Phantom Horse 6: Phantom Horse Wait for Me

by Christine Pullein-Thompson

  “Could be, and he’s afraid she will tell someone at the hospital about it,” I said. “That would explain his rage.”

  “And her fear, because it’s obvious that somebody’s been threatening to kill Marli, isn’t it?”

  I nodded and now I couldn’t stop shivering.

  6

  The evening passed very quickly. I think we watched television. At nine o’clock Angus rang Hill Farm House, but there was no answer. At ten o’clock Dad called us.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked, sounding anxious.

  Mum told him about the detectives. I told him about Rachel. Angus merely called, “Give him my best wishes,” in a silly voice.

  Another night came upon us, with more terrible dreams, followed by a wet morning.

  “I think we should go to Hill Farm House. Will you ride over on Phantom?” Angus asked, standing by my bed fully dressed.

  “And take Marli with you,” called Mum from the passage. “We don’t want to be accused of stealing her.”

  So later we tacked up our horses. The rain had stopped. Angus had dusted Marli’s leg with the green powder which was antibiotic and fly-repellent.

  “Hurry up. I’m working after lunch,” he said.

  Killarney was full of bucks and shied at every heap of earth and dustbin. I led Marli on the outside of Phantom. We had put on her tack, but her new saddle was scratched and her reins broken at the end.

  “Rachel wasn’t wearing a hat. You know that, don’t you?” asked Angus. “We looked for it and Dominic promised to bring it over if he found it.”

  “That explains the state of her head,” I said.

  “It does, doesn’t it,” said Angus, nervously adjusting the chinstrap on his own cap.

  We trotted up the hill, Marli and Phantom going beautifully together, their strides matching, Killarney cantering sideways.

  Maggie hee-hawed from the railed paddock. She looked old and anxious, the house looked deserted.

  “Where’s Rachel?” asked Angus, with anguish in his voice.

  “Still in hospital,” I answered, to soothe him.

  “One day they’ll batter her to death. She’ll be found at the roadside and there will be a full-size murder hunt,” he said, gloomily surveying the house.

  “Why will they kill her?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I wish I did,” replied Angus, dismounting.

  We let Marli go. She would not leave us, neighing piteously as we put the tack in the porch by the back door. The house was locked up, even the swimming pool was deserted. I know because I held the horses while Angus searched the premises for some sign of life, returning to say, “We had better ring the hospital.”

  “But we’re not relations,” I said.

  “I don’t care. I shall ring anyway.” There were tears in his eyes, which he pushed further in with his fists, like a small child does. “Stop staring,” he shouted. “What’s there to stare at?”

  “Nothing,” I answered, leading the way down the drive.

  “I have sixty pounds now. I was going to ask her out, take her somewhere smart. I was thinking of asking you too, and Dominic …”

  “How kind.”

  “Anyway, there’s a good film on tonight at the Odeon in Reading. Dominic wants me to go with him, will you join us, too? It might cheer you up. There’s a horse in it …” Angus said.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Of course I will. It’s years since we’ve been to the cinema, and it might cure the nightmares I’m having every night.”

  “Dominic will pick us up at seven-thirty then,” Angus said. “Then we can see the whole programme – okay?”

  “Perfect.”

  “If Rachel is back I’ll invite her,” said Angus, ever hopeful.

  “If Rachel is back she will be keeping quiet for two days at least,” I answered. “She won’t be watching anything much. She was very badly concussed. Much worse than you’ve ever been.”

  I read a book after lunch but although it was a murder story and exciting, the words failed to penetrate, so that five minutes later I could not remember what I had read.

  Phantom kept neighing for Marli and I wondered whether the flies had found their way to her wound yet.

  Mum rang the hospital for Angus, who stood over her biting his nails. “She’s still there, she’s comfortable,” said Mum, replacing the receiver.

  “What does that mean?” demanded Angus.

  “Nothing, but obviously she isn’t dying,” Mum said.

  At six o’clock Angus returned from the farm and stood in the hall calling, “Any news?”

  “No, nothing.”

  I had turned Killarney and Phantom out into the paddock and changed into a denim skirt and cotton shirt. I had cleaned my shoes and was suddenly glad that I was not competing with Rachel. I imagined her turning up decorated with an array of jewels, her nails polished, her tawny hair gleaming and eyeshadow round her extraordinary eyes.

  At seven-thirty Dominic drew up outside our gate in the Land Rover. “Hop in,” he said, holding the door open. He had slicked down his hair and was wearing a suit and a tie with horses on it. He looked as though he was pretending to be someone else. Angus was wearing jeans, cracked brown shoes and a thin polo-necked jumper.

  “Any news of Rachel?” asked Dominic.

  “None at all, not a word,” replied Angus.

  “What about the mare?”

  “She’s back with the Watsons’ donkey,” said Angus.

  “It was a lucky escape. She could have broken her leg in the harrow. I’m still kicking myself,” Dominic said, driving on to the main road.

  The film was about the Cavaliers and Roundheads. Both sides rode so atrociously that they set my teeth on edge. We had popcorn and Cokes and ice creams during the interval.

  Dominic refused to let me pay for anything. “This is my treat. It’s not often we go out together, Jean,” he told me firmly.

  When we came out of the cinema, Angus said, “We can’t go home yet. It’s only ten o’clock. Let’s have something to eat.”

  “What about Mum all alone in the cottage?” I asked. “Anything might happen.”

  “You’re becoming like an old woman,” retorted Angus, angrily. “All you ever do is worry.”

  “Jean can telephone, there’s a telephone in the Indian restaurant. Let’s go there,” suggested Dominic. “Here, Jean, I have some change. I know how you feel. My mother will be worrying, too.”

  The meal was a long time arriving on our table. I nearly fell asleep waiting and forgot to telephone. The boys talked about Rachel, then about the farm and about the new machine.

  We arrived home in the dark. One of the horses neighed. “We ought to check them,” I muttered, still half asleep.

  “They’re all right,” replied Dominic, turning off the engine.

  “It’s misplaced maternal instinct. Jean’s turning Phantom into her baby boy,” said Angus, laughing. Since working together, Dominic and Angus had become firm friends; they had jokes I did not understand and knew people I had never met. Now they sat in the kitchen drinking coffee until two in the morning. I sat with them, not wanting to be left out.

  Mum appeared in her dressing-gown, asking whether we had had a good time.

  When Dominic left, the first sign of a summer dawn was spreading across the sky. Killarney neighed. “They’re missing Marli,” said Angus, yawning. “They’ll get over it.”

  How could I have known then what was to follow? That every misdemeanour has its price? I fell into bed and my eyes closed instantly. I have no recollection of any moment between sleep and Mum rapping on my door calling, “Phantom’s gone. He’s not there. There’s only Killarney.”

  I fell out of bed and pulled on clothes, shouting, “Where? How? It can’t be true.” Daylight flooded the room. “They were neighing. We should have looked.”

  “You mean Killarney was neighing,” replied Mum.

  “We should have looked. I knew we should have looked,” I ye
lled in anguish.

  Then Angus appeared, looking dishevelled and still in his pyjamas, saying, “Calm down. He’s probably gone to see Marli.”

  “Along the main road!” I shrieked, thundering down the cottage stairs. The kitchen clock told me it was ten o’clock. Panic rose in my throat. Why did I oversleep? I wondered. But I knew the answer already. We had stayed out late, had not checked the horses, been selfish, hopeless … Killarney stood by the gate, neighing frantically when he saw me, imagining that I could wave a wand and Phantom would return. Or did the sight of me merely bring hope?

  Angus stood beside me now. “You look down the road, while I ring up the abattoirs,” he said.

  “The abattoirs?” I screamed.

  “Yes, he may have been stolen,” he said, with awful calm.

  I ran down the lane and called to old Mrs Cannaway in her flower-filled garden, which is so wonderful that she opens it to visitors every July in aid of the Red Cross.

  “Have you seen Phantom?” I called. She put down her secateurs.

  “Phantom, dear?” she asked.

  I saw that she did not belong to my world, for hers was filled with begonias and bulbs, by crocuses and snowdrops.

  “Yes, my horse.”

  “No, dear.”

  I was already running on. The main road was full of traffic – thundering lorries, salesmen driving too fast, women on their way to shop. There was no sign of Phantom, and if he had been there, it might have been as minced meat on the tarmac …

  I returned home. Angus was talking to Dominic on the telephone. “He’s coming over immediately in the Land Rover. We’re going to do a clean sweep. Have you got a head collar and oats?” he called.

  Mum was ringing up the police station as we fled the cottage.

  “What about the abattoirs?” I asked.

  “I rang three. I warned them not to destroy him. One manager said there’s a sale on Saturday we ought to attend,” replied Angus.

  “Saturday?” I yelled. “But he must be back by then!”

  “We’ll go to Hill Farm House first,” Angus told Dominic through the Land Rover window when he arrived in overalls, still bleary-eyed from the night before. “Phantom may have gone to see Marli.”

  “Surely the Winters would have telephoned?” suggested Dominic.

  “They’re hardly ever there,” Angus said.

  “Don’t worry, Jean. He’ll turn up; he’s probably having a rare old feed of grass somewhere at this very moment. How did he get out?” Dominic asked, starting the engine as Angus slammed the passenger door.

  “We didn’t look.”

  “You should have done. You don’t want Killarney out too,” Dominic said a minute later, driving full speed along the lane.

  “No, we don’t. But he could have been stolen, couldn’t he?” I asked.

  “Didn’t you hear anything? What about your mother?”

  “She was watching television, and our walls are thick,” I said. “And you know we were out till nearly midnight.”

  Dominic hooted at a lorry which had stopped on the hill.

  “We were amusing ourselves while he was being stolen. It’s awful, isn’t it?” I said.

  “He may not have been stolen. We have no proof,” replied Angus.

  “Let out, then?”

  “Or escaped.”

  Mr Winter was in the drive at Hill Farm House. Marli was grazing beside Maggie, there was no sign of Phantom.

  “I’m not speaking to him, not after how he treated me,” I said.

  “We must ask after Rachel,” replied Angus, getting out and then standing in the sunlight smiling. Meanwhile, my heart grew heavier with each passing moment.

  “How is your daughter, Mr Winter?” asked Angus.

  David Winter was quite civil. “She’s gone to London with her mother,” he said, smiling.

  “She’s better then?” asked Angus.

  “Yes, much better.”

  “Have you seen Phantom? He appears to be lost,” asked Angus next.

  “No. I am sorry though. As you can see, all is quiet here. Perhaps he will return at feedtime. Horses are creatures of habit, you know. They like routine. Alter a horse’s routine and he’s bewildered,” said David Winter, smoothing his hair with plump fingers.

  “He’s setting up as an expert on horses now,” I told Dominic. “I wish Angus would hurry. Time is running out. I feel every passing minute is one lost, and every hour will be like a defeat.”

  “Oh, Jean, don’t carry on so; he’s only a horse after all,” replied Dominic, patting my knee. He sounded like his mother, tiny old-fashioned Mrs Barnes, who is always pickling, or jam making.

  I wanted to cry, but couldn’t because some things are too bad even for tears, and losing Phantom was one of them. As Dominic started the engine I could see, with terrible clarity, my life without Phantom – his empty box, his unused tack, the cavaletti decaying, the dressage signs disintegrating, because if Phantom was lost for ever I would not ride again. I vowed it now sitting between the boys on that hot August morning gritting my teeth.

  “What next?” asked Dominic.

  “A wider sweep,” said Angus.

  We must have covered miles. We stopped at farms, at riding schools, at every place where we could see horses. We asked a crowd of ramblers, a milkman, a woman pushing a pram. “Have you seen a loose horse by any chance?” The reply was always the same. Not once did anyone offer us a single grain of hope.

  “He seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth,” announced Angus at eleven-thirty.

  “If he escaped at eight o’clock last night, he could be miles away by now,” said Dominic.

  “If he was stolen, he could be in Scotland, or dead by now,” I said, swallowing tears.

  “Let’s go home,” said Angus.

  Mum was manning the telephone. “Any news?” I called, rushing into the hall.

  Shaking her head she said, “Not a sign, Jean.”

  Dominic looked in. Mrs Parkin was shaking mats.

  “I must go. I have ten acres of corn still to be cut,” he said.

  “We can’t thank you enough,” said Mum.

  “He’ll turn up. I know he will,” Dominic said, without much conviction in his voice. “Not to worry, Jean.”

  We watched him go in silence. Then Mum put the kettle on.

  I sat down in our familiar kitchen and I wondered what Rachel was doing in London; what she would say when she heard about Phantom. I wished Dad had returned. I wished I had never been to the cinema.

  “Here, drink this, you look terrible,” said Mum, handing me a mug of tea. “He’ll turn up, darling, don’t worry. It’s early days yet.”

  “We’d better search the woods. Angus, can I borrow Killarney?” I asked.

  “Help yourself,” he told me. “I’m going to phone the auctioneers about the sale on Saturday. It’s mainly carriages, that sort of thing, but there are some horses.”

  “But driving horses?” I asked.

  “Yes, mostly, but it’s worth trying.”

  He looked tired, too. On edge. Was he blaming himself? I wondered.

  Returning to the kitchen a few minutes later, he said, “They have a late entry; it’s entered as a cream gelding of fourteen-two, so it could be Phantom.”

  “When was it entered?” asked Mum.

  “This morning. But no address was given. It was a call from a call-box apparently, and the caller ran out of money.”

  “What about age?” I asked, my heart pounding in my chest.

  “Eight years, and some people call palomino cream,” replied Angus, staring out of the kitchen window as though all the secrets of the world lay outside on the flagstones. “I know, it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have stopped you looking at the horses last night,” he added disconsolately.

  “It wouldn’t have made much difference. He would have been gone by then. I heard a lorry in the lane around ten o’clock. I remember now,” Mum told us. “I thought it must be g
oing to the farm, and Killarney neighed soon after and, like you, I thought he was neighing for Marli, so I was a fool, too.” I saw Mum was crying, the tears washing away the make-up on her face.

  “The interesting thing is that the cream horse was entered late as one of a pair,” Angus continued. “That explains several things.”

  “Such as?” I asked.

  “Why Killarney was left behind.”

  “You mean someone wanted a match for their cream or palomino?” I asked.

  “Yes, there doesn’t seem to be any other explanation, does there?” said Angus. “If Mum heard a lorry, he must have been stolen. Also, if he was going for meat, why not take Killarney who is much easier to load, much heavier and so worth more.”

  “I’m not giving up the search. I am still going out on Killarney,” I answered.

  “Pairs of palominos are rare,” said Angus, thinking out loud. “They must be, mustn’t they?”

  Although I knew it was not true, I had not the heart to contradict him; besides it was a crumb of hope, and I needed hope. I imagined the sale. I imagined Phantom standing tied in the long shed. In my mind I heard him whinny. It was something to help me through another day, a sort of crutch to lean on and, though he had never been in harness, it might still be possible.

  7

  In the woods in the autumn the fallen leaves crackle under a horse’s hoofs. Today Killarney’s hoofs made no sound on the damp earth. I leaned down searching for other hoofprints: smaller, neater ones. There were none. I stopped at every fence to search for golden hairs, asked Killarney for his opinion and let the reins fall on his grey neck saying, “Take me to Phantom.” But after a moment he simply turned for home. I reached Maureen’s stables and found her grooming a bay hunter.

  “Any luck?” she called.

  I shook my head. “Don’t give up hope. He’ll turn up. I’ll keep an ear open. I’ll ask around.”

  But I knew that minutes later she would have forgotten.

  “How is Marli?” she asked next.

  “Still alive.”

  I did not want to talk about Marli. There was only one thing I wanted and that was news of Phantom.