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Cosmo.’
    ‘I quite like Cosmo,’ confessed Dora. ‘He’s funny and we both have mothers who are embarrassingly bats about you.’
    ‘Shut up, Dora,’ snapped Rupert. ‘We need to talk about Mrs Wilkinson.’
    ‘Did you see Amanda Platell’s piece in the
Mail
, about the doctors’ surgeries teeming with women suffering from loss of libido, and suggesting the perfect cure was Rupert Campbell-Black?’
    ‘Don’t be even more fatuous,’ said Rupert irritably. But he smirked slightly. ‘Now about this stolen service.’
    On cue, Dora’s chocolate Labrador, Cadbury, wandered in from Taggie’s kitchen, and all Rupert’s dogs woke up and fell on him, barking joyously. ‘Go back to your boxes. Stop that bloody awful din!’ roared Rupert.
    ‘Din, because they want their dinner, ha, ha. Can Cadbury have some too?’
    ‘Shut up, Cuthbert.’ Rupert pulled a Jack Russell on to his knee, shutting its yapping jaws with his hand and asked: ‘Can you remember exactly what day Love Rat covered Mrs Wilkinson?’
    ‘About a fortnight before the National.’
    Rupert looked up at the calendar. ‘Foal in February then.’
    ‘Mrs Wilkinson’s had a lovely day,’ sighed Dora, edging off the subject again, ‘opening a supermarket in Cotchester. Huge cheering crowds turned out to pat her and Chisolm. They do adore the attention.’
    ‘With a valuable foal inside, she ought to be taking it easy.’
    ‘Mares can run up to a hundred and twenty days,’ chided Dora. ‘Mrs Wilkinson’s a working mother, has to earn her keep.’ Then, deflecting Rupert’s shaft of disapproval: ‘And did you know that people are Skyping Chisolm from all over the world? She’s got a website called Skypegoat. Isn’t that a cool joke?’
    ‘Quite,’ said Rupert, who was then fortunately distracted by a monitor on which jockeys and horses were going down to the start of the Curragh. There was Promiscuous, son of Love Rat, looking really well.
    Dora looked out of one window at the squirrels fighting in the angelic green of Rupert’s beechwoods, which formed a great crescent round the rear of the house.
    Turning back to Dora, Rupert said: ‘Do you realize Love Rat’s stud fee is £100,000?’
    ‘Goodness,’ she said, then gave a sigh of relief as Valent walked in. ‘Hi, Valent, hope you had a lovely honeymoon. Mrs Wilkinson missed you both. Must go and counsel Emilia some more. Dum, da, da, dum de dum,’ sang Dora as beaming, followed by five dogs, she sidled out of the room.

2
    Rupert respected Valent Edwards. He couldn’t push him around and, despite being strong, tough and hugely successful, Valent didn’t take himself at all seriously; nor, although humble about his working-class origins, was he remotely chippy. An ex-Premier League footballer, whose legendary Cup Final-winning save was still remembered, Valent had been a great athlete who, like Rupert, on giving up had channelled his ambition and killer instinct into finding gaps in world markets. The fact that both men had made a huge amount of money didn’t deter them from being hell bent on beating their rivals and making a great deal more.
    In his late sixties, tall, handsome, hefty of shoulder and square of jaw, with black eyebrows and grey hair rising thickly without the aid of any product, Valent had been described by Louise Malone, one of Rupert’s most comely stable lasses as: ‘A cross between my dad and my granddad, but you still want to shag him.’
    Having married Mrs Wilkinson’s owner, Etta Bancroft, Valent had returned from a four-week honeymoon looking tanned and happy.
    ‘How was it?’ asked Rupert, handing him a can of beer.
    ‘Grite, went by in a flash.’
    ‘You were bloody lucky, it’s been raining since you left.’
    Glancing round the room, Valent caught sight of the Stubbs. ‘Christ, that’s you.’
    ‘No, a distant ancestor, Rupert Black.’
    Valent moved closer. ‘But he’s exactly like you,’ he said incredulously. ‘Where d’you get