

‘Yes, I do,’ I said. ‘I reckon that’s how he got some of his stories for the paper. If he had even the slightest suspicion about someone, he’d send them a blackmail demand for just two hundred pounds to make the story go away. If they paid, then he had the confirmation he needed that he was right, and he would ask for more, if necessary backing up the demand with an article in the paper that proved he knew what had been going on but, of course, without mentioning anyone by name.’

‘But enough to frighten his victims into paying up.’

‘Precisely,’ I said.

‘But what’s it got to do with the death of your sister?’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Maybe nothing, but she was definitely being blackmailed and that may have had something to do with it.’

But, in truth, I felt nowhere nearer finding out why Clare had died.

‘How was the journalist murdered?’ Emily asked.

‘He was stabbed in the back.’

‘And you were there?’

‘Yes, at least, I was there immediately afterwards. I didn’t actually see him being stabbed but I was there when he died a few minutes later. The police thought I might have killed him because he’d written an article about Clare in that morning’s paper. But they couldn’t find any knife, so they let me go.’

And, I thought, they also couldn’t find his briefcase.

Had the notes for Austin Reynolds and Harry Jacobs been printed and ready to go in that stolen briefcase? Was the person who had posted them not an accomplice of Toby Woodley, but his killer?

Emily and I enjoyed the rest of our dinner free of further blackmail discussion, concentrating instead on learning more about each other.

‘So where exactly do you live?’ she asked me.

‘I rent a flat in Edenbridge, in Kent. But I’m intending to buy a house. I’ve even got the details of one in Oxfordshire I like the look of.’

That was something else I had to deal with tomorrow, I thought, along with organizing a car. I also had to contact Detective Sergeant Sharp about the Hilton Hotel CCTV footage, and follow up the guest list for the Injured Jockeys Fund dinner. Between them, I hoped they might give me some clue to the identity of the mystery visitors to Clare’s room on the night she died.

So much for my day off.

Both Emily and I decided against dessert and coffee, opting to go.

‘We can open a bottle of wine when we get to my place,’ Emily said. ‘And have coffee there.’

I looked at my watch. It was still only twenty to nine.

‘Sounds good to me.’

I paid the bill and we walked out together towards Emily’s car.

I was careless. Very careless.

Since the events of Friday night, I had been checking the inside of cars and avoiding all dark spaces but, here and now, I had relaxed my guard.

Thinking back, I believe the fateful moment was when Emily took my hand in hers. Perhaps I was preoccupied by the thoughts of what was to come, reliving the excitement of our first lovemaking the previous afternoon. Or maybe it was just due to an overwhelming feeling of contentment that was flooding through me.

Either way, I was careless.

I didn’t even notice the darkened car until it was almost upon us.

We were half way across the gravel car park and just a few yards from Emily’s red Mercedes when the roaring engine to my left finally cut through into my consciousness.

I half turned and screamed at Emily but it was too late, much too late.

The car hit both of us, spiralling me over the bonnet while Emily went down under the wheels.

I remembered hitting the roof of the car, and the next thing I knew I was lying on the gravel, panting madly, wanting to run but unable to get up.

I rolled over, trying to ignore the searing pain in my side.

The car was already out of the car park on the road, travelling fast, and still it had no lights.

Emily, I thought with panic. Where is Emily?

I gritted my teeth and rolled over again. I searched for her with my eyes, but she was nowhere to be seen.

‘Emily.’ I tried to shout but the sound came out as more of a croak. ‘Emily. Where are you? Are you all right?’

There was no reply and I began to panic further.

I drew myself up onto my knees and coughed.

Blood, I thought. I can taste blood in my mouth. I coughed again. This time, I knew I was coughing up blood.

Each breath was painful and difficult, and I felt sick.

‘Emily,’ I croaked again.

Still nothing.

I forced myself to stand up, if being doubled over and clutching my side could be considered as standing up. But at least I was on my feet.

I took three small steps over and leaned on a car.

Where was she?

I staggered from car to car, searching wildly in the darkness between them.

I finally found her lying face down near the exit of the car park. She must have been dragged there under the wheels.

I sank to my knees beside her.

‘Emily,’ I called touching her shoulder, but there was no reply.

Breathing was becoming very difficult but I gathered the strength to roll her over onto her back. Her face was just a mass of blood and I couldn’t even tell if she was alive or dead.

‘Oh my God!’ I cried. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Another couple came out of the pub and started to walk towards us.

‘Help!’ I croaked at them. ‘Please help me.’

They stopped.

‘Call an ambulance,’ I said, tears streaming down my face.

I again ended up in Addenbrooke’s accident and emergency department, just as I had the previous Friday. But, this time, I wasn’t left alone in a cubicle to recover. I was rushed into a treatment room where I was worked on by a whole team of medics, and they seemed to be getting more concerned as time went on.

I was placed on my left side with my head and shoulders slightly raised, and I was wearing what the doctors had referred to as a positive flow oxygen mask strapped over my face.

But the mask didn’t seem to be doing much good. My breathing was now so laboured and shallow that I was hardly taking in any air at all with each breath and I felt light-headed, and close to unconsciousness.

Was this how I would die?

One of the medical staff came up towards my head and into my view.

‘Can you hear me?’ he asked.

I nodded.

‘You’ve broken a couple of ribs,’ he said. ‘One of them has punctured your left lung and it has collapsed. We’re trying to remove the air from inside your chest cavity so that your lung can re-inflate on its own.’

I tried to speak but I didn’t seem to have enough breath.

‘Don’t talk,’ he said. ‘Concentrate on your breathing. I don’t particularly want to have to put a tube down your throat as it may cause more problems. Our main concern is a rapid build-up of fluid in and around your right lung as well, but we are doing our best to remove it.’ He smiled a wry smile. I wasn’t sure if that was encouraging or not.

One lung collapsed and a build-up of fluid in the other. No wonder it felt like I was drowning.

I desperately wanted to ask him about Emily. When I’d been lifted into the ambulance she had still been on the ground being attended to by some paramedics and I was dreadfully worried because I hadn’t seen her move since I’d first found her.

The doctor resumed his attempts to remove the fluid from my lungs and I went on breathing, albeit with increasingly rapid and shallow breaths.

I tried to take my mind off my immediate medical troubles by thinking back to what had happened in the pub car park.

There was no doubt in my mind that it had been a deliberate attempt to run us down. The driver of the car had made no effort to stop. In fact, quite the reverse. He had accelerated across the car park with his engine roaring, and had driven off at speed.

He must have been waiting for Emily and me to come out from dinner. He hadn’t put on his headlamps but there would have been enough ambient light for him to see us walking through the pub’s garden and across the car park.

How had he known we were there?

All I could think was that he must have followed us from the races.

But who knew I was at Huntingdon racecourse?

Anyone, I suppose, who’d listened to me either at the track or at home on the RacingTV channel, which had covered the meeting using my commentaries.

And Mitchell Stacey had definitely known.

His car had already gone from the space in the car park when Emily and I had come out to her Mercedes, but that didn’t mean he hadn’t been waiting somewhere near the exit in order to follow us to the pub.

The doctor reappeared in my field of vision.

‘Right. Now we need you to sit up,’ he said. ‘To help the fluid drain.’

I hardly had the breath to move a single muscle and I needed the help of two burly male nurses just to swing my legs off the couch.

I was leaned forward onto a high table while the doctor inserted a tube into my back.

‘There,’ he said. ‘The fluid is now draining out of your chest and you’ll soon be feeling a lot better.’

As if by magic, my breathing improved dramatically over the next couple of minutes as three large bottlefuls of pinkish fluid were drained from my body.

Suddenly I began to believe that I might actually survive.

‘Is that better?’ asked the doctor from behind me.

I nodded. ‘Much,’ I gasped back through the oxygen mask.

‘Good. You were breathing for a time there with only about a tenth of one lung operational. If you’d arrived here just a couple of minutes later, you’d have been a goner.’

‘How about Emily?’ I asked quietly, almost as if I didn’t want to know.

‘Eh?’

‘How about Emily?’ I asked him again, this time more loudly. ‘The lady I was with.’

There was no answer.

‘Tell me,’ I said.

The doctor came round to face me.

‘I’m afraid she didn’t make it.’