Tommy still refused to believe Rafiq was behind it, but there had been a third sighting this morning near Bagley Hall, so she wrestled with hope and dread. If he were innocent, why hadn’t he got in touch?
The funeral bell had finished tolling. The same trumpeters who’d played at Aintree were up in the gallery, poised to launch into the Dead March from
Saul
. The cathedral was draped most beautifully with weeping willow branches intertwined with cow parsley. The place was absolutely packed, swarming with press and television cameras inside and out, as the procession came slowly up the aisle.
Huntsmen in red coats were followed by jockeys wearing black armbands (Rogue and Amber hand in hand) and stable lads and lasses from both Throstledown and Penscombe, who had dressed all in black. There was no coffin, Mrs Wilkinson’s Grand National
winner’s rug and her head collar had been blown up with her.
The children from Greycoats occupied the front rows on the left. Tilda had been coaching them all week in a farewell song, ‘Goodbye dearest Wilkie, whose coat was so silky’, at the end of which they would wave goodbye.
The syndicate, all fighting back the tears, occupied the front pews on the right. Behind them were Marius and Olivia, a stonyfaced Rupert and Taggie, Bianca and Feral and an ashen Eddie Alderton, who had learnt a few lessons in the last week.
In the front row of the next block of pews sat Harvey-Holden with Jude the Obese, who took up most of the pew, which left little room for their caring new best friends: Martin and Romy Bancroft. Harvey-Holden had offered a massive reward.
‘I and the entire racing world,’ he had told
The Times
in an interview that morning, ‘will not rest until we have tracked down Mrs Wilkinson’s killer. I once owned this remarkable mare. She was stolen from me by gypsies and when I tracked her down at Etta Bancroft’s, I realized they had bonded and it would be heartless to part them, so I made the supreme sacrifice.
‘Now I and my wife Judy are offering not only two hundred and fty thousand pounds as a reward to anyone who leads us to the truth, but also two hundred thousand pounds to the Sampson Bancroft Memorial Fund, as an expression of our deep sympathy for Etta Bancroft.’
No wonder Martin and Romy looked like cats who’d got majority shares in Dairy Crest.
Deliberately timing their entrance just before that of the clergy came a very handsome couple, Shade Murchieson and Bonny, radiant in black velvet and new diamonds. Sauntering up the aisle like models on the catwalk, they didn’t seem to mind having to sit very close to each other as they squeezed into Harvey-Holden’s pew.
‘What a revolting pain,’ exploded Dora, but she was too sad to ring the press.
Bringing up the rear of the procession were the bishop and Niall, his blond pallor set off by his black robes. Woody felt so proud he wanted to reach out and touch Niall’s hand as he passed. They had both been torn apart by the death of Mrs Wilkinson.
Pocock put a reassuring arm round Miss Painswick’s shoulders. There was an empty seat between Trixie and Alan, who whispered across to her, ‘I don’t think Granny’s going to make it.’
‘I’m going to sit with Eddie then,’ said Trixie, nipping back to the seat beside him.
Debbie Cunliffe was sobbing openly.
‘Pull yourself together, woman,’ hissed the Major, wiping his eyes.
Ione’s face was expressionless. Travis-Locks didn’t weep in public but she was comforted when Alban’s hand crept into hers.
Corinna and Seth were checking their make-up and mouthing the pieces they had to read.
Then came the heartbreakingly lovely sound of a lone piper playing ‘Amazing Grace’ as the lone figure of Tommy came slowly up the aisle, holding Mrs Wilkinson’s bridle with its willow-green browband, with Chisolm trotting listlessly beside her.
‘They’ve both lost so much weight,’ muttered Trixie.
‘Tommy’s really pretty now,’ murmured Eddie, wincing as he remembered Snog-a-Trog.
After ‘Now thank we all our God,’ which raised the vaulted roof, Niall walked down the chancel steps.
‘We have a video of Mrs Wilkinson in her finest and most precious moments and several readings from people who loved her,’ he told the congregation, in a commendably steady voice, ‘but first let us have two minutes’ silence to remember our little pet.’
A minute and a half passed – like an eternity. Then suddenly over the muffled sobs, there was a clip clop, clip clop, clip clop on the flagstones outside, followed by a shrill whinny. Chisolm, roused out of her torpor, bleated back in bewilderment and hope. Then a hauntingly beautiful man’s voice could be heard singing:
‘Gaily the troubadour touched his guitar,
When he was hast’ning home from the war.
Singing from Palestine hither I come;
Lady love, lady love, welcome me home.’
‘Rafiq,’ gasped Tommy.
People were looking at each other incredulously, tears drying and then falling on their faces. ‘Could it be?’
Then cautiously a white face came round the great studded oak door, angled to the right so she could see with her left eye, and Mrs Wilkinson entered the cathedral with Rafiq on her back. His face was as hostile and haughty as a young kestrel. He was wearing only black jeans and a torn grey shirt, pale rider, pale horse. Into the cathedral they came and up the aisle.
There was a stunned silence, broken only as people rose to their feet, screaming and yelling with joy, climbing on to pews
and chairs, throwing their hats into the air, leaning out of choir stall and gallery, blowing joyous blasts on trumpets and hunting horns and giving Mrs Wilkinson the greatest standing ovation of her career.
As this was nothing that Mrs Wilkinson wasn’t used to, she carried on, ears pricked, looking from side to side, graciously acknowledging the pandemonium, whickering at friends and the children who broke into the aisle to pat her again and again.
Next moment, Chisolm had shoved through their legs, dancing and bleating and joyfully rubbing noses with her dear, dear friend.
Only Harvey-Holden, his face far whiter than Mrs Wilkinson’s, was hysterically writhing with rage.
‘Arrest that man,’ he screamed.
‘No,’ roared Valent’s voice over the loudspeaker, ‘arrest
that
man.’
Mrs Wilkinson quivered with terror, her dark rolling eye showing so much white that it seemed for a second she would bolt out of the cathedral. Harvey-Holden’s eyes were also darting from side to side, desperate to escape. But as the great cathedral door slammed shut, police poured in from all sides, two of the largest flanking Harvey-Holden.
‘Silence, please be quiet,’ shouted Valent, who’d followed Rafiq into the church and bounded up the steps of the pulpit. ‘Let Rafiq speak.’
Tommy leapt forward, seizing a trembling Mrs Wilkinson’s reins. Smiling down at her, Rafiq patted Mrs Wilkinson and turned coolly to Harvey-Holden. The cathedral was so well miked up, his every word could be heard.
‘I know, Mr Harvey-Holden, that it was you who set fire to your own yard. You burn your own horses to death to hide that they were dying of starvation and so you claim insurance.’
‘This is nonsense,’ thundered Jude the Obese.
‘Denny Forrester learn this when he was your head lad,’ went on Rafiq, ‘so you murder him and fake his suicide, and pretend he started the fire.’
‘Utterly preposterous,’ jabbered Harvey-Holden, foam flying from his lips.
‘You were jealous of Mrs Wilkinson when Shade sent her you for training, because your then wife loved her.’ Rafiq was continuously stroking Mrs Wilkinson’s quivering shoulder. ‘To get her into the starting stalls, you used electrodes on her legs. You denied her food for months to break her spirit and finally drove your Land-Rover into her, catching her legs in the bumper and
the radiator. The only reason she miss the fire was you left her out in a freezing field that wouldn’t keep a budgerigar,’ Rafiq’s voice was even more filled with hatred and contempt, ‘so you had to get her away quickly, but she refuse to load. For two hours you beat her unconscious with a shovel, so she lost an eye. Then you dragged her into the lorry, digging out her microchip and dumping her in Willowwood on the coldest night of the year, where Etta found her.’
Dora and Alan were scribbling frantically on their service sheets.
‘This is fabrication,’ shouted Jude with less conviction.
‘I’m sure it’s nonsense, dear.’ Romy put a caring hand on Jude’s vast arm.
The rest of the congregation, many in tears, were hanging on Rafiq’s every word with increasing dismay. Even Chisolm, recovering her appetite but not finding any of Debbie’s bright flowers to eat, was listening intently.
‘Jimmy Wade,’ continued Rafiq relentlessly, ‘was in prison at the same time as me, banged up for giving tips for reward, because you pay him so little. He tell me every terrible thing you did, and that he was going to expose you, but you had him murdered the moment he was released. I was terrified you murder me too, so I keep very quiet, but I was so upset about Furious, I blow gaff at National and told you I knew you started fire.
‘You panic that I’m on to you. You’re so frantic to get rid of me and Mrs Wilkinson that you plan to blow her up at Sport Personality Award and frame me, by planting all that Al-Qaeda propaganda and bomb equipment in my room, helped by your evil bugger friend, Vakil. Lucky my cousin Ibrahim tip me off.’
Harvey-Holden was just clenching his fists and muttering rubbish now.
‘He’s barking,’ hissed Dora.
‘Lucky too,’ went on Rafiq, turning mockingly to the assembled policemen, ‘I learn in the past a little about making bombs, so I recognize device fixed to stable door. One of Mr Murchieson’s latest inventions. It only need mobile phone to set it off from fifty yards. I had so little time. Fortunately,’ Rafiq turned and smiled at Michael Meagan, who was blushing among the stable lads, ‘Michael want to see Tresa, so I am able to ride Mrs Wilkinson out of empty racecourse. I am very good rider,’ he nodded haughtily at Rupert, ‘Mr Campbell-Black should have never jocked me off National, and Mrs Wilkinson turn out excellent cross-country horse. We escaped to friend who hide
and protect us and Mr Harvey-Holden blow up empty stable.’
Shade, meanwhile, had jumped to his feet. ‘I’ve never heard so much rubbish in my life,’ he roared. ‘I want my lawyer.’
‘This is all nonsense,’ screamed Harvey-Holden, ‘all lies. Rafiq blew up Usurper because he’s a dirty little terrorist and he loathed her because she took out that brute Furious.’
Maddened, he leapt forward, trying to claw Rafiq to the ground, but Mrs Wilkinson was too quick for him. Shuddering with recognition, squealing with rage, she lunged at him, catching his shoulder in her teeth, shaking him like a rat.
‘Get off, you bitch,’ he howled, raising his hand to punch her in the eye.
Next moment the police had swooped and grabbed him as well as Shade and Vakil, who were both racing towards the door.
Rafiq, who was thoroughly enjoying being centre stage, then informed the congregation that he had forgiven Mrs Wilkinson for taking out Furious.
‘I love her,’ he added, pulling her ears, ‘and I love Tommy and I would never do anything to break her or Etta’s hearts.’
Leaping off Mrs Wilkinson, he took a sobbing, deliriously happy Tommy in his arms and everyone burst into delighted applause. It then turned to tumultuous boos, as Harvey-Holden was led away.
‘This is a wonderful turn of events,’ said the Bishop.
‘It’s a miracle,’ said Niall, seizing the mike. ‘Our little pet has risen like Lazarus from the dead.’ Then, muttering to the Bishop: ‘How on earth do we disperse this lot?’
‘Perhaps we could see just the video, which is after all a celebration,’ suggested the Bishop, ‘and the children can sing their song and wave hello rather than goodbye.’
‘Then end with a few prayers?’ asked Niall.
‘And those invited can repair to Willowwood,’ murmured the Bishop, who hadn’t had any lunch, ‘where I hear there are some excellent refreshments.’
‘What about my reading?’ demanded Corinna furiously.
What about my £200,000 cheque? thought a shaken Martin. Which would be more advantageous, to comfort Jude or Bonny?
Rafiq was still ecstatically kissing Tommy, so Amber grabbed hold of Mrs Wilkinson.
‘Where’s Etta?’ demanded Valent, his ruddy face for once paler than Rafiq’s. Ignoring Bonny’s cries of ‘Valent, Valent,’ he ran down the steps of the pulpit.
‘Etta couldn’t handle the service,’ Amber told him. ‘Oh Wilkie,
I’m so pleased to see you again.’ Then, turning to Rogue: ‘Look, darling, isn’t she gorgeous?’
‘I’m not leaving any of you in charge of a national treasure,’ snapped Valent. ‘I’m taking my horse home.’
The sun was setting, firing the trees, turning Marius’s horses a glowing pink. Etta started to cry again at their carefree happiness. Covered in mud, their shaggy manes held rakishly off their foreheads by burrs, they once more weaved in and out of the willows, as she had once so deliriously weaved in and out of Valent’s rustic poles.
So many willows still weeping for Beau Regard and Gwendolyn, who poor Sir Francis had lost, as she herself had lost Mrs Wilkinson and Valent. How had Sir Francis carried on living? wondered Etta. As if in sympathy, a dark whale of cloud had drifted in front of the sun. The horses had stopped to drink from the pond, then, as if deciding on a last race, they re-formed and, snorting with excitement, set off again.