‘I don’t have any family. Emma and I divorced years ago.’

I rather wished he hadn’t mentioned divorce.

‘How about kids?’

‘We had two, a boy and a girl, teenagers they were, but they blamed me for the divorce. They went with Emma and said they never wanted to see me again. And they haven’t. That was near on ten years ago now.’

‘But they must still be worried.’

‘Delighted, more like.’ He laughed briefly. ‘Most of the time we were married, Emma wanted me to drop dead.’

‘Why did the children blame you for the divorce?’ I asked.

‘Because they caught me fucking a stable girl in the hay barn. Went straight off to grass me up to their mother. Stupid of me, really. Sudden impulse. The girl offered and I accepted, but it was no big deal, not until my kids made it one. But I was fed up with the marriage anyway. Happy to get out of it, if the truth be told. It might have been nice to have kept in touch with the kids, mind, but it doesn’t bother me, especially after they were so bloody nasty to me at the time. I say good riddance to all of them.’

How sad. The thought of never seeing my darling Saskia again filled me with dread and horror.

Gary turned his head and looked out of the car windows, as if perhaps checking that Emma and his children weren’t out there somewhere looking in.

‘So what are you going to do now?’ I asked him. ‘Rebuild the yard?’

‘Maybe. Not sure yet.’

‘Were you insured?’

‘Oh, yeah. Course. Fully covered for the buildings, and for loss of earnings.’

‘How about the horses?’

‘Not by me. Not my property. That’s up to the owners, but I doubt it. Rupert may have been but not the others. Jumpers are notoriously expensive to insure.’

He glanced down at my left hand.

‘I heard you got a new mitt,’ he said. ‘Does it work?’

I lifted it up and twiddled the fingers.

‘So am I forgiven now?’

‘I never blamed you. It was an accident.’

‘And I could have landed on your face.’

Would that have been worse? Possibly not, provided it hadn’t killed me, of course.

‘So when are you going to speak to the police?’ I asked him.

‘Not until after I’ve spoken to you about something.’

‘Okay. Here I am. So what is it you want to talk about?’

He shifted in his seat and looked straight at me.

‘Sid, someone is making a mockery of racing.’

‘In what way?’