by Gene
Ì suppose Ros is a bit disappointed in me.'
Ì think she's as much puzzled as disappointed. As am I. You've been telling me how much you enjoy being around horses once more, and Ros is full of praise for your riding ability.'
She took a deep breath. Ì owe you an explanation.'
He stopped her. `No, you don't, Marie. And you don't owe Ros Bradey one either - she says she's used to young girls changing their minds without letting anyone know what they are up to.'
She could just picture Ros saying the words.
`However,' Dr Gooding had got to his feet, `she says there's someone else you should explain yourself to. A horse called Spring Fever who's wondering where you've got to.'
Ouch!
Malcolm didn't like being given the runaround. He'd spent the morning trying to get hold of Beverley but her phone was being answered by a gormless minion who could only tell him she was ìn a meeting'. The girl would not elaborate on how long this meeting was likely to last but when he got the same response at one-thirty he felt sure he was being deliberately snubbed.
It wasn't that he was particularly keen to discuss Adolf's latest cockup straight away, but Beverley had barely spoken a civil word to him after the race. And when he'd tried to detain her at the end of the meeting - to float the Coniston Water idea in seductive detail - she'd simply brushed him off.
`Call me tomorrow. Barney's waiting,' she'd muttered as she strode off to the car park without a backward glance.
129
Frankly he was getting a little tired of her moody behaviour but it made her more interesting than the majority of women he'd been involved with.
Most of the females in his life had fallen into the doormat category and, by the time he'd wiped his feet a few times, he'd been ready to move on.
Pippa had been one of the exceptions and so, too, was Beverley. He had to admit she was intriguing. He'd been through her handbag once and come across some pills called Fluoxetine. Prozac by another brand-name - he'd checked it out. This secret piece of knowledge tickled him. So the super-smart executive was really a doped-up bag of nerves. She was certainly a challenge. And he wasn't prepared to give her up until he was sure he was on top.
At last he managed to get through to her assistant, a snippy type called Karen who had also, he was sure, been ducking his calls. Karen was Beverley's creature. Malcolm could reliably calculate his current standing in Beverley's affections by Karen's tone.
Right now she was all business. Ì'm afraid Ms Harris is still in conference with the chairman, Mr. Priest. Is this a matter of urgency?'
`She asked me to call and arrange a meeting. Can you tell her I could manage drinks this evening?'
Karen's reply was encouraging. `Let me just see if she can squeeze you in.'
Malcolm had no doubt the double-entendre was intentional. Things were looking up.
When Karen came back on the line, the wind had changed and her tone was distant. `She says she can spare ten minutes in her office at five this afternoon. Or else it'll have to be next week.'
Malcolm agreed, trying to keep the fury out of his voice. Just wait till he got Beverley on her own.
Marie cycled up to Ros's yard after the surgery closed for lunch. There was no point in putting it off. The sun was out and she found herself pedalling faster as she caught sight of the indoor school across the sparkling green fields. Shed missed this short journey and didn't want her connection to end. But how in all conscience could she allow it to continue?
130
There was plenty of activity. She could see horses being led across to the barn and tackling jumps in the paddock. She looked for Ros amongst the figures in the field and couldn't spot her.
She rode round to the stables and parked her bike. The boxes seemed empty apart from one. A familiar white-nosed face regarded her with a luminous eye and a whicker in the throat.
`How are you?' she said happily as she reached up to pat Spring Fever's neck. `Have you missed me?'
`What do you think?' said a voice from behind her.
To Marie's relief Ros was smiling. She was expecting a telling-off and maybe that would follow but, for the moment, it seemed Ros had other things on her mind.
`You've turned up just in time. I haven't got anyone to ride him.' Òh.'
Marie was not prepared for that. She was dressed for an office not the stable.
Ros read her mind and was not to be thwarted. `There's spare clothes in the tack room. Let's get you kitted out.'
Within five minutes Marie found herself on top of Spring Fever, gently warming him up round the paddock preparatory to tackling a series of jumps that Ros was arranging. As the pair of them soared over the first one, Marie felt happier than she'd been in days. Since she'd last sat on Spring Fever, in fact.
Ìt must be love,' said Ros afterwards as they rubbed Spring Fever down and settled him back in his box. `He'll jump for you but he won't get off the ground for anyone else. Would you like to put him through his paces for his owner? Just to demonstrate that I've not been taking money under false pretences.'
Ì'd love to, Ros, but . . .'
She ground to a halt. This was the point she knew must come - the point she was dreading. And she began to explain about her brother and the accident that had taken his life. And how, now she'd heard that Jamie Hutchison - the man responsible - also rode Ros's horses, she could no longer do so.
131
Ros took her into the scruffy room that served as an office-cum-kitchen and made them tea. When Caroline and a couple of other girls appeared at the door she shooed them away.
`Suppose,' she said at length, Ì could guarantee that you would not run into Jamie on these premises?'
Marie was surprised. Was Ros proposing to rearrange her schedule just for her? She didn't expect her to do that.
Òr,' Ros continued, ìs it the fact that I associate with him that causes you a problem?'
Òh no! I don't feel like that. My dad and my aunt might, but I'm not like them. I don't think Jamie Hutchison's my enemy or anything. It's just - I hate the thought of bumping into him. You know, like him arriving and asking me to saddle up one of the horses for him. It wouldn't be right, would it? I can't come here if I think he might suddenly turn up.'
Ros put down her mug. `He won't. There's other places we can work. And if he's going to be here I shall make sure you are not.'
Relief washed over her. Of course, she could have found other stables and ridden out elsewhere but it suited her here. She liked Ros and the other girls and the horses. And now she could carry on as before. Her face broke into a smile. `That's brilliant.'
`So you'll come tomorrow?,
'Oh yes. Thanks ever so much, Ros. I can't believe you'll go to this trouble just for me.'
Ros dumped her mug in the sink and turned for the door. `Don't kid yourself, Marie. I'm only thinking of my horses.'
All the same, Marie thought as she pedalled back down the lane, it felt as if she'd just been paid the most enormous compliment. Beverley kept Malcolm waiting in reception, as he'd anticipated she would. By now he'd recovered his composure. He reminded himself that he and Beverley were playing a game that was mutually beneficial. Beverley had been sluttishly selfish in bed and he'd swear she was dying for more. And this - the official cold shoulder, the summons to the office - was her next move in the game, like intellectual foreplay. He'd go along with it. He was sure the consummation would be worth it.
132
He was put out, though, to find that Beverley was not intending to grant him exclusive access to her presence. When Karen finally ushered him into Beverley's office she took a seat on a straight-backed chair next to the desk and produced a notebook, obviously acting on instructions.
Beverley was at her most forbidding. She offered a cursory formal handshake and indicated the squashy sofa which Malcolm had squirmed around on during his first visit. This time she stayed firmly put behind her desk and launched into business without preamble. Ì
've asked Karen to take minutes of our conversation, just for the record.'
Ì didn't know there was a record,' he said.
`Surely you don't object to an official note of our discussion? It's more businesslike. Ultimately it's for the benefit of both parties.'
A few smart retorts sprang to Malcolm's mind but he kept quiet. His curiosity almost outweighed his suspicion.
Às you can imagine,' she continued, Ì have taken the opportunity to review with Mr. Beaufort the progress of Beaufort Bonanza in the light of yesterday's disappointing performance.'
Malcolm couldn't contain himself. `Now come on, you can't call it disappointing. That run was a great improvement on Haydock.'
Ìt could hardly have been worse.'
`We all know he got it wrong at Haydock, but yesterday he showed some real form.'
`He fell over, Malcolm, and failed to finish for the second time in a row.
Now. . .' Karen was scribbling energetically on her pad, taking down every word. The sight was infuriating. `.. . Considering the amount of money the company has expended on the horse and the assurances we were given as to its potential, we feel we must take closer control over its management.'
`What are you on about?’ Malcolm was close to losing his temper. Ì made no assurances about Adolf.'
Ì can distinctly recall you saying that an outlay of eighty thousand pounds would provide a horse capable of competing in the Grand National within two years.'
Ì didn't say that!'
Beverley gave him a wintry smile. `Now you can see why we need an official record.'
133
Malcolm charged on. Ànyway, what do you mean by closer control over his management? Are you and Barney proposing to come down to the stables and muck him out?'
She appeared to take his suggestion seriously - she wasn't much of a one for jokes. `No, that's not what we had in mind. To be specific, we want to select the date and nature of all Beaufort Bonanza's future races without obstruction from the trainer. Naturally we will take his opinion into account but only insofar as it relates to the horse's physical condition.'
`My father won't like that,' said Malcolm.
Beverley ignored the remark. `We also require complete control over the selection of a jockey. And I can tell you that from now on, Jamie Hutchison won't be riding.'
Malcolm opened his mouth to protest then thought the better of it. He was being stitched up in here. Ànything else?' he said.
`Not at present.' Beverley glanced at her watch and stood up. Ì'm so sorry, Malcolm, I'm afraid I'm out of time.'
Karen stood up too, a smile lurking in the corner of her mean little mouth.
What a pair of bitches.
Jane was well aware from her frequent conversations with Superintendent Keith Wright that her honeymoon period was over. The Bonfire Night investigation was stuck and her `fresh thinking' had not produced results -
yet. As if Wright's evident impatience wasn't plain enough, the whittling down of her team made it clear she was no longer flavour of the month.
She'd already lost two DCs to more urgent matters and there was talk of closing down the incident room. Double murder or not, there was a limit to how many resources a moribund investigation could tie up.
In some respects Jane didn't mind the depletion of her forces. There was no point in having an army if you marched it in the wrong direction. And, for all Leighton Jones's flair, she wasn't convinced that he'd deployed his troops correctly.
Where had Pete got that money from?
The question nagged at her. It was fundamental to most investigations that the truth was entangled in the money trail. Arson was a case in point - a crime that boomed in times of economic depression when failing businesses went up in smoke in the hope of salvation from an insurance 134
cheque. And though in this case the reason for the arson seemed plain - to obscure the murders - the mystery of Pete's carrier bag of cash wouldn't go away.
Leighton's team had investigated Pete pretty thoroughly. He came from an Anglo-Ulster brewing family living on past glories. He'd been educated at English boarding schools and dropped out of university halfway through a History degree. He drifted into teaching and, when full-time jobs became insupportable, private tutoring arrangements. For the past few years he'd been technically unemployed, though the investigation had unearthed a couple of local families whose children he had helped with their studies.
From their statements it appeared he did a reasonable job, even if he wasn't always guaranteed to turn up. These families and a handful of disreputable friends had been the only mourners at his funeral.
Jane was curious about Pete's own family. His parents were dead but it appeared that he had a brother and numerous aunts, uncles and cousins. A note in the file of a phone conversation with the brother supplied the information that the family had washed their hands of Pete years ago - and he of them.
There was one remaining family connection, however - a monthly payment of a thousand pounds, transferred from Ireland into his bank account. This, the enquiry had discovered, was Pete's share of the family fortune, left in trust for him by his grandfather. It explained how he had managed to pay his rent and keep his costly habits afloat while doing little beyond giving the odd private lesson and small-time drug-dealing.
Jane wondered how much good all those thousand-pound handouts had really done him. `Poor little trust-fund boy,' she murmured to herself.
But suppose, out of these regular payments and his dealing, he'd managed to get a good stake together, could he not have won the money in a bet?
Despite what the local bookies had said, Pete did follow the horses and, through Amanda, could maybe get some inside tips. Perhaps they'd amassed this money through clever gambling? That's what Leighton had thought - when he'd thought about it at all.
Jane still wasn't convinced. Wouldn't Pete have boasted to Filthy about a big win, given that he'd boasted about the change in his fortunes? Isn't that 135
what gamblers did? She was hardly familiar with their psychology, however. Perhaps she really should go racing with Simon.
She pushed the thought out of her mind and turned to Amanda's finances.
Her records had been found in the upstairs back room of the cottage where they had escaped damage from the fire. Jane found herself looking at the conventional paper-trail of a young woman's financial life - credit-card bills, reams of bank statements and a building society passbook. All the accounts except for the latter were in the red but that had not always been the case. It was clear where the rot had started to set in - six months before her death. Hello, Pete, goodbye cash, Jane thought. It was entirely predictable.
Until that point, it seemed, Amanda had skimmed along, just about keeping her head above water. There'd been regular incomings from her employer and what looked like outgoings on the usual living expenses, with the occasional plastic retail splurge. But the end of her employment had signalled an irreversible decline in her finances. The building society passbook told the most interesting story. Until the previous summer it had been healthily balanced, containing over £7000. Since then regular withdrawals had reduced the holdings to less than a hundred pounds. The bundle of cash that Filthy Barrable had seen was sorely needed.
Jane flicked back through the pages of the passbook, which revealed the entire history of the account. Amanda had opened it with a deposit of fifty pounds seven years ago. After that, she'd added small amounts each month of ten or twenty pounds. Jane assumed the money was saved out of her earnings, in the time-honoured fashion of the thrifty, as Amanda tried to scrape together a lump sum. At that rate, however, Jane wondered how Amanda had managed to get it up to seven grand. She found the answer in an entry for October 1999 when Amanda had deposited the sum of £
10,000. Where had that come from?
Jane glanced at her watch. Was twenty to six a bad time to ring Elizabeth Jacobs? It might be suppertime or bath time or bedtime - on reflection, any time was bad.
With three young children to care for there would always be a reason why a mother's attention was engaged elsewhere. She punched in the number.
136
The phone was picked up on the fifth ring. `Hello,' said a small voice.
Child noises could be heard in the background and singing - Jane recognised the soundtrack of The Jungle Book.
`May I speak to your mummy, please?’ 'Hello,' said the voice. `Hello.'
Was there something wrong with the line?
Jane repeated her question. The voice repeated the answer: `Hello, hello, hello.'
Just as she was on the point of ringing off, a woman shouted down the line, Ìs that you, Cliff? Hurry up and come home - they're driving me round the twist.'
There was an embarrassed pause when Jane introduced herself. This was obviously not a good time to talk.
`Do you mind if I pop round tomorrow morning?' she asked. Àt half ten, say?’
'I can't guarantee we'll have the chance to-' Elizabeth broke off and shouted something. There was a crash in the background and Jane heard a wail go up. Elizabeth spoke urgently, `That'll be fine. I've got to go.'
Another receiver was picked up elsewhere in the house. `Hello,' said a little voice. `Hello, hello, hello. . .'
Jane put down the phone.
Malcolm took up his station in the White Rose across the street from Beaufort Holidays. He swallowed a large scotch to soothe his nerves then nursed a pint at a table by the window. From there he could see directly into the staff car park. It was less full than it had been twenty minutes ago when most of the office drones had fled the premises on the dot of six.
Barney Beaufort's Bentley was still in gleaming evidence and, two spaces down, so was Beverley's Citroen. Malcolm's chief concern was that the pair would exit together. He had to get Beverley on her own.
The office door opened and a solid figure, astrakhan overcoat belted against the winter chill, strode towards the Bentley - unaccompanied, thank God. At last something was going right.