“We’d gone long before then. We were back here by midnight.”
“But did you see her in the hotel lobby? According to the police, she checked in at twenty past ten.”
Sarah shook her head. “I would have remembered if I’d seen her because she always reminded me of you. You have the same cheekbones.”
She smiled and lay back down next to me again, putting her arm around my waist.
“How many people were at the dinner?” I asked.
“Hundreds,” she said. “The place was packed. They had that comedian with the funny spiky hair—you know, the one that does all those amazing impressions.” She laughed at the memory. “I was actually quite surprised you weren’t there. I remember spending most of the evening looking out for you.”
“The tickets had all gone by the time I got round to applying.”
“You should have told me. We had a spare place at our table. Someone dropped out at the last minute.”
“I couldn’t have come anyway. By then, I’d arranged to have dinner with Clare.”
“Oh yes,” Sarah said quietly, “so you had.”
How different things might have been if only I’d been a bit more organized.
—
ON THURSDAY MORNING I drove to Newmarket and went to Clare’s cottage.
I collected the spare key from the yard office, as Geoff Grubb had suggested, and let myself in through the front door.
There was a stack of unopened mail on the doormat, most of it addressed not to Clare, but to me. I knew what it would be. I’d spent most of the previous day answering condolence letters, but the people who’d sent these obviously didn’t know the address of my apartment.
I collected the letters all together. There were only a couple of other items—a bill from a cell phone company and a notice from Suffolk County Council about a change to refuse collection in the area. I opened the telephone bill and scanned through the list of the numbers that Clare had called. I recognized my own, and also that of my parents, but what I was really looking for was a number that she had called regularly—say, every day—a number that might have belonged to her mystery boyfriend.
No single number stood out, but there were quite a few she had called more than ten times or so during the monthly billing period. Sadly, the bill did not include the numbers she had called last Friday night after leaving me. Perhaps I would ask the phone company for those. I put the bill down on the desk in the sitting room to look at later and went upstairs.
It was strange going through Clare’s things. It felt like I was invading her privacy.
Of course I’d been to this cottage many times during the preceding four years, regularly staying overnight whenever I was working at Newmarket or anywhere farther north. But I’d been a guest, always sleeping in the guest room. Here I was searching Clare’s own bedroom, pulling open drawers overflowing with what Americans would call “intimate apparel.” And intimate it was too. She’d clearly had a fondness for sexy black lace underwear, and I was rather embarrassed to find it.
There was precious little else to find.
Even as a child, Clare had been frugal in the clothes department, and her wardrobe, with the exception of the lace undies, was fairly sparse, consisting mostly of jeans, polo shirts, and sleeveless puffer jackets—her usual attire.
There were only a couple of dresses hanging in the closet, one of which she had worn to our parents’ golden anniversary party. It was the only time in years I could recall her not wearing pants, blue jeans mostly. She had always tried to avoid occasions where she was expected to dress up.
I knew that coming to her cottage would be difficult, but I hadn’t realized just how much I would miss her. Every single thing I touched reminded me of the blissful times I had enjoyed in this place.
My heart ached and ached and ached for her.
I sat down wearily on the side of her bed and longed for her to come back, to be here once more, to laugh, to bounce up the stairs with her endless energy, to be alive again—oh, to be alive again, alive, alive.
This bout of grief lasted ten to fifteen minutes, my body plagued by both pain and guilt. There was little I could do but let it take its course, a continuous stream of tears pouring down my cheeks.
In a strange way, the session made me feel a little better. Perhaps it was the body’s natural healing mechanism at work.
I would have to come back later though, I thought. Her loss was still too recent, too raw, too painful. I simply couldn’t do much sorting of her things at the moment.
I collected the condolence letters, went out to my car, and drove away.
—
I WAS DUE to record my tribute to Clare at Newmarket racetrack.
Channel 4 was broadcasting both the Friday and Saturday of the Cambridgeshire meeting, and Thursday was the day that the equipment would be set up in preparation.
The tribute was to be a short piece of me talking straight to the camera in front of the Newmarket weighing room, then my voice-over of the four VTs of her major race successes, including her two Group One victories, her win in the Northumberland Plate, and also the Windsor Castle Stakes at Royal Ascot in June when her horse had won by a nose with a perfectly timed late run. Then there was to be another short piece to shoot in front of the camera, then another voice-over for her last race, on Scusami at Lingfield, then another very short piece to camera to finish. Three minutes and forty-five seconds in total.
I just hoped I would be able to get through it without breaking down.
I parked my car as always in the area reserved for the press and walked to the Channel 4 scanner, the huge blue truck that was already parked in the fenced-off compound behind the northern grandstand.
The technical team was busy laying thick black cables between the scanner and the signal-relay vehicle that was parked alongside, with its arrays of receiving domes and transmitting dishes on the roof. The images from each of the seven cameras around the racetrack, together with the pickups from the numerous microphones, would all be transmitted back here by microwave link, ready for mixing in the scanner.
It was also from where the final fusion of sound and pictures was sent via faraway satellite to the Channel 4 main studios in London for broadcast through the ether to people’s televisions at home. And all in the blink of an eye, or maybe two blinks.
“Are you ready?” asked Neville, the Channel 4 Racing producer.
“As I’ll ever be,” I said, taking in a deep breath.
“You’ll be fine,” Neville said. “And we can always do it again.”
Yes, I thought. Thank goodness it wasn’t going out live.
But I needn’t have worried. As soon as the camera’s Cyclops-like lens pointed my way outside the weighing room, my professional instincts took over and I managed to do all the straight-to-camera pieces in just one take.
Afterward, I sat in the scanner for over an hour putting together the whole thing, editing the VTs and doing the voice-overs, shuffling things around until both Neville and I were happy with the final tribute. I played it right through from start to finish, and, once more, it brought me close to tears. I hoped that it might have the same effect on those who watched it on Saturday.
By the time I emerged from the scanner into a light September drizzle, the Thursday-afternoon races were well under way. But I’d had enough for one day and decided to take myself home to Edenbridge. If I was lucky, I’d get around London before the rush hour.
Mitchell Stacey was waiting for me in the parking lot.
Oh shit, I thought. What the hell’s he doing here?
Mitchell trained nothing but steeplechasers or hurdlers, and there were only flat races at Newmarket. So why was he leaning on my car? I slowed to a halt about twenty yards away, but he came over quickly toward me, sticking his right forefinger up
under my chin.
“Now, listen to me, you bastard!” he shouted at me from about ten inches distance. “Stop fucking my wife!”
There wasn’t much to say, so I kept quiet.
Sorry somehow seemed inappropriate.
“If it wasn’t for this business with your sister,” Mitchell went on, “I’d have had your legs broken. Do you understand me?”
I remembered what Sarah had said about him being a bully. I could see what she meant.
“Do you understand me?” he said again, pushing his ruddy face up close to mine.
“Yes,” I said.
“Good.” He thrust a folded piece of paper into my hands.
I unfolded it. On it was printed a large colored photograph. It was rather grainy and slightly out of focus, but it was clear enough. The photograph showed Sarah and me in bed together the previous evening, and there was little doubt as to what we were doing.
“I won’t divorce her, you know,” he said. “And she won’t divorce me either because she knows she’d end up with nothing. Not a bean. We have a prenuptial contract.”
I wasn’t sure that prenups were legal documents under English law, but I decided against mentioning it to him at that particular moment.
“If you ever come near my wife again, I’ll kill you.” Mitchell said it with real menace.
He suddenly turned and walked away from me without looking back.
My skin felt cold and clammy, and I found I was shaking.
I stuffed the photograph into my pocket and made it over to my car, sitting down heavily in the driver’s seat.
Bloody hell! How did he get that picture?
I called Sarah’s cell phone.
“He knows,” I said when she answered. “Mitchell knows about us. He’s just been here at Newmarket and he confronted me.”
“I know,” she said.
“Then for God’s sake why didn’t you warn me?”
“He threatened me, that’s why.” She was crying. “Told me he’d break my legs if I contacted you.”
I could believe it.
“Mark, I’m so frightened.”
So was I.
“He showed me a picture taken yesterday of us in bed.”
“A picture?” She sobbed. “He’s got the whole bloody video. He made me watch it this morning after Oscar went to school. He’d set up one of those spy cameras in our bedroom. It was awful. I thought he was going to hit me.”
“Pack a bag and leave right now,” I said. “Come and live with me at my place. Mitchell won’t be back for a good couple of hours even if he goes straight home.”
“He took my car keys.”
“So what? Call a taxi and get the train from Newbury. I’ll collect you at Paddington.”
I could hear her sigh. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
There was no reply.
“Why not?” I asked her again.
“I just can’t,” she said again with a resigned tone. There was a long silence on the line. “I should have paid the little shit.”
“Paid who?” I asked.
“Oh nothing,” she said dismissively. There was another silence. “It might be better if we didn’t talk again.”
Neither of us said anything. There may have been no actual words, but the silence between us spoke volumes.
“Bye, bye, my darling,” she said finally. “And thanks for everything.”
She hung up, leaving me sitting there holding the dead phone to my ear.
My whole world seemed to be falling apart around me. My gorgeous twin sister had killed herself, I was arguing with the rest of my family, my lover of five years had just dumped me, and Iain Ferguson appeared to be taking over my job.
7
I sat at home all day Friday and Saturday, moping around my apartment, feeling sorry for myself, and occasionally watching the racing on the television.
I should have been at Newmarket presenting the programs for Channel 4 and RacingTV, not sitting at home watching them.
Two or three times I shouted at my TV set in frustration. I also laughed out loud when Iain Ferguson made a classic mistake, calling the trainer he was interviewing by the wrong name, not once but twice. Idiot, I thought. It was a basic rule of presenting to get an interviewee’s name right because the audience at home would have it written across their screen on an Aston. They would all realize your error and think you were foolish, which indeed you were.
Perhaps Iain Ferguson wasn’t such a threat to my job after all.
On Saturday, after my tribute to Clare, and shown interspersed with the flat races from Newmarket, were four others from the jumping meeting at Market Rasen.
According to my early-morning-delivered copy of the Racing Post, Mitchell Stacey had three horses running at Market Rasen, one in each of the first three races. I hoped they’d all lose.
I had tried to call Sarah’s cell four times on Thursday evening to ensure she was all right. On the first occasion, the phone had rung a couple of times, then gone to voice mail, as if someone at the other end had declined the call. Thereafter it went straight to voice mail, as if it was switched off.
I sent her a text message. There was no reply.
In desperation, I’d called the Staceys’ home number, but Mitchell himself had answered, so I’d immediately hung up. I didn’t dare call again.
Now I studied the TV coverage from Market Rasen with particular attention to see if I could see Sarah, perhaps accompanying her husband into the parade ring before the first race. As always, the cameraman dwelt on the horses and not the people, and the horses were moving while the people were not. I caught a glimpse of Mitchell Stacey, his weather-beaten reddish face reminding me all too well of our close encounter at Newmarket on Thursday.
I couldn’t spot Sarah, but if Mitchell was definitely at Market Rasen, I could at least try to call her safely on their landline if she was at home.
“Please, Mark,” she said, answering after three rings, “I said we were not to speak again. Not ever.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were all right.”
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Are you sure?” I said. “You sound a bit funny.”
There was no reply.
“What happened?” I asked. “Did he hit you?”
“It’s nothing,” she said.
It was as if she was speaking through cotton wool.
“Did he split your lip?”
“I told you, I’m fine.”
“What did you mean yesterday about paying the little shit?”
“Nothing,” she said.
“It must have been something. And why would you pay Mitchell anyway?”
“Leave it, Mark. Move on. Forget me. I’ve already forgotten you. Good-bye.”
She hung up.
Dammit, I thought. Why did she let him get away with hitting her?
And, to top it all, Mitchell’s bloody horse went on to win the first race at Market Rasen, his horrible red face appearing joyful once again as the horse was led in to unsaddle. Oh, how I would have loved to punch his lights out, to split his lip, and see how he liked it.
—
AS SATURDAY AFTERNOON faded into Saturday evening, I lay on my battered old sofa, drinking a can of beer, wondering where my life was going and what I should do about it.
I looked up at the peeling and cracked ceiling of my sitting room.
If the truth be told, it really was well past the “slightly yellowing” stage and was beginning to resemble the nicotine-stained walls of an East End pub before the smoking ban. Not that I smoked. I didn’t. But the “whiteness” of the paint had been fairly suspect when it had been thinly applied by my landlord in the first place, and the eig
ht years since had not been kind.
I sat up and looked at the whole room with fresh eyes.
I had to admit that it was pretty awful.
It was not just the paintwork that was overdue for a change, it was the dilapidated and soiled furniture as well. Not to mention the carpets and the drapes, both of which were unchanged since I’d first moved in twelve years ago, and they hadn’t been new even then.
To think I’d asked Sarah to give up her luxurious East Ilsley mansion to come live in this squalor. Was it any wonder she’d turned me down?
“Right,” I said out loud, “it is high time I made a change.”
Past time, in fact.
I quite surprised myself with my decisiveness and, after about three hours of surfing the Internet, I had a pretty good idea of how much houses cost in most of the Home Counties.
By the time I went to bed at one o’clock in the morning I had a list of eight places where I might be interested in living and the telephone numbers of six realtors to call first thing Monday morning.
I found it all quite exciting, and, if nothing else, it took my mind off Sarah, Clare’s funeral, and the precariousness of my employment.
—
ON SUNDAY MORNING I drove into central London, to the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane.
I always knew that I’d have to go there eventually, but I hadn’t before felt mentally ready for the ordeal. But now seemed to be the right time, before the funeral, not that I was especially relishing the trip.
I parked my old Ford in South Audley Street, behind the hotel, and walked through to the grand frontage of the Hilton, with its overhanging stainless-steel canopy.
Not surprisingly, there was nothing to indicate where Clare had fallen to her death nine days previously. No roped-off area, no bouquets of flowers, not even a mark on the sidewalk to show the spot where half my being had disappeared forever.
I looked above me at the vertical line of balconies that stretched upward and tried to count fifteen floors. Tears filled my eyes and stopped me. Did it matter? Fifteen wasn’t important. Ten would probably have been enough, or even five. According to a telephone call from DS Sharp to my father, the autopsy had established the cause of death as multiple injuries consistent with Clare having fallen a considerable distance onto a hard surface.
Dick Francis's Bloodline (9781101600931) Page 8