To the hilt [en]

'You'll get it,' I promised. 'But he wants me to take the horse away from here, so that it doesn't get sucked in and sold prematurely.'

She frowned, 'I can't let you take it.'

'Well… yes you can.'

I stretched down the table to reach the folder I'd brought with me and handed her one of the certified copies of the power of attorney, explaining that it gave me authority to do as I thought best regarding Ivan's property, which one way or another definitely included Golden Malt.

She read the whole thing solemnly and at the end said merely, 'All right. What do you want to do?'

'To ride the horse away from here tomorrow morning, when the town and the Downs are alive with horses going in all directions.'

She stared. 'Firstly,' she said, 'he's not an easy ride.'

'And I'd fall off?'

'You might. And secondly, where would you go?'

'If I tell you where, you'll be involved more than maybe you'd want to be.'

She thought it over. She said, 'I don't see how you can do it without my help. At the very least you need me to tell the lads not to worry when one of the horses goes missing.'

'Much easier with your help,' I agreed.

We drank the coffee, not talking.

'I like Ivan,' she said finally. 'Technically he's still my stepfather-in-law, same as Vivienne is still my mother-in-law. I see them at the races. We're on good terms, though she's never effusive. We send each other Christmas cards.'

I nodded. I knew.

'If Ivan wants the horse hidden,' Emily said, 'I'll help you. So where do you plan to go?'

'I bought a copy of Horse and Hound in Newbury,' I said, taking the magazine out of the folder and opening at the pages of classified advertisements. "There's a man here, over the Downs from here, saying he looks after hunters at livery and prepares horses for hunter 'chases and point-to-points. I thought about phoning him and asking him to take my hack for a few weeks. For four weeks, in fact, until a day or two before the King Alfred Gold Cup. The horse would have to come back here, wouldn't he, so he could run with you as trainer?'

She nodded absently, looking where my finger pointed.

'I'm not sending Golden Malt to him,' she announced. 'That man's a bully, horses go sour on him, and he thinks he's God's gift to women.'

'Oh.'

She thought briefly. 'I have a friend, a woman, who offers the same service and is a damn sight better.'

'Is she within riding distance?'

'About eight miles across the Downs. You'd get lost on the Downs, though.'

'Er… you used to have a map of the tracks and gallops.'

'Yes, the Ordnance Survey map. But my map must be seven years old. There are a lot of new roads.'

'Roads may change, but the tracks are seven thousand years old. They'll still be there.'

She laughed and fetched the map from the office, spreading it out on the kitchen table. 'Her yard is west of here,' Emily said, pointing. 'She's quite a good way away from Mandown, where most people exercise the Lambourn strings. She's there, see, outside the village of Foxhill.'

'I could find that,' I said.

Emily looked doubtful, but phoned her friend.

'My yard's so full,' she said, 'could you take an overflow for me for a week or two? Keep him fit. He'll be racing later on… You can? Good… I'll send one of my lads over with him in the morning. The horse's name? Oh, just call him Bobby. Send me the bills. How are your kids?'

After the chit-chat she put down the receiver.

'There you are,' she said. 'One conjuring trick done to order.'

'You're brilliant.'

'Absolutely right. Where are you sleeping?'

'I'll find a room in Lambourn.'

'Not unless you want to advertise your presence. Don't forget you lived here for six months. People know you. We got married in Lambourn church. I don't want tongues wagging that you've come back to me. You can sleep here, on a sofa, out of sight.'

'How about,' I said impulsively, 'in your bed?'

'No.'

I didn't try to persuade her. Instead, I borrowed her telephone for two calls, one to my mother to tell her I would be away for the night but hoped to have good news for Ivan the next day, and one to Jed Parlane in Scotland.

'How are you?' he said anxiously.

'Living at a flat-out gallop.'

'I meant… anyway, I took the police to the bothy. What a mess.'

'Mm.'

'I gave them your drawings. The police haven't had any other complaints about hikers robbing people around here.'

'Not surprising.'

'Himself wants to see you as soon as you return. He says I'm to meet you off the train and take you straight to the castle. When are you coming back?'

'With luck, on tomorrow night's Highlander. I'll let you know.'

'How is Sir Ivan?'

'Not good.'

'Take care, then,' he said. 'So long.'

Emily, deep in thought, said, as I put down the receiver, 'I'll send my head lad out with the first lot, as usual, but I'll tell him not to take Golden Malt. I'll tell him that the horse is going away for a bit of remedial treatment to his legs. There's nothing wrong with his legs, actually, but my lads know better than to argue.'

They always had, I reflected. Also, they faithfully stayed. She trained winners; the lads prospered, and did as she said.

She wrote, as she always did, a list of which lad would ride which horse when the first lot of about twenty horses pulled out for exercise at seven o'clock the next morning, and which lad would ride which horse in the second lot, after breakfast, and which lad would go out again later in the morning with every horse not yet exercised. She employed about twenty lads - men and women - for the horses, besides two secretaries, a housekeeper and a yard man. Jockeys came for breakfast and to school the horses over jumps. Vets called. People delivered hay and feed and removed manure. Owners visited. I'd learned to ride, but not well. The telephone trilled incessantly. Messages whizzed in and out by computer. No one ever for long sat still.

I had been absorbed into the busy scenery as general cook/dogsbody, and runner of errands, and although I'd fitted in as best I could, and for a while happily, my own internal life had shrivelled to zero. There had been weeks of self-doubt, of wondering if my compulsion to paint was mere selfishness, if the belief in my talent was a delusion, if I should deny the promptings of my nature and be forever the lieutenant that Emily wanted.

Now, more than five years later, she put her newly written list for the head lad in the message box outside the back door. She let out her two Labradors for a last run and walked round the stable yard to make sure that all was well. Then she came in, whistled for the dogs to return to their baskets in the kitchen, and locked her doors against the night.

All so familiar. All so long ago.

She gave me two travelling rugs to keep warm on the sofa and said calmly, 'Goodnight.'

I put my arms round her tentatively. 'Em?'

'No,' she said.

I kissed her forehead, holding her close. 'Em?'

'Oh,' she said in exasperation. 'All right.'

CHAPTER FOUR

She no longer slept in the big bedroom we'd shared, but in the old guest room, in a new queen-sized romping ground suitable for passing fancies.

She had slotted a new luxurious bathroom into what had once been her father's dressing-room. Downstairs the house might be as I remembered it, but upstairs it was not.

'This is not a precedent,' Emily said, taking off layers down to a white lace bra. 'And I don't think it's wise.'

'Bugger wise.'

'You obviously haven't been getting enough.'

'No, I haven't.' I switched off the lights and drew back the curtains, as I'd always done. 'How about you?'