Detective Ruby Baker series Box Set

by Daisy White

  So do I. “Go on then. Tell me how I can avoid death before midnight.”

  “When you leave my tent, you need to kiss the first dark-haired man you see,” she says promptly.

  “What?” I catch the sound of laughter outside, and it all makes sense. Standing abruptly, I dash from the heat and incense smoke of Madam Zula’s tent and burst out onto the grass.

  I knew it. A dark-haired man is doubled up, convulsed with laughter. He and his blond friend are laughing so much that their beer is spilling over their trousers. I march over and whack Kenny hard on the back.

  “Ouch! What did you do that for?” he says.

  “You’ve ruined my fortune telling experience,” I complain, while, still grinning, he wipes the tears from his eyes. “How much did you pay her?”

  “So cynical.” Blond Ted, hair sticking up in tufts and his chubby cheeks red, shakes his head sorrowfully. “I thought you believed in all that stuff, Rubes?”

  Scowling at them, I look around for my best friend, Mary.

  “She’s taken Summer on the merry-go-round. She said she’d be back in time for the next race,” a now sober Kenny tells me. “If only I could have seen your face . . .”

  “Nothing to see. I believed Madam Zula for about . . . hmmm . . . no time at all?” I swing my arm to thump him again but he grabs my arm, pulls me into a hug and offers me a cold beer from his bag.

  “Oh well, it was worth a try. It’ll be a great story to tell our grandchildren,” Kenny says now, with a wink.

  “Since we aren’t even dating, I’m not sure how that’s going to happen,” I tell him. I can’t prevent myself from smiling back. Ken’s a total idiot, but you can’t help liking him.

  We wander towards the funfair, enjoying the warmth of the sun, the smells of the racecourse. From a radio somewhere, the Beatles’ latest, ‘Help,’ blares out. Everyone is dressed up in their finery. It was my cousin Pearl’s idea that we have a day at the races and, so far, it’s been glorious. I haven’t managed to back a winner yet, but the sight of the horses streaming over the mile-and-half course, coats gleaming, stretching all out for the winning post, is a new experience. I dodge a gypsy offering a basket of white heather ‘for luck,’ and scan the colourful crowd, looking for Mary and her daughter.

  The tinny music plays on and the merry-go-round creaks to a halt. I wave, and she stoops to pick up her toddler before making her way over.

  “Come on, you lot, or we’ll miss the next race!” Red curls flying in the warm breeze, and clashing violently with her purple mini dress, my cousin Pearl joins us. Her arm is linked with that of a tall, elegant blonde girl — her best friend, Victoria. “Vic wants to photograph the horses as they get into the last furlong, so we need to find a spot right next to the railings.”

  “She’s been horse-mad ever since she started seeing that jockey. I have no idea what she’s talking about half the time,” Victoria says, grinning. Her beloved camera hangs around her neck, safe in its bulky brown box. Her hair, crowned by a little pillbox hat and net, tumbles down her back in a gleaming waterfall. Victoria always manages to look like a Vogue model about to stride down the catwalk.

  “I thought I was never going to get Summer off that merry-go-round,” Mary complains. The child holds out her tiny hands to me, and Mary passes her over. “It was only telling her we were going to see more horses that did it.”

  “Bless her. Maybe she’ll be a jockey herself when she’s older,” I suggest, shifting the child to my other arm and prising her fingers off my hat. She beams, her apple cheeks dimpled and her huge blue eyes darting across the crowds, taking everything in.

  “Don’t be silly, Ruby, girls can’t ride racehorses. They’re not strong enough,” Ted says seriously.

  I roll my eyes at him. “Bet Summer could. She’s been practising on that little wooden rocking horse you made her ever since she could walk. Anyway, I’m sure there are some women jockeys, aren’t there?”

  Shrugging, he laughs, and offers the child a paper bag of sweets. She carefully picks out two Candy Shrimps, pops one in my mouth, and sucks on the other herself.

  “Lemonade! Get your ice-cold lemonade here!” A man in a red shirt and braces is making his way along the rows of spectators, shaking a metal bucket full of bottles. Patches of sweat cross his back and spread under his arms. Clearly he isn’t sampling his own product. Summer points towards him, but I quickly distract her by pointing out the sleek horses prancing round the parade ring. Her clear blue eyes, so like her mother’s, widen and she points a chubby finger.

  Pushing through the sweating, jostling crowds, we make our way to a space near the winning post. As my feet sink into the grass, I’m glad I’ve worn flat shoes rather than heels. Pearl is struggling in her pretty pastel sandals.

  Under the soft blue sky, the course slopes gently away from us. A hundred hoofmarks from the previous races have muddied the bright green turf. The white railings are already packed with people, with a few children swinging underneath, daring each other to put a foot on the course.

  “It’s such a shame Johnnie couldn’t make it. We must get him to come next time,” Pearl says, frowning at her betting slips.

  “He had a meeting, didn’t he?” Victoria says, with a meaningful look at me.

  I know what she’s hinting at. When Johnnie has a lot of ‘meetings,’ it generally means he’s found a new love interest. Since all Johnnie’s love interests are male, he has to be very careful. “I’m looking forward to seeing his face at the salon on Monday when I tell him I’ve just won a few hundred pounds and I’m going to resign.”

  Kenny laughs. “Earn a bit more and you can buy one of those big houses in Sussex Gardens. I’ve always wanted one of them. That would be mad!”

  The next race is the big one apparently. The bookies and tipsters are going wild yelling the odds. ‘Last chance at 5-1 for Social Dance!’ ‘I know the trainer, and he says you can’t lose with this one!’ Their little stands are rocking from the press of people waiting to place bets as the names and numbers of the runners are chalked up on dusty blackboards. The tipsters circle, hats pulled down, shirts wet with sweat, fanning envelopes filled with hot tips. Judging by the amount of coins they’re collecting, people actually believe their banter.

  The huge, towering grandstand is jammed with spectators, but we’re right down where the action is, clinging to the rail, hearts pounding. A large, smart-looking group near the finishing post pull out cameras and focus their lenses on the last furlong, all ready to capture the winner.

  The woman next to me drops her purple hat which blows onto the course, and her husband quickly nips out to retrieve it. A massive banner draped along the front of the grandstand, bears painted wording picked out in scarlet and blue: ‘1965 Derby Trial.’

  Victoria adjusts her own, slightly battered camera, while Kenny consults his betting slips. “I’m going to have a winner here. I’ve backed Love Me Do, and he’s the favourite.”

  “Donovan says he hasn’t got a hope, he’s been slow on morning exercise this past week. You should have gone for Basil’s Pride. He’s over there — look, the chestnut with the white snip. They reckon he’s going to be a St Leger horse,” Pearl says, studying her catalogue with a superior air.

  “Thanks very much. I reckon your boyfriend is wrong anyway. This horse has got form. I read he’s going to be a cert for Epsom, and he won at Newbury last month. Come on, Pearl, face it, this horse is a Derby favourite!” Kenny says defiantly.

  I’m a city girl born and bred, and I don’t have the faintest idea what they’re talking about. Still, I love listening to the horsey chat. It’s like a whole new language and a whole new world to explore. I soak up the atmosphere, the excitement.

  The horses canter down to the start in a flurry of colourful silks. The spectators’ anticipation is reaching fever pitch, travelling like an electric current from person to person. We can’t see the starter from our position but we know when they’re off, because the roar from the cro
wd builds like thunder, echoing out over the racecourse.

  We squint into the sun, tracking the stream of animals as they spread out along the rails. It seems like no time at all until the noise intensifies, and the horses come thundering up the home stretch, nostrils flared blood-red, veins standing out like wet ropes against their glistening coats. I grip the rail in front of me, yelling with the rest, aware of nothing but the drumbeat of hooves and the screams of the crowd. We’re packed so tight I couldn’t move if I wanted to. A man on my right is yelling and waving his fists in the air, driving the horses to still greater efforts. The sun beats down, and I hang onto my pink hat as someone jostles me hard from behind.

  It happens in a flash. Just a few feet further along from our spot at the rails, a blonde girl in a pink dress leaps out in front of the leaders. Basil’s Pride, the chestnut, is in front by a nose, and he knocks her full in the chest. She lies, crumpled under the murderous hooves, as the race spins out of control. The colt somersaults, to screams of horror from the people around me. But he quickly staggers to his feet, shaking himself like a dog, picking his way around the still body on the turf. His jockey has curled into a ball and rolled away from the hooves, his face bleeding. Two other horses are brought down, despite being yanked aside by their jockeys. Another four, coming up fast behind, add to the melee, but somehow manage to dodge the fallen.

  My hand is pressed to my mouth to stop a scream, my heart hammering as I strain to see. For a moment I think the girl is moving, and I clench my fists, hope rising. But it’s just the summer breeze ruffling her dress. The ambulance men are running up the course carrying a stretcher. Now the crowd is pouring onto the course, and an official looking man in a top hat and tails is bending over the still body, and talking to the injured jockey. There are long streaks of scarlet in the emerald green grass, and the air is sour with mingled sweat and blood.

  The jockeys are coaxing their limping charges towards the finish line, swearing, and pulling off their caps. There’s a loose horse heading over towards the funfair, broken reins flying, triggering yet more screams. Grooms, owners and trainers are gathering by the winning post and the commentator is pleading for calm.

  Kenny sums it up. “Bloody hell. I can’t believe that just happened. Major bummer. I wonder where James is . . .”

  Tears streaking her cheeks, Mary is cuddling Summer, turning her face away so she can’t see the carnage. Ted puts an arm around them both, casting an anxious look at the horrified faces, the anger and the sadness. Emotions are running high, and there is already a fist fight in progress over by the bookies. “Why did she do that? What a terrible way to go, and she could have killed that poor jockey!”

  I rub my sweaty face with shaking hands. My knees feel weak. We are hemmed in by the crowd. It feels wrong to just be standing, watching. If I had been a little closer, I would have run with the rest to her still body. But there are people surrounding her, and the ambulance men will do everything they can. I blink hard. It seems unreal. If I could close my eyes, time would roll back. She would still be there, yelling with the rest of us. I don’t know her, but my throat is clogged, and I know tears aren’t far off. I cross my fingers and send a little prayer of hope. Maybe she isn’t dead, maybe she is so still and pale in her pool of blood because she is just unconscious. She might still be breathing, but I’m just not close enough to see properly.

  “I think we should try to get out of here. We need to get Summer away, and out of this crowd,” Kenny says, almost shouting to make himself heard. He glances back to the scene behind us. “I’ll get you to the gate, then come back and try and find James. He might have some news on that poor girl by then. I’ll meet you later if I can, but I expect we’ll both end up working on the story.”

  The other girls are nodding, clearly also aware of the volatile crowd, the shouting and the murderous press of hundreds of bodies, pushing against us. Ted takes Summer from Mary and puts his other arm across his girlfriend’s shoulders, steering her through the chaos. There are uniformed policemen on the course now, shouting at the bystanders, trying to shepherd them away and give the grooms and ambulance men space to deal with the fallen.

  An older, white whiskered man is repeating over and over again, “She just jumped right out and they couldn’t see her, poor lass. She just jumped right out . . .” He blows his nose loudly into a red-spotted handkerchief.

  I link arms with my cousin. “Do you think there’s a chance she might be okay?”

  “Honestly? I don’t think anybody could have survived that,” Pearl says soberly. “Thank God, Donovan wasn’t riding. As Mary says, that girl could have killed them all. But what a horrid way to die, though, trampled to death.”

  Chapter Two

  At the gate, we find a bottleneck of people, mostly women and children, all trying to escape the drama. We manage to avoid the queue by pushing through the hedge at the back of the funfair, and we make our way to the bus stop at the top of Race Hill. The press at the gates ebbs and flows as people are spat out in regular bursts. Some start walking home, while others gather in groups to discuss the tragedy.

  All around us, people are either shouting the news at the top of their voices, or talking in hushed, horrified whispers. The Derby Trial has been ruined, and opinion seems to be divided between which is worse — the dead girl, or the fact the race will be declared void. Most people seem to agree with Pearl, that there is no way the girl could have survived, but I hold onto a tiny thread of hope.

  We’re some of the first onto the bus and we clamber up to the top. It’s breezy, and we lean over the edge, watching the drama that is still unfolding on the course.

  “See you at Brenda’s at six if I can make it!” Kenny is out on the road, waving at us. “If not, I’ll telephone tomorrow.”

  “Okay.” I wave back, and he dives into the crowd.

  Kenny and James are junior reporters for the Brighton Herald. It was a big deal for James to cover the Derby Trial, so he’ll make sure he is part of this front page story. The boys are always talking about breaking out and finding jobs with a bigger paper in London, but they never actually do anything about it.

  The bus rumbles back down the hill towards the town. “You know what that reminded me of?” Victoria says quietly.

  “Tell us,” Pearl says, trying to light a cigarette, cupping her hand around the match. The flame blows out in the breeze. “Oh damn!”

  “Emily Davison, the suffragette. You know, she threw herself under the king’s horse at the Derby in 1913 protesting for women’s rights.” Victoria takes a cigarette for herself, her other hand pushing back stray wisps of hair.

  “I vaguely remember learning that at school. Trust you to know all the details. But . . . what? You think that poor girl was trying to make a protest about something?”

  “I’m sure we’ll know more when the boys’ve written their story. What an awful end to a lovely day out.” Mary is smoothing Summer’s hair. She delves in her handbag for a battered doll, and the little girl snuggles up contentedly. “I suppose there is a chance she could have survived?”

  Pearl shrugs. “As I said to Ruby, she’d have to be very lucky. The way I saw it, she got kicked in the head and chest, so at the very least she’ll have some fairly horrendous injuries. Why not just take some pills with a bottle of whisky, if you’re going to do it? Do you remember my mum’s neighbour, Ruby? Jessie Roberts, I think her name was . . .”

  I pull my hat off, letting the pins fall into my lap, and shake my hair out. “Sort of. Didn’t her husband leave her for some fancy piece at his office?”

  “Yes. She was devastated, and one night she just ended it. My mum found her the next day, late afternoon. Horrible. She was so lovely, and never gave a sign that she was going to do something like that. Mum always said she was a bit nervy after she had children though.” Pearl sighs.

  The conversation continues to buzz furiously around us. Some are sorry for the girl, while others are furious that she endangered the lives
of jockeys and horses in such a reckless and selfish manner. One man in a tweed cap says he won’t be surprised if Brighton doesn’t get to host another Derby Trial, after all this hullabaloo.

  “Perhaps she just fell, and it was an accident?” Ted suggests suddenly. “I know I was getting pushed into the rail by that big crowd. Maybe she fainted and slipped under?”

  We consider this in silence. Then Vic shakes her head. “No way. She actually flung herself out under those horses. She didn’t just sort of slither to the ground. I was watching all along because I was taking photographs.”

  “Oh God, Victoria, I almost forgot you had the camera! Did you get any pictures of her?”

  “I think so. It happened so fast. I’ll try and develop them tomorrow after my shift at the hospital. I’m not sure how clear they’ll be, but it might show the girl either collapsing, as Ted says, or jumping out onto the course. I’m sure it was the latter, but we’ll soon see . . .”

  “You got photographs?” A small man, with greasy brown hair hanging round his face has been eavesdropping on our conversation.

  “Maybe,” Vic says warily.

  He hands over a tattered business card. “Let me know if they come out. Jack Pelican, Daily Star. Call that telephone number any time. I could get you a bit of cash for the pictures.”

  “Thanks. Oh look, this is our stop. Nice to meet you, Mr Pelican.” Victoria tosses her hair. She towers over the man, who beams appreciatively.

  “Only if they’re mint, mind. We can’t use anything that’s blurred.”

  “You wouldn’t really do that, would you?” Ted asks as we climb off the bus, and start walking down the dusty hill.

  The heat haze over the sea makes the town look fuzzy at the edges, and the pavement beneath my feet is hot. The ice-cream shop is doing a brisk trade, while some kids are playing with wooden skittles in one of the shady alleyways. I lick salt from my lips and the tension coiled in my belly starts to relax its knots. It’s just a horrible thing to have happened, and there was nothing we could have done to prevent it, or help the poor girl afterwards.