RIGHT ROYAL REVENGE, A

by R B Marshall

  “Well, it’s not, really,” I interjected when she paused for breath. “They train for longer. And people die if they don’t do their job properly.”

  “But you was the one what worked who the murderer was. Surely that’s nearly as good as being a doctor,” said Trinity. “You might have stopped him from killing anyone else.”

  “Talking about nearly as good as a doctor, our new neighbour two houses along,” Mum pointed her fork to the left, as if we could see through walls, “has a son who’s an anaesthetist. I’ve said for them to come round for coffee later, so you can meet him.”

  On the inside, my eyes were rolling out of their sockets. On the outside, I almost managed to suppress a sigh. “It’s okay Mum, you don’t need to play matchmaker. There’s no point, with me up in Perthshire now.”

  “But that’s just it. Michael works at Dundee Royal. Just along the road from you. He’s home for the weekend.”

  This time I rolled my eyes for real.

  Trinity tried to save me. “The thing is, Mrs Paterson, she’s got a boyfriend already.”

  “Boyfriend?!” My mother’s voice had ratcheted up ten decibels. “How come you never told me about that? Who is he? Where’s he from? What does he do?”

  I glared at Trinity. We’d discussed this on the drive down, and I thought we’d decided to keep quiet about Dean. And Craig.

  “What?” she mouthed at me, then shrugged. “Just tryin’ to help.”

  “He’s not a proper boyfriend. We’ve just been out a couple of times.”

  “And?” My mother should have worked for the gestapo. Or the DSS. Her stare would have made even the most hardened criminal quake in their boots.

  “He’s the local policeman.” I cut my eyes at Trinity, willing her not to mention Craig. That would just complicate things, and my life was already complicated enough.

  “Oh.” Mum deflated. Obviously a policeman didn’t match up to someone who worked in a hospital.

  Bizarrely, I felt the need to defend Dean. “But he’s working for his detective exams.”

  “And what is PC Plod’s name?” This time it was my Dad asking the questions. He quirked an eyebrow. “Or is he more of a Hamish Macbeth?”

  This seemed like a perfect time to change the subject. “He helped me catch the murderer. Did I tell you about that? It was—”

  “Your friend mentioned that, yes.” I was under mother’s interrogation room stare again. “But what about the policeman? Your boyfriend. What’s his name?”

  “He’s called Dean. But he’s not my boyfriend.” I studiously ignored Trinity’s raised eyebrows. “He just took me out for afternoon tea as a thank-you for solving the crime.”

  “Not dinner?” Mum looked disappointed.

  “No, the celebratory meal was afternoon tea. The next day,” I said carefully. I refrained from mentioning that he’d taken me for dinner a few nights previous. And bowling in-between, which was the night I worked who the killer was.

  “At Gleneagles,” Trinity said, lifting her water glass and sticking her pinkie out daintily, presumably trying to mimic a posh person.

  “Not helping,” I muttered at her.

  “Gleneagles! On a policeman’s salary?” My mother looked genuinely shocked. Then her eyes narrowed. “Maybe he’s one of those bent cops, the ones you see on the telly, who take kickbacks from criminals and always have lots of cash to flash.”

  Someone had been watching too much TV. “I don’t think so. It was a one-off. Won’t be happening again,” I said emphatically.

  “Just as well, if he’s a bad egg.” Mum’s face brightened. “But that means you’ll be free to meet Michael this afternoon.”

  “You walked right into that,” Trinity muttered.

  Under the table, where my mother wouldn’t see, I clenched my fist. The monthly Sunday lunch at home, was something I usually looked forward to all week. It was one of the benefits of moving back to Scotland after my years in the nation’s capital. But one of the few good things about being in London had been avoiding my mother’s matchmaking schemes. Here, I was obviously too close for comfort…

  Trinity almost screeched with laughter. “You never did?”

  Michael put a palm on his chest. “Scout’s honour. I swear, it took about two days to get all the green paint off. But it was worth it.”

  Mum’s neighbour’s son had been a revelation. Tall and fair-haired with pale blue eyes, he wore baggy flannel trousers and a sweater draped over his shoulders like he’d just stepped off a punt on the river at Cambridge. In the nineteen twenties.

  But it was his patter that was the most startling thing about him. Since his arrival half an hour ago, he’d kept us all entertained with a succession of tall tales and shaggy dog stories that would probably make him a living as a stand-up comic, if he ever decided to give up medicine.

  A seagull flying past outside the window caught my eye, and I realised that the light was beginning to disappear. “We really should go,” I said to Trinity, “so we can get the horses in before it’s dark.”

  Nodding, she placed her coffee cup on the table and turned to my mother. “Thanks for lunch, Mrs Paterson.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Mum.” I stood and pushed my phone into my pocket and turned to the guests. “Nice meeting you, Mrs Naylor. And you, Michael.”

  “We should get together sometime, in Dundee. Catch a show or something.” His smile encompassed both me and Trinity, confirming my suspicion that he wasn’t interested in either of us.

  Which was a relief, since, like I said before, my life was complicated enough already. Not only did I have two businesses to run and an employer to keep happy, but I also had Dean the policeman taking me out on dates, and Craig, who…

  I suppressed a sigh. Craig and I had been—something. Friends. Maybe a little more. But I’d botched that up, and now the only time he contacted me was to discuss Eagle, the queen’s stallion.

  Perhaps it was better that way. It kept things simpler. And simple was good, right?

  Chapter Three

  Monday morning arrived with a smir of rain and the purr of an expensive engine.

  Compared to the well-used truck that had come from Balmoral, the Queen’s Scottish castle, just two days previously, the vehicle that drew into Glengowrie stable yard at the beginning of the week sparkled like a newly-minted coin.

  The driver’s door opened and Pat McDade, the local agricultural store owner, clambered down. A grey-haired man in a tweed jacket with a print so loud it could almost announce itself, he was followed by a tall, lean young man whose hair flopped fashionably over a high forehead. Wearing expensive jodhpurs and a branded polo shirt, he looked like he’d walked straight out of a catalogue shoot.

  “Jason,” a cultured female voice came from the far side of the vehicle, “can you get poor Darcy out?”

  His hand extended, Pat strode towards me. “Ms Paterson, thanks for taking the boy. Francine’s been telling everyone how excited she is that you’re going to fix her horse.”

  With that, his wife appeared around the front of the horse box. “Izzy, darling,” she descended on me, wrapped in Prada and perfume, and air-kissed both cheeks. “How lovely it is to see you again. One can’t wait to see how you fare with my gorgeous Darcy,” she wafted a hand at the rear of the lorry, where the young man—I assumed he was the Jason she’d referred to—had pressed a button. With a whirr of electrics, the ramp at the back slowly opened like a drawbridge. “We have high hopes that he’ll take first place at the Highland Show next month.”

  No pressure then.

  The McDade’s were only the second customers of my fledgeling horse training business. Her Majesty, rather surprisingly, had been the first. Along with my regular work for Lady Letham at Glengowrie Stud, and my part-time cybersecurity consultancy, it kept me busy and I hardly had a moment to myself. But I liked it that way. My gran had always warned me about idle hands making jack a dull boy, or some such mixed metaphor.

  The gleaming horse lor
ry rocked on its suspension, then there was a loud crash, and a muffled curse.

  Beside me, Francine McDade gasped, lilac-taloned fingers fluttering to her pink-painted lips. “Poor Darcy! I hope he’s alright.” She took a step towards the rear ramp.

  Her husband, Pat, put a reassuring hand on her arm. “Leave it, love. Jason will have it all under control.” He glanced down at the strappy, high-heeled sandals she wore. “And you’re hardly dressed for it.”

  “Let me see if I can help,” I said, thinking that my horse training business wouldn’t last long if their horse hurt itself before it was even off the truck. I hurried to the back of the expensive vehicle.

  At the top of the rubber-matted ramp were shiny white compartments, padded with what looked like real leather—also white, and equally impractical as far as equines are concerned.

  Darcy, Francine’s prize show-jumper, was standing rigidly, eyes out on stalks and fixed on Jason, who was pulling ineffectually on the end of a lead rope.

  “Shall I try?” I offered.

  Jason handed me the rope without further ado. “Good luck,” he muttered, then loped down the ramp.

  I stood quietly for a minute, waiting for the chestnut gelding’s heart rate to calm down, and letting him assess the situation. Then I held out my free hand for him to sniff, murmuring soothing nonsense all the time.

  Taking a step closer, I cleared my mind and tried to project calmness, then reached out to stroke Darcy’s golden neck. That was when it all got weird.

  Almost immediately, I was assailed by feelings of fear and distress, which caused me to close my eyes in shock. With that, I saw grainy pictures in my head of a whip being raised as angry voices shouted at me. Cringing involuntarily, I gasped, then quickly stared about me to check if anyone else had seen the same thing. But the McDades were in a tête-à-tête with Jason, and oblivious to the drama with their horse.

  “Has someone been hurting you?” I whispered to the gelding. “Is that what your problem is?” Gingerly, I stroked his neck again. Phew! No more visions. “Nobody will hurt you here,” I promised him. “Now, will you come down and let me show you your new stable?”

  Brown eyes stared into mine for a moment, and then some of the tension seemed to leave his body. A few more seconds passed, and then he sighed, letting out even more tension. Lifting his left leg, he took a tentative step onto the ramp, tested its solidity, then moved the other foreleg, and, next thing I knew, we were both at the bottom of the ramp and headed for the box we’d prepared for him.

  “Would you look at that!” Pat swept the hat from his head and wiped his brow. “She’s fixed him already.”

  “Hardly,” Jason scoffed. “He’s only just off the lorry.”

  “But look how quiet he is.”

  The ‘quiet’ horse snorted at the entrance to his new stable, but then curiosity seemed to get the better of him and he stepped in, sniffing at the straw bed, the water buckets, and the net of hay hanging on the wall. I undid his leather head collar and slipped out.

  Grabbing a mouthful of hay, Darcy strode to the half-door and stuck his head over, surveying his new domain. Then he let loose a loud neigh, as if to announce his arrival. From one of the paddocks, there was an answering whinny. That seemed to satisfy the gelding that he wasn’t alone, and he went back to his hay net.

  “I think that deserves a bonus!” Pat delved into his jacket pocket and pulled out a couple of vouchers, proffering them to me. “Here, one for you and one for your friend,” he indicated Trinity, who was hovering nearby. “You can spend them in any McDade’s store.”

  “You don’t need to—”

  “Nonsense,” he cut me off, “you deserve it. Last time we took him to a show it took us twenty minutes to unload him. And an hour to get him back in afterwards.”

  In the background, Jason’s arms were folded and his eyes narrowed. Francine put a hand on his arm and whispered something in his ear, which made him relax a little. He murmured something back, and, with their heads together like that, they looked less like employer and employee, and more like friends. Or perhaps more than just friends…

  I glanced back at Pat, who seemed oblivious. Oh boy. This was going to be an interesting project.

  In the tack room a short time later, the McDades and Jason sat around the antique oak table in the middle, while I took note of Darcy’s complicated feed requirements and his elaborate daily routine. My dog, Jorja, slept on an old saddle pad in the corner. Trinity sat beside her, cleaning a bridle with a smirk on her face as she listened to the endless instructions.

  “And we’ll come a couple of times a week for Jason to jump him, just to keep him on-form for the Highland,” Francine informed me.

  Jason gave me a calculating look. “Do you even have jumps? We need full-up stands and accredited poles, plus some decent fillers.”

  My heart sank. Being a rider who focussed on dressage, I’d been more interested in having a decent surface to ride on than the state of any obstacles. The few jumps I had spotted had definitely seen better days.

  I was about to reply, when I was let off the hook by the arrival of Lady Letham, my employer. “Good morning, everyone,” she said, sweeping into the room as if she owned it. Which, of course, she did.

  Dressed in her usual idiosyncratic combination of tweed and floral print, her walking stick tapped on the wooden floor as she approached us. “I do hope you are all keeping well?” Without stopping for an answer, she addressed me. “Izzy, my dear, could you please do me a huge favour and make some space at the back of the outdoor school at some point this afternoon? I’m happy to announce that the new show jumps are being delivered on the morrow.”

  “They are?” I said, then cleared my throat and repeated myself, trying to make it sound less like a question. “They are. Of course, I forgot. So you’ll have your jumps in time for Thursday, Jason.” I beamed a smile at him.

  That earned me a grunt.

  “Now,” the fingers of Lady Letham’s left hand danced in the air like she was playing an invisible piano, “I must get back to my orchids. They require much care and attention at this time of year. Au revoir.” And, just like that, she was gone.

  I took the opportunity to get the McDades moving as well, since I still had half a morning’s work to complete. “Shall we go and check on Darcy before you go? I’ll get started on his training later today.”

  “Be sure and give us a daily update on his progress.” As she stood and turned for the door, Francine’s fingers wafted in the air in a facsimile of Lady L’s mannerism.

  “I’ll send regular updates,” I said, making a mental note to add something to the next training contract about weekly updates.

  “And, of course, we’ll see you on Thursday for jump practice.”

  My heart sank at the reminder. Where on earth were we going to get a fancy set of show jumps in the next three days? I didn’t for one minute believe that Lady L had ordered some—that would have been far too organised for the eccentric noblewoman. So what had prompted her to say that some were arriving?

  Chapter Four

  I found out the answer to that a short time later, just after the silver McDade-mobile had left the yard.

  The queen’s stallion, Eagle, was next on my training list that morning, and I was leading him out of his stable when Jimmy Harkin, Lady L’s handyman, appeared from the direction of the hay barn. He was wearing his customary brown dust coat and flat cap, and jerked his head over his shoulder. “Herself is wanting to see you. She’s in the orangery.”

  My knotted brow must’ve asked the question, because he continued, “If you go on round the right side of the big house, you canny miss it.”

  As he disappeared back towards the barn, Trinity pointed at me, a cheesy grin on her face. “Would you look at you, Izzy Paterson. Horse trainer to the queen, and now you’re getting invites to the manor house.”

  Rolling my eyes at her, I tied Eagle outside his stable. “Could you maybe give him a groom and get h
im ready, and I’ll go and see what she wants?”

  The only other time I’d been up at Glengowrie House—apart from at my interview—had been to collect heaters from Jimmy’s wife, Ursula, who was the cook and housekeeper. But visiting the servant’s quarters at the back of the house wasn’t quite the same as entering the main building, which was an imposing, crenelated edifice built from local sandstone.

  Along the side of the house was what looked to my eyes like a conservatory—but I’m no architectural expert. Built in stone with huge glass windows along three sides, the orangery jutted out from the gable of the manor house and had an elegant glass lantern atop its flat roof.

  When I pushed open the door, the humidity hit me like a wall, and I gazed around me at plants the size of trees—maybe they were small trees—with colourful orchids growing from their trunks, and more blooms arrayed on benches beneath them. It was like being in a miniature version of the botanic gardens.

  Surprisingly, Lady L was indeed tending her orchids—I had thought that merely a polite ruse to escape the McDades. She was up to her elbows in compost and tiny green plantlets, which she appeared to be transferring from a large glass bell jar into small clay pots. “Ah, Isobel, there you are. Thank you so much for coming. I have another favour to ask of you.”

  I pursed my lips, wondering what was she had in store for me. Last time she’d asked me to do something, it had involved a trip to Balmoral, where I’d ended up being a suspect in a murder. I didn’t fancy that happening again.

  “Could you—and perhaps Miss Trinity as well—take the lorry tomorrow afternoon and collect the show jumps from Colonel and Mrs Roberts at Balvaird House near Perth?”

  “So there really are some jumps coming?”

  “Why, yes.” Her blue eyes met mine over the top of her spectacles. “The colonel was most obliging when I phoned him and asked if we might borrow the equipment.”

  Somewhere deep in the house, a bell rang. Perhaps the doorbell. Did stately homes even have doorbells? I’d need to check on my way back.