a pensioner, she could afford to keep a racehorse. Whereupon Valent stepped in again and said there was so much goodwill and affection for Mrs Wilkinson in Willowwood that if Mrs Bancroft needed help, he felt sure everyone would oblige. ‘Mrs Wilkinson has become the Village Horse.’
This was greeted by a roar of agreement. Judge Wilkes then summed up: ‘This dispute is about a horse. We do not know who perpetrated these dreadful crimes on Mrs Wilkinson.’
‘He didn’t call her Usurper,’ hissed Dora, ‘that’s promising.’
‘So I am unable to make a deprivation order, in addition to putting a ban on him or her ever keeping a horse again. But it is within my power to decide to whom I give this horse. The fact that she is a very valuable mare is of no consequence when one considers the evidence that she would no longer be with us today if it hadn’t been for the quick thinking and loving care of Mrs Etta Bancroft. I therefore give the mare, Mrs Wilkinson, formerly known as Usurper, to Mrs Bancroft.’
Cheers rocked the court.
‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ sobbed a joyful Etta, who hugged everyone else but found herself too shy to hug Valent.
After she’d wiped her tears away, she and Valent and Mrs Wilkinson posed for the photographers, marshalled by Dora.
‘I don’t understand how on earth you got Mrs Wilkinson to load,’ stammered Etta. ‘No one else has.’
‘I told her to get in and not be silly,’ said Valent with a smirk. He was in an excellent mood. He’d recently put ten million into a hedge fund providing bulldozers to China, which had risen by 600 per cent in the last fortnight, making him 60 million.
Hearing a furious squawk behind him, he turned to find Chisolm gobbling up the last of Jude the Obese’s mauve notebook.
‘That was invaluable evidence!’
‘I thought your side believed in destroying records,’ said Valent icily.
‘Valent’s only done it to dispel his Tin-Man-without-a-Heart image,’ snarled Shade when he heard the result. ‘From now on we’re going to bury the bastard, and Mrs Bancroft and fucking Rupert Campbell-Black.’
40
In a daze of happiness, Etta read reports of the case the following morning. VALENT TO THE RESCUE, shouted the Mail under a lovely picture of Valent, Chisolm and Mrs Wilkinson. Etta was also surrounded by gardening books, plotting ways in which she could surreptitiously enhance Valent’s garden as a thank-you present. Outside, the fields were alight with pink campion, dog daisies and foxgloves.
‘Should I make him a wild flower garden?’ she asked Chisolm, who, having finished up Etta’s bowl of cornflakes, was sitting on the sofa, eating her own picture in the Sun.
Demanding attention, as she peered over the fence and round Etta’s conifer hedge, was Mrs Wilkinson.
‘You’re mine, mine, mine,’ cried Etta, as she rushed out waving a carrot.
But she had reckoned without Martin, who was determined to repossess his mother. She was needed as a nanny, Granny Playbridge having retreated in tatters after a stint of Poppy and Drummond. The weeds were soaring in Harvest Home’s garden. The cricket season was under way, he had hit a fine six through Tilda Flood’s window, and he needed Etta to do the teas.
He therefore rolled up at the bungalow and weighed in: ‘You must sell Mrs Wilkinson at once, Mother.’
‘I can’t,’ gasped Etta, ‘the judge awarded her to me to look after.’
Chisolm bleated in agreement.
‘Get that goat out of here! If you sold her, you’d be self-sufficient, could afford a decent car and the improvements you wanted on this place – and frankly you wouldn’t be a drain on Carrie and me any more. It’s been a struggle.’
‘Cooee, cooee.’ He was joined by Romy, lovely as June in a deep rose-red dress – the effect of warmth somewhat diminished by the cold look she gave Mrs Wilkinson’s silver point-to-point cup and Etta’s winning owner’s glass bowl.
Didn’t Etta realize that since Martin had nobly left the City to raise money for the Sampson Bancroft Memorial Fund, she and he had suffered a considerable loss of income?
Martin had also discovered Sampson hadn’t been quite so loved that people felt compelled to give generously. Some had been extremely rude. They therefore wanted Etta to pay back the £50,000 they’d forked out for the bungalow, which she could if she cashed in on all the publicity and sold Mrs Wilkinson well and at once.
Etta’s heart sank. She also felt honour bound to pay back Woody, Joey, Jase and Charlie Radcliffe for their endless free help, and