Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

“So, what, is he some kind of healer?” Carole couldn’t say the final word without an infusion of scepticism.

“I don’t know about that, but he can sometimes work wonders. Mind you, great though his communication skills with horses, he’s not so hot when it comes to humans.”

“Oh?”

“I’m afraid, Jude, that Donal had rather a propensity for getting into fights. He’s got a drink problem, and every drink he takes seems to shorten his temper a bit more. He’s been inside a good few times, because of the fighting.”

“And that’s why the police have taken him in?” asked Carole.

“Presumably. A violent death, and the first person the police look for is someone with a track record for that kind of thing. A prison record suits them even better.”

“You said you know he’s not guilty. How do you know?” asked Jude. “Have you got proof that he wasn’t at the stables at the relevant time?”

“No, I don’t. He could have been there, for all I know. But Donal’s not capable of murder.”

“Did he and your husband get along?” asked Carole.

“No, they didn’t actually. Walter thought Donal was a thieving layabout-which he was sometimes-and Walter didn’t want him hanging around Long Bamber. I didn’t mind, because sometimes he was very useful to me. That was another issue on which my husband and I did not see eye to eye. Walter was always an intolerant bigot.”

No inhibitions about speaking ill of the dead then. Lucinda Fleet was maintaining the detachment she’d shown when first informed of her husband’s death.

“You used the word ‘thieving,’” said Carole. “Was that just colourful language or do you mean Donal actually was-is a thief?”

“Oh, he’s a thief all right. I have to have eyes in the back of my head when he’s around the stables. But that’s part of the deal with him. If you want to take advantage of his knowledge of horses, then you have to reconcile yourself to losing a bit of small change, or tack, or anything else you’ve left lying around.”

“His knowledge of horses must be pretty exceptional,” Carole sniffed.

“It is. That’s the point.”

There was an asperity in Lucinda’s tone that suggested Carole was rubbing her up the wrong way. Jude intervened to defuse the situation.

“Anyway, why did you want to talk to us? We don’t even know Donal, so we can’t be much help providing an alibi for him or anything of that kind.”

“No, but you were the first there at the scene of…at the scene of the crime. You might have seen something that proves the police should be looking for someone else.”

“Don’t imagine they didn’t ask us about that,” said Carole. “Those detectives gave us both quite a grilling.”

“Yes, but if there was just something…”

“The only detail that I remember,” said Jude, “-and I told the police this, so it’s nothing new-is that when I went in through the stable doors that night, I’m pretty sure I heard the noise of a gate or door closing the other side of the yard.”

“The murderer making his getaway?” asked Lucinda eagerly.

“Possibly. Maybe even probably.”

“But you didn’t see anyone?”

“No, just heard the noise.”

“So that doesn’t help Donal at all.”

“’Fraid not.”

“Where does Donal live?” asked Carole suddenly.

“Here, there, everywhere. Someone who knows as much about the local horse population as Donal can always find an empty loose box or outbuilding somewhere. So I suppose he’s officially ‘of no fixed abode.’ Which is of course another reason for the police to arrest him.”

“The reason I ask is that, that night at the stables”-Carole had gone too far to cover up her professional lapse now-“I went into what I believe you call the tack room…?”

“The big one?”

“Yes.”

“That’s my tack room, where I keep all the tack that belongs to the stables. Every owner has their own tack room too, but theirs are much smaller.”

“Well, I went in there-you know, having seen the body-looking for someone to help, and I saw that there was a kind of bed made up there, with a sleeping bag.”

“Yes, that sometimes gets used-you know, if a horse is ill or foaling, some of the owners insist on staying on the premises. It’s not used very often.”

“I got the impression, the night I was there, that it had been used quite recently.”

“No,” said Lucinda firmly. “I’d know if someone was sleeping there.”

“So Donal never slept there?”

“Good God, no. I put up with a lot from him, but there’s no way I’d let him doss down in my stables. Other people’s stables, maybe. Well, I know he squats in other people’s stables. Not mine.”

“Ah. Right.”

The conversation was temporarily becalmed. Lucinda Fleet still reminded Jude of a smaller, more mature version of Sonia Dalrymple. But close to, the differences between the two women were more cruelly marked. Lucinda looked older than she had in the police spotlights at Long Bamber Stables. Probably late forties. Her face, which must once have been as pretty as Sonia’s, was scored with tiny lines and weathered by a lifetime of working out of doors. Though she took care of the nails, her hands were cracked and reddened. Even so, all the hard manual work-and presumably the riding-had left her with an enviably trim figure.

Beneath the woman’s no-nonsense exterior, Jude could sense a deeply hidden thread of pain. Not the pain of her recent bereavement, but something longer-lived and more profound. Maybe one day Jude would find out its source.

Carole jump-started the conversation again. “Just another thing about this Donal…”

“Yes?”

“You describe him as a kind of vagrant, whose always hanging around places where there are horses…”

“If you like.”

“Well, isn’t that exactly the sort of person the police suspect was responsible for all these knife attacks on horses?”

“No!” Lucinda was suddenly animated and furious. “Donal would never do anything like that! He might hurt a human being-he’s done that often enough in his cups-but there’s no way he’d ever do harm to a horse. Donal loves horses.”

Jude came in smoothly to ease the slight atmosphere following this exchange. “Could I get you another fizzy water, Lucinda?”

“No, thanks.”

“Or…we were thinking of having lunch here. I don’t know if you-”

“No. I never have lunch.” She looked at her watch, a man’s one on a battered leather strap. (Maybe Walter’s? Maybe her one gesture of mourning for her dead husband?) “I must get back to the stables. Always too much to do.”

“Incidentally,” said Jude, “about the stables, Lucinda…”

“Hm?”

“What are your plans?”

“What do you mean?”

“For Long Bamber Stables. I mean, now that Walter’s dead.”

Lucinda looked at Jude curiously. “Well, keep the business going. I have no other visible means of support. Walter’s death doesn’t really make much difference to that.”

“Oh?”

“Walter was only ever ‘front of house.’ Schmoozing up to the owners-particularly the women. He never did any of the actual hard work.”

“Was that because his injuries prevented him from doing any?”

Lucinda Fleet let out a derisive snort of laughter. “It was very variable-what Walter’s injuries did and didn’t allow him to do.”

“Ah.”

“No, he was fundamentally lazy. Loved life back when he was the golden boy of eventing, and people fell over themselves to do things for him. When he lost that status, he still expected people to fall over themselves to do things for him. Only the trouble was, by then he wasn’t surrounded by ‘people.’ Just me. Which meant that I ended up doing everything. I know it doesn’t do to say such things, but it’s a huge relief to me that Walter’s dead.”