‘Darling, I’m not sure. Mum said he was very unwell on Sunday, and she was very worried about him, but he’s been a little better since then. Why don’t you give Mum a call and ask her how he is? You could even speak to him.’
‘Okay. Maybe.’
‘No “maybe.” Do it now. I have to go now to get back to my dinner. Call me tomorrow when you’ve spoken to the agency. Bye.’
We hung up and I went out of the bathroom, not only to eat my dinner but also to enjoy my special dessert afterwards.
Chapter 23
‘Have you seen the front of today’s Racing Post?’
Owen almost shouted it down the phone at me when I called him at eight o’clock.
‘What about it?’ I asked.
I would normally have glanced through the electronic version of the paper on my computer by this time of the morning, but my computer was at home — and I wasn’t.
‘I should bloody well sue them for libel.’
‘Why?’ I said, somewhat alarmed. ‘What does it say?’
‘The banner headline on the front page reads “Mystery of the Missing Weights.” ’
I went cold.
‘What does it say under that?’
‘It implies that the two-pound underweight Tim Westlake weighed in after riding Dream Filler at Lingfield last Saturday must have been done on purpose.’
‘But that’s ridiculous,’ I said, trying to keep my heart rate down.
‘Of course it is, but this bloody man, Jerry Parker, who wrote the article, claims that Tim Westlake weighed out correctly at nine stone seven, but he weighed in at nine five, because two one-pound lead weights had been taken from his weight cloth sometime between the two. It’s all total nonsense.’
‘How does he come up with that crazy idea?’
‘Parker claims that the weighing-room manager at Lingfield told him that two one-pound weights were missing from his stock after Saturday’s racing, and he says that’s too much of a coincidence not to be connected with Tim Westlake’s underweight.’
He wasn’t wrong.
‘Couldn’t they have fallen out during the race?’ I said.
‘That seems rather unlikely.’
‘But I’ve heard of it happening before.’
I could remember reading about a handicap hurdle at Catterick when the champion jump jockey, Brian Hughes, lost weights during the race through a hole in the weight cloth, and had consequently weighed in two pounds light. Brian Boranha, the disqualified horse, had also been a fairly short-priced favourite, just as Dream Filler had been at Lingfield.
‘Does Jerry Parker specifically name you in the piece?’ I asked.
‘He names me as the trainer of the horse. He also states that the stewards fined me seven hundred and fifty pounds and that my appeal against that was dismissed last week. Both of which are true. But he doesn’t actually accuse me of having done it on purpose. Not in so many words.’
‘That makes it rather difficult for you to sue him,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry. It will all soon blow over. You watch — someone will find the weights somewhere out on Lingfield’s all-weather track.’
Or not.
‘Come back to bed,’ Toni said when I’d finished making my calls to the trainers.
‘What time are the Farquhars picking you up?’
‘Ten o’clock.’
I looked at my watch. It was a quarter to nine.
‘How long do you need to get ready,’ I asked.
‘Half an hour.’
‘So we have forty-five minutes to play with. Shall I order us some food?’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, tapping the bed as encouragement for me to lie down. ‘I’m eating you for breakfast.’
Herb and Harriet Farquhar arrived at the hotel at ten o’clock precisely, and Toni was ready.
‘Are you coming with us in the car?’ she had asked as we dressed — my shirt not quite too creased or grubby to wear for a second day, and her yellow dress from Tuesday, now dry-cleaned and pressed by the hotel laundry service.
‘I think I’ll catch the train. Then there’ll be fewer difficult questions to have to answer on the journey.’
I stood inside the lobby, half hidden behind a pillar, and watched as Toni climbed into the front passenger seat of the Farquhars’ private-hire Mercedes.
Even though I knew I would be seeing her later in the day, my body still ached desperately for her.
Georgina had never been fond of oral sex. Indeed, she found the whole idea rather abhorrent, so it had never been on our sexual agenda. But the American lady had no such qualms. Hence, this morning had been a revelation, my mind near exploding, both with ecstasy and the sudden realization of what I had been missing for so many years.
As soon as the Farquhar’s Mercedes was out of sight, I walked along to the local underground station, stopping off at a convenience store to buy a copy of the Racing Post.
The ‘Mystery of the Missing Weights’ headline was printed over two lines in large bold letters, and seeing it there in black and white made me feel quite weak at the knees.
I leaned against a lamppost for support and read the article beneath the headline, from start to finish.
Just as Owen had said, the implication made by Jerry Parker was that the weights had been removed on purpose, without him actually accusing any specific person. I could imagine that a team of Racing Post lawyers had spent many hours scrutinizing his text to ensure the paper wasn’t opening itself to accusations of libel.
Indeed, the article didn’t mention me by name at all, only referring to the owner of Dream Filler as Victrix Racing, and then only in passing.
I suddenly felt very self-conscious, standing there dressed in top hat and tails amidst the scurrying Thursday-morning shoppers on Kensington High Street, reading about something of which I alone knew more than anyone else — far more than I should.
I looked around me, worried that those nearby might detect my unease.
I folded the newspaper in half, front page inwards, and tucked it under my arm before continuing my trek to the station.
I took the Tube to Waterloo, and from there I caught a very congested train to Ascot.
The Thursday of the royal meeting, with the running of the Gold Cup, was always traditionally the busiest day of the week, although, since the expansion of Royal Ascot from four days to five in 2002, to mark Queen Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee, the Saturday crowds have steadily grown and are now the largest.
Not that you could imagine that any more people could squeeze aboard this particular train. Not only was every seat taken, many of them with an occupant plus another sitting on their lap, but every available square inch of floor space was packed with men in morning dress or smart suits, and women in their colourful finery, all of them ready for Ladies Day at the races.
Fortunately, I had arrived at Waterloo just after the previous train had departed, so I was one of the first to board the next one, so I had a seat, tucked into one corner of the carriage.
One or two of the passengers were studying copies of the Racing Post, and I feared that the front-page headline was shouting out to those around me.
I could almost feel a large red arrow above my head, pointing straight down at me, with Guilty Party written on it in large letters.
When we arrived at Ascot railway station, there was a mad rush to get off the train, but I was so crammed in that I had to wait for everyone else to leave before I could even move. In fact, I waited almost until the doors began to close again before I finally stepped out onto the platform.
I was in no hurry.
Cherwell Edge, the Victrix horse I had running today, was in the Hampton Court Stakes, a Group 3 event for three-year-olds, over a mile and a quarter. It was the second-to-last race of the day, not due off until 5.35, and I hadn’t arranged to meet up with Toni until after the Gold Cup, because she thought she wouldn’t be able to get away any earlier.