The Stabbing in the Stables (23 page)

“I
DON'T KNOW
,
Carole. I don't think Nicky was telling out-and-out lies. There was some truth in there. I mean, he'd got himself into a position where he had to admit that he was at Long Bamber Stables on the relevant evening.”

“Or you had got him into a position where he had to make that admission.”

“Whichever.”

“No, there's a big difference. From what you say, I think you played him very skilfully, Jude. Credit where credit's due.”

“Well, thank you. So yes, Nicky Dalrymple was at Long Bamber Stables, but I'm not entirely convinced about the reasons he gave me for his being there.”

“You're not suggesting he actually killed Walter?”

“I don't think so. His description of how he found the body was pretty accurate, and he did seem genuinely affected when he spoke about it. No, I don't think Nicky Dalrymple's our murderer.”

“So Alec Potton is.”

“I'm not yet entirely convinced about that either. Mind you, there is one useful detail that Nicky's given me.”

“What's that?”

“The timing of the murder. I've assumed—I don't know whether the police have too—that the person I heard leaving the yard was Walter Fleet's murderer. But now I know that person was Nicky Dalrymple. Well, the stabbing could have happened at any time after the last owner left the yard, which I think was established to be about five o'clock. Maybe the police have already worked that out from the postmortem.”

“I doubt it,” said Carole, recalling her Home Office experience. “I don't think time of death can be established quite that accurately.”

“Hm. But it does open out the time frame a bit, doesn't it? Raises the possibility of other people being at Long Bamber Stables between five and six that evening.”

“Yes. What we really need to do, Jude, is to establish some alibis.”

“Which I'm sure the police have already done.” She ground her teeth in frustration at their lack of information. “I wish I knew what Alec Potton was doing during the relevant hour that evening, and sadly the police are the only people who could tell us about that.”

Carole chuckled. “Oh, come on, he's the one person who we do know about—or at least in his case we know what the police think he was doing. If he's confessed, he must have told them that he was at Long Bamber Stables, stabbing Walter Fleet.”

“Yes, I suppose so. Oh, if only the police would let us have access to their files.” Jude smiled lugubriously across at her neighbour. “No fun being an amateur detective, is it, Carole?”

 

“Hello, Jude?”

“Yes?”

“It's Sonia. Listen, I've just had a rather worrying phone call from Imogen Potton.”

“Oh?”

“Apparently she's staying with her grandmother in Northampton, but she's very upset.”

“Hardly surprising, given her father's being charged with murder.”

“But that doesn't seem to be what's upsetting her. In fact, she didn't mention Alec at all. First, she asked if I was all right. Then she wanted to know if Nicky was home. And, finally, she got round to what was really upsetting her. She's worried about Conker.”

“There's nothing wrong with Conker, is there?”

“No, no, she's fine. I've checked with Lucinda. It's just, you know, Imogen feels very close to that pony.”

“Yes,” Jude agreed. “She channels most of her emotions through her. Displacement anxiety. The pony's easier to deal with than her parent's divorce—and no doubt her father's murder charge.”

“But Imogen's terribly worried about her.”

“Anything specific?”

“She keeps going on about the Horse Ripper.”

“Why? There hasn't been another incident, has there?”

“Not so far as I know. But there were a lot around this area. For some reason Imogen's got it into her head that Conker's going to be the next victim.”

“And she feels that, stuck up in Northampton, she can't do anything about it?”

“Exactly. Oh, I'm sure it's just an adolescent girl's overactive imagination at work, but she does sound in a bad state. I've tried to reassure her, but I don't think I'm much use at the moment to anyone.”

“Don't say that, Sonia. Do you have Imogen's grandmother's number?”

“No, but Immy rang me on the mobile. I've got that.” She gave it to Jude. “If you wouldn't mind ringing her…”

“I'll try, but she didn't have much time for me when we last met.”

“Please.”

“All right.”

“I'm sorry, Jude, I feel I should do something, but I just know if I suggested the idea, Nicky would forbid me from having anything to do with any of the Pottons.”

“By the way, did he tell you he came to see me?”

“Nicky?” At the other end of the phone, Sonia Dalrymple sounded thunderstruck. “Why on earth would he come to see you?”

“He wanted to check some things that the police had said to him. Didn't he tell you?”

“No.”

Of course he wouldn't have. No way Nicky Dalrymple was going to spoil his image of infallibility for his wife, was there?

 

“Imogen?”

“Who is this?” The girl's voice on the phone was guarded. There was the sound of traffic around her; she was in the open air somewhere—presumably Saturday evening in Northampton.

“My name's Jude. Do you remember, we met at Sonia Dalrymple's.”

“Oh yes, you were trying to heal Chieftain. And failing,” said Imogen with some satisfaction.

“I just couldn't get through to him.”

“Huh.” It was one of those expressions of total contempt that only teenage girls can really do properly. “But Donal could. He really understands about horses. Anything to do with horses, Donal's the person you want to talk to. I don't know why Mrs. Dalrymple didn't ask him to do it in the first place.”

“Nor do I.” And the thought reminded Jude to check why Sonia had been so unwilling to have dealings with the Irishman. She had claimed to know nothing about his squatting in her hayloft, but there was some reason why she wanted to keep away from him. Presumably the blackmail? Jude had asked Donal enough about that. Maybe the time had come to put a few more direct questions to Sonia on the subject.

“Anyway, what do you want?” asked Imogen gracelessly.

“I just had a call from Sonia—Mrs. Dalrymple. She said she was worried about you.”

“So? What business is that of yours?”

That was actually a very good question. Imogen's emotional state was no business at all of Jude's, but she still replied, “Mrs. Dalrymple's very busy at the moment, so she can't help you. She thought I might be able to.”

“Why?” Imogen was proving to be rather good at relevant but difficult questions.

“Well, Sonia doesn't like the thought of you being upset and…”

“I'm all right,” said the girl defiantly.

“And you're at your grandmother's?”

“Yes.”

“In Northampton?”

“Ooh, you've done your homework, haven't you?”

“But you're not in her house at the moment. I can hear traffic.”

“No, I'm nipping out to the corner shop to get some shopping for Granny. Is that all right? Am I allowed to do anything without reporting back to someone every ten minutes?”

“Yes, yes, of course you are, Imogen. Listen, I know you're worried about Conker.”

“You don't know what I'm worried about.” But suddenly the girl sounded very young, on the verge of tears.

“She's not in any danger. Conker's safe at Long Bamber Stables.”

“Thinking about what's happened there in the last few weeks,” said Imogen bitterly, “it's the last place I'd call ‘safe.'”

“But Conker'll be all right there. Lucinda Fleet will look after her.”

“Huh.” But teenage toughness soon gave way to tears as she went on. “If anything happens to Conker…She's the only one who's really on my side. I'll kill anyone who tries to hurt Conker.”

“Imogen, tell me why you're worried about Conker? What is it that makes you think she's in danger? If you tell me, then—”

“Oh, shut up!” said the girl in a burst of savagery. “All you grown-ups think you know what's going on in my mind. And none of you have got a bloody clue!”

The line went dead. Imogen Potton had ended the connection.

J
UDE WAS A
heavy sleeper, but always woke up quickly, as she did when the phone rang at five forty-five the following morning. Sonia. She'd just had a call from Lucinda Fleet, who always—even on Sundays—started work in the stables at five-thirty.

Conker was missing. Her stall was empty. She'd been stolen.

While she threw on some clothes, it didn't take long for Jude to decide to ring Carole. Her neighbour's irritation at being woken early would be as nothing to the fury prompted by her exclusion from any part of the investigation. Besides, Jude'd get to Long Bamber Stables a lot quicker in the Renault.

Carole dressed quickly too. She rushed a very grumpy Gulliver out behind the house to do his business, ignored his complaints as she shut him in the kitchen, and hurried to get the car out. A few hundred yards down the road, she realised she should have got the joint out of the fridge for Stephen and Gaby's lunch, but she didn't go back.

 

It was still dark when they arrived, dark and cold. Sonia Dalrymple was there with Lucinda, both looking over-wrought and hopeless. Sonia, normally so rigidly in control of her emotions, had burst into tears at the confirmation of Conker's disappearance. The door to the pony's stable was still open; there was something pathetic about the strawlined empty space.

“Have you called the police?” asked Carole.

“There's no need to do that,” Sonia replied quickly. “This isn't a police matter.”

“Surely, if something's been stolen—”

“I do not want the police involved,” Sonia snapped. “I'm Conker's owner, so it's up to me.”

Jude was beginning to have her own ideas about why Sonia might want the police kept away, but support for the decision came from Lucinda.

“I agree. I've had quite enough flatfoots around this place to last me a lifetime.”

“But if a horse has been stolen…”

“Don't worry about it, Carole,” said Jude. “If Sonia and Lucinda don't want to call the police, then we have to respect their decision.” The look she flashed at her friend carried the message's subtext: besides, if there are no police, we have a better chance of finding out what's really been going on.

“Yes, of course,” said Carole, getting the point.

“Apart from anything else,” said Lucinda, “I want to keep this as quiet as possible. What happened to Walter hasn't exactly been good for business. I don't want the owners to start thinking their horses aren't safe here either.”

“No.” Carole turned practical. “So how did the thief—or thieves—get in?”

“Through the front gates.”

“Which were locked?”

“Yes, but there are lots of keys around. All the owners have keys—God knows how many people they give copies to. It wouldn't be that difficult to find one.”

“So you think it's ‘an inside job'?” Carole felt a slight thrill to be using such a professional criminal term.

“Could be,” Lucinda replied. “That's the obvious explanation of how easily they got in. But then again logic's against it being one of the owners. By definition, they've all already got horses, and where would any of them stable Conker in secret if they had taken her? No, it doesn't make sense.”

“Then what are the other possibilities?” asked Jude.

“Well, it could just be a common or garden horse thief. They do still exist and”—Lucinda grimaced piously—“though it doesn't do to say so in these politically correct times, most of them are still gypsies. If they'd taken her, they'd sell her on somewhere—possibly not in this country—so it'd be virtually impossible to track her down.”

“But she has got a freeze mark on her,” said Sonia. “We had it done so she could be identified. So whoever she was offered to might be able to guess that she'd been stolen.”

“I don't think that'd bother them. The kind of people Conker'd be offered to for sale would know full well that she'd been stolen.”

“Oh,” said Sonia Dalrymple bleakly.

“What are the other possibilities?” asked Jude, trying to cheer things up. “If she wasn't stolen by gypsies?”

“Well…” Lucinda Fleet sighed, but the sigh turned into a shudder. “There's a chance—I hope I'm wrong, but there is a chance—that she might have been taken by the Horse Ripper.”

Sonia let out a little whimper.

“But why would he have taken her out?” asked Carole. “If mutilating a horse was what he wanted to do, surely he could just as easily done it in the stall?”

“Maybe, but that's not his way. All the other injured horses have been discovered out in the fields. In some cases that's where he found them, but other times he's led them out of the stables into the fields. Maybe it's just a security thing. Stables tend to be near houses. Out in the fields the injured creature's cries wouldn't be heard; they wouldn't disturb the other horses.”

“So how can we find out if that has happened?”

“Wait till it's light. Go and look through the paddocks. The Ripper never takes them far. No, if that's what's happened to Conker, we'll find her soon enough.”

Lucinda looked grim, and Sonia could not mask another involuntary sob.

“Have you checked whether anything else is missing,” asked Jude, “apart from the pony?”

“No, I haven't, as it happens. If it's the Ripper, he's certainly not going to have taken anything else. He'd have brought his knife with him.”

“Yes, but if there are other things missing, then maybe you'll be able to eliminate the idea that it was the Ripper.”

“I see what you mean.” Lucinda Fleet moved across to the large tack room. “The padlocks are still on the door, but then that doesn't mean much. Some of the owners have got keys to them too.”

“So they could have gone inside, taken stuff and then locked up again?” asked Jude.

“Yes.” Lucinda unlocked the door, looked inside the tack room and said immediately, “Conker's saddle and bridle have gone. And her head collar.” Leaving the door open, she moved away. “I'll just have a look in the barn where we keep the feed and stuff, see if anything's missing there.”

Jude grinned at Sonia Dalrymple. “I'd say what we've just heard pretty good news. It wasn't the Ripper. Whoever took Conker rode her away—or at least took her away with a view to riding her, and that's certainly not his style.”

“No.” The horse's owner still looked wretched. But then Jude remembered: of course, her husband was home. She took Sonia's arm, and led her out of the stables' front gates.

“Things all right” she asked softly, aware how much Carole felt excluded by this intimacy, “with Nicky?”

Sonia shook her head wearily. “I don't know. We had another row last night. He didn't sleep at home.”

“Where did he go?”

She shrugged. “Some hotel. He quite often does when we have words.” She allowed herself a half smile. “Nicky thinks he's punishing me. Little does he know the relief I feel at his absence. Anyway,” she sighed, “he's flying off to Chicago at lunchtime.”

“When Nicky leaves you for a night, Sonia, does he always go to the same hotel?”

Another shrug. She didn't know and she didn't care.

Carole cleared her throat, an aggrieved reminder that she was also present, and Jude led Sonia back into the yard.

“The logical thing to think,” said Carole, “is that the pony was taken by Imogen Potton. You say the girl's obsessed with Conker. It makes sense that she should steal her away from the cruel world which fails to understand either of them.”

“It would make perfect sense,” Jude agreed, “but for the fact that Imogen is staying with her grandmother in Northampton. She was there when I spoke to her yesterday evening at about seven-thirty, out doing some shopping for her grandmother. So even if she left straight after speaking to me, there's no way she could have been here in time to take the horse. She doesn't drive; I can't imagine her being able to afford a cab to come all that way, so she'd have been reliant on the trains.”

Lucinda Fleet reappeared from the barn. “There are some carrots and pony nuts missing.” She poked her head into the empty stable. “And Conker's hay net. Whoever took her knew what the pony liked.”

“Imogen Potton,” Carole insisted.

“Yes, that would fit some of the facts,” Lucinda agreed, “but why should she do that? Conker's here when she wants to see her. Sonia lets Imogen ride Conker more or less when she wants to.”

“Yes,” Sonia interposed excitedly, “but Imogen told me she thought Conker was in danger. So she probably took her away for her own protection.” A sob came into her voice as she said, “Oh God, I hope nothing's happened to that poor pony.”

Carole was reminded of the night Walter Fleet had died, when both Lucinda Fleet and Sonia Dalrymple had seemed more worried by the idea of the Ripper having mutilated a horse than of any injury to a human being.

“The idea of Imogen having taken Conker fits most of the facts, I agree. Except…” And Jude reiterated the reasons why the girl could not chronologically or geographically have made it to Fedborough from Northampton in time.

“Oh, well…” Lucinda took a mobile phone out of the pocket of her body-warmer. “I'd better ring her mum just to check Immy is where she's meant to be.” She recalled a number from the memory, but clearly getting an answering machine, left a message asking Hilary Potton to call her as soon as possible.

The four women stood around for a moment, looking at each other. Then Jude said, “Sonia, I wonder if you have any idea why Conker should be targeted. Had she ever been—”

But the pony's owner's plans didn't involve answering more questions. “I'm sorry, I must get back. Lucinda, call me if you get any news of Conker, won't you?”

“Yes, of course. The minute I hear anything.”

The three were silent until they heard the sound of Sonia's Range Rover starting up.

“Not a lot we can do now,” said Lucinda. “Just wait till Hilary calls.” She looked around the stable yard with something approaching despair. “There's any amount of stuff I should be doing here, but…Would either of you like a cup of coffee?”

“Yes, please,” Carole and Jude replied, with considerable alacrity.

 

The interior of Lucinda's house showed signs of neglect. That might have been expected in a home whose owner has been recently widowed, but the level of neglect suggested it predated Walter's murder. The Fleets seemed to have given up on domestic pride, in the same way that they seemed to have given up on their marriage.

The kitchen where the coffee was prepared might once have had a warm farmhouse feeling, but no longer. The large beige Aga onto which Lucinda put the kettle was dull and greasy. Surfaces were scattered with equestrian catalogues, invoices, unwashed plates, empty milk bottles and bits of tack. Carole and Jude were encouraged that Lucinda used a tea towel to rub out the mugs she detached from hooks on the dresser, but discouraged by the grubbiness of the tea towel she used. Half-eaten bowls of dog food stood on the floor, but the only sign of the animals themselves was a stale doggy smell. The calendar, given free by some horse fodder wholesaler, was three years out of date. On the wall was a faded photograph of Walter Fleet in his heyday, being awarded some medal by Princess Anne. That, and a few brittle dusty rosettes, were the only ornamental elements in the kitchen.

The impression was of a house that took second place to the stables, just somewhere to live in that was convenient for work.

Whether because she was unaware of the chaos or so used to it that she didn't notice, Lucinda made no apologies for the state of the place. She spooned instant coffee into the mugs. Her guests both chose to have it black, but into her own she poured milk from a bottle whose crustiness made Carole wince, along with four teaspoonsful of sugar.

“Have to keep up my energy. The old blood sugar.” Her sweet tooth was the only thing she was going to apologise for. She sat down at the paper-strewn kitchen table and sighed heavily.

“It probably will get out, about Conker having been taken. Hard to keep secrets round a place like this. Owners are a gossipy lot.”

“And would that be such bad news?” asked Carole.

“Just another piece in a sequence of cumulative bad news. Another reason for existing owners to think of taking their horses away, and for new owners to look for another stable. There are plenty around here. They'd be spoiled for choice.”

She spoke wearily, someone who had battled against the rising tide of adverse circumstances and now was close to giving up the struggle.

“Are things really that bad?” asked Jude.

Lucinda Fleet nodded glumly.

“But presumably,” suggested Carole, “if you did have to give up, this place would fetch a pretty healthy price. You must have about ten acres.”