The other end of the pole was still in my right hand, and Brendan’s weight was beginning to rotate me alarmingly around the spar.
I looked across at him and he stared back at me, terror deeply etched in his features, a dreadful realization apparent in his eyes — his zombie eyes.
I thought of my darling sister Clare, and also of the lovely Emily, and what might have been.
Maybe I could have saved him if I’d wanted to, or maybe I couldn’t.
I’d never know.
I let the pole slip through my fingers, and decided to look upwards at the black sky rather than downwards at the concrete.
I had no wish to witness another of Brendan’s ‘accidents’.
Epilogue
Two months later, on a bright cold morning just two days before Christmas, a thanksgiving service was held for Clare in Ely Cathedral and, this time, I organized everything myself.
The original plan had been to hold it at St Mary’s parish church in Newmarket but, such had been the demand for tickets, somewhere larger had to be found and Ely Cathedral, just half an hour up the road, was perfect.
There is something very grand about our great churches and Ely Cathedral is certainly no exception, sitting as it does on a small mound surrounded by the flatlands of the Fens.
The service matched the surroundings, and, unlike at her funeral, there was lots of live music, with the cathedral choir adding to the splendour.
Geoff Grubb read a lesson, as did James and Stephen, while Angela and I both gave eulogies.
Indeed, the Shillingford family had turned out in force.
Even Joshua, Brendan’s younger brother, was present although Gillian, Brendan’s widow, and their boys were not.
Life for them had been far from easy.
Not only had their father died that night at Kempton, but he had been shown to be a murderer, and the press had not been kind to him.
Toby Woodley may not have been the most popular member of the press, but he was still one of their brotherhood, and the others had devoured his killer like a pack of hungry dogs.
‘You can’t libel the dead,’ Toby had said to me at Stratford races.
So right he was.
Jim Metcalf and his fellow journalists had taken full advantage of that fact, dismantling any semblance of good reputation that Brendan had built up over his years as a trainer.
It had even been widely reported by some that Brendan had been the trainer who had layed his horses to lose, the trainer about whom Toby Woodley had written in the Daily Gazette the previous May.
That, I was sure, had come as a great relief to Austin Reynolds, although both he and I knew it wasn’t true.
The service concluded with a five-minute tribute film to Clare that was shown on big screens set up on either side of the altar, and also on a number of televisions placed down the nave.
The previous week I had spent a whole day in RacingTV’s edit suite in Oxford putting the film together. It started with a montage of photographs of Clare from throughout her life together with some home movies of her riding her pony as a child. Then there was footage of her riding career, including big-race victories intercut with snippets of interviews and celebrations. And, for the soundtrack, I had appropriately chosen the song ‘The Winner Takes It All’ by ABBA.
When I had first played the finished film through to myself it had made me cry, and now, as the music echoed around the arches and vaulted roof of the Norman cathedral, there were many more tears all around me.
But the film wasn’t all doom and gloom. Quite the contrary.
There was laughter too, and spontaneous applause when it finished with a still image of Clare, standing high in her stirrup irons, all smiles and happiness, punching the air having just won a race at Royal Ascot.
I stood under the West Tower shaking hands as the huge congregation spilled out past me through the West Door onto Palace Green.
I suppose I had initially chosen a day when there was no racing in the hope that enough people would come to fill St Mary’s Church in Newmarket. Now it seemed that absolutely everyone I knew in racing, and many more that I didn’t, had turned up at Ely, and soon my right hand was aching from so much shaking.
It was a good job that it wasn’t my left hand.
That was only just out of a cast after eight weeks.
Brendan had fractured my wrist in six places when he’d hit me with the pole and it had been almost more than I could manage to get myself off the floodlight framework and back onto the grandstand roof without going the same way he had.
Detective Sergeant Sharp and Detective Chief Inspector Coaker came out of the cathedral together.
‘Lovely service,’ they both said in unison. ‘Very moving.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied. ‘Any news?’
‘Mr Brendan Shillingford’s car has now been confirmed as the one that hit you and Mrs Lowther at the pub in Madingley,’ DCI Coaker said. ‘It had been repaired by a garage in Bury St Edmunds. Mr Shillingford apparently told them that he’d hit a deer in Thetford Forest. But we’ve been able to extract a sample of Mrs Lowther’s DNA from blood found on the underside of the vehicle.’
I suppose I was pleased.
‘How about the knife?’ I asked.
‘According to Superintendent Cullen at Surrey, the knife found on Mr Shillingford was consistent with that used to kill Mr Woodley, although they were unable to find any trace of his blood on it.’
‘Will there be a trial?’ I asked.
‘Only the remaining inquests,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘There’d be no point in a criminal trial.’
‘Will the inquests name Brendan as the murderer?’
‘That doesn’t happen any more. I expect the coroners to record verdicts of unlawful killing in the case of Toby Woodley and Emily Lowther, but there will be little doubt about who was responsible. Mr Shillingford’s verdict will probably be misadventure.’
Brendan’s misadventure.
The policemen moved away through the door and outside into the pale December sunshine.
I turned to see who was next in the line.
‘Hello, Mark,’ said Sarah Stacey.
I anxiously looked around behind her.
‘Mitchell’s not here,’ she said. ‘I’ve left him.’
I stared at her. ‘When?’
‘About six weeks ago.’
‘Why didn’t you call me?’ I asked.
‘Because I didn’t leave Mitchell for you,’ she said with determination. ‘I just left him. Time will tell what happens from now on.’
‘But where are you living?’
‘With my sister,’ she said.
I hadn’t even known she’d had a sister. ‘What about the prenup?’ I asked.
‘My lawyer says it’s not enforceable. Not after fourteen years of marriage.’
‘I hope he’s right.’
‘Call me sometime,’ she said, and then she turned and walked away, out of the cathedral. Was it also out of my life?
I watched her go. Maybe I would call her, or maybe I wouldn’t. As she had said, time would tell.
Harry Jacobs came bounding up to me.
‘A fitting tribute,’ he said. ‘Well done. Clare would have been proud of you.’
‘Thanks, Harry,’ I said shaking his hand.
He smiled at me warmly and moved away. Nothing more needed to be said, not today.
In November, I had visited Harry’s impressive country mansion near Stratford-upon-Avon to give him the good news that both of his blackmailers were dead and that his guilty secret had died with them.
I certainly wasn’t going to say anything to anyone about any blackmail.
We had sat in his conservatory looking out over the rolling Warwickshire countryside and his relief had been almost palpable.
‘I want to close that offshore bank account,’ he had said, ‘but there’s more than twenty-five thousand pounds in it and I can hardly bring that back into my regular accounts without my accountant or tax lawyer asking where it came from.’