by R B Marshall
“Alright, girl, don’t tell me there’s nothing going on. Your face is a picture.” Trinity had snuck up on me again, and was standing at the horse’s head, tickling his muzzle.
Oh boy. How was I going to explain this to her, when I hardly understood it myself?
“Tell you what,” I suggested as we walked back into the yard with Darcy, “How about grabbing us some coffees from Kaffe Kalista while I get Darcy organised, and then we can have a chat in the tack room after?
She gave me a sharp look. “I could just put the kettle on?”
“I need proper strong coffee for this, with extra caffeine.”
Her eyes widened. “That bad?”
“Not bad, so much as…” I puffed out a breath. “I just need coffee, okay?”
“Yes boss,” she said with a mock salute, and hurried off to her car.
While she was away, I took Darcy’s saddle and bridle off, and gave him a small feed to eat while I groomed away the sweat marks from his back. He seemed to enjoy the attention, leaning into me in delight when I found a particularly itchy spot on his wither. “What is it, boy?” I asked, stepping round to his face and cleaning the dust from his forehead with a soft-bristled brush. “What’s got you so uptight?”
I looked him in the eye, and then put one hand on his forehead while I steadied myself by placing the other on his shoulder, ready for what I felt sure would come next.
This time, the images I got were of Jason, shouting at him and hitting him with a riding whip, being rough in the way he rode him and demanding in what he asked of him.
Leaning back against the wall, I breathed deeply, filling my lungs with calming air while I processed what I’d seen. It made sense that his rider was the issue, which would explain why he’d been so uptight when I mounted him earlier. In fact, it was a wonder he hadn’t resorted to worse behaviour—rearing or bucking or spinning—in an effort to rid himself of an over-insistent jockey.
“You really are a good boy,” I said, scratching his neck again, “putting up with all of that and still trying to do your best. You’re one in a million, and I promise I’ll do my best for you.”
Trinity arrived back a minute later, clutching a couple of carry-out paper beakers and a bag containing a couple of blueberry muffins. “Y’know,” she said, depositing the coffees on the tack room table, “we should look into getting a couple of those ‘keep cups’. Much better for the environment than all this single-use stuff that ends up in landfill. And Kalista gives you a ten pence discount for using a reusable container.”
“You’re so right. I used to have one in London, but I think it got lost in the move.”
“So.” She sat at the table, looking at me expectantly.
I took the chair opposite her and reached for my drink, taking a big swig from it to delay the inevitable.
“So?” she said again, making it more of a question this time. “What’s the deal with you and that horse?”
“Not just him,” I said in a small voice.
She looked taken aback at that. “Not just him,” she repeated. “What d’you mean?”
“It started with Eagle. Or maybe even in London,” I explained, remembering a friend’s horse who had given me the impression he had a sore stomach. “It’s like when they’re stressed or emotional, I can feel their thoughts. Or see them, I mean,” I rubbed the heel of my hand on my forehead. “It’s difficult to explain.”
“Try me,” she said, “’cos you’re not making much sense as of this moment.”
“Maybe it’s better if I give you an example.” I chewed my lip. “With Eagle, I saw a dream or a vision showing the dark shapes of two men arguing. One was wearing a brimmed hat, and there was something long and sinuous on the floor.”
“The cowboy and his snake,” she breathed, the whites of her eyes growing more visible.
I nodded. “As it turned out, yes. I wasn’t sure at the time. And Eagle felt scared and angry.”
“So the stallion helped you solve the murder?”
“In part, yes. But of course I couldn’t say that to the police.”
“Mmm.” She tapped a finger on her coffee cup. “So what about Darcy? Did he see the murder too?”
I snorted at the thought. “No—he was here, remember, and Pat was at the shop.” I broke off a piece of muffin and chewed it while I tried to put Darcy’s feelings into words. “Darcy is more emotional, it’s like everything is a drama to him.”
“Like an angsty teenager?”
“Exactly! But I think Jason has been really horrid to him, he seems scared of the man. I’m surprised he lets him ride him at all.”
“Were that why he was so tense when you got on today?”
Nodding, I took a sip of coffee, then rested the edge of the cup on my lip and looked at her over the top of it. “You’re taking this very well. It all seems a bit ‘woo-woo’ to me, I can’t say I really understand what’s going on.”
She screwed up her face. “D’you know, it’s not really a surprise, if I’m honest. You’ve a bit of a way with horses—see how well Leo goes for you.”
“He’s just well trained.”
“That ain’t it. It’s like you’ve got a special connection with him.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Really? So you don’t think I’m mad?”
This earned me a sideways look. “No more than usual, no.”
I laughed, and some of the tension I’d felt dissipated. “It feels good to tell you, I hated keeping it a secret. But I thought people would think I was crackers if I said anything.”
“You ain’t told anyone else then? Not Dean?”
“Definitely not Dean. He’s a copper, remember?”
“What about Craig?”
I grimaced. “For a while I thought he was the guy in the hat that Eagle saw. Made me really conflicted.”
“You don’t say. But why didn’t you tell him, once you realised it weren’t him?”
Swallowing a lump in my throat, I looked down at my hands. “I liked him, I guess. I didn’t want him to think I was a fantasist.”
This earned me a keen look. “You still like him.” It wasn’t said like a question.
“No, he’s out of the picture now. Windsor is about as far away from here as you can get. And I’m seeing Dean, aren’t I?” Then I remembered my grim discovery last night. “Or I was, until I became prime witness in a murder.”
“Hmm.” She took another mouthful of coffee. “I’m sure that won’t stop him for long.” Sitting taller, she looked me in the eye. “Just be sure and be, like, intentional about who you see, girl. Don’t get railroaded into stuff. You’s so easy going, you could end up being with the wrong person.
Suddenly the door swung open. “Good afternoon, ladies!” Lady Letham swept into the room on a cloud of Chanel and bonhomie.
My stomach cramped, like someone had dropped a stone into it. Had she been out there, listening in on our conversation? If she had, she would surely think that I was a total fruitcake, and Trinity and I would be turfed out before we knew what had happened.
Homelessness and joblessness loomed in my future, and my heart quailed at the thought.
Chapter Nine
Lady Letham, it turned out, had not wanted to fire me for being a crackpot. Instead, she’d wanted to talk about the Royal Highland Show, and what mares she would enter.
The show was also the topic of conversation with Francine and Jason when they arrived on Thursday to ride Darcy. The biggest event in the Scottish agricultural calendar, the ‘Highland’, as it is known, is a huge county show spreading over a hundred-acre site on the outskirts of Edinburgh for four days in June. With tented shopping arcades, a mouth-watering food hall and several showing rings, including a grandstand overlooking the main ring, there is truly something for everyone.
Despite my years as a teenage rider in Scotland, I’d never actually competed there, and the thought was quite daunting. But Lady L had decided to enter Allegra in one of the ‘in hand’ classes fo
r brood mares which would run in one of the smaller rings, so I thought I could probably handle that.
Darcy and Jason, however, were headed for the ‘Future Star’ event in the jumping ring, under the watchful eye of Princess Anne, who’d be presenting the winner with their trophy.
Dressed in black and dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief, Francine took a back seat as far as Darcy was concerned, allowing Jason to call the shots and direct their jumping session that day.
The colonel’s jumps got a good workout, as did Trinity and I. We were run ragged, between setting up the course, moving fillers, and shifting poles to higher slots. Darcy, too, was run ragged, and finished the training with his sides heaving and his eyes on stalks.
But, perhaps because his boss was watching, or perhaps because he had me and Trinity as an audience, Jason was fairly restrained in the way he treated Darcy. There was none of the beating or kicking I’d seen when I’d touched the horse, and it made me doubt myself. Had I been wrong? Was the vision just a figment of my imagination?
“Let me take him from you,” I said to Jason, “and I’ll wash him down.”
He handed me the reins as if I was his groom, and walked away with Francine, their heads together and their steps in synch.
Hmm, I thought, watching them disappear. They look pretty pally. Despite the widow’s weeds and the damp tissues, Francine hadn’t seemed particularly heartbroken about her husband’s death, and had brushed off our expressions of condolence when she arrived. I’d even seen her laugh at one point when Jason rode past and said something sarcastic. It made me wonder if one of them could have had something to do with killing the businessman. Could that be what Pat wanted to see me about? To investigate his wife?
My head full of theories, I dropped my guard as I turned Darcy for the stables, and stroked him on the shoulder. Of course, I was immediately assailed by his emotions. This time it was primarily fear, but also relief. Staggering at the strength of his feelings, I stared daggers at Jason’s retreating back.
“You seeing things again, boss?” Trinity asked, coming up beside me.
“Yeah, sort of. He’s scared, but also relieved.”
“’Cos he didn’t get a whipping?”
“I think so. I reckon we should make sure at least one of us is watching them, any time Jason is here.”
She nodded. “Good idea.” Then she jerked her chin at Francine and Jason. “Something going on there, you reckon?”
“That’s what I was wondering.”
“Time to get your computer wotsit going again?”
“Yep. I think I need to get Gremlin on the case. What is it they say? The number one reason for murder is matters of the heart?”
“Or money,” Trinity added darkly. “Mr McDade looked like he was worth a bob or two.”
She had a point there. It would be interesting to see what Gremlin, my internet sleuthing program, would find.
Next on my training roster, once Francine and Jason had left, was Eagle.
The queen’s stallion had turned out to have a rather surprising aptitude for dressage—not what you’d usually expect from a Highland Pony. But he was naturally well-balanced and light on his feet, with a good attitude which made him quick to learn.
I mentioned this in my weekly report to Her Majesty, and got a message back via Craig that the queen had entered Eagle for a ridden showing class at the Highland, and could I be sure to prepare him for that, as he’d be getting sold afterwards.
“Sold!” I said, staring at the screen in disbelief. “Why would the queen do that?”
“Do what, my dear?” Lady Letham did one of her spookily silent appearances, making me wonder if she’d got some sort of magical teleporter which apparated her right at the door of the tack room. What else would explain the absence of tip-tapping from her walking stick as a giveaway?
Huffing out a sigh, I tried to hide my disappointment. “It’s Eagle. Apparently the queen wants to sell him after the Highland. Just when I’m getting him going so well.”
She leaned on her walking stick and tilted her head at me like a curious robin. “Libby wants to sell the stallion?” Lady L was a childhood friend of the queen’s, and had served as her lady-in-waiting for a time—hence the first-name terms.
“Yes. It’s a real shame.”
A finger raised, and she pressed her lips together. “Why don’t you leave it with me, my dear. I’ll have a word with her, see what it is that she’s thinking.”
I nodded. “Thanks, that would be good. It just seems a shame for her to sell him—he’ll be worth more to her as a stallion if he’s good at dressage too.”
“Precisely,” said Lady Letham, then turned on her heel and disappeared as silently as she’d arrived.
I’d just finished a short training session with Allegra when her ears pricked and her head swivelled round at the sound of a bicycle bell.
“Hot off the press!” called Neil, holding a newspaper aloft and stepping off the cycle. “I brought you one over.”
“Thanks very much,” I said. “Can you give me a minute to sort the horse and I’ll be right with you.”
He propped his bike against the wall, eyes roving around the yard. “Is Trinity not here?”
“Probably in the barn filling hay nets. I’m sure she’ll appear soon.”
“Right. And, eh, I had an ulterior motive for coming over.”
Aside from seeing Trinity? I nearly said. But I just raised an eyebrow questioningly.
“To ask you about finding Mr McDade the other day.”
“Ah,” I said. “I’m not sure how much I can tell you beyond that I’m ‘shocked and stunned and very sad for his family’. The police are investigating the rest.”
He shrugged. “It was worth a try.”
With Allegra safely tied up, I took the newspaper from him. Right in the centre of the front page was a photo of me with Leo, and the headline: Local Sleuth Solves Murder. “I’m not a sleuth,” I protested.
He jerked a shoulder. “You solved a crime by following some clues. Does that not make you a sleuth?”
I made a face. “When you put it like that, maybe it does.”
Trinity appeared behind me, hay seeds stuck to her purple fleece. “Whatcha got there?”
“Gowrie Gazette.”
I handed it to her, and, after a quick glance at the front page and a, “Nice photo,” comment, she started flicking the pages until she found the article about her salsa class. “Salsa sensational,” she said, reading the headline. “Glengowrie residents have found a new hobby, thanks to recent arrival, Trinity Allen and her regular Saturday night salsa dancing class in the village hall. Villagers, both old and young, strutted their stuff to the sounds of Cuban guitars…”
She looked up. “This is great, thanks Neil.”
He gave her a bashful smile. “Perhaps it’ll bring you a few more pupils.”
“Neil,” I interrupted, “we’re just about to have lunch. I made some soup yesterday. Would you like to join us?”
“Oh, eh,” he glanced at his watch, and then at Trinity, “yes, okay, thank you.”
Over a bowl of carrot and coriander soup at the tack room table, I was able to read both articles fully. “This is pretty good, Neil,” I said. “You’re wasted on the local rag.”
He turned scarlet—as much as I could see under the beard. “I like it there. It suits me. Besides, if I worked anywhere else, I’d have to learn to drive.”
“You don’t drive?” Trinity shook her head in disbelief. “How on earth do you survive, out here in the sticks, without a car?”
Neil nodded at the outside wall where his bike was parked. “I cycle. Or I get the bus.”
Trinity rubbed a thumbnail against her lip. “I could learn you, if you’d like. As a thank you for helping us the other day.”
“Teach me to drive?”
“I taught my ex, back in London, and he passed. Took him till second go, since he were a plonker and gave the examiner cheek the fi
rst time, but…” Her eyes lit up. “Actually, we could maybe start here on the estate. I could ask her ladyship.”
In my imagination I saw Trinity’s little Mini hiccuping along the driveway with Neil at the helm. It wasn’t a pretty sight. But if it helped Trin and Neil get more friendly, it might be a good thing.
That evening, Trinity volunteered to cook so that I could start using the internet to investigate the McDades.
Although I had Gremlin, a deep web search engine app I’d written as a university project, I always started any investigation with a simple Google query and checking out social media channels. It was amazing how much you could find out, without doing anything more complicated.
Jason was mainly active on Instagram and TikTok, and seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time posting photos and videos of his new horsey gear, or his latest showjumping successes. Except… when I looked into it, there weren’t actually that many achievements to boast about. Instead, he seemed to share multiple images and clips of the same event, using different camera angles to ring the changes.
From what I could see, he didn’t appear to have that many clients, or to keep them that long. Horses that appeared in his feed at the end of last year were no longer evident, and the main star at the moment appeared to be poor Darcy. Perhaps Jason wasn’t the experienced or successful rider he made himself out to be…
Francine, in contrast, was fairly reserved on social media, with her privacy sewn up tight and very little to see on any of the channels. Fortunately for me, her FaceBook friends weren’t anything like so cautious, and she was tagged in several photos showing groups of ‘ladies who lunch’ having a boozy time at popular eateries or cocktail bars.
Pat had been all about the business, mainly spending time on Twitter, networking with business associates and promoting his chain of agricultural stores.
“Grub’s up,” Trinity announced, placing a couple of heaped plates on the dining table.
“Thanks,” I said, putting my laptop aside and jumping to my feet. “I hadn’t realised how hungry I was.” Then I saw what she’d cooked—burgers—and my face fell. “I can’t eat those, sorry. I’ll just make some toast.”