Under Orders Read Online Free PDF Page B

them again if I thought of anything else which might be important.
    I remembered the message on my London telephone and decided not to mention it. I wanted to listen to it first and the remote access system on my answer machine was broken.
    The following morning, all the national dailies ran the ecstasy and agony of Oven Cleaner on their front pages.
The Times
ran the story over the first three pages with graphic photographs of his victory and the subsequent disaster.
    Only on page seven was there a report of the discovery, late in the afternoon, of the body of jockey Huw Walker by Sid Halley, ex-champion jockey and now private detective. Even this item referred to the sad demise of the equine hero and, at first glance, one might have been forgiven for thinking that the two were connected. Somehow the impression was given that Walker’s death was a bizarre after-effect of the great horse’s passing, as if the jockey had killed himself in grief even though he had not himself ridden The Cleaner to victory. There was no mention of the three bullet wounds in Huw’s chest. As any one of the three would have been instantly fatal, the police, at least, were not treating his death as suicide.
    The
Racing Post
went even further, with an eight-page spread of Oven Cleaner’s career and an obituary to rival that of a prime minister.
    ‘It was only a bloody horse,’ declared Charles over his breakfast. ‘Like that memorial in London for the animals in war. Ridiculous sentimental rubbish.’
    ‘Come on, Charles,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen you almost in tears over your dogs when they die. Same thing.’
    ‘Poppycock!’ But he knew it was true. ‘When are you off?’ he asked, changing the subject.
    ‘After breakfast. I have some reports to write.’
    ‘Come again. Come as often as you like. I like having you here and I miss you when you’re gone.’
    I was surprised, but pleased. He had initially detested his daughter marrying a jockey. Not a suitable match, he’d thought, for the daughter of an admiral. A game of chess, which I had won, had been the catalyst to an enduring friendship that had survived the break-up of my marriage, had survived the destruction of my racing career, and had been instrumental in the blossoming of my new life out of the saddle. Charles was not one to show his emotions openly; command in the services was lonely and one had to learn to be emotionally robust in the face of junior officers.
    ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I enjoy being here and I will come again soon.’
    We both knew that I tended to come to Aynsford only when I was in trouble or when I was depressed, or both. Aynsford had become my sanctuary and my therapy. It was my rock in the turbulent waters I had chosen as my home.
    I left promptly after breakfast and drove home to London along a relatively empty M40. The rain beat relentlessly on the roof of my Audi as I made my way round Hyde Park Corner and into Belgravia. I lived in a fourth-floor flat in Ebury Street near Victoria Station and, after five years, it was beginning to feel like home. Not least because I did not live there on my own.
    Who Sid Halley was presently ‘screwing’, the secret I kept from Chris Beecher, was Marina van der Meer, a Dutch beauty, a natural blonde with brains, and a member of a team of chemists at the Cancer Research UK laboratories in Lincoln’sInn Fields searching for the Holy Grail – a simple blood test to find cancers long before any symptoms appear. Earlier detection, she said, leads to easier cure.
    When I arrived at noon she was sitting in our large bed, wearing a fluffy pink towelling robe and reading the Saturday papers.
    ‘Well, well, quite the little Sherlock Holmes!’ She pointed to a picture of me in the
Telegraph
. It was the one they often used of me, smiling broadly as I received a racing trophy. That photo was now more than ten years old and pre the flecks of grey that were now appearing at my temples. I didn’t mind.
    ‘It says here