During the races, the various booths contained not only the course race caller but also the judge, the race stewards, television cameramen, as well as the photo-finish technicians, who were on a higher level still immediately above the judge’s booth, accessed by a second metal staircase at the far end.
It was a strange world that the public never saw, with multiple cables running along the tops of the undecorated walls, each essential for carrying the pictures and sound to the racetrack crowd and beyond.
I went to the end of the corridor and climbed the staircase to the photo-finish booth. Opposite was a door that opened out onto the grandstand roof. I unlocked the door and stepped out.
The Kempton grandstand had been built in 1997, and, like many similar projects of the time, much of its structural support was gained from a tubular steel framework that sat above the roof like a series of gigantic wire coat hangers.
There were a number of intersecting walkways that allowed access to the various air-conditioning units and the multitude of electronic aerials and satellite dishes, which were spread out all over the place. Each of the walkways had a metal grille floor and railings down either side to prevent anyone straying off them onto the roof itself.
I knew from experience that it was possible to see the parade ring from one of the walkways. I’d used it before, the previous year, when I’d twisted my ankle and didn’t fancy going all the way down to ground level to see the horses.
I now spent a few moments checking the jockeys’ silks. It was rare, but not unknown, for the printing in the paper to be wrong—for example, if a horse had been sold the night before a race and was running in the new owner’s colors, something that was not that uncommon in the Grand National.
But on this occasion I was satisfied that all were attired as expected and I made my way back down to the commentary booth in time to describe them to the crowd as they cantered around the end of the track to the seven-eighths-of-a-mile start point on the far side of the course.
This time when the horses spread out as they entered the stretch, I was ready for the “Clare moment,” as I decided to call it, when all the jockeys were facing me and each one of them reminded me of her. This time, in some strange way, I felt somewhat comforted by it rather than being overcome.
Far from trying to put Clare out of my mind in case it was too upsetting, I wanted to remember her every day, and this would be the way I would do it.
Suddenly I was more at ease with life, and I realized that, as for my father, feelings of guilt over Clare’s death had overshadowed and distorted my grief. From that moment on, I told myself, I was going to rejoice in the memory of her brief existence and do my best to protect it.
Not that I didn’t still feel terrible guilt over not answering the telephone calls from Clare that night. I did. And I lay awake for hours most nights rehearsing to myself what I could have done better to prevent the disaster.
But Jim Metcalf’s advice to say nothing and to do nothing was for the old indecisive me. The new resolute and well-focused me would call Toby Woodley’s bluff and make him prove what he was claiming was true or else admit that he couldn’t.
—
I DID GO DOWN to the weighing room after the second race and instead of avoiding people who might ask me questions about the front page of the Daily Gazette or the piece in the Racing Post I started every conversation by saying how ridiculous it was and how Toby Woodley was just a little insect that needed stamping on.
“A worm is more like it,” said Jack Laver, the racetrack broadcast technician who had made me the tea at Lingfield. “Nasty piece of work, that one. He was here earlier. Always tries to snoop round the weighing room to see if there’s any gossip he can use or make up. The Clerk threw him out.”
The Clerk of the Scales presided in the weighing room like a judge in a courtroom, sitting behind a desk and ensuring that everything was done correctly, including keeping the press out.
His primary role was to ensure that all the jockeys “weighed out” for each race at the correct weight and also that the winner and those who placed “weighed in” again afterward, together with any other jockeys that the Clerk may choose at his sole discretion. He also had to ensure that each jockey was wearing the correct colors and had the right equipment, such as blinkers or a visor, which the horse may have been declared as wearing.
And all the jockeys called him sir.
Not that they weren’t averse to trying to fool him—usually because they were having trouble getting down to the required weight.
“Cheating Boots” have been around almost since racing first began—ultralight, paper-thin riding boots used only for weighing out, which the wearer then illegally exchanges for a more substantial pair back in the jockeys’ room well out of sight of the Clerk. Weighing back in is not a problem as riders are allowed up to two extra pounds to provide for rain-soaked clothes or accumulated mud thrown up from the track.
These days, a jockey’s racing helmet is not included in his riding weight, unlike his saddle which is. However, the colored cap that is worn over the helmet is included, but there are always those who will try to place the cap down on the Clerk’s table while weighing out.
Every little bit helps.
In truth, it was all a bit of a game, and just like the school-teacher and his miscreant pupils, the Clerks of the Scales were wise to jockeys’ schemes and almost always won, but that didn’t stop them from trying.
“Everything all right up top?” Jack asked. “Monitor OK?”
“Fine,” I said, “as long as I can turn down the brightness a bit now that it’s getting dark.”
“There are some buttons on the side,” Jack said. “Click the menu button twice, then use the down button on the brightness. Or do you need me to do it?”
“I’m sure I’ll manage,” I said. “I’ll come back after the next if I can’t.”
I went out to the parade ring, keeping a careful watch out for Toby Woodley. I really didn’t want to come face-to-face with him tonight. I wasn’t at all sure I could restrain myself from hitting him and that surely wouldn’t have helped the situation.
I stood and watched the horses for the third race walking around and around, noting on my race program that two of them were wearing sheepskin nosebands. Some trainers ran all their horses in nosebands. They thought it made them easier to spot, which was true as long as everyone didn’t do it.
—
THE LAST of the eight races was not until after nine o’clock and by then many of the crowd had made their way home, not least because the evening had cooled considerably.
As my commentary of the race echoed around the deserted grandstands, I wondered if anyone at the course was actually listening to me, although I hoped that some at home might be via their televisions.
“Thanks, Mark,” said a voice into my headphones as I switched off the microphone for the last time.
“Pleasure, Gordon,” I replied, pushing the right button. Gordon was another of the RacingTV producers. “See you at Warwick tomorrow?”
“No,” he replied. “Derek will be back doing Warwick. I’m in the studio tomorrow, then I’ll be at Haydock Friday and Saturday. You?”
“I’m presenting for Channel 4 on Saturday at Newmarket. Friday’s a rare day off for me.”
“Have fun. Bye, now.”
There was a click in my ears, and the system went dead. It was time to go home.
I packed my binoculars, colored pens, and race programs into my bag, went down to ground level, and followed the last remaining punters out past the parade ring in the direction of the parking lots.
By that time of night, there was a definite chill in the air, and I wished I’d brought my coat with me after all. But it was only a hundred and fifty yards or so to my car and I hurried along toward it.
I never go
t there.
—
TOBY WOODLEY was in the parking lot, standing beside a white van.
If I’d seen him sooner, I’d have made a detour to avoid him, but as it was I came around the back of the van and there he was only about six feet away. I stopped.
“What the bloody hell do you want?” I asked him.
He didn’t answer but rolled his head toward me. He was actually leaning against the side of the van with his head back against the metal.
“Are you all right?” I asked.
He didn’t reply.
I stepped forward toward him just as he slithered sideways down the side of the van, catching him just before he landed facedown. Even in the relatively dim glow of the parking lot lighting, a bright red streak of blood was clearly visible on the van’s white panel.
“Help!” I shouted as loudly as I could. “Help! Somebody call an ambulance.”
I turned Toby on his back and looked into his face as I struggled to remove my cell phone from my pocket. His eyes had an air of mild surprise in them. I thought he was trying to say something, but it was just the sound of his rasping breath. There were flecks of bright scarlet blood in the froth coming from his mouth.
“Help!” I shouted again. “Get an ambulance.”
A man came running over toward me as I finally managed to extract my phone. “Call an ambulance,” I said, tossing it to him.
“What’s wrong with him?” the man asked.
“I think he’s been stabbed,” I said. “There’s lots of blood.”
The man glanced at the side of the van and pushed 999 on my phone.
I looked back at Toby’s face. The air of surprise seemed to have gone. Now he was just staring, but his eyes didn’t see. The rasping breath was no more.
“I think he’s dead,” I said to the man. “He’s stopped breathing.”
“Has he got a pulse?”
I tried to feel his wrist, but the only beat I could detect was from my own heart thumping away.
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Give him mouth-to-mouth,” said the man. “The ambulance is on its way.”
Not surprisingly, kissing Toby Woodley had not been on my planned agenda for the day, but nevertheless I tilted his head back, put my lips over his, and breathed into him. There was no noticeable movement of his chest, so I tilted his head back farther and repeated the drill.
“Keep going,” said the man. “I’ll do chest compressions.”
The man knelt down next to me and started vigorously pumping with his hands up and down on Toby’s breastbone as I breathed into Toby’s mouth.
We went on like that for a good five minutes.
“Bloody hell,” said the man, pausing for a moment, “this is hard work.”
“Do you want to swap?” I said.
“No,” he replied. “Keep going as we are.”
“Does he have a pulse now?” I asked between breaths.
“Just keep going,” said the man, resuming his chest compressions.
So we kept going for what seemed like at least another five minutes until an array of bright blue flashing lights announced the arrival of an ambulance and two green-clad paramedics came running over to us followed by a sizable group of onlookers, some of them with camera phones held high.
One of the paramedics bared Toby’s chest and attached some sticky patches to his skin while the other connected leads to the patches and also to a yellow box with a small screen on the front. Even I could tell that the trace on the screen was flat and lifeless.
One of the paramedics pulled another box from his large green bag and soon had two metal plates placed on either side of Toby’s chest.
“All clear,” he called, making sure no one was touching Toby. “Shocking!”
Toby’s body convulsed for a moment, then lay motionless again. The line on the screen, meanwhile, stayed completely flat.
“All clear again,” called the paramedic. “Shocking!”
He repeated the process another three times while his colleague injected something into Toby’s arm. That wouldn’t do much good, I thought, not without any circulation. For all their effort, the trace on the screen never even flickered.
The paramedics took over the mouth-to-mouth and chest compressions, and they went on for far longer than I would have expected, each time they stopped, the line on the screen remaining stubbornly flat. They shocked Toby yet again and shone a flashlight in his eyes.
“No pressure,” said one. “No vital signs. CPR terminated at . . .”—he looked at his watch—“nine forty-five.” He began to pack up his equipment.
“What happened?” the other paramedic asked me, all urgency having suddenly evaporated.
“He’s been stabbed,” I said.
“What with?” he asked while pulling Toby’s shirt wider and looking down his abdomen. “And where?”
“There’s blood on his back,” I said. And, I suddenly realized, I was kneeling in the stuff. A great pool of it surrounded Toby’s body. All those chest compressions, I thought, had done nothing more than pump the blood out of him.
The police arrived in force, and suddenly the atmosphere changed again. It was no longer just a racetrack parking lot. It had become a murder scene.
11
Now, Mr. Shillingford, are you absolutely sure that Mr. Woodley was alive when you first saw him in the parking lot?”
“Yes,” I said. “Quite sure. He was leaning against the white van, and he moved his head round to look at me when I spoke to him.”
I was sitting in a cubicle in a mobile police incident room that had been parked in a corner of the Kempton Park racetrack parking lot, well away from the square white tent that now stood over the spot where Toby Woodley had died.
And I was cold.
“Can’t you get me something warmer?” I asked the detective who was asking the questions. “I’m freezing in this.” I fingered the white nylon coveralls I had been given to put on when my clothes had been removed and bagged for forensic purposes. Ignominiously, I had been made to stand in my underwear, shivering, as a masked forensic officer, also dressed from head to foot in white nylon, had examined my skin, hair, fingernails, and mouth for any clues.
“There’s a tracksuit on its way from the station,” said the detective, “and a pair of training shoes.” He gesticulated at another policeman, who had been sitting quietly listening to our conversation. The second man stood up and went out of the cubicle, closing the door behind him.
If the rest of me was cold, my feet were like blocks of ice, resting as they were on the freezing metal floor of the glorified van.
“Did Mr. Woodley say anything to you?” the detective asked once again.
“No,” I repeated. “I told you, he just slid down the side of the van and died.”
“So why did you tell the paramedic that Mr. Woodley had been stabbed?”
“Because of the blood on the van,” I said patiently. “I just presumed he’d been stabbed.”
“I see,” he said, making a note.
“And was he?” I asked.
“Was he what?”
“Stabbed?”
“The autopsy will determine that, sir,” the detective said formally.
The second policeman came back into the cubicle and sat down again on the same upright chair as before. He shook his head, and I took that to mean the tracksuit and training shoes were not yet here. I went on shivering.
“When can I go home?” I asked the detective.
“That will be up to my superintendent,” he replied unhelpfully.
I looked at my watch. It was well past eleven o’clock and nearly two hours since Toby Woodley’s life had expired.
“Look,” I said, “could you please tell your
superintendent that I need to go home now. I’ve got to be up tomorrow in time to go to work.”
“And what is your work, sir?” the detective asked.
“I’ve already told you.” My patience was beginning to run rather thin. “I’m a race caller and TV presenter. I was commentating here tonight, and I found Mr. Woodley in the parking lot as I was leaving. I tried to help him, but I couldn’t. He died in spite of another man and me giving him artificial respiration. That’s all I can tell you. And now,” I said, standing up, “I’d like to go home.”
The detective, who remained seated in his chair, looked up at me.
“Mr. Shillingford,” he said, “have you read today’s Daily Gazette?”
I stood there looking back at him. “Am I under arrest?” I asked.
“No, of course not,” the detective said, smiling. “We just need you to remain here a while longer to help us with our inquiries.”
“And how about if I say I’m going home anyway?”
“That wouldn’t be wise,” he said.
No. Then I probably would be arrested.
I thought back over the interview.
“You haven’t asked me why I think Mr. Woodley was attacked.”
“No, sir,” said the detective without elaborating.
“Why not?” I asked.
“All in good time, sir,” he replied.
We sat in silence for a while, and I wondered what the police were doing that took so long. Looking for a knife, I supposed. That’s it, I thought, they couldn’t arrest me for stabbing Toby unless they could find the knife because otherwise there was no way I could have done it.
And maybe they wouldn’t ask me why I thought Toby had been stabbed until they knew whether I could have done it. Perhaps it would affect how they asked their questions.
I sat there hoping the killer had taken the murder weapon away with him. Knowing my luck, he’d have thrown it away under my car.
Someone came into the cubicle carrying a folded tracksuit and a pair of training shoes. Thank goodness, I thought. My feet had lost all feeling.
Dick Francis's Bloodline (9781101600931) Page 13
