At the top of the hill for the first time, I pulled Sandeman slightly wider and we overtook eight other horses easily in the run down to the point where we had started. As we began the second circuit we were in the middle of the pack, lying about tenth, but with those ahead tightly bunched.
By the time we reached the water jump half-way down the back straight the race was really on in earnest. Sandeman flattened his back and sailed over the water like a hurdler. We passed three horses in mid-air and landed running fast. But two other horses had got away at the front of the pack and a three-length gap had opened up behind them.
I kicked Sandeman hard in the ribs.
‘Come on boy,’ I shouted in his ear. ‘Now is the time.’
It was as if he changed gear. We were eating up the ground and two great leaps at the open ditches found us lying third, turning sharp left and starting down the hill for the last time.
I was exhilarated. I wasn’t tired and Sandeman didn’t feel a bit tired beneath me. I looked ahead. The two horses in front seemed also to be going well and they were about four lengths away, running side by side.
I gave Sandeman a little bit of a breather for a few paces, sitting easily on his back rather than pushing hard at his neck. There were two fences down the hill and I took a measured look at the first one. I adjusted Sandeman’s stride and asked him for a big leap. He responded immediately and flew through the top of the fence, gaining half the distance on his rivals ahead. So full of energy had he been that for the first time I thought I might win.
I now kicked him and asked for his final effort. Sandeman had always been a horse with great stamina but without an amazing sprint finish. We needed to be ahead at the last with the momentum to carry us up the hill to the finish in front.
‘Come on boy,’ I shouted again in his ear. ‘Now, now, now.’
Both the horses in front wavered slightly as they approached the fence and I knew, Isuddenly knew, thatwe were going to win.
I gave a slight pull on the reins, setting Sandeman right for another great leap. I was watching the ground, looking at our take-off point, and only peripherally did I see one of the horses ahead hit the top of the fence hard. I pulled Sandeman slightly wider, but it was the wrong way. The horse in front overbalanced badly on landing, rolled sharply to its right and onto the ground, straight into our path. Sandeman and I were in mid-air before I realized that we had nowhere to land. My horse did his best to avoid the carnage but without any real hope of success.
Sandeman tripped over the bulk of prostrate horseflesh in front of him and somersaulted through the air. My last memory of the day was of the green grass rushing up to meet me, just before the blackness came.
CHAPTER 10
I sat at my desk in chambers reading through the paperwork for an upcoming disciplinary hearing at which I would be representing one of a group of senior doctors who had been accused of professional misconduct over the untimely death of a patient in their hospital.
The phone on my desk rang. It was Arthur.
‘Mr Mason,’ he said ‘There’s someone here to see you. He’s in the clerks’ room.’
‘Who is it?’ I asked.
‘He won’t say,’ said Arthur, clearly disapproving. ‘He just insists on talking to you, and only you.’
How odd, I thought.
‘Shall I bring him along?’ Arthur asked.
‘Yes please,’ I said. ‘But will you stay here until I ask you to leave?’
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But why?’
‘Just in case I need a witness,’ I said. But I hoped I wouldn’t. Surely Julian Trent wouldn’t show up and demand to see me in my room.
I put the phone down. It was a general rule hereabouts that members of chambers met with clients and visitors only in one of the conference rooms on the lower ground floor but, since I had returned to work after Cheltenham, Arthur had been kind enough to grant me special dispensation to meet people in my room. Climbing up and down even just a few stairs on crutches wasn’t easy, particularly as the stairs in question were narrow and turning.
There was a brief knock on the door and Arthur entered, followed by a nervous looking man with white hair wearing the same light coloured tweed jacket and blue and white striped shirt that I had seen before in court number 3 at the Old Bailey. However, his shirt had then been open at the collar whereas now a neat red and gold tie completed his ensemble. It was the schoolmasterly foreman of the jury whom I had last glimpsed when I’d had my foot in his front door in Hendon.
‘Hello, Mr Barnett,’ I said to him. ‘Come on in. Thank you, Arthur, that will be all.’
Arthur looked at me with a questioning expression and I smiled back at him. Eventually, he turned on his heel and left me alone with my visitor. I stood up clumsily and held out my hand. George Barnett approached cautiously and briefly shook it.
‘Please sit down,’ I said to him, indicating the chair in front of my desk.
‘Did Trent do that?’ he asked, pointing at the cast that stretched from my left foot to my upper thigh.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘I had a fall.’
‘I had one of those last June,’ he said. ‘In my bathroom. Cracked my pelvis.’
‘Mine was from a horse,’ I said. ‘In a race.’
‘Oh,’ he said.
‘Smashed my knee,’ I said.
‘Oh,’ he said again.
I didn’t bother telling him about the cracked vertebrae, the broken ribs and the collapsed lung. Or the concussion that, seven weeks later, still plagued me with headaches.
We sat for a moment in silence while he looked around at the mass of papers and boxes that filled almost every available inch of space in my room.
‘Mr Barnett,’ I said, bringing his attention back to my face. ‘How can I help you?’
‘I thought it was me who needed to help you,’ he said.
‘Yes, indeed,’ I said, slightly surprised. ‘Yes, please. Would you like some coffee or tea?’
‘Tea would be lovely,’ he said. ‘Milk and one sugar.’
I lifted the phone on my desk and asked one of the junior clerks if he would be kind enough to fix it.
‘Now, Mr Barnett,’ I said. ‘Tell me everything.’
He was reluctant at first but he relaxed when the tea arrived, and the whole sorry story was spilled out.
‘I was initially pleased when I received the summons for jury service,’ he said. ‘I had been retired for about four years and I thought it would be interesting, you know, stimulating for the mind.’
‘What had you retired from?’ I asked him.
‘I was in the Civil Service,’ he said. I had been wrong about him having been a schoolmaster. ‘I was a permanent undersecretary in the Lord Chancellor’s Department, but it’s called something else now, Constitutional Affairs or something. They change everything, this government.’ It didn’t sound like he approved.
‘Had you done jury service before?’ I asked.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I was called once, years ago, but I was exempt through my work in the administration of justice. But they’ve changed the law on that now too. Even judges and the police now have to serve on juries if they are summoned.’
I knew. Lawyers used to be excluded too, but not any more.
‘So tell me what happened,’ I encouraged.
He looked around him as if about to tell a big secret that he didn’t want anyone else to overhear. ‘I turned up at the Old Bailey as I had been asked to and there were a whole load of us. We sat around for ages in the jury area. Then we were given a talk about being a juror and it was all rather exciting. We were made to feel important, if you know what I mean.’
I nodded. I suspected that, as a permanent under-secretary, he had indeed been quite important in the Civil Service but retirement had brought a return to anonymity. Like the headmasters of the great British public schools who may have princes and lords hanging on their every word while they are in post, only to be turned out to fairly low-paid pasture and obscurity on the day they depart. George Barnett would have enjoyed once again being made to feel important, as we all would.