Marcus looked across at me and smiled broadly. ‘But there’s no feeling on earth like that of winning. Winning is everything. No one ever remembers who comes second—or cares.’

He was so right. I thought back again to my time in the saddle. I’d chased the same dream for almost ten years. My attitude then had undoubtedly been ‘win or nothing,’ and I’d been a dreadful loser, blaming myself, the trainer, the ground, or the opposition, but never my horse, who I always felt had done its best, even if its best wasn’t good enough to win.

‘So what happens now?’ Marcus asked, bringing us back to the serious matter in hand. ‘I’m not going to the BHA, if that’s what you’re after.’

‘It’s not, at least not for now. My first suggestion is that you change your agent.’

‘I’ve tried that,’ he replied. ‘But he tells me that the video of me counting the money will be posted on social media if I do.’

‘Have you actually seen this video?’ I asked.

‘Sure have. He showed it to me right here in this room. I’m standing over there by the window,’ he pointed, ‘counting the wedge. Course, he gives me the two hundred quid in tenners, doesn’t he, so it takes me a while to count them.’

‘But you could just be counting money that is legitimate, maybe obtained from a cash machine.’

He looked at me. ‘Use a bit of common. I don’t hardly have twenty quid in my bank account, let alone two hundred. So how do I get twenty ten-pound notes from a cash machine?’

‘But it still doesn’t prove you have done anything wrong.’

‘It does when you add the bloody voice recording to it.’

‘So what does that say?’

‘It’s basically me agreeing to prevent a horse called Second Yellow from winning the two-and-a-half-mile novice hurdle at Catterick on New Year’s Day.’

‘But isn’t Valance’s voice on the recording as well?’

‘Course not. He’s far too fucking clever for that. Edits himself out of it, doesn’t he. It’s just mine. He even got me to repeat back to him what he wanted me to do just to make sure I got it right. I’m too damn stupid for my own good.’

And too trusting, I thought. Just as he’d trusted that Charles was calling from the BHA the previous evening in order to get his name and address.

‘But the video will still be on his phone,’ I said. ‘That must prove that he’s involved.’

‘But it won’t be on his phone after he uploads it onto YouTube, and then deletes it, will it? It’s all a fucking disaster.’