‘“A traveller came by,”’ murmured Alan, ‘“Silently, invisibly/He took her with a sigh.”’
Marti Gluckstein looked at the pointers Rupert had given him.
‘I put it to you, sir, that travellers wouldn’t abandon a horse if it were untrainable, they’d flog it for meat money. Someone wanted to destroy this mare without trace.’
Despite his cool linen suit, Harvey-Holden was dripping with sweat. Impossible to have a face so still, thought Etta with a shiver, like a ferret not moving a whisker that might alert his prey.
Cecil was clearly not going to expose H-H’s lack of charm and his squeaky little ex-jockey’s voice by allowing him to give evidence.
Marti Gluckstein continued to peg away to find the truth.
When one of Harvey-Holden’s stable lads, a middle-aged Pakistani called Vakil who looked even shiftier than H-H, was called to give evidence, he said he remembered his boss fussing over Usurper but couldn’t recall when she left Ravenscroft.
‘Surely any decent yard,’ asked Marti, ‘keeps daily records of what a horse eats, what medication she’s on and whether she’s been ridden out or schooled. On what date did these details about Usurper cease?’
‘I cannot say,’ replied Vakil. ‘All records were destroyed in the fire.’
‘How very convenient,’ observed Marti.
Judy Tobias also gave evidence.
‘H-H adored Usurper and all his horses. After the fire, he was a broken man.’
‘Probably because you sat on him,’ muttered Dora and as Etta’s supporters rocked with laughter she was told to shut up by the judge.
Cecil Stroud gave her a filthy look and dropped his voice like a cello. ‘My client was extremely fond of Usurper. He was devastated to learn what suffering she had endured. After the heartbreak of the fire that destroyed his yard, he longs to salvage something from the ashes.’
‘Hear, hear!’ murmured Judy Tobias.
‘In addition, Mrs Wilkinson won her first point-to-point so convincingly, she obviously has a glittering future. As a pensioner, Mrs Bancroft could hardly put her into training.’
The bright blue curtains were then drawn and a video was shown of the race, including the fall and Mrs Wilkinson nudging Amber to remount. It had the entire court cheering and laughing, particularly when Mrs Wilkinson shook hooves with the stewards afterwards.
‘A horse of great charm and character,’ observed Cecil Stroud.
After this they adjourned for lunch. Etta couldn’t eat a thing because it was her turn to give evidence next. Her pretty new blue suit was miles too hot. If only she could have taken off her jacket like the men, who were lifting their spirits with stiff drinks.
‘What is your interest in horses, Mrs Bancroft?’ was the judge’s first question once they were back in court.
‘I had a pony when I was a child and I’ve always loved them.’
Then she described how mutilated and terrified Mrs Wilkinson had been, and how it seemed, from the scraped snow, as if someone had been trying to bury her alive. She told how Joey and Woody had risked their jobs moving her into Valent Edwards’s house, which was warm and dry, because they were so upset by her plight.
‘Why didn’t you call the police or the RSPCA?’ asked Cecil Stroud sternly.
‘Because she was learning to trust me, and was so poorly we daren’t move her. I felt she’d suffered enough,’ said Etta in a voice so low, everyone strained to hear her. ‘And truthfully because I’d fallen in love with her and didn’t want anyone to take her away.’
‘Oh Etta,’ sighed Alan, shaking his head.
Cecil Stroud’s mocking eyebrows nearly dislodged his toupee.
‘So you stole her,’ he snapped.
‘I rescued her,’ said Etta firmly.
‘Thank you, Mrs Bancroft,’ said Judge Wilkes, ‘you explained yourself very clearly.’
Charlie Radcliffe then gave evidence, saying Etta would have been stealing a skeleton. The filly had no body fat or muscle. Her anus was severely sunken. The whole of her pelvis could be seen, as well as her spine and ribs.
‘How long would it have taken a horse to reach this state?’
‘Months.’
‘No more questions.’
Woody, looking impossibly beautiful, told the court that he’d never seen a horse so terrified, but she was too weak to struggle. Jase, saying he’d worked with horses all his life and had never seen such a bad case of cruelty, then produced the photographs Joey’d taken when they first rescued Mrs Wilkinson. These were so hideously heartrending, even the judge mopped his eyes.
Niall, in his dog collar, who’d been terribly moved by Woody’s testimony and by the fact he’d never known Woody’s real name was Wilfred, then took the stand:
‘Mrs Bancroft’s caring nursing saved Mrs Wilkinson, but the whole of Willowwood in fact has rallied to her cause. Mrs Wilkinson has become a little local celebrity, and would miss the attention dreadfully if she were forced to go back to her original owner and the anonymity of a racing yard.’
Dora then leapt to her feet:
‘Dora Belvedon, sofa surfer. I can’t bear the thought of Mrs Wilkinson in a strange yard shaking hands and never getting rewarded with a Polo again.’
She gave a sob, and the judge told her, quite gently, to sit down and not interrupt.
‘It seems Mrs Wilkinson is a very popular horse.’
However, there was no getting away from the fact that Etta should have reported finding Mrs Wilkinson to the authorities, who might have been notified of her loss by Harvey-Holden’s staff, who could equally have restored her to health. Had Etta and her friends possibly realized what a good horse Mrs Wilkinson was, queried Cecil, and therefore not reported finding her?
As the day dragged on, growing hotter, Etta found herself increasingly detesting Harvey-Holden. The more terrible the cruelty revealed, the less his dead, rat-like features and his serpentine eyes seemed to react. His breath was so sour – even divided by the table, it nearly asphyxiated her. The case, however, seemed to be going his way when it was adjourned until the following morning.
H-H was so certain he was going to win that he pushed off to Royal Ascot next day to work the boxes and chat up potential owners. Judy Tobias, however, did turn up, wobbling in this time in white, like a vast blancmange, still writing copiously in her mauve notebook.
Etta, who’d changed into the old denim dress she’d retrieved from the charity shop because the periwinkle blue didn’t seem to be bringing them any luck, discovered the temperature had dropped and she couldn’t stop shivering. She felt very cast down that Dora hadn’t bothered to show up, nor had the Major and Debbie. Joey and Woody still brandished Tilda’s poster outside the court, but wondered if the willows would soon be weeping for Mrs Wilkinson.
In court, even Alan was looking worried. Marti Gluckstein resembled an eagle who’s mislaid a fat rabbit, as Cecil Stroud launched triumphantly into his final summing-up.
I’m going to lose her, thought Etta in anguish.
But suddenly there was a kerfuffle and cries of ‘Court’s sitting, sir,’ and a tall dark man stalked in like an army with banners. How attractive he is, thought Etta, then realized it was Valent Edwards. He was wearing a brown suede jacket, chinos and a blue check shirt. Putting a reassuring hand on Etta’s shoulder, he apologized to the judge for barging in.
He then, by sheer force of personality, turned the case as he described the terror and desperate state of Mrs Wilkinson the first time he’d seen her, about a fortnight after Etta had rescued her. Bonny Richards had been ironing out his Yorkshire accent but it slipped back as his passion grew.
‘I have never seen an animal so scared of humans. She was the
most pathetic sight, blinded in one eye, collapsing on the ground, crashing round my office … The one person she troosted was Mrs Bancroft and it was her luv that saved that horse. If Mr Harvey-Holden luved her so much, why didn’t he recognize her when he saw her out hunting? Or Mr Murchieson, who had owned her, recognize her when she won the point-to-point?
‘If you come outside, you’ll see how she’s blossomed.’
Everyone surged out into the sunshine, where they discovered Joey’s trailer and a grinning Dora. Next moment out clattered Mrs Wilkinson and Chisolm. Giving a great throaty whicker, Mrs Wilkinson bustled across the courtyard to get to Etta, nudging her delightedly, followed by a skipping, bleating Chisolm. Mrs Wilkinson then turned to her Willowwood friends, greeting them with equal pleasure.
Everyone cheered, except Jude the Obese, who complained the whole thing was a stitch-up. Judge Wilkes, however, beamed and asked to be introduced to Mrs Wilkinson, who shook hands with him until he was butted by a jealous Chisolm.
Back in court, the judge enquired as to the whereabouts of Harvey-Holden, only to be told by his wife that he’d been called away to tend a very sick animal.
‘Probably Shade Murchieson,’ quipped Alan.
The judge then asked Etta whether, as a pensioner, she could afford to keep a racehorse. Whereupon Valent stepped in again and said there was so much goodwill and affection for Mrs Wilkinson in Willowwood that if Mrs Bancroft needed help, he felt sure everyone would oblige. ‘Mrs Wilkinson has become the Village Horse.’
This was greeted by a roar of agreement. Judge Wilkes then summed up: ‘This dispute is about a horse. We do not know who perpetrated these dreadful crimes on Mrs Wilkinson.’
‘He didn’t call her Usurper,’ hissed Dora, ‘that’s promising.’
‘So I am unable to make a deprivation order, in addition to putting a ban on him or her ever keeping a horse again. But it is within my power to decide to whom I give this horse. The fact that she is a very valuable mare is of no consequence when one considers the evidence that she would no longer be with us today if it hadn’t been for the quick thinking and loving care of Mrs Etta Bancroft. I therefore give the mare, Mrs Wilkinson, formerly known as Usurper, to Mrs Bancroft.’
Cheers rocked the court.
‘Oh, thank you, thank you,’ sobbed a joyful Etta, who hugged everyone else but found herself too shy to hug Valent.
After she’d wiped her tears away, she and Valent and Mrs
Wilkinson posed for the photographers, marshalled by Dora.
‘I don’t understand how on earth you got Mrs Wilkinson to load,’ stammered Etta. ‘No one else has.’
‘I told her to get in and not be silly,’ said Valent with a smirk. He was in an excellent mood. He’d recently put ten million into a hedge fund providing bulldozers to China, which had risen by 600 per cent in the last fortnight, making him 60 million.
Hearing a furious squawk behind him, he turned to find Chisolm gobbling up the last of Jude the Obese’s mauve notebook.
‘That was invaluable evidence!’
‘I thought your side believed in destroying records,’ said Valent icily.
‘Valent’s only done it to dispel his Tin-Man-without-a-Heart image,’ snarled Shade when he heard the result. ‘From now on we’re going to bury the bastard, and Mrs Bancroft and fucking Rupert Campbell-Black.’
In a daze of happiness, Etta read reports of the case the following morning. V
ALENT TO THE
R
ESCUE
, shouted the
Mail
under a lovely picture of Valent, Chisolm and Mrs Wilkinson. Etta was also surrounded by gardening books, plotting ways in which she could surreptitiously enhance Valent’s garden as a thank-you present. Outside, the fields were alight with pink campion, dog daisies and foxgloves.
‘Should I make him a wild flower garden?’ she asked Chisolm, who, having finished up Etta’s bowl of cornflakes, was sitting on the sofa, eating her own picture in the
Sun
.
Demanding attention, as she peered over the fence and round Etta’s conifer hedge, was Mrs Wilkinson.
‘You’re mine, mine, mine,’ cried Etta, as she rushed out waving a carrot.
But she had reckoned without Martin, who was determined to repossess his mother. She was needed as a nanny, Granny Playbridge having retreated in tatters after a stint of Poppy and Drummond. The weeds were soaring in Harvest Home’s garden. The cricket season was under way, he had hit a fine six through Tilda Flood’s window, and he needed Etta to do the teas.
He therefore rolled up at the bungalow and weighed in: ‘You must sell Mrs Wilkinson at once, Mother.’
‘I can’t,’ gasped Etta, ‘the judge awarded her to me to look after.’
Chisolm bleated in agreement.
‘Get that goat out of here! If you sold her, you’d be self-sufficient, could afford a decent car and the improvements you wanted on this place – and frankly you wouldn’t be a drain on Carrie and me any more. It’s been a struggle.’
‘Cooee, cooee.’ He was joined by Romy, lovely as June in a deep rose-red dress – the effect of warmth somewhat diminished by the cold look she gave Mrs Wilkinson’s silver point-to-point cup and Etta’s winning owner’s glass bowl.
Didn’t Etta realize that since Martin had nobly left the City to raise money for the Sampson Bancroft Memorial Fund, she and he had suffered a considerable loss of income?
Martin had also discovered Sampson hadn’t been quite so loved that people felt compelled to give generously. Some had been extremely rude. They therefore wanted Etta to pay back the £50,000 they’d forked out for the bungalow, which she could if she cashed in on all the publicity and sold Mrs Wilkinson well and at once.