GEORGINA AND I arrived back at the Royal Berkshire Hospital at noon, and this time I did pay for parking.
Georgina had packed some of Amanda’s clothes and shoes in a bag so she wouldn’t have to wear her party outfit home, but that was the least of our worries.
Amanda was not by herself.
Darren Williamson was there ahead of us, and neither Georgina nor I was pleased about it.
“Darren, leave our daughter alone,” I said. “I know that you supplied her with cocaine, and it’s got to stop.”
He smirked at us. “Amanda’s old enough to make her own decisions. The law says so. And she’s decided to come and live with me, not you.”
I stared at him. So that was what the detective sergeant hadn’t told us.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “How would she be able to afford to live with you?”
“I will provide for her,” he said belligerently.
“Doing what?” I said. “By drug dealing? And what happens to her when you end up in prison?”
Amanda had so far been quiet throughout this exchange, but now she put in her two-penny worth.
“I’m old enough to look after myself,” she said. “And I want to live with Darren.”
“Where?” I asked.
“In his flat. In Didcot.”
Georgina, meanwhile, had started crying once again.
“Don’t do this to your mother,” I said gently to Amanda. “Come on home with us now. We will discuss everything and sort it all out.”
“No,” she said firmly. “I’m going to live with Darren. He says it’s for the best for me to make a decision and then stick with it.”
Of course Darren would say that, but only if she decided to do what he’d already decided for her.
“How about all your stuff?” I asked, clutching at any grounds not to let her go.
“I’ll collect what I need later in the week.”
I was desperate. How could I possibly protect her from Squeaky Voice if she was not even living under my roof?
I went to Owen Reynolds’s yard for his “bit of a bash” on my own. I didn’t even bother asking Georgina to come with me, telling her that I was going to a meeting with Owen to discuss Potassium’s future, rather than to a celebration.
Having a celebration somehow didn’t seem to be appropriate under the circumstances, but I couldn’t not go. Everyone would expect me to be there and to have brought the Derby trophy with me.
As it turned out, I had, in fact, driven Amanda home—her and Darren sitting side by side on the back seat of my Jaguar 4x4, with Georgina in the front next to me, all of us in an uneasy silence.
Not that Amanda had changed her mind.
When we had arrived back at the house, she had collected a few things from her room, including her mobile phone and charger, and then she and Darren had driven away in her old Ford Fiesta, and without so much as a backward glance.
Who will now pay the tax and insurance on that car? I’d thought.
But I knew the answer.
I would. As I always had.
I didn’t believe that Amanda had the slightest idea how much money it took just to live. At home, she had no bills to pay and had food placed on the table in front of her for every meal. Hence, I was confident that she would soon be back, but keeping her safe in the meantime was my main worry, not just from Squeaky Voice but also from Darren and the drugs.
There was a carnival atmosphere at Owen Reynolds’s stable yard in East Ilsley.
The whole place was decked out in bunting, and there was even a brass band playing on the grass circle in the centre of the stable courtyard, which was driving Owen’s two black Labradors crazy. They chased each other’s tails round and round the band like demented things, barking loudly.
Owen had said the event was largely for his stable staff and people from the village, but as I pulled my Jaguar into the yard, I could see most of the owning syndicate members were also present, some of them with their families.
“Hey, Nick,” I called out to Nick Spencer, the property lawyer syndicate member. “Could you come and give me a hand?”
He came over, and between us, we lifted out the half-metre-wide Derby trophy from the car boot. It depicted three silver horses racing around on undulating circular silver turf, and it needed both of us to carry it over to the table that Owen had prepared.
“Do we get to keep this?” Nick asked, breathing heavily.
“Sadly not. This is a perpetual trophy. We have to give it back next year—unless we can win it again.”
“So do we get to keep anything?”
“We get to keep the prize money,” I said with a grin. “Unless you’d like to use yours to buy shares in more Victrix horses.”
He laughed.
On the two previous occasions that my syndicated horses had won major honours, in races worth more to the winner than a quarter of a million pounds, I had used some of the ten per cent of the prize money retained by the company to produce miniature replicas of the race trophy for each syndicate member, suitably engraved.
I might do the same again, but it would probably have just one small horse on it rather than the three. It would be an expense well worth it for the goodwill generated. Anything to bring the members back to my door to buy shares in next year’s crop of yearlings.
The remainder of the withheld prize money would go towards the entry fees for future races. Those with the highest purses, such as the ones we would now consider for Potassium, were expensive to enter, often running to more than ten thousand pounds—the Champion Stakes at Ascot was nearer twenty—far more than I could justify paying from the syndicate fees alone. But with luck we’d win it all back again in the prize money, and with interest.
“Did you have a good night?” Nick asked with a laugh.
“It was certainly one to remember,” I said, trying to smile back while not thinking about what Amanda and Darren might be up to together in his flat. “How about you?”
“We got thrown out of racecourse hospitality at seven thirty by Security.” He laughed again. “By then, no one was fit to drive, so we piled into the Derby Arms pub across the road from the course and went on celebrating. Claire and I rolled home in a taxi at midnight, but we only live in Esher. God knows how some of the others managed. I’m totally amazed they’ve all made it here today. I came by train to Newbury, then a taxi, because my car is still in the car park at Epsom.” He laughed once more.
Some of the other syndicate members drifted over to have a closer look at the trophy they had only been able to view at a distance yesterday.
One of them, Bill Parkinson, was still wearing his morning-dress striped trousers, white shirt, and braces from yesterday. He saw me looking at them.
“Slept in the car,” he said, smiling. “Haven’t been home yet to change.”
It had clearly been an eventful twenty-four hours for all of us.
Potassium made his appearance at a quarter to six, parading around the stable yard proudly wearing the ‘Derby Winner’ blanket adorned large with the race sponsor’s logo.
As the horse was walked around the quadrangle, he carried his bold head high, as if he knew that he’d done something special and was the star of the show. Then his jockey, Jimmy Ketch, appeared, again wearing the royal blue and white vertical striped silks and a white cap. The band struck up the tune “Congratulations,” and everyone cheered.
As if by magic, trays of champagne glasses appeared, and we all drank a toast to Potassium, our Derby winner.
Next, Owen made a short speech thanking his stable staff for all their hard work, and his neighbours in the village for their support and encouragement. He finished by saying how proud he was, at last, to be able to refer to his establishment as a “Derby-winning stable” after more than twelve unsuccessful previous attempts to capture the “big one.”
As I listened to him, I realised that it wasn’t just my enterprise that had needed the boost.
“Where will Potassium run next?” shouted Bill Parkinson.
Owen looked across at me standing to one side. He waved me over to join him.
“Chester and I will have to discuss that,” Owen said. “I’ve already provisionally entered him for the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe at Longchamp in October. Initial entries for that closed last month. Then there’s the King George and Queen Elizabeth Stakes in July or the International Stakes at York in August. Entries for those close fairly soon. And of course there’s always the Champion Stakes at Ascot in October and—who knows?—maybe a crack at the four-million-dollar Breeders’ Cup Turf in America come November.” He smiled. “There’s a lot for Chester and me to decide in the coming days.”
“What about Royal Ascot?” asked Nick Spencer loudly.
“That’s definitely something else for Chester and me to look at,” Owen replied.
“Don’t we get any say in it?” shouted Bill Parkinson with a touch of irritation. “After all, we are the flipping owners of the horse.”
“Of course you get a say, Bill,” I replied calmly. “In fact, it would be great if all the syndicate members could send me an email during this coming week with your suggestions for where Potassium should run next and then for the rest of the season.”
But Bill Parkinson must have known, as I did, that the syndicate agreement stated very clearly in black and white that it was I who had the final say of where Victrix horses ran, after due consultation with their trainers. I might take some account of the members’ preferences, but syndicate ownership was not a democracy, so it would be me alone who’d make the decisions. And those decisions would be based solely on what was best for the horse, and to give him the best chance of winning, not on whether it would be nice to have Royal Ascot owners’ badges, a weekend in Paris or a trip to the United States.
Not that all Derby winners raced again anyway.
Several have been retired to stud straight after their Epsom success, the most recent being Pour Moi, the 2011 winner; and back in the nineteenth century, two horses, Middleton and Amato, both won the Derby on their first and only appearance on any racecourse, although that will never occur again as horses that haven’t raced at least once before are no longer eligible to run.
Potassium was taken back to his box, and the party began to wind down.
“I’m putting on a barbecue later for my staff, after evening stables,” Owen said to me quietly. “You’re welcome to stay.”
“Thanks,” I replied, “but I’d better be heading back home. Georgina’s not feeling very well. That’s why she isn’t here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that,” Owen said. “Give her my best.”
It was easier for me to tell him a white lie rather than to give him the true reason for Georgina’s absence, which was that my wife was close to an emotional breakdown after her daughter had first gone missing and then reappeared only to go and live with a most unsuitable older man who provided her with illegal Class A drugs.
I was tempted to stay on for the barbecue, but I knew that staying later would only cause more problems with Georgina in the long run.
One of Owen’s stable lads helped me return the Derby trophy to the boot of my Jaguar, before I set the vehicle’s nose back north, towards home.
But I drove without enthusiasm.
Whereas I had once arrived back each time with eagerness and excitement, I did so now with trepidation and dismay, knowing that there would always be some sort of crisis waiting for me inside.
And today was no exception.