I drank a sip of champagne and said, 'Well done yourself, you old son-of-a-gun. And here's to the Gold Cup.'

'No such luck,' said Dane. 'I haven't much chance in that.' And from his laughing face I gathered he didn't care, either. We emptied our glasses. I'll get another bottle,' he said, diving into the noisy, crowded changing room.

Looking around I saw Joe Nantwich backed up into a nearby corner by the enormous Mr Tudor. The big man was doing the talking, forcefully, his dark face almost merging with the shadows. Joe, still dressed in racing colours, listened very unhappily.

Dane came back with the bubbles fizzing out of a newly opened bottle and filled our glasses. He followed my gaze.

'I don't know whether Joe was sober or not, but didn't he make a hash of the last race?' he said.

'I didn't see it.'

'Brother, you sure missed something. He didn't try a yard. His horse damned nearly stopped altogether at the hurdle over on the far side, and it was second favourite, too. What you see now,' he gestured with the bottle, 'is, I should think, our Joe getting the well-deserved sack.'

'That man owns Bolingbroke,' I said.

As Clifford Tudor turned away from Joe in our direction we heard the tail end of his remarks.

'- think you can make a fool of me and get away with it. The Stewards can warn you off altogether, as far as I'm concerned.'

Joe leaned against the wall for support. His face was pallid and sweating. He looked ill. He took a few unsteady steps towards us and spoke without caution, as if he had forgotten that Stewards and members of the National Hunt Committee might easily overhear.

'I had a phone call this morning. The same voice as always. He just said, Don't win the sixth race and rang off before I could say anything. And then that note saying Bolingbroke, this week – I don't understand it- and I didn't win the race and now that bloody wog says he'll get another jockey- and the Stewards have started an inquiry about my riding- and I feel sick.'

'Have some champagne,' said Dane, encouragingly.

'Don't be so bloody helpful,' said Joe, clutching his stomach and departing towards the changing-room.

'What the hell's going on?' said Dane.

'I don't know,' I said, perplexed and more interested in Joe's troubles than I had been before. The phone call was inconsistent, I thought, with the notes. One ordered business as usual, the other promised revenge. 'I wonder if Joe always tells the truth,' I said.

'Highly unlikely,' said Dane, dismissing it.

One of the Stewards came and reminded us that even after the Champion Hurdle, drinking in the weighing room itself was frowned on, and would we please drift along into the changing room. Dane did that, but I finished my drink and went outside.

Pete, still attended by a posse of friends, had decided that it was time to go home. The friends were unwilling. The racecourse bars, they were saying, were still open.

I walked purposefully up to Pete, and he made me his excuse for breaking away. We went towards the gates.

'You can take that anxious look off your face, Alan, my lad. I'm as sober as a judge and I'm driving myself home.'

'Good. In that case you'll have no difficulty in answering one small question for me?'

'Shoot.'

'In what horse-box did Palindrome come to Cheltenham?' I said.

'Eh? I hired one.

'Where did you hire it from?'

'What's the matter?' asked Pete. 'I know it's a bit old, and it had a puncture on the way, as I told you, but it didn't do him any harm. Can't have done, or he wouldn't have won.'

'No, it's nothing like that,' I said. 'I just want to know where that horse-box comes from.'

'The firm I usually hire a box from, Littlepeths of Steyning.

'Who drove it here?' I asked.

'Oh, one of their usual drivers.

'Do you know him well?'

'Not exactly well. He often drives the hired boxes, that's all.

'It may have something to do with Bill's death,' I said, 'but I'm not sure what. Can you find out where the box really comes from? Ask the hire firm? And don't mention me, if you don't mind.'

'Is it important?' asked Pete.

'Yes, it is.'

'I'll ring 'em tomorrow morning, then,' he said.

As soon as he saw me the next day, Pete said, 'I asked about that horse-box. It belongs to a farm near Steyning. I've got his name and address here.' He tucked two fingers into his breast pocket, brought out a slip of paper, and gave it to me. 'The farmer uses the box to take his hunters around, and his children's show jumpers in the summer. He sometimes lets the hire firm use it, if he's not needing it. Is that what you wanted?'

'Yes, thank you very much,' I said. I put the paper in my wallet.

By the end of the Festival meeting I had repeated the story of the wire to at least ten more people, in the hope that someone might know why it had been put there. The tale spread fast round the racecourse.

From all this busy sowing in the wind I learned absolutely nothing. And I would still, I supposed, have to reap the whirlwind.