RIGHT ROYAL REVENGE, A

by R B Marshall

  “But—”

  “Yer having a laugh, ain’t ya?” Trinity had slid across to the drivers’ seat and hung out of the window to interrupt me. “We was going so slow we was practically crawling. Me old gran drives faster in her ancient Fiesta.”

  The policewoman’s chin lifted. “Irregardless, you were speeding.” Green eyes narrowed at me. “May I see your driver’s licence, Miss Paterson?”

  My jaw clenched at her poor grammar. I was also surprised that she remembered my name—although, wasn’t part of being a policeman having a good memory? “Um, I don’t have it here, sorry. It’s back at home.”

  Clenched in her orange-painted nails, her pen flew across the form, scribbling some last words before she tore off the top copy and handed it to me. “You need to bring your licence to the station at Ballater within seven days, along with the vehicle’s MOT certificate and insurance documents. Or you will face prosecution. Regarding the speeding offence, a fixed penalty notice and fine will be issued within fourteen days.”

  My jaw almost hit the ground. “How much is the fine?”

  “One hundred pounds. Plus three points on your licence.” Slipping the pad back into her pocket, her lips twitched minutely, as if she was suppressing a smile. “Have a nice day.” With that, she turned on her heel and returned to her squad car.

  I stared at her retreating back. Ballater was miles away from here. Why was she doing speed checks so far from base?

  It seemed like hardly any time later I was passing the same spot again, but this time in my Volkswagen, on the way to meet with Pat McDade. I made sure to drive at twenty-nine miles per hour, not a hair faster. Just in case.

  Trinity had been as incensed as I was at the policewoman’s attitude. “I mean to say, who even bothers if you’re not more than ten percent over the speed limit?” she asked while we hastily distributed evening feeds to the horses. “That’s certainly what I heard down in London. Perhaps up here in the boonies it’s different.”

  I shrugged. Maybe it was. I took a moment to smell the clean air and gaze at the distant hilltops just visible behind the trees that surrounded Glengowrie House. It was definitely better up here in the Highlands than in the nation’s capital, nit-picking, jobsworth policewomen or not.

  At six twenty-eight that evening, the car park outside McDade’s was deserted. Just one Range Rover—presumably Pat’s vehicle—sat in the space nearest the staff entrance, and I pulled in beside it. My stomach growled as I tapped the number he’d given me onto the security keypad. I grimaced. I’d not had time to eat before I left, thanks to PC Adamson. In fact, I’d barely had time for a change of clothing, and hoped I didn’t smell too badly of horses. Although, wouldn’t Mr McDade be used to that, because of his wife?

  I was still pondering that as I walked down the gloomy corridor, knocked twice, then pushed open the door to his office. It was dark inside, apart from the glow from some security monitors ranged on the far wall. There was a strange smell hanging in the air, and a low whirring from electronic fans. Frowning, I felt for a light switch.

  The sight that met my eyes made me gasp, and I put a hand against the wall for support.

  Slumped over his desk was the lifeless body of Pat McDade, his face staring vacantly to one side, a faint purple bruising visible at his temple, and some dried blood below his nostril.

  My first aid training kicked in after the initial shock wore off, and I rushed over to check if he was breathing. But there was no movement in his chest, and I couldn’t feel a pulse.

  My heart heavy and my throat clamping up, I pulled out my phone and dialled the emergency number. “I need to report a death,” I croaked at the operator who answered. “Or perhaps a murder.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  I nodded, then realised he couldn’t see me. “Yes.”

  It was definitely a case of foul play. There was no sign of a weapon, and Pat had suffered a head injury. Unless he was some sort of contortionist, that wasn’t the sort of thing you usually did to yourself…

  Chapter Seven

  It didn’t take long for the police to arrive.

  “Wait there,” I’d been cautioned, “and don’t touch anything.” Not to mention the warning that the perpetrator might still be in the vicinity, so I should ensure my own safety above all.

  Initially, that made my heart pound, and I checked all around and listened hard for any movement nearby. But then logic intervened. The blood at Pat’s nose had dried, and his skin had been cool to the touch. So he must have been dead for a while, and the killer would be long gone.

  I hoped.

  Instead of going and hiding in my car, as would probably have been sensible, my curiosity got the better of me. It had only been a couple of hours since I’d spoken to McDade, and I must’ve been one of the last people to see him alive. From what I knew of police procedures, I reckoned that would make me a suspect, so I needed to put my shock at his death behind me, check out the evidence and see if I could work out who the murderer was before the police got here.

  Pulling on a pair of leather riding gloves which I had in my pocket, I pressed a button on the keyboard on Pat’s desk, which activated his computer. It only took me two goes to guess his password—his wife’s name—and then I was looking over the shoulder of a corpse at the last thing he had been typing before his untimely demise. Ugh.

  It was a document, perhaps meant to be notes for me, but there was very little in it—just a few headings: Suspicions, Surveillance, Evidence. Under the ‘Suspicions’ heading was a single entry: Clandestine meetings. Not much to go on, really.

  He could be worried about a member of staff colluding with a rival, or about his wife and Jason. It could even be something to do with the Horseman’s Guild, a secret society that I knew he was a member of.

  Perhaps his email would be more revealing? I quickly tapped on the envelope icon and scanned through the recent messages and the deleted items. But there was nothing untoward, mainly order confirmations and sales emails from suppliers.

  Chewing my lower lip, I straightened, wondering what else I could check out while I had time. Then the security monitors caught my attention, glowing grimly black and white on the far wall. Of course! My spirits soared. Perhaps the murderer would be shown on screen.

  The control unit was on a shelf below the displays, and it didn’t take me long to work out how to access the recordings from this afternoon. Firstly, I rewound through the footage from a camera positioned with a view of the staff entrance. But, other than me entering tonight and the staff leaving a little earlier, there was nothing to see there.

  Similarly, the camera at the shop entrance showed nothing after the store was closed. Frowning, I quickly checked the video of the checkout desk, spotting myself and Trinity paying for our purchases, Mrs Downie, and some other customers I didn’t recognise. But of course, none of them wore a label saying ‘killer’, so that was no real help.

  My ears pricked. From somewhere in the distance, there was a wail of sirens, and I clenched my fists. Time was running out. Perhaps foolishly, I decided to take the chance to check out one more camera, the one with a view of the shop aisle outside Pat’s office. Unfortunately, it only showed half of the aisle, the part facing the tills, so, to my annoyance, there was no sign of anyone coming down the aisle and into Pat’s office.

  I’d drawn a blank.

  So, how had the killer got in here? Had they come from the sales floor, but approached via the hidden side? And how would I prove it wasn’t me who’d clobbered the man? My hands trembling, I quickly reset the video playback and scanned the room to make sure everything was as I found it, then stuffed the gloves in my pocket just as heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor outside, and men in blue uniforms appeared in the doorway.

  Except it wasn’t just any old group of policemen. The lead copper was Dean, Sergeant Lovell, and his face blanched when he saw me. “Izzy. I mean, Ms Paterson. What’s going on here?”

  While the CID off
icers examined the scene, I was hustled outside and interviewed in the corridor about why I was here and what I’d seen. The officer interviewing me—thankfully not Dean—didn’t look convinced, and got one of his colleagues to take me to the nearest police station to ‘make a statement’.

  Luckily for me, the initial forensics said that Pat had been killed late in the afternoon, and I had Trinity—and an over-zealous traffic cop—as alibis. However, by the time they’d finished grilling me and allowed me to go home, it was almost the next day and my stomach felt like my throat had been cut.

  One of the good things about living in the Highlands is that there are very few all-day fast-food outlets, and those there are feature exclusively in the larger cities or towns. So there’s very little roadside litter and local shops get more trade.

  However, one of the bad things about living in the Highlands is that there are very few all-day fast-food outlets, which is a bit of a nightmare if it’s almost midnight and you’re starving.

  My bacon was saved, almost literally, by the fact that we’d done a big food shop on the way back from my parents’ at the weekend, so I knew I could make toast when I got back to the apartment I shared with Trinity. Maybe I’d push the boat out and grill some cheese on it, if I could bear to wait that long before sating my hunger.

  When I pushed open the door to Stables Cottage, I gasped—for about the millionth time that night—at the ghostly grey sheen and strange noise coming from the lounge area. Then, with a delighted ‘wuff’, Jorja came running to greet me, her toenails clicking on the flagstone floor, and I puffed out a breath.

  If the dog was okay with it, there surely couldn’t be a spectre in the flat? Or an intruder, for that matter.

  After pulling off my jacket, I patted the terrier’s head and tiptoed towards the kitchen part of the open-plan ground floor. It was then that I discovered that the flickering light came from the television, and that the strange noise was my flatmate, asleep on the sofa and growling softly. Hah! And she was the one that, only last week, had accused me of snoring!

  “You waited up for me,” I said, by way of waking her.

  With a jerk, her eyes pinged open and she raised her hands, balling them into fists. “Oh, it’s only you.” Her hands sunk back onto her lap. “In my dream, there was an intruder. Must’ve been that phone call I got from you, put my nerves on edge.”

  I gestured at the TV. “Or the creepy film you were watching.” Onscreen, violins made an ethereal noise as a woman crept from tree to tree in a darkened wood.

  Trinity shuddered, and pressed a button on the remote to shut the device off. “So what’s goin’ on, then? You been hauled off to the nick again?”

  My eyes soared heavenwards. “Thanks for the sympathy,” I said, then switched on the kitchen light and began slicing a loaf of bread.

  “You ’ave to admit, you’re making a bit of a habit of finding dead people.”

  “I didn’t find Hamish’s body,” I said, referring to the stud manager who’d been murdered at Balmoral.

  Getting up from the couch, she started filling the kettle. “But you was a suspect.”

  “For about a minute.” I dropped the bread into the toaster and switched it on.

  “So what happened to McDade? Were there lots of blood? Was it really horrid?”

  I cut my eyes at her. “Finally, some empathy!”

  Her face broke into a grin and she nudged my arm with her elbow. “Sorry, mate, I were just teasing ya. And I need to stop watching horror films all on me own late at night. Tea?”

  “Hot chocolate, I think. I won’t sleep if I have anything with caffeine in it this late.”

  “Good idea. I’ll have one too, and you can tell me all about it.”

  Twenty minutes later, I’d eaten my toasted cheese and finished telling her about what I’d discovered—and what I hadn’t.

  “So you didn’t see the killer on the CCTV?”

  I shook my head. “Sadly not. Unless I missed something.”

  “Maybe he cut out the incriminating section, like you see on the telly.”

  “Could have.” I brushed crumbs from my lap, and Jorja jumped to the floor and started snuffling around at my feet. “I only had time to rewind or fast-forward the tapes, so I would probably have missed any edits. But I suppose the police forensic guys will spot that.”

  “You can ask Dean,” she said with a sly smile.

  “Yeah.” I stifled a yawn. “I guess I’ll see him at your next dance class.”

  “What, you ain’t got a date sorted out? Girl, you’re slipping!”

  I gave her a trademark eye roll and echoed her intonation. “Girl, you’re turning into a matchmaker like my mother. I don’t have time to go out every night of the week. Talking of which—how did your date with the chiropractor go?” Beside me on the couch, Jorja’s legs began to twitch, and she made little squeaky barks deep inside her throat, as if she was dreaming about chasing a rabbit. I ran a soothing hand over her head.

  Trinity shrugged. “We just went for a drink at The Brae. He’s away to England for work tomorrow so he needed an early night.”

  “Oh.” That sounded like the sort of excuse a girl would make to cut short an evening that wasn’t going well. “Was that it?”

  “He’s taking me for lunch at the weekend, once he gets back. To be honest, I’m happy to take this one slowly, after what happened with the last guy. Feels like it’ll have more staying power that way.”

  Those had the ring of wise words. Although, hadn’t I done the whole ‘taking it slowly’ thing with Craig, and look where that had got me? At least Dean seemed keen, even if he was quite reserved. Except… now that I was a suspect in another murder, would he still want to see me? Would he even be allowed to?

  Putting my feet up on the coffee table, I slurped some hot chocolate while I mulled that over.

  “What’s up?” my flatmate asked.

  I frowned at her.

  “You’ve got that look about you again. The one that says your brain is doing its computer thing.”

  “I was just…” I put my feet down again and sat taller, narrowly avoiding slopping my drink into my lap. “I’ve just realised I won’t be able to meet up with Dean any more. Not until they—or I—find out what happened to Mr McDade and I get exonerated. Otherwise it’ll be a conflict of interest for him, won’t it?”

  “Ooh, you got a point there.” Trinity’s face fell, and then one second later it brightened again. “But that means you can go to the theatre with Michael after all, keep your mum happy.”

  A comment like that deserved either an eye-roll or a groan. Maybe both. But it was getting late and my eyes felt full of grit, so the groan won. “Trinity Allen, you’re incorrigible. In fact, has my mother delegated you to find men for me? I wouldn’t put it past her.”

  She raised her hands. “Not me, boss.”

  “Don’t call me… Ugh.” I stood up and headed for the stairs. “That’s it. I’m officially giving up on men. That’ll give me time to work out who killed McDade.”

  Trinity opened her mouth to say something, and I held up a finger. “Maybe forever. It’d certainly make life easier.”

  “But more boring.”

  She had to get the last word.

  Chapter Eight

  Work next morning was the perfect antidote for all the drama of the day before. I could focus on the horses, on improving their performance or finding out their issues, and exclude any thoughts of dead bodies or mysterious killers.

  Because Darcy had only just arrived, we’d given him an easy time on Monday and Tuesday—just some in-hand, desensitising work which he’d taken to really well. Today was the first day I was planning to ride him.

  Trinity came to watch as I took him into the outdoor school, adjusted the stirrups to the right length, and got on at the mounting block.

  Almost straight away I could feel his tension; he practically quivered from the tip of his ears to the end of his tail before I’d asked him to d
o a thing. I put a calming hand on his shoulder, then jerked it back as if I’d received an electric shock.

  “What’s wrong?” Trinity asked, concern on her face. She began to unlatch the gate, as if to come and help me.

  “Nothing, it’s okay.” I gathered my wits and steeled myself, before I touched the horse again.

  This time I was ready for it, and the wall of emotion and angst that hit me was more bearable. But it made my heart break. This poor horse was like an abused teenager, pulled from pillar to post, never knowing how to please his humans—humans who shouted at him and beat him on a regular basis.

  “What is it?” Trinity was right beside me this time, looking up at me with a worried expression. I hadn’t even heard her come into the paddock.

  “It’s just—” What could I say to her? Would she even believe me if I told her that horses could somehow ‘speak’ to me at times of great emotion, showing me visions or memories of things that had affected them? As a logical, scientific type, I had a hard time believing it myself. “He seems really tense. I’ll just do some easy, loosening work with him today.”

  For twenty minutes, I rode Darcy in walk, using circles and turns to bend and stretch both sides of his body, and to encourage him to stretch through his topline and release some of the stress that was affecting his muscles and joints. But I was careful not to touch him with my hands; I just used my voice to encourage and praise him.

  Towards the end of our session, I asked him to trot, again keeping it soft and loose, not putting any pressure on him to ‘perform’, just asking him to be rhythmical and balanced. “Good boy!” I said, after he’d executed a beautiful circle in each direction. “Let’s stop on a good note.”

  Jumping off, I did my usual routine of loosening the girth, then, without thinking, I patted him again.

  This time the emotions were less fraught, and there was some gratitude and warmth in there, almost as if he was pleased with the way we’d worked together.