by Simon Brett
Carole managed to interject a “Yes,” but that was all she was allowed.
“And the effect it’s had on Imogen—that’s our daughter—well, I just daren’t begin to imagine the harm he’s done to her by his selfish and appalling behaviour. I mean, she’s at a very difficult stage of any girl’s life, and Alec’s just adding to the pressure. This is the time when she should be forming her own ideas about the adult world, about how relationships work. What kind of an example is she getting from her father?
“And she’s feeling our change of economic circumstances. Imogen’s absolutely mad on horses, and we were getting near the point of buying her her own pony. But now, oh no, we haven’t got any money for that kind of luxury. We haven’t got any money for anything. We’ve still only got the one car and Alec has first call on that because he has to use it for his work. So that’s extremely inconvenient. And now I’m reduced to the indignity of sitting like a dumb teenager behind the till at Allinstore, simply to pay the grocery bills.”
Hilary Potton had to stop, simply to regain her breath, so Carole managed to ask, “And is Imogen as angry with her father as you are?”
“Huh. No. Isn’t that bloody typical? In a show of classic adolescent perverseness, she’s actually taking Alec’s side. She blames me for some reason. Well, I know what the reason is. It’s because I’m there all the time. I’m the one who does all the day-to-day looking after Imogen. I’m the one who sees she gets fed, that her washing gets done. I’m the one who tidies up after her and has to listen to her whinging about everything all the time. And Alec—as he always has done—just swans in every now and then, and buys her affection with treats. Even now—even when our financial circumstances are so dire—Alec keeps taking her out for meals. And, of course, because she hardly ever sees him, Imogen worships the ground he walks on. Ooh,” she seethed, “until the last eight months I hadn’t realised just how much of a disadvantage it is to be born a woman. We think we’ve all got liberated, we keep being told we have equal opportunities, but when it comes to the crunch, everything is skewed in favour of men. And we’re so powerless to do anything about it. You hear these stories of spurned wives cutting up their husband’s suits or spilling all their vintage wines or smashing up their BMWs, and until recently I’ve thought, Oh, for heaven’s sake, how petty! Recent events have changed my mind, though. I’d do anything I could to get revenge on that bastard Alec.”
Carole’s wish to find out more about Hilary Potton was certainly being fulfilled. In spades. But she reflected that, to unleash such an outburst on a virtual stranger, the woman must have very few close friends. Or maybe her fury against her husband was just so strong that anyone unwary enough to come within range was liable to get caught in the crossfire.
“You say your daughter’s interested in horses…”
“What?” Hilary Potton had to be dragged out of her dreams of vengeance. “Oh, yes.”
“No, I was just thinking…because there was that dreadful business up at Long Bamber Stables. I hope she had nothing to do with that set-up, because it would just be another trauma for the poor girl.”
“That certainly hasn’t helped. She’s still in a pretty bad state. She seemed to be in total shock when she first heard about it. You see, Long Bamber’s the stables where Imogen’s had all her riding lessons. She spends quite a lot of time up there, mucking out and what have you. So, yes, she’s heard all the gory details about Walter Fleet’s death.”
“But—poor child—she wasn’t round there at the time of the murder, was she?”
“No, thank goodness.” Hilary Potton looked affronted at the suggestion. “Safely at home with me, I’m glad to say.”
“Good. And I’m sorry, this sounds very prurient, but since everyone in Fethering is discussing the murder, does Imogen have a theory about what happened? Has she said anything to you about—”
“Shall we go then?”
They’d been too absorbed to hear her approach, but suddenly a girl who Carole assumed must be Imogen was standing beside them. She was wearing a school uniform. Perversely, in spite of the cold, she had her fur-trimmed anorak hooked on a finger over her shoulder. A dyed ginger lock flopped over her spotty forehead. Her expression and body language matched perfectly; both bespoke sulky teenage resentment. Whether or not she’d heard the end of their conversation was impossible to know.
“Yes, Imogen. This is Carole Seddon.”
The girl nodded curtly and gestured towards the door. She was damned if she was going to show any interest in her mother’s friends. She was damned if she was going to show interest in anything to do with her mother. She hadn’t wanted to come to meet her in the Seaview Café, and was not about to start disguising her feelings on the subject.
Experience had taught Hilary Potton that trying to get politeness out of her daughter in this mood was a losing battle, so, with a hurried farewell and vague intentions to phone Carole and meet up again, she followed Imogen out of the Seaview Café.
Leaving Carole frustrated about her last, unanswered question, and pondering guiltily the effects of marriage breakdown on the children involved.
On that evening’s Radio 4 Six O’Clock News it was announced that the police had released the man they had been questioning about the death of Walter Fleet. Without charge.
12
“SO YOU DIDN’T get the impression that Hilary Potton was a murderer?”
“No, why should she be?” asked Carole.
“Just that anyone who had any involvement in Long Bamber Stables should be on our list.”
“Well, no, I don’t think she is a murderer. Though I think she’s a potential murderer.”
“Aren’t we all, in the right circumstances?”
“Speak for yourself,” said Carole tartly. “Mind you, the ‘right circumstances’ for Hilary Potton would have to be very specific ones. There is only one situation in which she would murder someone…”
“Ah?”
“…and that’s if the victim were her husband. Then I think she’d be capable of any atrocity.”
“But Walter Fleet was not her husband.”
“No. I don’t even know whether she’d ever met him, though I assume she would have done—you know, dropping Imogen at the stables or picking her up.”
“Hm.” Jude sipped at her sauvignon blanc in the High Tor kitchen on the Wednesday evening. Maybe she was beginning to widen the cracks in Carole’s gentility, she thought mischievously. Even a year ago Carole would have insisted on their taking their drinks through to the sitting room. Hanging round kitchens drinking used to be total anathema to her, but she was changing.
“I was really surprised to hear that this Donal character has been released,” Carole mused. “I’d been very definitely coming round to the view that he’d done it.”
“Well, it’s good news, isn’t it?”
“In what way?”
Jude grinned triumphantly. “If he didn’t kill Walter Fleet, then somebody else did. And we’re still in with a chance of finding out who.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to cancel my appointment.”
“No problem. Lots of other things I can do tomorrow afternoon. Do you want to fix another date, Sonia?”
“Erm…no. Not at the moment. I’m sorry, everything’s a bit all over the place. I’m rather stressed.”
“I thought that was why you were coming to see me,” said Jude.
“Yes.” There was a silence from the other end of the phone. “The fact is…erm, if we could leave it for a little while…?”
“As I say, no problem.”
“Good.”
“And how about Chieftain?”
“Oh, he and Conker have gone back to Long Bamber.”
“No, I meant you are temporarily suspending your treatment with me. I wondered if the same went for Chieftain. Or has his lameness got better?”
“No, it hasn’t. Yes, actually I would be grateful if you could have another go at him, Jude.”
“Of course. I still feel a bit frustrated by my failure last time. So, when could you make it?”
“Erm, well…” Sonia Dalrymple sounded uncharacteristically flustered. “As I say, things are a bit…”
“Are you all right, Sonia?”
“Yes, absolutely fine.” The response was too quick to be genuine. “Look, tell you what, Jude, because my movements are a bit unpredictable over the next week, would you mind going to try your powers on Chieftain on your own?”
“I don’t mind, but what about him? He’s not going to take very kindly to a stranger coming into his stall and fondling his knee, is he?”
“No, but Lucinda or Walter—that is, Lucinda or one of her grooms will hold him and keep him quiet while you do your stuff. He’ll be fine with them.”
“Okay, I’ll have a go.”
“I’ll give you Lucinda’s number. And I’ll give her a call first to say you’ll be in touch. Then you can fix a time that’s mutually convenient.”
“I’ll do that. By the way, I assume you’ve heard that the police have released Donal without charge?”
“I did hear that, yes.” There was quite definitely a note of relief in her voice.
“By the way, it was a pleasure to meet Nicky the other day,” Jude said, though she wasn’t quite sure “pleasure” was the right word.
“He was pleased to meet you too.”
“And do please thank him on my behalf.”
“What for?”
“His donation to the N.S.P.C.C. It was a very generous cheque.”
“Oh, that’s typical of Nicky—ever the master of the grand gesture.” For the first time, Jude almost heard a hint of criticism.
“Is he still with you?”
“No, he flew off to Singapore yesterday morning.”
And once again, there was unmistakable relief in the way the words were said.
Jude hadn’t been back to Long Bamber Stables since the night of Walter Fleet’s murder, and that Thursday morning the premises did look a lot less foreboding than on her previous visit. The weather had brightened and, though the February cold still scoured her face, Jude felt the thin sun promising that, one day, there would be a spring.
She had come on her own, walking along the towpath, past Unwins, the mile or so to the stables. She hadn’t told Carole about her visit. This was not with a view to excluding her friend from any part of their investigation—though she knew that, if Carole ever found out, that was the way she would see it. But Jude needed the minimum number of people around her when she was on a mission of healing. Her previous lack of success with Chieftain rankled—not because she allowed herself any vainglory about her healing skills, but because the failure felt like unfinished business. And, besides, the horse was still suffering.
Following the instructions Lucinda Fleet had given her on the phone, Jude let herself in by the main gates, and closed them behind her. In daylight she could get a much better view of the stable yard. What struck her most was how dilapidated all of the structures were. On her previous visit the moon and police spotlights had flattered the buildings. Now she could not be unaware of the ancient cracked weatherboarding, the rusting corrugated iron and missing tiles on the various roofs.
A couple of the stable doors were fully open. Their usual occupants, tethered to posts in the yard, puffed out steamy breath and clattered their hooves disconsolately on the stone surface, while their stalls were mucked out. Jude could hear the scrape of thick-bristled brooms and spades from inside. She moved towards the nearest stall and found herself facing Lucinda Fleet, who was sweeping water out into the gutter round the edge of the yard.
“Ah, good morning. Can you wait till I finish this? Have to get up as much water as possible this time of year, otherwise it freezes. If you’re cold, wait in the tack room over there. I won’t be long.”
Given such an adventitious offer, Jude gratefully took it up, and walked across to the tack room. The interior was lit only by the light that came through the open door and a cracked, discoloured window. On the far wall were rows of saddles on metal supports. Halters and bridles hung from pegs. Just inside the door, under the window was a high bench whose surface was covered with horse impedimenta, some of which—like currycombs and riding crops—Jude could identify, but others whose functions she could not begin to guess.
What was odd about the space was how clean everything was. From the description Carole had given of her torch-lit visit to the tack room, Jude had expected everything to be blurred by a thick patina of dust, and it took her a moment to realise that the new tidiness must have been the police’s doing. Of course, the whole area was a crime scene. Every item within the tack room must have been examined for fingerprints or other clues. Some had probably been taken away for testing in forensic laboratories. And what remained had been neatly returned to its place, to await the accumulation of further layers of dust.
One item of equine equipment that wasn’t on the desk was a bot knife. The pictures in the papers and on television news ensured Jude would have recognised one if it had been there. Its absence was hardly surprising. Though they might inspect and return most of the room’s contents, the police were never going simply to clean and replace a murder weapon. But Jude thought it was a fair guess that the bot knife had been on the bench the night Walter Fleet died.
She looked at the ladder leading to the upper level. It didn’t face the front door; it was at right angles to it. Screwing up her eyes with the effort of imagination, she tried to visualise the scene. Carole had said the little upstairs light had been on. Walter Fleet, maybe doing a security check around the yard, had seen the glow of that light through the tack room window. He had opened the door, maybe seen the intruder, challenged him…And then?
After a quick look out across the yard to see that Lucinda was still involved in her mucking out, Jude crossed to the ladder and climbed up. The angle was very steep, not easy either to ascend or descend in a hurry. She peered into the space at the top. Sufficient daylight penetrated up there for her to see that all evidence of anyone having slept there had been removed. The boards were bare, again swept unnaturally clean.
No surprise, really. The information available to the forensic police from a sleeping bag and other bedding must be invaluable. Maybe they had even found some DNA trace from Donal. Although Lucinda had denied he ever slept up there, from what she’d heard of the man, Jude reckoned he was quite capable of creeping in after dark when he needed a bed. Maybe the evidence that he had been up there was what prompted the police to take him in for questioning.
As she lowered herself heavily down the ladder, Jude again tried to visualise what had happened. Walter Fleet standing in the doorway. No light except for the diluted moon and what spilled from upstairs. If the intruder was up there, Walter might just about have been able to see him. Or her. Or to hear him. Or her. Whether or not the intruder had plans to commit burglary or some other crime, he was still a trespasser and had no right to be there.
Some kind of conversational altercation must presumably have taken place. Jude thought it unlikely that Walter had actually climbed up the ladder before finding his murderer. Made more sense that the murderer had come down to his level, with a view to escape. But Walter was barring the doorway. So the murderer must have picked up the bot knife from the bench and attacked the man who stood in the way of his freedom. Walter would have staggered back from the first onslaught, which would tie in with where the blood spots in the yard had started. The murderer continued, slashing away at his victim in a frenzy, until Walter Fleet fell backwards, dead. And then the murderer had rushed away from the scene through the wooden gate at the far side of the stable yard. Only moments before Jude had entered through the main gates.
That was the bit that was so frustrating. To think that she’d been literally seconds away from seeing the perpetrator of Walter Fleet’s murder.
13
“YOU LOOK THOUGHTFUL.” Jude hadn’t noticed Lucinda’s approa
ch until she stood in the doorway.
“Yes, I’m sorry. A bit distracted. I’m afraid it’s because…” She let the words trickle away. Probably not the right moment to raise the matter.
Lucinda Fleet had no such inhibitions. “You’re thinking about the night Walter died.”
“Well, I—”
“Don’t feel embarrassed about it. That’s all everyone who comes here thinks about. And for you…well, since you found the body, it must be impossible for you not to think about what happened.”
“I can’t deny it. But how are you coping?”
Lucinda shrugged. “I’m coping, getting on with what has to be done here. As you probably know—since everyone in West Sussex seems to know—Walter and my marriage was not the happiest since records began. Once I’ve got over the shock, I think I’ll be quite relieved. Oh, and once the funeral’s happened. Hopefully that’ll kind of put a lid on things.”
“When is the funeral?”
“I wish I knew. The police haven’t released Walter’s body yet.”
“That must be awful for you.”
“Not the best fun I’ve ever had, no. God, what it’d be like for someone who actually loved their dead spouse, I can’t imagine.”
“So the police are still doing forensic tests on…on the body, are they?”
“I assume so. I’m afraid I’m not the first person with whom they share information.”