Despite my attempts to stay awake, I dozed off to a barrage of disjointed dreams and woke up at seven with the loaded shotgun balanced precariously across my knees. Edward was still lying comatose on the bed and at least that meant I could avoid any further scene for a few hours. I certainly didn't delude myself that the boiling water would be his final gesture of frustration and anger. Luckily, I had agreed to school some horses over at Wantage and three quarters of an hour later, after dressing Freddie and leaving him with Mrs Parsons in the village, I arrived at Tom Radcliffe's yard. It was, as usual, bustling with activity and Tom himself was waiting to greet me.
'Hail the conquering hero!' he shouted. 'We were worried that now you've ridden the winner of the Gold Cup you might consider schooling a couple of novice chasers beneath your dignity.'
I grinned. 'Well, I must admit I was tempted to go back to sleep after the butler served me breakfast in bed, but then I thought I'd better help out a poor struggling trainer.'
Tom grinned and hugged me and as he did so I almost burst into tears. He was big and slightly overweight but as strong as an ox, and after what Edward had done I suddenly needed to feel safe.
In fact, Tom was anything but struggling. In the five years he had held a licence he had sent out a continual stream of winners and was now one of the top trainers in the country. What's more, he had achieved his success without the backing of rich parents or social connections.
He'd had a few rides as an apprentice jockey but by his own admission was never very good and had soon given up. It was then he was offered a job as travelling head lad to Ron Cox, who trained over a hundred horses on the flat in Newmarket, and Tom had never looked back. He'd been blessed with a gift for understanding horses and knew exactly what distances and going they preferred but, more importantly, he could tell to the minute when they were right.
In no time at all he had made quite a lot of money by backing Cox's horses and word of his success soon spread around the small world of the racing industry. He then found that he no longer had to risk his own money. Punters were actually putting money on for him in return for information. In his first flat season Tom had won or earned over £15,000 from betting, but his success was beginning to cause friction between himself and his boss. Word was going around that if you wanted to know how one of the horses from Ron Cox's was likely to run, you asked Tom and not the trainer.
The situation came to a head the following spring in the first big flat race of the season, the Lincoln Handicap at Doncaster. Ron had entered a four-year-old bay colt called Tuneful, which Tom had been riding out at home throughout the winter. He could tell that the horse had grown much stronger during the off-season and had been backing it through his punters since early February, when the horse had begun to work well at home. Tom calculated that he would win the best part of £100,000 if Tuneful did the business, but then two days before the race, Ron declared that the horse wouldn't run because he didn't think that it was fit enough. They had had a stand-up row in the middle of the yard and Tom had taken the liberty of telephoning the horse's owner and offering to refund his entry fee and all of his travelling costs if the horse didn't win. That had been enough to persuade the owner and the horse had duly taken his chance and won in a photo-finish from another Newmarket-trained horse.
Tom didn't wait to be given the sack. He handed his notice in and with his winnings moved to Wantage and set up as a trainer on his own. He knew that he couldn't afford to buy the type of horses needed to compete successfully on the flat, and for that reason had concentrated on the National Hunt game. He'd begun with twelve horses, owned mostly by his original band of punters, but now trained over seventy horses owned by some of the most respected people in the country.
Tom stood for everything Edward most resented, although perversely, it was Edward who had been one of the first to recognise his ability. And at a time when he had been flush with money, he had been one of the initial owners to send Tom a horse. The horse had been a novice hurdler called Without Prejudice and had won his first three races by a distance. It looked as though he might one day be good enough to run in the Champion Hurdle, and Edward was offered a lot of money for him, but after much debating Tom had persuaded Edward to keep the horse. It was sod's law that on his very next run the horse had broken down and Edward had, of course, blamed Tom. Poor Tom. He had understandably felt guilty about what had happened and had waived six months' unpaid training fees, but Edward had still remained convinced that somehow he'd been cheated. Thereafter, he'd devoted himself to bad-mouthing Tom around the racecourse, happily to no avail, and Tom had continued to give me rides.
'Hey, what's this?' Tom had noticed the marks on my neck. 'I read about the cut to your lip, but how did this happen?' He eyed me suspiciously as if he already knew the answer.
'It's nothing. A silly accident last night when I was frying some chips,' I lied clumsily.
'Frying chips? Who are you kidding? I know you don't have a weight problem and that rosy complexion hasn't come from eating greasy food. You never eat chips and you know it.'
'They were for Edward.'
'What? Do you mean that he didn't even have the decency to take you out to dinner to celebrate? Typical. Or perhaps he had nothing to celebrate. I saw him in the Mandarin bar immediately after your victory and he didn't look best pleased. Sick more like. That husband of yours couldn't back the winner of a walk-over and there's a rumour going round that he really is in bother this time. That kind of talk doesn't do you much good either.'
'What do you mean?'
'Gambling debts breed crooked jockeys.'
I looked at him and wondered whether he knew more than he was letting on. I decided to change the subject. 'Where are these horses I'm meant to be schooling?' I turned to walk towards the boxes and as I did so Tom grabbed hold of my arm.
'Hey, Victoria, not so fast.' He pointed again at my neck. 'He did that, didn't he? Don't answer then. And all this stuff in the papers about a disgruntled punter attacking you. That was him as well, wasn't it? I'm beginning to think this has gone on long enough. If I get my hands on that bastard I'm…'
The tears began to well up in my eyes.
'Please, Tom, don't. I can't stand any more trouble at the moment. If anyone is going to have the pleasure of killing Edward, I want it to be me.'
I turned round to see Tom's head lad, Jamie Brown, standing there with a riding helmet in his hand. I had no idea how long he had been listening and frankly, in my present mood, I really didn't care.
After an hour's schooling, I was desperate for something to eat and readily accepted Tom's invitation to breakfast. He'd had a couple of steady girlfriends but had so far managed to escape marriage, largely due to a middle-aged Scots dragon called Mrs Drummond. It was rumoured that she terrified everybody in the yard, including even the head lad, and she had certainly succeeded in driving away a number of girls who fancied turning Tom's stables into a love nest. Because I was married, and happily so far as she was concerned, Mrs Drummond always gave me a warm welcome. That my grandmother also came from Inverness was an additional factor in my favour.