Bloodline

I suppose I had initially chosen a day when there was no racing in the hope that enough people would come to fill St Mary’s Church in Newmarket. Now it seemed that absolutely everyone I knew in racing, and many more that I didn’t, had turned up at Ely, and soon my right hand was aching from so much shaking.

It was a good job that it wasn’t my left hand.

That was only just out of a cast after eight weeks.

Brendan had fractured my wrist in six places when he’d hit me with the pole and it had been almost more than I could manage to get myself off the floodlight framework and back onto the grandstand roof without going the same way he had.

Detective Sergeant Sharp and Detective Chief Inspector Coaker came out of the cathedral together.

‘Lovely service,’ they both said in unison. ‘Very moving.’

‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘Any news?’

‘Mr Brendan Shillingford’s car has now been confirmed as the one that hit you and Mrs Lowther at the pub in Madingley,’ DCI Coaker said. ‘It had been repaired by a garage in Bury St Edmunds. Mr Shillingford apparently told them that he’d hit a deer in Thetford Forest. But we’ve been able to extract a sample of Mrs Lowther’s DNA from blood found on the underside of the vehicle.’

I suppose I was pleased.

‘How about the knife?’ I asked.

‘According to Superintendent Cullen at Surrey, the knife found on Mr Shillingford was consistent with that used to kill Mr Woodley, although they were unable to find any trace of his blood on it.’

‘Will there be a trial?’ I asked.

‘Only the remaining inquests,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘There’d be no point in a criminal trial.’

‘Will the inquests name Brendan as the murderer?’

‘That doesn’t happen any more. I expect the coroners to record verdicts of unlawful killing in the case of Toby Woodley and Emily Lowther, but there will be little doubt about who was responsible. Mr Shillingford’s verdict will probably be misadventure.’

Brendan’s misadventure.

The policemen moved away through the door and outside into the pale December sunshine.

I turned to see who was next in the line.

‘Hello, Mark,’ said Sarah Stacey.

I anxiously looked around behind her.

‘Mitchell’s not here,’ she said. ‘I’ve left him.’

I stared at her. ‘When?’

‘About six weeks ago.’

‘Why didn’t you call me?’ I asked.

‘Because I didn’t leave Mitchell for you,’ she said with determination. ‘I just left him. Time will tell what happens from now on.’

‘But where are you living?’

‘With my sister,’ she said.

I hadn’t even known she’d had a sister. ‘What about the prenup?’ I asked.

‘My lawyer says it’s not enforceable. Not after fourteen years of marriage.’

‘I hope he’s right.’

‘Call me sometime,’ she said, and then she turned and walked away, out of the cathedral. Was it also out of my life?

I watched her go. Maybe I would call her, or maybe I wouldn’t. As she had said, time would tell.

Harry Jacobs came bounding up to me.

‘A fitting tribute,’ he said. ‘Well done. Clare would have been proud of you.’

‘Thanks, Harry,’ I said shaking his hand.

He smiled at me warmly and moved away. Nothing more needed to be said, not today.

In November, I had visited Harry’s impressive country mansion near Stratford-upon-Avon to give him the good news that both of his blackmailers were dead and that his guilty secret had died with them.

I certainly wasn’t going to say anything to anyone about any blackmail.

We had sat in his conservatory looking out over the rolling Warwickshire countryside and his relief had been almost palpable.

‘I want to close that offshore bank account,’ he had said, ‘but there’s more than twenty-five thousand pounds in it and I can hardly bring that back into my regular accounts without my accountant or tax lawyer asking where it came from.’

‘Then give it to charity,’ I’d told him. ‘Send it anonymously to the Injured Jockeys Fund.’

And that was precisely what he’d done, right there and then, using his computer and internet banking.

‘Tell me, Harry,’ I had asked him as I was leaving, ‘where does all your money come from?’

‘Don’t you know?’ he’d asked slightly amused. ‘When I was young and extremely foolish, I managed to borrow an obscene amount of money from a bank to buy fifty acres of industrial wasteland. It was contaminated with all sorts of toxins and heavy metals. Dreadful place. I almost cried when I saw it after I’d bought it.’

‘Surely you saw it beforehand?’

‘I went to the auction to buy something else but that sold for far too much. The next lot was the fifty acres, and the price seemed too good to be true. So I bought it, completely unseen. I’d thought I must be on a winner, whatever it was like.’

‘And were you?’

‘I didn’t think so just then. In fact, I tried to sell it immediately for less than I’d paid for it, but there were no takers.’

‘So where was the land?’ I had asked him.