Why did I exist like this? I had asked myself that question umpteen times over the past weeks as I had struggled with the six steps up from the street to my front door and then the thirteen steps up from there to my sitting room. I had often not bothered with the twelve more to my bedroom, sleeping, instead, stretched out on the sofa. I had no garden, no terrace, no deck, not even a balcony. Just a view of Barnes Common, and even that was obscured in the summer months from all but the topmost bedroom windows by the leaves on the trees.

I had stayed here for the memories but maybe it was time now to make more memories elsewhere. Time to shake off this half-life existence. Time to live my life again to the full.

Steve Mitchell was a shell of his former self. As a jockey, he was well used to existing on meagre rations, and prison food was not exactly appealing to the discerning palate. But it was not the lack of food that had made the greatest difference to Steve, it was the lack of his daily diet of riding up to six races with the muscle toning and stamina which comes from regular exercise as a professional sportsman. He looked pale, thin and unfit, because he was, but he seemed to be coping fairly well mentally, considering the circumstances. Steeplechase jockeys had to be strong in mind as well as in body, to cope with the inevitable injuries that came with the job.

‘What news?’ he said, sitting down opposite me at the grey table in the grey interview room.

‘Not much, I’m afraid,’ I said.

He looked at the crutches lying on the floor beside me. This was the first visit I had been able to make to see him since my fall at Cheltenham.

‘Sandeman?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Read about it in the paper,’ he said. ‘Knees are a bugger.’

‘Yes,’ I agreed.

‘Also read about that bastard Clemens winning the Gold Cup on my bloody horse,’ he said. The ‘bastard’ tag, I noticed, had now been moved from Scot Barlow to Reno Clemens. ‘It’s bloody unfair.’

Yes, it was, but, as my mother had told me as a child, life is unfair.

‘But you did meet with Sir James Horley?’ I said it as a question. ‘When I couldn’t make it last time.’

‘Bit of a cold fish, if you ask me,’ said Steve. ‘Didn’t like him much. He kept talking to me as if I’d done it. Even asked me to examine my conscience. I told him to bloody sod off, I can tell you.’

I knew. I had heard about it at length from Sir James on his return from Bullingdon to Gray’s Inn. As a rule Sir James didn’t much care for visiting his clients on remand, and this time had been no exception. He preferred that to be a job for his junior, but I had been rather incapacitated and he’d had no alternative but to go himself. The interview had clearly not gone well. Mitchell may not have liked his lead counsel very much but that was nothing compared to the utter disdain in which Sir James now held his client. Not for the first time I thought that Sir James would be rather pleased to lose this case.

‘Can’t you act without that silly old buffer?’ he said.

‘He is a very experienced Queen’s Counsel,’ I replied.

‘I don’t care if he’s the Queen herself in drag,’ he said, ‘I would much rather have you defending me in court.’

‘Steve,’ I said seriously. ‘I’m not altogether sure it would make much difference who defended you in court at the moment.’ I paused while my underlying meaning sank in.

‘I didn’t do it,’ he said finally. ‘I tell you. I didn’t bloody do it. Why will no one believe me?’

‘I believe you,’ I said. ‘But we need something to make the jury believe you, and there’s nothing. The evidence is quite compelling. There’s the blood in your car and on your boots, and the fact that the pitchfork was also yours doesn’t help. And everyone knows you hated Barlow. Those betting receipts and your lack of any sort of alibi are going to hold considerable sway with the jury.’

‘There must be something you can do,’ he said rather forlornly.

‘I haven’t given up hope yet,’ I said, trying to sound more optimistic than I felt. ‘The evidence is either circumstantial or can be explained away. When the prosecution finish presenting their case, I will make a submission to the judge that you have no case to answer. But I think it’s unlikely that he or she will agree and, with nothing new turning up, I fear that things may not go well.’

‘So what’s the down side?’ he said.

‘In what way?’ I said.

‘How long if I get convicted?’

‘How long a sentence?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he said, irritated. ‘How long until I get an appeal? Until something comes up to show I didn’t do it.’

‘There’s no guarantee you would get an appeal,’ I said. ‘It would have to be either because there is a question of law, say a ruling or the summing up by the trial judge was considered questionable or biased, or if new evidence has appeared in the case. Either way it would be quite some time. Appeals against short sentences are heard more quickly than those for longer ones. It’s not much good waiting two years for an appeal against a three-year sentence, you’d already be out. But life…’

‘Life?’ Steve said loudly, interrupting me.

‘Murder carries a life sentence,’ I said. ‘Mandatory. But life doesn’t actually mean life in most cases.’

‘Oh God,’ he said resting his forehead on his hand. ‘I’ll go bloody mad if I have to stay in here much longer.’

The private hire silver Mercedes was waiting for me outside the prison and it pulled up to the main gate when I appeared. Bob, the driver, stepped out to hold the door for me as I clambered awkwardly into the back seat. Then he carefully placed the crutches in the boot. I could get quite used to this, I thought.

‘Back to London, sir?’ Bob asked.

‘Not yet,’ I said, and I gave him directions to our next stop.

Sandeman was eating from his manger when I went in to see him. He looked casually in my direction, blew hard down his nostrils and then went back to concentrating on his oats. I hobbled over to him and slapped him down his neck with the palm of my hand while feeding him an apple from my pocket.

‘Hello, old boy,’ I said to him as I fondled his ears and rubbed his neck. He put his head down against me and pushed me playfully.

‘Whoa,’ I said amused. ‘Careful, my old boy, I’m not yet able to play.’ I slapped him again a couple of times and left him in peace.

‘He’s doing well,’ said Paul Newington at the door, from where he’d watched the exchange. ‘We’ve started walking him around the village every morning, and he has even trotted a bit round the paddock on a lunge. Still too early to put any weight on that back, of course, but he doesn’t seem to be in any pain.’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘He looks well.’

‘Plenty of time for Kit to brush his coat.’ Kit was the stable lad that ‘did’ for Sandeman.

‘Will he ever be able to race again?’ I asked Paul. I had asked him that several times before on the telephone and he’d always been rather noncommittal in his answer.

‘I suspect he could,’ he said. ‘But he’s thirteen now and he would quite likely not be fit enough to run before he becomes fourteen.’ All horses in the northern hemisphere became a year older on 1 January, irrespective of the actual day on which they were born. In the south the date was, for some reason I had never worked out, not 1 July as one would expect, but a month later on 1 August.

‘Are you saying he’d be too old?’ I asked.

‘Racehorses can race at that age,’ he said. ‘I looked it up on the internet. The oldest ever winner was eighteen, but that was over two hundred years ago.’

We stood there leaning on the lower half of the stable door, looking at my dear old horse.

‘I’m not saying he couldn’t get back to fitness,’ Paul went on. ‘I’m just not sure it would be cost effective, or even if it’s fair on the old boy.’

‘You think it’s time to retire him?’ I was miserable. Retiring Sandeman from the racecourse would be tantamount to retiring myself from race riding. I knew that I was too old to start again with a new horse.