The Stabbing in the Stables

by Simon Brett

  A thin February moon cast a watery light over the scene. Jude could see that the double gates were closed, and she looked in vain for a bell push or knocker. Apart from the underscoring of the river, the only sounds were distant rustlings and clompings, presumably from the horses within.

  Jude checked her watch again. Nearly quarter past six. Though she didn’t know Sonia Dalrymple that well, her client had always been punctual for her appointments at Woodside Cottage.

  Surely she had said meet outside the stables. She must have been held up somewhere. Sonia had twin teenage daughters, so no doubt she’d been delayed by some crisis in ferrying them somewhere.

  Or maybe Jude had got it wrong, and the arrangement had been to meet inside the stables, near Chieftain’s box. Worth trying. If the gates were locked, Jude would know she hadn’t got it wrong.

  Just as she had the thought, there was a sudden outburst of neighing and heavy-footed stamping from the horses within. Something had disturbed them. More likely, someone had disturbed them. Sonia Dalrymple must be inside the compound. Odd that she hadn’t put any lights on, though. If the stables were locked, Jude would hammer on the doors to attract attention.

  But when she turned the heavy metal ring, the gates readily gave inward, letting out a grudging creak of timber. Jude pushed through into the hay and dung-scented yard, where near silence had reasserted itself.

  As she did so, from the far side of the square courtyard she heard the sharp impact of wood on wood. A gate closing?

  Jude moved into the centre of the square where the moonlight was strongest. She’d been right about the loose boxes, forming the walls of the area. Unseen horses shifted uneasily. One whinnied, troubled by the presence of an intruder. There was no sign of human life.

  On the other hand, there was a sign of human death.

  In the middle of the courtyard lay the body of a man. The pale moonlight glistened on the blood that had only recently ceased to flow from his face, throat and chest.

  2

  JUDE’S PLUMP BODY moved with surprising speed back across the tarmac to the Renault. Carole took a moment or two to interpret her friend’s excited gabble, but once she understood was quickly out of the car. With her torch.

  Its beam did not improve the look of the body. The man had been the object of a frenzied assault. A trail of bright blood spots suggested that he had been backing away from his attacker. Deep gashes on his hands showed that he had tried to protect himself, until he had tripped backwards or collapsed from his injuries.

  The horses in the stalls framing the women shifted nervously, some snorting unease at this new invasion of their domain.

  Carole looked back along the trail of blood. A few feet beyond where the broken line stopped—or in fact where the spillage had started—the door to a wooden two-storey building hung open. A solid door, not divided in the middle like those on the loose boxes. Hinged metal bars and heavy padlocks hung from rings on the frame. From inside there was a slight glow from a hidden light source.

  “What’s that, Jude?”

  “I’ve no idea. First time I’ve been to this place. Saddle room, tack room maybe? Mind you, the blood spots suggest that the victim and his attacker came out from there and—”

  “It’s not our place to make that kind of conjecture,” said Carole, suddenly all sniffy. “We should ring the police. You’ve got your mobile, haven’t you?”

  “Yes…” Jude reached reluctantly into the pocket of her coat. “I wouldn’t mind having a quick look around before we—”

  Carole’s Home Office background would not allow the sentence to be finished. “This is a crime scene. It would be deeply irresponsible for us to disturb anything.”

  “Just a quick look?” Jude wheedled.

  “No.” A hand was held out for the mobile. “If you won’t do it, then I will.”

  A short hesitation, then Jude said, “I think we should tell the Fleets first.”

  “What?”

  “The people who own the place. They must live in the house next door. They should know what’s happened on their premises before the police arrive.”

  Carole wavered for just long enough for Jude to say, “I’ll tell them,” and set off towards the gates.

  “Do you want the torch?”

  “No, I can see. Besides, I don’t want to leave you alone in the dark with the body.”

  “We must call the police as soon as the Fleets have been informed,” Carole called after her friend’s retreating outline. “We must be very careful we don’t tamper with a crime scene.”

  She stood still for a moment, then let the torch beam explore the space around her. Not onto the body—she had seen quite enough of that for its image to haunt her dreams for months to come.

  Most of the loose box top-halves were open, but the moving ray of light did not reveal any of their inmates. The horses lurked in the recesses of their stalls, snuffling and stamping their continuing disquiet.

  A complete circuit of the yard revealed double gates at the far end, offering access to the paddocks beyond, and gateways leading to barns, tack rooms and the indoor school. The torch beam ended up once again fixed on the open door. Carole felt a sudden, overwhelming temptation.

  She shouldn’t do it. Everything she had ever learnt during her extensive dealings with the police told her that she should touch nothing, explore nothing. Jude’s footprints and her own might already have destroyed important evidence. To investigate further would be the height of irresponsibility. Her duty as a citizen dictated that she should stay stock still where she was until the police arrived. Or, perhaps even better, go back to the Renault and wait there.

  On the other hand…How were the police to know that she wasn’t just another incompetent, invisible woman in late middle age? In most recent dealings she’d had with them, that’s how she had been treated. There could be any number of reasons why an incompetent, invisible woman in late middle age might go through that open door. She might be looking for bandages, cloth, something to staunch the wounds of the victim, unaware that her ministrations would come too late. She might be looking inside the wooden building for someone to help. She might go there to hide from the homicidal maniac who had just committed one crime and was about to commit another. She might…

  Almost involuntarily, Carole felt her footsteps following the torch beam towards the open door.

  The lack of lights in the Fleets’ house was a discouraging omen, and repeated ringing of the bell confirmed that no one was at home.

  For a second, Jude contemplated ringing the police from their doorstep, but quickly decided not to. Maybe, after all, Carole could be persuaded into a little preliminary private investigation before the call was made…?

  But the walk back from house to stables was interrupted by the beam of high headlights turning into the car park. Jude stopped, thinking the Fleets might have returned, but quickly recognised the Range Rover as it drew up beside her and the driver’s-side window was lowered.

  “Jude…so sorry. Have you been waiting hours? I just got horribly delayed.”

  Even though flushed and flustered, Sonia Dalrymple’s face was still beautiful. She was a tall, leggy blonde in her early forties, with a fabulous figure toned by riding and a metabolism that never seemed to put on an ounce. Her voice had the upper-class ease of someone who had never doubted her own position in society. No one meeting her would ever be able to associate such a goddess with the deep insecurities that had brought her to Jude in search of healing.

  “No, don’t worry, there’s no problem.” As her client doused the lights and got out of the car, Jude realised how inappropriate, in the circumstances, her words were.

  Sonia Dalrymple was wearing cowboy boots and the kind of designer jeans that had been so gentrified as to lose any connection with their origins as working clothes. She had a white roll-neck sweater under a blue-and-white striped body-warmer. The blonde hair was scrunched back into an untidy ponytail.

  “Again I’
m terribly sorry. Come on, let’s see how old Chieftain—”

  “Sonia, something’s happened.”

  “What?”

  “I was just trying to tell the Fleets…at least I assume they live in that house…”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “…but there’s no one in. There’s…Sonia, there’s been an accident in the stables.”

  The woman’s face paled. “Oh, God. Is Chieftain all right?”

  “Yes. All the horses are fine.”

  Sonia’s reaction of relief seemed excessive to Jude, but then she wasn’t a horse owner.

  “No, I’m afraid it’s a human being who’s suffered the…accident.”

  “Who?” The anxiety was at least as great as if had been for Chieftain.

  “No idea. It’s a man.”

  “What’s happened to him?”

  “He’s dead.”

  “Oh, but…how?”

  “It looks very much as if he’s been stabbed to death.”

  “You mean murder?”

  Jude nodded grimly. “Come and have a look.”

  Inside the stables Carole stood exactly where Jude had left her, torch modestly pointing downwards. Sonia was hastily introduced, and Carole moved the torch beam to spotlight the dead man.

  “Oh, my God!” A deep sob shuddered through Sonia’s body.

  “You recognise him?” asked Jude.

  “Yes. This is—or was—Walter Fleet.”

  3

  ONCE SUMMONED, THE police were quick to arrive. Soon the car park of Long Bamber Stables seemed to be full of white vehicles and whirling blue lights.

  Having quickly explained their presence at the stables, Carole, Jude and Sonia were politely hustled away from the central courtyard and asked to wait until someone had time to talk to them further. When Carole complained of the cold, they were offered the shelter of a large white police van.

  But just before they entered, they saw a battered Land Rover swing into the car park. It stopped as soon as it could. The engine was left running and the headlights blazing, as a woman jumped out.

  She looked at first sight like a smaller version of Sonia Dalrymple. Similarly though more scruffily dressed, she was ten years older. Her beauty was in decline, and the blondness of her hair had been assisted.

  “Oh God,” she snarled at the policemen who’d turned to greet her. “Don’t say the Ripper’s struck again!”

  “So,” said Ted Crisp, “she was worried that it was one of the horses that had been attacked, not a human being?”

  “Exactly,” said Carole.

  “Apparently there have been a series of cases recently,” Jude amplified. “All over West Sussex. Horses being mutilated. By someone the local papers have taken to calling the Horse Ripper. She thought one of the ones in Long Bamber Stables had been attacked, and that’s why all the police were there.”

  “And, sorry, I’m losing track a bit here. Which woman was this?”

  “Lucinda Fleet.”

  “Right. So then she discovered it wasn’t one of her horses who was the victim—it was her husband?”

  “Yes. Walter Fleet.”

  “Ah, right.”

  “You sound like you know him, Ted.”

  “Wouldn’t say ‘know.’ He used to come in here from time to time, that’s all. So old Walter’s copped it, has he?”

  “Afraid he has.”

  They had been surprised how early it still was when they got back to Fethering. The events they had witnessed and their questioning by police detectives seemed to have taken a lot longer than they really had. As is often the case after experiencing a shock, Carole and Jude were amazed to find that the rest of the world continued to turn as if nothing had happened. It was only half past eight when the Renault drew up outside High Tor, and the decision was quickly made that they needed a drink at the Crown and Anchor.

  Once inside, as the first large Chilean chardonnays began to warm them, Carole and Jude decided to order a meal as well. Ted Crisp, the landlord, said—atypically effusive—that the steak-and-ale pie was “to die for,” so they’d both gone for that. After the cold and the atrocity they had witnessed, they found the fug of the pub interior very welcoming. So was Ted, large of bulk, scruffy of hair and beard, even scruffier of fleece, sweatshirt and jeans.

  “How did she react then—this Lucinda—when she found out her husband was dead?”

  “She managed to control herself very well,” replied Carole, with appropriate respect for such restraint.

  “Hm,” Jude said. “I think her reaction was more one of relief. She’d been really worried that one of the horses had been injured. When she found out it was just her husband murdered, she didn’t seem so bothered.”

  “People react differently to that kind of shock,” said Carole tartly.

  “Yes, sure. Just the impression I got.”

  “Well, do you know anything about this Lucinda or her husband or the state of her marriage or—”

  “Ted, we met her for the first time an hour ago. The circumstances in which we met her husband were not conducive to confidences. We know nothing about either of them—or the state of their marriage.”

  “All right, Carole. I didn’t know that.”

  “Sorry.” She smiled to reinforce the apology. Ted smiled back. For a second their eyes connected. Carole still found it strange to think there had once been—however briefly—a physical relationship between them.

  “But maybe you know something,” Carole went on, “if Walter Fleet was a Crown and Anchor regular…?”

  “No. He didn’t come here very often. Anyway, last thing men go to a pub for is to talk about their wives and marriages. They come here to get away from all that.”

  “Yes. So all we do know about the Fleets,” said Jude, “is what I’ve heard from Sonia. Which doesn’t amount to very much. She implied that she didn’t particularly care for Lucinda Fleet. She also hinted that the marriage wasn’t a very happy one. That’s all we’ve got.”

  “But we can find out more.” Carole’s pale blue eyes glowed with eagerness. “You’ll still be seeing Sonia, won’t you?”

  “Oh, sure.” Jude looked at her friend with a half-teasing expression. “But why should we want to find out more?”

  “Well, it was a murder. We were on the scene. Natural curiosity dictates that we want to know who killed Walter Fleet.”

  “But surely,” Jude said, maintaining her bantering tone “that’s up to the police to find out.”

  “Yes,” Carole conceded, “but we’re bound to be interested, aren’t we?”

  “No doubt about it.” Ted Crisp chuckled. “You two are bound to be interested. So tell me, Carole, who do you think did it?”

  “We have no information. We can’t possibly answer questions like that at this point.”

  “And it is entirely possible,” Jude contributed innocently, “that the police will solve the crime—indeed, that they have already solved the crime. Most murders are pretty straightforward.”

  “I agree. Usually the police have to look no further than the person who claims to have discovered the body. Which in this case was you.”

  “Yes, Carole.”

  “Alternatively, they look to the victim’s live-in partner, who is quite frequently standing there with the bloodstained murder weapon still in his or her hand.”

  “Though not in this case, Carole. Lucinda Fleet arrived after the murder had been committed.”

  “But we don’t know where she’d come from, do we? She might have been present when the murder was committed—actually committed it—and then she might have run across the fields to where her Land Rover was parked and…”

  “Possible, I suppose. Mind you, the same could be true for Sonia Dalrymple.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, Carole, that I don’t know where she’d been before she came to the stables. I assumed she’d been held up doing something for her kids, but now I think about it, they’re at boarding sc
hool. And she did seem to be pretty flustered, even before she saw the body.”

  “Then Sonia’s a potential murderer too.”

  Ted Crisp scratched his beard. “It must be difficult going through life, being as suspicious of everyone as you are, Carole.”

  “I can assure you,” she replied, “it’s quite easy.”

  He chuckled. “But to be honest, at the moment, you really know nothing, do you?”

  “No,” Jude agreed.

  “That doesn’t stop us having theories, though.”

  “All right, Carole. So what is your current theory, given the virtually complete lack of information from which you are working?”

  “Well, Ted, we know Lucinda Fleet was worried that her stables had been visited by a horse mutilator.”

  “Yes.”

  “Say that was true. A horse mutilator—this Horse Ripper—had got into the stables. He was about to do his dirty work when Walter Fleet surprised him. The Horse Ripper killed Walter so that he couldn’t identify him to the police.”

  “Well…”

  “It’s not much of a theory,” said Jude.

  “It’s the only one we’ve got,” Carole snapped.

  The arrival of their “to die for” steak-and-ale pies at that moment curtailed further discussion of the crime.

  4

  THE MURDER OF Walter Fleet was duly reported on national and local news, and made the front page of the Fethering Observer. But there was no announcement of an arrest, and, as ever, beyond bland statements at press conferences, the police gave away little of their thinking or their progress in the investigation. Which, to Carole and Jude, was extremely frustrating.

  The one new piece of information that did emerge in a television bulletin was the nature of the murder weapon, which had been discovered at the crime scene. Carole and Jude had not spotted it because it had been lying up against the corpse. The stabbing and slashing at Walter Fleet’s front had, it was announced, been done with a bot knife. Helpfully, for people with little equestrian knowledge—like Carole and Jude—the inspector holding the press conference showed a photograph and explained what a bot knife was.