In all, it was estimated that in excess of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds had ‘disappeared,’ although a substantial proportion of that had been erroneously paid out to society members as ‘winnings’ to which they weren’t legally entitled. Much of the rest had been lost to bookmakers or to other gamblers on the betting exchanges.
Certainly Gary and James hadn’t pocketed very much from the scheme, maybe less than ten thousand pounds between them.
Bad as it was, at least it wasn’t even close to being in the Bernie Madoff league. His asset-management Ponzi scheme in the United States had involved the embezzlement of an estimated sixty-five billion — yes, billion — U.S. dollars.
However, it was still bad enough for the University of Bristol to abruptly boot both Gary and James out of their courses and to ban them for life from ever again setting foot on the University premises.
All that effort to secure the tenancy of a new Bristol flat had been in vain, and it had been my searching for James’s passport, needed by the letting agency, that had been the catalyst for me to start working everything out.
In court, at Patrick Hogg’s urging, they both pleaded guilty to profiting illegally by knowingly making false representations, contrary to the 2006 Fraud Act, and they were both jailed for eighteen months. This time, Gary’s term was to run consecutively to his other sentences.
Now, the only accommodation the two of them would have for the coming year and beyond, rather than being their much hoped-for flat, would have no door handles on the inside, and bars across the windows.
As to the other business, the ‘kidnap Amanda’ plan and the threats made to harm her if I didn’t do as I was told to fix races, no action was taken by the police, mostly because I did not wish to make any complaints against my own children.
That may have been seen by some as just generous parenting, but I also didn’t want to be asked any difficult questions about any missing lead weights.
However, one of the burner phones in Gary Shipman’s bag had contained details of calls and texts made to my mobile number. There had also been an electronic voice changer found in the bag, confirming him as Squeaky Voice.
While Amanda had not been arrested or charged with anything, she had been issued with a ninety-pound Fixed Penalty Notice for wasting police time, which, of course, I had paid.
Darren spent four nights in the Royal Berkshire Hospital, recovering from the stabbing and his abdominal surgery.
Amanda collected him on Saturday afternoon in her battered Fiesta, and the first stop they made was to the scene of the attack.
They were in the sitting room when I arrived back from watching a Victrix horse run at Newmarket.
‘I’ve come to thank you,’ Darren said, standing up nervously in front of me. ‘I’ve been told that without your prompt application of pressure to the wound, I would have surely died. Even with it, it was a close-run thing.’
He held out his hand to me, and I shook it.
‘I also want to apologise for being such a bloody idiot. Amanda and I have been talking a lot over these past few days, and I’d like me and you to make a fresh start.’
I shook his hand again.
‘Then no more drug dealing,’ I said, holding firmly onto his hand.
‘No more drug dealing,’ he agreed, although I had my severe doubts that he’d stick to that.
Thanks and apologies over, he and Amanda had departed in the Fiesta, back to their love nest above the Raj Tandoori.
Georgina’s father died at the end of July, his heart having finally given up the futile struggle to pump a limited oxygen supply around his failing body. There had been no fuss. He had simply slipped away in his sleep, only discovered the following morning when his wife brought him in a cup of tea.
On hearing the news, Georgina and I had immediately driven north to Harrogate, but there was not much we could do other than to help with undertakers and funeral arrangements.
After two days I returned south, leaving Georgina behind to continue supporting her mother. It wasn’t planned as such, but looking back, I think it was at that precise moment that our marriage finally ended.
I kissed Georgina goodbye, standing in her mother’s driveway, with the now-customary peck on the cheek.
‘I’ll call you,’ I said.
‘Fine,’ she replied.
And that was that. I had driven away, and Georgina had not.
Ten days later, I returned to Harrogate for my father-in-law’s funeral but came back home again the same night, and here we were, eleven weeks later, still living apart and speaking only occasionally on the telephone, mostly about the plight of our errant children.
While we hadn’t yet discussed a formal separation, or a divorce, the state of our independent lives seemed to be more than satisfactory for both of us. Maybe there would be legal proceedings in the future, but neither of us seemed in any hurry to precipitate them — not yet, anyway.
Meanwhile, while everything else going on, Potassium had continued to excel, proving himself to be the champion British racehorse of the year.
Owen and I had decided to give the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes at Ascot a miss, as had always been our intention, but in early July, Potassium had won the Eclipse at Sandown over a mile and a quarter.
A month later he captured the mile-long Sussex Stakes at Goodwood, by two lengths, from the winner of the Prix du Jockey Club, the French Derby, in what was headlined in the following day’s Racing Post as the ‘Battle of Agincourt of the Derby Winners’ — another overwhelming victory for the English, with a cartoon of Potassium holding up a two-finger salute towards the French — even though horses don’t actually have any fingers.
Two and a half weeks after that, I had gone north again, this time on the train to York, and I was in confident mood.
Horse races were first held at York some eighteen hundred years ago, to mark the visit to the city of the then Roman emperor Septimius Severus, but the modern racecourse opened for its first meeting in 1731, on open marshy land just a mile south of the city centre, known as the Knavesmire.
The current one-mile six-furlong start is close to the place that had been used for public executions since the fourteenth century, the most notable being that of the highwayman Dick Turpin, who was hanged at that very spot some eight years after the racecourse was established.
Nowadays, the four-day Ebor Festival — from Eboracum, the Roman name for York — is the highlight of the northern racing calendar, with three Group 1 races plus the Ebor Handicap, the most valuable flat-racing handicap in Europe.
Yorkshire folk certainly know how to have a good time, and they flock to York races in huge numbers to do just that, especially during the Ebor meeting.
It had always been one of my favourite events. But this year was extra special, with Potassium being the main attraction on the first day, as a runner in the million-pound International Stakes over a mile and a quarter.
Such was Potassium’s reputation that he had frightened off most of the other good horses, so there were only four others in the race, and he lived up to his star billing, winning easily by three lengths.
He had now won five of his six runs this year, all of them at Group 1, and so it was an easy decision for Owen and me to accept the invitation from America to run in the US$7 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Keeneland, rather than the £1.3 million Champion Stakes at Ascot.
Potassium had nothing more to prove at home, and now was his chance to take on the best of the international horses, to try to emulate Raven’s Pass, the only other English-trained winner of the Breeders’ Cup Classic, way back in 2008.