‘Which horse is this, Luca?’ Mishaal was alongside.

Beck didn’t move. Luca didn’t move. ‘You don’t know him?’

The horse might have turned from gunmetal to white since Mishaal took him to deathmatch, but he was unmistakable, surely?

‘They all look the same to me,’ Mishaal said lightly, his all-seeing eye on the Irishman’s face. ‘My wife wants to buy the dun colt in the barn.’

‘He’s not for sale,’ Luca dismissed, watching Beck still, a silver statue in the darkness.

‘That is what Mrs Ledwell said.’ Mishaal’s monotone had a bemused uplift. ‘When I said she could name her price, she told me Spirit has no price.’

‘It doesn’t,’ Luca breathed, watching Beck, who hadn’t moved, only his skin shimmering with occasional twitches belied the fact every muscle was drum-tight.

‘You always were his saviour.’ Mishaal offered his hand to shake. ‘Mine also, as it turns out. Good bye, Luca. Ila liqaa.’

Luca took it. ‘Indeed, until we meet again.’

*

The helicopter was reverberating its way over the crest, lights flashing by the time Pax finally managed to shepherd Bay outside.

‘They didn’t say goodbye.’ He tilted his head to watch it. ‘How rude.’

‘Goodnight, Bay.’

‘Darling one, we need that lunch.’ Penhaligon’s Quercus. Kisses on cheeks. Stubble. ‘Bring Kes. Hugely good company. Do say goodbye to your mother from me.’

Only Ronnie, Pax reflected, could get away with recruiting the bounder who had once come between them as a babysitter.

Battery charged, she was back on the phone to Blair now, leaving Pax to throw Bay out and round up Luca. Her heart tightened at the thought.

‘He won’t make you happy, you know,’ Bay said.

‘Who?’

‘Man called Horse or whatever title he gives himself. He’s a chancer. Won’t make you happy.’

‘Who are you to judge what makes me happy?’

‘Because I did once. And that means I still know what it feels like to hold it here.’ He held up a closed fist.

‘Goodnight, Bay.’

Head lowered, feet scuffing, he sucked a shaking breath through his teeth. ‘You know my marriage has come unstuck too?’

Pax had a brief, sharp image of the stud-fringed ear, deep, distorted unhappiness. ‘So go home and deal with it.’

‘You’re a hard taskmaster.’

‘I know what’s good for you.’ She held up her own fist. ‘I held it here.’

‘You still do. For God’s sake don’t let go.’ Two more Penhaligon cheek kisses and he was gone.

‘Don’t blaspheme,’ she breathed after him.

She looked up at Cassiopeia and Cepheus, constant onlookers to the waxing moon, still six slices away from Wolf. Then, hugging herself for warmth, she crossed out through the yards, all the dogs at her heels. Bay’s tail-lights were streaking away down the drive.

Luca was by Beck’s stable as she’d known he would be, clean-shaven face still unfamiliar, taking a heartbeat to recognise. She stood beside him and he told her that Mishaal had asked forgiveness, urged on by his wife. Obsessive, driven and bulldozing as always, he couldn’t leave the country without it. ‘He pretended not to know Beck at all.’