by Francis - TO THE HILT

I unbolted and opened both halves of the vacant box next door and, grabbing the groggy Surtees by the back of his collar and by his belt, half ran him, half flung him into the space, closing both halves of the door and slapping home the bolts.

Xenia screeched and kicked her door. Surtees had yet to find his voice. Out of breath, I went over to Emily, whose expression was a mixture of outrage and laugh.

'Now what?' she said.

'Now I bolt you into Golden Malt's box so that none of this is your fault, and decamp with the horse.'

She stared. 'Are you serious?'

'None of this is serious, but it's not very funny, either.'

We could both hear Xenia 's muffled shrieks.

'She'll upset all the horses,' Emily said, calming Golden Malt with small pats. 'I did think you might ride this fellow away again,' she said. 'I was just saddling him when Surtees came. The saddle is over there, in his box.'

I walked across the yard and found the saddle, which I carried back and fixed in place. There was a full net of hay in the box also, and a head collar for tying up a horse more comfortably than with a bridle. I carried them out and threaded them together with the zipped bag I'd brought, taking out the helmet but slinging the rest over the withers of the horse, in front of the saddle; like saddle bags of yore.

Then I took the reins from Emily and walked with her to the empty box. She went inside and I bolted the bottom half of the door.

'You'd better hurry,' she said calmly. The lads will arrive in less than half an hour for evening stables, and Surtees will have the police looking for you five minutes after that.'

I kissed her over the stable door.

'It will be dark in the next hour,' she said. 'Where will you go?'

'God knows.'

I kissed her again and bolted her into her temporary prison, and hauled myself into Golden Malt's saddle and, buckling on the helmet, set off again onto the Downs.

I needed the helmet for anonymity more than safety. So universal was the wearing of helmets that a head without one would have been remembered, even in a part of the country where horses were commoner than cows.

Golden Malt, to my relief, showed no reluctance to go along the stretch of road leading to the familiar track up to the training grounds, and seemed, if I understood him at all, to be reassured by being ridden and directed, not running loose and having to find his own way home.

Even at four in the afternoon there were other horses around in the distance. Golden Malt whinnied loudly and received an echoing response from afar, which caused him to nod his head as if in satisfaction: he went along sweetly, not trying to buck me off.

The problem was that I didn't know where to go. Surtees might indeed send the police after me, and although they wouldn't try to catch me on horseback like a Wild West posse, at some point or other I would very likely find myself vulnerably back on a road. Out of sight - that was the thing.

I tried to remember the map Emily and I had spread out in the kitchen, but I'd been concentrating on the way to Foxhill then, and I certainly couldn't go back there. Emily had a Patsy-informant in her yard - one of her lads making a little extra money from Surtees -and so, now, maybe, had her Foxhill friend. No good risking it.

The rolling sea of grass on Lambourn Downs was to my eyes featureless. I'd been up there fairly often with Emily in her Land Rover, but it had been five or six years ago. I looked back and could no longer distinguish the track home.

Think .

Monday, late afternoon. Time for all horses to go to their stables for food, for night.

I decided to be ordinary; to conform. It would be the abnormal, like an unhelmeted head, that would draw comment and attention and questions.

I thought again of the Ridgeway. I wouldn't get lost on it.

I might get found on it.

Golden Malt trotted happily the length of Mandown, his regular exercise ground. It was when I stopped at the far end and didn't turn his head back towards home that he grew restive.

I patted his neck and talked to him, as Emily would have done.

'Never mind, old fellow, we're safe out here,' I murmured over and over, and it was the lack of panic in the voice of confidence, that I think calmed him. I was afraid he would by-pass the false front and go instinctively for the underlying doubt, but he slowly relaxed and waited patiently, twitching his ears forward and back as untroubled horses do, leaving his future in my hands.

Unwelcome though the thought had been, I'd accepted that we might have to stay out on the Downs all night. I could otherwise amble into someone's stable yard or farm and ask for stabling until morning, but this wasn't normal any longer in the age of cars. There were motels but no horsetels; not anyway for unannounced strangers on thoroughbreds.

Shelter.

The weather was fine, though chilly. It wasn't too cold for Golden Malt's survival, but he was used to a snug box with food and drink provided, and perhaps a rug. An animal of racehorse calibre wouldn't stand quiet for even an hour if one simply tied his reins to a railing. He would break free and kick up his heels in a V sign as he galloped to the horizon. While red carpets might be out, four walls and water were essential.

There were two hours left until darkness. It took me nearly all of that time to find a place that Golden Malt would enter.

There were various huts on the Downs where the groundsmen kept equipment, but none of those would be big enough or empty enough, or would have running water. What I needed was the sort of shelter farmers built at a distance from their home yards, providing walls and roofs against hail and gales, and troughs for their stock to drink from.

The first two such shelters I came to were both filthy inside, thick with droppings. More importantly, Golden Malt wouldn't drink the water. He whiffled his nose and lips over the surface and turned his fastidious head away: and it was no good getting angry, I had to trust to his equine sense.

The third shelter I came to looked just as unappetising, but Golden Malt walked into it amiably and then came out and drank from the trough even before I'd removed bits and pieces from the water's surface.

Much relieved, I waited until he'd drunk his fill and then walked back in with him, and found a comfort in the shape of an iron ring let into the wall. Exchanging the head collar for the bridle I fastened the horse into his new quarters and positioned the hay net where he could eat when he wanted. I unsaddled him and took the saddle outside where he couldn't step on it, and finally - and resignedly - took stock of my own situation.

Like almost all such shelters, its windowless walls faced chiefly north and west and south against the prevailing winds. The east wall was pierced by the entry, which of course had no door. By good luck, although the air was always on the move on the uplands, there was no strong wind that evening, and although the temperature dropped with darkness, I felt more at home in the open than inside with the horse.

I unzipped the holdall and thankfully put on the padded jacket, which alone made the night enterprise feasible. Then I folded the holdall thickly to make a cushion and propped the saddle against the wall for a chair back, and reckoned I'd spent far worse hours on Scottish mountains.

After dark, the clear sky blazed with depths of stars, and in the folds of the Downs below me, little clumps of distant lights assured me that this solitude was relative: and solitude, to me, anyway, was natural.

Inside the shelter, Golden Malt steadily chomped on his hay and made me feel hungry. I'd eaten breakfast in London and a chocolate bar on the train to Didcot, but I hadn't had the foresight to fill the holdall with enough for dinner.