‘A local chap called Henry Asquith. Inherited pots of money from the old Yorkshire wool trade. Bit of an eccentric. Mad keen on his racing, but also on history. He’s chairman of the castle events committee, plus he runs some historical re-enactment society. Spends much of his life fighting past battles, you know, in old uniforms with pikes and muskets. Always pestering for me to allow them to use his horses for the cavalry.’ He laughed. ‘Can you imagine a Thoroughbred as a cavalry horse? It would cause bloody chaos.’ He laughed again. ‘Needless to say, I tell him that if he takes one of his horses out of my yard for that, it won’t be coming back.’

He led me into his stable office, which was hardly tidy itself, with the desk covered in piles of papers, each of them held down by a dirty coffee cup. Among the detritus there was a large computer monitor adorned with yellow Post-it notes stuck all round the edges. I wondered how he managed to enter his horses in any races from this shambles.

He saw me looking at all the clutter.

‘Don’t worry. My secretary knows where everything is. She’s a wizard.’

I think he meant a witch.

Simon had put on quite a lot of weight since I’d last seen him, and he now lowered his considerable bulk gently into a filthy-looking armchair in the corner of the office. I, meanwhile, sat down on the witch’s swivel chair by the desk and turned it round to face him.

‘Now,’ Simon said, looking straight at me, ‘Why are you here, Sid? And don’t give me any more of that “just passing through” claptrap. Is it about Gary’s yard being torched?’

‘What do you know about it?’

‘Me?’ He spread his hands. ‘Nothing. How could I?’

‘So why did you just say that the yard was torched rather than the fire being an accident?’ It was the same turn of phrase that Gary Bremner had used.

Simon was flustered. ‘I never said that.’

‘Yes you did, and it was exactly what you meant. So why?’

His unease deepened considerably.

Maybe my trip north to Middleham was not going to be such a waste of time after all.

‘Come on, Simon, if you know something about it, tell me, or else you’ll have to tell the police.’

‘The police?’

‘Yes. The police. Just a quick word from me and they’ll be round here faster than a Quarter Horse. I’m sure they take arson very seriously in these parts, especially if it results in murder.’

He wasn’t so much flustered now as positively frightened. ‘I tell you, I don’t know anything about it.’

I didn’t believe him.

‘Have you been threatened?’

‘I think it’s time you went,’ he said, struggling to get himself out of the armchair.

‘Simon,’ I said quietly, without moving. ‘I’m on your side.’