Hands Down, page 31
Quite unreasonably, I felt cheated out of five minutes of my life.
Chico and I had spent the night in Nutwell, this time with Chico sleeping soundly, properly tucked up in a comfy bed rather than sitting on guard in the kitchen with Charles’s shotgun.
I, meanwhile, had spent much of a second consecutive night lying awake. Somehow, the shock of being shot at, and hit, had driven up my adrenaline level to such a peak that sleep wouldn’t come no matter how many sheep I tried to count. And the continued throbbing in my right hand didn’t help either.
At least my left hand had settled down after a proper dose of my immunosuppressants but, as always, there was a fine balance to be found: how to take enough of the drugs to stop my body attacking the alien tissue on my left while leaving enough natural resistance to fight off any infection in my damaged right. Only the next few days would determine if I had the balance right.
I always think that International Arrivals halls at airports are such happy places, with far-flung friends and relations reuniting after long periods apart.
I watched as a family of two parents and three small children were greeted excitedly by grandparents, while a young couple embraced passionately, the man lifting his newly arrived girlfriend off her feet and swinging her around in unbridled joy.
As 17.57 got closer and closer, I dreamed of such a reunion with Marina, constantly worrying that the reality might be frosty, even hostile.
Time seemed to almost stand still as I counted out the seconds, urging the digital clock on the arrivals board to click over the minutes.
The expected arrival time came and went and still the board didn’t change.
Had something gone wrong? Had the flight been diverted, or maybe worse? Had it ploughed into the ground short of the runway?
Finally, at 18.02, the EXPECTED 17.57 changed to LANDED 18.00.
I breathed a huge sigh of relief and laughed at myself for being so dramatic.
Of course everything was all right. Marina and Saskia were here, safely on the ground at Heathrow.
Earlier, I had taken Chico to Banbury, for him to catch a train back to London.
‘Why don’t you wait and see Marina?’
‘Thanks, but no thanks. You two need to sort this out between yourselves. You don’t want me hangin’ about, clutterin’ up the place and sayin’ somethin’ bleedin’ stupid.’
I wasn’t sure I agreed with him. Just as with my dealings with Valance and Asquith, I thought I might need some reinforcements, but perhaps he was right after all.
‘Anyway,’ Chico had said, ‘I’ve arranged to see Ingrid again tonight.’
I had looked across at him, but he’d just stared ahead at the road, saying nothing more.
LANDED 18.00 changed to ARRIVED 18.07, which I knew meant the aircraft was now parked at the gate.
I could imagine Marina and Saskia standing up from their seats, collecting their coats and stuff, and waiting to disembark, just a few yards away from where I was sitting, on the other side of the building.
My fear and trepidation levels began to outstrip the excitement.
I forced myself to calm down.
Detective Chief Inspector Williams had given me a business card with his personal mobile phone number, and I had called him at lunchtime, before I had departed for the airport.
‘How goes it?’ I’d asked him.
‘Pretty well,’ he’d replied. ‘Asquith has been charged with several firearms offences and we’ve been given more time to question him concerning wounding with intent and attempted murder.’
‘So he’s still in custody?’
‘Oh, yes. And, if the Crown Prosecution Service give the go-ahead to charge him with the other things, as I think they will, he’ll probably be remanded to prison.’
‘Probably?’
‘He would only be granted bail if a judge at the Crown Court is satisfied that he is not at risk of causing physical or mental harm to himself or anyone else and, after what you told me about him wanting to kill himself prior to his arrest, that is most unlikely.’
‘How about the goons?’ I’d asked.
He’d laughed. ‘You mean the Sefton brothers. I threatened them both with a charge of murder over Gary Bremner’s death. They weren’t to know that we didn’t have any forensic evidence. In fact, we had no evidence at all other than some circumstantial ANPR records. But they’re singing like canaries, blaming Valance for everything in an attempt to save their own skins.’ He’d laughed again. ‘So much for honour among thieves.’
‘So will they be charged with Gary’s murder?’
‘Unlikely, I’d say. I reckon the CPS will say we don’t have enough. We might just get a grievous bodily harm charge through for Marcus Capes’s collarbone, but even that’s not certain. It’s just his word against theirs, and it seems that Capes also told his employer it was due to him falling off a horse.’
That might have been my fault, I thought.
‘How about Valance?’
‘Still in hospital. He had more surgery yesterday evening to relieve the pressure on his brain. He’s expected to survive but none of the doctors will commit on how well he might be in the long run.’
‘Has he been arrested?’
‘Not yet, but he will be if he recovers enough.’
‘What about Chico Barnes? He’s still technically under arrest.’
‘It will be up to the CPS to decide if he’s charged, but we’re not pushing for it.’
The board changed from ARRIVED 18.07 to BAGGAGE IN HALL.
I stared at the wall right in front of me with INTERNATIONAL ARRIVALS written on it in huge black letters. Marina would be just the other side of that wall, collecting her checked suitcase from the carousel.
My heart rate climbed and I couldn’t stay still. It was just like the feeling I had experienced in the minutes before leaving the weighing room to go out and ride in the Grand National – a combination of excitement and nerves, mixed together with a hefty dose of fear.
I went over and stood next to the chrome rail so I wouldn’t miss them.
There are two exits from the Terminal 5 baggage hall, one at each end, and I must have looked like a manic tennis fan at Wimbledon, with my head continually switching from one side to the other as if following the ball, checking each exit every few seconds with eagerness and anticipation.
As people came past me, pushing their laden luggage trolleys, I tried in vain to read their baggage labels to see if they had arrived on the Amsterdam flight.
And then, quite suddenly, Marina and Saskia were in sight, coming out of the left-hand exit among a large gaggle of other passengers.
I ducked under the chrome rail and went forward to meet them, my heart in my mouth.
It was Sassy who saw me first and she ran forward, giving me a tight hug around my waist. But I kept my eyes fixed on Marina, trying to read her body language.
She smiled at me and I could see that there were tears in her eyes.
She gave me a hug and I winced. She pulled back.
‘What have you done to yourself?’ she asked with concern.
‘Nothing much. It’s just a scratch,’ I said, playing it down. ‘I just have to have my right hand strapped to my chest for the next week to prevent any swelling.’
She looked worried. ‘But how can you drive?’
I smiled at her. ‘I have another hand, remember. I use that.’
We went outside and took the lift up to the car park. I put the ticket into the payment machine and paid the parking charge.
‘I would offer to drive,’ Marina said. ‘But I had a couple of glasses of champagne at Schiphol and another on the flight.’
I wondered if it had been, appropriately, for Dutch courage.
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll be fine. I’m used to it by now. I drove all the way home from Yorkshire left-handed yesterday afternoon.’
She looked across at me, but remained silent as I unlocked the Discovery and lifted her suitcase, left-handed, into the boot.
‘I spoke to Charles yesterday morning,’ she said when we were all safely strapped in, with Saskia on her booster seat in the back, and I had backed out of the parking space.
‘I know,’ I replied. ‘He told me.’
‘Oh.’ She seemed surprised. ‘What did he say?’
‘Only that you’d called him. He wouldn’t tell me what you’d said.’
Marina sighed slightly. ‘I didn’t really say much. In fact, he did most of the talking.’
I glanced across at her but she was now determinedly looking straight forward through the windscreen as we exited the car park.
Only when we had left the airport and were already on the M25 did I speak again.
‘How is your dad doing today?’ I asked.
Marina didn’t answer immediately but briefly glanced back at Saskia sitting behind me.
‘She’s asleep.’
Sassy had always slept easily in the car. Indeed, as a baby, we had often had to take her out for a drive as the only way to get her to go to sleep.
‘He was a little better this morning but… It’s still only a matter of time. His heart is packing up.’
I glanced over to her and there were more tears in her eyes.
‘I’m so sorry.’
I drove on in silence again as we joined the M40 westbound towards home.
As we passed High Wycombe, Marina turned in her seat to face me.
‘Charles told me all about what you have been doing.’
‘It’s finished,’ I said quickly. ‘It’s done and dusted.’
‘But only until the next time someone asks for your help to sort out some wrongdoing in racing.’
It was now my time to stare resolutely out through the windscreen. She was right. I couldn’t change my spots.
I drove through the Chiltern Hills cutting at Stokenchurch and on across the Thames Valley towards Oxford before the motorway turned north towards Banbury.
‘I’ve missed you,’ Marina said.
I went on staring directly forward.
‘And I’ve missed not being there when you needed me. If only to look after Rosie.’
It broke the tension and I laughed.
‘So Charles told you about that too.’
‘Where is she now?’
‘I left her at home. I thought about bringing her with me but Heathrow don’t allow dogs in the terminals, except guide dogs, and I didn’t want to leave her in the car park. I fed her early before I left. I also told her that you and Sassy were coming home, and she was very excited about that.’
Maybe more excited than me.
I drove on again in silence for a while, past the Bicester junction and on towards the motorway exit to home.
‘I love you, Sid Halley,’ Marina said, quietly but distinctly.
Now there were tears in my eyes. I blinked them away to see the road.
‘I love you more, Marina Halley… so much more,’ I said. ‘And things can be different. I think we should move nearer to London so you can come home every night. And we can also go to the theatre and do the other stuff you love. I’ve already been looking at some houses on estate-agent websites.’
‘Maybe,’ she said.
Then she did something that had me in pieces.
She reached across and stroked the back of my left hand on the steering wheel.
‘I’ll just have to learn to love this as much as I love the rest of you.’
I couldn’t speak and the tears were rolling down my cheeks. She moved her hand and wiped them away for me with her fingers.
I was so overcome and distracted that I drove straight past the exit for Banbury.
Marina looked back over her shoulder.
‘Surely we were meant to get off there,’ she said, as I sped onwards.
‘Do you want to be right, or do you want to be happy?’
She threw back her head and laughed out loud.
‘I want to be happy.’
EPILOGUE
Six weeks later, Marina was back in Fryslân, and Saskia and I were there with her.
She had been back and forth several times to assist her mother, each visit causing her much stress and grief. Meanwhile, Saskia had stayed at home with me to go back to school for the Summer term.
It had been the morning before Marina had been due to come home for Sassy’s half-term holiday that she had called me to say that the inevitable had finally occurred, that her father’s ailing heart had finally beat its last, and he had died peacefully in his sleep.
She had been quite calm about it.
‘I know it’s very sad,’ she said. ‘But I have been hoping for weeks now that, one day, he simply wouldn’t wake up, and now that has happened. Mamma has been sleeping in the spare room and she went in to him at eight o’clock with some tea, but he’d already gone.’
‘How is she taking it?’ I asked.
‘Pretty well, I think. Over the weeks, we have all got used to the fact that he would go sometime soon. Him too. He told me yesterday that he’d had enough and was tired. Mamma’s been keeping herself busy since she found him, putting up white sheets over all the windows. It’s a custom round here to ward off evil spirits.’
‘I’ll book a flight over for Sassy and me.’
‘Do you think it’s wise to bring Saskia? She could go to stay with Charles. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.’
‘I think she should come with me. It’s going to be difficult for her either way, but she needs to be with us at a time like this.’
So I had booked two seats on the British Airways flight from Heathrow to Amsterdam for later that afternoon.
Charles had stepped up to the plate and had called, offering to look after Rosie while we were away.
‘It might be for quite a few days,’ I said to him. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve arranged for my neighbour’s son to take her for a long walk every day to try and tire her out.’
So, Saskia and I had driven to Heathrow via Aynsford to deliver Rosie and her bed, along with enough of her food for a whole week. Charles had given Sassy a big hug and said how sorry he was that Opa had died.
‘He isn’t dead, Grandpa. He’s just gone to Heaven. Like Tilly.’
The flight had been uneventful and I had booked a rental car at Schiphol.
Saskia had slept most of the hour-and-a-half drive from the airport to Fryslân, while I thought about what had happened during the last six weeks.
Anton Valance had finally recovered consciousness but was far from right due to having had a massive bleed on his brain.
‘It’s like he’s had a really bad stroke,’ Detective Chief Inspector Williams had said to me on the phone. ‘And there’s no guarantee he will ever be well enough to be charged with any crime.’
Henry – call me Harry – Asquith, meanwhile, had been charged, both with wounding with intent and with attempted murder, and he had been remanded in custody, awaiting trial.
I wondered what young Henry Payne made of that.
‘How about Chico?’ I’d asked the DCI.
‘It’s not official yet but I understand that no further action will be taken against Mr Barnes.’
Chico had been delighted to hear it when I’d called him.
On the second Saturday in May, I had taken Saskia with me to Haydock Park races and we watched together from the grandstands as Marcus Capes rode a perfect race on Meeru to win the Swinton Handicap Hurdle by half a length.
Being young and healthy, his collarbone had healed very quickly but, even so, he had only been passed fit to ride on the morning of the race.
But it had been worth the long journey north just to see him accompany Meeru into the place reserved for the winner, this time with a carefree and unambiguous broad grin on his face.
The week before, Marcus had come with me to see Toby Jing of the BHA Integrity Department in London, to help me lay some of the facts of Asquith’s and Valance’s race-fixing plan before the authority.
No further copies of Valance’s video of Marcus counting money had surfaced so we had decided to gloss over those particular details. However, we did emphasize that Valance had broken Marcus’s collarbone because he, Marcus, hadn’t been prepared to lose to Asquith’s orders.
I think that Toby had probably been aware that we knew more than we were saying but, short of him applying the thumbscrews, we weren’t telling. But we still gave him enough to ensure that, whatever happened to future recovery or criminal trials, both Asquith and Valance would be declared unfit to be licensed under BHA regulations as an owner or a jockeys’ agent, or as anything else for that matter.
‘Have you heard of any trainers being asked to pay a premium to jockeys’ agents?’ I had asked Toby casually, as I stood up to leave.
‘I’ve heard a few rumours.’
‘And what is the BHA doing about it?’
‘The financial arrangements between a jockey and his or her agent are not the concern of the Authority.’
‘Even if pre-booked jockeys are being threatened by the agent into not turning up to ride a horse because the trainer won’t pay the premium?’
He had looked up at me sharply. ‘Have you any evidence of that?’
I did have evidence, but I was wary of giving it to him. If I knew the BHA, and I did, they would go after the jockeys first, rather than the agents.
‘Nothing concrete,’ I’d said vaguely. ‘But perhaps the Authority should issue a notice to all jockeys’ agents reminding them that, in order to keep their licences, there is a requirement for them to be considered as a fit and proper person, and that would be inconsistent with them extorting money from trainers.’
He had nodded. ‘I’ll discuss it with the chairman.’
It was the best I could hope for.
I had purposely not mentioned anything to Toby about Jimmy Shilstone’s or Simon Paulson’s involvement in any wrongdoing.
Jimmy, meanwhile, hadn’t exactly helped the situation by having had a sudden attack of a guilty conscience. He had turned himself in to the police for having had sex with a minor, only for them to find out from the Passport Office that Valance had doctored the copy of the girl’s passport, changing the 1 at the end of her birth year to a 4.
