To the hilt [en]

No, she said, no one had thought of any new way of finding the money. The list, if it held the secret, had humbled them so far, but…

'It was a false hope,' I said. 'Useless. Forget it. Give it up.'

'Don't talk like that!'

'It's all right. Truly. Will you come to the races?'

'If you want me…'

'Of course we want you. Without you, there would be no race.'

'Without you.'

'We're brilliant,' I said, laughing, 'but no one will give us our due.'

'You do sound better.'

'I promise you, I'm fine.'

I was floating on a recent pill. Well, one had to, sometimes.

Inspector Vernon telephoned. 'Oliver Grantchester,' he said.

'What about him?'

'Someone viciously assaulted him last Saturday, in his garage… as you know.'

'The poor fellow.'

'Was it your girlfriend who kicked hell out of him?'

'Inspector,' I said reasonably, 'I was lying in that pond. How could I know?'

'She might have told you who did it.'

'No, she didn't - and, anyway, I don't repeat what I'm told.'

After a moment he said, 'Fair enough.'

I smiled. He could hear it in my voice. 'I do hope,' I said, 'that poor Mr Grantchester is still in a bad way.'

'I can tell you, off the record,' he said austerely, 'that the testicular damage inflicted on Mr Grantchester was of a severity that involved irreparable rupture and… er… surgical removal.'

'What a shame,' I said happily.

'Mr Kinloch!'

'My friend has gone abroad, and she won't be back,' I said. 'Don't bother looking. She wouldn't have attacked anyone, I'm sure.'

Vernon didn't sound convinced, but apart from no witnesses, it seemed he had no factual clues. The unknown assailant seemed to be getting away with it.

'How awful,' I said.

I supposed that, when Chris found out, the gelding of Oliver Grantchester would cost me extra. Money well spent.

I said to Vernon, 'Give Grantchester my best regards for a falsetto future.'

That's heartless.'

'You don't say.'

I slept on the pill for three or four hours. Out in the yard life bustled along in the same old way, and by lunchtime I found myself falling into the same old role of general dogsbody, 'popping' down to the village for such-and-such, ferrying blood samples to the vet's office, collecting tack from repair.

Emily and I ate dinner together and went to bed together, and even though this time I easily raised the necessary enthusiasm, she lay in my arms afterwards and told me it broke her heart.

'What does?' I asked.

'Seeing you try to be a husband.'

'But I am…'

'No.' She kissed my shoulder above the bandages. 'You know you don't belong here. Just come back sometimes. That'll do.'

Patsy had organised the race day. Patsy had consulted with the tent-erectors and caterers who were out to please. At Patsy's command, the hundred or so commercial guests - creditors, suppliers, landlords of tied houses - were given a big welcome, unlimited drinks, free racecards, tickets to every enclosure, press-release photographs, lunch, tea.

Cheltenham's racecourse, always forward-looking, had extended to King Alfred's brewery, in Ivan's memory, every red-carpet courtesy they could give to the chief sponsor of one of their top crowd-pulling early-season afternoons. Patsy had the whole racecourse executive committee tumbling over themselves to please her. Patsy's social gifts were priceless.

To Patsy had been allocated the Sponsors' Box in the grandstand, next best thing to the plushed-up suite designed for crowned heads and other princes.

Patsy had organised, in the Sponsors' Box, a private family lunch for my mother, her stepmother, so that Ivan's widow could be both present and apart.

Having met my mother at the Club entrance, I walked with her to the Sponsors' Box. Patsy faultlessly welcomed her with kisses. Patsy was dressed in dark grey, in mourning for her father but with a bright Hermes silk scarf round her neck. She looked grave, businesslike, and in full control of the day.

Behind her stood Surtees, who would not meet my eyes. Surtees shifted from foot to foot, gave my mother a desultory peck on the cheek, and altogether behaved as if he wished he weren't there.

'Hello, Surtees,' I said, to be annoying.

He gave me a silent, frustrated look, and took two paces backwards. What a grand change, I thought, from days gone by.

Patsy gave us both a puzzled look, and at one point later in the afternoon said, 'What have you said to Surtees? He won't talk about you at all. If I mention you he finds some reason for leaving the room, I don't understand it.'

'Surtees and I,' I said, 'have come to an understanding. He keeps his mouth shut, and so do I.'

'What about?'

'On my side about his behaviour in Oliver Grantchester's garden.'

'He didn't really mean what he said.'

I clearly remembered Surtees urging Jazzo to hit me harder, when Jazzo was already hitting me as hard as he could. Surtees had meant it, all right: his revenge for my making him look foolish in Emily's yard.

I said, 'For quite a while I believed it was Surtees who sent those thugs to my house in Scotland, to find the King Alfred Gold Cup.'

It shook her. 'But why?'

'Because he said, "Next tune you'll scream".'

Her eyes darkened. She said slowly, 'He was wrong about that.'

I shrugged. 'You were telling everyone that I'd stolen the Cup. Surtees, of course, believed it.'

'You wouldn't steal.'

I listened to the certainty in her voice, and asked, trying to suppress bitterness, 'How long have you known that?'

Obliquely she told me the truth, opening to my understanding her own long years of unhappy fear. She said, 'He would have given you anything you asked for.'

'Ivan?'

She nodded.

I said, 'I would never have taken anything that was yours.'

'I thought you would.' She paused. 'I did hate you.'

She made no more admissions, nor any excuses, but in the garden she had called me her brother, and in the bank she had said, 'I'm sorry.' Perhaps, just perhaps, things had really changed.

'I suppose,' she began, 'that it's too late…' She left the sentence unfinished, but it was a statement of acceptance, not a plea.

'Call it quits,' I said, 'if you like.'

When Himself and his countess arrived to keep my mother company, I went down to find out how things were going in the hospitality tent, and found that the mood, in spite of the brewery's troubles, was up-beat, alcoholic and forgiving.

Margaret Morden greeted me with the sort of embrace that would have been over the top in any office but seemed appropriate to the abandon of a race day. Dressed in soft blue, with a reliable-looking husband by her side, she said she knew nothing about horses but would back Golden Malt.

She followed my gaze across the tent to where Patsy, flanked not by Surtees but by the perfect lieutenant, Desmond Finch, was encouraging everyone's future.

'You know,' I said to Margaret, 'Patsy will make a great success of running the brewery. She's a born manager. Better than her father. He was conscientious and a good man. She can bend and manipulate people to achieve her own ends… and I'd guess she'll lug the brewery out of the threat of bankruptcy faster than you can imagine.'

'How can you possibly forgive her?'

'I didn't say I forgave her. I said she would be a good manager.'

'It was in your voice.'

I smiled into the clever eyes. 'Find out for me,' I said, 'whether Oliver Grantchester suggested the embezzlement, or just stumbled across it and muscled in. Not that it really matters, I just wonder, that's all.'

'I can tell you now. It was Grantchester's idea all along. Then Norman Quorn did some fancy footwork to keep the loot himself, and misjudged the strength and cruelty of his partner.'