‘Do you have any idea why she did it?’ Brendan asked.
‘None at all,’ I said. ‘Clare and I had grown slightly apart these last few months. But I know she’d been seeing someone she didn’t want anyone to find out about. Perhaps that had something to do with it.’
‘Who was it?’ he asked.
‘I’ve no idea. I’m looking for Geoff Grubb in the hope that he might be able to tell me.’
‘That’ll be a waste of time,’ Brendan said. He forced a smile. ‘Geoff wouldn’t know about anything unless it’s got four legs and a tail.’
‘I think I’ll ask him anyway. Give my love to Gillian.’ I started to move away.
‘Let me know about the funeral,’ Brendan called after me. ‘I need time to organize flights for Mum and Dad from Marbella. And try to avoid Thursday, Friday or Saturday next week. It’s the Cambridgeshire meeting.’
Good point, I thought. I had better make sure that my father or brothers weren’t in the process of fixing a funeral date without first referring to the racing calendar.
I found Geoff Grubb hurrying out of the weighing room with a tiny racing saddle over his arm.
‘Geoff,’ I said. ‘Do you have time for a word?’
He slowed. ‘Only a quick one. I’ve got to go and saddle Planters Inn.’
‘I’ll walk with you,’ I said, falling in beside him.
‘I’m really sorry about Clare. Bloody nuisance, too, I can tell you. I’ve had to find different jockeys for all my runners.’
I considered that to be a minor inconvenience, in the circumstances, but I let it pass.
‘Geoff, I know that Clare had been seeing someone recently.’
‘Seeing someone?’ he asked.
Perhaps Brendan had been right about it being a waste of time.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Seeing someone, you know, a boyfriend.’
‘Oh, right,’ Geoff said, nodding.
‘Do you have any idea who it might have been?’
‘It wasn’t me,’ he said seriously.
‘No,’ I agreed. Not even for a nano-second did I imagine that my sister had been having an affair of the heart with Geoff Grubb. He might have been outstanding with his horses, but his people skills were almost non-existent. ‘But do you know who it was?’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry.’
‘Did you ever see anyone coming and going from Clare’s place?’ Clare had lived in a cottage attached to Geoff’s training stables.
He shook his head again. ‘Not that I recall.’
‘Was there ever a car parked outside?’
‘That sports car of hers was there,’ he said unhelpfully.
‘Any others?’
‘A few, now and again, but not a regular one,’ he said. ‘Not that I can remember, anyway.’
It wasn’t that his memory was bad. He could have told me in detail about every race run by every horse in his expansive yard, not just this year but throughout their whole lives. He simply didn’t notice anything else going on around him, not unless it impacted on the training of his horses.
‘Do you mind if I come and have a look around her cottage?’
‘Help yourself,’ he said. ‘The rent’s paid for the rest of the month. Will you be clearing her things?’
‘Probably. Me or someone else in the family.’
‘There’s a spare key in the yard office.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I’ll try to be up there sometime this week.’
He hurried off towards the saddling boxes and I watched him go.
Clare had ridden as his number one stable jockey for the past four years and they had made a good team. I wondered if he had been the one that Clare had liked to control. But she hadn’t ridden exclusively for Geoff Grubb. As was the case with all jockeys, she had also been engaged by other trainers when Geoff didn’t have any runners.
And I knew that Bangkok Flyer wasn’t one of Geoff’s.
Back in the scanner, the afternoon was progressing on schedule. There had been no significant delays in the races and Derek was calm, which meant that everyone else was also calm, all of them working smoothly together.
I, in contrast, wasn’t doing anything useful, merely being a spectator. I thought about leaving and going home. But that wouldn’t make me feel any better. At least here I had something to watch, something to take my mind off Clare.
Guilt was a soul-destroying emotion and I had lain awake half the previous night staring into the void, into the emptiness of despair and self-condemnation. Why hadn’t I answered the bloody telephone? How could I have ignored her when she had needed me the most?
‘There’s a dog on the course at Leicester,’ Derek said through the talk-back while looking at the pictures coming down the line. ‘Can we get a close-up?’
Dogs on racecourses, although rare, were always good for ‘atmosphere’ shots, just provided the dogs didn’t actually delay the races and screw-up the schedule. Most racing folk loved their dogs as much as they did their horses and there was nothing like a loose puppy to provide a bit of ‘Aahh’ appeal to a broadcast. It made a welcome change from the crying babies with runny noses that the cameramen usually found amongst the crowd.
The afternoon continued without any significant problems. I watched on the transmission screen as Iain Ferguson interviewed guests in the paddock and talked about the horses, performing the role that I should have had. He was good. Too damned good, I thought. I’d better be careful or he’d have my job permanently, and I certainly didn’t want that.
I loved my work, and I specifically enjoyed the variation that came from splitting my time between presenting for Channel 4 and RacingTV, and also doing the racecourse commentaries. And I had no intention of allowing someone else to take over any of my hot seats. I’d better sort my head out fast and get back to my jobs while I still had them.
The production assistant counted down to an ad break. ‘Two minutes and forty seconds,’ she called, and everyone relaxed as the pre-set sequence was played direct from the RacingTV headquarters building near Oxford. The ads were the only ‘down-time’ during the whole four-hour broadcast and the crew in the scanner used the break to get coffee, to visit the loo, or just to stretch cramped legs.
‘You all right?’ Derek asked, standing up and turning round to me.
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Makes a change for me to see you at work rather than just to hear it on the talk-back. It’s very interesting.’
‘Well, don’t get any ideas of taking my job.’ He smiled at me, but he wasn’t exactly making a joke. In times of recession and cuts, everyone, it seemed, was watching their backs, and none more so than in the TV business.
‘Coming out of break in twenty seconds,’ called the production assistant. Everyone sat down again at their places. ‘Five, four, three, two, one.’ She fell silent, and the whole juggernaut rolled back smoothly into motion bang on cue.
‘Four minutes to shut-up,’ said the production assistant through the talk-back.
It was now precisely seven minutes to six and all the races were over for the afternoon. Iain was doing the round-up, the last few moments of each race being shown in turn with his voice-over, mostly discussing possible future plans for each of the winners.
‘Two minutes to shut-up,’ said the assistant.
Iain went on talking without a pause as the production assistant’s voice spoke into his ear, not only with the countdown to shut-up but also those to the end of each piece of VT.
‘Iain, coming to you in picture in five seconds,’ said Derek, adding to the chatter.
‘Thirty seconds to shut-up,’ said his assistant at the same time. ‘Four, three, two, one, cue Iain.’