Crisis

34

Eleven days later I took Kate to the Derby.

With uncharacteristic generosity, ASW had laid on a car and driver for us in spite of the fact that I wasn’t actually working.

The news of my success at solving the mystery of the dead horses, to say nothing of the dead human, had spread fast through the company and I was now regularly referred to by Georgina as her very own Hercule Poirot.

Tony had been taken away from Declan’s yard in handcuffs by DS Venables, and he was now languishing in Norwich Prison on remand.

Even after Tony’s revelations and removal, the remaining Chadwick men had continued to argue among themselves, pointing the blame at each other as well as at Tony.

‘You should never have spoken to Simon Varney without discussing it with me first,’ Oliver had yelled at Ryan, as if that was what had been the tipping point in making Tony set the place on fire.

But Ryan had clearly had enough of being subservient to his father.

‘Don’t you tell me what I should or shouldn’t do,’ he had shouted back. ‘You do nothing but interfere all the time. Why don’t you and your bloody floozy piss off and live somewhere else? Let me get on with training the horses how I want to.’

Oliver had been visibly hurt by Ryan’s attack but, if he’d thought he would receive any solace from his second son, he was much mistaken.

Somewhat irrationally, Declan blamed him fair and square for Arabella’s death, maintaining that she would have still been alive if only he had told the authorities years ago that Tony was the father of the aborted foetus.

‘I never want to see either of you again in my life,’ Declan had declared, before walking out of the stable in tears.

The shameful secret that Oliver had exploited to hold his family together under his close personal control had ended up being the very reason they were torn apart.

Gone were the days when the Derby festival went on for a whole week, with hundreds of thousands of Londoners descending on the Surrey racecourse to drink, gamble and party; when even the sittings of Parliament were suspended so that members could attend the race.

But, on this particular day, the June sunshine had encouraged another huge crowd to make its way to Epsom Downs by car, train and bus, many intent on enjoying the alcohol-fuelled carnival atmosphere in the centre of the course, where the bars and funfair had been open from early morning, and would remain so until well after dark.

Kate and I, however, were in the posh seats as guests of Sheikh Karim. Hence, we were dressed to the nines, me in a morning suit, complete with fancy waistcoat and top hat, and Kate in what she reliably informed me was called an asymmetric summer dress, a stunning off-one-shoulder creation in light-blue chiffon silk with a pink floral print. To top it off, she wore a blue feathery fascinator and pink high-heeled shoes, and carried a matching pink clutch bag.

‘You look absolutely stunning,’ I said to her as we had our tickets scanned at the racecourse entrance.

‘You’re not so bad yourself,’ she said. ‘Is it hired?’

‘Bloody cheek,’ I replied with a laugh. ‘Of course it’s hired. Moss Bros’ best.’

Kate had stayed the previous night with me at my flat in Neasden, having caught the train from Cambridge on Friday evening after her day’s work at Tattersalls. And I had gone to King’s Cross Station to meet her, not wanting to be apart from her for a second longer than was necessary.

I had spent the last week in a far more mundane manner than I had the previous fortnight at Newmarket.

Monday had been idled away at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on the Marylebone Road, when I should have been in the office completing my report.

I’d represented a pair of idiotic eighteen-year-old professional footballers who’d been caught sniffing cocaine in the gents’ toilet of a West End nightclub late on Saturday night. They had then compounded their difficulty by initially giving the police false names and addresses.

Simpson White had been engaged by their club to keep the incident as low-key as possible, the two boys being members of the youth squad rather than the first team, and it was after the end of the football season.

By using a spurious pretext that one of my clients was unwell, I had managed to persuade the clerk to move their hearing to the end of the day in the hope that any journalists lurking would have given up waiting and gone home.

The case itself had taken precisely four minutes as the pair pleaded guilty to possession of a Class A drug, were each fined a hundred pounds, and warned by the magistrate as to their future conduct.

At first, the two had laughed and joked outside the court about how they had got off so lightly, but that was only until the representative of the club had informed them that their lucrative playing contracts were being cancelled.

I’d initially felt sorry for them, but one’s actions always have consequences, and maybe the sooner one learns that, the better. The Chadwicks were a good example of how unacceptable behaviour going unpunished for so long had made them feel invincible. And the fallout had been much heavier as a result.

The rest of my time had been taken up with dealing with a national hamburger chain, the directors of which had failed simply to put their hands up and apologise when a member of their staff had refused access to a disabled customer. Instead, they had tried to make the excuse that the man had been excluded not because he was in a wheelchair, but because he’d been rude. However, as seemed always the case these days, mobile-phone footage had soon appeared on social media showing that it had actually been the staff member who’d been rude, and the subsequent PR disaster was threatening to bring down the whole business.

Interesting work it may have been, but it was nowhere near as exciting as solving a murder.

Kate and I had arrived at the racecourse good and early, not only to enjoy the build-up to the big race, but also for lunch with our host in a private box on the fifth floor of the Queen’s Stand, two levels up even from the Royal Box itself.

The Sheikh had secured use of the box in the expectation of personally witnessing Prince of Troy’s sprint to victory, and he had decided to come to the day anyway, not least because he wanted to hear, first-hand, my account of the curious events in Newmarket.

‘Harrison, my friend,’ the Sheikh said, greeting me warmly with a firm handshake at the box door. ‘Come in, come in.’

I introduced him to Kate. He smiled at her and raised his eyebrows in approval at me.

There were several other guests but the Sheikh arranged that I was sitting next to him for lunch.

‘Tell me,’ he said.

So I did. Quietly. Everything from start to finish, leaving nothing out.

He pursed his lips in disapproval.

‘I am sorry, sir,’ I said. ‘I don’t wish to be the bearer of distressing news.’

He asked for my advice concerning his horses, so I told him to move them from Ryan but not to send them to Declan. Not yet, anyway.

‘Why not?’ he asked.

‘Because,’ I replied, ‘there’s an old Arab saying that a camel hit with a stick too often may turn nasty, and strike back.’

He roared with laughter and slapped me on the shoulder.

Kate and I viewed the first three races from the balcony at the front of the Sheikh’s box but, for the fourth, we went down to see the horses in the parade ring behind the stands.

The Derby was the fifth race of the day and we could almost taste the tension in the air as start time neared.

The connections of the victorious horse would take home almost a cool million pounds in prize money but, in spite of that, it was far from being the richest race in the world. In fact, it didn’t even make the top ten. But the prestige of winning the Epsom Derby was more valuable, to say nothing of the potential future stud value of the horse.

We watched the fourth race on a large-screen TV near the weighing room before walking over towards the saddling boxes on the far side of the paddock.

It was Declan’s travelling head lad that I saw first, standing next to the horse in the box second from the end.

‘Hi, Joe,’ I said.

He did a bit of a double take but then he recognised me under the top hat. He grunted a greeting of sorts. The horse was already saddled and looked ready to go, with a stable lad standing patiently holding his head.

‘Where’s Declan?’ I asked.

‘Just had to rush to the khazi,’ he said. ‘He’s that nervous.’

‘How’s the horse?’

‘Never better,’ Joe said. ‘Raring to go.’

At that point Declan returned but he didn’t seem very pleased to see me, almost as if he was embarrassed. As well he might be.

He did a quick final check that everything was in order, then he sent the horse off into the paddock with Joe and the stable lad both leading, but on opposite sides. They were clearly taking no chances.

‘I got a letter from Suffolk Police,’ Declan said to me.

‘Yes, I know,’ I said. As his lawyer, I’d received a copy. It had stated that he was no longer ‘under investigation’ for the murder of Zoe, but that the police were continuing to conduct inquiries into the possible historical sexual abuse of a minor.

‘I was only a kid,’ Declan said softly but earnestly, pulling me to one side. ‘As soon as I was old enough to realise it was wrong, I stopped. Ryan and I fought about it. It was all him. He used to laugh at me and tell me not to be so bloody self-righteous. And then, when Tony became mature enough, it was Ryan who encouraged him to join in. That’s why I went to America. To get away from what was happening.’

Perhaps he should have taken his sister with him, I thought, or at least told someone in authority.

‘Are you going to win this?’ I asked, changing the subject.

‘Oh God, I hope so,’ he replied, the nervousness clear in his voice.

‘Good luck,’ I said. I was quite nervous too.

Kate and I went back up.

In the lift, I spotted some familiar faces — Mike and Michelle Morris.

‘How’s Momentum?’ I asked, subconsciously moving a hand up to the scab that still existed on my right ear.

‘Oh, hello...’ Michelle said, clearly not remembering my name.

‘Harry,’ I said. ‘And this is Kate.’

Hands were shaken all round.

‘Momentum’s fine,’ Mike said. ‘We’ve moved him to a new trainer but he’s as lively as ever. He runs next week at Yarmouth.’

‘And he’s still got his balls,’ Michelle added with a grin.

The lift doors opened at the fourth floor.

‘This is us,’ Mike said, stepping out with Michelle. ‘Bye, Harry.’

‘Bye,’ I responded as the doors closed.

‘Who are they?’ Kate asked as the lift again began to move.

‘I met them at Newmarket races,’ I said. ‘They’re the owners of that crazy horse I was shut in with at Castleton House Stables.’

Kate was shocked. ‘But they seem so nice.’

I laughed. ‘It wasn’t them that tried to kill me, only their horse.’

‘Even so...’

The lift arrived at the fifth floor and we went into the Sheikh’s box and out onto the balcony to watch the race.

The crowd was, by now, almost at fever pitch and was further galvanised by a fanfare from six scarlet-uniformed trumpeters as the eighteen contenders came out onto the track for a parade in front of the stands.

‘Isn’t it fabulous?’ Kate said, gripping my hand tightly.

‘Certainly is,’ I agreed.

The big screen in front of the stands flashed up the current odds for the race. Orion’s Glory was quoted as the sixth favourite at sixteen-to-one. One more time I reached into my pocket to check I still had my slip from Ladbrokes at fifties.

The runners made their way across to the far side of the track, away to our right, to the waiting starting stalls.

‘Loading,’ announced the race commentator, further cranking up the anticipation. And then a huge cheer greeted his call of ‘They’re off!’

The Epsom Derby is run over a distance of a mile and a half.

For the first five furlongs the horses climb steadily to the highest point of the course before swinging left-handed and steeply downhill towards Tattenham Corner. As Oliver had said, the most testing stretch of racetrack on the planet.

The horses were well bunched in the early stages, the white cap of Orion’s Glory’s rider clearly visible about a third of the way back in the field. But as they started down the hill the pace visibly quickened and the leading group of eight managed to break away from the remainder.

On the big screen I could see that Orion’s Glory was hugging the inside rail in fifth place and, to my eye, he seemed to be rather boxed in by the other horses. However, as they turned sharply into the finishing straight, the leaders tended to drift wide, allowing Declan’s horse a clear run.

Even I could tell that he was moving easily as he swept past two of those ahead of him into third place, and the jockey hadn’t yet lifted his whip.

At the two-furlong pole, Orion’s Glory was asked for his final supreme effort, and he responded with the same turn of foot that had so excited Declan on the Limekilns gallop at Newmarket four weeks previously.

He quickly caught the two horses in front and hung on, stretching his head out to win by a neck, as Kate and I jumped up and down with excitement.

It may not have been such a convincing success as the record ten-length victory of the legendary Shergar, but a neck was more than enough. Even a short head would have been ample.

A win was a win, irrespective of the margin.

The crowd cheered enthusiastically as Orion’s Glory was led triumphantly into the winner’s circle right below us, with Declan smiling from ear to ear.

It was the happiest I’d ever seen him.

Eight months later, Kate and I went on a twelve-day non-honeymoon to the Maldives, although to a different resort to where she had been previously.

Ladbrokes had happily paid out my two thousand pounds of winnings in the Derby and I had used the money to upgrade our flights to business class. Hence, we sipped chilled champagne at forty thousand feet while I thought back to what had happened since that glorious summer’s day at Epsom in June.

And much had indeed happened, especially to the Chadwick family.

Tony had been indicted for both the murder of Zoe Robertson and for attempting to dispose of her body by setting fire to his father’s stables. In the face of the police recording of his disclosures to me in Declan’s stable, plus the discovery of traces of Zoe’s DNA in the boot of his car, he had pleaded guilty to both charges at the earliest opportunity, saving everyone the stress of a trial.

But if he’d been advised that early guilty pleas would keep the sexual abuse element of the story out of the newspapers, he’d been sadly misguided.

Two days after Tony started a life sentence behind bars, a Sunday newspaper had run a four-page detailed exposé of the Chadwick family’s big secret, although from where they obtained their information I knew not. It certainly wasn’t from me.

Ryan was portrayed as the main villain of the piece and, if his racehorse training business had been in trouble before the revelations, it was in complete free fall afterwards, with owners deserting him in droves. Indeed, two weeks later, the racing authority decided that he was no longer a ‘fit and proper person’ to hold a training licence. And then, to top off all his problems, Susan walked out on him, taking their children with her, citing the reason as the need to keep their young daughter safe from any potential sexual abuse by her own father.

The reports also depicted Oliver as a manipulative patriarch who had shamelessly tossed Zoe’s life aside in order to protect his predatory golden son. Oliver’s previous high standing in the racing community had stood for nothing and he was now very much persona non grata, even in his home town. And he too had matrimonial problems, with Maria announcing that she was suing him for divorce, and claiming half his assets.

I personally wondered if Maria had been the newspaper’s source. It had to have been either her or Yvonne, maybe even both of them, and perhaps with Peter adding his share of malice as well — for a sizable fee of course.

Declan was the only Chadwick male to have emerged relatively unscathed as the reporters had correctly pointed out that he had been away riding in the United States at the time Zoe had become pregnant.

Hence, he had kept his trainer’s licence and the majority of his owners, not that he hadn’t personally lost perhaps the most of all of them.. In spite of being unable to have children, his marriage had been loving and strong, and Arabella’s suicide would forever be a source of huge pain for him.

The Suffolk police had recently informed me officially that Declan would face no charges in relation to historic sexual abuse of a minor. The same must have been true for the other Chadwick men.

I wasn’t surprised. The likelihood of a court conviction without the testimony of the victim would have been remote, although that hadn’t stopped the newspapers from concluding that Ryan was as guilty as hell.

And some of the scandal had inevitably rubbed off on Declan.

‘No smoke without fire,’ I overheard someone say.

Fire, I thought.

Fire was what had brought me into this sorry saga in the first place. But it wasn’t all bad. If ASW hadn’t sent me to Newmarket, I would never have met Kate, and my life would have been much the poorer as a result.

Our flight touched down at Malé International Airport and, as we walked from the aircraft to the terminal, we revelled in the tropical heat, having left London in a snowstorm.

Twelve whole days together, and the nights too. How wonderful.

Kate and I had spent as much time as possible with each other over the previous eight months. With her still working full-time at Tattersalls and me still living in Neasden it was not always easy, but somehow we managed. Indeed, I had become such a familiar face at Cambridge Station that I was now greeted warmly by the railway staff.

But we had big plans.

We had just had an offer accepted on a cottage in a small village close to Stansted Airport, from which Kate could drive up the motorway to Newmarket, and I could catch the airport express direct to central London. We had high hopes that we would be moving in before the summer.

But, for now, twelve days together with no work and no travelling was total bliss.

Having cleared immigration and customs we were taken by minibus to a dock from where we climbed aboard a Twin Otter seaplane for the final leg of our journey to Halaveli, one of some twelve hundred separate Indian Ocean islands that make up the state of the Maldives.

Halaveli was the archetypal tiny desert island, rising just a few feet above the turquoise sea and ringed by white sandy beaches. But it was also a five-star boutique hotel with bars, restaurants and luxury villas set among the lines of coconut palm trees. In addition, on the south-western corner of the island, there was a raised wooden walkway stretching several hundred metres out from the shore, with more villas on each side, built on stilts above the water.

Ours was one of those, a palm-thatched oasis of paradise.

Over the next twelve days, we swam and snorkelled, went in search of whales and dolphins, and sailed on sunset cruises. We breakfasted each morning in the sunshine on our private terrace, dined each night on the beach under the stars, and made love in the afternoons.

And, on the last evening of our non-honeymoon, when we were both sure we adored each other far more than even the idyllic place in which we were staying, I put one knee down onto the soft white tropical sand and asked Kate to marry me.