The luck of the Irish didn’t often shine on Luca, but it had that night. As Beck hammered the walls in a wild-eyed, shaking muck-sweat, guessing his fate, the phone belonging to the stable-hand had been dislodged from its hidey-hole and landed at Luca’s feet, its camera still recording.

Later that night, offered any price he wanted to name in exchange for surrendering the phone and pledging his silence, he’d asked for Beck to be spared.

Livid to find himself overruled by his father, Mishaal had suffered the humiliation of seeing the horse’s safe return to Germany, the Horsemaker rewarded for saving his life by sparing the very thing that had tried to end it. ‘You have made an enemy of me!’ he’d screamed at Luca when he’d visited him in hospital to take his leave. ‘It is written in the Qur’an and in your Bible – an eye for an eye.’

To this day, Mishaal’s father, the royal prince, had made no more mention of the stallion or of what had really happened. It was rewritten as heroic myth: ‘You saved my only son’s life, Luca. I will repay your loyalty as any father would. You will stay under my protection always.’

An eye for an eye.

The stallion’s big, dark eyes shone brighter than ever as he switched direction, turning on his haunches, sending a large sand clot rattling against the metal wall. Years in the wilderness had lost him none of his élan.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Luca reflected angrily. The horse was supposed to be protected too, the door of his gilded cage kept shut. At Fuchs, with its Fort Knox security and army of incorruptible staff, he’d been safe.

When Beck had been flown home to Europe after less than two months in the Middle East, a hastily fabricated buy-back story had been concocted to cover embarrassment and maintain honour all round, the royal family’s vet supplying X-rays and a report confirming that Bechstein had a severe meniscal injury which meant his jumping career was over. The horse would retire to Gestüt Fuchs to stand at stud; he would never be sold or compete again. It was Beck’s death pardon. The official line – that horse and rider had been injured entirely separately, one getting cast in his stable, the other in a high-speed car crash – ennobled a far less palatable truth.

Nobody involved in Beck’s ignominious return wanted the deal to be public knowledge, because doing so risked the full story coming out. There had never been an insurance claim; the enormity of the sums involved meant the vet’s report would need to be verified to get a payout, and that couldn’t happen. The Arabs had lost millions of euros in the eight weeks they’d owned the horse. What Mishaal had lost was beyond price.

‘Paul Fuchs should never have sold him on again.’ He felt his sinews tighten. His former boss, former friend, had double-crossed him spectacularly.

‘That was my fault,’ Ronnie confessed as the husky, infectious voice launched into a story so typically old school Veronica Percy that it was deserving of clinking glasses, sponsors’ tents, tweed and tannoys. ‘I was at the Gestüt Fuchs’ stallions parade when this grey chap came out and wowed us all, breaking loose from his handler, cavorting around, jumping clean out of the arena and buggering off to gallop around for an hour, refusing to be caught. I’d never seen anything move like it. I absolutely fell in love with him. The Fuchs team were in despair because the horse was such a nightmare to handle. We were told he’d been retired to stud injured, but he certainly wasn’t lame that day.’