I HAD AGREED to meet Toni at 4.40 next to the Moët & Chandon Champagne Bar, where we had shared a bottle of fizz the previous morning, and I arrived there a few minutes early.
The Gold Cup had just finished with a stunning two-length victory for Manor House, the Irish hurdling mare, and at a starting price of ten-to-one. I now sorely wished I’d had the strength of my convictions to invest some cash on her nose.
For the umpteenth time, I looked at my watch.
It was now a quarter to five.
Toni was late.
I wanted to be along at the saddling boxes by five o’clock, to be there in good time for when Richie arrived to saddle Cherwell Edge.
Toni arrived at ten to, coming up and throwing her arms around my neck, and giving me a big kiss on the lips.
“Not here,” I said, pushing her away. “Too many eyes.”
She pulled a face.
“Come on,” I said, turning to go. “We need to get to the saddling boxes.”
She didn’t move.
“Yes, thank you,” she said. “I’ve had a lovely day.”
I turned back to her.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m glad you’ve had a lovely day. Good lunch?”
“Excellent. The Ascot Authority suite is fabulous. It’s right next door to the King’s, and it has a great view of the racing.”
I knew. I’d been in there too.
“Now, can we go, please,” I said. “I want to be there in time to watch my horse being saddled.”
We walked up the slope, past the fast-food outlets, to the parade-ring concourse, and then on beyond to the pre-parade ring and the saddling boxes.
The fifth race was in progress as we arrived, and I was relieved to see that Cherwell Edge was still being led around the pre-parade ring, and without a saddle on his back.
We stopped and leaned against the white rail around the ring, waiting for Richie Mackenzie to arrive.
“Are you coming back to the hotel with me tonight?” Toni asked.
I looked at her and longed to do so.
“I can’t,” I said. “I have to go home.”
“To your wife?”
“No. Not that. My wife has gone to stay with her parents. But I still have to go home. I need to do something for my son.”
“Is he also at home?”
“No, he’s not,” I said. “He’s away at university in Bristol, but I have to find his passport for him and then send him a copy. It’s urgent.”
“Can’t someone else do it?” she asked.
“There’s no one else there to do it.”
“So I can go home with you?”
Suddenly, it felt like this was going too far—although how much farther could one go than full-on sexual intercourse? But taking her back to my house seemed to be elevating things to a different level, one I wasn’t sure I wanted to reach. Not yet, anyway.
“How about your clothes and hat for tomorrow?” I asked, fishing for an excuse for her not to be able to come back with me.
“I would just have to wear the same as I am today.”
“Won’t the Farquhars think that strange?”
“I don’t think they’d even notice. It’s all about them, not me. I’ve already told them that they should go back to London tonight without me. I said I wanted to stay for the singing around the bandstand after the races. Everyone on my table was talking about it over lunch.”
“So how do they think you’ll get back?”
“I said I’d take the train. I’m a big girl.” She smiled at me. “And I could also tell them that I will take the train back here in the morning. I’m sure they would be delighted not to have to make the detour to pick me up.”
“Where are you having lunch tomorrow?” I asked.
“With you, I hope. The Farquhars have been invited by some friends to something called the Royal Ascot Racing Club. They said this morning that they were very sorry, but the invitation doesn’t include me. Seems there are only two guest places available. I told them not to worry. I’d be fine.” She smiled at me again. “Maybe we won’t even bother to come here at all. We could spend the morning in bed and then watch the racing on the TV in the afternoon.”
I had to admit that it sounded like a very attractive proposition.
“But I’ve made some appointments tomorrow,” I said. “I need to be here.”
“So we shall be,” she said. “No problem.”
At this point, Richie arrived with the saddle for Cherwell Edge, and he called the stable lad to bring the horse over to one of the saddling boxes.
“You stay here,” I told Toni. “I’ll be back.”
I went over to the saddling box, but I didn’t go in. Richie had brought his assistant to help him, and they soon had Cherwell Edge saddled and ready for the main parade ring.
“All in order?” I asked Richie as the horse was walked away.
“Absolutely,” he said. “Weight cloth and all.” He smiled at me.
“Good,” I said, doing my best to ignore his little jibe. “I’ll join you in the parade ring in a few minutes.”
He walked on, following the horse, while I went back to Toni, who was still standing by the rail where I’d left her.
“I need to go into the parade ring now to meet up with the owning syndicate,” I said to her.
“Can’t I come with you?”
“I’m afraid I don’t have a badge for you,” I said. “And you know how strict they are. Why don’t you go and wait at the spot where we watched the Royal Procession on Tuesday, and I’ll join you to watch the race.”
She didn’t like it, but there was nothing I could do. And if I were being honest, I was really quite glad that she couldn’t come in with me. There would be many people in the parade ring who knew me very well and who also knew Georgina. And there was nothing that moved so fast in horseracing circles as a nice, juicy piece of matrimonial gossip—even the quickest of the specialist five-furlong sprinters had nothing on that.
Just as his trainer, Richie Mackenzie, had predicted earlier, Cherwell Edge did surprise me.
Not that he won, or even came close to winning, but he kept on well over the last couple of furlongs to finish a very creditable fourth of the sixteen runners, collecting over eight thousand pounds in prize money.
Toni and I watched the race from the seats on level four.
“So,” she said as the horses crossed the finish line, “can I come home with you tonight?”
Of course, I should say “no.”
There were so many reasons why it was not a good idea.
What if someone saw us leaving the racecourse together?
Or our neighbours, Victoria or Brian Perry, popped around this evening—as they often did just for a chat or to borrow some sugar or milk?
Or Amanda decided to come home again?
Or the hundred other things I could think of that would give me away?
I turned in my seat to look at Toni.
“All right,” I said.
But I could never have imagined what actually did happen.
Toni and I left while the last race was being run, in the hope that there would be fewer people I knew in Car Park 2 at that time.
When I climbed into the Jaguar, I noticed that there was a piece of paper tucked under the windscreen wiper.
Oh God, I thought. Not another note from Squeaky Voice.
But it wasn’t that.
It was a letter from the Ascot Authority stating that vehicles were not to be left in the car parks overnight. However, as I had a valid car-park pass for both days, no action would be taken on this occasion, but if it happened again, there would be every likelihood that my car would be towed away.
I drove it out of the car park, wondering what on earth I was doing.
In less than three weeks, since Potassium had gone down to the start for the Derby, my whole mundane life seemed to have been turned upside down.
My business had racked up its greatest ever success in that Epsom race, but it had then been placed in serious peril, both by my own actions and by those of others, jeopardy that was ongoing, with Squeaky Voice still out there somewhere, and today’s headline in the Racing Post likely to produce more awkward questions for me to answer.
On top of all that, my marriage had begun to disintegrate, and my children had deserted me. And that was not even mentioning the fact that Amanda had been kidnapped from our party by an unknown assailant, and she was, even now, being threatened with death—not that she knew anything about it.
On the plus side, Potassium had again proven himself to be the real deal by winning the St James’s Palace Stakes, and my other Victrix horses were performing either at or above expectations. And perhaps best of all, my long-term sexual slumbers had been reawakened by a beauty from Lexington, Kentucky.
It took me just over an hour to drive from Ascot to home, arriving back at half past seven.
Surprisingly, Toni and I didn’t talk much on the journey, although she did occasionally say how “cute” she thought the English villages were that we passed through.
Maybe there was too much going on in our heads for conversation.
I know there was in mine.
I turned in through the white-painted gates onto my driveway.
“How lovely,” Toni said as I pulled up close to the front door.
“It’s mock Georgian,” I said, looking at the house. “It was built in the 1970s but was made to look much older.”
I got out of the Jaguar.
“Just wait there a minute,” I said to her. “I need to check something.”
I went in through the front door.
“Anyone home?” I shouted loudly in the hallway, just in case Georgina had returned without telling me, or Amanda was back at home—even though there was no sign of her car in the driveway.
There was no reply, but I climbed halfway up the stairs and shouted it again, to make sure that I could be heard in the bedrooms and the bathrooms. But there was still no reply, and I could hear no running water, such as in a shower.
All was silent.
The house was deserted.
I went back out to the car, and having looked all around to ensure there was no one walking up the drive and no nosey neighbours peering over the fence, I opened the car door and ushered Toni quickly into the house, firmly closing the front door behind her.
She wandered around the ground floor, looking into every room.
“It’s really nice,” she said.
“Do you want a drink?” I asked. I was quite sure I did.
“What have you got?”
“Everything.”
“Wine?”
“Red or white? I’m going to have some red.”
“That’ll do just fine,” she said. “I’ve had so much champagne over the last few days that it’s given me acid.”
We went into the kitchen, and I opened the larder, where I stored the good wines—those saved for special occasions—and selected a 2017 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which Georgina and I had been given the previous Christmas.
I removed the cork and poured two generous glassfuls.
I gave Toni one, and she drank from it.
“How long have you lived here?” she asked.
“Seventeen years.”
What am I doing, putting all of this at risk?
“Food?” I asked, going across the kitchen to look in the fridge.
“Sex first,” she said. “Food second.”
I hesitated, but not about if, more about where.
I baulked at the idea of having sex with someone else in the bed I normally shared with Georgina, and Toni seemed to read my mind.
“Living room,” she said decisively.
She turned on her heel and walked briskly out of the kitchen.
I picked up my glass of wine and followed her.