Pulse(34)

But I knew the truth.

Someone had definitely tried to murder me and I intended finding out why.





13


Grant took me home with strict instructions that I should continue to rest for another twenty-four hours, and he had taken yet another day of his annual leave in order to ensure I did.

As he drove us out of the town past the racecourse, I wondered if Adrian Kings had managed to rustle up a replacement doctor at such short notice. Not that it would have been critical. The five of us plus the Irish doctor of yesterday had been a luxury when the horseracing authority regulations stipulated a minimum of only three. But at Cheltenham in general, and at its Festival in particular, jump racing was shown in the full glare of a TV spotlight and minimum requirements would never have been enough if anything had gone drastically wrong. That was why the managing director and the racecourse executive always paid for more. Public perception was a very strong incentive.

‘What about my car?’ I asked as we passed the farm where I’d parked it. I seemed recently to have made quite a habit of abandoning it.

‘Tom and Julie brought it back early this morning,’ Grant said. ‘They were worried last night when you didn’t turn up to collect it.’ Tom and Julie were the farmer and his wife. I’d left the car’s keys with them, just in case they’d had to move it.

Grant insisted that I went straight to bed but I equally insisted that I be allowed to watch the racing on the television.

‘The doctor told me that rest meant both physical and mental rest,’ he said. ‘No television and no computer.’

‘But I need to see the racing,’ I replied. ‘It’s part of my job.’

In the end we compromised that I could watch it for a short while with me lying under a blanket on the sofa in the sitting room, propped up with pillows, but Grant still fussed around me like a mother hen on heat.

‘For God’s sake,’ I said at one point as he yet again asked me if I was all right. ‘Will you please just sit down and watch the Queen Mother Champion Chase?’

Grant was not interested in horseracing. ‘Silly sport, really,’ he would often say, ‘just running round a track, getting nowhere.’

I, in turn, would point out that his preferred sport, golf, was an equally silly sport – hitting a little white ball with long sticks around the countryside into holes in the ground. Indeed, almost any sport, if analysed sufficiently, could be thought of as silly and without value. And so might many other pursuits in the entertainment business such as acting, singing and writing. My tutor at medical school had proclaimed that medicine was the only true worthy profession as it was the one thing that, in the long run, made a difference. But that hadn’t stopped him being an ardent Manchester United fan.

There were ten runners in the Champion Chase and my interest was heightened when I saw that not only was Dick McGee riding, but so were both Jason Conway and Mike Sheraton.

I sat up and leaned forward to get a better view of the screen.

Over the years, I’d had various encounters with all three jockeys in my role as a racecourse doctor, but on those occasions I had been dealing only with their physical form rather than with their minds and personalities.

Now I was interested in them as people, not merely as patients.

What did they know about Rahul and why was it so important to stop me finding out?

Whereas the Gold Cup on Friday would be the ultimate test over three and a quarter miles, the Champion Chase was the zenith for two-milers, the sprinters of steeplechasing. It was always run at a fast pace but, on this occasion, one of the runners set off as if it were in the Charge of the Light Brigade, establishing a lead of three lengths or more by the time it reached the first fence, only a few strides from the starting gate.

Even the television commentator thought it unusual.

‘Jason Conway is certainly in a hurry on Checkbook,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he’s acting as a pacemaker for the favourite, but no one is going to keep up with that gallop.’

I watched as Checkbook jumped the second fence at least six lengths ahead of the rest of the field, which remained tightly bunched at a more sensible speed.

And so it went on. By the time they passed the enclosures and swung left-handed, Checkbook and Jason Conway were a good ten to twelve lengths in front but the others were already beginning to close, and they surged past on the run towards the water jump.

Checkbook did not even finish the race, pulling up when tailed off last at the top of the hill. Jason Conway would definitely not get my vote as ride of the day and I wondered what the stewards would have to say about it.

The others, meanwhile, swept downhill towards the three remaining fences, their pace now picking up as the business end of the race approached.

Dick McGee went down at the second-last, his horse getting in too close and hitting the fence hard with its shoulders, forcing it to screw sideways on landing and unceremoniously dumping its jockey onto the grass. Dick had had no chance of staying on but it was clearly not going to be his week. That was the third time he’d met the turf face-first, and we were only halfway through the second day.

Mike Sheraton, however, went on to win the race in another tight finish, using considerable skill to coax the horse to the front just before the line.

I lay back on the pillows and sighed loudly. I hardly had enough energy to keep my eyes open. How was I going to start investigating something?