In truth, I didn’t really want to move hotels at all. I knew the Randolph, and I liked it, but the converted modern interior of this place made it much easier for me to cope with the crutches even if the room doors were rather narrow as they had been the cell doors of the old prison.

Having settled in to my new room, I lay on the bed with a glass of wine and started reading through the papers for the next day.

The phone rang. I answered it.

‘Mr Mason? This is the hotel operator. I have a Miss Clarke on the phone for you. Will you accept the call?

Miss Clarke? Who was Miss Clarke?

Suddenly I remembered. ‘Oh yes, thank you,’ I said to the operator.

‘What’s all that about?’ Eleanor asked when she was put through.

‘Just my way of screening unwanted calls,’ I said cheerfully.

‘And have you had any?’ she asked me seriously.

‘One or two,’ I said.

‘From Julian Trent?’ she said.

‘From whoever is behind him,’ I said.

‘You take care,’ she ordered.

‘You take care too,’ I said. ‘Remember, he knows where you live. Don’t go anywhere on your own. Not even across to the hospital from your house.’

‘Surely I’m safe enough here?’ she said.

‘Trent attacked me within five yards of the front door of my chambers,’ I said. ‘Please don’t assume anything when it comes to this man. He’s very dangerous.’

‘Stop it. You’re frightening me,’ she said.

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Be frightened. Be very frightened. I am.’

‘OK, OK,’ she said. ‘You’ve made your point.’

‘Are you sure you can’t come over here?’ I said. ‘I would be much happier if you were here with me.’

‘Now, now, Mister Barrister Man, don’t be too eager.’ She laughed.

‘I really meant for your security,’ I said seriously.

‘You really do mean it, don’t you?’ she said.

‘Yes. I do. You have no idea how frightening these people are until it’s too late. Remember what they did to my house.’

There was a long pause at the other end of the line.

‘How are we ever going to be free of them?’ she said.

‘I’m working on it,’ I said. But I didn’t know how either.

Detective Constable Hillier, the young policeman I had first met at Barlow’s house with Bruce Lygon, was the next witness for the prosecution when the court reconvened at ten thirty on Wednesday morning.

I had kept my eyes open for Julian Trent as I had arrived at the court building but there had been no sign of him. Somewhat perversely, I had rather hoped that he would be there, as it meant he wouldn’t have been elsewhere delivering mayhem to my loved ones or their property. Now, I simply worried.

DC Hillier proved to be a model witness for the Crown, stating clearly and persuasively to the jury how the murder weapon was found to be identical to two other pitchforks found at Mitchell’s property and how further investigations had discovered a receipt from a Newbury supplier showing that Mitchell had purchased three of the forks the previous year.

He went on to describe how he had ascertained that the debit card receipts, found impaled on the prongs of the fork between Mr Barlow’s body and the fork handle, were from a Maestro debit card issued by Lloyds Bank in the name of Mr Stephen Mitchell. Furthermore, the said debit card receipts were from payments made by Mr Mitchell to a licensed bookmaker based in Hungerford.

‘Detective Constable Hillier,’ I said, starting my cross-examination. ‘Do you not think it is strange that a murderer would leave incriminating debit card receipts with his name on them at the scene of the crime?’

‘No, not particularly,’ he said nonchalantly. ‘Many criminals do strange things.’

‘But did you not suspect that the receipts had been left on the fork by someone who simply wanted the police to believe that Mr Mitchell had been responsible for the crime?’

‘Not really,’ he said. ‘Perhaps Mitchell put them on the fork to goad Barlow and he hadn’t really intended leaving them behind. Maybe he just panicked, or perhaps he couldn’t get the murder weapon out of the body to remove them, or indeed to take the fork back home with him.’

‘This is conjecture,’ interrupted the judge. ‘The witness will confine himself to the facts he knows, rather than those he can merely speculate about.’

‘Sorry, Your Honour,’ said DC Hillier. But the damage had already been done.

I thought of further pointing out that the murderer could surely have ripped the receipts away from the fork without removing it from Barlow’s body if, of course, he’d actually wanted to, but this whole line of questioning clearly wasn’t helping our case so I let it go.

The next witness was the Hungerford bookmaker who confirmed that the receipts had been issued by the card machine at his premises.

‘And are you aware,’ the prosecuting counsel said to him, ‘that betting on horse racing by a professional jockey is against the Rules of Racing?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I am aware of that.’

‘But you took the bets anyway?’ the QC asked.

‘Yes,’ said the bookmaker. ‘It was not against either the terms of my permit or the licence of my premises.’

‘Was it a regular arrangement with Mr Mitchell?’

‘Fairly regular,’ the bookmaker replied.

I started to rise but the judge beat me to it.

‘Is the regularity of any significance?’ he asked the prosecutor.

‘Perhaps not, My Lord,’ said the QC.

The bookmaker was dismissed. I could have asked him if he regularly took bets from other jockeys but that also wouldn’t have been significant, and would probably have antagonized him and the jury unnecessarily, so I didn’t. I had no reason to think that he had taken bets from Scot Barlow, so I didn’t ask him that either. As for how Steve Mitchell’s debit card receipts had found their way onto the pitchfork was anyone’s guess. Steve still, unbelievably, refused to comment on the matter, but he wasn’t here being tried for gambling in contravention of the Rules of Racing, he was being tried for murder.

‘You have one new message,’ said my voicemail when I turned my phone on at lunchtime. It was from Nikki Payne.

‘Mr Mason,’ her disembodied voice said in some excitement. ‘I’ve found your Jacques van Rensburg, or at least I’ve found out who he is. Call me back when you get this message.’

I called her immediately.

‘He was the third one,’ she said in a rush. ‘They sent his passport photo over from South Africa and there was no mistake.’

‘So he’s still somewhere here with an expired visa?’ I asked.

‘Well, no,’ she said. ‘Not exactly.’ She then went on to give me some very interesting information about Mr Jacques van Rensburg, information that explained why the photograph of Millie and the foal had been important. So important that someone had taken it from Scot Barlow’s house. Maybe so important, indeed, that Barlow had been murdered to get it.