The Stabbing in the Stables (28 page)

“Yes. Yes.” Sonia had stopped crying. She now seemed confused, as she tried to work out the ramifications of what she had just heard.

But she didn't seem surprised. The news that her husband was the Horse Ripper confirmed something that she had been thinking for a long time. And maybe, finally, it offered her a justification for leaving him.

“A lot to take in, Jude,” she said slowly. “It's a lot to take in.”

“Yes. And then, of course, there's something else, isn't there?”

“Hm?”

“What Donal saw from the hayloft…”

“Ah. Ah, yes…”

“…and was prepared to blackmail you about…”

“Mm.”

“Can you tell me about it? I know you couldn't before, and from seeing what keeping the secret was doing to your body, I know how much it meant, but now…”

“Now…it seems a lot less important. I was terrified how Nicky would react if Donal told him—that's why I was prepared to pay Donal so much money.”

“When did he first make his demands?”

“I can't remember. Month or so back maybe.”

“Before Walter Fleet's death?”

“Oh yes.”

“So you don't know exactly when he saw you?”

“No, and it was only later I worked out that the hayloft must have been his vantage point. Anyway, it all seems rather less significant now. I mean, given the new circumstances. I can't see that Nicky and I are ever going to back into a normal married situation again.”

“I'd doubt it.”

“So the fact that I was having an affair with another man suddenly becomes infinitely less important.”

“Donal saw you together? From the hayloft?”

Sonia Dalrymple nodded, suddenly more confident. “Yes. Of course at the time I had no idea he was up there. I had no idea he was even using our stables as a temporary home until the police raided the place.”

“But why were you and your lover out there?”

“I don't know. I was afraid in the house. This place is so dominated by Nicky's presence, even when he's not here. I suppose I was a bit worried about leaving evidence that Nicky might find, but it wasn't really that. I just couldn't relax in the house.”

“Whereas in the stables…”

“Yes. And there was something rather exciting about the whole set-up. Adolescent thrills, like having a snog in the cycle sheds.”

Jude chuckled softly. “You don't have to tell me who the man is…unless you want to.”

“Oh, why not? You know everything else. Alec Potton.”

“God.” That really did knock Jude sideways.

But it also gave her another idea. “And when was the last time you and Alec were together in the stables?”

Sonia Dalrymple dropped her head into her hands for a moment of complete silence before saying, “That's what's so dreadful. It was late afternoon on the day that Walter Fleet was murdered. That's why I was late meeting you at Long Bamber Stables. I'd been with Alec for the last two hours. And then Nicky came home early from a business trip, and so nearly found Alec and me together, and I went into the house to see Nicky and Alec stayed hidden in the stables and it was so ghastly—”

Jude let her get no further. Brown eyes sparkling, she exclaimed, “But, Sonia, if Alec Potton was with you for all that time, then there's no way that he could have killed Walter Fleet.”

“I know, I know.”

And Jude finally understood the magnitude of the secret that had been torturing Sonia Dalrymple.

H
ILARY
P
OTTON'S KITCHEN
was surprisingly old-fashioned for someone whose husband worked in the fitted kitchens business. Maybe it was just another reflection of the state of their marriage, of Alec's priorities lying increasingly outside the domestic nest. But Hilary put together an excellent lunch, pasta with tuna and broccoli in a creamy sauce. She had good domestic skills. Maybe they would be put to good use one day in another marriage. Because, from the way Hilary talked about the future, meeting a nice caring New Zealander was included in her plans.

Carole kept trying to get the conversation back to Alec, and indeed to Walter Fleet's murder, but without marked success. The marriage, along with everything else that had happened in Fethering, would soon be in the past, and Hilary didn't want to talk about them. A few necessarily uncomfortable months lay ahead of her, until her husband was finally behind bars for a good long stretch, and then her new life would begin to blossom.

“What's Imogen's reaction to the idea of New Zealand?” asked Carole when she could get a word in edgeways.

“Oh, I haven't talked to her about it in great detail yet. I don't want to worry her. She's got enough on her plate at the moment.”

Yes, thought Carole, she certainly has. And she wasn't sure that playing a supporting role in her mother's “new life” in New Zealand would be the best outcome for Imogen.

Carole found it strange how her attitude to Hilary Potton had changed. When they first met, she had thought her a potential kindred spirit. But the more time Carole spent with her, the more she became aware of the woman's deep selfishness and taste for self-dramatisation. She knew it was never possible to look inside another marriage and find the real truth, but she was beginning to feel a little sympathy for Alec Potton.

Hilary's clearing up the pasta bowls and fetching fruit and cheese gave Carole an opportunity to redirect the conversation. “Going back to that awful night when Walter Fleet was stabbed…”

“Do we have to go back to it?” Hilary laid out the second course on the table. “You can imagine what it's like for me, particularly in the new circumstances, you know, with Alec. And the thought that I'll have to go through it all over again when the trial starts—have the media spotlight on me, all those endless television interviews—it doesn't bear thinking of.”

But the mock shudder with which she uttered these words suggested that she already was thinking of it quite a lot. And with considerable enthusiasm.

“Well, I was just working something out.”

“Yes?”

“That night was a Tuesday, wasn't it?”

“Was it? I can't remember.”

“Take my word for it, it was.”

“All right.” Hilary Potton shrugged. “I don't really see that it's important.”

“It may not be. But please, just indulge me for a moment while I try to work this thing out.”

Another shrug, this time of uninterested acquiescence.

“And obviously you weren't anywhere near Long Bamber Stables at the relevant time…”

“No.”

“…because you were here at home with Imogen.”

“That's what I said, yes.”

“And yet, every weekday except Wednesday, you do a four-to-eight shift at Allinstore.”

“Oh yes. Yes, I do, but…that evening there was a delay. Imogen got held up at school, so I had to call in to Allinstore to say I'd be late, and then,” she concluded lamely, “I somehow didn't make it.”

“And is that what you told the police when they questioned you?”

“Yes, of course. Or I would have done if the police had asked me about it in detail. But in fact Alec had told them that Imogen and I were here, and I was just asked to confirm what he'd said.”

“But how could Alec have known you were both here at relevant time…”

“Sorry?”

“…if he was at that very moment at Long Bamber Stables stabbing Walter Fleet to death?”

Hilary Potton looked straight at Carole, and there was a new hardness in her eyes. Their conversation had definitely reached another level. Whether that level would have incorporated denial or outrage or negotiation was impossible to say.

And nor was Carole about to find out, because at that moment the front doorbell rang, and Hilary Potton went out to the hall, to return with a jubilant Jude. “Don't you understand—it's all all right,” she was crowing, as she followed Hilary in, leaving the door open behind her.

“No, I'm sorry. I don't understand.”

“Oh, hello, Carole.” Jude gave only a glancing acknowledgement to her friend before bubbling on. “Your husband could not have killed Walter Fleet. He has an alibi for the time when the murder took place.”

There was no disguising the effect this news had on Hilary Potton. Disappointment burned in her eyes. Images on the screen of her mind of nice caring New Zealanders were instantly switched off.

“What was his alibi? Where was he?”

Given the facts, Jude thought it more diplomatic not to answer at that particular moment. “The person who can vouch for him is contacting the police direct. I don't think anyone else should be told at this point.”

“I'm Alec's wife. I have a right to know.”

“I'm sure you will hear the details from the police very soon.”

“Well, I…” Hilary Potton was momentarily lost for words. Then exasperation returned, exasperation with its usual target. “Isn't that typical of bloody Alec? Presumably, if someone else had an alibi for him, he knew about it too. He could have stopped all this nonsense about going in for days of questioning and confessing to the murder.”

“Then why do you think he didn't?” asked Carole softly.

“Hm?”

“Why did he confess to a murder he didn't commit? When there was someone who could give him an alibi all the time?”

“Well, presumably…I don't know. God only knows what goes on inside that man's head.”

“Suppose,” suggested Jude, “that the revelation of who he was with might have injured that person.”

“I don't see how it could.”

“If that person were a married woman…”

“Oh God. Alec wasn't with one of his floozies, was he?”

“I'm just saying that might be a possible explanation for his behaviour.”

“That he was saving a lady's honour?” asked Hilary cynically. “What a chivalrous gesture. Pity he never gave a thought to saving my bloody honour.”

Carole picked up the conversation—or had it now become an interrogation? “As Jude says, that's just one possibility. Another possibility is that Alec confessed to protect someone else.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that he knew who had committed the murder, and he was prepared to take the rap for him. Or her.”

“But why the hell would he do that?” Hilary Potton was blustering now.

“Love? Duty? Who can say? Who can say what goes on inside a marriage?”

“Carole, are you suggesting that I killed Walter?”

“No, I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that your alibi for the relevant time looks pretty shaky. Of course, it would be possible to check at Allinstore about your calling in to say you were delayed that afternoon and—”

“No! No, don't do that.”

“So are you telling us you weren't here between five and six that Tuesday evening?”

There was a long silence. Then another voice behind them said, “You might as well tell the truth, Mummy. You weren't here, were you?”

I
MOGEN
P
OTTON STOOD
in the doorway, wearing fleecy pyjamas with a design of rabbits on them. Her teeth had been cleaned and her brace was a line of unforgiving metal. From one hand dangled a teddy bear whose fur had almost all been loved away. The small breasts that pushed against her pyjama tops looked out of place on one so young.

“I don't know where you were at that time,” she said. “I hadn't seen you for the previous forty-eight hours. And I didn't see you again until about quarter past eight that evening, when I assumed you had just come in from Allinstore. Go on, that's true, isn't it, Mummy?”

Hilary Potton nodded wordlessly, as her daughter went on. “I had been worried about Conker. I kept hearing these stories about someone going round and…attacking mares…always the mares…and I couldn't have borne it if Conker…Conker was the only creature in the world I cared about.” She fixed her mother with a venomous eye. “I had long since stopped caring about you. I don't think I ever cared about you. I think I always hated you…because of the way you treated Daddy and…

“I care about Daddy, but it was difficult to care about him…because he was always changing his mind…and always saying he'd be somewhere at a certain time and then not turning up…So I cared about Daddy, but I couldn't rely on him…But Conker, Conker understood me. I couldn't bear the idea of someone hurting Conker. If she'd died, I would have died.”

Imogen was silent, but the spell she exerted over the three women was so potent none of them spoke until she again picked up her narrative. “I was worried about Conker—particularly nighttimes. Lucinda or someone else was there all the day, but at night…And there was someone I'd seen looking at Conker in a certain way. I didn't like the way he looked at her, as if he was planning how to hurt her…”

“Who was this person?” asked Jude, almost in a whisper.

“Someone who knows Conker well—but he doesn't love her. He hates her.”

“Nicky Dalrymple?”

At this Hilary Potton burst out, “Don't be ridiculous. Nicky Dalrymple is an international banker. He's a pillar of the Fethering community—when he's here, which granted is not all the time. Immy, you can't go round making false accusations against people.”

The girl focused her eyes on her mother's. “No, I should leave that to you, should I, Mummy? Like you did with Daddy?”

“I didn't make false accusations against your father.”

“No, but you let him take the rap without raising a finger. There were things you could have told the police that would have got him off, but you didn't say any of them.”

“Why should I go out of my way to help someone who'd made my life a total misery?”

The look of contempt Imogen cast on her mother was more eloquent than any words could have been.

“So,” Jude prompted, “you started to stay at Long Bamber overnight, to look after Conker?”

“Yes. Only when I knew there was danger.”

“When you knew that Mr. Dalrymple was at home?”

The girl nodded.

“Did you know about this, Hilary?” asked Carole.

“Yes. Immy was perfectly safe at the stables. I knew it was just a stupid adolescent fantasy, but if she wanted to live it out, I wasn't about to stop her. And, quite honestly, the way she'd been behaving since Alec and I split up, it was a relief not to have her round the house.”

“It was a relief not to be around the house!” When it came to vitriol, Imogen could easily match her mother's output.

“So,” said Jude easily, “you used to sleep in the sleeping bag on the top level of Lucinda's tack room?”

“That's right. And I'd go there for the evenings if…you know, if I knew he was about and Lucinda wasn't.”

“Mm.” A thought came to Jude. “I've suddenly realised why you were happy to come back here this morning.”

The girl looked bewildered.

“You had come from Northampton to Fethering because you knew Nicky Dalrymple was home and you were worried about Conker. But, as soon as you heard that he was on his way to Heathrow to fly to America, you relaxed. You realised the danger to Conker was over.”

Jude didn't think it was the time to add how far from over the danger to Conker had been.

Imogen gave a quick nod of agreement to what she had said.

“So,” said Carole, “you were there that Tuesday night, weren't you? The night Walter Fleet died?”

“Yes, I was there.”

“What happened?”

“This is ridiculous!” Hilary Potton objected. “I won't have you bullying my daughter. She's in shock. She's had quite enough of this badgering. She needs to get back to bed.”

“No, Mummy.” Imogen moved slowly forward, and sat on the vacant chair around the table. “I want to tell them what happened.”

“You'll regret it,” her mother hissed.

“I don't think I will.” The girl took a long pause, as if to gather her thoughts, and then launched into her account. “I was there in the tack room, kind of snuggling in the sleeping bag. It was a cold night, maybe I was dozing off a bit. I hadn't slept much the night before. It's never quiet round the stables, and that night I kept hearing noises I thought might be”—her voice faltered—“might be him coming.

“So the next evening I probably was half asleep. I'd gone to the stables straight from school and tried to do a bit of homework, but the light was bad, and I was too tired. So I just sort of snuggled down.

“And then a noise woke me. The front gate opening. Someone had come into the stables. There's a little window up near where I put my sleeping bag, and I could look out on to the yard. I saw…I saw…” She struggled to get the words out. “I saw Mr. Dalrymple. He was…he was carrying a knife…”

The three listening women waited while the girl recovered herself sufficiently to continue.

“I rushed downstairs. I wanted to stop him. But when I got to the tack room door, there was nobody in sight. I could see Conker's stall across the yard, and she was fine. I think she knew I was there, and she had her head over the door, hoping I'd give her a bit of carrot or a Polo.

“But I knew I'd seen Mr Dalrymple—there was no doubt about that. He was still around there somewhere…with…with his knife. So I hid behind the tack room door, and I just waited.

“I don't know how long it was, but I was just about thinking he'd gone away, and I could get back into my sleeping bag, when I heard the front gate bang again. I waited, expecting to hear footsteps going towards Conker's stable, but they didn't. They came straight towards the tack room, straight towards me.

“I'm not quite sure what happened then. I was just furious, furious at the idea that anyone could treat horses like that. I grabbed the nearest thing on the bench—I didn't even know it was a bot knife until afterwards—and when the man came into the tack room I leapt on him.” Her voice had now gone uncannily calm. “And I slashed at him, and slashed at him, and went on slashing as he backed away from me. I went on…I went on and on…until he fell over backwards in the yard.

“It was only then that I looked down at him, and realised it was Mr. Fleet.”

Hilary Potton, who had let out a little gasp earlier in her daughter's narrative, was now sobbing softly, hopelessly.

“So what did you do?” asked Carole.

“I panicked. Of course I panicked. I threw away the bot knife. Then I looked down at myself. I was covered with blood. Daddy's old Barbour, his gloves that I was wearing, they were all covered with blood.”

The recollection was too vivid for her. She swayed on her seat, as if she were about to faint. Jude went quickly to the sink and fetched a glass of water.

After a long sip, Imogen was ready to continue. “I left the stables and ran. I didn't really know what was happening, what I was doing, but some instinct told me to go by the river, follow the Fether down to Fethering. I didn't know what I was going to do when I got there. Mummy was at Allinstore…”

Carole directed a piercing look to Hilary Potton, who turned away.

“…and when I could manage to think, I knew it was Daddy I wanted, Daddy I wanted to talk to, Daddy who might be able to help me. So I rang him on his mobile, and he said he was at the stables at Unwins—you know, the Dalrymples' house. And I couldn't think why he was there, but it didn't worry me at the time. I just went there and found him.

“And when I got there, I felt dreadful, because he said that Mr. and Mrs. Dalrymple were in the house, just there. The man who wanted to hurt Conker was right there, so close to us.

“And Daddy kept asking me what had happened and I tried to tell him, and I told him I'd killed Mr. Fleet, and he said I must get out of those clothes, and he bundled up the Barbour and the gloves and he hid them up in the hayloft—he said no one ever went up there.

“Then he took me home, and he took off my other clothes and…I think he said he was going to burn them…I don't know what happened. But he made me have a bath, made me scrub everywhere very thoroughly, and then he spent ages washing the bath afterwards. And then I got dressed in jeans and a jumper, and Daddy went, and I watched television until Mummy got back from Allinstore.”

The girl looked up towards the window, her eyes unfocused. “It was as if it had never happened. I'd wake up in the mornings often, thinking it hadn't happened, thinking I'd dreamed it. Then I'd slowly remember, but it still didn't feel real. When I heard that Donal had been taken in for questioning, I almost managed to convince myself that he had done it. I mean, I like Donal, but it seemed to make more sense that he had killed Mr. Fleet than that I had. Daft, I know, but that was how my mind was working.

“Then they let Donal free, and suddenly they were questioning Daddy, and I knew what was real and what wasn't. And for a few days I just didn't know what to do. And then all at once it became very clear to me. I wanted to confess—I wanted to say everything that I've just said to you—but Mummy wouldn't let me.”

Hilary Potton looked defensively at the other two women. “I didn't know, did I? I just thought she was being self-dramatising again.” Rich, coming from you, thought Carole. “I thought her idea of confessing was just to get her precious father off the hook.”

“And you didn't want him to come off the hook, did you? Ever?”

“Shut up, Carole! Stop making me feel like I've done something wrong in all this!”

“I think you have done a few things wrong,” said Jude. “You've lied about your alibi…”

“That was only to protect Immy.”

“There's something else, though, isn't there?”

“What?”

“You told the police where to find the bloodstained clothes.”

Hilary Potton's face took on an expression of injured innocence. “That was my duty as a citizen. Once Alec had told me they were there, I had to do it.”

“Did Alec tell you everything? That Imogen had killed Walter Fleet?”

Now Hilary looked confused. “He garbled on about something. He said it involved Immy, but I didn't take it seriously. I thought he was just trying to exonerate himself. The only information I retained was that Alec's bloodstained Barbour was hidden in the hayloft at the Dalrymples' stables.”

“And suddenly you saw the perfect way to get revenge on him for all the real and imagined slights he had inflicted on you during your marriage.”

“You make it sound so calculating.”

“I think,” said Jude, “it was pretty calculating.”

“I genuinely believed that Alec was the murderer!”

But Hilary Potton's bluster was not convincing. She couldn't meet the three implacable pair of eyes that were fixed on her, least of all Imogen's.

“For heaven's sake, I'm not the villain of the piece.” She pointed at her daughter. “There's the villain of the piece.”

But neither Carole nor Jude thought that was completely true.