�The unnamed Newmarket based bloodstock sales company depicted in this novel is fictional, but it is inspired by Tattersalls Ltd, the real Newmarket based bloodstock sales company, and I hereby acknowledge, with thanks, the help and encouragement I have received from all the staff at Tattersalls Ltd.�

Horse racing and gambling are intertwined, always have been, always will be. Right from the earliest recorded races at Smithfield, London, in the twelfth century, wagers have been placed on which horse was the fastest.

Racing as we know it today wouldn�t exist without gambling, but the biggest gambles in racing are not placed with a bookmaker or in the betting shops; they occur in the sale rings, where vast sums are staked on untested, unridden, and as-yet-unnamed yearling colts, in the hope they will turn out to be world beaters and future sires of champions.

Sometimes it happens and sometimes it doesn�t.

The American colt Justify was sold at the 2016 Keeneland September yearling sale for US$500,000. He raced just six times, all of them as a three-year-old. In just one hundred and eleven days, between 18 February and 9 June 2018, he won all of those six races, including the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes to become only the thirteenth horse in history to win the coveted American Triple Crown. His prize money on the track was an impressive US$3.8 million. But that figure is dwarfed by his potential future earnings as a stallion. Over a fifteen-year stud career, he is expected to amass fees in excess of US$150 million � making him worth at least six times his own weight in pure gold.

However, back in 1983, in the same Keeneland sale ring, Snaafi Dancer, a son of the great Northern Dancer, was bought by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum for $10.3 million, a world-record price for a yearling at the time (well in excess of thirty million dollars in today�s money). The horse never made it to a racetrack, as it was �embarrassingly slow,� so he was sent straight to stud, where he was found to have fertility problems. In all, he sired just four foals, none of which ever won a race.

Now, that�s what I call gambling!

�The bid is two million six hundred thousand guineas. I�m looking now for two million seven.�

My voice boomed around the sale ring and outside through the public address speakers via the microphone clipped to my suit lapel.

�Two million six hundred thousand guineas I have.�

I scanned the rows and rows of expectant faces, searching for a tiny movement of a hand, a slight nod of a head or even a brief raising of an eyebrow � anything that might indicate another bid.

�Two million six hundred thousand in the stairwell at the back. Two million six. Now looking for two million seven.� I said, scanning the faces again from my lofty position on the auctioneer�s rostrum. �I�ll take two million six-fifty, if it helps.�

There was slight hush in the sale ring, reserved only for those special occasions when everyone realised that very serious money was about to be paid for a very young, untried horse that might, just might, turn out to be a world beater on the track and then go on to sire generations of future champions, in the manner of the great Epsom Derby winner Galileo.

Could this bay colt circling around the sale ring in front of me turn out to be �the special one�? Maybe even a modern-day Northern Dancer? Or perhaps his son, Sadler�s Wells, the most successful sire in the history of British and Irish Thoroughbred breeding, who fathered no fewer than seventy-three Group 1 race winners on the flat, as well as the winners of seven Champion Hurdles, a Cheltenham Gold Cup, and two American Grand Nationals over the jumps.

A man in the second row of seats across the ring from me removed his baseball cap and wiped his forehead in the early October heat. Was that a bid? I wondered. I stared in his direction, but he didn�t catch my eye. He replaced his cap.

�The bid is two million six hundred thousand guineas at the very back.� To avoid any confusion, I pointed at the bidder, barely visible in the right-hand stairwell at the top of the building. �Any more? The hammer is up. Last chance.�

I was about to bring my gavel down on the rostrum when a large man, standing near the main horse-entrance door to my left, lifted his right hand, placed his index finger on his temple, and then removed it, almost as if in a salute.

�Two million seven hundred thousand guineas,� I said. �Two million seven. Two million seven.�

I glanced up at the stairwell.

I could only see the previous bidder�s head and face, the rest of him hiding below the level of the stairs. And he appeared irritated, pursing his lips and frowning.

He nodded at me, hardly moving his face while keeping his eyes firmly on mine. Just the slightest of movements for such a large sum of money.

�Two million eight,� I called. �The bid is now two million eight hundred thousand.�

I knew these two remaining bidders well, all others having dropped out when the price passed two million.

The one at the back was a local top racehorse trainer in his sixties, called Brian Kitman, and the other was a bloodstock agent, aged about fifty, whose full name was Elliot Mitchell, although he was uniformly known simply as Mitch.

I also reckoned I knew who they were each bidding on behalf of, as would everyone else, or at least those seriously involved in the horse-racing industry rather than those just present for the excitement of watching horseflesh sell for so much.

One of Brian Kitman�s owners was a brash Yorkshire businessman who had made a vast fortune by owning car dealerships across the country, and I strongly suspected that it might be his money that was behind Kitman�s bids.

Elliot Mitchell, meanwhile, had a large number of high-profile clients for whom he bought horses, but I believed the only one with this sort of financial firepower was an Irish syndicate of wealthy individuals he had set up to challenge the buying power of the many Arab sheiks who were investing heavily in British and Irish bloodstock.

�Two million eight hundred thousand guineas,� I called again. �Looking for two million nine.�

I shifted my attention back to Mitchell near the main horse-entrance door, in the area known colloquially as �the gate.�

I leaned down on the rostrum, facing in his direction.

�Come on now,� I said to him. �Make it up.�

He lifted a mobile phone to his left ear � to receive instructions, I presumed.

He lowered the phone and used his right hand to show me three fingers.

�The bid is now three million guineas,� I called into the hushed silence. �Three million in the gate.�

I glanced down at the animal in question, being led slowly round the ring, seemingly unconcerned by the huge sum riding on his rump. He was the full brother of the current leading two-year-old that had won all six of his races so far.

Not that being a sibling of a superstar necessarily meant that he would be a superstar too, but in racehorses it made it slightly more likely. In 2014, Noble Mission won the Champion Stakes at Ascot, the most valuable horserace in Britain, two years after victory in the same event by his far-more-famous, older full brother, Frankel.

�Three million guineas, I have,� I said. �Looking now for three million two.�

I looked up, but Brian Kitman had disappeared. I glanced across to the other stairwell, searching for him, but there was no sign. He had just gone down and away, as he always did when the price became too high.

�Three million guineas,� I said again. �Are you all done? I�m selling this time round. The bid is three million. Last chance. Fair warning.�

I theatrically lifted my gavel and had one more scan of the faces in front of me. Kitman had not reappeared, and no one else was moving, not even a twitch in case it was misconstrued as a bid. Indeed, the only sound was the clip-clop of the horse�s hooves as it continued to be led around the ring.

After the horse had passed me one more time, I brought my gavel down onto the rostrum with a sharp crack.

�Sold to Elliot Mitchell.�

A smattering of applause broke out from a group of onlookers at the top of the tiered seating who knew no better than to make unnecessary noise that might frighten the horse. Three-million-guinea sales were not unheard of, but they were rare. It was certainly a first for me, and I felt like applauding too. My maximum before this had been a mere six hundred thousand.

There was a pat on my back.

�Well done, Theo.�

I turned to find the chairman of the sales company standing behind me � Peter Radway � my boss. He had been due to relieve me prior to this lot but he had been late arriving, so I had simply carried on.

�Thank you, sir.�

�Have a rest now,� he said. �I�ll take over.�

I stepped back from the rostrum. I reached up and tried to unclip the lapel microphone to give to him, but my hands were shaking.

�Adrenalin,� Peter said with a smile. �It�s okay � I�ll do it.�

He unclipped the microphone with ease and transferred it to his own jacket.

�Right then,� Peter said confidently, standing tall at the rostrum. �Don�t go away, anybody. Next up we have lot number one hundred sixty-seven, a fine filly by Star of Wessex out of a Galileo mare. Plenty of quality in the pedigree with this one, and a half-sister to a two-time winner as a two-year-old. Who will give me three hundred thousand for her?� He paused fractionally. �Two then? One?� He glanced down to his left. �Fifty?� He pointed at no one specific. �Thank you, sir. The bid is fifty thousand. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty at the back. Giving him a gap then, aren�t you? A hundred thousand. Well done. One ten now. One twenty.�

Locating those actually bidding was an art, and Peter was one of the best, assisted by several spotters placed at strategic points around the edges of the sale ring.

�The bid is one hundred and twenty thousand guineas. She�s a steal at that price. One thirty, thank you. One forty now. One fifty. One sixty.�

One of the spotters shouted and raised one hand while pointing with the other at a new bidder sitting in the seats to the right of the rostrum.

�One seventy.� Peter turned. �One eighty now, in the gate.�

He switched his attention back to the new bidder.

�Make it up.�

He waited and the man fractionally raised his catalogue.

�Two hundred thousand,� Peter said. �Thank you. Selling now.�

�Selling now� was code that the bid price had reached the reserve set by the vendor, and all future bids would result in a sale.

�Two ten in the gate.�

I decided to leave Peter to it. All day, I�d been drinking lots of water to keep my voice in good shape, and now I urgently needed a pee.

I made my way out of the back of the auctioneer�s box, situated behind the rostrum, and then outside into the last of the afternoon sunshine.

�So what is a goddam guinea anyway?�

A large American lady in a smart designer pink coat and high-heeled black leather boots was asking a man wearing a blue puffer jacket and a baseball cap, who was standing with her.

�It�s twenty-one shillings,� the man answered.

The woman rolled her eyes. �And what, for Christ�s sake, is a shilling?�

I inwardly smiled and paused a moment to listen. This could be fun.

�A shilling used to be what is now five pence,� said the man. �There were twenty shillings to a pound � that was before our currency went decimal in the 1970s.�

The woman stared at him. �You Brits are totally crazy. So a guinea is a pound plus five of your pennies?�

She made it sound as ridiculous as it was.

�That�s right.�

�Why don�t you simply use just pounds, or even dollars like the rest of the world?�

�It�s historical,� said the man. �Horses have always been sold here at Newmarket Sales in guineas. It used to be that the vendor received all the pounds, and the auction company simply kept the extra shillings as their commission. But VAT has changed all that.�

�What�s VAT?�

�Value Added Tax. It�s a bit like American sales tax, but it applies to goods and services, so it�s charged on both the sale price and on the commission.�

The woman rolled her eyes once more. �And what the hell is value added about commission? It�s more like value subtracted.�

I had to agree that she had a good point.

The two of them drifted away and out of my earshot.

What the man hadn�t told her was that a guinea was called a guinea because the first British �guinea� coins had been made of gold mined in the Guinea region of West Africa. Their value had originally fluctuated with the price of gold until it was fixed by the British government at twenty-one shillings in 1717. The original gold coins have long since disappeared as legal tender, not least because their gold content would make them worth hundreds of times more than their face value, but the guinea as a monetary unit is still used, not only for buying horses but also for some medical and legal fees.

I rushed into the main office building and ran up the stairs to the small gents� restroom on the second-floor landing. By now, I was almost bursting.

The two urinals were occupied by others, so I dived into one of the two empty cubicles, struggling to unzip my fly before I wet myself.

As I thankfully relieved myself, I heard the two men who�d been at the urinals talking about the unusually warm weather.

�No doubt due to this wretched global warming,� one of them said.

�I suppose it�s better than an ice age,� said the other with a laugh.

They were still chatting as they left, the sound of their voices disappearing as the outside door closed behind them.

I finished and did up my trousers. I was about to flush when I heard the door open again.

�Bloody hell, Mitch,� said a voice, almost in a whisper. �I thought for a moment you were going to leave me in there at two million six.�

�Shh! Someone will hear you,� said a second voice that I took to be that of Elliot Mitchell � Mitch.

I felt rather than saw the cubicle door behind me open slightly and then swing shut again, me not having locked it in my haste.

�There�s no one in here.�

I wondered if I should cough or flush the toilet or do something to let them know of my presence, but instead I stood stock still, silently listening.

�But I told you beforehand that I�d go to three,� Mitchell said with a laugh.

�I know you did, but you took your bloody time about it. And that young auctioneer nearly dropped his hammer early. I could see it in his eyes as he stared up at me.�

So the other man was Brian Kitman, and he was right. I had almost dropped the hammer at two six, when he had been the high bidder.

�Beyond your limit, was it?� Mitchell said with amusement.

�A long way beyond. I was really sweating.�

Mitchell laughed again. �We had somehow got out of step, so I had to jump by two hundred grand to get it to three million.�

�I know,� Kitman said. �And damn glad I was of it too. Nice touch, though, using your phone like that. I could just see you from the stairwell.�

�To tell you the truth,� Mitchell said, �I was worried the bloody thing would ring while I had it up to my ear. I�d forgotten to put it on silent.� He laughed loudly once again.

I remained standing absolutely still, scarcely believing what I was hearing.

Agents or other persons conspiring together to bid up a horse to a predetermined maximum was a clear breach of rule seven of the Bloodstock Industry Code of Practice and could be considered as a criminal fraud against the person who had to pay the bill.

What should I do?

I went on being silent, hardly daring to breathe.

�Have you fixed the insurance?� Kitman asked.

�I certainly have,� Mitchell replied. �I always do it as soon as the hammer falls on anything I buy, just in case something happens to the horse before I get the money back from my principal. I just send my broker a text with the lot number and the price. He does the rest.�

�So you�re sure it�s covered for death from natural causes?�

�Positive. I checked. It�s covered for every eventuality for the next thirty days.�

I could hear as they washed their hands and then the loud noise of the hand dryer running. Finally, I heard the outside door open and then close.

I remained exactly where I was for quite some time, desperately trying to listen for any sound. Had they both gone? Or just one?

I heard the outer door open again, and someone came in, humming a tune.

Was it Mitchell or Kitman coming back?

I thought it unlikely, but I couldn�t stay in here for the rest of the day. I was due back in the sale ring shortly.

I took a deep breath, flushed the toilet, and then stepped out of the cubicle.

The newcomer was Nigel Stanhope, another member of the team of auctioneers. In his mid-forties, Nigel was a work colleague rather than a friend. In fact, I didn�t believe Nigel had any friends, certainly none at work.

�Oh, hello, Theo,� he said, glancing at me over his shoulder as he stood at the urinal. �What are you doing hiding in a gents� cubicle?�

�I wasn�t hiding � just going to the toilet like anyone else.�

�Could have fooled me,� he said. �I hear you just got bloody lucky.�

�In what way?� I asked.

�That three million lot. Fell into your lap, I hear, and only because Peter was late arriving.� He said it without amusement. He was clearly envious. But little did he really know how much that lot had actually fallen into my lap.

I wondered if I should I tell him about Kitman and Mitchell fixing the price.

I washed my hands and dried them in the hot air stream while I thought about it.

Both of them would be certain to deny saying any such things, and it would be just my word against theirs. And I hadn�t even seen their faces, to be certain it was them.

I decided not to tell Nigel.

In truth, I�d be hard pressed to tell Nigel anything, even the time of day. Perhaps I�d have a quiet word with the chairman later, to ask for his advice.

�Are you on again today?� I asked, trying to waste a little time so that Nigel and I would leave the gents� together, just in case Kitman or Mitchell were waiting outside.

�No. I�m done. How about you?�

�I�m doing a stint as a spotter in ten minutes. I�m covering for Alex Cooper. He�s had to go to the dentist,� I replied.

�Nothing trivial, I hope.�

I smiled wryly.

There was a considerable degree of ill-disguised animosity between Nigel Stanhope and Alex Cooper. Indeed, there was a degree of animosity between Nigel Stanhope and almost everyone else, but he seemed to have it in for Alex in particular.

I reckoned that Nigel was jealous of Alex simply because he came from a rich family � at least much richer than his � but then again, Alex was equally jealous of Nigel for being an auctioneer on sale days while he, Alex, only acted as a spotter. But Alex was still only twenty-four. Give him time, I thought.

�One of his fillings has come out.�

�So it won�t be fatal, then?�

�No.�

�That�s a pity.�

�Come on Nigel, be reasonable. Alex is a nice boy.�

�Well, you would say that, wouldn�t you, as you live with him.�

�I rent a room in his flat.�

�That�s not what I�ve heard. Share a bed do you?�

�No, we don�t. Who told you that?�

�It�s common knowledge amongst the staff.�

�Well, it�s not true.�

I realised that Nigel was provoking me on purpose, as he regularly tried to do at some stage to all his work colleagues, and I was beginning to wish that I�d left the gents� straight away and taken my chances outside with Kitman and Mitchell.

�Sleeping with another man is nothing to be ashamed of,� Nigel said, washing his hands, both physically and metaphorically. �Not these days.�

�I wouldn�t be ashamed of it,� I said. �It�s just not the case.�

�If you say so.� He said it in a manner that indicated he didn�t believe me.

�I do bloody say so.�

Nigel guffawed loudly, as if he knew better.

I�d had enough of his nonsense, so I turned on my heel and went for the door.

If Kitman and Mitchell had been waiting for me outside, I�d have probably walked straight into them, but the landing was empty, so I went down the stairs, two at a time, and out into the fresh air.

How could I have allowed Nigel Stanhope to annoy me so easily? No doubt, he would be laughing now, chalking up another little victory over one of those he sadly saw as his adversaries rather than his colleagues.

I wondered why Peter Radway didn�t get rid of him, but I knew the answer � Nigel Stanhope was a very good auctioneer, able to squeeze more out of the bidders than anyone else, often even more than the chairman himself. And higher prices paid at auction for the horses meant more commission coming the way of the sales company. All those extra shillings from the guineas, with or without the VAT.

I walked down to the lower paddock, trying to compose myself before going back into the sale ring.

Did Nigel really think that I was gay, or was he just making mischief?

Perhaps I should have been more open in my overtures to the opposite sex, but I�d always been somewhat reticent when it came to girls, something I put down to having been educated at an all-boys private boarding school, followed by a male-dominated college at Oxford.

Strange, really, I thought, because I�d always been somewhat forthright in every other aspect of my life, often getting myself into trouble at school for answering back to the masters.

But with girls, it had mostly been a closed book.

Not that I hadn�t had the occasional sexual experience while at university, and afterwards in Australia, but they had been clumsy, awkward, embarrassing encounters rather than truly loving relationships.

When I had arrived here to work, I had again been somewhat reserved in that department, not wanting to acquire a dubious reputation for chasing girls in the office, especially Janis Thompson in Accounts, who I fancied rotten and even dreamt about.

So far, I had been too self-conscious to ask her out on a date, but I resolved to make some headway by asking her to join me for a drink one evening after work.

I finally calmed down from my abrasive encounter with Nigel Stanhope. In hindsight, I realised I should have just laughed at him rather than getting angry, which was the response he had clearly been seeking.

I did my stint covering for Alex as a spotter in the sale ring, standing behind the auctioneer in the box.

My job was to scan the rows of faces, making sure that no bids were missed, and to assist in identifying the winning bidder. However, on this occasion, as a result of my encounter with Nigel in the gents�, my mind was wandering so much that I would have probably missed someone waving a bloody great red flag, let alone a slight raising of a finger or a sales catalogue.

Fortunately, it didn�t seem to matter, as there were no shouts of complaint from any missed bidder, and the final ten lots of the first day sold without incident, two of them to Elliot Mitchell.

I decided I should go and speak to Peter Radway about the conversation I had overheard, but he was in a meeting with some of his fellow directors. His secretary told me that, as soon as the meeting was over, he would be rushing off to host a private drinks reception at the National Horseracing Museum in the town, before having an early night.

I wondered if I should tell anyone else, but decided it could wait until the following morning. And the more I thought about it, the more improbable the whole thing sounded.

Why would anyone bid up a horse to a predetermined higher amount when they could have bought it for less? It didn�t make any sense.

Who would benefit?

The vendor would obviously gain, as they would receive more for their horse than would otherwise be the case � and it was specifically not against the code of conduct for the vendor, or a representative of the vendor, to bid on their own horse to try and raise the price, but they ran the risk of being left as the high bidder at the end of the auction, and so not having sold the horse at all, while still needing to pay the auctioneer�s commission.

Had either Kitman or Mitchell been bidding on the vendor�s behalf? It certainly hadn�t sounded like it. And even if they had, it was still against the rules to have a high-bid limit agreed beforehand by separate bidders.

The auction company, of course, would benefit from a higher hammer price, securing more from their five per cent commission. And, if a bloodstock agent was used to make the purchase, as was almost exclusively the case and was certainly true in this instance, then the agent�s five per cent commission on top would be greater too, charged to the unfortunate purchaser who had also paid over the odds for a horse without even realising it. It was surely a criminal fraud.

Five per cent of three million was one hundred and fifty thousand.

Not a bad little earner for Elliot Mitchell, but the horse, as a full brother to the current champion two-year-old, had been previously forecast to make a million at least, maybe a million and a half, and possibly even close to two, so forcing an extra million onto the hammer price meant the agent�s commission had increased by only about fifty thousand.

At first sight, that might seem like a large amount of money, but Elliot Mitchell was one of the most widely used and successful bloodstock agents around, buying large numbers of horses in France and Ireland, as well as in the UK, for tens of millions of pounds each year, so why would he put his whole future earnings at risk for an illicit gain of just fifty thousand guineas?

But there again, he hadn�t been expecting to be overheard admitting it, and an extra fifty grand in commission was nothing to be sniffed at.

I thought back over the day.

The first day of the Newmarket October yearling sales was always an exciting time. Here the cream of the yearling crop were paraded and sold for eye-watering sums of money. Some would turn out to be champions, and others would be a major disappointment, but which was which?

No one would really find out until they started racing the following summer as two-year-olds, and their real worth wouldn�t show for another year after that when some would run in, and maybe win, the great Classic races such as the Epsom Derby, the Oaks and the St Leger, writing their names forever into the history of Thoroughbred horse racing.

In all, over the next two weeks, more than fifteen hundred yearlings would go under the hammer, for a combined sum approaching two hundred million guineas, in what were known as the Book 1, Book 2, Book 3 and Book 4 sales. It was in the first three days � at the Book 1 sale � that the very best of the best would appear, those sired by former Classic winners or champions of the past.

All the lots will have been here at the sales complex for at least the last four days, housed in one of the more than eight hundred separate stables on the site, available for inspection by prospective buyers and bloodstock agents, and particularly by their vets.

It is where the term vetting originates from, to mean the checking of a candidate�s suitability for a job, or for a specific security clearance.

During vetting, a horse�s conformation is studied and measured. It is made to walk, to ensure it isn�t pigeon-toed or splay-footed and that its rear legs follow the fore in a perfect line. And a series of thirty-two X-rays of its leg joints, submitted digitally to the company repository facility, are closely examined for abnormalities such as errant cartilage growths or bone chips due to osteochondritis dissecans, or OCD, a development disease of all young, fast-growing animals, which can affect between five and twenty-five per cent of Thoroughbred foals, to a lesser or greater extent.

For bones to enlarge as a horse grows rapidly in its first year of life, cartilage must first be laid down at the growth plates at the ends of the bones. This cartilage matrix is then used as a scaffold for bone production � a process known as ossification � with the cartilage effectively turning into new bone.

OCD lesions can arise due to an imbalance, when fast cartilage growth outpaces ossification. With the ossification unable to keep up, deeper layers of the cartilage can die, and its attachments then break down, forming cartilage flaps and bone chips in the joints. The degree of severity of the abnormalities can have major significance on the ability of the horse to race in the future.

Small lesions in the fetlock are commonly seen. These can usually be easily managed, and they do not stop a runner from winning. But larger damage, especially in the femoral joints may lead to chronic joint inflammation and lameness. For these, even with surgery on the damaged tissue, the prognosis for withstanding training and racing can be poor.

All the yearlings up for auction in the Book 1 sale would be most unlikely to have anything more than minor problems, but it is only those whose conformation and X-rays are perfect in every way that make the big money, provided, of course, that they also have the right parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents.

I had a very restless night, tossing and turning for hours, unable to sleep.

And not because I had taken Alex up on his offer � I hadn�t � but simply because he had made it in the first place.

Had I been sending out the wrong vibes?

And had Alex been creating a certain aura that I had failed to detect when everyone else around me had, including Nigel Stanhope?

I lay awake, as the window turned from dark to light with the coming of the dawn, thinking back to the previous evening.

Initially, I had laughed at his response, thinking he was joking, but it had quickly become apparent that he was being deadly serious.

What had once been a happy mutual business relationship between landlord and tenant had suddenly become something different altogether. Would there be any going back to the former arrangement, I wondered, or was it time for me to find alternative accommodation?

The thought of that distressed me.

This flat was within easy walking distance of my work, and of the shops and restaurants of Newmarket High Street, and just renting a bedroom was cheaper than a whole flat.

Alex and I had seemed to get along well, too well perhaps, and I hadn�t felt that the situation had cramped my style with potential girlfriends, not ever having had the opportunity while I�d been living here of bringing a girl home to my bed anyway.

I decided to get up just after six, to go and have my breakfast in the sales cafeteria rather than sit through another awkward meal with Alex, as had happened last night.

The morning was bright and cold after another cloudless night, with a high-pressure system centred over Scandinavia firmly in charge of the British weather. Highly pressurised was also how I felt at the moment, with my mind racing with what to do about my living circumstances, as well as the question of the overheard conversation.

Even at this early hour, the cafeteria was busy.

As in all things equine, a day at the sales started well before dawn, with multiple horseboxes arriving to bring the yearlings to be auctioned the following week while collecting those lots sold late yesterday. Generally, horses had to be removed from their stables within two hours of the hammer falling, except that those sold in the last few hours of the day could remain overnight as long as they were off the premises by nine o�clock the following morning.

I took a plastic tray from the pile and moved along the buffet, collecting scrambled eggs and bacon, plus a large mug of strong black coffee, deciding that I needed something to keep me awake after such a disturbed night.

�Morning, Mr Jennings,� said the cashier at the till. �You�re up early.�

�Couldn�t sleep, Doris,� I replied, flashing my company ID card at her so she could charge the bill to my account.

I looked around for an empty table, but they were all occupied, so I carried my tray over to one on the far side, next to the window, where there was a free seat.

�Do you mind if we share?� I asked the man already sitting at the table.

�Go ahead,� he replied.

I sat down and started eating.

�Have you heard the big news of the day?� the man asked.

�What big news?� I replied.

�One of the yearlings has been found dead in its box.�

�One that was sold or unsold?� I asked, loading my fork again with scrambled egg.

�Sold,� the man said. �It�s that colt that made three million yesterday.�

The fork had been on its way to my mouth, but it never made it, stopping short while I stared at the man.

�Are you sure?�

�Quite sure. I was there when they found it not half an hour ago. Dead as a doornail, it was. Heart attack, I reckon, by the look of it.�

I stood up. �I�ve got to go.�

I left my half-eaten breakfast on the table, grabbed my coffee, and made my way towards the door. All I could hear in my head was the last part of the exchange I�d overheard between Kitman and Mitchell yesterday in the gents�.

�Have you fixed the insurance?� Kitman had asked.

�I certainly have,� Mitchell had replied. �I always do it as soon as the hammer falls on anything I buy, just in case something happens to the horse before I get the money back from my principal. I just send my broker a text with the lot number and the price. He does the rest.�

�So you�re sure it�s covered for death by natural causes?�

�Positive. I checked. It�s covered for every eventuality for the next thirty days.�

And now the horse was dead.

�So what exactly did you hear them say?�

The chairman and I were back in his office, having moved the other horses and sorted out security for the vet.

I�d always had a good memory for what people said, and I recounted the whole overheard conversation, word for word, from start to finish.

�And you are sure it was Kitman and Mitchell?�

�I didn�t actually see their faces, but who else could it have been?�

�And there were no other witnesses?�

�I don�t think so. But Nigel Stanhope came into the gents� just after they left. He may have seen them leaving together.�

The chairman went out, and I could hear him calling for Nigel, but without success. He came back in.

�Nigel isn�t in yet. I think I�ll wait to speak to him and also to get the vet�s report on the horse before we do anything. I would not be at all happy making such an accusation against two of our most respected clients without there being something else to back up what you are saying.�

�Don�t you believe me?� I asked him.

�It�s not that I don�t believe you, Theo. It�s only that, as things stand, it would just be your single voice against the two of theirs, and they would be sure to deny any such conversation ever took place. Or they would say you misheard or misunderstood what they were saying, and that they have done nothing wrong.�

I could see the logic in what he was telling me, but it didn�t change the fact that I had indeed heard what I�d heard, and Mitchell and Kitman were both guilty of collusive bidding up, if nothing else.

�So what do we do?� I asked.

�We simply carry on as normal. But if the post-mortem shows that the horse was deliberately killed, then we will go straight to the police.�

�And if it doesn�t?�

�Let�s wait and see.�

�What about CCTV?� I asked.

�What about it?�

�Is the door of that box covered by a camera? If so, it would have shown if anyone went in there after the horse was fed last night.�

�I�ll check with security. In the meantime, I suggest you do as I said before. Go and write down all you can remember of the conversation, in case we need it later.�

I went out of the chairman�s office and walked down the corridor to my own, a much smaller affair, which I shared with Nigel Stanhope.

Auctioneering was only one part of my job.

In all, there were about thirty-five days a year of actual sales in the Newmarket sale ring. For the rest of the time, as part of the Bloodstock Sales Team, I would visit and liaise with stud farms, breeders, bloodstock agents, and racehorse trainers, to help put together the lists of horses that would be coming up for sale by our company in the future.

The current October yearling sale was the undoubted highlight of the sales year in Newmarket, but there were also other yearling sales in September and November, as well as separate foals� and mares� sales in December, and various horses-in-training sales at other times. In all, some six thousand lots would go under the hammer here in an average year.

In total, about twelve thousand Thoroughbred foals are born each year in Britain and Ireland, and a substantial proportion of them would be offered for sale in our ring as foals or yearlings, with others appearing later as mares or horses already in training. Indeed, it was common for the same horse to pass through our sale ring several times during its lifetime. And we weren�t the only sales company vying for the business.

It was my job, along with colleagues in the bloodstock team, to try and ensure that the cream of the crop was sold here, to help maintain the reputation of Newmarket as the preeminent bloodstock sale in Europe.

I sat down at my desk, opened my laptop computer, and began to type a verbatim record of what I�d overheard the previous afternoon.

I�d almost finished when Nigel Stanhope arrived.

�The chairman�s looking for you,� I said, without warmth.

�Why?�

�He wants to speak to you about our meeting in the gents� last night.�

�Been telling tales about me, have you?�

�No, I have not. It�s about the dead horse.�

�What dead horse?�

�That yearling I sold for three million yesterday afternoon was found dead in its box this morning.�

�Bloody hell. That�s expensive dog meat. But what�s it got to do with me and my trip to the gents�?�

I decided that it was for the chairman to tell him, if he wanted to, not me.

�I�ve no idea.�

At that point the chairman put his head through the doorway.

�Ah, Nigel,� he said, �you�re here. Do you have a moment? I understand from Theo that you met in the gents� along the corridor yesterday afternoon. Is that right?�

�Yes,� Nigel replied warily. �What about it?�

�Did you see anyone else? In particular, did you see anyone leaving the gents� just before you went in?�

Nigel shook his head. �I wasn�t really looking. Why?�

�Nigel, please think,� the chairman insisted. �It�s very important that you remember back. Was there anyone coming out of the gents� just before you went in? Or maybe there was someone in the corridor or on the stairs who might have just left?�

Nigel shook his head again. �I�m sorry but I don�t remember anyone. What�s this all about anyway? Has Theo been making up stories again?�

The chairman looked at him. �What do you mean by again?�

�Theo is always making things up. He�s tried to tell us that he�d lived as a monk in a Buddhist monastery. Complete load of old hogwash, if you ask me. And yesterday he even denied that he�s sleeping with Alex Cooper, when we all know it�s true.�

The chairman turned to me with concern. �Is it true, Theo?�

�As it happens, it is not true,� I replied, �but I�m not sure that who I am sleeping with is any of your business. Nigel is the one that makes things up, not me. And I never said I�d lived as a Buddhist monk. All I said was that I once stayed for a week in a Buddhist monastery in northern India, which I did.�

But I could see, from the chairman�s facial expression, that doubt was beginning to crystalize in his mind.

�Thank you, Nigel,� he said. �Theo, please come with me.�

I followed him along the corridor to his office, with a feeling of dread in my stomach. We went in and he closed the door.

�Now listen, Theo,� he said, turning to me sternly, �I�ll give you a last chance. If you tell me now that you have made up the story of the overheard conversation, then nothing more will be said.�

I looked the chairman straight in the eye. �I did not make it up,� I said earnestly. �Every word I told you earlier was totally true. I swear it. Nigel is just up to his usual mean tricks. You know what he�s like.�

I felt like a naughty schoolboy in the headmaster�s study, trying to convince him that I wasn�t guilty of what I�d been accused.

At that point there was a loud knock on the door.

�Come in,� Peter Radway called, sounding clearly irritated by the interruption.

Andrew Ingleby, the vet, opened the door and stuck his head in. �Now a good time?� he asked.

�Yes, fine, Andrew, of course. Come on in. Thank you, Theo, that will be all.�

Taking my job, if not my life, into my hands, I stood my ground.

�I would much prefer to stay and hear what Andrew has to say.�

�Not much actually,� the vet responded before the chairman had a chance to throw me out. �The cause of death is still inconclusive. I�ve taken some samples for further testing, but I couldn�t find anything initially that clearly indicates a specific cause of death.�

�So it wasn�t a heart attack then?� I said.

�Unlikely. Horses don�t have heart attacks in the same way as humans do, especially not young horses like this. For you and me, what we call a heart attack is actually a myocardial infarction, when a coronary artery becomes blocked, usually due to build-up of fat or cholesterol that results in a blood clot, which then causes the blockage. That in turn starves the heart muscle itself of blood and oxygen.

�That doesn�t happen in horses because there�s no fat or cholesterol in their diet, so sudden cardiac death is more often associated with a rupture of the aortic arch or an electrical malfunction causing arrhythmia or an arterial fibrillation. Each of those can result in the heart just stopping.

�On examining the heart, I found no evidence of an aortic rupture � or of anything else, for that matter. But arrhythmia wouldn�t leave any physical signs on the heart anyway; it would just suddenly stop pumping, causing sudden collapse and death.�

�What causes arrhythmia?� I asked.

�All sorts of things can cause it. In particular, a sudden rush of adrenalin into the bloodstream can be responsible.�

�Maybe caused by an injection?� I asked. �Such as with an EpiPen?�

My roommate during my first year at Oxford had carried an EpiPen with him everywhere because he was strongly allergic to peanuts. He had even taught me how to use it to inject him in the event he was unable to do it for himself. But in his case, a shot of adrenalin could be a life-saver rather than a life-taker.

�Most unlikely,� the vet replied. �EpiPens are designed for humans, and a horse is many times the mass of a human. You would have to use multiple pens to have the same effect. Also, an injection of adrenalin causes the hairs around the injection site to stand up on end, and I found no such indications on the horse, even though, I suppose, those might have disappeared in the hours since death. The adrenalin is far more likely to have been caused by strenuous exercise. Was the horse wind tested after sale?�

�Almost certainly,� said the chairman. �They all are.�

Wind testing was when a horse was lunged round and round in a tight circle at speed while a vet listened for spurious respiratory tract noise, indicating a turbulent airflow through the larynx and pharynx, something that might compromise future racing prospects. An auctioned horse has to pass the wind test otherwise the sale is declared void, and the animal is returned to the vendor.

�At what time was the test?�

�The horse was sold about half past five,� I said. �I was the auctioneer, and it was the last lot I sold. The wind test would have been done pretty soon after that, almost certainly by six, six thirty at the latest.�

�And then it was fed at seven. High adrenalin in the system and then food on top. It�s a potentially dangerous combination.�

He pursed his lips and shook his head, perhaps at the folly of feeding a horse so soon after exercise.

�But couldn�t the colt have been suffocated?� I asked, trying my best to throw some suspicion back into the discussion. �I heard once of a horse that died because someone put Ping-Pong balls in its nostrils.�

�I suppose it�s technically possible,� Andrew said. �Unlike humans and most other animals, horses can�t breathe through their mouths because their nasal passages are not connected to their oral cavity. On the plus side, it means that horses can never choke to death on their food.�

He thought silently for a moment.

�However, I think asphyxia is unlikely. A horse that was suffocating to death would probably lash out with its legs, most likely injuring itself, and there were no signs of that having happened. But the samples I have taken will tell us for sure. Asphyxia most often produces bursts of the tiny capillaries in the whites of the eyes, resulting in little red dots called petechiae. It can also cause small ruptures of the alveoli, the little air sacs in the lungs. I�ve collected samples from the eyes and also from the lungs. There don�t appear to be any petechiae or ruptures present, but I�ll need to examine them under a microscope to be certain.�

�So you�re saying that nothing has actually showed up in the post-mortem,� the chairman said. �And everything else is just mere speculation.�

The vet nodded. �That is correct.�

�In fact, we are none the wiser as to why the horse died.�

�Indeed, we are not,� said the vet. �As I said, I�ve found nothing so far to indicate that the horse didn�t die from natural causes, but a closer examination of my samples, including a toxicology report on them, will show us if death was due to asphyxia or to any drug involvement, even an excess of adrenalin, natural or otherwise.�

�And how long will that take?�

�My preliminary report will be available in a day or two, but full results can take several weeks.�

�Several weeks?� The chairman clearly wasn�t happy. �Why so long?�

�Because there is much to be done. I have taken a large number of other samples in addition to those from the eyes and the lungs � tissue from the brain, heart, stomach, liver, and so on, as well as blood from several different places around the body. If the preliminary results show that drugs are present in any of them, then more sophisticated tests are needed to determine the concentration and whether the cause is natural or induced. I assure you, the lab will work as fast as they can, but it takes time to get it right.�

�And what do we do in the meantime?� the chairman asked.

�In what way?�

�Do we need to keep the body?�

�Oh no.� The vet laughed. �No need for that. I have all the samples I require. If they don�t show anything positive, then the death will be recorded as by natural causes, or possibly as unexplained, and that will be the end of it. There are no formal inquests for dead horses.� He laughed again. �And there�s no inheritance to sort out, unlike with us humans.�

�So what do we do with it?�

�What do you usually do with dead horses?�

�We don�t usually have dead horses,� the chairman said indignantly. �This is the first I have known since I arrived here ten years ago.�

�Really?� said the vet. �In my job I see little else.�

How depressing, I thought.

�So are there any special procedures to follow to get rid of a dead horse?� asked the chairman.

�Most people just call the local hunt,� said the vet. �They�ll send a man with a truck. The carcass then gets fed to the hounds.�

As Nigel had said, the horse was now just extremely expensive dog meat.

�Hadn�t we better consult Elliot Mitchell before we organise anything?� I said. �After all, he is technically still the owner of the animal, alive or dead, or maybe his insurance company is now, and we should ask them.�

�If it�s all right with you, I�ll leave all those details for you to sort out,� said Andrew Ingleby, stepping towards the door. �The sooner I get the samples back to the lab, the sooner we�ll have the results.�

�Yes, of course,� said the chairman. �Thank you for coming out so quickly.�

Andrew left the office and closed the door, leaving the chairman and me alone.

�So now what?� I asked.

�I�d better have a chat with Elliot Mitchell about what he wants done with the remains.�

�I meant about the conversation I heard?�

�There is nothing we can do. Even if it happened, neither you nor I can prove it.�

�It did happen,� I said.

�I only have your word for that.�

�Isn�t that enough?�

�Sorry, Theo, but no, it�s not enough. It�s not enough for me, and it certainly wouldn�t be enough for the Bloodstock Industry Ethics Committee, which is the body that enforces the code of conduct. It will be for the best if we just continue on as normal, as if that conversation never took place, even if it did. Be satisfied that you have done the right thing in reporting what you believe you heard to me, and I have investigated it.�

�But you haven�t investigated it,� I replied, trying hard not raise my voice. �You haven�t spoken to Mitchell or Kitman to ask them what they were talking about. And surely, you should at least report something to the Ethics Committee.�

�I certainly can�t do that,� he said. �Mitchell and Kitman would both claim that I was making an unsubstantiated accusation against them, which was damaging to both their reputations and livelihoods. They would almost certainly seek financial redress against me through the courts.�

�You cannot sue someone for telling the truth,� I said pointedly.

�But is it actually the truth? Did you really hear what you thought you heard? Could you have been mistaken? Or could you have misunderstood what they were talking about? I am sure that is what they will claim.�

I could see that I was getting nowhere fast.

�So you are saying that we do nothing at all,� I said in resignation. �And what about if Mitchell and Kitman do it again later today � or maybe tomorrow or on some other day?�

�We would still need more proof. Simply your word against theirs is not enough.�

It was enough for me, I thought.

And I�d be watching them.

The second day of the Book 1 yearling sale started at eleven o�clock sharp, but I wasn�t due to be acting as the auctioneer until after twelve thirty, so I spent the morning trying unsuccessfully to work off my frustrations.

It was bad enough having heard someone admit so blatantly that they had broken the rules, but then not being believed by my boss about it was somehow worse. It was as if he was questioning my integrity more than those who had actually done wrong.

I went back to my office, but Nigel was in there at his desk, gloating, and I couldn�t stand the hostile atmosphere, so I went for a walk outside, down towards the lower yard where the dead horse still lay on the straw.

The earlier crowd of ghoulish onlookers had long since dissipated as there had been nothing more for them to see, the stable door having been firmly bolted against their inquisitive gazes. Even now, it was still solidly shut, and it was also closely guarded by a man from the sales security team.

I flashed my company ID card at him, opened the door, and went in.

There was a slight unpleasant smell remaining in the stable, but it was not as bad as I had expected. The vet had tried his best to make things look normal again after his butchery, shoving everything gory back inside and roughly stitching his large incisions together with twine. That is if the sight of a prostrate, dead Thoroughbred racehorse could ever be described as normal.

If Andrew Ingleby had found nothing to suggest that the horse had died of anything but natural causes, there was no chance that I would, but still I felt that I had to look.

I searched around the edges of the box and in the straw, but of course there were no incriminating syringes or empty bottle of poisons to be found, nor any stash of discarded and discharged EpiPens. There was also no feed remaining in the manger, indicating that at least the horse had enjoyed its last supper before keeling over.

I unfolded the rug that Elliot Mitchell had removed, which was still piled up in the corner farthest from the door, but there was nothing suspicious to be found amongst the folds of blue fabric either � just �Property of Six Barn Farm� stitched in small haphazard red letters along the edge in one corner.

I stared down one last time at the horse.

�What did happen to you?� I asked it.

Unsurprisingly, it didn�t answer, and I felt a little foolish.

At that point the stable door opened very slightly.

�There�s a man out here,� said the security guard through the gap. �Says he�s come to collect the dead horse.�

�Okay,� I replied. �Let him in.�

The door opened wide, showing me a man in denim jeans, red-checked shirt, quilted grey gilet and tweed cap.

�Hello, I�m Kevin,� said the man jovially. He looked down at the dead horse. �I assume that this is the carcass for collection?�

�Where are you from?� I asked.

�Fallen Stock Collection Service at Mildenhall Foxhound Kennels,� he replied. Then he guffawed loudly. �Not that we hound foxes anymore, of course. Not since the bloody law changed. The name has just stuck because that is what the dogs are � foxhounds � it�s the name of their breed.�

I nodded. It must be confusing, I thought � especially for the dogs, not being able to do what they�d been bred for. I wondered what we would call racehorses if the law banned racing. Just horses, I suppose. I laughed inwardly at my little joke. Laughing out loud didn�t seem appropriate in this place right now, even though that clearly hadn�t bothered Kevin.

�Who called you?� I asked.

�Someone called Mitch,� he said. �He gave me this box number. He asked me to take the horse away and get rid of it. Are you Mitch?�

�No,� I said, �but this is the right place.�

�Yes. I�ll get on then.�

Kevin disappeared and presently came back driving a small flatbed lorry, which he reversed towards the door. He left the engine running but stepped down from the cab and went to the control unit behind. As he pushed the yellow-topped levers, the bed of the truck slid backwards, and then down at an angle, until the rear end of it was touching the ground just outside the stable door, forming a ramp.

Kevin then walked up the ramp and came back down, pulling a cable out from a winch. He went into the stable and secured the cable round the body behind the front legs.

He looked across at me as I just stood there watching him.

�Can you just check for me that the head or the front legs don�t snag on the doorway?�

I nodded, not really relishing the thought of being involved in this exercise in any way.

Kevin went back to the control unit, and after the winch had taken up the slack in the cable, the poor dead animal began to slide across the floor.

Thankfully, neither the head nor front legs snagged on the doorway, and slowly, inexorably, the horse�s corpse was dragged completely out of the stable and up onto the ramp, just as if it had been a broken-down car being collected from the side of the road. But for this particular means of conveyance, there would be no repair and redemption in a local garage.

I briefly checked the straw underneath where the horse had been lying, but as before, there was nothing untoward to be found there.

Meanwhile, Kevin walked up onto the ramp and covered the horse with a large blue tarpaulin, tucking it under the legs before strapping everything in position with several wide webbing belts so that, in the end, all anyone could see was a blue-covered mound that could have been anything.

�Stops people gawking,� Kevin said, laughing again.

�So what do you do with it now?� I asked.

�The useful meat gets fed to the hounds. The rest, like its hide, hooves, head, bones, lungs, guts, and stuff, will all be incinerated.�

I rather wished I hadn�t asked.

Kevin pushed his yellow control levers once again, and the ramp was drawn up and returned to its former position as a flatbed on the truck, now with its sorry load fastened on top.

�Right, then,� he said. �I�ll be off. There are hungry hounds to be fed.�

He was whistling happily as he climbed back up into his cab. Then he drove away, leaving me standing there feeling somewhat forlorn.

My first, and quite possibly only ever, three-million-guinea sale would never provide me with any pride in its running and winning. And its offspring would never pass through the sale ring as yearlings, with me being able to say to people: �I once sold that one�s sire for three million.�

Instead, any useful meat from it would be quickly consumed by Kevin�s hungry hounds at Mildenhall, and the remainder burnt as mere rubbish. No record of it would remain in the stud book, nor anywhere else, and it had lived its short life and died without even having been given a name.

Not that I would ever forget it.

�What the bloody hell do you think you were doing?�

I was back in the chairman�s office, standing across the desk from where Peter Radway was sitting in his high-backed black leather executive chair, and this time, I really was in trouble.

�Mitchell and Kitman were trying it on again,� I replied. �So I initially ignored Mitchell�s bid. The auctioneer reserves the right, without giving any reason, to ignore any or all bids. It says so in our terms of business, which are reproduced in all our sales catalogues.�

�But that is only if we consider that a bid is frivolous or from someone who we haven�t agreed terms of credit with.�

�I believe that Mitchell and Kitman were making frivolous bids, or at the very least they were colluding to bid the price up, something that is strictly against the industry code of conduct.�

�But you alone cannot make that decision. And you have no proof of collusion. I thought we had been through all of that this morning.�

�I was trying to get proof. Kitman was really sweating when it looked like I was going to leave him in as the high bidder. His relief when I finally allowed Mitchell�s bid was unmistakeable. And he clearly gave up at that point and left before Mitchell was ready. I could see Mitchell looking up to where Kitman had been. He had been expecting another bid from him, maybe many more bids, and that�s collusion.�

�But you didn�t get any proof that we could present to the Ethics Committee, and now I�ve had an official complaint from Elliot Mitchell about your handling of the auction of that lot. You must remember, Theo, he is one of our most important clients. We cannot afford for him to stop buying horses from us and go elsewhere.�

�He already goes elsewhere,� I said. �I�ve seen him at other companies� sales, both here in the UK and in Ireland, and also in France at Deauville. He buys from all over, even at Keeneland in Kentucky. He�s not being loyal to us, so we should have no loyalty towards him. He�s not the one doing us a favour by buying horses here. Rather, we are the ones doing him the favour by putting the very best horses available up for him to buy.�

�We still can�t afford to lose his business. Nor that of Brian Kitman either.�

I felt like saying we would be better off without them both, but I�d probably said too much already. Maybe it was time for me to be contrite before I talked myself out of my job.

�I�m sorry,� I said. �It won�t happen again.�

But I was too late.

�Damn right it won�t happen again,� Peter said, looking up at me. �I�m removing you from the auctioneer roster for the rest of this sale. I will make a decision about your future here next week.� He then looked down at some papers on his desk �That will be all.�

I didn�t move. Instead, I stared down at him until he looked up at me again.

�So I�m in danger of losing my job just for trying to protect the good name of this company?�

�Our good name? You, young man, have just brought this company into disrepute by refusing a perfectly valid bid from a well-respected bloodstock agent in an auction that was streamed live on the internet worldwide, so don�t lecture me about protecting our good name.�

If I�m already up to my neck in hot water, I thought, I might as well go in the whole way.

�Mitchell may be well-respected by some, but I believe that he is breaking the rules, and we, as a company, are being complicit in doing nothing about it.�

�But as I keep telling you, we have no proof that he breaks the rules.�

�Maybe not, but at least you should question him about it, even if it�s to stop him doing it again.�

I was getting quite emotional. I couldn�t help it.

�Theodore Jennings,� the chairman said sharply, �calm yourself down. The rest of the team will cover your shifts. Come and see me again at eight thirty tomorrow morning, when you�ve had time to reflect on your actions and your words. Now, go home.�

He pointed towards the door of his office, and short of annoying him even more, I had to go.

It all sounded rather terminal to me as far as my employment was concerned.

Only yesterday I had been wondering if this job was what I wanted to do for the rest of my working life, and now it looked as if that decision wouldn�t be mine to make. And all because I�d overheard a conversation in the gents�. I now wished I had made my presence known to Mitchell and Kitman as soon as they had walked in. But I hadn�t, and it was too late to change things now.

And I was also angry. Angry that it was me who was the one in trouble, when I�d done nothing wrong.

It also irked me beyond measure that Elliot Mitchell had had the audacity to make an official complaint against me, when I was quite certain it was he who was manipulating the system for his own ends, even if I didn�t yet have the evidence I needed to put before the Bloodstock Industry Ethics Committee.

I went out of the chairman�s office and walked along the corridor to mine, staring at the floor in despondency.

So what did I do now?

�Go home,� the chairman had said, but going back to Alex�s flat didn�t seem very attractive at the moment, not after my troubled night.

�Hello, Theo,� said a voice, bringing me back from my trance. I looked up at the person walking toward me.

�Oh, hello, Janis.�

Janis Thompson from the Accounts Department. Her of my dreams.

�Are you all right?� she asked with a concerned look on her face.

�Yes, fine, thank you,� I said. �I�m just thinking.�

She smiled. �Well done yesterday. Three million guineas! We�ve all been talking about it in Accounts.�

�But didn�t you hear? That was the colt that died in the night.�

�Oh no! How awful.� She looked genuinely upset. �I�d heard that a horse had died, but I didn�t realise it was that one. I�m so sorry.�

�Yeah,� I said with resignation. �So am I.�

�I�d better go and tell the other girls.�

She started to go.

�Janis,� I said. She turned back to face me. �Perhaps we could... No, it doesn�t matter.�

�What doesn�t matter?�

�I just wondered if... No, never mind.�

�You just wondered what?� Janis said, standing her ground.

I took a deep breath.

�I just wondered if you would like to come out for a drink with me sometime.�

She smiled at me again, broader this time. �When had you in mind?�

Perhaps I wouldn�t have a job here tomorrow.

�How about tonight?� I said quickly, before I lost my nerve. �After work?�

I thought she was about to say no, she couldn�t, as she was already seeing her boyfriend or watching television, or some other made-up excuse, but she didn�t.

She smiled at me again, and this time it reached all the way up to her eyes, which caused my heart to go flip-flop. �Tonight would be lovely. I usually finish at five, but I�m here until six today. Where shall we meet?�

�Do you have a favourite place in town?� I asked.

�Me and the other girls often go to The Yard for a white wine after work, but I�d rather go somewhere else, if that�s all right with you.�

�Perfectly all right,� I replied.

I would much rather go elsewhere too. The Yard may have been the nearest pub to the sale ring, and I�d been in there a few times, but I didn�t really relish having the rest of the sales team in there with us, watching our every move, while the jukebox played at full volume in the corner.

�Perhaps somewhere quieter,� I said.

�I know it�s a bit of a way away, and it is quite expensive, but I absolutely love the Roxana Bar at the Bedford Lodge Hotel.�

�Then that�ll be where we shall go. I�ll meet you there at six thirty.�

�Don�t you have to stay here on site until the end of the sale?�

�Not today,� I said.

�Okay,� she said, smiling. �I�ll see you there at six thirty.�

I watched as she walked away from me along the corridor, back to Accounts, turning once to wave.

Wow! I thought. I�ve really managed it at last.

�What are you smiling at?� Nigel Stanhope demanded as I walked into our office. �I hear you�re deep in the shit.�

He was clearly enjoying that, rubbing his hands together in glee.

�Nigel, why are you such a bastard?� I asked.

�Comes naturally, I suppose,� he replied with a laugh.

But I knew he was only a bastard to those he saw as a threat from below. To the senior auctioneers and board members, those he believed might have a say in his promotion up the greasy pole towards a directorship, he was all sweetness and light, becoming almost Uriah Heepish in his grovelling and toadying.

�What a naughty boy, you are,� he said, almost giggling with joy. �Fancy ignoring a bid from our most valued client.�

�I didn�t ignore it,� I replied. �I just took my time to accept it.�

�I heard that Mitch had to shout his bid out across the ring to get your attention, even though you�d already been told twice that he was bidding.�

�How do you know about it, anyway?�

Nigel had left the sale ring as soon as I�d taken over from him at the auctioneer�s rostrum, after he�d dropped the microphone to the floor.

�The spotters told me, dear boy. Those that are after your job. And now one of them might get it.� He laughed again. �Fancy your lover being one of those that grassed you up.�

�He�s not my lover,� I said, but it was clear he didn�t believe me.

My joy at having finally plucked up the courage to ask Janis out had quickly evaporated. What if she also thought I was sleeping with Alex?

I decided that even being at home in Alex�s flat was preferable to staying here with Nigel sniping away at me with such enthusiasm, so I packed my work laptop into its carrying case and left.

�If you can�t stand the heat,� Nigel called after me.

I could hear him laughing loudly as I marched along the corridor, past the gents� that had been the undoing of my job, down the stairs, and outside into the fresh air.

Maybe Nigel was right, and this kitchen was too hot for me. Was it time for me to get out of this horse-selling business and start building railway bridges? Perhaps that would be the best thing for me in the long run.

At least, I wouldn�t then have to share an office with Nigel Stanhope, or a flat with a man who wanted to take me to bed.

�I am so sorry,� Janis gasped, sitting down opposite me. �I was afraid you�d have already left. I�ve run all the way up through the town.�

I smiled at her.

�I got asked to do an extra job just as I was about to leave. It took longer than I thought. I�m so sorry.�

�It�s fine,� I said. �You�re here now, and that�s what matters. What would you like to drink?�

�What are you having?�

�Gin and tonic. I�m afraid this is my second.�

�A gin and tonic would be lovely.�

I waved at the waiter, who took the order as Janis removed her black coat. Under it, she wore the sales company uniform of white shirt, red and blue neck scarf printed all over with the company logo, and a blue jacket with matching skirt.

�I�m sorry,� I said. �I should have given you time to go home and change.�

�It�s all right. I rather like this outfit anyway. And it would have taken too long. I live in Soham.�

�Oh.�

�That�s everybody�s reaction these days. When I was a young child, no one had ever heard of Soham, but now everyone has.�

Soham was a small market town about eight miles north of Newmarket, and it had been the scene of one of the most notorious child murders in British history, when ten-year-olds Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman were killed by a man called Ian Huntley, the caretaker at a local secondary school.

�I was at the same primary school as them,� Janis said sombrely. �They were two years above me. It was awful. And it still is, some twenty years later. The damn television companies keep making graphic programmes about it all, documentaries and dramas, so we who live there never get a chance to forget.�

�You could always move.�

�I want to, but it�s so expensive to get a flat of my own. I still live with my parents. My dad is a science teacher at Ely College, and my mum works in the admin office of the local community hospital here in Newmarket. Soham is midway between the two, so it�s very handy for them.�

The waiter arrived with her drink.

�Cheers,� I said, lifting mine.

�Cheers,� she echoed, doing the same with hers. �How about you? Where are you from?�

�I was born in Oxford. My dad was also a science teacher � A-level physics. I went as a pupil to the school where my dad worked, just south of the city, and then to university in Oxford as well, I�m afraid. Very parochial.�

�So why Newmarket now?�

�The job,� I said.

�And where do you live?�

�I rent a room in Alex Cooper�s flat, in a block called Beaumont Court, just off the High Street.�

I watched her as I said it, searching for a reaction.

�Oh yes,� she said. �I heard.�

�What exactly did you hear?�

She blushed, and that gave me my answer.

�What Nigel Stanhope says doesn�t happen to be true,� I said. �I just rent a room. Nigel is always spreading lies about me. As he does about everyone.�

�Why does he do that?�

�Why?� I laughed. �Because he�s a bastard.�

She laughed back at me. �He�s also a bastard to all of us in Accounts. In fact, he bullies us. And he makes unwelcome sexual remarks to all the girls. He thinks that he can lord it over us because he�s an auctioneer, and that makes him somehow superior to us. Bastard is absolutely right.�

She laughed again and looked at me. I stared deeply into her eyes, and after a couple of long seconds, she turned away, as if slightly embarrassed.

�Tell me more about you,� I said.

�What do you want to know?�

What I really wanted to know was did she have a boyfriend?, but I couldn�t ask that � not straight out.

�Is this your first job?� I asked instead.

�It�s my first proper job,� she said. �After school, I worked in Newmarket Tesco as a checkout girl for year while I did my basic bookkeeping course. Then the sales company took me on, and now they pay for my training. It�s great.�

�So are you a chartered accountant?�

�Oh no,� she said with a laugh. �Not yet anyway. But I�m working my way towards it slowly. I have currently what is known as a Level Three Diploma in Accounting, and I�m studying for my Level Four. I do one day a fortnight at an accounting college in Cambridge. How about you? How did you train to be an auctioneer?�

�I didn�t train at all,� I replied. �I just sort of fell into it while I was in Australia. I actually studied to be an engineer.�

�That sounds exciting.�

�Not really. It�s mostly just maths.�

She laughed. �So is accounting.�

�Fancy another?� I asked.

�I shouldn�t.�

�Because you�re driving?�

�No. I don�t drive.� She paused. �I did start to learn several years ago but never got round to taking my test.�

�So how do you get to work?�

�Mum brings me in every day on her way to her job. After work, at five o�clock, I usually walk through the town to the hospital, and she drives me home again.� She smiled. �But I called to tell her I was working late today and also meeting someone for a drink, so I�d get a taxi home.� She looked at her watch and then smiled at me. �Go on then � one more drink won�t matter.�

I ordered us two more gin and tonics plus a packet of peanuts.

�So you�re not driving either,� she said when they arrived. �Not after three drinks.�

�No. My car is safely parked down near Alex�s flat. I walked here.�

�What sort of car do you have?�

�An Audi A3.�

�Nice.�

I didn�t tell her the car had been four years old when I�d bought it, and that had been three years ago now, or that the interior passenger door handle didn�t work.

�How do you manage without a car?� I asked.

�Easily. I get lifts from Mum and Dad, and for a while I had a boyfriend who owned a car. He�d always take me where I wanted to go.�

�Had?� I said tentatively.

�His name was Darryl. We broke up about six months ago. I think he got fed up with my mum grilling him all the time. She didn�t approve of him. But in fact, I don�t think she would approve of any boyfriend I might have. She doesn�t really trust men. Not after what Ian Huntley did to those girls. Even my dad gets the third degree sometimes when he�s late home. Darryl now says he wants us to get back together, but I�m not interested. I found out afterwards that he was cheating on me with one of my friends, even when we were together.�

�Silly boy,� I said.

She smiled and looked down at her drink.

�Do you fancy staying for dinner?� I asked.

�I can�t,� she said. �I told my mum I�d be home by eight.� She looked again at her watch. �I thought I had plenty of time, but I was so late leaving work.�

�You could always call your mum and say you were going to be later.�

�She wouldn�t like that. She didn�t really like it that I was not going home with her in the first place. Kept asking who I was meeting.�

�But, surely, you�re old enough to make up your own mind.�

�You don�t understand,� she said. �It�s not that easy. Mum is very nervous about me not being home when I say I�ll be. It all stems from those damn murders. Those poor girls were missing for almost two weeks before their bodies were found. It felt like forever. You can�t imagine how dreadful it was for us all, not knowing what had happened to them for so long. It affected Mum badly at the time, and she hasn�t really recovered since. And she�s not alone. There are plenty of mothers like her in Soham, treating their grown-up daughters as if they are the little children they were way back then. I suppose they still have a fear of losing them.�

�I�m sorry,� I said.

Twenty years ago, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman had been aged ten, and if Janis had been two years below them at school, that made her about twenty-eight now. Old enough, I would have thought, to stay out for dinner if she wanted to.

�Even now, Mum will be perched on the back of the sofa in the front room, looking out through the window, waiting for me to get home. If I�m late, she starts to panic. Even if I call her to say I�m staying out longer, it would make little difference.�

�I�m sorry,� I said again.

�Yeah, me too. I would have loved to have had dinner with you.�

�Perhaps we could do it next week,� I said, smiling at her. �You could tell your mum beforehand.�

That�s if I still had a job by next week, or even by tomorrow.

�So what have you to say for yourself?� Peter Radway asked.

At least he had asked me to sit down in the chair across the desk from him, rather than to remain standing, as I had been yesterday lunchtime.

�I admit that I was wrong to initially ignore the bid from Elliot Mitchell. I had made an assumption that he and Brian Kitman were again colluding to bid up the price of the colt, in contravention of the Bloodstock Industry Code of Conduct. I still believe that to have been the case, but I realise now that I handled things badly. I should have stopped the auction and immediately reported my concerns to you or another member of the board. For that, and for that alone, I apologise to you.�

I leaned back in the chair and waited for him to respond.

Had I said the right thing?

Had I been sufficiently contrite, or had I gone too far by reiterating that I still believed Mitchell and Kitman were colluding together to increase prices?

The chairman sat and looked at me, with his elbows on the desk and his hands clasped together under his chin, as if he was thinking.

�Thank you for your apology to me,� he said finally. �But I think you also need to apologise to Elliot Mitchell.�

�That I will not do,� I replied curtly. �I was well within my rights, as the auctioneer, to ignore any or all bids, so I have nothing to apologise to him for.�

It was Mitchell, I thought, who should be apologising to me, for making an official complaint in the first place.

�And what if I make that a condition of you remaining here?�

�Then I will claim constructive and unfair dismissal and take you to an employment tribunal.�

I could tell that the chairman was rather taken aback by my response. To be honest, so was I. I hadn�t really expected to be so forthright.

�I don�t think there is any need for that sort of talk.�

�No, I would hope not,� I agreed. But I had left him in no doubt as to the alternative of reinstating me as an auctioneer. I was not going to meekly resign and walk away.

�So what now?� I asked. �Am I back on duty for today?�

I could tell that he wasn�t very happy. I imagine that he thought he would be in control of this conversation, and I had just stolen the initiative.

�Er, well... I suppose that might be for the best.�

�Good,� I said, standing up. �So we return to the original roster. I will be at the rostrum at twelve thirty to take over from Nigel Stanhope.�

I turned to leave.

But mentioning Nigel had reminded me of something else I had read on the government�s employment law website:

I turned back to face the chairman.

�There is also one other thing,� I said. �Could you please tell Nigel to stop harassing and bullying me and the other staff, especially the female staff in Accounts? He makes unwelcome sexual remarks towards them, and he�s also homophobic towards some of the male staff, making lewd comments and gestures. We are all fed up with it, and we shouldn�t have to put up with such behaviour in the workplace.�

The chairman looked up at me in surprise.

�Surely you need to take that up with Nigel.�

�No, we don�t. I�ve been reading the law, and I�m afraid that it is actually your responsibility, as our employer, to prevent harassment and bullying of your staff by any other employee. So please talk to him.�

I could tell that he didn�t like being told what to do, and especially by me, the most junior member of the auctioneer team. Perhaps I had gone too far. Maybe it was time for me to leave his office. But I was only halfway to his door when I remembered something else.

I turned back again.

�Peter, have you ever heard of an entity called Starsign Bloodstock?�

He shook his head. �What about them?�

�They were the consignor of the three-million-guinea colt, but I can�t find any details about them anywhere, or the vendor they represented. That colt was the only one in the whole sale consigned by them, but they still must be registered with us.�

�Which member of the Bloodstock Sales Team dealt with them?�

�I�ve no idea. It wasn�t me.�

There were eleven members of the Bloodstock Sales Team in total, three of whom, including Nigel Stanhope and me, also acted as auctioneers on sale days.

�Leave it to me,� the chairman said. �I will look them up on the registration system and let you know.�

�Thank you.�

Again I turned to go, and again I turned back to him.

�Did security say anything about the CCTV? Is the box where the colt died covered?�

�Sadly not,� said the chairman. �It should be, but it appears that the cable to all the lower yards was cut when a new water pipe was being laid last month, and it hasn�t been repaired yet.�

How convenient, I thought.

This time I made it all the way out of his door and back along the corridor to my own office. It was empty. I sat down at my desk and blew out my cheeks. That had gone so much better than I had feared. In fact, I was quite proud of myself.

�Still here, then?� Nigel said, coming in through the door with a coffee.

�Yes,� I replied. �And I intend staying here too.�

He mumbled something under his breath, which I didn�t fully catch.

�What was that?� I asked.

�I said, not if I can help it.�

�And what the hell do you mean by that?� I asked indignantly.

�What I say. You arrived here, still wet behind the ears, and were made an auctioneer from day one. How old were you? Twenty-two, twenty-three?�

So he was jealous and saw me as a threat, as if I didn�t already know that.

�I was thirty.�

�I had to work here for eight years before I was asked to conduct my first auction. By then, I was almost forty.�

�That�s not my fault,� I said. �And I was an auctioneer for five years in Australia before I came here.�

�Australia! What do the bloody Australians know about racehorses?�

�As much as us, possibly more. There are six times as many racecourses in Australia than there are here. And you must have heard of the Melbourne Cup.�

�It�s a bloody handicap.�

So he had heard of it.

�So? The Grand National is also a handicap. As are the Chester Cup, the Ebor, and about a third of all the races run at Royal Ascot. And the Melbourne Cup happens to be the richest handicap in the world. Over four million goes to the winner.�

Nigel waved a dismissive hand at me. There was clearly no point in arguing with him when he was in this mood.

�Have you ever heard of Starsign Bloodstock?� I asked, changing the subject.

�What have they got to do with Australia?�

�Nothing. Have you heard of them?�

He shook his head. �Nope.�

I reckoned he wouldn�t have told me even if he had.

It must be such hard work, I thought, being so unpleasant and unhelpful all the time.

What Nigel needed, I decided, was a hefty dose of Buddhism. Not that there was any chance of giving him some. You cannot thrust Buddhism down anyone�s throat. Unlike in Christianity or Islam, there are no Buddhist missionaries offering eternal paradise for those that instantly convert, while threatening excruciating pain and horror in an everlasting hell for those who don�t.

In contrast, Buddhism is the most peaceful of religions, but it has to come from within yourself rather than being forced upon you. It fosters a belief that the continuous circle of life and death can only be broken by meditation, spirituality, and physical labour, conducted with good and kindly behaviour, on the path to eventual nirvana � the final quenching of the activities of the worldly mind and all its related suffering.

Nigel Stanhope wouldn�t recognise good and kindly behaviour if he tripped over it. He was far more a fire-and-brimstone sort of character, with the emphasis on the fire, at least in my case.

The chairman put his head round the door.

�Ah, Nigel,� he said, �could I have a word?�

�What about?� Nigel asked.

�In my office, if you don�t mind,� replied the chairman, not answering the question. Peter�s head then withdrew from the doorway.

Nigel looked at me. I shrugged my shoulders at him, as if I didn�t know what it was about, although I thought I probably did. He went out through the door, and I wondered if it was his turn to wear some extra pairs of pants.

I decided that I didn�t really want to be in our office when Nigel got back, as I imagined he would be very angry, and as I was now feeling more hungry than nervous, I went down to the cafeteria to get some breakfast.

As always during the Book 1 sale, the place was buzzing, with small groups sitting together at the tables, their heads bowed close in conversation so that others couldn�t overhear what they are saying.

The action in the sale ring itself may not begin until eleven o�clock on these three sale days, but prospective purchasers, their vets and agents will have been up since long before dawn, nervously checking and rechecking on any yearlings they still have in mind to bid for. They will also have been assessing who else has shown an interest in the same animal, trying to gauge whether they have any prospect of success against them in the upcoming auction.

Indeed, many months of planning will have gone into this sale, ever since the first publication of the catalogue. Bloodstock agents will have heavily scrutinised every page, targeting only those lots where they think they may have a chance of coming out as the top bidder and within their clients� respective budgets.

Now, tactics for the auction itself were being finalised: Which of us will actually do the bidding, and when; what is our expected limit; and are we ever prepared to break that limit in the hope that one final bid might secure our top choice?

I collected a toasted bacon sandwich from the cafeteria buffet, together with a coffee, and took it outside to one of the tables set up on the grass. I sat down and began to eat.

�Hello, Theo,� said a soft voice from over my left shoulder.

I turned round to find one of my fellow Bloodstock Sales Team members sitting at the next table.

�Hi, Liam,� I said. �I�m sorry, I didn�t see you there. Shall I join you?�

�Be my guest.�

I stood up and took my tray over to his table.

Liam Barton, a genial Irishman from Donegal, aged about fifty, was a former regular auctioneer, but now worked for us almost exclusively in Ireland, spending his time sweet-talking the Irish breeders and stud farms into sending their equine offspring over to us for sale in Newmarket rather than to rival companies in their homeland.

Almost half the yearlings sold in the Book 1 sale each year are bred in Ireland, and roughly the same number are from Great Britain, with just a sprinkling from America, France, and Germany, and the very occasional one from Australia or the United Arab Emirates.

�Well done on Tuesday with that three-million colt,� Liam said. �Rather overpriced, though, if you ask me. It was a bloody shame he snuffed it so quickly, as we�ll never find out how good he could have been. Do we know the cause of death?�

�Not yet. We�re waiting for the post-mortem report. Was it one of yours? It came over from Ireland.�

He shook his head. �What was its breeding?�

�By Foxtrot Mike out of a mare called Lucky Lass. The dam sire was by Camelot, so there was some value there.�

�But not three million guineas of value,� Liam said sarcastically.

I had looked up Foxtrot Mike. He was a ten-year-old Irish stallion, which had been standing at Holycross Stud, a small setup just outside Thurles in County Tipperary, for the past six years. He himself had a reasonable pedigree, with Northern Dancer as one of his great-grandsires, but he was not particularly well fancied as a stallion, having sired no progeny of note during his first few seasons.

Lucky Lass had never been much hailed before as a brood mare either, but together they had produced one really spectacular offspring, notably Lucky Mike, the leading European two-year-old of the current year. And Lucky Mike had been sold last November as a yearling, before his exceptional racing talents had been apparent, for just eight thousand euros at a rival company�s sale just outside Dublin.

A real example of lightning striking where it was totally unexpected.

But would it have struck again with his full brother?

We would never know.

�It was consigned for sale by something called Starsign Bloodstock,� I said. �Have you ever heard of it?�

He shook his head.

�Nor have I, but Starsign must be registered with us to act as a consignor. Peter is looking them up for me.�

�Why the interest?� Liam asked.

�I don�t know really. I just feel that the whole sale of that colt was rather strange, and then it ends up being found dead the following morning.�

Did I tell him about the collusive bidding-up conversation? After all, he had just said that he thought the colt had sold for more than it was worth. But I had promised the chairman that I would do nothing further on that score, not unless the post-mortem results showed something suspicious.

�How well do you know Elliot Mitchell?� I asked him instead.

�Pretty well, I suppose. We cross paths all the time. But he always gives the impression that he is somehow in competition with me.�

�For what?�

�Influence with the breeders mostly. All too often, if I make a suggestion to a breeder, they will reply, �But Elliot says this, or Elliot says that,� which is invariably the opposite. For example, if I suggest to a breeder that their yearling should be nominated for sale with us and is a good prospect for Book One, he will have told them it is likely going into Book Two or Book Three, or even into Book Four, and that they might want to consider a different company. And sometimes vice versa.�

�Does that annoy you?� I asked.

�Not really. We�re both just doing our jobs. And we�re both after the same thing � the highest possible price for the horse at the sale.�

Which yearling went into which book was not determined by the vendors or by their bloodstock agents. As one of the five yearling inspectors in the bloodstock team, I would go out to breeders and look at over a thousand yearlings every year between May and July, and my decision on which book they went into was based on the animal�s pedigree, its conformation, and the number of other yearlings of a similar or higher calibre in that year�s crop.

The Book 1 sale was by far the most prestigious, when all of the big-money purchasers would be present, but it was limited to five hundred and forty lots in total, one hundred and eighty per day for three days.

�So, overall, do you think Elliot Mitchell is pretty honest?� I asked Liam.

He laughed. �He�s as honest as any other bloodstock agent, but that�s not saying much.� He laughed again. �I was one of them myself once, remember, before I joined here. Make no mistake: everyone in this game is in it for themselves � agents and breeders alike, but especially the agents. Mind you, we as a sales company are no better. We all want the prices sky-high.�

As long as someone else is paying, I thought.

But who would actually be paying for the three-million-guinea yearling?

And paying it to whom?

I took over from Nigel Stanhope at the auctioneer�s rostrum just after twelve thirty, as planned, and he was unexpectedly good-natured towards me, helping to pass the microphone from his tie to mine. He even smiled at me.

I didn�t smile back.

�Next up, we have lot four nine six,� I said. �A fine bay filly by Cadogan Hall out of a Galileo mare, consigned by Blewbury Bloodstock. Foaled on February tenth, she�s a half-sister to a Group Two winner, and there�s plenty of black type in this one�s pedigree. Who�ll bid me what to start? Two hundred thousand guineas?� I looked around, but nothing. �One hundred, then?� Still nothing. �Fifty, then? Forty? Thirty?� I said as we played the usual game.

Elliot Mitchell was standing, as always, in the gate. I looked at him, but he was not even facing my way. Instead, he appeared to be deep in conversation with someone next to him wearing a blue gilet and a red baseball cap. He seemed disinterested in this particular lot, but many potential buyers try to appear disinterested initially.

�Come on now,� I said. �We all know she�s worth more than thirty thousand. Who will start me?�

A man leaning on the rails opposite waved his catalogue.

�Thirty thousand. Thank you, sir. Thirty thousand I have. Forty anywhere?�

Alex Cooper was doing a stint as a spotter on the far side of the ring from me, and he shouted, raised his right hand, and pointed with his left at a man in the third row of seats.

�Forty thousand,� I said. I looked back at the first bidder, and he nodded. �Fifty.� A new bidder, standing next to Elliot Mitchell in the gate, raised a hand. �Sixty thousand.�

The man on the rail lifted his catalogue again.

�Seventy thousand.� I said. �Eighty now,� as the man in the seats rebid.

I switched my eyes back again to the first bidder, the man leaning on the rail. He shook his head. Surely he hadn�t expected to acquire such a fine filly for that money, but maybe he�d been bidding on behalf of the vendor, just to get things going.

Still Elliot Mitchell didn�t make a move. Maybe he really wasn�t interested. But the man next to him still was.

�Ninety now, in the gate.�

I scanned the faces in front of me, and a movement up at the back caught my eye. Brian Kitman was in his usual place at the top of the right-hand stairwell, and he had just raised a hand above his head.

�New bidder at the back,� I said. �One hundred thousand guineas bid.�

The man in the gate lifted his hand in response. �One ten. One twenty now, in the seats.�

I looked up to the high stairwell. Kitman nodded at me.

�One thirty.�

The man in the seats again raised his hand.

�One forty. Selling now.�

We had reached the vendor�s reserve.

�She�s a lovely-looking filly,� I said. �A half-sister to a Group winner, remember. One fifty now, in the gate.�

I switched my attention in turn between the three bidders as we went through one more cycle of them all bidding again.

�The bid is one hundred and eighty thousand guineas in the gate. Will anyone make it up to two hundred?�

Elliot Mitchell had turned round to watch the proceedings but seemed content to let the others fight it out.

Brian Kitman in the stairwell raised two fingers in my direction.

�Two hundred thousand now, at the back.�

I looked across at the man in the seats, who was sitting very still.

�Decision time, sir.�

He briefly shook his head.

�Okay. Thanks for your help.� I switched my attention to the man in the gate. He didn�t immediately bid.

�Two hundred thousand at the back,� I repeated pointing up at Kitman so there was no mistake. Still the man in the gate made no move. �Two hundred thousand. Looking now for two twenty.� Still no movement. �I�ll take two ten, if it helps.�

The man in the gate nodded.

�Two hundred and ten thousand guineas,� I said slowly. �The bid is now in the gate.�

I looked up at Brian Kitman. He mouthed, �Two twenty.�

�Two hundred and twenty thousand guineas now, at the back.�

The bidder in the gate shook his head and turned away, pushing past Elliot Mitchell as he left the building.

I looked at Mitchell, who stared back at me. Was he going to bid? Were he and Kitman up to their tricks again? There was no movement of Mitchell�s hand or head, not even a raising of his eyebrow.

�The bid is two hundred and twenty thousand guineas at the back,� I said. �Are you all done?� I looked once more at the man in the seats, but he again shook his head. �Two hundred and twenty thousand, then. Selling this time round.�

I scanned all the faces one more time. Nothing.

�Last chance,� I said. �Two hundred and twenty thousand guineas. The hammer is up.�

Still nothing from Elliot Mitchell.

I raised my gavel and brought it smartly down onto the rostrum with a loud crack. �Sold for two hundred and twenty thousand guineas. Brian Kitman. Thank you, and the very best of luck with her.�

It was a fair price for a filly with that breeding, and for all my concerns, there was no reason to think that anything about that auction was amiss.

I watched as the animal in question was led out from the sale ring through the large exit door. As one high-class yearling departed to my right, the next arrived from my left, like a continuous conveyor belt of young equine talent with the potential to be world beaters � at least that�s what the purchasers were praying for.

�Next up is lot four nine seven,� I announced through the public address system. �A chestnut colt by High Fidelity.�

And so it went on, lot after lot, with nothing seemingly suspicious happening throughout my stint, until I was relieved by the chairman soon after one o�clock � lunchtime, and I was hungry again.

I went out of the sale-ring building and along to the self-service restaurant. I collected some breaded scampi with chips from the buffet, together with a bottle of sparkling water, and sat down at an empty table.

�Can I join you?� asked a voice over my left shoulder.

It was Alex.

�I thought you were spotting.�

�I�m on my break,� he replied. He sat down opposite me, with just a packet of cheese and chutney sandwiches on his tray.

�I�m really sorry about the other night,� he said quickly. �I don�t know what came over me.�

�It was rather a shock,� I said. �I didn�t realise.�

�No.� He paused. �Neither did I really. Not until then. I mean... I�ve always been rather confused in that regard. I knew I was not attracted to girls much, if at all, but...�

He tailed off.

We were surrounded on all sides by tables of others eating and drinking, some noisily toasting their success at buying or selling. It was hardly a place for such a private conversation.

�Look,� I said, �it�s very noisy in here. Would you rather go somewhere else to talk?�

�I thought you might prefer having other people around you � for added security.�

I smiled at him. �I don�t think I need protecting from you, Alex. Let me finish this� � I indicated towards my lunch � �and we�ll go somewhere quieter.�

But he opened his pack of sandwiches. �I haven�t got much time.� He looked at his phone. �I need to get back soon.�

�I�ll be as quick as I can,� I said, popping two more scampi into my already full mouth.

Alex lifted one of his cheese and chutney sandwiches towards his mouth, but it never got there.

�I think, overall, it�s a relief,� he said, clearly wanting to go on now rather than to wait. Perhaps it was best, once he�d started, to continue. �At last I�ve admitted to myself that I must be gay. Before, I�ve just kept shoving the question away, but I suppose that deep down I�ve always suspected. I just haven�t been prepared to admit it, even to myself, let alone anyone else. And now that I have, it�s somehow liberating.� He smiled. �I don�t know what my mother will say, mind. I�m an only child, and she keeps going on and on about one day having grandchildren. She�s desperate for them.�

He sighed and put the uneaten sandwich back down on his tray.

�So?� I said. �Elton John has kids.�

He looked at me and smiled. �So he has.� He picked up his sandwich again and took a bite from it. �So you�re not angry with me?�

�Angry? No. Of course not.�

�I was afraid you were. You seemed to be avoiding me yesterday.�

�It was not on purpose. I just got up early because I couldn�t sleep. And it was you who was out all last evening. I was home by eight thirty.�

�I was hiding.�

�From whom?� I asked.

�Myself, mostly. I walked all the way to the White Horse at Exning for a few drinks on my own. I couldn�t bear being with anyone I knew. I wanted time to think.�

Exning was a small village just to the north of Newmarket, which had now almost been swallowed up by the seemingly inexorable red-brick advance of the town outwards into the surrounding countryside.

�What time did you get back?�

�Around midnight.�

I hadn�t heard him come in. It must have been during one of my short sleeping stretches, as opposed to the long waking ones.

He suddenly glanced at his phone. �Sorry, I�ve got to go.�

�Will you be at home this evening?� I asked as he stood up. �We could continue talking then, if you like. I should be back well before eight.�

He looked down at me and smiled broadly. �That would be great. Thanks. I�ll make some supper.�

�But don�t get the wrong idea,� I said with a laugh.

�No,� he replied. �I won�t. I promise.�

I watched as he rushed out of the restaurant door, back to his post as a spotter in the sale ring.

How, I wondered, did someone get to be twenty-four years old and still be confused by his sexuality? I�d been pretty certain of mine by the time I was about fourteen, and that was in spite of attending an all-male boarding school.

Maybe I�d just been lucky.

But who really knows what�s going on in other people�s heads? Alex was a good kid, and if I could help him by talking or listening, then so much the better.

Perhaps I wouldn�t have to look for alternative accommodation after all.

I walked along from the chairman�s office to Accounts, hoping that Janis might still be at her desk. She wasn�t, but Geoff Pollard, the financial director, was still at his.

�Hi, Geoff,� I said. �How are things?�

�Never better,� he said, looking up at me with a smile. �That was the best Book One sale we�ve ever had. I�ve been adding up the final figures. Can you believe that over the last three days, we have sold more than a hundred and twenty million guineas worth of horse?� He laughed. �Recession? What recession? The buyers have gone crazy. In all, sixteen yearlings in this sale were sold for over a million guineas, with that one that you sold at the top, at three.�

�I hope none of the other fifteen died.�

He looked at me. �Yes, that was a real shame.�

�Did we get the money?�

�What money?�

�The three million guineas from Elliot Mitchell? Janis Thompson mentioned that you�d asked her to apply for it through the direct debit on his trading account.�

He appeared slightly irritated that one of his staff had been discussing accounting matters with someone outside of his team, and I mentally kicked myself for mentioning Janis by name, but he told me the answer, nevertheless.

�The bank refused our direct debit demand because of a lack of funds in the account. Elliot, meanwhile, has requested the usual thirty-day grace period so that he could have discussions with his principal, and also with the insurance company.�

�Who was his principal for that sale?� I asked. �Was it his Irish syndicate?�

�I�ve no idea,� Geoff replied. �You know that Elliot never reveals his principals. He�s renowned for it. That�s why we always process everything through his own trading account, rather than invoicing the principals direct.�

�How about the vendor?� I asked.

�What about them?�

�Who are they? According to the sales catalogue, the yearling was consigned by an entity called Starsign Bloodstock, but I can�t find out anything about them or who they represent.�

He shook his head. �We only deal with the vendor once the sale money is in our account.�

It was the same answer that Janis had given me.

Geoff looked up at the clock on the wall of his office.

�Look, I�m sorry, Theo � I must go home now. We have friends over for supper tonight, and my wife will be having kittens that I�m not already there to help her.�

He stood up, grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair, collected his laptop computer from his desk, and hurried away.

Meanwhile, I went back to my office to have a final check of my emails.

About ten or fifteen minutes later, as I walked out of the complex, I noticed how quiet the place seemed, with an end-of-term feel about it. The bar, normally busy until long after the end of the sale day, was almost deserted, and the fine-dining restaurant had closed early for the night.

It was only four days until we would be back here again for the start of Book 2, and the yearlings for that sale had already started arriving at the stable yards, ready to be vetted over the weekend, but tonight everyone, it seemed, was taking the opportunity to take the evening off to recharge their batteries, and give their livers a rest from the alcohol intake.

The nights were beginning to draw in fast as October progressed, and there was no light left in the western sky as I went out through the pedestrian gate next to the cafeteria and onto Queensberry Road, turning left towards home. It was only a few weeks now until the clocks would be going back an hour, and then the feel of impending winter would really set in.

I hated the long, dark evenings, when the sun would set well before four o�clock in the afternoon, and it would be pitch-black by a quarter past. Each year, I would count down the days until the shortest one. There were only seven weeks between the clocks going back and the days starting to get longer again. Surely, I thought, anyone can survive seven weeks?

I followed Queensberry Road round to the right and then turned left into the access drive behind Beaumont Court, where there were several blocks of garages, all built at right angles to the drive itself.

I thought about what I should say to Alex.

What was right? The last thing I wanted was to inadvertently say something inappropriate that might upset him.

I decided that the best thing was simply to listen and try to be supportive.

A pair of car headlights came on at the far end of the driveway. Perhaps one of the other residents of the block was going out for dinner. The car�s engine started.

I held my phone in my hand and started looking at some of the latest posts on Instagram � a video of boys riding bikes while standing with one leg on the saddle and the other on the handlebars; and another of a dog wearing goggles, being carried on a motorbike. So engrossed was I in this futile waste of time that I didn�t immediately spot that the car headlights were coming straight towards me, and very quickly.

I waved at the driver, but it made no difference. Perhaps he or she couldn�t see my dark navy suit against the black background. I moved rapidly to one side, close to the wall at the end of a garage block, but the headlights followed me. Only then did I begin to realise that they were heading my way on purpose, and the car was getting ever faster. I was already up against the wall to the right, and I had nowhere else to go.

At the last second, when the lights were only a couple of yards away, I jumped upwards as high as I could to avoid either being run over completely, or rolled against the wall.

The headlights flashed by underneath my feet but there was no way I could jump high enough to escape being hit altogether. My feet struck the windscreen, causing me to somersault right over the roof of the car, landing heavily on the ground behind it.

I landed badly on my left leg, twisting my ankle. I screamed in agony.

The car braked suddenly to a halt, its tyres skidding and screeching on the loose tarmac surface. The reversing lights immediately came on, and I was under no illusion that the driver was coming back to check that I was all right. Quite the opposite, in fact. I was sure he was coming back to have another go at finishing me off.

I tried to stand up and run, but my left leg didn�t seem to be working. Looking down, I could see that my ankle seemed to be totally out of shape, with my left foot pointing strangely sideways. Dislocated, I thought, and it didn�t fill me with much confidence for my future as the star striker of the sales company�s five-a-side soccer team.

But no matter what damage had already been done, remaining here in the middle of the driveway was not an option. I would be a sitting duck to be run over with far worse consequences, not just to my left foot but all over my body, and with no chance of jumping out of the way for a second time.

I quickly looked around.

There were three vans parked in a line on the opposite side of the drive from the garages, next to the wooden fence.

Gritting my teeth against the pain, I rolled over and over sideways on the ground towards them as the car started to gather speed backwards. I reached the line of parked vans and simply went on rolling, right underneath the middle one of them, just as the car flashed past, missing me by only inches.

Again the car screeched to a halt, but this time, the engine stopped, the door opened, and the driver got out.

I could hear the crunch of his footsteps as he moved closer to my hiding place. I thrust the knuckles of my right hand into my mouth, to stop me screaming from the excruciating pain that was sweeping up all over me from my foot.

From my position lying on my back, I twisted my head to try and see the driver�s approach.

As he did so, all I could see from under the van were his shoes � plain, black, unremarkable shoes. But they came towards me, inch by little inch, lit by the car�s still-on headlights, as the man searched for me.

Did I cry out for help, giving away my position, or did I stay still and as silent as possible in the hope of avoiding detection?

I opted for the silent, still approach, and on a number of counts.

First, no one was likely to hear my cries of help anyway. With the main road just on the far side of Beaumont Court, the flats all had double-glazed windows, not only to keep them warm in the winter but also to keep the noise out, and even if someone did hear me, they would surely be unlikely to come outside in the dark for fear of coming face to face with danger themselves.

Second, there was always a chance that he wouldn�t find me, albeit a small chance. And third, even if he did find me, what could he do about it if I stayed where I was, under the van?

He could hardly run me over under here.

Then I wondered if he had some other sort of weapon with him as well, such as a gun or a knife, and that thought frightened me even further. But if he did, why not just wait in the shadows and shoot or stab me at point-blank range as I walked past him? Much more certain than trying to run me over. But it wouldn�t have then looked like an accident. But this wasn�t going to look like an accident now anyway, whatever he did.

All these thoughts went round and round in my head, and still the plain, black, unremarkable shoes got ever closer, until the man wearing them was almost standing alongside the van I was under.

I held my breath.

Where was my phone? Could I use it to call for help?

I felt for it in my pockets, but to no avail. Then I remembered that I�d been looking at it just before the car hit me.

Where did it go?

Did it matter?

All I knew was that I didn�t have it with me any longer.

A phone, a phone, my kingdom for a phone.

A car turned into the end of the driveway from Queensberry Road, lighting up the scene with yet more headlights.

The black shoes immediately turned round so that the face of the man would not be lit up by the new lights, and then the shoes retreated rapidly back to his own car. I heard the door slam and the engine start, and I moved my position slightly to try and read the car�s registration as it drove away, but the number plate was not visible, as if it had been covered by something.

I laid my head back on the cold ground and considered my options.

Staying here much longer was definitely not one of them.

It may only be the beginning of October, but the high-pressure system meant that the sky was clear of clouds. �Clouds act like the blankets on your bed,� my late father used to say to me when I was a child. �They keep the warmth in during the night.� With no clouds to stop it, the heat gained from the sun during the day simply radiated back out into space at night. The hardest frosts always occur when the sky is clear and, while I didn�t exactly expect a frost tonight, it was already becoming too cold to be lying on the ground outside, especially with a badly dislocated ankle, which in turn might be disrupting the blood supply to my foot.

I thought about the alternatives.

Would Alex wonder why I hadn�t arrived home for our promised talk, and come out looking for me, or would he just conclude that I didn�t want to talk after all and had decided to spend the evening, and maybe the whole night, elsewhere?

Almost certainly the latter.

So, if I couldn�t stay under here all night, no one was coming to look for me, and I had no phone to call for help, then I had no alternative but to move myself.

I rolled onto my side, and a wave of pain swept over me, leaving me gasping for breath. How, I thought, am I ever going to be able to get out from under this van, let alone make my way home, or to anywhere else I could get help?

I suddenly heard more footsteps approaching � crunch, crunch, crunch on the loose tarmac surface.

Oh God. Was the man coming back?

I twisted my head to see, and waited as whoever it was got ever closer.

More shoes came into sight � white shoes, small white shoes. I could just make them out in the moonlight.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief, but then I feared that Black Shoes might have an accomplice in white.

The white shoes came quickly closer as the person moved alongside the van in a manner that suggested the wearer was simply walking past rather than actively searching.

I had to take a chance.

�Please help me,� I called out.

The white shoes did not stop.

�Help!� I cried out louder. �Help me!� Louder still.

This time the white shoes wavered, stopped, but then moved on again.

�Please!� I screamed. �Please help me.�

The shoes stopped again.

�Where are you?� asked a female voice in some alarm.

�Under the van,� I shouted back. �And I�ve hurt my leg. Please call an ambulance.�

I had a dread that she was about to run away from this strange voice from an invisible source.

�Who are you?� she asked.

�Theo Jennings. I live at number twelve. A car hit me, and I�ve ended up under here with a dislocated ankle. Please don�t go away.� I was pleading.

The white shoes turned one way and then the other, as if she was looking for reinforcements. Then a light came on, and the woman leaned down and shone it under the van, followed by her face appearing into my sight.

�Hello,� I said, quite calmly, even though I didn�t feel it. �Please get help. Call nine-one-one. I need an ambulance. And also the police.�

The light was from the torch on her phone, and she now used the same device to make the call.

I almost cried with relief.

The police and the ambulance arrived together, both with their blue lights flashing and sirens blaring, bringing a crowd of the block�s residents outside to see what was going on.

One of the paramedics crawled under the van with a torch.

�My left ankle is the problem,� I said.

He inspected it in the torchlight.

�Does it hurt?� he asked, looking at my sideways-facing foot.

Is the Pope Catholic?

�Yes, it does hurt,� I replied. �A lot.�

�Can you move?�

�No.�

He didn�t ask how I came to be under the van in the first place. In fact I wasn�t sure how I had managed it. I suppose that the human instinct to survive is so great that the rush of adrenalin it produces shuts out pain, at least for a while, until the adrenalin wears off � as it had by now.

In the end the paramedic placed a blanket on the ground next to me, then rolled me onto it so that he and his colleague could pull me out into the open. Only then did they give me some pain relief in the form of a nitrous oxide and air mixture to breathe in through a plastic mouthpiece.

Nitrous oxide � laughing gas. Don�t make me laugh!

It didn�t seem to make any difference to the pain.

They also fitted me with a neck collar � no need for that I said to them in vain; it was my ankle that hurt, not my neck. Finally, they strapped me onto a scoop stretcher and lifted me into the ambulance.

A uniformed policeman had hovered nearby throughout, and he now came into the ambulance with me.

�Can you tell me what happened?� he asked.

�I was hit by a car,� I replied. �And it was on purpose.�

�Are you sure?�

�Positive.�

At this point, one of the paramedics told the policeman to leave. When the policeman objected, he was told in no uncertain terms that if he wanted to speak to me further, he would have to do it at the hospital. There were tests that had to be run, the paramedic explained, and the patient needed to be calm and untroubled for them.

Calm and untroubled, however, were not the terms that would instantly spring to my mind to describe how I was feeling.

Despite breathing the nitrous oxide mixture for several minutes, my ankle and foot still hurt like hell, and I was also worried that Black Shoes might come back to finish off what he�d started. I was quite certain that he hadn�t just packed up and gone meekly home, and I would have much preferred the policeman to have remained with me as my bodyguard.

The paramedic took my temperature, pulse, and breathing rate � all normal. Next he measured my blood/oxygen level � ninety-eight per cent; and finally, he took my blood pressure, which was through the roof at 205/130.

�It�s the pain,� he assured me, nodding. �Pain always puts blood pressure up.�

I wondered why that was, but I�d take his word for it.

�Can�t you give me something stronger than this?� I asked, holding up the plastic mouthpiece.

He inserted a cannula into the back of my left hand and pumped in some morphine.

Bliss.

I closed my eyes and drifted away.

In the end, I went home by taxi, paid for in advance by a donation from the hospital�s charitable travel fund.

�It�s really designed for those who can�t afford the continuous trips back and forth to hospital for cancer treatment,� explained the guardian of the fund�s purse.

�I promise I�ll pay it back,� I said.

Just as soon as I find my bank card, I thought.

Hence, I climbed into the taxi, just outside the hospital main entrance, wearing a white shirt and my suit jacket � with my tie in a pocket, a pair of light blue nursing scrubs trousers, one slightly scraped polished black shoe on my right foot, and a grey plastic ankle support boot on my left. In my hands I carried an NHS white plastic bag containing my other slightly scraped polished shoe, a single black sock, and the remains of my suit trousers, in the hope that the Newmarket invisible menders could salvage something from the wreckage.

The driver took the Babraham Road out of Cambridge towards the A11, and I reckoned he must have thought I was a prime candidate for the nearby Fulbourn Psychiatric Hospital when I asked him to drive twice round the roundabout near the city Park and Ride.

�It will add money on the meter,� he complained, �and I�ve not been paid for that.�

�I want to check that I�m not being followed,� I explained.

�Followed? Are you some sort of spy or something?�

�Something,� I agreed.

�Bloody hell!� he said, looking over his left shoulder at me. �You�re not a bloody Russki are you? Like them others?�

�What others?�

�The other Cambridge spies. You know, Burgess and Maclean and that other one, Phil someone.�

�Kim Philby,� I said, �but that was decades ago, and no, I�m not Russian nor a spy. I just want to check that I�m not being followed.�

So he drove twice round the roundabout while I looked out through the back window to see if any other cars followed us round. They didn�t.

I then made him do it again at the big roundabout just southwest of Newmarket, the one with the large rearing stallion sculpture at its centre, near the July Racecourse, but again there was no one behind us doing the same thing.

Satisfied that we were not being followed, I gave the driver directions to the garage area behind Beaumont Court, asking him to stop short of where I�d been hit, but to leave his headlights on so I could search for my phone.

�I can�t stop for long, mind,� he said. �I�ve not been paid for waiting time, and I�ve got another job soon, in Cambridge.�

But he did stop long enough for me to have a good look around. I even bent down and tried to peer under the van where I�d previously hidden, but there was no sign of my phone or its case.

Dammit.

Next I asked the driver if he would move forward and round the corner so that the whole route to the building�s front door was lit up by his headlights.

Predictably, he moaned again about the time it would take, and he wasn�t being paid to wait.

�I would be most grateful,� I said in my most ingratiating manner. �I really don�t want to fall down the four steps in the dark with this bad leg. I�d probably end up back at the hospital.�

Reluctantly, the driver did as I had asked, and I could see in the light from his headlamps that there was no one hiding, waiting to leap out at me.

I made it safely down the four steps, without incident, to the front door of the flats, turned and waved my thanks to the driver, and then let myself in. It was almost eleven o�clock, and I was three hours later arriving home than I had expected.

Alex was still up, and he was in the sitting room, watching the television.

�What the hell happened to you?� he asked without turning round as I went in. There was more than a touch of irritation in his voice. �I made supper. I had mine but yours will be totally ruined by now.�

�I�m sorry,� I said. �I couldn�t help it. I�ve been in the ER at Addenbrooke�s Hospital, having my ankle put back together after being hit by a car on the way home.�

He jumped up and was full of apology.

�Why didn�t you call me? I�d have come to collect you.�

�I lost my phone.�

�You could have borrowed one.�

I laughed. �What makes you think I know your number off by heart?� I said. �Whenever I call you, I just touch �Alex� in my contacts list.�

�Did you lose it in the accident?�

�Yes,� I said. �But it wasn�t an accident.�

He stared at me. �What do you mean?�

I described how the car had tried to run me over on purpose, and his eyes got bigger and bigger as I went on.

�Have you told the police?� he asked.

�I certainly have, but I don�t think they really believed me.�

I wondered if it was just me that people in authority didn�t believe. First, the chairman doubted that I had really overheard the conversation in the gents�, and now the police were sceptical that someone had tried to murder me.

�But why would anyone want to kill you?� Alex asked, echoing the doubts of PC Langford.

�Maybe I know something that someone doesn�t want me to tell.�

�What�s that?� Alex asked.

What, indeed?

With it being a day off between the Book 1 and Book 2 sales, the whole place felt less busy than it had been over the past three days.

However, with over fifteen hundred more yearlings due to be auctioned in the coming week, about half of which were already standing in the stables, ready to be vetted by potential purchasers or their agents, there were plenty of people still about. Hence, the cafeteria was doing brisk breakfast business, with small groups at each of the tables, huddled close together in deliberation.

I bypassed them all and went through the main building and up the stairs to my shared office.

Nigel Stanhope was there ahead of me.

�Morning, Nigel,� I said cheerfully as I went in. �You�re here early.�

�No rest for the wicked,� he said without looking up from what he was working on. �Thanks to you, I have to write my lines: I must not bully my colleagues, I must not bully my colleagues, I must not bully my colleagues.�

I could tell he was angry with me, but for now, he had a grip on his emotions.

I looked down at his feet beneath the desk.

He was wearing black shoes. Highly polished black shoes with black laces neatly tied in a bow. Not the same black shoes as I�d seen last night, but that didn�t mean anything.

I sat down at my desk and opened my computer.

The auctioneer roster for next week�s sales had been sent out in advance, so each of us knew for which lots we would be on the rostrum.

The printed catalogue provides potential buyers with a huge range of information concerning a horse�s pedigree, going back at least three generations, and details of the racing performance of antecedents and siblings. And while we had to be ready to sell any horse at any time, it helped to have prepared a few things to say as the animal made its way into the ring. It was also necessary to have some idea of the expected purchase price, and any vendor reserve, in order to know where to start the bidding.

I opened my file for the Book 2 sale and started to make some notes about the horses I would be selling.

�I had a visit from a policeman at seven o�clock this morning,� Nigel said, interrupting my thoughts. �He wanted to inspect my car.�

�What for?� I asked, trying hard to control my racing heart.

I took it all back about the police not really believing me, or caring.

�He seemed to think that it might have been involved in a hit-and-run incident yesterday evening.�

�And was it?� I asked, keeping my voice as level as possible.

�No, of course not,� he replied indignantly. �I drove straight home from work and remained there all evening.�

�What did the policeman look for?� I asked.

�Damage to the front, apparently, and particularly to the windscreen.�

�And was there any?�

�He found a small crack in the windscreen, but I told him it was the result of a stone hitting it, and it�s been there for ages. I�ve been meaning to get it fixed for weeks.�

Did I believe him?

Did the policeman believe him?

�Was anyone hurt?� I asked.

�The policeman didn�t say. He just took some photographs and then went away.�

�How strange.�

We went back to our own silent deliberations of the upcoming Book 2 sale.

If Nigel had been the person responsible for trying to run me over, why would he have mentioned the policeman�s visit? Or had he been fishing for a reaction?

I found it difficult to concentrate on extended pedigrees, sibling racing form, and potential auction starting prices when someone out there was trying to kill me.

After a mostly unproductive forty-five minutes or so, when the clock on the office wall had crawled round to half past nine, I stood up and walked down the corridor to Accounts. As I had hoped, Janis was at her desk, together with four other young women, all busy typing furiously into their computers.

�Hi, Janis,� I said as I put my head round the door. �Do you have a moment?�

She stood up, looked at the others, and then came out into the corridor.

�A couple of things,� I said. �Firstly, would you like to come to the races with me tomorrow afternoon?�

�Newmarket races?�

�Yes,� I said. �And we could go for dinner afterwards.� If I could find a table anywhere, I thought. �Or maybe we could get a takeaway.�

�At your flat?� she asked.

�Yes. If you�d like.�

�How about your flatmate?�

�He�s away for the night. He�s going home for his dad�s sixtieth birthday party. You could stay over if you wanted to.�

I couldn�t believe how forward I was being, and I don�t think Janis could either.

�You seem to have it all planned out nicely,� she said with a laugh.

�Only if you say yes.�

�Okay. Yes to the races, and yes to an early dinner, but no to a takeaway or to a sleepover. Not yet.�

Not yet sounded promising. And it would do for now.

�Lovely,� I said. �The first race is at half past one. If I pick you up from Soham at midday, we could have a bite of lunch at the course before racing.�

�That sounds great,� she replied, smiling. �I�ll fix it with Mum.�

She gave me her home address and her telephone number, not that I had a phone to call it on.

�I�m afraid you need to be ready to be heavily scrutinized when you arrive,� she said.

�What happens if I fail her inspection?�

�I won�t be coming with you to the races.�

I laughed, but I could see in her face that she wasn�t joking.

�Now, what was the other thing?� she asked.

�I was wondering if you could check the records to see if an entity called Starsign Bloodstock has ever consigned yearlings for sale here before this sale, or if they have an account with us.�

�I can�t. I got told off this morning. Mr Pollard said that I had a legal responsibility to keep details of our clients� financial arrangements confidential, and I shouldn�t have been disclosing them to a third party.�

�I�m hardly a third party,� I said. �I work for the same organisation.�

�He told me that I should only be discussing account information with him or with other members of my team, and only then if it was absolutely necessary. He said that it is his job, as the company finance director, to report such matters to the board or to anyone else who needs them, and not mine.�

�I�m so sorry,� I said. �That was entirely my fault. I should never have mentioned your name to him. Don�t worry, then, about Starsign. I�ll ask Mr Pollard about it myself.�

�I must get back,� Janis said. �My manager wants us to have all the Book One accounts finished by the end of today, ready for the big rush next week.�

Whereas there had been five hundred and forty lots over the three days of Book 1, almost three times that number would be offered for sale in the coming week, with each of the days starting earlier and finishing later. Big rush, indeed. Horses would be arriving and leaving from the horsebox loading area at all times of the day and night.

�Okay,� I said, smiling at her. �I�ll see you tomorrow at noon. And I promise to be on my best behaviour.�

�You�d better be.� She laughed and then disappeared back into her office.

I stood there in the corridor, joyful at the thought of spending all the following afternoon plus half the evening in Janis�s company.

�What are you smiling at?� said a gentle Irish voice that brought me back from my daydreaming. Liam Barton, our man from County Donegal, was walking towards me.

�Oh, hi, Liam. I�m just happy, that�s all.�

�Lucky you. Wish I was.�

�What�s the problem?� I asked.

�Nothing for you to worry your little head about,� he replied with a wry smile. �My personal business.�

He went past me and down the corridor.

I didn�t fancy going back to spending more time in an office with Nigel Stanhope, so I went down the stairs and outside into the fresh air.

The high pressure over Scandinavia had finally started drifting eastwards towards Siberia, allowing frontal systems from the Atlantic to encroach over the UK. The forecast for Newmarket, as shown earlier on my computer, was for increasing clouds during the afternoon and rain overnight. But for now, the sun was still shining as I wandered down the service road towards the lower stable yards.

My ankle felt a bit sore but was holding up all right, with the elasticated support under my sock doing its job.

A car swept around the far corner at speed towards me.

Oh God, I thought, not again, but the car slowed before reaching me, and turned into the car park. My heart rate slowly returned to normal. Surely, I was safe here in the sales complex, in broad daylight with so many other people about?

Nevertheless, I turned off the service road and went through the white-painted gate into the horsebox area with its multiple loading and unloading ramps. There were four horseboxes currently parked there, each of them unloading yearlings ready for the sale.

Two of my colleagues from the sales company were also in attendance, their clipboards and electronic tablets at the ready, booking in each new arrival. They first checked the animal�s details against its passport, before giving the groom a lot-numbered metal badge to attach to the horse�s head collar. A pair of round white stickers, with the lot number printed boldly on them in black, were then applied firmly to each side of the animal�s hind quarters before it was taken away to its designated stable ready for inspection and vetting.

With such a large number of young horses arriving and leaving in rapid succession, many of them looking almost identical, it was inevitable that there would occasionally be mix-ups. Even with the numbered stickers and the head-collar badges, there had been several occasions when one horse had been sold as another, the error only coming to light months or even years later, when the horse arrived at the track to race, only for its microchip number not to match the official record.

I started to walk past the horseboxes.

I felt totally lost without a phone in my hand and had decided that I would nip out to one of the phone shops in the High Street and buy myself a cheap pay-as-you-go replacement, which would do for now. At least I would then be able to call Janis in the morning if I couldn�t find her parents� house.

As I rounded the back of the last horsebox in the line, towards the exit onto The Avenue, I walked slap bang into Elliot Mitchell and Brian Kitman, who were deep in conversation.

They suddenly stopped talking, and both of them stared at me.

I stared back.

In the night, I had resolved to find out what the hell was going on, and now seemed like as good a time as any to start.

�So are you two busy hatching your next little scheme?� I said.

�And what do you mean by that?� Elliot asked rather pompously.

Kitman, meanwhile, remained silent.

�I think we both know what I mean.�

�I am sure I don�t,� Elliot replied, all innocently. �We were simply discussing a list of potential purchases for some of Brian�s owners.�

Brian nodded, as if in agreement.

�And were you also deciding which of them to bid up to ridiculous levels?� I asked.

�I don�t like your tone, young man,� Brian Kitman said, finally finding his tongue.

�And I don�t like being taken for a fool,� I replied. �Bid them up, insure them, and then collect a hefty payment when they die.� I paused and looked at them closely � not a black shoe between them.

�How did you do that exactly?�

�Do what?� Elliot said.

�Kill the horse without leaving a trace for the vet to find.�

Kitman looked somewhat anxious, but Mitchell remained stony-faced, even smiling slightly in his eyes, as if he was rather proud of what he had managed to do.

�I have absolutely no idea what you�re talking about,� Elliot said calmly. �And if you repeat that accusation to anyone else, I will sue you for slander.�

�I would only be slandering you if I said something that was untrue, and we all know it isn�t. You can�t sue me for telling the truth, however much you might not like to hear it.�

Kitman�s anxiety deepened, lines furrowing his brow and beads of sweat appearing in his hairline.

�Come on, Brian,� Elliot said, taking him firmly by the arm and steering him away. �We�ve heard enough of this nonsense.�

I almost laughed as they walked away.

If I�d had the slightest doubt beforehand that the two of them were both up to their necks in sharp practice, Kitman�s reaction had just proved it.

He was clearly the weaker of the two.

I reckoned that if I could just twist their little chain a little bit more, Kitman might just be the link that snapped.

I bought the cheapest iPhone I could find � by a distance.

�I have a couple of old �eights� left in the storeroom,� said the shop assistant. �I suppose I could let you have one of those.�

He had been trying his best to sell me the most recent top-of-the-range model for over a thousand pounds. I tried to explain to him that it was far too expensive, but he wasn�t to be deterred. Eventually, I stood up and started to walk out of his shop. Only then did he change his tune.

�How much?� I asked.

�As a company, we don�t sell the eights anymore, so I�ll have to look it up. The two I have left somehow never got sent back to the warehouse.�

He went into the back of the shop but soon reappeared.

�You can have one for a hundred and sixty pounds,� he said to me quietly, �as long as you take a thirty-day preloaded SIM with it.�

I looked at his fellow shop assistant, who was busy with another customer.

�A hundred for cash,� I replied, equally quietly.

�Hundred and forty.� He was almost whispering.

�A hundred and twenty is my top and final offer. And for that, you also have to set it up for me.�

�Okay,� he said. �Deal.�

I walked down the road to the cashpoint outside Lloyd�s Bank while he unpacked the phone from its sealed box and inserted the SIM card. But only when I was completely satisfied that the phone was operating properly, did I hand over the hundred and twenty in cash.

He again disappeared into the back and shortly returned with my receipt, which, I noted with amusement, was only for the preloaded SIM, at ten pounds.

�That SIM gives you ten gigabytes of data on 4G, and thirty days of unlimited calls and texts to UK numbers,� he said. �After that, you�ll need to renew to make calls or send texts, but unused data will roll over.�

�How do I renew?�

�You can do it online via our website, or bring it back here.�

�Will it automatically download all my stuff from iCloud if I enter my Apple ID?�

�Sure, but do it when you�re connected to Wi-Fi, or you�ll just instantly use up all your data.�

�Okay, thanks. I will.�

I parked my car outside Janis�s family home in Soham at five minutes to midday on Saturday morning, having used the maps app on my new phone to find it.

I was dressed in an open-necked white shirt and my second-best suit, the trousers of my best one having been deposited on the way at the local �invisible mender,� although he had claimed that they were really beyond repair, even for him.

�Just do your best,� I had urged him.

�It would have been easier if the cuts had been made down the seams,� he had mused, shaking his head. �Give me a week and I�ll see what I can do.�

Alex had departed for his weekend in Stourbridge after breakfast, seemingly a little happier than he had been the previous evening.

�Remember,� I had said to him, as he was leaving, �don�t say anything to anyone.�

�That seems to be your mantra,� he had replied with a smile.

Janis�s front door opened before I had a chance to ring the bell.

�I saw you arrive from my bedroom window,� she said, smiling. �I was waiting for you.�

�So, are you ready?�

�I will be in a minute. You�d better come in first.�

For inspection, I thought.

Janis led me down the hallway to the kitchen, where a woman that I took to be in her fifties was standing by the stove, in an apron, stirring whatever was in a saucepan on the hot plate.

�Hello, Mrs Thompson,� I said, extending my right hand. �I�m Theo Jennings. I work with Janis at the sales company in Newmarket.�

She wiped her own hand on her apron and shook mine. As she did so, she literally looked me up and down, and seemed to approve of what she saw. She smiled, but it lacked any warmth and didn�t reach her eyes.

�Janis tells me you are taking her to Newmarket races.�

�Yes,� I said. �And then afterwards for dinner at Unico�s.�

�How lovely. And what time is your reservation for dinner?�

�Six thirty.�

It was the only time, and at the only restaurant, that I could find a free table in all of Newmarket.

�Good,� Mrs Thompson said. �So Janis will be home by nine at the latest.�

�I thought we might go for a nightcap at the Bedford Lodge Hotel after dinner, if that�s all right. I promise she�ll be home by ten thirty.�

�I think nine o�clock is quite late enough. I don�t want her coming to any harm.�

�Janis won�t come to any harm, Mrs Thompson. I will make sure of that.�

Although how could I make sure of it? I thought, when I couldn�t even prevent myself being struck by a hit-and-run driver in my own driveway.

In the end, she agreed to allow Janis to be out with me until nine thirty.

�Phew,� I said, when we were both safely in my car with the doors closed.

�You did well,� Janis said, waving to her mother, who stood in the front doorway as I drove away. �All morning she has been umming and ahhing about whether to let me go at all.�

�But you�re a grown woman, not a child. You should be able to make your own decisions about where you go and with whom.�

�Mum makes it quite clear that while I am still living under her roof, I have to abide by her house rules.�

�And what if you don�t? She�s hardly going to throw you out.�

�I couldn�t do that to her,� Janis said miserably.

I began to have some sympathy for Darryl, Janis�s former boyfriend.

�Okay,� she said, snapping out of her moroseness, �where are we going?�

I fleetingly looked across at her. �To the races, unless you have somewhere else in mind.� My mind was running away with places I would like to take her, most of which involved a large double bed and a chilled bottle of champagne.

�I meant whereabouts at the races. Which enclosure?�

I swallowed my disappointment.

�The Premier Enclosure,� I said with a smile.

�Ooo-er, who�s a clever boy, then. I�d heard they were all sold out.�

�They were, but I managed to get a pair of complimentaries. It seems the sales company is sponsoring one of the races, and part of the deal was to have some Premier Enclosure free tickets. Barbara on Reception gave them to me, as all the directors are going to a box for lunch.�

�Perhaps we can gatecrash it,� Janis said, laughing mischievously.

But perhaps not, I thought. I�d pushed my luck far enough this week.

I parked in the Premier Enclosure car park � free pass also provided by Barbara.

�Help,� Janis cried. �I can�t get out.� She was pulling furiously at the broken door handle.

�That doesn�t work. I�ll open it from the outside.�

I climbed out of the driver�s door and then went swiftly round to her side and let her out. �Sorry about that. I don�t usually have passengers, so I haven�t bothered to get it fixed.�

I locked the car, and we made our way in through the entrance archway and into the Premier Enclosure itself.

�Would madam care for some luncheon?� I asked in my most grandiose tone.

�That would be delightful, Jeeves,� she replied, equally affected. �What�s on the menu?�

�Burgers, bangers and mash, or fish and chips with curry sauce,� I replied in full East End Cockney. �All created in high-class mobile kitchens � or food vans, to you and me.�

Janis laughed.

�Or we could just have the meal that�s included in our entry tickets.�

�Sounds wonderful.�

We made our way to the Carvery Lounge and even managed to acquire a table next to the window, thanks to some early birds who were already finished and just leaving as we arrived.

�This building was once the weighing room and jockeys� changing rooms,� I said, �before they built the big new ones over on the far side of the paddock.�

�When was that?�

�Years ago. Twenty-five at least.�

We ate a sumptuous lunch of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, together with roast potatoes, cauliflower cheese, carrots, parsnips, broccoli, and leeks.

�That was lovely,� Janis said, putting down her knife and fork and clutching her full stomach. �I can�t think I�ll need another big meal in just six hours� time.�

�I could cancel my dinner booking,� I said. And go to bed instead, I thought fleetingly.

�No, leave it. I�m sure we�ll want a little something by then.� She smiled at me. �So what will win the first?�

We picked up our provided racecards and looked at the list of runners in the seven-furlong contest for fillies only, all of them three years old or older.

I noticed that number two, Halaveli, was trained by Brian Kitman. I scanned through the cards for all seven races. In total, there were four Kitman-trained runners during the afternoon, including one, Saffron Lady, in the big race at 2:40.

�Let�s go and see the horses in the paddock,� I said.

We went out of the old weighing room and across the freshly mowed grass towards the new one. There, we leaned on the white rail and watched the thirteen runners circulating.

�Which do you fancy?� Janis asked.

I thought of saying that I fancied her but...

�Number two,� I said. �Let�s move round a bit.�

We moved to our left, bypassing a group of racegoers who had obviously had quite a liquid lunch and were quite worse for wear already, even before the first race. We found another space on the rail, this time quite close by to the connections of Halaveli, who were standing on the grass just inside the ring.

Brian Kitman was standing with two others, an older man in a tweed suit and a woman in a brown hat. The horse�s owners, I thought. Presently, a jockey wearing blue and yellow silks came out of the weighing room and joined them.

Kitman was a tall man with a ramrod-straight back, and he towered over the diminutive jockey as he gave his last-minute instructions on how to ride the horse in the race.

The jockey had his back to me, with Kitman facing him, and me.

I stood up as tall as I could and stared at Kitman�s face, and as often seemed to happen, his eyes drifted up over the jockey�s blue-capped head and locked onto mine.

Twist, twist.

I lifted my fore and middle finger up to my own eyes, then pointed them straight at Kitman in the universal �I�m-watching-you� gesture.

Even at a distance of ten yards, I could see his face go pale under his trilby. He continued to stare straight at me, his eyes flickering slightly in his anxiety, before the lady in the brown hat touched his arm and he suddenly transferred his attention to her, as if she�d been speaking to him but he hadn�t been listening.

An official rang a bell, and Kitman, together with the jockey, went over to horse number two as it continued to walk along. The jockey gathered the reins, and Kitman gave him a leg up, tossing his lightweight frame up onto the saddle in one smooth, easy, well-practiced movement.

As the horse moved away, Kitman stopped and turned round to look back at me. I hadn�t taken my eyes off him for one second, and once again our eyes met. I just nodded at him, a very slight nod, hardly perceptible, but he saw it all right.

Twist, twist.

�Come on,� Janis said, taking hold of my hand. �Let�s go and have a bet.�

We went through the main Millennium Grandstand and out to where the bookmakers were standing in a row, shouting their odds. She put five pounds to win on number seven, simply because she liked its name � Sunshine Lily � while I put five each way on Halaveli, each of us receiving a printed ticket in exchange for our money.

I noticed that neither of our choices was the favourite, Sunshine Lily being offered at sixteen to one, while Halaveli was priced at elevens on most boards. The favourite was much shorter priced, at just three to one.

�Where shall we watch it from?� I asked.

�Let�s go down at the front,� Janis said eagerly. �I love it when you can actually feel the horses� hooves thudding into the ground.�

�How often do you come to the races?� I asked, quite surprised.

�Almost never these days, but I did a lot as a small child. Dad adored his racing, especially over the jumps. He used to love going to Huntingdon. He�d always take me with him, and we�d go down the course and stand next to a fence to watch the horses, and to feel them as they went past. It was very exciting.�

�Does he still go?�

�Not anymore.� She paused, as if deciding whether to go on. �Dad had his problems after the murders. Like a lot of people did in Soham. He started drinking far too much, and also he began to gamble heavily. So it was best if he didn�t go to the races again.�

The evil man who had murdered those girls had destroyed so many other lives in addition to the two young ones he had actually taken.

Neither Sunshine Lily nor Halaveli won the race in spite of Janis and I cheering them home at the top of our voices. The favourite won by two clear lengths, while the remainder of the field flashed past us in a single bunch, the vibration of their hooves on the turf reaching our feet with ease.

�Never mind,� Janis said, pulling a sad face. �There are still six more races.�

The official result was announced on the public address system.

�Halaveli was third,� I said. �I backed it each way, so I won.�

Janis clapped her hands together in excitement.

�How much?�

I looked at my printed slip. �Sixteen pounds for the place. But I put ten pounds on altogether, so I�m six pounds up. You lost five, so, together, we�re still ahead by a pound!�

She beamed. �Let�s celebrate.�

�In a while,� I said. �I want to see the horses come in to the unsaddling enclosure first.�

We rushed back through the grandstand and arrived just before the horses.

There was quite a crush as many happy punters tried to get close to the place designated for the winner, to cheer her in, but I wanted to be elsewhere, right next to the �third place� pole, where it was much less busy. Hence Brian Kitman saw me as soon as he arrived with the horse�s owners.

He stopped dead and frowned.

Twist, twist.

Much to Elliot Mitchell�s obvious huge annoyance, Janis � with an i-s � and I were asked by Ronan and Shane � we were now on first-name terms � to come up to their box at the top of the main grandstand, to watch the race.

There were about ten other guests already there, mostly from the music business, with one or two I even recognised, and I was introduced to them all as the man who had sold the horse to Ronan and Shane.

�So you�re a horse breeder,� the woman on my left said loudly.

I smiled at her. �No, I was just the auctioneer that sold the horse at the sales.�

Everyone laughed � everyone, that is, except Elliot Mitchell, who scowled.

�Drink?� Ronan asked.

�Just a small white wine, thank you,� I replied. �I�m driving later.�

Janis had a white wine as well, a large one, and she seemed to be in seventh heaven. I wondered how I was ever going to take her just to a local pizza restaurant for dinner after rubbing shoulders with this lot.

�Come on everybody,� Shane shouted from the door to the balcony. �The race is about to start.�

We all moved outside.

Elliot Mitchell did go away eventually, but not before he had created quite a scene.

By that time, Janis had pulled me through the door into the Carvery Lounge, where we sought refuge from the tirade of abuse still aimed in my direction from outside.

�My,� Janis said after we had sat down at a table and had been served our drinks � a gin and tonic for her, and a Diet Coke for me. �You do seem to have upset some people today. That�s the second person who has shouted at you in the past half hour.�

I smiled at her. �I don�t mind if all they do is shout at me, even if they make stupid threats to kill me. But it was the fact that somebody did actually try to do it on Thursday evening that really upsets me.�

I told her about the car trying to run me over, and having ended up in Addenbrooke�s Hospital with a dislocated ankle. She was both shocked and frightened for me, as was I.

�Are you sure it was deliberate?� she asked, taking another sip of her gin.

�Absolutely.�

�Do the police know?�

�Yes, but they seem to believe it couldn�t have been carried out on purpose. They appear to be treating the whole thing as a simple hit-and-run, rather than attempted murder.�

�But why would anyone want to kill you?�

�That�s also what the police asked me,� I replied. �But you�ve just heard Elliot Mitchell threaten me.�

�Yes, but that was because of something you did only today, not on Thursday or earlier.�

It was a good point.

�At the time, I thought that it might have been Nigel Stanhope in revenge for me reporting his bullying and sexual comments to the chairman, but now I�m thinking it must be something to do with that three-million-guinea colt that was killed.�

She looked confused. �But we were told in the office yesterday that the post-mortem had shown that the horse died from natural causes. Some sort of heart attack.�

�That is what some people would like us to think, but I don�t believe it.�

�Why not?�

I wondered how much I should tell Janis.

Could I trust her? Would she even believe me? Or would she think I was just some sort of crazy weirdo that she�d be much better off keeping well away from?

In the end, I decided that if I couldn�t trust her, I couldn�t trust anyone, and I would have to take my chances on the weirdo thing.

We watched the fourth race on the racecourse television sets in the Carvery Lounge, rather than chance being confronted again by Elliot Mitchell. There were seven runners this time, all two-year-olds, and not one of them was trained by Brian Kitman. They competed over the same straight mile course as in the Sun Chariot race, and two of them fought out a close photo finish, but somehow the excitement of the racing had faded, at least for Janis and me.

�Can I please have another drink?� she asked.

I collected her another gin and tonic from the bar, and then I told her everything.

I began with the auction of the dead colt, explaining how the bidding had already gone way above what most people had believed was an appropriate level for an animal with that pedigree before Kitman and Mitchell had then continued to push the price right up to the three-million-guinea mark.

�Perhaps they both wanted it very badly,� Janis said. �Or maybe they just didn�t want the other one to get it.�

�That�s what I had thought at the time, but that soon all changed.�

I told her about the conversation I had overheard in the gents�, and her mouth fell open.

�But is that allowed?�

�It most certainly is not,� I said. �It�s called collusive bidding and is strictly against the sales rules, and also against the law. I tried to tell the chairman about it that night, but he was unavailable. But when I found out the next morning that the horse had been discovered dead in its box, I went straight to the chairman and told him then.�

�What did he say?�

�He kept asking me if I was sure, or could I have been mistaken, or had I misheard what was actually said. I told him I was absolutely certain, but I don�t think he wants to believe it�s true. But at least I insisted that he organise a vet to do a post-mortem.�

�Which showed nothing unusual.�

�Exactly. That was a disappointment, but I still remain certain that they killed it somehow. They bid it up way above what it�s really worth, insured it at that inflated auction value, then killed it for the payout.�

�But Elliot still has to pay us the bid price for the colt, even though it�s now dead, so how does he gain anything?�

�I�m not sure, but I believe it has something to do with the entity that consigned the colt for sale in the first place � Starsign Bloodstock. It�s hidden behind a cloak of secrecy, and I wouldn�t be at all surprised if Elliot Mitchell hasn�t got something to do with it.�

�But how can you prove that?�

�I can�t. Not at the moment. Indeed, I can�t prove any of it. That�s why I keep watching them. And I�ve let them know I�m watching them, in the hope that one of them will crack under the pressure. I thought it would be Kitman, but having seen Elliot get so angry just now, it might well be him.�

�Just as long as they don�t crack you first.�

�Yes,� I agreed. �There is that little problem.�

I drove Janis back to Soham in good time to meet her mother�s nine-thirty curfew.

In the end, we hadn�t even had a takeaway.

I had found some eggs in the fridge, and Janis had cooked us each a ham and cheese omelette, standing at the cooker in the kitchen, wearing nothing but my now-crumpled white shirt, unbuttoned down the front, while I watched her.

We hadn�t gone to my bed either, preferring to lie entwined together on the sitting room carpet, with the electric fire on.

Even though we were five minutes early arriving at Soham, Mrs Thompson was already standing in the front window, looking out for us.

�Now, don�t forget to phone me as soon as you are back in the flat,� Janis said to me earnestly before we got out of the car. �I want to know that you have arrived safely.�

�Right,� I said. �I�ll call you. I promise.�

I went round and opened the passenger door for her, and then we walked up the path together. Mrs Thompson appeared at the front door before we got there.

�Good evening, Mrs Thompson,� I said.

�Have you both had a good time?� she asked.

�An excellent time,� Janis replied. �And you�ll never guess who we met at the races � Ronan Drew and Shane Clayton from Ultra High.�

Mrs Thompson didn�t seem any wiser than I had been.

�Thank you for a lovely day,� I said to Janis, giving her just the slightest little peck on the cheek. �I�ll see you at work on Monday.�

Both mother and daughter stood in the doorway and waved at me as I climbed back into the Audi and drove away.

It had turned out to be a much better day that I could ever have expected. An excellent one, in fact.

I smiled to myself at the memory of making love with Janis on the sitting-room floor. I think it had been a hugely satisfying experience for both of us � it certainly had been for me � as we had discovered the delights of each other�s bodies. There had been nothing clumsy, awkward or embarrassing about it, being much more loving and tender than any of my previous sexual experiences.

I thumped the steering wheel in front of me in total joy and contentment.

Now all I had to do was get home safely to make the day perfect.

I finally escaped from the lunch from hell about four thirty, with my voting choices still kept to myself, but very little else.

Janis came out with me to the car.

�I�m so sorry,� she said. �I didn�t expect them to give you quite such a grilling. I should have given you more warning.�

�It�s all right,� I said. �In fact, I rather enjoyed it.�

�And you certainly shut them up with your answer about believing in God. I absolutely loved it.� She laughed. �I�ve never seen Gran lost for words before.�

�I don�t think your brother likes me.�

�Oh, don�t worry about him. He doesn�t like any of the boys I�ve brought home over the years. In fact, I thought he warmed to you a bit by the end. More than he ever has to anyone else. At least he said goodbye, and that was a first.�

�So others have been put through the same ordeal?�

�Afraid so. It�s a sort of rite of passage. Most of them don�t last the course, and one boy disappeared completely without trace immediately afterwards. He wouldn�t even answer my calls.� She laughed again. �But I really hope that won�t happen with you.�

�Not a chance.�

�And I�m sorry about the drink thing.�

�You could have warned me. I very nearly brought a bottle of wine with me.�

She laughed once more. �I�m so glad you didn�t. Another boy did that once. My mother simply opened it and poured it straight down the sink. He didn�t come back either, but I didn�t fancy him anyway.� She paused. �Not like you.�

She glanced up at the house, and I did the same. We couldn�t see anyone standing in the windows, but that didn�t mean we weren�t being watched.

�Let them see,� she said. �I don�t care.�

She reached up on her toes and kissed me on the mouth.

�I do care,� I said. �I care very much.�

And I kissed her back.

I was ceremonially deposited outside the main security gate on The Avenue, rather than leaving by my usual route, which was via the pedestrian gate on Queensberry Road.

I felt totally bereft, standing there alone on the street, holding my pathetic plastic bag that contained just a few pens, a ruler, a calculator, and the Oxford United coffee mug that my mother had given me at Christmas.

Not much to show, I thought, for three years of full employment.

But not only had the sales company been my employer over those three years, it had also become my whole life.

Right from the start, I had been on warm and easy-going terms with all my colleagues, Nigel Stanhope excepted, and had made many firm friendships. I had also got to know many of the prospective buyers, their agents, and the vets.

I had enjoyed travelling up and down the country on company business during the high-summer months, visiting breeders and stud-farm owners, to inspect their new crops of yearlings. Over time, many of those people had also become my friends.

But most of all, I was bereft because I had been forced to leave Janis.

Could the company really justify stopping me talking to my girlfriend?

Surely not.

I took my phone out of my pocket and wrote her a text.

Don�t speak to anyone. Please call me as soon as you can, but make sure you are somewhere private. I love you. Theo.

I suddenly hesitated before sending it, looking specifically at the last few words.

Was it right for me to tell her that I loved her when we�d only been seeing each other for less than a week?

Not that I didn�t believe it myself.

I was quite certain that I loved her.

I thought of her absolutely all the time and physically ached to be with her. Just the idea of us being together gave me an all-over warm feeling, and not just in those parts of my body that I might expect.

But did I really put I love you on a text to her?

Would she recoil from it because she felt I was being too presumptuous?

While I was still considering my options, my thumb must have subconsciously touched the �Send� button because the message was suddenly being dispatched through the ether just as it was, before I�d had a chance to change it.

I stood waiting for some considerable time, and worrying, until my phone finally rang.

�What�s wrong?� Janis asked, anxiety clearly audible in her voice.

�Can anyone hear you?� I asked.

�No. I�ve gone outside. I�m near the blood-test boxes.�

�Good,� I said. �I wanted to tell you something myself, before you heard it from anyone else.�

�Tell me what?� If anything the anxiety had grown.

�That I�ve been suspended from my job.�

�Oh my God, Theo, why?�

�Elliot Mitchell complained about me because of what happened at Newmarket races on Saturday, and the chairman took his side.�

�But that�s so unfair.� I could tell that she was both angry and distressed. �Mitchell was the one in the wrong, and I�m going to go and damn well tell everyone that, including Peter Bloody Radway.�

�Janis, please don�t do that,� I said urgently. �You will only get yourself into trouble.�

�But it�s not right.�

She was crying.

�I�ve been told that I must not communicate with any of the company�s employees, not before a disciplinary hearing next Monday, so if you go and complain to Peter Radway now, you will only get me into more trouble, as well as yourself.�

�But it�s not fair,� she said between sobs. �And you and I are definitely going to communicate, whatever the bloody company says, because I love you too, very much.�

Every cloud, I thought, however dark, has a silver lining.

Early on Tuesday morning, after another restless night, I spent some time talking to Ted Ackerman on the phone before I left for the airport.

�Employment law is like a minefield,� he said by way of introduction. �Step just a few feet off the designated safe path, and you can easily get blown up.�

I outlined my current situation to him in some detail, or at least how I saw it.

�What do the company�s policies state with reference to undermining company clients, particularly the bloodstock agents?� he asked.

�The company policies?� I said. �I have no idea. I don�t think I�ve ever seen any policies.�

�I see. Don�t all employees get given a booklet containing the company policies when they join? Best practice also dictates that policies should be updated at least once every two years and redistributed to staff, either physically or by email. All employees should then have to confirm in writing that they have read them.�

�I can�t remember ever being given anything like that, and certainly not having to sign that I�d read it.�

�So you are not aware whether you have contravened a particular policy or not, or even if such a policy exists?�

�Absolutely not.�

�That is good,� he said. �In employment law, unlike in criminal cases, ignorance is a valid defence. Employers have a duty to ensure that all their employees are aware of company policies. It is not the responsibility of employees to have to search for them. But you must have been advised of the disciplinary procedures?�

�No.�

�Not even yesterday?�

�No. I was only informed that there would be a disciplinary hearing by the company directors next Monday, and they would decide if I was to be reinstated or dismissed. I even had to request that I be present to defend myself, because the chairman told me he didn�t believe it was necessary.�

�That�s naughty,� Ted said. �You have a legal right to be present at a disciplinary hearing.�

�That�s what I told him.�

�You also have a legal right to be accompanied.�

�By a lawyer?� I asked, half wondering how much it would cost me to bring him all the way from London to Newmarket.

�Well, no. Strangely, the law doesn�t actually allow for an employee to be accompanied by a lawyer, not unless the employer agrees to it, and most of them won�t. But you do have the right to be accompanied by a work colleague or by a trade union representative.�

�I�m not a member of a trade union.�

�A work colleague, then. Do you have anyone in mind who could accompany you? You will need to give your employer reasonable notice of who it will be. And you should have been given the details of the full disciplinary procedure, dates of previous written warnings, and so on.�

�I�ve had nothing, certainly nothing in writing, except for a short note handed to me yesterday to confirm that I had been suspended from my employment forthwith and that I was banned from entering the company premises or from communicating with any other company employee prior to the disciplinary hearing.�

�Then they must be using the gross misconduct procedures.�

�Gross misconduct?�

�Yes, there is provision in law for an employee to be immediately suspended or dismissed for gross misconduct, without the need for any previous warnings to have been given, either verbally or in writing.�

�What constitutes gross misconduct?� I asked.

�Various things, including theft or wilful damage of property, physical violence, gross negligence, or serious insubordination such as deliberately disobeying your manager�s instructions, combined with rude, aggressive or threatening behaviour.�

�I definitely haven�t done any of those.�

But had I been guilty of serious insubordination by continuing to question the sale and death of the three-million-guinea colt, even after being told to forget it and move on by the chairman? Although I had never been rude, aggressive or threatening towards him.

I suppose my behaviour at the races might have been considered as threatening by Mitchell or Kitman, but only if they had something to hide.

�Well,� Ted said, finally, �if everything you have told me is true, I think that if things go against you at the hearing next Monday, you should have a reasonable claim for unfair dismissal. But I have to warn you, even if you eventually win your case at an employment tribunal, it doesn�t mean you would necessarily get your job back. Over the years, I have known many companies who believe that the possibility of being ordered to pay compensation by a tribunal is a risk worth taking to rid themselves of a troublesome employee.�

�But I�m not a troublesome employee,� I said.

�You might be in the eyes of your boss.�

I had a better sleep than I�d had for any of the seven nights during the previous week, in spite of the narrowness of the bed � that and the continual chiming of the hours through the night by the cathedral clock.

I lay awake in the bed, listening to the clock strike seven, thinking back to the time I had spent here so far and my plans for the coming day.

Even if I discovered nothing else during my visits to Holycross Stud and Six Barn Farm, it would still have been worth coming.

What I had to do now was to firm up the evidence that Elliot Mitchell was indeed involved with Starsign Bloodstock and was therefore in breach of the Bloodstock Industry Code of Practice. And to do so before my disciplinary hearing on Monday, not that I believed for one second that the chairman was going to be pleased that I�d been right, and him wrong, all along.

�Would you care for a full Irish breakfast, Mr Jennings?� asked my host when I went downstairs to the dining room at a quarter to eight.

�That would be splendid,� I answered.

My full Irish breakfast consisted of much the same as a full English: bacon, eggs, sausage, mushrooms, baked beans, and grilled tomato � but with the addition of something called white pudding, which was similar to black pudding, but without the pig�s blood, and it was delicious.

I was just finishing this huge feast when my phone rang.

�Have you heard the news?� Janis asked in a rush as soon as I answered.

�What news?�

�Elliot Mitchell has killed himself.�

�What! I don�t believe it.�

Elliot Mitchell had never seemed to me to be the sort of person who would ever consider taking his own life. Even if forced into a really tight corner, I would have expected him to try and bamboozle his way out rather than to kill himself. But maybe my continual twisting of the chain, including a visit by PC Langford to inspect his car, had finally caused his link to snap.

�It�s true,� Janis said. �Hanged himself.�

�My god, where?�

�In the same box where that colt died. Suspended from a beam, he was, apparently, with a knocked over bucket beneath his dangling feet.�

�Wow!�

�There was a bit of a panic here yesterday when he couldn�t be found. Some of his clients had been drinking with him in the bar at six o�clock on Monday afternoon. They were looking all over for him, but he wasn�t even answering his phone. I nearly called you to warn you that he might be following you to Ireland. But now we know why they couldn�t find him. He must have done it on Monday night, and he was in there, hanging, all day yesterday. That particular stable block hasn�t been used since last week, for obvious reasons, and he was found this morning when the steam cleaners arrived.�

She paused and drew breath.

�Everyone here seems to be quite cut up by his death � that�s everyone except me. I saw what he was really like � at the races last Saturday.�

But what would Elliot Mitchell�s death mean for me?

Part of me felt slightly cheated. I had finally discovered something to show that he was involved in criminal activity, but I would never have the chance to make him squirm or pay for his transgressions.

I also wondered if it was a good thing or a bad one for my upcoming disciplinary hearing. Elliot Mitchell had certainly been my chief detractor, but would his death make all his accusations go away?

Probably not. Not now.

And would my insistence on continuing to reveal his own wrongdoing now look like I was simply speaking ill of the dead, and of someone who had committed suicide, to boot?

I wondered about what I would do if I were the chairman.

Quite clearly, for the good of the business, the sooner the sorry tale of the dead colt was finished and forgotten, the better. The company would now be unlikely ever to receive the three million guineas for its sale, but it wouldn�t need to pay out anything to the vendor either, so the only real loss would be the hoped-for five per cent commission on the three million � a hundred and fifty thousand guineas.

It was a sizable sum to lose, but it was small in comparison to the more than ten million guineas in commission that the company was expected to earn over the full October yearling sales. Especially when you consider that the hammer price of the colt had been artificially inflated, making the commission on its sale so much greater than had been anticipated anyway.

I could foresee that the chairman and his fellow directors would want to sweep everything under the carpet as quickly and discreetly as possible. And that might still include getting rid of me as an employee, so I would not be a continual reminder to them of the wretched affair, even if I promised not to walk around the offices wearing a T-shirt with �I TOLD YOU SO� blazoned across it in big letters.

�So what are you going to do?� Janis asked, bringing me back from my wandering thoughts. �Will you come home now?�

�As I�m over here, I might as well still go and see the stud farm. It might help my cause if I can show that Elliot Mitchell had been up to his neck in criminality.�

Or it might not.

Six barn farm, in Kilkarney, had also seen better days, and it took me even longer to find than Holycross Stud.

The maps app on my iPhone stubbornly refused to believe in the existence of a Kilkarney, close to Cashel, in County Tipperary, trying instead to send me over a hundred miles southwest to a town of the same name in County Kerry.

It was just one of the joys of rural life in Ireland.

I did find the farm eventually, but only after having to stop to ask a man riding a bike, and also a woman out walking her dog.

The farm buildings were set well back, away from the road, down a long lane, which had no convenient name plate at its end, so I wasn�t sure I was in the right place even when I arrived, especially as I couldn�t count six barns in the farmyard � only two.

I parked the car as close to the farmhouse as I could, and climbed out.

The place was all rather ramshackle, with small piles of rubble dotted around and an old broken armchair lying on its back by a wall.

If I�d thought that parts of Holycross Stud could have benefitted from a lick of paint, then they would need more than that here. The wooden window frames in the farmhouse were well beyond just painting, with rot having taken a strong hold.

I walked over to the open back door and knocked on the frame.

�Is anyone home?� I shouted into the building.

There was no immediate answer, but after a little while, a woman appeared.

�Grace Ryan?� I asked.

�That�s me. Now what can I do you for?�

I was not quite sure what I had been expecting, but whatever it was, she wasn�t it. I suppose I had imagined her to be a small, elderly lady, being a widow, and with a name like Grace, but she was, in fact, a large, robust, middle-aged woman, wearing a check shirt and red jumper above a green tweed skirt, thick stockings, and bedroom slippers.

�I�m here about Lucky Lass,� I said.

�What about her?�

�Is she in foal this year?�

�What if she is?� she said. �Neither she nor the foal are for sale, so piss off.�

I should have learned by now that all the folk around here would think that a stranger � an English stranger, no less � was on the make, after something they didn�t want to give or sell � except that everyone would have their price.

I should learn to be more direct.

�Elliot Mitchell,� I said, clearly and loudly, expecting a hostile response.

But she smiled. �Mitch? What about him?�

�You know him?�

�Of course,� she said. �Lovely man. How is he?�

�I�m sorry, but I�m here to tell you that Mitch died suddenly yesterday.�

She took a step back and steadied herself against the frame of the door.

�How dreadful,� she said. �I was only talking to him a couple of days ago.� She was genuinely upset, and there were even tears in her eyes. �You had better come in.�

She led me through the hallway into her kitchen.

The general sense of dilapidation, clearly visible from the outside, continued inside, but the kitchen itself was tidy enough and warm, thanks to an old-fashioned cream AGA on the far wall.

She went over and leaned her back against the rail on its front.

�How dreadful,� she said again. �That has really upset me.�

�I�m so sorry.�

She looked up at the ceiling and took a couple of deep breaths. Then her eyes returned to mine. �But life must go on,� she said, as if trying to snap herself out of her melancholy. �Would you like some coffee?� she asked. �I was about to have one myself when you arrived.�

�Thank you,� I said. �That would be lovely. Milk, no sugar.�

She lifted one of the AGA lids and put the kettle on the hotplate.

�I can�t believe that Mitch has gone, just so suddenly like that, when he was still so young. My Fergus would have been sad too. He and Mitch had become good friends.�

She spooned instant coffee into two mugs, poured boiling water from the kettle over them, and then fetched some milk from a fridge under the counter.

�I�m sorry about the loss of your husband,� I said, taking my cup.

�Thank you,� she said. �Fergus also went well before his time.� She was silent for a moment, as if remembering back to happier days. �So that is why you�ve come here, to tell me about Mitch?�

�Partly,� I said. �And also to sort out the question of Lucky Lass�s colt, you know, the one that also died.�

And both of them found dead in the same stable, I thought, the colt and Elliot Mitchell, and exactly one week apart.

She nodded. �That was a real shame. Such a nice young horse. I can�t believe that it just dropped down dead like that, and for no reason. Mitch called me on Saturday to tell me all about it.�

He would have told her his version, I thought.

�But there is still the question of payment to be sorted,� I said.

�Now what question would that be?� Grace asked.

�The question of payment to you for the colt, now that Elliot Mitchell has died.�

�But we�ve already been paid. The money is in the bank.�

I was confused. Why would the sales company have paid the vendor before receiving the funds from Elliot Mitchell or from the insurance company? And surely that hadn�t all happened yesterday or today, not with Elliot being dead.

�When exactly were you paid?� I asked.

�Oh, it must have been back in June. Fergus was still alive.� She paused again. �Fergus was the one who was so keen on getting the sale completed, so he would know for certain that I had some money after he was gone � you know, to pay for his funeral and to live on until I could sell the farm.�

I was still confused.

�So are you saying that you didn�t own the colt when he went to the sales in Newmarket last week?�

�Oh no. We�d sold him long before then.�

�Who to?� I asked.

�A syndicate, I think it was. Fergus dealt with everything, him and Mitch.�

�Can I ask how much you sold him for?�

She smiled. �A quarter of a million euros. Who�d have thought it? More than we could have ever imagined. Especially with his bad hocks.�

�Bad hocks?�

�He had some bone chips in his hocks. I saw the X-rays.�

But the set of thirty-two X-rays of the colt�s joints, supposedly taken within twenty-eight days of the sale and then lodged at the sales company as part of the vetting process, had been perfect in every way � not a bone chip to be seen.

�Who showed you these X-rays?� I asked.

�That would have been Mitch. He arranged for them to be taken.�

One of two possible scenarios came to mind. Either the X-rays lodged with the sales company were not actually of this particular colt, or the ones Grace had been shown were not. And it was too late to take any more X-rays to find out which it was.

�Does the name Starsign Bloodstock mean anything to you?� I asked.

�They were the agents that acted for the syndicate. I�m sure Mitch mentioned them. He did all the negotiating for us. And he forced the syndicate to up their offer twice before he was happy with the deal.�

Elliot Mitchell had probably been laughing himself silly behind their backs, I thought, and all the way to the bank.

�Who actually paid the money into your account?�

�Mitch did. The syndicate paid him, and he then paid us, less his commission, of course.�

Of course.

�How much commission did he charge?�

�He said his standard rate for private sales was ten per cent, but he was prepared to take only seven and a half, as he could see that we needed the money.�

How gracious of him � not.

The customary rate for bloodstock agents� commission on a sale was just five per cent.

And it seemed to me that he had taken his seven and a half per cent commission from these trusting people when he, himself, had been the actual purchaser of the colt, notwithstanding what he had told Grace and Fergus about the existence of a mysterious syndicate and their supposed agents, Starsign Bloodstock.

It was totally despicable, but nothing now surprised me about Elliot Mitchell, other than the fact that he had killed himself.

�Are you aware,� I asked Grace, �that the colt went through the sale ring in Newmarket before it died, and was sold?�

�Mitch did mention something to me about that on Saturday, when he called me, but he also told me that because the horse had died within twenty-four hours, the sale had been voided.�

�That is not actually the case,� I said. �All sales in the ring are final on the fall of the auctioneer�s hammer, as long as the horse subsequently passes its wind test, which your colt did.�

There were a few special circumstances under which a sale could be voided and the horse returned to the vendor, for example, if it had been wrongly described in the catalogue or was found to have certain traits and habits that had not previously been revealed, such as wind sucking or habitual box walking. However, dropping down dead within twenty-four hours of the hammer falling, or even within twenty-four seconds, for that matter, was not one of them.

�And did Mitch tell you how much it was sold for in the sale ring?�

She shook her head.

�Three million guineas,� I said. �That�s over three and a half million euros. And I know that for sure because I was the auctioneer who sold it.�

Grace stared at me, and she seemed to have some difficulty breathing.

�Are you all right?� I asked her, concerned.

I went over and took her arm, guiding her to one of the upright chairs around the kitchen table. She sat down heavily.

�Three million, you say?� she said, finally.

I nodded.

�But who would have paid that much for it, with its bad legs and all.�

�It was knocked down to Elliot Mitchell for three million guineas,� I said, although I didn�t know whether he was buying it on instructions from somebody else, but I doubted it.

�Mitch?� she said, in a sort of trance. �But he certainly knew about its legs, from the X-rays. He told us that because of the bone chips, the colt was only worth about two hundred thousand euros, absolute tops, but he had managed to force the syndicate up to two hundred and fifty thousand.�

�Do you still have those X-rays?� I asked.

She shook her head. �I think Mitch took them away again.�

I was quite sure he had.

But if the X-rays of the colt that Mitchell had shown to Grace and Fergus Ryan had been faked � or were of another horse altogether, one that did have bad hocks � and the colt in question had had perfect joints, as shown on the X-rays lodged with the sales company, and it had indeed been Elliot Mitchell who had bought the colt from the Ryans in the first place, why had he not just let it go through the sale ring without bidding on it? It would have made its expected million to a million and a half, and that would have provided him with a fine profit.

The alternative was that the set of thirty-two X-rays lodged at Newmarket had been the ones of a different horse, and the colt had indeed had bone chips in its hocks all the time. Now, Mitchell was forced to buy it at the auction, because if anyone else had, they might have soon discovered that its hocks were not as shown on the X-rays, and then Mitchell would have been in deep trouble.

However, having bought it, the colt then had to die, and its carcass be rapidly disposed of, because any future potential purchaser, trainer, or even the insurance company, could have easily discovered the fraud by having it re-X-rayed. Mitchell couldn�t take the chance of that happening.

Also, by collusively bidding the hammer price up to way over its true value and then insuring the colt at that inflated figure, he had greatly increased his potential profit. And if I hadn�t overheard the conversation between him and Kitman, he might have got away with it.

So, in fact, Mitchell might not have scammed the Ryans, after all. Perhaps he had even done them a favour by paying them over the odds for their horse.

The problem was, now that both Mitchell and the horse were dead, there seemed little chance of proving anything.

I spent my second night in Ireland at a hotel close to Dublin Airport, sleeping soundly without a cathedral clock chiming bell to be heard anywhere.

Ironically, I had been unable to find a single empty seat on any flights to London on Wednesday evening because they were full of Irishmen going over to the Future Champions Festival at Newmarket racecourse, all of them seemingly in support of Lucky Mike in Saturday�s Dewhurst Stakes. But I had finally managed to secure one on the 10:50 British Airways flight to Heathrow the following morning.

After eating dinner in the hotel bar, I called Janis.

�So what did you find out?� she asked.

�You won�t believe it,� I said. �I am pretty sure that Elliot Mitchell already owned that colt before he bid three million for it in the sale ring.�

�But that doesn�t make sense. If he already owned it, why bid for it?�

I explained my theory of how he had bought the colt cheaply from the Ryans, falsified its X-rays, and then grossly inflated its value by collusive bidding up with Brian Kitman, before making a claim on the insurance, potentially netting him more than two and three-quarter million pounds in the process.

�Wow!� she said when I finished. �No wonder he killed himself.�

�But why would he? He didn�t know on Tuesday that I would find this out. He didn�t even know I was coming to Ireland. I didn�t tell anyone apart from you.�

�And I told no one,� she said quickly.

�Not anyone in your office?�

�Absolutely not.� She seemed a little affronted that I should think such a thing. �I told no one, I promise. Not even my mother.�

�Good,� I said. �I didn�t really think you had.�

I should never have doubted it.

�So where will you go now?� she asked.

�Back to my own mother�s place, I suppose. I have nowhere else.�

�So when will I see you?�

�I have to be in Newmarket on Monday for this disciplinary hearing. I�ll try and sort out somewhere to stay on Sunday night, but not in Alex�s flat, obviously. I�ll let you know when I�ve found somewhere.�

With luck, all the racegoers, those who had filled up all the flights, and would do the same to every available Newmarket hotel bed, would be leaving for home on Sunday morning, freeing up some space for me.

�How were things at the sales today?� I asked.

�Really strange. Flat, I would say. Everyone was talking about Elliot Mitchell rather than concentrating on the horses. And you�ll never guess.�

�Guess what?� I asked.

�Nigel Stanhope has been going round saying that with Mitchell now dead, you should be reinstated as an auctioneer. He says it�s not fair to have fired you on Mitchell�s say-so, not when Mitchell has then killed himself.�

Now it was my turn to say �Wow!�

�I�ve not technically been fired � not yet anyway � only suspended.�

Suspended, but thankfully, not by the neck.

I wasn�t actually arrested for murder when we arrived at the Police Investigation Centre in Bury St Edmunds, but it certainly felt like it, at least to me.

PC Langford released me from the back seat of his car, and then he escorted me to an interview room in the middle of the building, with no windows, not that it mattered much, as it was already dark outside.

The room contained a uniformly grey metal table and four matching grey metal chairs, all of which were screwed to the floor. The clock on the wall told me it was twenty-five to nine. There was a CCTV camera high up in one corner, and a black box on the end of the table that was up against the wall.

�Wait here,� said the constable. Then he departed, leaving me alone.

I sat down on one of the chairs and waited.

I had tried texting Janis again twice on the journey, but there had been no reply either time. I hoped she was all right.

The most frustrating aspect was not knowing what was going on.

Just before seven o�clock, as PC Langford and I had been passing Stansted Airport on the M11, the news app on my phone had begun reporting the suspicious death of a fifty-two-year-old man from Newmarket, but without giving his name.

Rather worryingly for me, the same report also stated that police sources had indicated that a man of thirty-three was helping them with their enquiries, although no actual arrest had yet been made.

I took my phone out of my pocket and checked the app again, but there was nothing new to report. Probably, I thought, because they were yet to interview the thirty-three-year-old man!

The hands on the clock moved round slowly to nine o�clock, and still no one came. At one point I went over to the door and tried to open it. It was locked from the outside. So even if not formally under arrest, I was definitely being detained.

What I couldn�t understand was why I still had my phone. I had always imagined that a suspect�s mobile phone was the very first thing to be confiscated and checked for suspicious calls or movements. So why had I still got mine?

Maybe it was because they weren�t allowed just to take it without first arresting me. Or were they hoping I would use it to contact an accomplice? Or to try to arrange a jailbreak?

In fact, I was more inclined to use it to order a pizza delivery, as I was starving � my breakfast in the Dublin Airport hotel seeming like a very long time ago.

At ten past nine, two men came into the room, one in a dark suit, and the other in pale chinos and a dark green polo shirt.

�Mr Jennings,� said the one in the suit. �Thank you for coming to talk to us.�

�I didn�t have much choice in the matter,� I replied sarcastically.

He fiddled with the black box on the table, which then emitted a long, loud beep.

�This interview is being recorded with both video and audio,� he said loudly. Then he gave the date and the time. �This interview is with Mr Theodore Jennings. Present is Detective Constable Clarry, and I am Detective Sergeant Hamilton, both of Suffolk Constabulary. The interview will be conducted under caution. Mr Jennings, you do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention, when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.�

�Am I under arrest?� I asked before he could go on.

�No, sir, you are not under arrest,� replied the sergeant.

�Then why has the door been locked while I waited for you?�

�So you didn�t wander off and get lost.� He said it with a smile. �This is a big police station.�

Both of us knew he was lying.

�Do I need a solicitor?� I asked.

�I think that depends on whether you have anything to hide.�

A solicitor would probably advise me to answer �no comment� to anything the detectives asked me, but would that be helpful or simply give them the impression that I was guilty?

Did I have anything to fear from this interview?

They hadn�t even told me what it was about yet. Maybe I would wait and see, first, before I demanded a solicitor to be present.

�Why am I here?� I asked.

�To help us with our enquiries,� the sergeant answered unhelpfully.

�Enquiries concerning what?� I asked.

�The murder of Elliot Mitchell.�

I must have nodded ever so slightly � an involuntary body movement.

�So you knew about that.�

�Someone called and told me. At about nine thirty this morning, when I was still at Dublin Airport.�

�Who called you?� he asked.

Did I tell him? I didn�t want to get Janis into trouble.

�We can always look at your phone records,� DS Hamilton said, as if he was reading my mind.

�It was one of the employees of the sales company.�

�Janis Thompson?� he asked.

He was obviously one step ahead of me � but then, he was the detective.

�Yes,� I said.

�Why were you in Ireland?� he asked, changing tack.

Should I tell him that I was in Ireland investigating Elliot Mitchell? Would that help or worsen my present situation?

�Why don�t you just ask me where I was on Monday night?� I said. �I can prove that I wasn�t anywhere near Newmarket.�

�But your phone was,� he said. �A phone registered to your name was connected all evening to a mast on top of Newmarket telephone exchange. And that phone was called at 18:16, again at 18:20, and also at 18:23, and all of those calls were made by Elliot Mitchell. We checked the numbers.�

I stared at him.

�But not this one�s number,� I said, holding up my replacement handset. �The phone you have tracked, and the one that was called, must be the one that I lost in a hit-and-run incident a week ago. Talk to PC Langford about it. He knows. He even called me this morning on this one�s number.� I held my new phone up again. �He was the policeman who attended the hit-and-run, and I reported to him at the time that my old phone had gone missing. Do a similar position check on this one. It will show you that I was just south of Oxford all night on Monday, from seven o�clock in the evening onwards.�

I�m not sure he believed me. If so, he didn�t seem particularly phased by his mistake, but it might help explain why the police had been so keen to question me in the first place. But what was Elliot Mitchell doing calling me anyway? And three times? I would have thought that I was the last person he wanted to talk to. At least my lost phone hadn�t been used to call him. Then I could have been in real trouble.

�All the best villains,� DS Hamilton said, by which I took him to mean all the worst villains, �are never near the scene of a crime when it actually happens. Indeed, it often appears that they are away abroad on holiday. It doesn�t mean they actually are, or haven�t arranged for someone else to commit the crime for them, and at a time when they have a cast-iron alibi.�

�Don�t be ridiculous.�

Perhaps I should have asked for that solicitor after all.

�Being ridiculous, am I?� the sergeant said, his tone becoming quite hostile. �Why is it, therefore, that all the staff I have interviewed today at the bloodstock sales company in Newmarket have said the same thing? �Theo Jennings has to be the one who�s killed Elliot Mitchell. Theo Jennings had it in for him.� �

�I think you will find it was the other way round,� I said. �He had it in for me.�

As soon as I�d said it, I realised it had been a mistake.

�So is that why you arranged to have him killed? Because his complaints about you have made you lose your job?�

�I didn�t arrange to have him killed,� I said. �How would I have been able to do such a thing anyway?�

�You tell me, Mr Jennings.�

Did this detective really believe that I had contrived with some hitman to have Elliot bumped off in revenge for me losing my job?

If so, why hadn�t he arrested me? And why was some tech wizard not already combing through my new mobile phone, searching for incriminating texts or emails between myself and this mysterious assassin?

Was it because there were actually no grounds for arresting me � no evidence whatsoever, other than general tittle-tattle at the sales company and some spurious and inaccurate telephone tracing? Was DS Hamilton simply hoping that I might incriminate myself in my answers to his questions?

If so, it was clearly time to stop answering them.

�As I am not under arrest,� I said, �I would like to leave now.�

�Interview terminated at...� The sergeant looked up at the clock. �...21:27.� He then pushed a button on the black box, to stop the recording, before looking across the table at me. �You will wait here.�

He stood up and left the room, leaving his sidekick, DC Clarry, sitting silently at the table across from me.

So I had forced the issue.

I would now be either arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, or I�d be allowed to depart; there were no other options, and DS Hamilton had obviously gone to consult with his superiors about which of those two courses he should take.

Either way, I thought, I would not be answering any more of his questions, at least not without a solicitor being present. It was proving far too easy for him to twist and distort what I was saying.

Twist, twist.

I was getting a dose of my own medicine.

As I walked, I thought.

In just a few days, my whole life seemed to have unravelled round my ears. I had lost my job and my home, and worst of all, it now seemed that I had also lost the girl I adored.

I wondered what else could go wrong.

At least, I still had my liberty, but for how much longer would that continue to be the case?

And why? What had I done wrong?

Absolutely nothing.

I arrived at the pub in Crown Street about half past ten, and having checked into my single room high under the eaves on the third floor, I went downstairs for a drink.

I felt I needed one.

I stood at the bar and ordered myself a gin and tonic plus two packets of crisps and a bag of roasted peanuts. The only topic of conversation amongst the other customers in the pub seemed to be the murder of Elliot Mitchell.

�At least the police have got their man,� said someone standing next to me.

�What�s that?� asked the man on the other side of him.

�Didn�t you hear?� the first replied. �The local cops have arrested the person responsible. He�s being questioned by them even as we speak. I hope he rots in hell. In fact, I wish we still had the death penalty for murder. They should string up the bastard.�

I assumed that they were talking about me, so I decided to keep quiet and not correct him about the arrest, or rather the lack of it.

Did the whole world now believe that I had killed Elliot Mitchell?

At least no one in the pub yet knew my name, but I was quite certain that would change just as soon as the tabloid press found it out, as they surely would by simply asking any member of staff at the sales company.

Even if they weren�t splashed across the front pages, the two words Theo and Jennings would circulate like wildfire on social media.

Then what would I do?

Another visit to the Buddhist monastery, high in the Himalayas, was becoming more attractive by the minute.

�A bicycle pump? What did he do, hit the colt over the head with it?�

Brian Kitman laughed, which I thought was totally inappropriate in the current circumstances. �No. He used it to inject air into the colt�s jugular vein.�

�Inject air?�

�You know those metal-spike things which you attach to a bicycle pump to inflate a football. Well, Mitch sharpened one of those until it was like a hypodermic needle. He then injected a whole bloody bicycle pump full of air into the colt�s neck. A great bubble of it went straight to its heart. Killed it in seconds, and with no trace. When that vet cut the heart open in the post-mortem, the air would just have floated away. Made it look like the horse died from natural causes.�

�Surely the horse wouldn�t just stand there and let Mitchell stick a metal spike into its neck.�

�Horses get used to having blood taken from their jugular veins. Vets do it all the time. They usually don�t even flinch.�

�So were you there when he did it?� I asked.

�No. Of course not. He was on his own. But he told me about it afterwards. Almost boasted about how easy it had been. Except that the horse apparently went down so fast it nearly landed on top of him.�

Shame it didn�t, I thought. It might have solved a lot of my future problems.

�Had he done it before?� I asked.

�Not at the sales. He said he�d tried it once in Ireland, during the summer, as a sort of trial run, on an old mare that had outlived her fertility.�

What had Janis told me about a hypodermic needle?

I tried to remember and finally got it. A post-mortem had shown that Elliot Mitchell had had a small hypodermic puncture in his chest.

Was his cause of death the same as for the colt?

�So who else was involved?� I asked.

�No one else, as far as I�m aware,� he said.

�So how come you were?�

�Mitch said that if I didn�t help him bid up the colt, he would bid against me for any horse that I wanted in the future. He also said that none of the horses he bought for any owner would ever come to my stables. He even threatened to tell my current owners that he should be the person buying for them, rather than them leaving it to me.�

�Why didn�t you report him?� I said.

�For what? It�s not against the rules for him to try and get more business for himself. All the bloody agents are trying the same thing. But Elliot Mitchell was the agent with the greatest influence with the owners. I couldn�t take the risk.�

�But you took a much greater risk in agreeing to bid up the colt.�

�Mitch assured me that it was totally risk free. No one would believe that he and I had conspired together � not two of the big boys.�

And he�d been right.

During the auction of the colt, I�d thought they were each bidding on behalf of different prospective buyers. Without the overheard conversation in the gents�, no one would have ever questioned that they might be colluding together.

Not even me.

And after the overheard conversation, I was still the only person that did believe it, and that was only because it was me that had done the overhearing.

Even the chairman thought I must have been mistaken � assuming that he hadn�t already known what was going to happen.

The chairman was due to have been the auctioneer for that particular lot, and I�d only remained on the rostrum because he�d arrived late. So was he also involved?

�So what did Mitch offer you?� I asked Kitman.

�In what way?�

�How much money?�

�He didn�t offer me any money.�

�So Mitchell stood to make more than two and half million, and he didn�t offer to give you any of it. Some friend.�

�I can assure you that he was no friend of mine,� Kitman said slowly.

�So are you pleased that he�s dead?�

�Indeed I am, but it doesn�t mean I killed him.�

So who did?

I was in position well before five o�clock. In fact, I was there by half past four.

I was sitting on a bench in front of the King Edward VII Memorial Hall at the junction of The Avenue with the High Street, and I was as nervous as I had ever been in my life � much more than I had been for my first time on the rostrum as an auctioneer in Australia.

I was nervous on a couple of different counts.

Firstly, would she come? And secondly, and far more importantly, would she speak to me or simply run away?

Janis had told me during our first date at the Roxana Bar in the Bedford Lodge Hotel that she was driven in to work every morning, and at five o�clock she would walk to the local community hospital, where her mother worked, to be driven home again. And the most likely route from her office at the sales company to the hospital would take her past where I was waiting.

But would she be coming today?

The sales on a Newmarket race day were split � morning and evening � so would she be working the evening session on this particular Friday? Or was today the one day a fortnight that she spent at the accounting college in Cambridge? Or was she off sick? Or did she go a different route, such as via Hamilton Road? Or would her mother come and pick her up today? Or had she been offered a lift from one of the others in her office? Or were there any number of other reasons why she wouldn�t be walking this way this afternoon?

And even if she did come, would she then stop and talk to me, or tell me to leave her alone? Maybe even scream for help. My heart was pounding at the very thought of that.

I forced myself to calm down.

For the umpteenth time, I checked the time on my phone � 16:47.

She wouldn�t be here yet, even if she was coming.

I stood up and paced a bit, to relieve the tension in my legs.

Was this the right thing to do, I asked myself, or could it make things worse? Should I act decisively now, or should I give her more time? Should I have just gone and fetched my car from Heathrow and driven it to my mother�s house?

And what would I do if she didn�t come?

I looked up at the building, which, according to the plaque on the front, had been given to the people of Newmarket in 1913 by the financier Sir Ernest Cassel, in memory of his close friend the late King Edward VII, who had died the previous year.

In the centre, above the windows of the first floor, was a terracotta portrait of the King, surrounded by a wreath.

I wondered why I couldn�t have the confidence that he�d clearly had with members of the opposite sex. He had married at age twenty-one to Princess Alexandria of Denmark, and they�d had six children together, but she had clearly not been enough for him. He had been nicknamed �Dirty Bertie� and �Edward the Caresser� by the press, on account of his insatiable sex drive. He�d had literally thousands of mistresses all over Europe, including Lady Randolph Churchill, the future mother of Winston, and even commissioned a purpose-built ornate sex chair, which was kept in the room he rented permanently at Le Chabanais, an upmarket Parisian brothel.

Yes, I bet old Dirty Bertie had never been clumsy and awkward at sex, like I had been.

I checked my phone again � 16:54.

The closer it moved to five o�clock, the more nervous I became.

16:56.

I sat down again on the bench because I felt that my presence might be less intimidating to her if I was sitting down.

16:58.

My right leg began to twitch, my heel bouncing up and down with nerves. I moved it, making the sole of my shoe lie flat on the floor. It stopped.

The time on my phone finally changed to 17:00.

I made myself take some deep breaths and tried to relax the tightness in my shoulders.

She won�t come, I told myself. She�ll be working late. She won�t want to see me anyway. I�m wasting my time. I shouldn�t be here.

17.05 came and went, and there was still no sign.

By now, I had convinced myself that she wouldn�t be coming, and I was beginning to lose my nerve anyway.

I even said it out loud. �Of course, she won�t come.�

But she did, at 17:08.

I watched as Janis disappeared into the community hospital to meet up with her mother, and my heart ached that I couldn�t contact her, and didn�t know when I would next be able to.

In spite of my urging, she would still not unblock me from her phone because she was too frightened of her brother, David.

�Please call me when you can,� I implored as she walked away from me. �Even though you�ve blocked my incoming calls and texts, you can still use your phone to call or text me.�

She didn�t turn round.

�Janis Thompson, I love you,� I shouted after her. �Just call me. Please. Use a payphone if you have to.�

That�s if she could even find a public payphone, I thought. I hadn�t seen one anywhere in Newmarket during all the years I�d been there.

She strode determinedly across the car park, towards the hospital entrance, without even a backwards glance. Not even once did she turn back to wave.

I felt bereft.

And what did I do now?

If it had been difficult to find a room in Bury St Edmunds yesterday, it would be totally impossible to find one in Newmarket tonight, in the middle of the Future Champions Festival. For miles around they would be occupied with racegoers, many of them eagerly anticipating Lucky Mike�s run in the Dewhurst Stakes the following afternoon.

I supposed it was still early enough for me to catch a train from Newmarket to Cambridge, and another from there to Kings Cross. I was pretty sure I could find a room somewhere in London, even on a Friday night, but it would be at a price.

And was that what I wanted to do?

Not really, but what other choice did I have?

Gloomily, I walked away from the hospital, back towards the town centre, returning to the same bench where I had waited for Janis outside the Memorial Hall. Then, instead of going straight down The Avenue to the railway station, I turned right and walked up the hill to Beaumont Court.

I rang the doorbell of number twelve, but there was no reply.

Why had I thought there would be?

Alex would be in the sale ring, doing his job as a spotter at the evening session, and he probably wouldn�t be back until ten o�clock at the earliest, especially as they were trying to catch up on the time that was lost on Thursday.

That left me with a dilemma.

The last train of the day from Newmarket to London, via Cambridge, one that would get me into Kings Cross at midnight, left at ten past ten.

If I waited for Alex to get back and then he refused to allow me to stay or, worse still, even to speak to me, I wouldn�t have time to get to the station to catch the train, and then I�d be in trouble. Or I could go now and make the train with ease, even maybe catch an earlier one and get into London in time to fetch my car from the airport and drive home to my mother�s for the night.

I considered the options and decided to take my chances with Alex, and to wait.

I still had the key to his flat�s front door in my pocket, but I thought it would be ill-advised to use it. He might not be best pleased to find me inside. So I sat down on the floor of the vestibule and waited.

�Why would anyone lie about their VAT number?� I asked.

�They are not lying about the number itself,� Martyn Cooper replied. �They are lying about whether they actually have one in the first place. It�s the oldest trick in the book.�

�Please explain.�

�Suppose you are Company A, which is VAT registered, and you sell goods or services to an individual or to another company � say, Company B � then you have to charge them VAT, currently at twenty per cent on top of the price. They pay you the total, including the VAT, and then you pay the tax element to the government. Understand so far?�

�Perfectly,� I replied.

�If Company B is also VAT registered then it can claim the tax back from the government, so it makes no difference to them that it had to pay it, because they get it all back. However, if Company A is not actually registered for VAT but has told Company B that it is, and given them a false VAT number, then, when the tax is paid by Company B to Company A, Company A simply keeps it for itself, as it has no requirement to pay anything over to the government.�

�What difference does it make if Company A is Irish?�

�Not much. Lots of Irish companies are also registered for VAT over here. But it does make a bit of a difference. If the goods come over from Ireland, there will be import tax to pay when they arrive in the UK. But there are ways of getting round that.�

�How?�

�Simply take it into Northern Ireland first.�

�Is that legal?�

�It�s perfectly legal to transport goods across from the Republic of Ireland to the north. The border between them is open, as determined by the Good Friday peace agreement. And it�s perfectly legal to bring goods from Northern Ireland to the rest of the United Kingdom. It�s just not legal to do both with the same goods, but who�s to know? If the goods are a horse, just use a different transport company for each leg of the journey, and maybe have the horse spend a night or two in a stable outside Belfast. I�m convinced it goes on all the time.�

�I thought there were customs checks on stuff moving across the Irish Sea between Great Britain and Northern Ireland.�

�There are, but everyone seems more concerned about the stuff going west, because it might be going into the Republic, which is a member of the EU, rather than that going east into the UK.�

�But why do the two Starsign companies have such similar names?�

He laughed. �Smokescreen, dear boy, smokescreen. Anyone can check a VAT number by just putting it into a government website.�

�I know. That�s how I found the car repair business.�

�If you want to fiddle the system, choose a very similar name, or even the same name as the real VAT registered company with that number. Perhaps spell it incorrectly by just one letter. Then, if anyone does a check on the number, they might well be fooled into thinking it is genuine.�

�But don�t the Revenue people do audits?� I asked.

�All the time, but you would be amazed at what can slip through. The tax affairs of Company B would appear to an inspector to be in perfect order, with all its input and output taxes correctly recorded, and no one would be checking Company A for its VAT because it�s not registered. No inspector would have the time to go through every single transaction of Company B with a fine-tooth comb, checking every VAT number is correct and that the tax was then actually paid to the government. They don�t have the manpower. They might do a quick check on the number, but even then, the name Starsign Enterprises could cover a whole range of different activities, including acting as a bloodstock agent, so they would probably accept it at face value.�

�Would Company B also have to be in on the fiddle?� I asked.

�Not at all. They would probably just accept Company A�s VAT number as being genuine, and if they also did a check, the same thing would apply.�

�So let me get this right,� I said. �If a horse that was owned by Starsign Bloodstock was sold at auction in Newmarket with VAT, they could simply keep the VAT element for themselves?�

�Yes,� Martyn said. �Provided the horse isn�t exported after the sale, because then there would be no VAT on it anyway, as it would be zero rated. The horse doesn�t even need to be owned by Starsign Bloodstock if they are acting as the selling agents, and they are the ones who are initially paid for it by the sales company. They could simply pass on the correct hammer price to the real owners, less theirs and the auctioneer�s commission, and still keep the VAT. Everyone would be happy.�

�Except the government.�

�Well, yes. In the end, it would be the government that are out of pocket.�

And, I thought, VAT at twenty per cent on a three-million-guinea colt was quite a lot to be out of pocket.

�Thank you, Martyn. That�s been very helpful. And just one other thing, do you know happen to know anything about data protection, in particular GDPR?�

My pulse rate soared as I wondered what to do.

Should I simply drive away?

But that would surely indicate to the man that I knew that it was he who had tried to run me over, and also it would mean leaving him alone with Janis, and that might put her in grave danger.

Did I let him know that I knew? Or play along?

While I was still deciding what path to follow, the man opened the rear door for Janis to get in, and then he himself climbed into the front passenger seat.

I turned my head and looked across at him.

�Hello, Geoff,� I said in as friendly a tone as I could muster, while trying to keep any nervousness out of my voice. �This is a surprise. I thought the company staff had been told not to speak to me.�

Geoff Pollard, the sales company finance director � my would-be assassin.

He would know all about VAT on horse sales. Of course he would.

�Just drive,� he said to me. �I don�t want to be seen talking to you here. Go round the back of the town and up onto the Warren Hill training grounds.�

I glanced briefly at Janis in the rearview mirror.

�But that�s not the way to Soham.�

�Never mind,� Geoff replied.

�Why don�t I take Janis home first? Then we can talk on the way back.�

�No,� he said adamantly. �She stays for now. She may have some more information for you. You can both go on to Soham together later, after you drop me off in the town.�

Did I believe for one second that he would just get out of the car and let Janis and me drive off?

Not a chance.

�Warren Hill training grounds,� he said again.

I drove off, and the car started emitting an annoying and incessant little beeping sound.

�Seat belts, please.�

Both Geoff and Janis buckled up, and the beeping stopped.

I turned left into Granary Road and went round the back of the town centre and then out on the Moulton Road, to the parking area alongside the Warren Hill gallops.

In the mornings, this car park would be full of vehicles. Some would belong to the trainers, out here to watch their horses at exercise, but many others would be the cars of the �work watchers� � those who spend their mornings with binoculars up to their eyes, studying the progress on the gallops of all the Newmarket horses, in order to provide information to the betting companies, or to sell racing tips direct to the public either by telephone or, increasingly, through online tipping services.

But at six thirty on a Saturday evening in October, as the last of the daylight was rapidly fading away, the place was deserted.

I turned the car round so it was facing down the hill, with the lights of Newmarket laid out below us like a twinkling bejewelled carpet, and the tall Millennium Grandstand at the racecourse, still illuminated after racing, visible in the far distance.

�So tell me what you have found out about Starsign Bloodstock,� Geoff said after I�d shut off the engine and turned on the car�s interior light.

I shifted in my seat slightly so I was facing him more. �I thought you had information to give me, not the other way round.�

�But I need to understand what you already know, so I can fill in the blanks.�

�How do you know I�ve found out anything?�

�Because I discovered this afternoon that Little Miss Inquisitive here has been looking through the Starsign VAT records.� He pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at Janis. �She said you asked her to do it.�

In fact, I�d specifically told her not to, in order not to get caught. But back then, I�d been worried only about her losing her job, not losing her life as well.

A phone started ringing somewhere in the car. It was not mine. The ring was muffled and coming from Geoff�s coat, as if it were in his pocket. He ignored it, and it stopped.

�Come on,� he said impatiently. �What do you know?�

I wondered why he wanted me to talk.

Was he still thinking that I didn�t know enough to cause him any trouble? Did he believe that I didn�t know it was him who had tried to kill me? Was he sounding out whether he needed to take any action against me, and against Janis, to keep things secret?

Or was he just playing with me?

Would it, in fact, make any difference whatever I said?

All I wanted, at the moment, was to get him out of my car while leaving Janis and me still in it, and alive. So what was the best way of achieving that?

It seemed to me that I had two options.

Plan A would be to try and tell him nothing, and maybe he would think I didn�t know enough to cause him any trouble, while Plan B would be to tell him everything in the hope that he would realise that the game was up, and there was no point in making things worse by doing anything more.

But of course, either option could go horribly wrong.

If he had murdered Elliot Mitchell, he would surely do everything in his power not to get found out by the police. Including getting rid of Janis and me. And no one else except me knew the whole story. It has often been said that for serial killers it is the first murder that is the difficult one. After that, any further murders are easy.

How would his mind work? And did he have some sort of weapon on him? Maybe even a gun?

I decided to hedge my bets and go with Plan A and give him as little information as possible, at least to start with.

�I don�t really know much about Starsign Bloodstock,� I said. �They seem to be very secretive. As Churchill once said of Russia, it�s a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. It�s as if they don�t want to be found.�

Did I sense him relax slightly, or was that just my wishful thinking?

The phone starting ringing again, and once more Geoff ignored it.

So I went on. �Every other bloodstock agency I know has its own website, to attract business, but I can�t find anything on the web for Starsign.�

I turned and looked at Janis�s reflection in the rearview mirror. She was staring back at me with large, frightened eyes. I shook my head � just the very slightest of movements � while nonchalantly pulling a finger across my mouth, and hoped that she would understand my �don�t speak� message.

�So any information you can give me, Geoff, would be most welcome.�

�There�s not much to give,� he said. �It�s a small Irish outfit from Cashel in County Tipperary.�

�Yes, I knew that already,� I said. �You told me that on Monday.�

�Well, that�s about all I know.�

Why did I not believe him?

�Well, that�s not much good then, is it?� I said in feigned irritation. �If you�ve nothing else to tell me, Geoff, why are you doing all this cloak-and-dagger stuff just to talk to me? I�ll take you back to the town right now, and then I can take Janis home to Soham.�

�VAT,� he said, staring straight at me.

�What about it?� I replied.

�She was looking up Starsign Bloodstock�s VAT records.�

�So?� I said, trying to make light of it.

But it must have been like a big warning flag for him when he�d discovered her doing it.

�What do you understand about VAT?� Geoff asked.

�Not much,� I replied. �Does anybody? All I know is that the purchaser pays it to the vendor, who then gives it to the government. And then the purchaser claims it back again from the government. So it just goes round in a circle. It�s a crazy tax.�

Was I convincing him I knew nothing else? I somehow doubted it.

Maybe it was time to try and take the initiative.

�I think we�d better go now,� I said. �I can drop you in the town, if you like, Geoff, or you can walk from here.�

I reached for the engine �Start/Stop� button on the car�s central console, but he grabbed my arm.

�Not so fast,� he said. �What did she tell you?�

�Nothing important.�

�What was it?�

I didn�t answer, and he twisted round in his seat.

�What was it?� he asked Janis forcefully.

She said nothing either.

�Look here, young lady, you could be in real trouble for giving away our client�s personal account information without their permission. I can have you fired for that.�

�It was only a VAT number,� Janis blurted out, close to tears.

�Starsign Bloodstock�s VAT number?�

�Yes. And VAT numbers surely aren�t secret.�

�I see,� Geoff said in a way that made me feel that he really did see.

It was clearly time for me to switch to Plan B.

�Except,� I said slowly and distinctly, �the VAT number that Janis gave to me isn�t the one for Starsign Bloodstock, is it, Geoff?�

He turned back in his seat and looked at me.

�Because Starsign Bloodstock isn�t registered for British VAT. That VAT number belongs to Starsign Enterprises Ltd, a car repair shop in Blackburn. Isn�t that right, Geoff?�

�I�m sure I don�t know what you�re talking about,� he said.

�Oh, I think you do. You and Elliot Mitchell have been running a little VAT swindle, charging purchasers VAT on the horses they buy, and then keeping it for yourselves. Mitchell only had to ensure that he bought them on behalf of his UK-based principals so the horses weren�t exported. Mitchell would spend much of his time in Ireland convincing vendors and trainers to allow Starsign Bloodstock to act as their agent and the consignor of their horses for the horses-in-training sales, and hence be the initial recipient of the sale proceeds. He then would pay the vendor the amount they were expecting and simply keep the VAT element. I suspect he would also bid up the sale prices higher than would otherwise have been the case, in order to maximize the return.�

I paused and looked at him, but he just continued staring at me. I wondered what was going on in the brain behind his eyes.

�You made sure that no one could find out about Starsign Bloodstock, claiming that the data protection regulations prevented you even giving out their address. But that�s not actually true, is it, Geoff? The regulations don�t cover addresses of businesses, only those of individuals. I found that out this morning, from a lawyer. And VAT numbers are not covered by the privacy regulations either, are they, Geoff?�

There was still no response, and in the silence, the phone in his pocket started ringing one more time. He didn�t answer it, and after six or seven rings, it stopped.

�You used your position, as both the sales company finance director and the designated data controller, not only to make sure that no one knew anything about Starsign Bloodstock but also to falsify the money-laundering requirements. How else could we have gone on paying Starsign by cheque?�

�You�re talking nonsense,� Geoff said finally. �How could I have done such a thing without anyone else noticing?�

�Easily,� I said. �You run the finance department in such a manner that only you know what is really going on. You keep all the various sections apart and don�t allow them to speak to each other. Everything has to go through you.�

�It�s good company practice. I should know � I�m the current chairman of the Association of Chief Finance Officers.�

�So what?� I said. �Bernie Madoff was chairman of the NASDAQ Stock Exchange in New York, but he still managed to steal more than sixty-four billion dollars from his investors by falsifying the records of hundreds of thousands of stock transactions that never actually took place. Fabricating a few fake money-laundering checks on Starsign Bloodstock would have been child�s play for you, in comparison.�

It seemed to me that the more respected the fraudster, the bigger the fraud.

�You wrote out the cheques and simply sent them to an address in Cashel ready for collection. Then you or Mitchell simply waited for them to arrive before collecting them from Mrs Eileen Murphy at number sixty-four Main Street.�

There was a slight widening of his eyes when he realised that I knew not only the full address but also the name of the occupant.

�I�ve never been to Ireland,� he said.

I didn�t believe him.

�Then everything started to go wrong for you, didn�t it, Geoff? I overheard a conversation between Elliot Mitchell and Brian Kitman about collusively bidding up the three-million colt, and hence I started digging into Starsign Bloodstock. I even asked you about it, and that�s when the alarm bells started ringing loudly in your head.� I paused. �So you tried to kill me. You knew where I lived � my contact details are in the employee records that you hold on your computer. And you could easily work out the route I would be taking home. All you had to do was wait in the dark and run me over, and all your problems would instantly go away.�

He went back to staring at me.

�But your plan went wrong, didn�t it, Geoff? You didn�t manage to kill me, and the police became involved. So what are you going to do now? Try to kill me again? No one will believe it�s an accident this time. Not with Janis here too. It will be much better for you if you just get out of my car this instant and walk away.�

He didn�t move other than to reach inside his coat and pull out not the knife or gun that I had been half expecting, but the bicycle pump with the sharpened football inflator attached.

And he pointed it at my heart from about two inches away.

�Just shut up and drive,� he said.

I started the car and drove it back down the Moulton Road towards Newmarket.

�Take the Bury Road,� Geoff instructed.

I turned right onto Old Station Road and then right at the roundabout by the Golden Jubilee Clock Tower. I then drove past the Bedford Lodge Hotel and out of town.

�Which way?� I asked as we approached the junction with Well Bottom Road.

�Straight on,� Geoff replied.

As I neared the junction, the traffic lights changed from green to red.

�Janis,� I said. �When I stop at the traffic lights, get out of the car. Then call the police.�

�But Mr Pollard took my phone. That�s what�s been ringing.�

�Get out of the car anyway,� I said. �And run away as fast as you can.�

Geoff half turned his head. �If you do that, young lady, I will kill your boyfriend, here and now, and then I will get out and also kill you.�

Janis emitted a small whimper from behind me, and she did not get out of the car when it stopped.

�Good,� said Geoff as we moved off again. �We are just going to go for a little drive. Take the A11 north towards Norwich.�

I joined the A11 dual carriageway and sped along.

�Where are we going?� I asked.

�Never you mind.�

As he was speaking to me, I might as well ask him some more questions.

�So why did Elliot Mitchell have to die?�

There was no initial response, and I thought he wasn�t going to answer at all, but he did, after a fashion.

�Elliot Mitchell was greedy. And careless. I told him not to try it on with that colt, but he was so sure he�d get away with it.�

And he almost had, I thought. But he�d been just a bit too careless, he and Brian Kitman both, in the gents�.

�He should have just been happy with the VAT fiddle. It was a nice steady earner, and not so much that anyone would ever notice. But he wanted more. He said he�d seen a house he wanted, somewhere in the Caribbean, for his retirement. He needed a quick couple of million to buy it. And then that colt came along, and he saw a way. Stupid man.�

�But why kill him?�

�He was attracting too much attention to Starsign.�

�From me, you mean.�

�I thought with him dead, the whole thing would blow over.�

No chance, I thought. The police don�t give up that easily � not for a murder. But maybe he�d believed that everyone would think Elliot really had killed himself.

�What I can�t understand is why you didn�t simply hand over the Starsign cheques to Elliot Mitchell in your office. It would have saved all the hassle of arranging the accommodation address in Cashel.�

�All cheques over five thousand pounds have to be countersigned by the chairman. Then they are sent out by his office, not mine, and by registered mail,� he said. �We have to obtain a receipt from the post office, with the delivery address shown on it, for the auditors.�

To prevent fraud, I thought. Although a fat lot of good it had done.

I drove on in silence for a while, wondering what he had in mind for us.

He clearly couldn�t just let us go.

I tried to put myself in his shoes � his plain, black, unremarkable shoes. What would I do if I were him?

He clearly couldn�t have had a plan in place ahead of time, as he had only discovered this afternoon that Janis had been searching through the Starsign VAT records.

So, first, he had to kill us, and then second, he had to make it appear that he hadn�t been responsible. And how could he do that? His DNA would surely be discoverable in my car by the police. Perhaps he would say I had given him a lift home sometime. Anything to account for it. Maybe he�d even set the car on fire. That was the best way of destroying DNA.

So where would he put our bodies?

Leave them in my car? Or dump them somewhere else?

And was there anything I could do to stop him?

He still had the bicycle pump held just above my heart, with the handle drawn out, ready to inject air into me. If a single pump could instantly kill a horse, I hated to think what the same amount would do to me.

Should I try to overpower him? Certainly not while I was travelling at sixty miles per hour along the A11, I thought. It would be careless to avoid being murdered only to be crushed to death in a high-speed road accident. And I had to try and protect Janis at all costs.

�Take the exit for Brandon,� Geoff said as I slowed for the roundabout at Barton Mills.

I did as he told me.

I had worked out that it must have been Geoff who had used Elliot Mitchell�s phone to call my number on Monday night, just to muddy the waters with the police. But where was my old phone? Did he still have it?

�Where�s my phone?� I asked him.

�What phone?�

�The one you took when you tried to run me over.�

He didn�t say anything, but his silence was answer enough.

The headlights of the car picked out a sign that read �RAF Lakenheath.�

�Oh my God!� Janis said from the back seat, choking back tears.

�What�s wrong?� I asked.

�Holly and Jessica�s bodies were found just outside RAF Lakenheath.�

�It�s all right, my love. It�s only a place. There�s nothing to worry about.�

And if she believed that, I thought, she�d believe anything.

Although nominally designated as a British Royal Air Force station, it is, in fact, the home of the 48th Fighter Wing of the United States Air Force.

I suddenly had a mad plan of turning sharply into the main entrance of the station, stopping outside the guardroom, and asking the Americans for help, but Geoff seemed to read my mind.

�Just keep going straight on,� he said, and he pricked my shirt with the football inflator to emphasise that he meant business.

I drove straight on, past the �Drive on the Left� reminder signs for the US military personnel.

I decided to try and keep Geoff talking in the hope that it was harder for him to kill someone with whom he was currently in conversation.

�So, for how many horses did you keep the VAT?�

�About thirty or so each year. Nothing too flashy or expensive to attract attention, and mostly in the horses-in-training sales.�

�Then I�m surprised that I haven�t noticed the Starsign Bloodstock name before in the sales catalogue as the consignor.�

�We mostly tried to keep it out. We would often announce a late change after the catalogue had gone to press, and I would fix the paperwork so ensure that Starsign was the initial entity paid.�

�Neat.�

He seemed rather pleased with himself.

�So how much did you make?�

�About sixty-five grand a year each. Not so much that it attracted unwanted attention, but enough to make life a little easier at home, and for holidays in the sun.�

�Where did you go?� I asked, desperate to keep him talking.

�My wife has become particularly fond of spending Christmas and New Year in the Maldives.�

Lucky her, I thought.

We were still travelling alongside the barbed wire � topped perimeter fence of the airbase, on our left, when Geoff gave his next instruction.

�Turn right just up here,� he said.

I slowed the car and turned right onto little more than a dirt track. A sign beside the track stated: �Thetford Forest, Private Road.�

I knew a bit about Thetford Forest from occasionally reading the local Suffolk Norfolk Life magazine. It had been man-made, created by the large-scale planting of pine trees after the First World War, as a strategic reserve of timber, because so many of the country�s great oaks and other trees had been lost due to the wartime demand for wood.

�Keep going down the track,� Geoff instructed.

Keeping going was indeed my primary objective. I was quite certain that if I stopped the car, he would stab me with the sharpened football inflator and pump my heart full of air.

And that would be that � at least as far as I was concerned.

So stopping was not on my agenda.

The track went deeper into the forest, the trees on both sides lit up by my headlights as the track turned slightly to the left.

�Here will do,� Geoff said. �Stop the car.�

Not likely, I thought. I was not going to just meekly stop the car, not here or anywhere. So, instead of putting my right foot on the brake pedal, I slammed it down on the accelerator, causing the car to leap forward at an ever-increasing speed.

�What the hell are you doing?� Geoff shouted. �Stop the bloody car.�

By now, we were doing more than forty on the loose dirt, maybe closer to fifty.

Okay, I thought, if that�s what he wants, I will stop the car.

I picked a solitary tree trunk in the headlights and drove straight at it without slowing down.

I knew it was madness, but this way, at least Janis and I had a chance of surviving.

�Brace! Brace!� I shouted over my shoulder at Janis.

In the last few moments, I let go of the steering wheel with my right hand while at the same time I reached across the central console with my left and unfastened Geoff Pollard�s seatbelt.

I was back at the police investigation centre in Bury St Edmunds, in what appeared to me to be the same interview room as before, and with the same two policemen, DS Hamilton plus his silent sidekick, DC Clarry. And so far, it had been a very long interview, going over everything I could remember from the moment Geoff and Janis had climbed into my car.

�So tell us now what happened next,� the sergeant said. �After you say Mr Pollard stabbed himself with the bicycle pump.�

I could tell from the tone of his voice that he thought the whole scenario to be most unlikely, and I wondered if I should have asked for a solicitor to be present, even though I wasn�t under arrest. I was just helping the police with their enquiries, once again.

�When Geoff Pollard pushed in the plunger,� I said, �his head dropped onto his chest, and he slumped forward in the seat. I thought he must be dead. So I decided to leave him where he was rather than spend any more time by the car. I was worried that the fuel tank might explode. But then he groaned.�

�And where were you exactly, at this time?� the sergeant asked.

�Standing by the open driver�s door. Anyway, when I heard him groan, I realised he was still alive, so I went round the back of the car to the front passenger door and opened it. He didn�t move, so I reached in, pulled the pump out of his chest and threw it away as far as I could into the trees. Next, I tipped him out of the car, onto the ground, and then dragged him back until we were about twenty-five or thirty yards away. Janis Thompson helped me drag him the last bit because my ankle was hurting. We each had one of his arms.�

I took a drink from the glass of the water they had provided.

�And then what?� asked DS Hamilton.

�I couldn�t find a pulse in his wrist, so I put him on his back and started chest compressions. Janis gave him mouth-to-mouth. We didn�t know whether it was the right thing to do, but we couldn�t just stand there and do nothing.�

Although the image I had in my head of Janis giving Geoff Pollard mouth-to-mouth resuscitation was something I would much rather forget.

�For how long did you continue?�

�I don�t know long exactly. It felt like forever. We stopped once or twice to check if he had a pulse, but basically we kept going until the ambulance arrived. Maybe twenty minutes or so until the paramedics took over. I was exhausted. Then the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance and drove him away.�

I drank some more water.

�Did he make it?� I asked.

�The last I heard, they were still working on him at Addenbrooke�s Hospital. So there must be some hope.�

Hope for what? Did I care if he lived or died? Probably not. Either way would be fine by me.

�Did you find the bicycle pump?� I asked.

�We�re still searching for it.�

And it would have my fingerprints on it, I thought. But was that a problem? I had already told them I had touched it when I�d pulled it out of Geoff�s chest.

And I had more pressing things to worry about.

�I would like to see Janis Thompson now,� I said.

We had been separated and brought to Bury St Edmunds in different police cars. I imagined that they were asking her the same questions as me, but in another interview room, to check that our descriptions of events matched.

�All in good time,� said the sergeant, using more police-speak.

�But now is a good time,� I said. �Janis was completely terrified when I crashed my car into the tree, and I want to check that she�s all right and not hurt. So I�m not answering any further questions until after I see her.�

�Then you will wait here,� DS Hamilton said. �I will go and check if we�re finished with her.� He looked up at the clock on the wall. �Interview terminated at twenty-two hundred hours.� He pushed the �Stop Record� button on the black box, which in turn emitted a long, loud beep.

So it had been almost four hours since Janis had called and asked me to pick her up on The Avenue. Four hours, first of terror, then of decision, determination and deed, and finally of euphoria at still being alive, followed by the boredom of having to explain everything to the police in minute detail.

True, I did also feel rather bashed and bruised, with a very sore neck and a persistent ache across my chest, where the seatbelt had been, so say nothing of the ongoing ache in my ankle.

But it was so much better to be hurting than to be dead.

I did not spend Sunday morning looking for flats. Instead, I sat down at the kitchen table and went through the events of the last couple of weeks, first in my head, then by writing it all down on a notepad � every detail I could remember, in chronological order, starting with the sale of the three-million colt and finishing with the events of Saturday night.

Alex returned at eleven o�clock and was initially rather evasive about where he�d actually spent the night, and who with.

�Had a good time?� I asked him.

�Really good, thank you.�

�Meet someone nice?�

He didn�t reply verbally, but his broad smile gave me the answer anyway.

�What�s his name?�

He said nothing.

�Come on,� I urged. �I�ll tell no one.�

�Victor.�

�And how old is he?�

�Twenty-six.�

�And does he live in Cambridge?� I asked.

�He�s actually from Wolverhampton, which is only fifteen miles from Stourbridge. He�s doing a PhD in anthropology at King�s College.�

�That sounds absolutely perfect.�

�It is.� He threw his head back and laughed � a very happy laugh.

But once Alex had started talking, it was difficult to get him to stop.

�I went to the pub straight from the station. It was pretty empty, so I sat at the bar on my own. I was that nervous, I nearly jacked it in and came straight home again, but then a few more people came in. There was a group of five, all men, and Victor was one of them. He walked across to where I was sitting, and he asked me to join them. It was lovely.�

I smiled at him. �And the rest, as they say, is history.�

He smiled back, with just a touch of embarrassment.

�The other four left after a couple of drinks, but Victor and I stayed and had supper together, sitting side by side at one of the tables in the bar. After we had finished eating, he suddenly leaned over and kissed me. It was marvellous. Then he took me to another bar for a nightcap. It all felt so right, so obvious.�

�So now you know.�

�Yes,� he said. �Now I do know. And for sure. Thank you.�

�What for?�

�Because it was your idea to go to a bar in Cambridge in the first place. And I�m so glad I did.�

�So now we just have to work out a way to tell your parents.�

�Oh God!�

The following Friday, Alex spent the night in Cambridge with Victor, and it seemed to have been another great success � him coming home at midday on Saturday with a smile on his face as big as that of the owner of Lucky Mike.

I had used the opportunity of Alex�s absence to persuade Janis to come and spend the whole night in my bed.

�How did you get your mother to agree to you staying?� I asked her, as we snuggled together, naked, beneath the duvet.

�I simply told her that, if she wanted to see her grandchildren, she had better stop treating me as if I were still a little girl.�

�Grandchildren!� I pulled away and looked at her. �Are you pregnant?�

�It�s too early to tell,� Janis said with a grin. �I doubt it. But would it worry you if I were?�

I was suddenly both overwhelmed and hugely excited by the prospect.

�It wouldn�t worry me in the slightest,� I said. �In fact, it�s a great plan. Let�s have another try right now.�

So we did. And we tried again in the morning.