Bloodline

I decided not to continue this discussion, for fear of being completely humiliated.

‘Come on,’ I said, getting out of the car, ‘I’ve got work to do.’

Emily and I walked arm in arm into the racecourse enclosures towards the weighing room, and came face to face with Mitchell Stacey who was coming out with a saddle over his arm.

We all stopped and Mitchell stared at me. If looks could kill, I would have expired on the spot. Then he turned his eyes towards Emily.

‘Whose wife are you, then?’ he asked sharply.

Emily said nothing but simply smiled at him, which seemed to disturb him even more.

I, meanwhile, also said nothing although I was tempted to ask him where he’d been at eleven o’clock on the previous Friday evening. I could still feel my sore neck.

‘I’ve had the police around because of you.’ Mitchell sneered in my direction. ‘Keep me out of your sordid little business. Do you hear!’

I again said nothing and, suddenly, he walked on, brushing past me and disappearing in the general direction of the saddling boxes.

‘Not a very friendly chap,’ Emily said as we watched him go. ‘He doesn’t seem to like you very much.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘But I don’t like him very much either.’

‘When did you sleep with his wife?’

I said nothing.

‘Recently, then, was it?’

‘She’s much younger than him,’ I said stupidly, as if it mattered.

‘Are you still sleeping with her?’ Emily asked in a deadpan voice, but one with multiple undertones.

‘No,’ I said emphatically. ‘I am not. I’ve got a new girlfriend now.’

‘Oh, really,’ she said, laughing, ‘Who’s that, then?’

I squeezed her waist but she squirmed away from me.

‘Don’t touch me, you... you... serial adulterer!’ she cried.

‘Keep your voice down,’ I said, looking around to see if anyone had heard. ‘How can I be an adulterer when I’ve never been married? And, anyway, you told me you were divorced.’

‘Only decree nisi,’ she said. ‘Technically, for another week or two, I’m still a married woman.’

‘Come on, then, married woman, I’ve got things to do.’

We went into the weighing room in the base of the Cromwell Stand, and then into the racecourse broadcast centre.

‘Hi, Jack,’ I said. ‘This is Emily.’

Jack Laver wiped both his hands on his tatty green sweater and then offered his right to her.

‘Lovely to meet you,’ Emily said, shaking it.

‘Anything I should know about?’ I asked Jack, making him tear his eyes away from Emily’s gorgeous figure.

‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Usual controls. I’ve already checked that your monitor’s working. No problems.’

‘Right; thanks, Jack. See you later.’

Emily and I went out of the weighing room and climbed the six flights of stairs to the commentary box. As at a number of British racecourses, the box at Huntingdon was in a shed-like structure attached to the very top of the grandstand roof, almost as if it was added as an after-thought.

The shed also contained the judge’s box and the photo-finish system as well as a position for a television camera. It gave a great view of the course but was not ideal for anyone who didn’t have a head for heights, especially when the wind blew hard, which tended to make the whole structure sway slightly.

‘Wow,’ said Emily, moving to the open side, ‘it’s quite high.’

Not as high, I thought, as the fifteenth floor of the Hilton Hotel.

‘Don’t you like heights?’ I asked.

‘Not much,’ she said, hanging on tight to the rail as she looked over. ‘I prefer my feet firmly planted on the ground.’

‘You get used to it,’ I said. ‘And this is much lower than some.’

I removed my binoculars from my bag and then checked the non-runners, making notes on my copy of the Racing Post that we had stopped to buy in Newmarket. Everything seemed in order for another day at the office.

‘Fancy some lunch?’ I asked.

‘Have we got time?’

There was still at least half an hour until the first race.

‘Plenty,’ I said.

We descended again to ground level and I bought some smoked salmon sandwiches, which we ate perched on bar stools at a high table near the window of the Hurdles Bar.

‘I’ve been thinking about what you said yesterday, you know, about the blackmail notes and that film.’

‘And?’ Emily said between mouthfuls of sandwich.

‘You couldn’t just send blackmail notes to everyone. It would be ridiculous.’

‘You don’t have to,’ she said. ‘Suppose you only have a slight suspicion that someone has been up to no good. If you sent them a blackmail note asking for a couple of hundred quid, it would sure as hell confirm your suspicions if they then paid up.’

‘I wonder if that was the case with Clare. Perhaps whoever sent it to her was merely fishing, and got more than just a bite when Austin paid up.’

‘Hello, Mark,’ said a voice behind me. ‘Mind if I join you?’

I stood up and turned round. ‘Not at all, Harry. Bring up a stool. Harry, can I introduce Emily Lowther. Emily, this is Harry Jacobs.’

Emily held out her hand but Harry had both of his full, a plate of seafood in one and an ice bucket plus bottle of champagne in the other. He put them down on the table and shook her hand.