Jump.

'Gorgeous. s.h.a.gger's h.e.l.l, "a bitter heart that bides its time and bites", and Toby's a drip. Phoebe's a professional poppet, a raging sn.o.b, flings herself on to people's knees, "Any room for a little one?"'

'You don't fancy her then? She's so pretty.'

'Absolutely not. Chris and Chrissie are on the make, affection beaming out of one eye, calculation out of the other. They aim to do very well with the Fox as the established syndicate meeting place.'

'She's terribly sad about babies,' protested Etta.

'The vicar will be our f.a.g s.h.i.+p, and bless your sweet horse. Alban's a dote, vulnerable as a giraffe. I quite like the Major, but his wife's a bossyboots.'

'She made you a lovely Irish stew,' said Etta reprovingly.

In agreement Priceless began chewing the wooden arm of the sofa.

'So funny.' Seth gave a shout of laughter. 'You know how obsessed she is with dogs not c.r.a.pping? Well, she's now stuck up a large sign outside her garden saying "Please do not let your dog defect here".'

'Oh how lovely,' giggled Etta. 'Imagine all those illegal immigrant dogs being turned away.'

'Ione is a bossyboots too,' went on Seth. 'She was livid last year because Corinna told her trick-or-treating grand-children to f.u.c.k orf. She's always bullying us to tidy up our garden. She must be going through the climate change of life.'

Etta found she was laughing all the time now.

Seth was wearing the same black jeans and black s.h.i.+rt over a pale grey T-s.h.i.+rt, which complemented his sensual, smiling, sun-tanned face and his dark, tousled hair, which was just silvering at the temples. She could listen to his deep voice for ever and watch that firm but full-lipped mouth moving. And he was so confiding and indiscreet and mimicked everyone brilliantly, and was so interested in Wilkie.

'She always squeals when I use the dandy brush on her,' confided Etta. 'If only you could tell animals you haven't deserted them for ever. That Tommy's so sweet.'

'Worth a whole tonful of bricks,' said Seth. 'Shall we heat up some of your daughter-in-law's coq au vin?'

When they had, they agreed that Romy's coq had definitely been cooked by William's Kitchen.

Finally, when Etta reluctantly tore herself away, Seth and Priceless walked her home.

'I'll never get elected to the Parish Council if anyone spots us,' said Seth, tucking his arm through hers.

Priceless, once outside, was galvanized from utter torpor, tossing his head back, beckoning them onwards, seizing Seth's hand gently in his mouth to lead him on, then bouncing off, rustling maniacally through dry fallen leaves.

'What a heavenly dog,' sighed Etta.

'Isn't he?' said Seth. 'If occasionally I can't get back from the theatre, do you think Trixie might walk him for me?'

'I'm sure she would,' said Etta. 'She loves dogs, and if she can't, I will.'

When they reached Etta's door, Seth kissed her on both cheeks. 'I feel I've made a really lovely new friend. Here's to you and Mrs Wilkinson.'

46.

Across the valley that evening, Tommy, who had risen at five thirty to start work at six, retired to the grooms' quarters over the tack room, which she shared with Rafiq. They were very primitive, with no carpets, erratic hot water and windows which banged in the wind. Here they had a tiny bathroom, kitchen and sitting room, and separate bedrooms. Sometimes Rafiq sleepwalked and he would be found next morning asleep in the tack room or by the fountain. Alternatively Tommy was roused by his screaming as he was racked by nightmares. She longed to go in and comfort him, but he had a barbed-wire hauteur which deterred her.

Falling into bed around nine, Tommy was so tired that not even Mrs Wilkinson's anguished hollering could keep her from sleep. But waking at midnight and rising to go to the loo, she found Rafiq's door, which was always firmly shut, wide open. Oh G.o.d, was he sleepwalking again? Racing downstairs, out into the yard, she was amazed not to hear Mrs Wilkinson neighing.

She could see a light on in Collie's house. She knew he was unable to support a wife and children on the pittance Marius paid him. He kept disappearing up the hill to get a signal on his mobile, probably fixing interviews. All the owners loved Collie. He was approachable and knew, and was prepared to discuss, their horses, and he kept peace and order in the yard.

If Collie went, would Marius give his head lad's job to Mich.e.l.le, who was such a b.i.t.c.h?

'Move your fat a.r.s.e,' she'd shouted at Tommy that very evening.

But as Tommy lurked in the tack-room doorway, a figure, wafting scent and with red hair turned green by the moonlight, stole across the yard and let herself in through Marius's kitchen door.

Oh G.o.d, thought Tommy, Mich.e.l.le wouldn't be up to the job, she didn't really like or understand horses. And if Marius went broke, all the remaining horses would go, and poor Mrs Wilkinson and Furious would become victims of a broken home.

The trees and boxes cast ebony shadows, while the little weather throstle gleamed silver. Beneath it was Josh's flat. Through roughly drawn curtains, Tommy could see Tresa's bottom rising and falling much more energetically than it ever did on the gallops. Poor little Trixie, so mad about Josh, thought Tommy, but she was so stunning she'd soon find someone better.

Where was Rafiq? She was amazed by the silence. Tiptoeing across the cobbles, trying not to wake the horses, she pa.s.sed a snoring Furious wrapped round Dilys, his sheep, then from the isolation box she heard music. Creeping up, trying not to rustle the leaves, she found Rafiq singing some beautiful Pakistani lullaby in Mrs Wilkinson's furry grey ear. Arms round her neck, he was stroking her continually. Her head was hooked over his shoulder, her eye drooping. She was nearly asleep.

Tommy melted. Lucky, lucky Mrs Wilkinson. As she crept across the yard, she heard a dull knucker. A bored History Painting was in need of conversation and a Polo. Glancing across the valley, through the thinning willows Tommy could see a light in Etta's bungalow.

On the tack-room landline, she punched out Etta's number.

'Yes? Who's that?' Etta's voice was breathy with panic.

'Sorry to bother you. It's Tommy, I thought you'd like to know, Mrs Wilkinson's fine. Rafiq's taking a particular interest in her and he's in her box, singing her to sleep.'

47.

Rafiq Khan was a twenty-five-year-old Muslim of great beauty, with thick black curls, palest tawny skin the colour of milk chocolate and lightish grey eyes, which set him apart from his countrymen. A few of his family had settled near Birmingham. The majority lived in Pakistan, on the Afghan border.

Rafiq had always been a firebrand, and hero-wors.h.i.+pped his charismatic and militant cousin Ibrahim. Endowed with an exquisite voice, Rafiq had dreamed of becoming a pop star, but his family had steered him firmly into reading science at a higher education college in the Midlands. Here he was recruited to the militant cause and got caught up in terrorist activities. His fervour had been fanned to fanaticism by an American bomb attack on a wedding in Afghanistan which killed several cousins and a girl he loved.

He had, however, chickened out of a plan to blow up a football match a plan that was actually foiled because he didn't want to die or kill people and, just before, had heard his potential victims chattering away in familiar accents.

When subversive literature, videos of other American bomb attacks on Muslim people and a poster saying 'Allah loves those who fight for him' were found in his college room, Rafiq was arrested. He refused to reveal any sources and was given three years, several months of which he spent in gaol before being transferred to an open prison near Larkminster.

Here he met Hengist Brett-Taylor, Miss Painswick's adored exboss. The former headmaster of Bagley Hall, Hengist had been gaoled for three months for cheating on behalf of Dora's boyfriend Paris Alvaston, by rewriting his GCSE history paper.

Rafiq, with

At first Rafiq detested Hengist Brett-Taylor, who was just the sort of authoritarian, empire-building b.a.s.t.a.r.d who had raped and split up India. Rafiq could imagine Hengist, having occupied some Raj palace, sitting with his booted feet up on a jewelled marble table and yelling instructions in a booming voice.

Hengist, however, an ex-England rugger international, had protected Rafiq from predatory inmates and they had become friends. Hengist, who taught history, entirely agreed with Rafiq about the atrocities inflicted on the Muslims throughout the ages.

For hours they discussed the Crusades.

Richard Coeur de Lion in the first Crusade, pointed out Hengist, was exactly like Tony Blair in his deplorable squandering of resources that were desperately needed at home. Hengist also quoted Steven Runciman that the Crusades were 'nothing more than a long act of intolerance in the name of G.o.d'.

He then insisted that Saladin, far from being the fiend portrayed in history lessons, was an absolute sweetheart, who treated prisoners with infinite mercy and forgave his enemies, until Rafiq wanted to hug him.

Hengist, like most great headmasters, had the ability of the morning sun to find a c.h.i.n.k in the tree canopy and beam down on a wild garlic leaf or a first bluebell. Rafiq blossomed in his attention.

Larkminster Prison at the time was pioneering a scheme started in America, in which prisoners looked after retired or rescued racehorses, restoring them to health, so these horses could hopefully move on to other careers such as polo, eventing, dressage or as hunters or hacks.

Rafiq had ridden all his life in a terrain where horses were often the quickest way to travel. Not uncalculating, he also adhered to the Muslim proverb, 'Believe in G.o.d, but tether your camel.'

Although Sergeant Macnab, the prison officer who ran the stables, was a notorious bully, Rafiq initially saw working there as an opportunity to escape. Egged on by Hengist, he offered his services.

On the first day down at the yard, however, Rafiq saw the happiness on the face of a sullen old murderer who'd bonded with a tricky bay mare. Each had at last found something to love and be loved by. All the twenty prisoners enjoyed looking after their charges and the horses were thriving. Rafiq was allotted a trouble-maker called Furious.

Furious had been found in a roofless stable, suffering from rain scald, a skin disease in which scabs form and pustulate because of the acidity of the rain. Hair then comes off, exposing bare skin and lesions, and birds sit on the lesions and attack them. Furious had become so hungry he'd eaten half the wood part.i.tion between his and the next-door stable, in which another horse had already died.

By this time Furious had radiator ribs rising to a razor-sharp backbone and long untrimmed hooves. He was a walking skeleton, covered in skin smeared with dung and sweat marks, and completely lacking in flesh and muscle.

The policeman who found him was all for putting him out of his misery.

'Why shoot him?' said the ILPH inspector. 'If we do, we'll lose the evidence. We're going to rebuild him.'

The trainer, who'd gone bankrupt, was tracked down and sent to prison. After six months of loving care Furious came together, but as he grew well he became increasingly tricky and literally fighting fit.

Rafiq, who loved horses, soon won Furious's trust and a few weeks later proudly paraded the glossy, gleaming chestnut before Hengist and the prison governor. He showed how biddable Furious had become by adjusting the horse's noseband so it most flattered his face and kissing him on the white star on his forehead.

'Don't turn him into a woofter like yourself, Khan,' mocked Sergeant Macnab, who was hovering in the background.

It was a prison rule that because of the insurance, none of the inmates were allowed to ride their charges, only look after them. Rafiq, however, was so incensed by Macnab's insult, he vaulted on to Furious and took off over the six-foot prison wall, hurtling across the fields, jumping every fence and disappearing into the hills.

'b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l,' said the prison governor to Hengist, 'that's the last we'll see of him.'

Just as they were sending out a search party to trail Rafiq in the hope he might lead them to a terrorist cell or even his wicked cousin Ibrahim, Rafiq came galloping back, jumping the last two fences, soaring over the prison wall, pulling up a docile, delighted Furious.

'This is a great horse. He must go back into training,' Rafiq announced haughtily. But as the prison governor moved forward to make much of Furious, the horse flattened his ears and tried to bite him. 'But only with me to look after him. Muslims, contrary to propaganda, love animals,' went on Rafiq. 'Saladin better man than your St Francis. When they meet, St Francis offer to walk on hot coals, just to prove his love for G.o.d. Saladin just smile gently and say, "My G.o.d doesn't need me to prove my love."'

After Hengist left prison, Rafiq continued to look after the prison horses for another eighteen months. He learnt almost as much from a friends.h.i.+p he forged with an inmate called Jimmy Wade, who had worked for Harvey-Holden. Jimmy had been imprisoned for pa.s.sing on information for reward and deliberately pulling several favourites. During their long conversations, Jimmy admitted he had broken the law because stable lads' wages, particularly those paid by H-H, were so lousy, he couldn't keep up his mortgage.

Both he and Rafiq had followed Mrs Wilkinson's court case. During their conversation, Jimmy had confided that he knew the dreadful fate of Usurper before she became Mrs Wilkinson and the unimaginably cruel way she had been treated.

'They torture Muslims like that in detention camps,' shuddered Rafiq, 'They slash you with razors and rub in salt. They cut off your p.e.n.i.s so you can't breed any more terrorists.'

The British police, seeking information about Ibrahim, hadn't been any too gentle either.

Jimmy and Rafiq had made plans to keep in touch and find work in the same yard. Rafiq was therefore devastated to learn, shortly after his friend's release and only a month before his own, that Jimmy had been knocked down and killed by a car. Rafiq therefore had twin secrets he was desperate to keep, the where-abouts of his cousin Ibrahim and the true story of what had befallen Mrs Wilkinson.

During his stint in gaol, Rafiq had gained a certificate in stable management, which enabled him to work in a racing yard. Hengist, who had written regularly to Rafiq, was determined to find him a job when he came out. There was also the problem of Furious, who, despite being castrated, was increasingly colty except when he was with Rafiq, and for safety's sake ought either to be destroyed or to leave the prison at the same time.

Rupert Campbell-Black was not prepared to take on either Rafiq or Furious.

'I don't want him blowing me up. And he might not like Xav having a Muslim girlfriend. Give him to Harvey-Holden, nice if someone blew up that little weasel. He's so far up Judy Tobias's ma.s.sive a.r.s.e, I'm amazed he can see. Or try Marius, he's broke and having a rough time. At least your Paki'll be cheap and Marius is so short of horses he might take on Furious. He must be only four or five.'

So a month before Olivia walked out and Alan and Etta approached Marius with a view to his training Mrs Wilkinson, Rafiq had moved to Throstledown as a stable lad and Marius had bought Furious from the prison for almost nothing.

Marius found Rafiq a truculent, tricky little b.u.g.g.e.r, but watching him on the gallops, he noticed how the boy could coax the last ounce of speed out of a horse with his hands and heels. Furious too could both jump and gallop and had the makings of a really good horse, if his vicious temper could be sorted out. Having got him a sheep friend, Dilys, Marius realized he must set about finding Furious a rich owner. In the yard, a sign saying 'Please don't stroke me, I bite' was hung outside his box.

The same could be hung outside Rafiq's bedroom, reflected Tommy. Her father, a detective sergeant, had tipped her off that MI5 and the police were keeping Rafiq under surveillance and not to get too close to him.

Tommy couldn't help it. She dreamed of Rafiq pulling her into his arms just as Furious wrapped himself round Dilys the sheep.

48.

Later in September, Marius had a stroke of luck. A bedding billionaire called Bertie Barraclough, enn.o.bled for his services to sleep and s.e.xual enterprise, telephoned asking Marius to find him a horse he could give to his wife, appropriately named Ruby, for a ruby wedding present.

Bertie and Ruby, a devoted, very jolly couple, who looked as though they'd spent the forty years of their marriage romping on Bertie's vast bouncy beds, had met Marius and Olivia at some horse awards ceremony in London. Although enchanted by Olivia, they had been shocked when she ran off with Shade Murchieson, who had crossed Bertie once too often in business. Feeling very sorry for Marius and not knowing anything about horses, Bertie turned to him for advice. Marius could have waited for the sales in October. Needing the money, however, he decided to offer them Furious, and asked them down for break-fast and to watch the last lot of the day, which was virtually the only lot because there were so few lads and horses left.

Another problem was the horse himself, who'd probably bite Ruby's plump jewel-laden fingers if she tried to stroke him. Only with Rafiq was he remotely biddable. But smouldering Rafiq, who dreaded Furious being sold in case his new owner took him to another trainer, could not be relied on to show Furious off to best advantage.

Tommy, petrified Marius would sack Rafiq for scuppering any deal, offered to ride Furious herself. Marius agreed and put an outraged Rafiq up on Oh My Goodness. As the horses left the yard, fortunately just before the Barracloughs arrived, Furious carted Tommy then threw himself down on the track, hurling Tommy over his head into a hawthorn bush, to the noisy amus.e.m.e.nt of Mich.e.l.le, Tresa and the rest of the lads. None of them, however, was keen to take Tommy's place, so Marius ordered up Trixie's f.e.c.kless boyfriend, Josh, a good if flashy rider who modelled himself on Rogue Rogers.

It was a glorious morning with the valley silvered by a first frost and the leaves turning gold to match Furious's radiant chestnut beauty. All went well on the gallops, as an enraptured Bertie and Ruby stood hand in hand watching Furious thunder past.

'Why's he called Furious?' asked Bertie.

'Because he's fast and furious,' replied a doting Ruby. 'I can't wait to lead him in. You can wear the topper you wore to the palace, Bertie.'

Next, Josh, crouched over the horse's ears in his best Rogue Rogers fas.h.i.+on, tried to take Furious over a row of fences. Furious, with other ideas, jammed on his brakes, nearly propelling Josh over his head, and tried to eat the first fence.

'How sweet, he's having his breakfast,' cried Ruby.

Furious then took a ma.s.sive bunny jump over the fence, went into a frenzy of bucking, kicking and farting, and uns.h.i.+pped Josh, who, crash-landing and smas.h.i.+ng the mobile in his pocket, launched into a frenzy of expletives, right in front of Ruby and Bertie, who strongly disapproved of swearing in front of a lady. Furious cleared the gate and set off down the drive to Willowwood.

Etta, that same morning, had returned from dropping Drummond and Poppy off at school. Despite Tommy's a.s.surance that Rafiq's singing was soothing Mrs Wilkinson and that she had acquired two admirers, the veteran Sir Cuthbert and a black gelding called Count Romeo who belonged to Marius's brother Philip, Etta missed her and Chisolm more and more unbearably. She had gritted her teeth and stayed away for three weeks, but like a stalker had constantly trained her binoculars across the valley.

Today she could see Mrs Wilkinson with her black and dapple-grey admirers, plus Chisolm and Horace the Shetland, turned out in a different field above Marius's drive. It was hidden from the yard and gallops, which were currently full of activity. Etta's resolve broke.

If she stole over now, she could s.n.a.t.c.h a few undetected minutes with Mrs Wilkinson. Stuffing the pockets of her moth-eaten grey cardigan with Polos, carrots and chopped apple, she set out down through the wood, slipping and clutching at willow fronds, crossing the river by a little bridge. Panting up fields, far more frozen because they faced north, she clambered over the rusty iron railings into Marius's drive. There she heard a clatter of hooves and saw the most beautiful chestnut galloping towards her, reins flying, stirrups clas.h.i.+ng.

'Oh, you darling creature,' cried Etta. Then, as if she were urging Drummond to do up his laces: 'Stop, stop, you'll trip if you're not careful.'