Such were most of my discussions and decisions with trainers.
Potassium was the exception, not the rule.
After speaking with Owen, I took DS Royle’s business card from my wallet and called her on her direct line.
‘DS Royle, Thames Valley Police,’ she said, answering at the first ring.
‘Good morning, Detective Sergeant,’ I said. ‘This is Chester Newton, Amanda Newton’s father. I am calling to see if you have made any progress with your investigations.’
‘I’m afraid I have nothing more to tell you since yesterday. Clearly, we are delighted that your daughter turned up safe and well, with no signs of any form of abuse.’
‘What about the injection in her neck?’ I asked. ‘Is that not a form of abuse?’
‘Minor abuse, I agree. But I really meant that there was no evidence that she had been sexually abused.’
‘Have you searched through any CCTV from Pangbourne that might show how she arrived there?’ I asked.
‘No,’ replied the detective. ‘That would take many man-hours to collect and then to examine.’
She didn’t exactly say out loud that she didn’t think it would be a good use of her limited resources, but her tone certainly implied that.
‘Have you made any house-to-house enquiries in Pangbourne?’
‘No.’
‘Are you, in fact, still investigating Amanda’s abduction?’
‘Her case remains open,’ she said. ‘But I have more pressing enquiries to make elsewhere at present. Perhaps you might have heard on local radio that there were further serious disturbances in Oxford last night, and a critical incident has now been declared by the chief constable.’ She paused. ‘Now, if you will excuse me, Mr Newton, I have to go and interview a man whose home was set ablaze by the rioters and whose wife is still unaccounted for.’
She disconnected.
I suppose I couldn’t really blame her for her choice of priority.
I finally put my phone down on my desk at a quarter to ten.
I then sent emails to the syndicates for those horses that the trainers and I had agreed today to enter for races over the coming weekend, or to declare to run in two days’ time, to give the members the maximum time to arrange to attend or not, and to apply through Victrix Racing for entrance badges.
I prided myself on the amount of time I spent communicating with all my syndicate members, either by phone or email. I wanted each of them to feel that they were as involved with the horses as if they had wholly owned them individually, and I was sure it was one of the chief reasons for my success. It was certainly a major factor in attracting so many repeat Victrix shareholders year on year.
I stood up and stretched.
Very often, it would now be nearly time for me to be off to the races to watch a Victrix horse in action during the afternoon, but this day I was attending the evening meeting at Windsor, so I wouldn’t have to leave until after four o’clock.
My phone rang and I looked down at it.
No caller ID was displayed on the screen, and my heart missed a beat.
I picked the phone up and slid my finger across the screen to answer it.
‘Hello.’
‘Is that Chester Newton?’ asked the squeaky voice.
‘Yes,’ I replied angrily. ‘What the bloody hell do you want?’
‘You will enter Potassium into the Ascot Gold Cup.’
‘What?’
He repeated. ‘You will enter Potassium into the Ascot Gold Cup.’
I almost laughed. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘You will do as I say.’
‘I can’t. Quite apart from the fact that entries for that race closed a month ago, it is reserved for horses aged over four, while Potassium is only three.’
The Ascot Gold Cup was also run over two and a half miles, twice the distance Owen and I considered appropriate for our horse.
There was a long pause from the other end of the line, and then whoever was there disconnected without saying another word.
I stood there holding my phone.
I was clearly dealing with an idiot — but he still might be a very dangerous idiot.
Chapter 10
There was a party atmosphere at Windsor races on Monday evening, which was just as well because, in spite of winning the Derby just two days earlier, I was in need of a lift.
James’s departure back to Bristol had been fraught.
Gary Shipman had arrived at our house in his car at eleven o’clock.
‘Morning, Mr Newton,’ he said when I answered the front door to him. ‘Thank you for Saturday night.’
‘Yeah, well, it was not quite what we’d planned,’ I replied.
‘No. But I’m glad everything turned out all right in the end.’
James came bounding down the stairs with a holdall over his shoulder while Georgina came rushing out of the kitchen. She had tears in her eyes, and she grabbed hold of James’s arm, begging him not to go.
‘I have to, Mum,’ he said with obvious embarrassment at the scene that was playing out in front of his best friend. ‘I can’t stand it here. You’re both driving me crazy.’
She didn’t like that. Crazy was a word we tried to avoid using in this household at present, especially anywhere around Georgina.
James unhooked her fingers from his arm and walked out the door.
‘Bye, Dad,’ he said, pulling the door shut behind him.
Georgina sobbed as if in grief.
‘Stop it,’ I said, trying unsuccessfully to control the anger in my voice. ‘He’s only gone to Bristol, for goodness sake.’
‘But I’ve lost both my babies.’
‘They’re not babies,’ I said. ‘They’re adults. And you must learn to let them go with a smile on your face, or they will never come back.’
It did little to console her.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘why don’t you come to Windsor Races with me this evening. It will take your mind off things.’
She looked at me. ‘You and your bloody horses.’
‘It’s my job. You used to enjoy going racing.’
‘Well, I don’t anymore.’
So I went to Windsor on my own, and to be honest, it was a relief.
Whereas Georgina had once pandered to the Victrix syndicate members, she had recently become something of a liability.
At Cheltenham in March — the last time she had been to the races with me — she had not held back from openly criticising their horses, their dress sense, and anything else that came into her mind, and all of it in their presence.
When I’d remonstrated with her about it on the way home, she had just waved a dismissive hand, as if she didn’t care about the potential damage to my business.
The theme of the Windsor race evening was the 1960s, and there was an abundance of flared jeans, tie-dyed shirts, multicoloured bandanas, and Jesus boots on display by both sexes, even though I was personally sporting a sand-coloured linen summer suit.
A Beatles tribute band blasted out the Fab Four’s greatest hits both before and after racing, Babycham was being drunk by the lorryload, and the main greeting spoken by people of all ages was ‘Peace, Man!’
But the racing itself was far from as it was back in 1960.
Modern methods were employed, including the use of starting stalls, large TV screens for the crowd to watch, and the bookmakers’ on-site computers generating instantly printed betting slips, to say nothing of the scanning of the microchips inserted in all the horses’ necks to check for ‘ringers,’ and the rigorous, routine urine dope testing of all the winners for illegal stimulants.
The Victrix-owned horse I had come to see was a three-year-old bay colt called Balham, due to run in the fourth race at seven-fifteen, the Class 3 Windsor Sprint Series Qualifier, over six furlongs.