The Stabbing in the Stables (27 page)

E
XCEPT FOR GIVING
directions, Imogen Potton said nothing to Carole on the way home in the Renault. All the fight seemed to have gone out of her. She shrank into her seat, sniffling occasionally, looking younger by the minute.

Once at home, all she seemed to want was for her mother to baby her, and her mother, rather to Carole's surprise, obliged. Having set her guest up with a cup of coffee in the sitting room, Hilary Potton vanished upstairs with her daughter. She was some time getting Imogen in and out of a bath, and didn't come down till the girl was tucked up in bed with a hot water bottle and on the verge of sleep.

“Sorry about that,” she said, entering the sitting room with a cafetière. “Can I top you up?”

“Thank you.”

Hilary Potton settled down in a frayed armchair with her own cup, and, as usual, there was no problem in getting her to start talking. “Poor Immy. She's taken about as much as she can take. You know, I often wish I'd never met Alec.”

“You think all her problems are down to him, do you?”

“What else is there to think? His constantly going off with other women is what broke up our marriage, which meant Immy had to grow up in an atmosphere of constant rowing and arguments. And now he's proved to be a murderer too.”

“That hasn't actually been proved yet,” said Carole cautiously.

“As good as. Just needs the court proceedings to dot the
i
's and cross the
t
's. And what's that going to do for Immy—having a father in prison for life? No, as soon as this is all over, we'll move away from Fethering.”

“Any idea where?”

“I don't know. A long way. Australia? New Zealand, maybe.”

“But if you did that, neither of you would be able to visit your husband in prison.”

Hilary Potton's look turned venomous. “Do you think either of us will
want
to visit my husband in prison?”

“I can understand why you might not, but Imogen still seems to be devoted to her father.”

“All the more reason to get her as far away from him as possible,” Hilary snapped. “Cauterise the wound, get rid of all the poison that man has brought into our lives. Immy and I need a completely new start.” She looked defiantly at her guest. “And I'm going to ensure that we get it.”

 

Jude thought quickly. There was only one explanation for Nicky Dalrymple's presence at the old stables. He had been at home when Sonia had taken the call revealing where Imogen and Conker had been found. Nicky knew that the girl spent a lot of time with Donal Geraghty at Long Bamber Stables, and must have deduced that the ex-jockey had suggested the pony's hiding place. Donal was blackmailing the Dalrymples. Nicky had arrived to silence the Irishman for good.

“Don't make a sound,” she whispered, as she hurried out to the main yard. She didn't know yet the details of how she was going to do it, but she was determined to prevent any harm from coming to Donal.

In his search of the premises, Nicky Dalrymple had reached the stall where Conker had been hidden. He stood in the doorway, his back to Jude, the knife still in his hand.

“What are you doing here, Nicky?”

He turned as if he had been stung, and the face he revealed was a terrifying one. Congested with unreasoning fury, his expression had erased all trace of his good looks. There was something savage, even bestial, about him.

“I could ask you the same,” he hissed. “I can't remember what your name is…”

“Jude.”

“Well, Jude…” He raised his knife hand as he approached her. Jude backed away towards the main gates, but she knew escape was hopeless. If she ran, a man as big and fit as Nicky Dalrymple would overtake her within seconds. No, argument was going to be a better defence than flight. Still not much of a defence, though.

The knife blade showed a dull gleam in the pale sunlight. Nicky's contorted face almost smiled. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘being in the wrong place at the wrong time'? Because I would say you, at this moment, are the perfect example of that.”

“What—you're planning to kill me?”

“I don't think you've left me much alternative. You're not the kind of person to keep quiet about something like this. Or the others.”

He was now closing in on her, with his back to the hay-barn entrance. Jude backed away till she came up hard against one of the stables' rotting gateposts, and tried desperately to think of reasons for him to spare her life.

“Look, Nicky, nothing's happened yet. You're quite safe at the moment. So long as you don't attack either me or Donal, you'll be all right.”

He looked bewildered. “Donal? You mean that tinker and thief who—”

But that was as far as he got. Suddenly a small demented fury was on his back, reaching strong hands to grip at his throat.

Donal. Who had somehow found the strength to drag himself up out of the barn and come to Jude's rescue.

It was an unequal contest. Nicky Dalrymple was twice the size of his assailant and at the peak of fitness. Donal was still suffering cracked ribs and all the other pains of his previous night's beating. With almost contemptuous ease, Nicky swung the Irishman round off his shoulders and sent him crashing to the ground next to Jude. At the impact Donal let out a shriek of agony.

“So I've got two of you to dispose of now, have I?” Nicky Dalrymple felt the weight of the kitchen knife in his hand. “Two who know rather more than they should about my activities.”

“I'd be open to negotiation,” said Donal, with some of his old bravado. “I'm sure we could reach a mutually agreeable sum of money that would pay for my silence.”

“I'm afraid we're beyond that. This has got very serious now. I've got far too much to lose to allow either of you ever to speak to another human being.”

As he moved towards them, Nicky Dalrymple became calmer. The natural colour returned to his face. He was once again the successful man, the practical man. He was facing a problem, but he had worked out a way of dealing with that problem, and he was about to put it into practice.

“Now do you feel strongly about which of you goes first?” He smiled graciously. “Etiquette, of course, demands that it should be the lady…”

He moved towards Jude, the kitchen knife raised.

 

“So, Hilary, are you going to go on working at Allinstore?”

“For the time being, yes.”

“What, still the same shift? Four to eight every weekday except Wednesday?”

“That's it. I haven't any alternative, Carole. I'm afraid Alec's earning capacity is rather diminished by being in police custody. But, of course, when Imogen and I move I won't work.”

“What will you live on then?”

“Property prices are a lot cheaper in New Zealand.” Australia was apparently no longer part of the equation. Carole got the feeling Hilary Potton had been planning her escape for quite a while. Probably long before her husband's arrest made it a real possibility.

“And then,” she went on, “I'm set to make quite a lot of money from the newspapers.”

“Really? What, you mean writing about the murder case?”

“Yes, obviously nothing can appear in print until Alec's convicted, but I've already had exploratory approaches from the
News of the World
, the
Mail
and the
Express
. I've been in touch with a very high-profile publicist, who's going to handle all that for me.”

There was no mistaking the glee with which Hilary Potton announced this. Not only was she planning to take extreme revenge on her ex-husband, she was also going to attain the kind of media celebrity of which she had always dreamed.

 

Nicky Dalrymple slowly brought the knife to touch Jude's cheek, running it along the smooth skin, almost like a lover's caress.

Then he raised it to stab, his eyes narrowing to focus on the top of her cleavage.

Jude felt calm, satisfied with the life that she had had, and closed her eyes to await the blow.

Then she was aware of a sudden movement from below, and just managed to see Donal's hand dart upwards, as he plunged a Stanley knife into Nicky Dalrymple's stomach.

The banker looked down in horror, to see the blood spreading over his perfectly laundered Turnbull & Asser shirt. Off guard, he hardly resisted when Donal Geraghty snatched the kitchen knife from his hand.

Nicky Dalrymple was in shock. He gave a bewildered look at what had been his two prospective victims, then turned and staggered back towards the road, whimpering like a child.

J
UDE CALLED THE
Fethering taxi firm she always used, and they said “because it was her”, they'd have someone there in twenty minutes. She asked for the car to come to the entrance to the old farm, where Nicky Dalrymple must have parked his BMW. No need to involve Yolanta Brewis in further questions and explanations.

She also insisted that Donal should come with her, and he was too exhausted by his recent exertions to put up much of an argument. “But no hospitals,” he said.

“No hospitals. I'll put you to bed in my house.”

“When did I last have an offer like that?” he asked with a weary wink.

Of course, what she was doing meant that Jude was not fulfilling her promise to Imogen, that she would stay with Conker until Sonia arrived. But, as with charities, when it came to the crunch, Jude always put human beings above animals.

She checked that the pony was happy—which she was, extremely. And Conker was even happier when the buckets of carrots and pony nuts were moved to within her range. Jude left her chomping merrily.

Under other circumstances, she would have stayed to run a bath for Donal and see him settled into bed at Woodside Cottage, but she was in a rush, so she just showed him where everything was. The cab was still waiting outside, ready to move onto her next destination.

“Right,” she said as she was about to leave. “Have you got everything you want?”

Donal grimaced ruefully. “Well, now, you wouldn't happen to have a bottle of Jameson's in the house, would you?”

Jude apologised that she hadn't got any Jameson's, only Famous Grouse. Donal agreed that he'd make an exception.

“Can I get you a glass?”

“No, the bottle'll do just fine.”

She ran upstairs to fetch a notebook from a bedside drawer, said good-bye to an already-imbibing Donal and left.

Before getting back into the cab, Jude knocked on the door of High Tor. She would have liked to have Carole with her for the next encounter. But there was no reply.

She told the driver where she wanted to go.

 

On the short drive to Unwins, Jude tried to separate out the conflicting strands of information that she had received in the last dramatic hour.

Of Nicky Dalrymple's violence—whose existence she had never much doubted—she now had firsthand experience.

Another nugget of information rose to the surface of her confusion. Donal had actually given more details of how he was blackmailing the Dalrymples. He had talked about something he'd seen from the hayloft. Jude would have pursued the hint at the time, but that was just when Nicky had arrived with the knife, and in the ensuing drama it had been forgotten.

Damn. She should have asked Donal before leaving him at Woodside Cottage, but the idea had gone completely out of her mind.

There was something else, though, some scrap of information, some oddity, something that didn't quite strike the right chord.

Something to do with Nicky Dalrymple. Painful though it was to remember, Jude tried to reconstruct everything that had happened, everything that had been said during their recent confrontation at Cordham Manor stables.

The most striking detail was Nicky's response when she had first mentioned Donal's name. He had seemed surprised. His reaction had certainly not been that of a vengeful man whose quarry has just been named.

In other words, contrary to Jude's assumption, Nicky Dalrymple had not arrived at the Cordham Manor stables in search of Donal Geraghty.

He had come for another reason.

She shuddered as she took in the implications of this.

 

“Why don't you stay for lunch?”

“Oh no, really. I'd better be getting back to High Tor. There's rather an aggrieved dog there who hasn't been out since about half past five this morning.”

“Having waited this long, another hour's not going to kill him. Beside, if you started at that time, you must be starving by now. Did you have any breakfast?”

Carole admitted that she hadn't had any.

“Then, no question, you must stay. My little thank-you to you for bringing Immy safely home.”

The invitation was an appealing one. Carole certainly felt extremely hungry.

And, even though Alec Potton's confession seemed to have sewn up the case, she would still get the chance to ask more questions about the murder of Walter Fleet.

Besides, Hilary Potton had led her through to the kitchen, and was already opening a bottle of white wine.

 

Jude asked the driver to stop on the road outside Unwins. She didn't want the noise of tyres on the gravel to alert the residents to her arrival. If the front door was locked, she would have to ring the bell for admission in the traditional way. But if it wasn't…

The door was locked, and when Sonia Dalrymple opened it, Jude felt embarrassed about the dramatic scenarios she had been spinning in her mind. Everything at the house seemed so ordinary, so peaceful. Sonia looked once again beautiful and soigné, the dark cloud of Nicky's presence once again removed from her horizon.

“Oh, Jude, what on earth are you doing here? I was just about to ring Lucinda and sort out picking up Conker. I'm thinking it's probably safer if she drives one of the horse boxes over, rather than riding Conker back on the roads.”

“Yes.” She had been steeling herself for this confrontation, but now she was actually at Unwins, she was having difficulty working out the best approach. To say straight away that Sonia's husband had just tried to stab her to death might be dramatic, but might not help her towards the information she needed. So she contented herself with asking a question that was already answered by Sonia's demeanour and the absence of a large BMW in the drive. “Has Nicky gone?”

“Yes, about an hour ago. He was driving straight up to Heathrow.”

No, he wasn't. He was making a detour via Cordham Manor.

“Do come in, Jude. Would you like a cup of tea?”

She would certainly like something. The woody carrot lay uneasily on her stomach. They went through to the kitchen, where Sonia made tea. When she offered a packet of shortbread biscuits, Jude fell on them.

She still hadn't quite worked out what she was going to say next. But, as she frequently did, she opted for a direct approach. “Sonia, I saw Donal again recently.”

“Oh.” The very name was enough to set her clattering teacups.

“And I know he's blackmailing you over something he saw from the hayloft.”

Sonia said nothing, but sank into a kitchen chair, as though all strength had been drained out of her. But, at the same time, she showed signs of relief. Maybe at last the cancer of the secret she had been holding inside for so long could be removed.

“I knew it would have to come out eventually.” Her voice was weak, but calm. “Probably as well it's come out now, when Nicky's just gone away. Gives me a few days to prepare myself for his reaction.” Her face looked grim. “He's not going to like it. This will be the row to end all rows.”

“Literally? This might be the one that makes you leave him?”

Sonia looked across at Jude with yearning hopelessness in her eyes. “If only…”

The phone on the table rang. “Probably Nicky, saying he's safely at Heathrow and checking whether I packed something. He usually manages to find something I've forgotten, something that puts me in the wrong.” She reached for the phone.

“If he asks whether you've seen me, say no,” Jude hissed.

With a look of surprise, Sonia answered the call. As predicted, it was her husband. As predicted, he asked if she'd remembered to pack the charger for his shaver. When she said she hadn't, a predictable earful ensued. Then, after a few more yes and no answers, the call ended.

Sonia looked across the table in bewilderment. “He did ask if you were here.”

“And you said no?”

“Yes. Jude, what's going on?”

“It's something rather nasty.”

“About Nicky?” Sonia asked, knowing what the answer would be.

“Yes, about Nicky. You said there are some nights he doesn't stay at home?”

“He spends most of his life travelling the globe.”

“I know that. But you said sometimes he stays in a hotel round here.”

“Oh yes. After we've had a particularly major row.”

“Like you did last night?”

“Yes.”

“And when you have those major rows, does he hit you?”

Sonia gave her answer as if it was the first time she'd thought about the question. “No, he doesn't. That's odd, actually. He hits me over small things. The big rows, he…no, he just leaves me, goes out.”

“But when he does that, he's not in a calm state?”

“Good God, no. He's absolutely furious, red in the face, bottling everything up.”

“And when you next see him, has he calmed down again?”

“Yes. I hadn't really thought about it before, but I suppose he has. No,” she said thoughtfully, “I'm not afraid of Nicky when he comes back after one of those nights away.”

“Hm.” Jude tapped her fingers lightly on the table as she considered how to phrase the next bit. “Sonia, would you be able to give me dates for the nights when Nicky stayed out, say, for the last six months?”

“Well, yes, I could, actually.” She crossed to the kitchen units and opened the cutlery drawer. There was a purpose-built segmented tray inside. Sonia lifted this out to reveal a thin hard-backed manuscript book underneath.

“My diary. He'd never look in there.”

“Is it just for this year?”

“No, it's not marked up as a diary. I just go on until I run out of space and then start another one.”

Sonia flicked through and found the relevant dates. Jude checked them against notes in the little book she had picked up at Woodside Cottage.

One of the dates seemed particularly to trouble Sonia. “That was just after Christmas, I remember. The twins were still here, still on holiday.”

“And you had a big row? Quite common in families at Christmas, I believe.”

“Yes, but…” Sonia choked back a sob. “This one was worse. The reason we had the row was…worse.”

Jude bided her time. She had an instinct that the revelation would not stop there.

“The girls had gone to bed, and Nicky had gone up to say good night to them, and then I remembered some dirty clothes I had to pick up from Alice's room and I…I found Nicky on Alice's bed. He was…touching her.”

“And that prompted the row?”

“Huge row. Worst row ever. Nicky stormed out of the house.”

“And came back the next morning calmed?”

Sonia nodded tearfully. “That's why I insisted the girls go to boarding school. At least during term time Nicky can't…can't get at them.”

Jude took a folded newspaper cutting out of her notebook and spread it out on the table. “This was printed a couple of days later. The events it refer to happened the night Nicky stormed out of here.”

Sonia Dalrymple can only have had time to read the headline
HORSE RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN
before she burst into uncontrollable tears.

To Jude it all made sense now. What Sonia had said about her husband interfering with his daughter served only to confirm her thesis. The theory of a connection between horse molestation and paedophilia was gaining credibility in academic circles. And Jude had a feeling Sonia might have suspected what Nicky had been up to.

“Is it a possibility you'd thought about before? Something you were afraid might be true?”

The shattered woman managed to nod assent.

“This morning,” said Jude grimly, “only about an hour ago, I saw your husband at the old stables at Cordham Manor. He had a knife with him.”

“Oh, no,” Sonia moaned. “Conker.”

“Yes, I think he was out to harm Conker.”

It seemed impossible that Sonia's crying could become more intense, but it did. Jude reached out and placed a hand on her arm. “Don't worry. Conker's all right. And, as you see, I'm all right. I have Donal to thank for that.”

“Donal?” Sonia repeated in bewilderment.

“Yes. He saved my life by stabbing Nicky.”

“Stabbing?”

“Only a flesh wound. I'm sure your husband has patched himself up at Heathrow, bought a new shirt and will be fine for his business meetings in Chicago.”

“Yes.” There was a long silence. “Oh, Jude, what do we do?”

“I think we have to tell the police.”

She nodded in the face of the inevitable.

“But will there be any evidence?”

“Donal and I can testify to the attack he made on us this morning. With regard to the horses, well, the dates offer quite a strong pointer. I would imagine the police could get some DNA evidence—maybe from the kitchen knife that was found in the hayloft. I think there will probably be enough to convict him.”