‘Too long.’ He paused. ‘Look, Sid, the thing is, I need your help. I’ve been watching you ever since … well, you know why.’

I did know why. Gary had been riding the horse that had destroyed my hand, but it hadn’t been his fault, and we both also knew that.

‘So I’m well aware you do that investigating stuff.’

‘I used to,’ I said, correcting him. ‘I’m now retired from all that.’

After the disastrous encounter with the over-sharpened horseshoe had destroyed my racing career, I had spent many years earning a living as a private investigator, first at a London detective agency called Hunt Radnor Associates, and then as a freelancer. But that was all in the past.

‘Look, Sid, I’m worried,’ Gary said, ignoring me. ‘Someone’s threatening me.’

‘Threatening you? How?’

‘I can’t talk about it over the phone but, to be honest, Sid, I’m shit-scared.’

His voice quivered.

Jump jockeys are a breed apart from the norm. Almost every day, sometimes six or more times, they take their lives in their hands sitting atop half a ton of racehorse galloping at thirty miles per hour over huge obstacles. When the horses fall, as they invariably do at some stage, the jockeys tend to break things—collarbones in particular. If they don’t have the courage to get back up on the next horse in the next race, they might as well quit there and then.

In his youth, Gary had been a jockey for more than ten years—never quite the champion but always fairly near the top of the list. He wasn’t short of courage, but here he was with his voice trembling with fear.

‘Can you come and see me?’ he said in a rush, his voice now a tone higher.

Gary was a trainer at Middleham in Yorkshire, two hundred miles away.

‘Sorry, mate. No way. Like I told you, I’m retired from investigating. Anyway, I have to be at home for family reasons.’

‘Come on, Sid. I need to see you. Just to get some advice.’

I sighed. ‘Okay. But if you won’t talk on the phone, you’ll have to come here.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I can’t leave the yard. I need to be here to look after the horses.’

I thought it was a poor excuse. He could surely leave his horses for a day if he really wanted to. His stable staff could tend to them.

‘In that case, Gary,’ I said, ‘I can’t help you.’

There was a little whimper from the other end of the line.

‘Please, Sid,’ he pleaded.

How could I tell him that I had my problems too? The last thing I wanted was to be two hundred miles away if Marina and Saskia came back.

‘No. Not at the moment.’

He hung up abruptly, without even saying goodbye.