‘You got plans this weekend?’ Frankie yelled as she and Kate cantered up Aspen Valley’s fog-cloaked hill together.
Kate’s mount, Chic Shadow, pulled hard against the bridle. The pain of muscle fatigue in Kate’s arms was almost enough to rival her state of mind.
‘Sunday lunch at my mother’s,’ she replied. ‘Should be interesting.’
Frankie laughed. ‘You should come try out my mother’s Sunday lunches if you want interesting.’
‘Somehow I think this one is going to top them all,’ Kate muttered to herself. Louder, though, she asked, ‘How’s Rhys doing? Is he going to be back by Cheltenham?’
Frankie clicked her tongue and nudged her mount to keep up with Chic Shadow. ‘The doc reckons not. He says four weeks isn’t enough, but you know Rhys and his lot. When he broke his collarbone last summer, he was back in the saddle within three weeks. He’d rather risk breaking his arm again at Cheltenham than not riding at all.’
The fluorescent boards marking the end of the Gallops seeped through the mist and the pair pulled up.
‘He’d be missing out on a good set of rides if he had to miss it,’ Kate said as they walked back down the hill.
‘Exactly. Ta’ Qali in the Champion Hurdle, The Whistler in the Gold Cup, Dust Storm in the World Hurdle. Believe you me, Rhys is not going to miss Cheltenham, broken arm or no broken arm. Look up stubborn in the dictionary and you’ll find his name listed.’
‘Poor Frankie,’ Kate laughed. ‘The perils of falling in love with a jump jockey.’
‘Don’t do it,’ Frankie advised. ‘My mother warned me not to and I ignored her. Now I’m paying the price. Don’t make the same mistake. Find someone normal, who works a steady job that doesn’t require an ambulance to follow him around.’
Kate laughed, all the while thinking, you might be a bit late with that advice. ‘He’d have to like racing,’ she said.
Frankie pulled a reluctant face. ‘That’s the thing, isn’t it? We’re all high maintenance. Take you and me, for instance – we’re only work riders, yet we work crazy hours, days away from home to go to the races, especially the ones up north or abroad, and when we do come home we’ve got mud under our fingernails – not that I have any fingernails – and straw in our hair and we stink of stables.’
Kate laughed and batted her away.
‘I think Jack and Pippa have got the best deal,’ Frankie went on. ‘They’re both still really involved in racing, but Jack’s not in danger of breaking his neck every day and Pippa’s got her artsy work to keep her occupied.’
Kate thought back to her meeting with Pippa at Chepstow where they’d sheltered under the same umbrella to watch Fontainebleau’s race.
‘Do you really think their marriage is as great as all that?’
‘Well, sure. What would make you think otherwise?’
‘I don’t know. I bumped into Pippa at the Welsh National meeting and she just mentioned how distant Jack had become.’
Frankie nodded thoughtfully. ‘He has been rather busy this season. I’m starting to think I should apply for the job as assistant trainer. There’s no way you can manage an operation this size all on your own, even if you are the mighty Jack Carmichael.’
With Saskia and her Valentine’s Day card at the forefront of her mind, Kate asked, ‘You think it’s only work that’s making him distant?’
Frankie gave a short laugh of disbelief. ‘You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting, are you?’
Kate shrugged, wondering if she’d said too much. ‘I don’t know. There’s more than one way to skin a cat.’
Frankie looked ahead to where Jack’s Land Rover was parked midway down the hill, its silver paintwork camouflaging it in the gloom. ‘Crikey, it never even occurred to me. I guess he’s just as susceptible to a roving eye as anyone. I mean, Pippa has been coming out on her own quite a bit lately. Not that she comes out very often, not with Gabby to keep her busy, but when she does, Jack is hardly ever with her.’ She looked at Kate. ‘But no, that can’t be the reason. He’s always been working those nights, holed up in his office studying form and what not. He wouldn’t have time to have an affair, would he?’
Frankie’s look of concern stopped Kate from suggesting any more. The fact that all the hours Jack spent neglecting his wife were instead being spent at the office was no reassurance to her.
She shook her head and smiled. ‘You’re right. My imagination is just running away from me. I’ve been watching too many movies – hey, have you seen the new Christopher Nolan film?’
*
By the time they’d pulled up next to the Land Rover to update the trainer on their horses’ workouts, the idea of Jack’s potential infidelity had been put to bed.
Kate sat aboard Chic Shadow, reins looped loose around the gelding’s neck, and gazed around as she waited her turn. The mist was so thick, it was impossible to see ten metres ahead, and there was no morning sun to warm the air or even make the mist pretty. Instead, it was thick, dark and when the wind howled against the hillside, it was even a bit spooky. It made sounds travel unevenly. Horses whinnying or the crash of a dropped bucket down at the stable yard were swept up and bounced off the hill making it sound like it was happening in the copse of trees above one of the paddocks.
When the first cries of ‘Loose horse! Loose horse!’ reached Kate’s ears, it was difficult to pinpoint where it was coming from. She screwed round in her saddle, but the fog made it impossible to see very far. The erratic thunder of hooves came down from the top of the hill. Frankie and Jack paused in their conversation.
A flash of black on the other side of the running rail lent Kate reassurance. They, at least, would be out of harm’s way. But then the next string of horses cantering up the hill came into earshot.
Jack swore and jumped out of his vehicle. ‘LOOSE HORSE! LOOSE HORSE!’ he shouted, standing on the Land Rover’s side step and cupping his mouth.
His shouts echoed around the valley. The string galloped towards them and Kate and Frankie took up the call. Chic Shadow spun around in alarm. The loose horse pounded down the track from the top.
‘LOOSE! HORSE!’ roared Jack, and this time the riders reacted. The leaders sawed at their mounts’ mouths to steady them.
‘Who is it? Do we know?’ said Frankie, looking back up the track.
The horse galloped into view, dark brown with an emblazoned white face.
‘Shit. It’s Shenandoah,’ said Jack.
The string pulled up in line with Jack’s car. Shenandoah saw them at the last moment as he burst through the gloom. In a split second, he changed direction, swerving left into the running rail. In a last ditch attempt, the gelding rose up in an ugly jump, breasting the plastic rail and breaking it.
The horse’s momentum carried his jump onto the other side of the track and with an almighty thud, he cannoned right into Chic Shadow.
The air was knocked out of Kate’s lungs and the world spun round. Too fast to see anything, to register what was happening, there was just noise. Heavy breathing, frightened squeals, the grinding of metal as the Land Rover took a beating, and the shouts of onlookers. Noise, noise, noise. Then nothing.
*
Kate came to on the backseat of Jack’s Land Rover. It smelt of muddy carpet and leather.
‘Kate? Can you hear me?’ It was Frankie, sitting beside her.
Kate shifted upright and winced as a sharp pain tweaked her shoulder. ‘I don’t know. What happened? Was I unconscious?’
‘No, just a bit spaced out. Have you broken anything?’
Kate looked around her. The shattered windscreen hung over the dashboard. Jack stood outside, supporting himself against the driver’s door.
‘The horses,’ she said in sudden urgency. ‘Is Chic Shadow okay? Shenandoah?’
‘The vet’s on his way, but I think they’ve done more damage to you and Jack’s car than they have to themselves,’ Frankie said, pointing out the window to the horses being held nearby.
‘Are you okay?’ Kate asked.
‘Not a scratch on me. Have you broken anything? You were right underneath it all.’
Slowly the images of chaos returned. The impact of Shenandoah knocking them sideways, the ludicrously close view of the muddy treads on the Land Rover’s front wheel.
‘I—I think I must have been thrown under the car. I don’t think...’ She moved her fingers and hands and arms. They all worked. She touched a bump on her head and grimaced. ‘Ow. I think I must have hit my head. Are you sure the horses are fine?’
‘Let’s wait until Declan gets here. I’ll just let Jack know you’re compos mentis.’ Frankie climbed out of the car. ‘She’s okay, Jack.’
Jack looked in, his face contorting with pain as he bent. ‘You sure?’
‘Just a knock on the head, I think,’ Kate replied. ‘Shoulder’s a bit sore, but nothing broken, I don’t think.’
‘Good. That’s good. Someone will take you to A&E just to be sure.’ He winced again as he breathed.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
‘Yeah, just got caught behind the door,’ he said, gingerly touching his ribs. He looked ruefully at his Land Rover. ‘Can’t say the same for the car though.’
‘Sorry.’ Kate didn’t know what else to say. She looked at his pained expression tightening with every breath he took. ‘Maybe you should come to A&E as well.’
Jack shook his head. ‘Declan O’Keefe’s on his way over to check the horses. Can’t leave.’
Kate tried to flex her shoulder. ‘So much for having the safest job.’
‘What?’
‘Frankie and I were discussing our jobs just before it happened. We agreed you had it best as trainer.’
A wry smile touched Jack’s lips. ‘Danger comes in many forms, Kate, many forms.’
*
A couple of hours later, Kate was regretting her decision to suggest that Jack should accompany her to A&E. They sat in the waiting area alongside a construction worker holding a grimy dressing to his forehead, a child who’d come off his bicycle and whose mother seemed more upset about the damaged Christmas present than she was about her son, and various other walking wounded.
Jack was not happy, especially as he was meant to be racing that afternoon and the triage nurse had refused to change the channel on the television in the waiting area, so they’d had to endure back-to-back episodes of Antiques Roadshow and Cash in the Attic instead of the 1.30 and 2.05 at Lingfield.
Now that the adrenalin had worn off, Kate was also discovering new tender points on her body. With her riding gloves removed, she found her knuckles were split and turning a dark shade of blue, her shoulder was stiffening up and the bump on her head had turned into a full blown headache. All she wanted was some painkillers and long hot soak in a bath.
Jack was muttering about NHS waiting times when the entrance doors whooshed open and Pippa rushed in, steering Gabrielle’s pram like a rally driver.
‘Jack? Are you okay?’
Jack tried to stand, but grimaced and slumped back in his chair, eyes clenched shut. ‘Fine.’
‘Declan thinks he’s cracked a couple of ribs,’ Kate said.
As well as looking over the horses and diagnosing their wounds as superficial, he’d checked Aspen Valley’s human residents as well and had packed them both off to hospital.
‘Oh, Jack, you poor thing,’ Pippa said, kissing him on his head. ‘And your Land Rover. It’s totalled.’
‘Probably time I got a new one,’ Jack grunted.
Kate had to stop herself from saying she had a car they could buy. Jack wasn’t the sort of man to drive a Ford Escort. Besides, Harrison wouldn’t last a week going up and down the Gallops every morning.
They sat together and waited. Pippa rocked Gabrielle’s pram with her foot on the wheel. Her cheery chatter went on apparently unnoticed by Jack, who continued to glower at the television. If he was grateful for his wife’s presence then he was certainly playing his cards close to his chest. Except for one of course, Kate thought, remembering Saskia’s Valentine’s Day card.