I looked down at my left hand. It was undoubtedly part of me. Could I ever contemplate having it removed again, even to save my marriage?

I ate my sandwich and turned on the television for the BBC lunchtime news.

The Middleham stable fire had been shunted even further down the running order, mostly because there was nothing new to report—the cause of the fire was, as yet, unknown and there was still no sign of Gary Bremner.

Again I wondered if I should call the Yorkshire police.

Maybe later.

I flicked over to a different channel to watch the racing from Doncaster.

Doncaster on this Saturday in late March, or the first in early April, had traditionally always been the first day of the flat-racing season in Britain; but now, in a world driven by gambling, flat racing takes place throughout the winter months on the ‘all-weather’ sand tracks. But Doncaster is still the first day of the year when the flat horses race on turf, with the Lincoln Handicap being the feature race, and the TV station was making a big deal of it.

Before the racing started, they included a segment about the fire in Middleham, the glum-faced presenters paying tribute to the ex-jockey turned trainer Gary Bremner, emphasising the fact that it was assumed he had died a hero’s death trying to save his horses.

They also named the three horses known to have died, one of which, Kicking Rupert, I’d heard of as it had finished second in the Cheltenham Gold Cup just two weeks previously. A big bold grey, much loved by the racing public, it had been Gary’s best horse. Such a waste.

My phone rang and I grabbed it in the hope it would be Marina.

It wasn’t.

‘So now do you believe me?’ said a squeaky northern voice.

CHAPTER

4

ON SUNDAY MORNING, having dropped Rosie off at Charles’s house, I drove the two hundred miles north to the Yorkshire Dales town of Middleham.

I thought back to the very strange telephone conversation I’d had with Gary Bremner the previous afternoon.

‘So now do you believe me?’ he’d said.

It was quite a shock, but I kept my voice calm.

‘The police think you’re dead.’

‘And it’s better for me if they go on thinking that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because then they might investigate who killed my horses.’

‘Surely they’ll investigate that anyway, if the fire was arson.’