He had tugged off Trixie’s bandanna that morning and eaten it, her arms beneath her purple and green jacket were covered in bruises, but he had started knuckering whenever she arrived in the morning, and she could see why an equally shivering, sweating Rafiq loved him so much.
‘What’s that?’ demanded Rafiq as they splashed round to keep warm while they waited for the other runners.
‘The Pakistani flag for you to wear round your shoulders when you win.’
‘Don’t count your hens,’ growled Rafiq.
He had been thankful to miss the parade as the Mafia had threatened him with another hideous call last night. But his resolve had hardened. He had bottled out as a suicide bomber, thank God, and he was not going to pull Furious today. Last night Valent had texted him, countering Marius’s instructions: ‘Don’t hold him up. Give him his head. Let him enjoy himself.’ Rafiq was touched that both Hengist Brett-Taylor and sarcastic Sergeant Gibson, who’d run the prison stables, were in the crowd but he couldn’t stop shaking.
‘Get off and let me give you a hug to calm you down,’ begged Trixie.
‘Any hug from you would make me anything but calm. You are so pretty, you rocket my blood pressure,’ said Rafiq, but at least he smiled.
Cheltenham was also on edge. A hundred million pounds had been bet on the race. Too many horses had died in jump racing recently. Animal Rights were threatening reprisals. On the big screen the horses were circling, dwarfing Mrs Wilkinson.
‘I can’t see her,’ wailed Etta.
‘Napoleon liked small horses,’ said Alban.
Killer O’Kagan was keeping up his barracking.
‘That horse has shrunk even more,’ he sneered at Amber.
‘Shut up,’ snapped Rogue, putting a hand on Amber’s trembling shoulders. ‘Good luck, angel …’
‘Our Father, which art in heaven,’ said Awesome through chattering teeth. The Irish jockeys crossed themselves. The starter had mounted his rostrum, shouting, ‘Settle down, settle down,’ in a high Dalek voice at the jockeys, all desperate to get in front through the gate and not waste any more time.
Etta wished she could have watched with Valent. She needed his big, warm, reassuring hand holding hers so badly.
‘Where the hell’s my wife?’ grumbled Toby.
‘Shopping,’ said Shagger. ‘They’ll never get back through the crowd now.’
‘At least we won’t have to give Phoebe a running commentary,’ muttered Seth.
The tapes flew and like a tidal wave dragging down the shingle of the world there followed the Cheltenham roar, enough to unsettle any horse, particularly Furious, who shot to the front.
‘Bloody, bloody fool,’ groaned Marius.
Harvey-Holden had put in Voltaire Scott, another really fast pacemaker from the flat, to exhaust Mrs Wilkinson but he was no match for Furious, who’d taken off like a superjet.
‘I hate it when they’re so far ahead at the start,’ moaned Dora, who’d joined Tommy in the stable lads’ stand where the chute joins the course.
Amber had never known anything so terrifying, the great stiff fences of unrelentingly massed birch twigs racing up to meet her, crashing against Wilkie’s belly, the thunder of hooves, the huge horses blotting out the light on all sides, the crash of landing, the jockeys howling at each other, turning the dull grey sky blue with their language.
She was lying tenth, keeping quiet except that Harvey-Holden’s third horse, Last Quango, was sitting on her tail, like a driver in a narrow lane pushing her into error. Then Cosmo Rannaldini’s Wriggoletto cut in front of her trying to seize the inner, kicking a lump of mud into Wilkie’s eye.
Drawn into a barging match, Wilkie couldn’t see and panicked. Ahead on the rails Voltaire Scott was being deliberately held up by Johnnie Brutus. Amber was forced to pull out to overtake them but as she passed, Johnnie swung right, knocking Wilkie off course. Instantly Last Quango slid up and took Wilkie’s place, on the inside rail, further blocking her vision. As she lost her bearings, Wilkie was unable, without her whiskers, to feel her way through the solid line of horses in front of her.
‘Wilkie, Wilkie, Wilkie,’ roared the crowd.
‘Let me through,’ screamed Amber, ‘give me some daylight.’
Then she saw Killer’s teeth flashing beneath his black goggles, like a highwayman chancing on a coachload of bullion. Thrusting Ilkley Hall up on the left between her and Last Quango, he edged her even further away from the rails. Wilkie was also having trouble tugging her feet out of the mud but somehow she scrambled over the big fence four out on the first circuit.
Ahead loomed three out, flanked by trees and daffodils, known as the field of Hope, but there was no hope for Wilkie. To avoid Killer, she jumped wildly to the right, skidding across the wet grass on landing. As Amber struggled to stay put, Wilkie tipped over, crashing to the ground, throwing Amber into a pounding seven-strong pack of horses.
The crowd’s massive bellow of encouragement, briefly drowned by whoops of joy from Shade’s box, turned to screams of horror and anguish as both horse and rider lay motionless, Amber’s face whiter beneath the mud than Mrs Wilkinson’s.
The convoy of doctors, vets and paramedics accompanying the runners screamed to a halt.
As silence fell over Cheltenham, a hundred thousand hearts broke. Despite the tracking cameras following the other runners
up the hill on to the second circuit, all eyes were turned down the course to the People’s Pony and her brave jockey, as the screens hid them from sight.
Valent’s binoculars swung round to the Owners and Trainers. As Etta’s hands flew to her face, he saw Seth put an arm round her.
‘Doesn’t necessarily mean a fatal accident,’ quavered Debbie.
‘Where are the loose horses?’ sobbed Etta, peering through the mist in the hope of seeing Wilkie appear over a fence.
‘Here’s one,’ said Niall hopefully, but it was only a returning Merchant of Venus who’d dumped Eddie Alderton, fortunately, out in the country, because Eddie’s language was worse than Drummond’s.
‘My book,’ groaned Alan. As he put down his pen Tilda slid a hand over his in sympathy.
The Major was looking almost smug. If they’d listened to him …
‘What a fucking tragedy we didn’t sell her last week,’ Shagger echoed his thought.
‘Shut up, you revolting man,’ screamed Tilda.
‘I hope she’s properly insured,’ said Bonny.
‘Shagger should know,’ hissed Woody, then, taking Niall’s hand: ‘Pray for us.’
‘Our Father,’ began Niall in a choked voice.
Marius, who always watched races on the members’ lawn, had vaulted over the rails, run across the track and jumped into an official’s dark green 4×4 Mitsubishi, ordering it to drive him down to three out. Legendarily concerned only with the welfare of his horses, he leapt out, pushing open the screens, totally ignoring a panting, supine Mrs Wilkinson and, to the horror of the ambulance men, gathered Amber up into his arms, his face frantic with worry.
‘Amber, darling, oh my baby, please be all right.’
‘She’s been kicked in the back and the head, for God’s sake,’ hissed a paramedic.
With infinite effort, Amber opened her eyes. ‘I’m so sorry I let you down,’ she mumbled. ‘Is Wilkie OK? I couldn’t hold her together. The bastards blocked us in, she couldn’t see. She’s so little. I’m so sorry I screwed up.’
‘You didn’t. You rode a blinder.’
‘Hardly the operative word. Wilkie’s only half-blind.’
Realizing she could still joke, Marius’s grip tightened.
‘Oh Amber,’ his voice cracked as, looking into her mudfreckled face, feeling her body protector rough beneath her
green silks, unable to resist a temptation that had taunted him since Leopardstown, he kissed her passionately and at great length, only pausing to groan, ‘Thank God you’re OK.’
Mrs Wilkinson, meanwhile, was most put out. She had been given oxygen, had the ignominy of a hunky horse ambulance man sitting on her head to keep her down. She had had needles poked into the coronet bands of her pretty feet, her tail rotated to see if she was suffering from a spine injury, and her legs tugged back to see if they were broken.
Mrs Wilkinson was a serious horse. Seeing her trainer and her jockey locked in each other’s arms, she nudged them. When they ignored her, not amused by such dalliance, she struggled groggily to her feet.
A deathly silence hung over Cheltenham. The public address system was playing up, it was hard for the stricken crowd to understand what was going on. A second horse ambulance was hurtling towards the screens from one end of the course, Chisolm and a sobbing, frantic Tommy from the other. The syndicate (even Shagger at the thought of the money he might have made) was in floods.
Then next moment, to the crowd’s incredulous delight, a dirty white face, also speckled with mud, pushed the screens apart. Mrs Wilkinson looked round for her competitors and rubbed her hooves together. Was it really her? A great bellow of joy split the air as, stirrups and reins flapping, she set out at a cracking pace. The bellow grew even louder and the entire crowd rose to cheer her home as she jumped the last two fences down the straight into the arms of a distraught, tearful Tommy, with Chisolm bleating joyfully round her. The cheers escalated in hysterical relief as Tommy led her back, hugging, kissing her and pulling her ears. Despite losing so much money, the crowds were so relieved and delighted she was safe.
Mrs Wilkinson, on the other hand, was extremely hurt and annoyed not to be allowed in the winners enclosure.
Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, a race had been going on. As the runners reached the second circuit, Furious, the horse hater, the unpredictable, the 50–1 underdog, started to look like the over-dog, jumping majestically, unsettling the competition by the gallop he continued to take, never touching a twig, meeting each fence so exactly, landing, galloping, flustering both Ilkley Hall, who was exhausted anyway, and Last Quango, who was hitting every fence.
The crowd couldn’t believe their eyes as Furious’s white star came bobbing towards them like a satellite at night. Lusty must make a move soon, or Wriggoletto, or Internetso, but they were like Minis trailing a Ferrari.
Rafiq couldn’t believe it either.
‘Good boy, good boy. “Singing from Palestine, hither we come!”’ Talking nonsense, Rafiq crooned to him as Furious’s ginger ears flickered back to listen. His eyes were red-rimmed, his nostrils filled with foam, but he kept going faster. As they reached three out, with yellow chevrons and a man with a flag directing them round it, Rafiq noticed the screens and ambulance men but his pace didn’t slacken. ‘Come on, Furious.’
Slowly, slowly Lusty was gaining on him but at three out Lusty’s jockey took a closer look, glimpsing a slumped iron-grey body and crumpled green silks, lost concentration momentarily, but somehow forced himself to carry on.
As Furious stormed up the hill, Rafiq glanced back through his legs. Lusty was still six lengths behind, with Squiffey Liffey, Internetso and Ilkley Hall, who was having the shit thrashed out of him by Killer, even further away. Even if the Mafia got him and Furious, they would die gloriously. Flying over the last two fences
like Buraq himself, showing Lusty a muddy pair of heels, Furious stormed first past the post.
Joey’s shout of joy that he’d just won £12,000 was only exceeded by Rupert’s howl of rage when, ten seconds later, Rogue crossed the line, but, able to bear it no longer, tugged Lusty round and hurtled through oncoming runners back to Amber. Reaching three out, he leapt off his frantically blowing horse, hurling his reins to a groundsman.
‘Can you undo his girths?’ he yelled. ‘I’ll weigh in later.’
But as he ran in panic towards the screens – please God, let her be all right – his heart stopped pounding abruptly and most painfully as he caught sight of Amber in Marius’s arms. Changing tack, he escaped into the trees. The Field of Hope had failed him too.
Up in the stands, Valent’s box had erupted. Drunken footballers and WAGs screamed their heads off as Valent’s dusty green and purple winning colours were superimposed over the grass at the end of the course and other jockeys rode all over them before swinging round to shake Rafiq’s hand and congratulate him. Even Killer O’Kagan put his arm round Rafiq’s neck, pretending to kiss him before hissing in his ear:
‘We’ll get you for this, you little shit.’
But Rafiq was too dazed to care. He could hardly stammer out a sentence when Derek Thompson rushed up waving a microphone, except to say that Furious was worth a million horses, and Valent was wonderful owner, and Marius wonderful trainer.
Fortunately Rafiq couldn’t hear the commentators banging on and on about how he and Furious had met in prison and what a triumph it was, Rafiq putting his criminal past behind him.
Next moment Trixie had panted up, sobbing with joy and flinging the green and white Pakistani flag round Rafiq’s shoulders before throwing her arms round Furious, who was so amazed by the cheering crowds he forgot to bite her. Nor was he even fazed by the deafening roar that greeted Wilkie when she emerged from the screens.
Nearly as loud a cheer went up as Marius emerged with his arm round Amber. As the Mitsubishi dropped them both off at the medical room, Edward Gillespie, Cheltenham’s charismatic managing director, tapped Marius on the shoulder. ‘You’re wanted in the winners enclosure,’ he said with a smile. ‘Your other jockey’s talking to connections.’