by Simon Brett
Sonia shook her head with distaste at the image, but, after her initial reticence, she seemed relieved to have gotten all that off her chest.
“So I suppose,” Jude suggested, “if the marriage was that bad, then Lucinda Fleet definitely had a motive to kill her husband?”
“But why now? If she was going to do it, why didn’t she do it years ago? They’d stayed together for over fifteen years.”
“The final straw. None of our backs are immune to the final straw.”
“Suppose not. Just seems unlikely to me, though.”
“Well, maybe—”
They were interrupted by a ring at the doorbell, which Sonia went to answer. She returned with a girl of about thirteen or fourteen, thin-faced and spotty, still uneasy with the new conformation of her body. Her top teeth were transacted by a metal brace, and a ginger streak had been inexpertly dyed into the front of her wispy brown hair. She wore a puffa jacket a couple of sizes too small for her, grubby jeans and smart ankle-length riding boots. A battered riding hat hung by the strap from her hand.
“Jude, this is Imogen.”
The girl said a quiet hello, without making eye contact.
“Imogen’s been riding Conker—that’s the girls’ pony—while they’re away at school. You know, to see she gets some exercise.”
“Mrs. Fleet up at Long Bamber said you’d brought him back here. She said you might not want me to ride him here, but I knew you would. You don’t mind, do you, Mrs. Dalrymple?” There was a desperate plea in the girl’s voice.
Sonia contemplated turning down the request, but decided against it. “Not a problem, Imogen. She could do with stretching her legs. But just in the nearest paddock, no further. I’ll close the gates to the others.”
“Yes, that’s fine. Thank you very much, Mrs. Dalrymple.”
Sonia looked at her watch. “Shouldn’t you be at school, Imogen?”
“No,” the girl replied quickly. “We finish early on Fridays.”
“Ah.” For a moment Sonia looked as if she might question this, but she didn’t. “So have you been home already?”
“Just to change.”
“Was anyone there? Your mother…or your father?”
“No. Mum’s gone off to work, and Dad…I don’t know where Dad is. He’ll be back later to get my supper.”
There was a defiance in her girl’s tone and Jude was aware of some subtext between Sonia and Imogen in what was said. But what that subtext was she had no idea.
“Jude’s come to look at Chieftain—see if she can sort out the old boy’s lameness.”
“Oh, right.”
“Actually, Jude, you may as well come out with us now. And, Imogen, that hat doesn’t look very safe. Maybe you should borrow one of the girls’…”
They collected Conker’s saddle and tack from a utility room off the kitchen. “We used to leave this stuff in the stables, but there’ve been so many break-ins locally, that, what with a decent saddle costing over a thousand pounds…”
After the warmth of the kitchen, the outside air stung their faces, as Sonia led them through a garden gate to the stable yard. She had put on a weather-beaten Barbour, which on her contrived to look like a designer original. “You saddle her up, Imogen, while I close the gates, then wait till I’ve checked everything before you mount her.”
“I’ve done it lots of times, Mrs. Dalrymple. You don’t need to check anything.”
“I will check, though, thank you.”
The firmness in Sonia’s voice cast the girl down, but her mood was swiftly changed by the sound of a cheerful whinnying from the stables. The three women had just come into the horses’ eyeline, and were accorded an appropriate welcome.
“See, she recognises me,” Imogen shouted gleefully, and rushed off. “It’s all right, Conker. It’s all right, lovely girl. Immy’s here to look after you…”
Jude grinned at Sonia’s raised eyebrow. “Little girls and horses, eh?”
“Yes.”
“So much easier to deal with than boys.”
“At this stage, certainly, Jude.” A shadow crossed her face. “Mind you, things change. I’ll just go and do the gates.”
“I can help. You do that one; I’ll do the one over here.”
They reassembled outside the stables. Chieftain, tall and black, intrigued by the activity, leant curiously over the gate of his stall and let out a few breathy snorts. Conker, a solid brown-and-white pony, was saddled up ready to ride, and Imogen, standing holding her reins, could not disguise her impatience to be off. She was wearing her own battered headgear and, although one of the twins’ hats was once again offered, was determined not to change.
Sonia checked the tension of the saddle girths, and passed them as fine.
“I told you they would be, Mrs. Dalrymple.”
“I still needed to be sure. If you had a fall, it’d be my responsibility.”
Chastened by the slight asperity in these words, Imogen said, “Yes, of course, Mrs. Dalrymple. May I get up?”
“Sure.” Sonia held the pony’s reins, while Imogen, with practised ease, swung herself up into the saddle. “Just in this paddock?” she asked wistfully, eyeing the neat course of jumps that were set out in the field beyond.
“Just in this one for today.” As the girl and pony trotted meekly off, Sonia’s eyes followed them. “Poor kid.”
“Poor? Why?”
“Parents are going through a very sticky divorce, and focusing all her energies on Conker seems to be Immy’s way of coping. She’s actually been very helpful, you know, constantly up at Long Bamber, mucking out for her, all that stuff. But the trouble is, of course, that Conker’s not her pony, and when Alice and Laura come back for the Easter holidays…Well, they squabble enough about getting fair shares on Conker with just the two of them. I see ructions ahead.”
“So maybe you should start to restrict Imogen’s access to the pony?”
“Yes, I should. But I have to tread carefully. That girl’s in a highly emotional state at the moment. She’s very fragile.”
Jude looked across at the paddock. Imogen and Conker seemed to be one creature, cantering around without a care in the world. But if riding the pony represented the only peace in the girl’s fraught teenage life…Jude understood Sonia’s problem.
“Anyway, enough of that. Will you have a look at Chieftain? See if your magic healing hands can do anything for the poor old boy?”
6
SONIA DALRYMPLE LED Chieftain out of his stall, and Jude was impressed by the sheer size of the beast. “He’ll be more relaxed outside. He’s still a bit nervous being back here, and he might not like a stranger invading his space.”
“He might lash out at me, you mean?”
“It’s possible. He hasn’t got a vicious nature, but most horses are wary of people they don’t know.”
Jude chuckled. “Just like my friend Carole.”
“I sometimes think it’s a pretty sensible attitude to life—can save disappointment later.” Again Jude detected some buried hurt in Sonia’s words, as if she spoke from unhappy experience.
The block in which they stood had been carefully and expensively converted. By comparison, Long Bamber Stables looked shabby. Two stalls faced each other across a paved central area. On the far wall metal rungs were fixed, leading up to a closed trap door.
“Plenty of storage space you’ve got here.”
“Yes. That was designed as a hayloft, but we’ve never really used it. We never bought hay in very large bulk, so it was simpler to keep it down here. And now the girls have gone…”
Sonia kept reverting to that. As though to break her mood, she turned to stroke Chieftain.
“He’s big, isn’t he?”
“Sixteen hands. When Nicky bought him, he had some idea about hunting with him, but…well, Nicky hasn’t got the time and…Anyway, this bloody government’s trying to ensure that there never is any more hunting.”
“Does Nicky ride him at all?”
“Yes, he does sometimes.” The question seemed to make Sonia uncomfortable. “But he’s so rarely home for any length of time.”
“And he couldn’t ride him at the moment, anyway, with the horse lame.”
“No,” Sonia agreed, as if that ended the conversation.
“Is Chieftain a stallion?”
“Gelding. Makes them a bit more manageable. Though you do have your petulant moods from time to time, don’t you, you beautiful boy?”
Chieftain seemed to understand the endearment, and nuzzled into his mistress’s blond hair. Sonia’s hand found a piece of carrot in the pocket of her Barbour and slipped it up into his mouth. He crunched it appreciatively and reached down towards the source for more.
“No, that’s it, Chieftain. That’s it for the time being.”
Jude stepped cautiously towards the huge horse. “Okay So where’s the lameness?”
“Front left. Knee might be slightly swollen; it’s hard to tell.”
“Will he be all right if I just touch him?”
“Better if I introduce you to him first. And give him this.” Sonia slipped another piece of carrot into Jude’s hand. “He’ll be your friend for life then. Chieftain…Chieftain, who’s my big boy?” Again the horse responded to the affection in her tone and nuzzled against her. “This is Jude. I want you to meet Jude. Hold your hand out—not the one with the carrot in it.”
Tentatively, Jude did as she was told. Chieftain appeared not to have noticed the gesture. “Can he see it there? Horses have a big blind spot, don’t they?”
“He knows it’s there. Just wait.”
She kept her hand out, and slowly the gelding lowered his massive head to sniff at it. The warm breath made Jude feel as if she was under a hand dryer, and she was aware of the proximity of the huge teeth. But all that touched her were a couple of the whiskers, which tickled along the skin of her hand.
“He’s getting used to the idea of you. This is Jude…yes, isn’t it, boy? All right, offer him the carrot.” Jude slowly advanced her other hand. “Keep it flat.”
For a moment Chieftain was uncertain. Then, with one sudden quick movement, he dropped his head and daintily abstracted the treat. So close, the crunching sounded disproportionately loud.
“He’ll be all right with you now, Jude.”
“So you’ll hold him…if I just touch his knee?”
“Yes. Very gently, though, because if it’s giving him pain…”
“I’ll be gentle.”
Jude could feel the horse tense as she touched the injured leg above the knee. Through his coat, she could feel the enormous coiled-up strength within. Softly, almost caressing, she moved her hand lower, down the straight ridge of bone until she began to feel the angularity of the knee. Chieftain stamped and skittered uneasily. She was getting near to the trouble.
Sonia Dalrymple brought her head close to the horse’s, and murmured soft words of comfort to him. He was partially reassured, but the tension within his huge frame tightened a few more notches.
So slowly that the movement could not be seen, Jude let her hand slide down over the irregularities of the knee. “This is where the trouble is, all right. It feels like it’s on fire.”
“Actually burning hot? So it’s infected?”
“Possibly. But it’s not that kind of heat. It’s a heat I can sense rather than feel…from where the focus of the pain is.”
“But can you heal it?”
Jude grinned ruefully. “I can try. I’m afraid any healer who guarantees to cure a problem is a healer I wouldn’t trust.”
“Well, please do your best. Chieftain hates not being able to gallop around…don’t you, boy?”
The horse let out a long shuddering breath of assent.
“All right,” said Jude, slowly bringing her other hand down till the two encircled the injured joint, “let’s see what we can do.”
Carole was feeling restless. The Times crossword, her daily anti-Alzheimer’s exercise, was proving particularly intractable. She had a feeling they’d got a new compiler, and his mind—she felt sure it was a he, with an illogical masculine mind—didn’t work the same way as hers did. Or the same way generations of other Times crossword compilers had trained hers to work.
She knew, though, that the unyielding crossword was a symptom rather than a cause of her malaise. Partly she was frustrated by the knowledge that Jude was over at Sonia Dalrymple’s house, possibly getting vital inside information about the background to Walter Fleet’s murder.
But Carole had another, more enduring, anxiety. It had been a long time since she’d heard from her son and daughter-in-law. September and the magical Fedborough wedding of Stephen and Gaby now seemed a long time ago. At the time, Carole had felt a rapprochement with the younger Seddons, even—in spite of the presence of her ex-husband David—a sense of family. And that had been maintained by frequent phone calls after their honeymoon and a surprisingly jolly visit to Fethering at Christmas. But through January and into February communication had become much less spontaneous and frequent. Carole, who, in spite of her forthright exterior, was always ready to put herself in the wrong, wondered what she had done.
Stephen, she knew, was always busy, doing whatever it was he did. Their increasing closeness had not brought with it a greater understanding of his work; still all Carole knew was that it involved money and computers. Gaby too had a demanding job as a theatrical agent. No doubt they were just preoccupied with the frenetic lifestyle of a successful, newly married couple about London. No reason why they should think much about their parents’ generation.
But this likely explanation did not allay Carole’s unease. There was another detail that troubled her. Stephen and Gaby were still living in his house in Fulham. At one stage—indeed when she was first introduced to Gaby—they had been down in West Sussex house hunting, with a view to moving out of London. Such plans had still been being discussed in the run-up to Christmas, but since then…no mention.
Carole could not hide her disappointment from herself. Though, if ever the subject had come up in company, she had treated their potential move rather as an inconvenience, huffing about being quite all right on her own and not wanting her privacy invaded, she had secretly welcomed the idea. And she was surprised by how much the prospect of its not happening upset her.
She had contemplated taking the initiative and ringing them, even getting to the point more than once of lifting the receiver, but she didn’t want to appear needy. The last thing a newly married woman needed was an intrusive mother-in-law.
But the lack of information still rankled. Jude’s absence that afternoon made her feel even more unsettled, so Carole decided she had to do something. If she had inadvertently offended her son and daughter-in-law, then it was time to build bridges or mend fences or some other metaphor of that kind.
She had both Stephen and Gaby’s work numbers, but she rang the Fulham one. Better just to leave a message; then they could ring her back at their convenience. Mind you, of course, if they didn’t ring her back, then she’d feel even worse. That’d certainly be making a statement that they didn’t want to have anything more to do with her.
But the thought came too late, the phone was already ringing, and—to her surprise—it was answered. By Gaby.
“Oh, sorry. I wasn’t expecting anyone to be there.”
“Carole. It’s good to hear you.” But Gaby’s words sounded automatic. There was no energy. The natural bubbliness of her personality seemed to have gone flat.
“I just thought it had been a while since we…”
“Yes.”
“So you’re both all right, are you?”
“Fine, yes. Stephen’s very busy at work.”
“So what else is new?”
“Exactly.”
“And you?”
“Yes, fine.”
“I meant work, because surely today’s a working day…?”
“Yes, I’m having a day off. Few things I’ve
got to catch up with round the house.”
“But you’re okay?”
“Absolutely fine, yes.” But the listlessness with which the words were said was at odds with their meaning.
“Well…I was thinking it would be nice for us to get together again soon.”
“Yes, yes, it would.” But no pursuit of the idea, no suggestions, no consultation of diaries.
“Fine, Gaby. Well, I’ll give you a call again when…maybe an evening…talk when Stephen’s there.”
“That might be better. He has so many more demands on his time than I do, I don’t dare make arrangements without consulting him.” As an excuse, it was perfectly acceptable, but Carole still sensed an unwillingness in Gaby to fix a meeting.
“Right. Well, I’ll call soon then. And,” she went on haltingly, “do give Stephen my love.” Such words of effusiveness did not come naturally to her.
“Yes, of course I will.”
“Well, good to talk to you, Gaby.”
“And you.”
“And look forward to meeting up soon.”
“Mm.”
“Good-bye then.”
“Bye.”
As she switched off the phone, Carole wished she hadn’t made the call. Her paranoia had only increased. Before she had spoken to Gaby, she could still nurture the fantasy that everything was all right, but now she’d heard the lack of enthusiasm in her daughter-in-law’s voice, that was no longer possible.
What on earth could be wrong? Feeling lousy and taking a day off work could be a sign of early pregnancy, but if that were the case, surely Gaby would have told her. And she wouldn’t have sounded so doomy. That was the really distressing thing about the call—that the normally ebullient Gaby had sounded so down, so positively depressed.
Oh dear. Please God there wasn’t something going wrong in the marriage. Guilt for the effect her own breakup with David had had on Stephen swelled within her.
She had another look at the Times crossword. The clues might as well have been written in a foreign language.