so he could one day buy Furious. Mrs Wilkinson and Amber brought Furious down in the National. Rafiq was devoted to Marius and felt Valent had betrayed him by taking his horses to Rupert, particularly after the Gold Cup victory. Then Rupert jocked Rafiq off and fired him. Rafiq detested Eddie Alderton – American bombs had wiped out so many of his family. Eddie screwed up on Furious.’ Tresa opened wide her smoky grey eyes, made more appealing by the shadows beneath them. ‘May I call you Timothy, Chief Inspector? This bomb was pure revenge, the only way of destroying them all.’
This seemed to be the general consensus.
More upset than anyone was Valent, who had deeply loved Mrs Wilkinson. Told of her death during a victory dinner in Milan by Rupert’s ringing from the racecourse, the hard man of football amazed everyone by breaking down and having to flee the restaurant. He was crying as much for Etta as himself. He had been deeply upset she never rang to congratulate him after the National, and had later assumed it was because Furious had been killed. Now, with Wilkie and Rafiq gone, she’d never forgive him.
But he must be brave. After a quadruple Scotch, he called her. ‘Etta, luv, I’m so sorry.’
‘It’s all your fault, if you hadn’t entered her for the National she’d never have been nominated for that award. Please leave me alone.’ Etta knew she was being unfair, but she was crying so much she had to hang up.
Priceless sighed and rubbed his nose along her thigh.
‘You still have me.’
Etta was one of the few people who publicly defended Rafiq.
‘Rafiq adored Mrs Wilkinson,’ she told the press. ‘He stayed up all night with her once when she had colic. He was overjoyed when he won a race on her when Amber broke her wrist. And he was far too fond of Tommy to destroy the horse she loved. It doesn’t add up.’
‘Rafiq would never hurt an animal,’ protested a numb, tearful Tommy from her hospital bed. ‘Marius could hardly get him to use a whip. He always worried if Mistletoe’s water bowl wasn’t filled up. He loved animals.’
Tommy’s detective sergeant father tried to convince her otherwise. ‘Rafiq wimped out as a suicide bomber last time. He wanted to prove to Cousin Ibrahim that he was one of the boys.’
‘He didn’t,’ wailed Tommy, and as she left the hospital she defiantly told the massed journalists and television cameras, ‘Rafiq didn’t want twenty-seven virgins in heaven. The only reason he’d want to go to heaven would be to see Furious again.’ But Etta and Tommy appeared to be Rafiq’s sole champions, particularly when Ibrahim was alleged to have rung in claiming Al-Qaeda’s responsibility. What remained uncertain was whether Rafiq had perished with Mrs Wilkinson or had escaped and was still alive.
The syndicate took it very hard.
‘St Peter needn’t open the Pearly Gates,’ observed a choked Joey. ‘Mrs Wilkinson’ll jump clean over them.’
‘At least she’ll know Furious up there, and Best Mate, Dessie, Arkle, Rummy and Sefton will form a guard of honour,’ said Woody stoutly.
‘She united us like a band of brothers,’ wept Painswick.
Poor Alan’s book was screwed because of the mass coverage. The bandwagon creaked as Corinna, Bonny and even Cindy leapt on it to convince the media of their deep sense of personal loss and sent out photographs of themselves hugging Mrs Wilkinson. Willowwood was a sea of flowers.
‘Now thrive the florists,’ sighed Seth. ‘Amsterdam will be stripped of tulips.’
Chisolm was much too upset to write her diary in the Mirror.
‘You must be able to cobble something together, Dora,’ pleaded the features editor. ‘Readers have the right to know.’
‘Chisolm’s probably the only one who knows the truth,’ confessed Dora, whose stolen service had also gone by the board.
‘Did you know that Mrs Wilkinson was going to be a mother?’ she sobbed to Trixie.
‘You let her run that huge race when she was in foal?’ exploded Trixie. ‘How could you, Dora? If you hadn’t, she wouldn’t have brought down Furious or been nominated for that award.’
‘I know, I’m so sorry,’ bawled Dora.
And if Willowwood was weeping, so was the nation. Like Shergar, Mrs Wilkinson was a martyr to terrorism. The government stepped up security. At racecourses all round the country, the jockeys wore black armbands and a two-minute silence was observed.
Mrs Wilkinson’s box was left empty, both at Penscombe, where Love Rat’s great stallion’s bell rang out for her, and at Throstledown, where even though she’d departed a month