Bloodline

She answered on the second ring. ‘Lisa here,’ she said.

‘It’s Mark,’ I said.

‘My, you’re up early,’ she said. ‘And you’re not even on the show. Aren’t you at Newbury today?’

‘That’s partly why I’m calling,’ I said. ‘Can you tell Neville I won’t be able to make it to Newbury today?’

‘You tell him,’ she said with some humour in her voice.

‘Lisa,’ I said. ‘My sister’s been killed.’

‘Not Clare?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Have you heard the radio news this morning?’

‘Yes,’ she said slowly.

‘Clare was the woman who fell from the hotel balcony.’

‘Oh my God!’ She paused. ‘Can we use it?’

Always the journalist.

‘Yes,’ I said. Why else had I rung her?

‘Any details?’

‘No, nothing other than you’d know from the news. And be kind.’

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Mark, I’m so sorry. And leave Neville to me.’

‘Thank you, I will. And Lisa, no one else knows.’

‘Right,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’

A policeman arrived at the house at eight o’clock but he wasn’t from the Surrey constabulary, he was from the Met.

‘Mr Shillingford?’ he asked when I opened the door.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Detective Sergeant Sharp,’ he said, holding out his ID card.

‘Detective?’ I said.

‘Every unexplained death is investigated by a detective. Can I come in?’

I took him through into the drawing room where my mother was still sitting in the same armchair wearing her dressing gown. My father had been upstairs to dress and we had also been joined by Angela, my elder sister, and her husband Nicholas who had arrived from their home in Hertfordshire. I made the introductions and the sergeant sat down facing us.

‘I am very sorry for your loss,’ he said to the five expectant faces. ‘Can any of you suggest why Miss Shillingford would take her own life?’

4

‘Suicide?’ my father said loudly. ‘But that can’t be so.’

‘I’m afraid it appears to be,’ said the detective sergeant. He opened his briefcase and removed a clear plastic folder containing a single sheet of paper. ‘This was found in Miss Shillingford’s room at the hotel.’

He held out the folder and, as I was nearest, I took it, which was appropriate because the sheet of paper inside was a brief handwritten letter addressed to me on Hilton Hotel headed notepaper.

Dear Marky,

Thank you for dinner tonight. I am sorry it was such a disaster. You are right — you’re always right. I don’t know what has been happening to me these last few months. Please don’t think badly of me.

I am so sorry

There was no signature but I recognized the handwriting, and only Clare had called me Marky. I couldn’t stop the tears running in streams down my cheeks. I passed it to Angela, who also sobbed.

‘What was it you were right about?’ the detective sergeant asked.

‘Just something about her riding at Lingfield yesterday,’ I replied, wiping my face with my fingers.

Suddenly it didn’t seem to be that important.

‘Was there anything she said at dinner that might have indicated she was troubled?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Quite the reverse. She was looking forward to riding today at Newmarket. And she was hopeful of being the first lady jockey to win a Classic next May. I can’t believe she would kill herself.’

‘She wouldn’t,’ my father said decisively from over by the window. ‘Clare was here only yesterday and she was talking about coming back to see us in two weeks. Why would she do that if she was contemplating suicide? It’s all nonsense.’

‘And,’ I said. ‘She hardly ate anything at dinner last night because she was due to be riding at seven stone thirteen today. Why would she bother?’

The phone vibrated in my pocket. In my business, ringing phones on-air were severely frowned upon and I had been caught out too often in the past. Nowadays I permanently left mine on vibrate-only.

It was Sarah, the lady Clare had called my non-proper girlfriend.

‘Excuse me a moment,’ I said, walking out into the hallway.

I answered the phone. ‘Hello.’

‘Mark, my darling, I’ve been watching the Morning Line. I can’t believe it. Oh, my love, I’m so sorry.’ She was crying.

‘Thank you for calling,’ I said inadequately. ‘I’m at my parents’ house and it’s a bit bloody here at the moment.’

‘I don’t suppose you’ll be at Newbury, then?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

‘OK. I’ll call you later,’ Sarah said.

‘Right. Bye now.’

She disconnected and I stood for a moment in the hallway thinking. What was it that Clare had said? When are you going to realize she won’t ever leave Mitchell? She can’t afford to.

Mitchell was her husband — Mitchell Stacey — her much older husband. He was one of the country’s leading steeplechase trainers with over eighty top horses in his yard in the village of East Ilsley, close to the A34 north of Newbury.