The tribute was to be a short piece of me talking straight to 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 camera, then more voice-over of her last race on Scusami at Lingfield, with 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 through 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 were busy laying thick black cables between the scanner and the signals-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 racecourse, together with the pick-ups 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 far-away 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.
Afterwards, 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 made 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 off home to Edenbridge. If I was lucky, I’d get round the M25 before the rush-hour.
Mitchell Stacey was waiting for me in the car park.
Oh shit, I thought. What the hell’s he doing here?
Mitchell trained nothing but steeplechasers or hurdlers, and there were only ever 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 towards 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 the paper was printed a large colour 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 mobile.
‘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? Order 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 in 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 round the flat feeling sorry for myself and, occasionally, watching the racing on the television.
I should have been at Newmarket presenting the programmes 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, not once but twice, by the wrong first name. 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.