‘Oh, no,’ Fiona groaned, lowering her own glasses. ‘Oh, Nolan, come on.’
Chickweed made a spectacular leap, leaving unnecessary space between himself and the birch, wasting precious time in the air. His pursuer, jumping lower in a flatter trajectory, landed first and was fastest away.
Fiona was silent, beginning to accept defeat.
Nolan had no such thoughts. Nolan, aggressive instincts in full flood, was crouching like a demon over Chickweed’s withers delivering the message that losing was unacceptable. Nolan’s whip rose and fell twice, his arm swinging hard. Chickweed, as if galvanised, reversed his decision to slow down now that he’d been passed and took up the struggle again. The jockey and horse in front, judging the battle won, eased up fractionally too soon. Chickweed caught them napping a stride from the winning post and put his head in front just where it mattered, the crowd cheering for him, the favourite, the fighter who never gave up.
It was Nolan, I saw, who had won that race. Nolan himself, not the horse. Nolan’s ability, Nolan’s character acting on Chickweed’s. Through Nolan I began to understand how much more there was to riding races than fearlessness and being able to stay in the saddle. More than tactics, more than experience, more than ambition. Winning races, like survival, began in the mind.
Fiona, triumphant where all had looked lost, breathless and shiny-eyed, hurried ahead with Mackie to meet the returning warriors. Lewis, Harry and I pressed along in their wake.
‘Nolan’s a genius,’ Harry was saying.
‘The other expletive jockey threw it away,’ Lewis had it.
Never assume, I thought, thinking of Doone. Never assume you’ve won until you hold the prize in your hand.
Doone
We all went for a celebratory drink, though in Mackie’s case it was ginger ale. Harry ordered the obligatory bubbles, his heart in his boots. Nolan was as high as Fiona, Lewis a grudging applauder. I, I supposed, an observer, still on the outside looking in. Six of us in a racecourse bar smiling in unison while the cobweb ghosts of two young women set traps for the flies.
We arrived back at Shellerton before Tremayne returned from Chepstow. Fiona dropped Mackie off at her side of the house and I walked round to Tremayne’s, unlocking the door with the key he’d given me and switching on lights.
There was a message from Gareth on the family room corkboard: ‘GONE TO MOVIE. BACK FOR GRUB.’ Smiling, I kicked the hot logs together and blew some kindling sticks to life with the bellows to revive the fire and poured some wine and felt at home.
A knock on the back door drew me from comfort to see who it was, and I didn’t at first recognise the young woman looking at me with a shy enquiring smile. She was pretty in a small way, brown haired, self-effacing... Bob Watson’s wife, Ingrid.
‘Come in,’ I said warmly, relieved to have identified her. ‘But I’m the only one home.’
‘I thought maybe Mackie. Mrs Vickers...’
‘She’s round in her own house.’
‘Oh. Well...’ She came over the threshold tentatively and I encouraged her into the family room where she stood nervously and wouldn’t sit down.
‘Bob doesn’t know I’m here,’ she said anxiously.
‘Never mind. Have a drink?’
‘Oh no. Better not.’
She seemed to be screwing herself up to something, and out it all finally came in a rush.
‘You were ever so kind to me that night. Bob reckons you saved me from frostbite at the least... and pneumonia, he said. Giving me your own clothes. I’ll never forget it. Never.’
‘You looked so cold,’ I said. ‘Are you sure you won’t sit down?’
‘I was
‘Go on then. Talk. I’m listening.’
She said in a small burst, unexpectedly, ‘Angela Brickell was a Roman Catholic, like I am.’
‘Was she?’ The news meant very little.
Ingrid nodded. ‘It said on the local radio news tonight that Angela’s body was found last Sunday by a gamekeeper on the Quillersedge Estate. There was quite a bit about her on the news, about how the police were proceeding with their enquiries and all that. And it said foul play was suspected. They’re such stupid words, foul play. Why don’t they just say someone probably did her in? Anyway, after she’d vanished last year Mrs Vickers asked me to clear all her things out of the hostel and send them to her parents, and I did.’
She stopped, staring searchingly at my face for understanding.
‘What,’ I asked, feeling the way, ‘did you find in her belongings? Something that worries you... because she’s dead?’
Ingrid’s face showed relief at being invited to tell me.
‘I threw it away,’ she said. ‘It was a do-it-yourself home kit for a pregnancy test. She’d used it. All I found was the empty box.’
