by Daisy White
I know all of this, but I’m stuck underground in a smelly hole for the foreseeable future. Did Barney say the cottage was empty tonight? Hopefully, that means that at some point the owners of the hacking stables will be back, and I can shout for help. Maybe tomorrow morning to feed the horses, I suppose. Congratulations, Ruby Baker, you’re an idiot.
My only hope is that Johnnie and Mary will find my notes and, realising I’m not home, head up to Tegdown Stables. But from there they’ll need to track me down the hill. When Barney is discovered to be missing, they might think that he’s taken me in a car. What a bloody mess. It must be way past ten by now.
I think of Sammy, and how he’ll react when I tell him Rita’s death was an ‘accident.’ He’s a nice boy, and I can only imagine the relief of finding he has been right and she didn’t choose to kill herself, mingled with frustration that her death was such an unnecessary one.
There is condensation trickling down the walls, and I realise that I’m cold. I try yelling for help again, but my voice swirls and echoes back down to me. For a while, nothing happens to disturb my silent imprisonment. I think of Rita, trapped in her tiny room for weeks on end, staring out of the barred windows. How ironic that she should be standing in front of Barney at the races. It could have been me. It could have been anyone.
What did I say in the note? Only that I was going to see Barney, and a brief paragraph summing up what Alan told me. Nothing else, because at that time I didn’t know anything else. I thump a fist against the wall in frustration. A noise from above reverberates down. Is the cover moving back? Heart hammering, I brace myself for Sophie and the gun.
The ladder clinks, but then there is nothing. Nobody comes down, but I think I can hear faint voices. A horse whinnies. Why are they still here?
There is something different now, and it takes a while for my tired brain to absorb the fact that there is a splinter of light shafting down into my prison. The clouds must have moved away, letting moonlight clear the darkness.
The noise from above wasn’t my imagination. Someone has been back and left the cover ajar. Not only that, but they’ve left the ladder halfway down. Did Barney have an attack of conscience before they left? Perhaps that’s what I traded for the kiss. It also means they must be just leaving, or have left already, for him to risk my yelling and being heard. My legs are shaking, and I have to fight back a wave of nausea, but I push myself to my feet. It’s a struggle, but if I stand on tiptoe, reaching up as far as I can, my trembling fingers just touch the last rusty rung of the ladder.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Maddeningly, I can’t get enough of a grasp on the ladder to pull it down any further. I try piling stones on top of one another, but they fall apart under my weight. I’m just about reaching screaming point when I realise that my prison is so narrow and square that I might be able to walk my hands and feet up, spider fashion. The slippery sides make it hard to grip, but I put my palms firmly on the flat wall in front of me, and wedge my feet behind on the opposite side. Agonisingly slowly, I push myself upwards, inch by inch, until my head knocks against the ladder.
Taking a deep breath, my muscles screaming with pain, I tense my whole body, and take one hand off the wall. For a minute, I think I’m going to fall. My whole weight is suspended by one shaking arm. But I manage to get my other hand on the rung, lean out from the wall, my feet below me now, and crawl upwards.
By the time I actually start to climb the ladder, my whole body is shaking, and sweat is pouring down my back, stinging my eyes and making my hair itchy and hot. Every fibre of my body seems to be burning with the effort. Doggedly, rung by rung, I haul myself up.
At the top of the ladder, I force myself to pause, taking long, slow breaths. I can’t hear anything. I count to ten, but there is still no sound, and there is no reason for anyone to be lying in wait. Cautiously, I push the cover further to my left, so I can wriggle through. For a while, I collapse on the cobbles, exhausted, my cheek pressed to the cool, polished stones, my limbs splayed like a doll’s.
The moonlight shows a jumble of farmyard objects, and the barn doors stand open to reveal neatly stacked hay, a tractor parked in one corner, and a foul-smelling muck heap spreading out from a brick enclosure. Horse heads pop out of the half doors, regarding me with interest. Including the horses in the barn, there must be twenty or thirty animals in the yard.
I stagger to my feet, and head towards the stone trough where I splash my face in the cold rainwater, drinking, and throwing it over my body. There is a gate to one side of the yard, next to the tractor, and a cottage looms in the lee of the hill. All the windows are in darkness. Might they have a telephone? Should I go and bang on the door, in case Barney was lying? But if they are in, they must know what’s going on, and I could get myself into more trouble.
Undecided, I hover next to the long barn. Another gate, right next to me, stands open. A chalk track, a slash of vivid white in the moonlight, heading up onto the top of the Downs.
I edge into the barn. The horses are all dozing, and Pridey’s stall is empty. The sound of an engine breaks the silence. It sounds like a lorry. Surely, they must have gone ages ago. Puzzled, I walk outside, keeping to the hedges, slipping along in the deepest shadows. The driveway is steep, and leads down to a small, single-track lane. There is a large white-painted sign outside:
‘Thrush’s Hacking Stables
Quality hacks for ladies and gentlemen
Hire by agreement only.
Please enquire within or telephone Brighton 951841’
Voices, muffled and furious, float down on the night air, and the engine revs again, whining with the strain. I try to remember how far the little lane was from Tegdown Stables. Two or three miles? And Barney carried me cross country from Tommy’s back field so there is probably a shortcut.
The horsebox appears to be stuck on the hill. Two men are arguing, gesticulating at the rear, and a banging sound from inside makes me jump. I guess Pridey has fully recovered from the after-effects of his drugs, and is registering his disapproval at the delay.
Barney joins the two men, and more hurried conversation follows. My fists are clenched, and I’m suddenly full of energy. There’s still time to stop this. Could I run across the lane in the direction of Tommy’s stables? I could get help, and they might still be stuck when we come back. Or even if they aren’t, they wouldn’t have been able to get far.
The ramp comes down with a bang, and Barney scuttles in. He reappears with Pridey leaping about beside him. The horse is really upset now, and takes the ramp in one almighty bound. His metal shoes strike sparks on the road, and Barney, clinging to the bridle, somehow manages to haul him round in a circle.
There is more conversation, the gist of which seems to be that they will drive the empty horsebox further up the hill, and then load the horse near the top of the road.
Perfect. I wait until they are all occupied, and run across the narrow lane. Before I plunge into the woods, another engine noise rips through the night, ahead of the horsebox. Confused, I pause, poised to start my uphill run.
There are shouts and sounds of a struggle. Fists hit flesh and the horsebox engine dies with a whine. More voices, but these ones I recognise.
“Over here!” I shout, beginning to run up the lane. My voice is rasping in my throat and it comes out weak and feeble.
“Ruby, thank God!” Kenny is lifting me in his arms, kissing my bruised face very gently. “Are you hurt? What the hell happened?”
Thumps and yells indicate that the fight around the horsebox is still in progress, and Barney is running back down towards us, with Pridey dancing beside him like a fish on a line.
Johnnie appears, wiping his hands on his trousers, closely followed by Pearl. Still in Kenny’s arms, I quickly tell them of Barney’s intentions, “Sophie Harper is there too.”
“Sophie? What the devil is she doing mixed up in all this?” Johnnie says, clearly horrified, “She’s the last person I’d expect to be con
sorting with a stable boy. I suppose that is Basil’s Pride.” He indicates the running boy and prancing horse, who have now reached the entrance to the hacking stables.
I explain the deal between Barney and Sophie, adding that he is desperate for money to clear his debt, but that I think she’s just all about revenge, “We need to stop them!”
Then there is more shouting, and another man erupts onto the scene. A panting Joey Castle, with Donovan, join our little group.
“Is that horse . .?”
“Yes. We need to stop him!” Johnnie says sharply.
We run down after Barney. He turns in fright, his face a pale, terrified blur in the moonlight. I can hear Pearl telling Joey and Donovan the truth about Barney, and they are both swearing, exclaiming in horror.
We follow the horse into the yard, and for a moment I think we’ve got him trapped. But I’ve forgotten the open gate, and the track up to the Downs. The slight figure leaps onto the water trough, and then vaults onto the horse, booting it out of the yard. They gallop through the gate, and take off up the hill, hooves thundering on the hard chalk track, a triumphant tattoo of freedom.
“Come back, you murdering little bastard!” Joey yells.
Flinging open doors and grabbing bridles off the pegs, Joey and Donovan grab a couple of horses from the stables, and head off in hot pursuit.
“Quick! We can get to the car and follow them up that way,” Kenny says.
Johnnie in the lead, we run back out into the lane. The stranded horsebox, now blocked by Kenny’s car, is rumbling backwards towards us.
“Stop!” Pearl shouts, holding her hands out in a futile attempt to prevent the vehicle reversing.
Kenny hauls her out of the way, and the lorry continues to reverse, spinning sharply when it gets to the hacking stables. A quick turn, and despite our shouts, the three in the cab are soon racing away down the shadowy lane.
“For God’s sake, where does this lane lead to?” Pearl says in frustration. “They’re getting away!”
“We can follow the horsebox in the car and make sure they don’t get away,” Kenny suggests.
“Or we can go after Pridey and the others, and make sure Barney doesn’t get away,” Johnnie says, as we hover for a moment, undecided. “Let’s go for Pridey. Sophie Harper won’t go far from her family, so the police can deal with her and whatever accomplices she’s managed to dig up.”
Kenny sets off with a squeal of tyres, and is soon spinning the wheel to turn down a cart track. “How the hell did you find me?” I ask. “Is Ted okay?”
Johnnie, wincing at the driving, answers my second question. “He’s fine now, back on the ward.”
“Thank heavens for that.”
Johnnie nods. “I read your note, called in the troops and we went straight up to Tommy’s. Mary will be going mad with worry, but of course she couldn’t leave Summer. Pearl and Donovan were in the yard as I arrived at Tegdown Stables.”
“I saw you run after Barney down that hill. Of course at the time I didn’t know it was you, because it was so dark, but after everything that has happened recently, Donovan and I went down to see what was going on,” Pearl explains. “I thought I heard your voice, but I couldn’t think why you’d be up at the yard so late. Anyway, we went back to Donovan’s rooms but then Johnnie and Kenny arrived. Tommy came to do a last check of the horses, and he said he’d seen you. Barney was missing from his room . . . Ken, why are you going down this track?”
“It leads to the top of the old gallops, and the main road,” he explains, changing gear with an effort.
“Over there! I saw them go across that field. Where the hell is Barney going? He must know he can’t get away with it now,” I say, pointing.
Pearl continues her story while we bounce around in the back seat, jolting over ruts and tree roots. “So we found Barney gone and the tack room bolted, but with the window open. By then you’d had a pretty good head start and we couldn’t think where to look, but then Donovan remembered Percy Thrush’s place. It’s on the way out to the gallops. They hire out hacks to all the London trippers during the summer. He says they’ve got pigs, so all the horses spook at them. The track behind the stables leads down to the lane opposite’s Percy’s place, so it was the only place you could be really.”
“Tommy called the police as we left, so there’s a slim chance they might catch Sophie and the others,” Johnnie adds.
The car grinds to a halt at the top of a wooded area, and cautiously, Kenny pulls across, bumping across the turf towards the road.
“Stop here, Kenny, we can’t do anything else,” Johnnie says. “If he makes it to the road, we’ll catch up with him.”
We pile out of the car, and watch the figures below us in the moonlight, galloping at neck-breaking speed across the Downs.
Pearl has her hand over mouth, and Kenny pulls me close. “Why doesn’t he stop? He might have a Derby favourite, but he’s not running on a racecourse now. Pridey isn’t going to have an advantage much longer. It’s different with those hacks, they’re used to scrabbling all over the Downs.”
“Pridey has been drugged too,” I tell them. “That’s how they kept him quiet. His white markings are gone and his coat looks all dull.”
“What’s that over there?” Pearl says. “Because he isn’t coming up to the road as we thought.”
“Looks like a chalk pit,” Johnnie says. “They’re heading straight for it!”
We all start shouting warnings, futile and pathetic as our words are blown away. The drumming hooves grow louder. The drama unfolds before us, and it becomes clear that rather than relinquish his prize, Barney would rather kill himself or the horse.
“He’s going for the edge!” Pearl screams, running forward in a feeble effort to prevent disaster.
All three horses are straining, stretching out along the grassland, their bodies grotesquely magnified by the shadows. Joey and Donovan have a major disadvantage, being on the hacks, but Basil’s Pride has had a tough few weeks, and his long stride is faltering.
They must all be able to see the chalk pit yawning ahead, but Barney kicks the chestnut onwards. Joey and Donovan reach him at the last minute, one on either side. They lean down and grab his reins, yanking him away from the deadly drop. The sudden change of direction catches Barney off balance, and he is flung over the edge.
Running down the hill, we reach them just as the police cars come streaming over the hill behind us. The road is filled with flashing blue lights, turning the Downs into a strange alien landscape washed with blue and silver.
Donovan and Joey are clutching handfuls of reins, checking Pridey’s legs while all three horses stand quietly, their sides heaving.
We peer over the edge of the chalk pit. Barney is lying, still conscious and furious, on a chalky ledge about twelve feet down the side of the chalk pit.
“I can’t move! I think my legs are broken. Help me!”
Powerful white headlights soon pierce the darkness where we are standing, banishing the shadows and illuminating our strange little group. DC Little is running down towards us accompanied by a gaggle of uniformed police, and WPC Stanton is at his side.
“Are you alright?” DC Little asks, taking in the scene with professional calm. He puts a hand to his chest, steadying his breathing. “Miss Baker?”
“Barney, sorry I don’t know his surname, is going to need an ambulance. We can climb down and have a look at him until they get here, but he’s conscious,” Pearl offers.
“Stay here. We need to make sure you’re safe, and we don’t know if he’s armed,” WPC Stanton says. “Can you tell us what happened?”
I tell them quickly, leaving out the details for now, but giving them enough so they know that Barney has admitted to killing Rita and helping Sophie to steal Pridey. “So it was the two of them all along, after Sophie realised she had a way to get her revenge and blackmail Barney.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“He’s paralysed. The doctors don’t think
he’ll ever walk again,” Victoria says soberly.
“Maybe it’s a strange kind of justice,” I tell her, adjusting my hat as the sea breeze tries to remove it. “I mean, it didn’t matter in the end that the man who got him into debt was Rita’s dad, she was just some person in front of him in the crowd. It could have been one of us. Now she’s dead, and he’s lying in a hospital bed.”
“I expect he wishes he had died. He’ll certainly never ride again,” Pearl says. “WPC Stanton told me they found out it wasn’t just Alan Stonehill that Barney owed money to, it was a whole lot of shadier characters. I don’t imagine they’ll give up just because he’s never going to walk again.”
“Horse racing is such a big business, and you can always sell the dream of winning loads of money, can’t you? I don’t know anyone who’d say no to a chance of changing their lives,” Victoria adds. She flips open a little compact and does her lips in scarlet.
“If it seems too good to be true, it probably is,” Johnnie tells us, smiling. “Now, are we going to a wedding or standing around gossiping about scoundrels?”
We gather, just our group, in the Town Hall to watch Mary and Ted become man and wife. I feel a little twinge of sadness that Mary’s parents didn’t come, but it washes away when I see the glowing bride and her adoring husband. Ted’s still moving a bit awkwardly, but at least he’s back on his delivery round, so they can keep up their payments on the cottage. He looks smart in his new suit, with his blond hair slicked back. Summer is on Mary’s hip, looking gorgeous in the flowered yellow dress, with roses in her hair.
Mary is laughing as they walk down the steps, and she throws her little bunch of roses and daisies high into the air. I reach up, and catch the flowers before they tumble to the earth. I hear Ken say loudly, “Bloody hell!” But when I turn, he’s grinning at me, like he knew all along.