The Stabbing in the Stables (24 page)

“Eight and a half.”

“In a very desirable part of West Sussex.”

“I agree. But if you knew the size of the mortgage…”

“Ah.”

Lucinda ran both hands back through her hair, unwittingly revealing the grey at its roots. Like the house, her appearance had been neglected.

“But have things got more difficult since Walter died?” asked Jude. “I mean, now you have to manage the place on your own?”

A short bark of laughter greeted that. “Hasn't made a blind bit of difference. I've been managing this place on my own ever since we bought it. Walter always saw himself as ‘front of house' in the project. He was the one who chatted up the owners—particularly the female owners—and regaled them with stories of his glory days as an eventer. He wasn't very ‘hands on'—except, again, with the lady owners. I don't think Walter even knew what mucking out a stable meant—if he did, it certainly wasn't from personal experience. He was entirely useless, in almost every way.”

Carole, whose mind had been running recently on such matters, couldn't help asking, “Then why did you stay with him?”

Lucinda shrugged and replied, as if the answer were self-evident, “I was married to him.” She grimaced and let out another harsh little laugh. “Quite honestly, it's easier running the place without him constantly under my feet.”

“So you're really thinking you may have to give it up?” asked Carole.

Another weary nod. “Unless someone who reckons Long Bamber Stables has potential comes along with a huge injection of cash—and I don't think people like that exist outside of fairy tales.”

“Lucinda,” Jude began carefully, “you said that Walter was always coming on to the lady owners…”

“Yes. It's no secret. He had a reputation round the place as the local groper.”

“In spite of his injuries, he was still an attractive man?”

“Apparently.”

“And do you know if any of these lady owners—”

Carole, who was getting tired of the “softly-softly” approach, butted in. “What Jude's asking—in her roundabout way—is whether there were any women to whom your late husband was particularly close. I mean, for instance, Imogen's mother Hilary implied to me that he fancied her. I just wonder if that attraction might have gone further?”

“You're asking me if Walter had an affair with Hilary Potton?”

“Well, I…well, I…yes, I am. Or indeed with anyone else.”

Lucinda Fleet found this almost funny. At least, she laughed at the suggestion. But there wasn't much humour in her laughter. Then she stopped, as if a tap had been turned off. “The answer is no. I don't see why I shouldn't tell you. You two don't give the air of being gossips, and nothing I say can hurt Walter anymore.

“The fact is that he could come on to women as much as he liked—he could chat them up, and did. Yes, the lady owners—though in many cases with them ‘lady' is not the appropriate word. And he'd also come on to the younger girls, which did worry me. I mean, there was no way he could do them any harm, but they didn't know that—and teenage girls…It's a difficult age. I think he frightened some of them. I tried to get him to stop that, but…” She shrugged at the hopelessness of the endeavour.

Jude picked up her words. “You said Walter could not do the girls any harm?”

Lucinda Fleet stared intently ahead. “Walter couldn't do any woman any harm. He couldn't even do me any harm…not in that way.”

She read the same question in both women's eyes. “He was impotent. Another effect of the accident that destroyed his life—and I suppose my life at the same time.”

“But the accident happened before you were married, didn't it?”

“Yes, but we were engaged. My father was an army man. I grew up in a household that believed that when you'd given your word about something, you stuck to it. I'd agreed to marry Walter, so I married him.”

“But it must have been…”

“Not much fun, no. I often used to wish I'd had a less rigid moral code. In retrospect I sometimes think I was completely stupid, but”—her sigh seemed to encompass all of her wasted life—“that's the way I am.”

“I'm sorry,” murmured Jude.

Lucinda Fleet looked bleakly round the shabbiness of her kitchen. “I suppose that's why there were a lot of things I just didn't care about. Perhaps, if I'd had children…” For the first time, emotions threatened, but she quickly stifled them. “Anyway, I didn't, and it's probably a bit late to think about that now. If I met another man tomorrow”—she laughed bitterly at the unlikeliness—“I think the old biological clock would be against me.”

She took a sip of coffee, after which she became brusque, as though embarrassed by her momentary lapse. “So I concentrate on the horses. Horses are a lot easier to deal with than human beings—and a lot more rewarding. Certainly a lot more rewarding than Walter ever was.”

But she seemed immediately to regret this callousness and said, “I don't know, though. The marriage was dreadful for me, but…poor Walter. He could never come to terms with what he had been and what he had become. I think it was probably worse for him. For that reason, I'm relieved he's out of it.”

“But, Lucinda, surely—”

Her mobile rang. Hilary Potton responding to her message. Lucinda told her about Conker's disappearance and asked if she could check with her mother that Imogen was still in Northampton.

Ten minutes later Hilary rang back. Imogen's grandmother had just checked the girl's bedroom. It hadn't been slept in. And Imogen had shut herself in there in a teenage strop about seven the evening before. She could have escaped anytime after that. When Imogen spoke to Jude on the phone, she was fairly definitely not in Northampton, but probably changing trains in London, on her way down to Fethering.

All of which made Carole and Jude pretty certain that, wherever Conker was found, Imogen Potton would be there too.

T
HEY WERE BOTH
silent as they drove back to Fethering, Carole because she was grumpy after her early start, and Jude because she was deep in thought. There was something at the back of her mind, a connection between two pieces of information that, if found, would suddenly make sense of a lot of other free-floating details. It concerned Imogen and Donal and someone else—but that person remained elusive.

She tried to think back through the weeks since Walter Fleet's death, all the people she'd seen, all the people she'd spoken to. Someone, she felt sure, had said something that was relevant.

That line of thought didn't prove constructive, though, so she tried another approach. Tried to put herself in the shoes of Imogen Potton. Where would Imogen go with Conker? A pony is not an easy thing to hide, but the girl thought Conker was in danger, so she definitely would try to hide her. But she had also gone to the trouble of taking pony nuts and carrots and the hay net. Imogen cared about Conker and would want to take her somewhere where she would be warm and comfortable. Which probably meant another stable, but a stable that was out of the way, where no one would think of looking for a missing pony…

In fact, Jude thought with a sudden surge of excitement, exactly the sort of place a habitual user of unmonitored stables might know about. Donal Geraghty. Imogen thought the world of Donal. He knew about horses. “Anything to do with horses,” the girl had said on the call that Jude thought came from Northampton, “Donal's the person you want to talk to.” Presumably that would apply to stealing a horse, as well as anything else.

Increasingly Jude felt certain that, in her confusion, Imogen would have gravitated towards Donal. An odd couple, the tortured adolescent and the embittered alcoholic, but in a way a logical one. Their relationship existed only through horses; both—like Lucinda Fleet—found horses easier to deal with than people. And though she had witnessed the ungovernable violence within Donal Geraghty when he had attacked Ted Crisp, Jude knew that Imogen Potton would never be in any danger from him.

So, the girl and Conker were with Donal, but where was he? Which of his various bolt-holes had he resorted to this time? Long Bamber was not a possibility, and, given the police interest in the Dalrymples' stables, he'd never take the risk of going back there. So where? Jude had a nagging feeling that she almost knew, that she had the necessary information somewhere in her memory, if only she could access it.

“Victor and Yolanta Brewis!”

Her shout caused Carole to skew the Renault halfway across the road, into the path of an aggrieved Fethering pensioner in a Toyota Yaris, who hooted his disapproval of all young hooligans in cars.

“What on earth do you mean?” demanded a very frosty Carole.

“I've suddenly remembered. When we were at Fontwell, what we overheard from Victor and Yolanta Brewis…”

“About Donal blackmailing them?”

“Yes. But it was what Victor Brewis said. He said if Donal Geraghty caused trouble, then at least they knew where to find him. And that wherever it was was ‘very handy.' Handy for them. We must go and see the Brewises.”

“But we don't know where they live,” Carole wailed.

“Lucinda does. I'll ring her.”

 

Characteristically, the Brewises didn't have a house, they had a mansion. Set in the village of Cordham, some couple of miles east of Fedborough, Cordham Manor
was
most of the village. A wooded lane led past a few other houses behind tall laurel hedges, but everything around seemed to defer to the manor house.

A foursquare Georgian building, it had over the years been allowed to fall into disrepair, but was now undergoing a very thorough refurbishment. It was an old property in need of new money, and of course new money was exactly what Victor Brewis had.

The frontage was heavily scaffolded, and the piles of builders' materials—planks, palettes of bricks, pyramids of sand, cement mixers—bespoke large expense. Had it not been a Sunday, the site would have been swarming with labourers. The area immediately in front of the main door, which had once been—and no doubt would again be—an elegant garden, was a muddy mess. The chalk in the trampled soil meant that everything was covered with cement-coloured slime.

Carole and Jude, having parked the Renault, picked their way cautiously through the swamp towards the entrance. At some point the massive front door had been painted green, but the colour had faded and was fast disappearing under splashes of mud. The chain from the bellpull was broken and the lion's head knocker, once so impressive, was corroded and blurred with rust.

Still, there was no other way of attracting the occupants' attention. Jude reached up towards the ailing lion.

“Just a minute. Have you thought about what approach you're going to take?”

“Not really. I'm sure I'll think of something.”

Carole tutted at the amateurism of this approach. “And why are we coming to see them so early on a Sunday morning?”

“To find out where Donal is.”

“And what is the basis of our introduction? How do we know these people?”

“I saw them up at Long Bamber Stables.”

“But, from what you told me, they didn't see you. And then of course we eavesdropped on them at Fontwell. It's hardly a great basis for opening a conversation, is it?”

“I'll think of something.”

“No, Jude, we've got to plan this. Donal's blackmailing the Brewises about something they're prepared to pay a lot of money to keep quiet. If we stumble in with our hobnailed boots asking about it, they're going to clam up immediately.”

“Everything you say may well be true, but do you have another idea of how we can approach them?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

“May I ask how?”

“It's a matter of using logic. What we're dealing with here are social-climbing blackmail victims, right?”

“Well, yes, I suppose so.”

“So what we need is an approach that appeals to them in both roles.”

“Both as social climbers and as blackmail victims?”

“Exactly.” And Carole reached forward fastidiously to lift the heavy lion knocker and let its impact reverberate through the mansion.

Some time elapsed before there was any response. In fact, Carole and Jude were on the verge of leaving when the large door opened.

Yolanta Brewis stood there, but unlike the Yolanta Brewis Jude had encountered on two previous occasions. A rather grubby silk peignoir was hitched around her finely tuned body. The magenta hair was unbrushed, shapeless, stiff from too much dyeing. And Yolanta's lack of makeup showed a skin pitted with old acne scars and a couple of new spots starting. A cigarette trailing a long cylinder of ash hung from the corner of her mouth.

“What you want?” she asked, her accent heavier than ever.

“We're from the local equestrian society, Mrs. Brewis,” said Carole smoothly, “and we hear that you and your husband are riders.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Well, we make it our business to welcome new riders to the area—providing, of course, they're the sort of new riders we want in the area. Which”—she looked appreciatively up at the scaffolded splendour of Cordham Manor—“you clearly are.”

“Oh.” Yolanta Brewis was gratified to be included in this exclusive circle and, now she realised who her guests were, felt she should excuse her appearance. “I am so sorry I am not dressed. I have been having the flu.”

“There's a lot of it about,” said Jude wisely.

“Yes. But, please, you will come in?” She backed away into the hall. “I'm sorry, we have not engaged servants yet. The house is such a mess, there is no point in having staff to tidy things up until the building work inside has been finished.”

“So you are actually living here, Mrs. Brewis?” asked Jude.

“Yes. We—what do you say? Camp out? Our bedroom with the en suite bathroom, that is more or less done.”

“Oh, well, if you've got a bedroom, a bathroom and a kitchen, you'll be fine.”

“The kitchen is not yet done, but it does not matter.” Yolanta laughed, grinding her cigarette against a builder's plank in the hall. “We eat out.”

“All the time?”

“All the time. And of course we do have the one good room downstairs.”

With this she flung open double doors that opened from the building site of a hall onto a room of amazing opulence. And exactly the kind of taste that could have been predicted by anyone who had ever met the Brewises.

The décor wasn't complete; that was the only comfort to be taken. No doubt when the room was finished, there would be even more pink flounces on the tartan curtains. Maybe more huge ceramic poodles would cluster round the fireplace, more turquoise teddy bears would sit on the silver leather sofas, more droopy stuffed clowns would dangle down from the light fittings. Perhaps another wall would be taken up by a huge plasma screen, and there might even be a second wrought iron onyx-topped bar in another corner.

All of this seemed possible. Yolanta, as she proudly told them, had designed the room herself, and Yolanta's design style favoured excess. If you had one object you liked in a room, how much better to have two. Or three. Or four.

And her approach to décor had its own consistency. Having taken the controversial decision not to attempt recapturing the house's original Georgian period style, she eschewed all other period styles too. The room was a one-off. It could never be reproduced anywhere else. So, thought Carole and Jude, there was a God after all.

As they looked around, the phrase “tart's boudoir” sprang to Jude's mind (and would have sprung to Carole's if she'd ever heard it).

Yolanta ushered them in to sit between turquoise teddy bears on the silver leather. “I would offer you hot drinks, but”—she shrugged—“as I say, the kitchen…”

“Don't worry.”

“I have alcohol.” She gestured to a wrought iron and onyx drinks trolley, which—quite an achievement in the narrow field of wrought iron and onyx furniture—managed to clash with the wrought iron and onyx bar.

“No, really, thank you.”

“A bit early in the day for me.”

“Yes…” Yolanta looked rather wistfully at a vodka bottle, but seemed to decide, now she had moved into the area, she'd better conform to the customs of other members of the local equestrian society.

“Is your husband not here?” asked Carole.

“No. He is away all this week. In Nigeria. Victor has to work.” Yolanta made a wide gesture, encompassing the whole room. “To pay for all this.” She laughed, in a way that was not entirely kind.

There was a silence. Jude was tempted to break it, but that would have shown lack of trust in Carole's agenda. The first part of the plan had certainly worked. Yolanta Brewis had fallen for the social-climbing bait. Would Carole be able to move with equal success on to the subject of blackmail? No doubt she had some subtle approach up her sleeve.

But “subtle” was probably not the best word to describe what Carole said next. “We're really here to talk about blackmail.”

“Blackmail?” Yolanta Brewis was totally thrown. “You are here to blackmail me?”

“Good heavens, no. I'm sure there'd never be any reason for someone like you to be blackmailed. But there is someone connected with the local equestrian community who is going around blackmailing people.”

“You are suggesting I am a blackmailer?”

Dear oh dear, Yolanta did seem very touchy on the subject of blackmail. Perhaps with reason, thought Carole, as she went smoothly on. “Of course not, Mrs. Brewis! What an idea! No, we are trying to find the person who is perpetrating this blackmail, and so we are speaking to anyone in the area who rides, and particularly people who have some kind of connection with Long Bamber Stables. I gather from my friend Jude here that you and your husband have horses there.”

“We do. Tiger and Snow Leopard,” came the automatic reply.

“There's a man who hangs around the stables at Long Bamber, an Irishman called Donal Geraghty. I don't know if you know him…?”

“Perhaps,” she replied cautiously. “Round the stables there are always so many people. Perhaps I recognise this man but do not know his name.”

“Well, we're desperate to find him. This is why we are going round asking everyone who has any connection with Long Bamber if they know where he might be. We need to find Donal Geraghty very urgently.”

“But why is this so urgent for you?”

It would be hard to say whether Yolanta Brewis or Jude was more surprised by what Carole said next. “Because he's blackmailing me. I need to find him to hand over a payment or”—she really was getting carried away with her performance; there was a genuine sob in her throat as she said, “or he'll reveal everything.”

“Ah.” Yolanta was thoughtful. And she also seemed a little amused by this middle-aged, middle-class woman, this apparent icon of Fethering rectitude, admitting to being blackmailed. What criminality or deviancy, she was clearly thinking, could this paragon have committed to make her valuable to Donal Geraghty?