‘The Sheikh sends his condolences to you both,’ I said.
‘What else?’ asked Ryan impatiently.
‘He wants to know why his horses died.’
‘We all bloody well want to know that,’ Oliver said, clearly irritated. ‘What else did he say? What about his other horses?’
‘He told me that he was moving two fillies from this yard to Declan’s.’
I watched the two men very carefully, hoping to spot some unwary emotion. But they obviously had been expecting me to say this. There was not a flinch from either. They may both have been gritting their teeth internally but, if so, there was no visible external reaction.
‘It’s a good idea,’ Ryan said. ‘Declan is much better than me with young fillies. He nurtures them well.’
You’re good, I thought.
I almost believed that he was being sincere.
Almost, but not quite.
‘What about the others?’ Oliver pressed urgently. ‘Is he going to move those as well?’
‘He says he is content to leave them here at Castleton House Stables.’
There was an obvious lessening of tension in Oliver’s neck muscles and I realised that the six remaining Karim horses probably made a crucial difference between the stables staying afloat or going under.
Our conversation was suspended by a knock on the kitchen door.
‘Come,’ shouted Oliver.
The door opened slightly and a head full of tight red curls appeared through the crack.
‘Sorry to interrupt, Mr Ryan,’ said a soft female voice. ‘It’s quarter to ten and we haven’t yet declared.’
‘Good God!’ Ryan said, leaping to his feet. ‘Well done, Janie. I’ll come and do it right now.’
He rushed out towards the yard office.
‘Who’s Janie?’ I asked.
‘Yard secretary,’ Oliver said. ‘Been here for ever.’
‘She wasn’t here yesterday,’ I said.
‘She was. She came in early but I sent her home. She was distraught over the loss of the horses. She’s been with us since she was a teenager. I don’t think we could run the business now without her. Really efficient. She will have prepared the declarations on the computer. Ryan just has to confirm that everything’s correct and then send them online to Weatherbys before ten.’
‘Declarations for what?’ I asked.
‘To run a horse. We have to declare all runners by ten o’clock two days ahead of their races. So we are declaring today for those running on Thursday.’
‘Is that different from entries? Ryan said he had to do those yesterday.’
Oliver almost managed to smother his irritation that I knew so little.
‘To declare a horse to run it must obviously be entered first. Entries close five days before most races but sometimes earlier, in particular for big races. For example, first entries for next month’s Derby closed almost eighteen months ago when the horses were still yearlings and hadn’t even run.’
‘But how do you know at that stage which ones will turn out to be any good?’
‘You don’t,’ Oliver said with a laugh. ‘So we entered them all just in case, even those that were still to be named. It’s only six hundred pounds a horse at that stage.’
Amazing, I thought. Like paying a few hundred quid to put a newborn baby down for Eton or Harrow in the hope that, thirteen years later, he will be good enough to get in.
Which, of course, was exactly what some people do.
‘It must be a disaster if you find you’ve developed a world-beater that you didn’t enter.’
‘I arrange with my owners to enter all their colts as a matter of course,’ said Oliver, ‘and most of their fillies too. You can make a late entry if you need to but it costs much more — eighty-five grand if you want to enter just the week before the race.’ He laughed again. ‘But worth it, of course, if you win.’
If you win, I thought.
Everything about life in Newmarket, it seemed, was about winning, and not just at the races.
7
Declan’s set-up was much more modest than that at Castleton House Stables. It was also on the other side of the town, on Hamilton Road near the Rowley Mile racecourse, so I arranged for the car to take me there just after eleven o’clock.
Declan wasn’t expecting me and I made no effort to forewarn him of my arrival, instructing the driver to park on the driveway right in front of the house.
However, it was Arabella who answered the front door, her make-up and hair immaculate. Just as yesterday.
‘Is Declan in?’ I asked her.
‘He’s in the shower,’ she replied. ‘Just back from riding out.’
For some reason I was surprised.
‘He still rides, then?’
‘Of course he still rides. Most days.’ She sounded almost affronted that I would even ask. ‘He only gave up race-riding two years ago.’
‘Only I saw Ryan and Oliver on the gallops and they were in a Land Rover.’
She grimaced as if even the mention of their names in this household was offensive.
‘Oliver is too old to ride now and Ryan has a bad knee. That’s what forced him to retire as a jockey.’ There was no sympathy in her tone, just a clipped statement of facts.
‘Why did Declan retire as a jockey?’ I asked.
‘He always wanted to train horses more than ride them. Most jockeys leave it too late. And, also, he got fed up of having to constantly starve himself to make the weights. Do you want to come in?’
She looked past me to the Mercedes and the driver, raising her eyebrows in question.
‘He’ll wait there,’ I said.
I stepped into the galleried hallway and Arabella shut the door.
‘Coffee?’ she asked.
‘Great.’
She led the way across the parquet flooring of the hall into the kitchen. The house may have been slightly smaller than that of her father-in-law but it was tastefully furnished in pastels, and everything was spotless.
There was a view from the kitchen window straight into the stable yard and, whereas the stable buildings themselves may have seen better days, they looked well cared for with several large pots of red geraniums adding colour at every corner.
‘Milk?’ Arabella asked.
‘Please,’ I said.
She poured it in and handed me the steaming cup.
‘You have a lovely place here,’ I said.
‘Thank you. It’s not as big as Castleton House but at least it’s ours.’
There was clear resentment in her tone. Jealousy towards Ryan was obviously alive and well and living in Hamilton Road.
I decided not to duck the issue.
‘Have Ryan and Declan never got on?’
She glanced at me sharply. ‘Who says they don’t get on?’
I pursed my lips and looked at her. ‘Don’t take me for a fool,’ I said. ‘It’s pretty obvious. And I overheard him talking to you in Oliver’s kitchen yesterday before I came in.’
She sighed. ‘That was the first time Ryan had spoken to me in five years. Not that he was very nice.’
‘So what were you doing there, then?’
‘God knows,’ she said. ‘Declan thought that we should, you know, after the fire and such, to show some support, but it wasn’t a good idea. We have nothing to do with them any more.’
‘Did you previously?’ I asked.
‘A bit, when the brothers were both riding. But not much even then. They are ultra-competitive — everyone is in racing — but Ryan always lorded it over Declan, claiming he was the better jockey simply because he rode more winners. But he had better horses to ride. Oliver thinks the sun shines out of Ryan’s arse, that he can do no wrong.’