by Francis - TO THE HILT

'But it's only Thursday,' I protested.

He would probably be back on Monday.

God damn him, I thought.

Margaret was 'unavailable'.

The big bank cheese had left me a message. 'All the King Alfred Gold Cup race expenses will be honoured by the bank, working closely with Mrs Benchmark who is now organising everything for the day at Cheltenham.'

Bully for Patsy. Big cheeses were putty in her hands.

I drifted through a quiet morning and companionable lunch with my mother and in the afternoon drove to Lambourn, arriving in the hour of maximum bustle; evening stables.

Emily, in her natural element, walked confidently around her yard in her usual fawn cavalry twill trousers, neat and businesslike, instructing the lads, feeling horses' legs, patting necks and rumps, offering treats of carrots, delivering messages of positive love to the powerful shining creatures that rubbed their noses against her in response.

I watched her for some time before she realised I was there, and I vividly understood again how comprehensively she belonged in that life, and how essential it was to her mind's well-being.

While I was still sitting in Ivan's car, a horsebox drove into the yard and unloaded Golden Malt.

He came out forwards, muscles quivering, hooves placed delicately on the ramp as he sought for secure footing, the whole process jerky and precarious: once out, he moved with liquid perfection, his feet on springs, his chestnut coat like fire in the evening sun, the arrogance of great thoroughbreds in every toss of his head.

Impossible not to be moved. He had twice let me lead him into misty unknown distances, taking me on faith. Looking at his splendid homecoming, I didn't know how I'd dared.

I stood up out of the car. Emily, seeing me, came to stand beside me, and together we watched the horse being led a few times round the yard to loosen his leg muscles after the confines of his journey.

'He looks great,' I said.

Emily nodded. 'The short change of scene suited him.'

'And Saturday?'

'He won't disgrace himself.' Her words were judicious, but trembled with the hard-to-control excitement of any trainer who felt there was a chance of winning a big race.

We went into the house where it proved impossible for her to do anything as ordinary as cooking dinner. I hadn't the energy, either.

We ate bread and cheese.

At ten o'clock she went out into her stable yard, as she was accustomed, to check that all her charges were happily settled for the night. I followed her and stood irresolutely in the yard looking up at the stars and the rising moon.

'Em,' I said, as she came towards me, 'will you lend me a horse?'

'What horse?' she asked, puzzled.

'Any.'

'But… what for?'

'I want…' How could I explain it? 'I want to go up onto the Downs… to be alone.'

'Now?'

I nodded.

'Even for you,' she said, 'you've been very silent this evening.'

'Things need thinking out,' I said.

'And it's a matter of the hundred and twenty-first psalm?'

'What?'

'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills,' she said, 'from whence cometh my help.'

'Em.'

'And the Downs will have to do, instead of your mountains.'

Her understanding took my voice away entirely.

Without questions, without arguing, she went across to the tack room and reappeared with a saddle and a bridle. Then she crossed to one of the boxes in the yard and switched on its internal light.

I joined her there.

'This is one of Ivan's other horses. He's not much good, but he's a friendly old fellow. I suppose he's mine now… and as you're Ivan's executor, you've every right to ride him… but don't let him get loose if you can help it.'

'No.'

She saddled the horse expertly, pulling the girth tight.

'Wait,' she said, and made a fast detour back to the house, returning with the blue crash helmet and a padded jacket. Looking at my cotton shirt, she said, 'It'll be cold up there.'

She held the jacket for me to put on. Even though she was careful, it hurt.

'Oliver Grantchester can burn in hell,' she said.

'Em… how do you know?'

'Margaret Morden phoned me today to ask how you were feeling. She told me. She thought I knew.'

She bridled up the horse and unemotionally gave me a leg-up onto his back. She offered me the helmet, but made no fuss when I shook my head. She knew I preferred free air, and I was not going out to gallop.

"Thanks, Em,' I said.

She understood that it was a comprehensive sort of gratitude.

'Get going,' she said.

King Alfred, I thought, had perhaps sat on a horse on the exact place where I'd reined to a halt after a slow walk uphill from Lambourn.

I was on one of the highest points of the Downs, looking east to the valleys where the uplands slid away towards the Thames, that hadn't been a grand waterway in Alfred's lifetime, more a long winding drainage system from the Cotswolds to the North Sea.

King Alfred had been a scholar, a negotiator, a poet, a warrior, a strategist, a historian, an educator, a lawgiver. I wished a fraction of him could be inhaled to give me wisdom, but he had ridden this land eleven hundred and more years ago, when villainy wore its selfsame face but nothing much else was familiar.

It was odd to reflect that it was, of all things, ale that was least changed. The brewery named for the king still flowed with the drink that had sustained and comforted his people.

Ivan's horse walked onwards, plodding slowly, going nowhere under my aimless direction.

The clear sky and weak moonlight were millions of years old. Chill threads of the earth's wind moved in my hair. The perspective of time could cool any fever if one gave it a chance.

One could learn, perhaps, that failure was bearable: make peace with the certainty that all wasn't enough.

I came to the long fallen tree trunk that many trainers on the Downs made use of to give young horses an introduction to jumping. I slid off Ivan's horse to let him rest and sat on the log, holding the reins loosely while the horse bent his head unexcitedly to graze. His presence was in its own way a balm, an undemanding kinship with the natural ancient world.

I had caused in myself more pain than I really knew how to deal with, and the fact that it had been for nothing had to be faced.

It was five days now since I'd been dragged into Grantchester's garden. Five days since the thug called Jazzo, with his boxing gloves and his well-trained technique, had cracked my ribs and hit me with such force that I flinched from the memory as sorely as I still ached in places. I hadn't been able to dodge or in any way defend myself, and the helplessness had only added to the burden.

I could call him a bastard.

Bastard .

It didn't make anything better. Cracked ribs were like daggers stabbing at every movement. Much better not to cough.

As for the grill…

I looked out over the quiet age of the Downs.

Even with the pills, I was spending too long on the absolute edge of normal behaviour. I didn't want to retreat to a drugged inertia while my skin grew back, but it was an option with terrible temptations. I wanted not oblivion but fortitude. More fortitude than I found easy.

The horse scrunched and munched, the bit clinking.

What I had done had been irrational.

I should have told Grantchester where to find the list.

There was no saying, of course, that even if I'd told him the minute I'd set foot in his garden, he would have let me walk out of there untouched. I had seen the sickening enjoyment in his face… I'd heard from Bernie's confession to the police that Grantchester had burned Norman Quorn even though the frantic Finance Director would have told him anything to escape the fire. Grantchester's pleasure in prolonging Quorn's agony had directly led to Quorn's sudden death… from heart failure, from stroke or from shock; one or another. Grantchester's pleasure had in itself denied him the knowledge he sought. The only bright outcome of the whole mess.