Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

Before the girl had a chance to say anything, there was a raucous shout from a table behind Jude. “Got a new bit of stuff, have you, Donal?”

“Or is one of your wives after her maintenance?” suggested another voice.

Taking the money for the wine, the barmaid nodded towards the source of the catcalls. Jude turned to face a table of four rough-looking men dressed in grubby padded jackets, breeches and battered riding boots. Their size suggested that they were all ex-jockeys, and the smell of horse that surrounded them suggested that they all worked at George Tufton’s racing stables. They seemed to fit the scale of the pub, as though its low ceilings had been designed to accommodate this pygmy species.

After the two shouts, the men were silent, and there was no noise from any of the other tables. Jude was aware of her audience, and sensed that they looked forward to her making a fool of herself.

“So which one of you is Donal?”

All four men laughed, and seemed for a moment to contemplate some trickery in their reply. But then three of them pointed to the one farthest away. His head was a scouring brush of short white bristles, his face deeply lined from a life spent in the open air, and beneath a broken nose, his uneven greenish teeth hadn’t come under the scrutiny of a dentist for a long, long time. Almost lost in the wrinkles around them, two blue eyes sparkled, calculating and devious. There was an air of danger about him. Even if Jude hadn’t known of his reputation, she would have recognised a man with a combustibly short fuse.

“Donal, I wonder if I could talk to you…?”

“You could talk to me. Whether I talk back or not is another matter.” The voice was Irish, but without the charm of leprechauns and Blarney stones.

“Donal doesn’t talk for free,” said one of his companions.

“Except to his mates in the police,” said another, prompting a round of discordant laughter.

“So what’s the price of your talking?” asked Jude.

Donal grinned, baring more of the bomb site in his mouth, but let one of the others answer her question. “Large Jameson’s will usually get him started.”

Jude turned back to the counter. The barmaid, who like everyone else had been listening to the exchange, was already filling the glass. She rang up the price and took the proffered money. Clearly, speaking was something she avoided whenever possible.

Facing the four men again, Jude could see Donal stretching out his hand for the drink, but she held on to it. “No, I want a quiet word. Come and sit with me at that table. It won’t take long.”

This prompted rowdy suggestions from Donal’s mates, on the lines of “You’re on a promise there, you lucky sod” and “When did you last have an offer like that?” But Donal, lured by the drink, did get up out of his seat and limp gracelessly across to the table Jude had indicated.

She raised her glass. “Cheers.”

He said nothing till he had downed two-thirds of his Jameson’s in a single swallow. “So you want to know what the police asked me, do you?”

“What makes you assume that?”

“Recent experience. That’s the only reason anyone wants to talk to me. God, you know the only product made in this entire area is gossip. And I assume you’re just another local who’s got some crackpot theory as to who killed Walter Fleet?”

He had come surprisingly near the truth, but Jude started off on another tack. “In fact, it was about your expertise with horses I wanted to talk to you.”

“Oh?”

“I do some healing myself…”

He nodded, showing none of the derision those words sometimes prompted.

“…and someone asked me to try my skills on a horse that’s lame. I’m afraid I haven’t been successful, but I was told by Lucinda Fleet at Long Bamber that you might have more luck.”

“It wouldn’t be luck,” he said.

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

“Where is the horse? Whose is it?”

“It’s at Long Bamber.”

“Then I probably know it.”

“Called Chieftain.”

He smiled a crooked smile. “Oh yes. Mrs. Butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth Dalrymple. I’ll bet I know why he’s lame.”

“Well, I don’t. Sonia didn’t tell me.”

“No, she wouldn’t.”

“Then why do you think he is lame?”

“I know. No reason why you should.”

The way he said this was not exactly rude, but it left her in no doubt that she wasn’t about to find out more.

“So would you have a look at him?”

“The Dalrymples have got plenty of money,” Donal said. “That stable complex of theirs must have set them back a bob or two.”

“Oh yes. I’m sure Sonia would pay for your services. She was going to pay me, but I couldn’t ask for anything unless I got a result.”

“You’re stupid,” he said, without vindictiveness. “People should pay for the healing, not for the results.”

Donal downed the remainder of his Jameson’s and grinned enigmatically. “I’m like a slot machine. When your money runs out, I stop working.”

“You mean you’d like another of those?”

“If you want me to talk more, yes.”

Another silent transaction was conducted with the girl at the bar, and Jude placed the refilled glass back in front of her interviewee. “As your friend said, the police didn’t keep you topped up with Jameson’s when they asked you questions.”

“No.”

The monosyllable was spoken without intonation. Jude couldn’t tell whether he’d follow the change of conversation or clam up on her. But she tried her luck.

“Presumably they didn’t have anything on you? They just questioned you because you were quite often round Long Bamber Stables?”

“Oh, they had more reasons than that.” His eyes twinkled teasingly and he was silent, as if not going to give any more. Then he relented. “They had the reason that I’ve a record for petty crime, a bit of thieving and that stuff. They had the reason that I drink, that I sometimes get violent in my cups. Then the reason that I’m Irish and…what? A vagrant? A diddycoy? A tinker? They had the reason that I don’t live in a nice neat little house like everyone else in this lovely part of England…” The words were heavy with irony. “Oh yes. So far as the police were concerned, I was the perfect Identikit murderer. They were really gutted when they couldn’t pin it on me. So they had to let me go at the end. They’d got nothing on me. Nothing that would stand up in court. And, more to the point, their time was up.” He pointed to his empty glass. “As is yours.”

“But another refill will keep you talking?”

“For a very short time. I’m afraid a law of diminishing returns operates here, you see. I tend to drink faster as I go along.”

Another wordless transaction at the bar, and Jude was back at the table. Donal at least kept his side of the bargain and picked up the conversation exactly where he had left it. “I think most of the detectives who questioned me have still got me down as the killer. But they don’t have a shred of evidence.”

“So you think they’re still keeping an eye on you?”

“That wouldn’t surprise me at all.” He looked out through the clouded pub windows. “Probably an unmarked car out there, waiting to pick up my trail when I get out of here.” He took a lengthy sip of the Jameson’s. “Which won’t be for a long while yet.” He let out a cracked laugh. “Yes, if I go down to Long Bamber to have a look at Chieftain, the police’ll see that as further proof that I’m the villain.”

“How do you work that out?”

“Have you not heard the great cliche: ‘The perpetrator always revisits the scene of the crime’?”

“Ah. Right. Does that mean you’re not going to go there?”