‘Okay, thanks,’ I said. ‘And I’ll definitely be at Heathrow to meet you on Friday, I promise.’

‘That’s if I haven’t changed my mind by then.’

She hung up.

Take me or leave me, just the way I am.

But Marina had changed me, dramatically. After my first marriage to Jenny, Charles’s daughter, had ended in such acrimony and spite, I had firmly decided never again to get romantically involved with a woman, let alone pledge my troth to one.

I had been afraid that, as had happened with Jenny, pain and despair would quickly follow any love and excitement, so I believed it was best not to be in love in the first place. But Marina had broken through my determination to live a henceforth bachelor life. Indeed, she had swept away my resolve not to fall in love again with her first spine-tingling kiss on my lips.

But, in fact, had I been right all along? Were pain and despair about to replace, once again, the love and excitement of the past twelve years?

But Marina had changed me in other ways, too. The most intense change was in her allowing me to become a father. To watch my child be born into this world, then grow from being a helpless crying baby into a true human individual with all the emotions, strengths and weaknesses that we all possess, and for me to have helped mould that individual into the loving, caring person that Saskia has become, was a joy beyond measure.

So, whatever might happen between Marina and myself in the future, Saskia would always be a huge part of both of us and, as such, the last ten years would never be viewed by me as the wasteland of recrimination and regret that my years with Jenny now were.

‘So did she say yes?’ Chico asked, bringing me back from my daydreaming to the present.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘She did.’

‘Good, well, get on and do it then. Let’s see where he is.’

‘There’s no hurry. Valance may be a villain but he is also, primarily, a jockeys’ agent, so he will have been on the phone at home since early this morning, talking to the trainers, and even some of the owners, trying to sort out which of their entries will actually be declared to run.’

I looked up at the kitchen clock. It was just gone ten o’clock.

‘The declarations for tomorrow’s jump races, and for Wednesday’s flat, were only published a couple of minutes ago, and every declared runner must have a jockey booked for it by one o’clock today. Right now, he’ll be busy calling his jockeys and the trainers again, concluding things and getting the jockeys properly booked in on the Racing Admin website. So we know where he is without using the tag.