Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

“No, of course it doesn’t.” He chuckled. “It’ll give me great pleasure to lead the police on a wild goose chase.”

“So you will try and heal Chieftain?”

“I’ll be down at Long Bamber tomorrow morning,” he said, suddenly efficient. “Round eleven.” He drained his drink. “And that’s me switched off again. Now I will return to my mates, to be perverse and argumentative, and talk a load of bollocks, and lead the conversation down a lot of whimsical cul-de-sacs, and then lose my temper and start threatening people.”

“Why?”

“Because, he winked-that is what is expected of a stage Irishman.”

She scribbled down her name and mobile number on a scrap of paper and gave it to him.

This prompted more ribaldry from George Tufton’s stable lads, whose table Donal rejoined, stepping immediately back into his expected role.

Jude rang Sonia Dalrymple’s number, but only got the answering machine. So she put in a call to Long Bamber Stables to check with Lucinda Fleet that it would be all right for Donal to work on Chieftain the following morning.

“Yes, that’s fine. I’d been expecting him to turn up sometime soon. I’ll hide the petty cash.”

“I have actually just met Donal.”

“Oh yes?”

“He lives up to his image, doesn’t he?”

“A point of honour with him, I’ve always thought.”

“But as a healer…?”

“Oh, he’s good. Whatever power it is that’s needed, Donal’s got it. I always recommend him to all my owners.”

“Yes. Something’s just struck me, Lucinda…”

“Oh? What’s that?”

“If you recommend him to all your owners, then presumably you also recommended him to Sonia?”

“Yes.”

“And yet, when Chieftain got lame and the vet couldn’t do anything about it, she turned to me rather than to Donal.”

If a shrug could be audible, than that’s what Jude heard down the phone line. “So? It’s a free country. If she doesn’t want to take my suggestion, then that’s up to her.”

Again Jude was aware of the frostiness between the two women, the feeling she had got when she’d first heard Lucinda mention Sonia Dalrymple’s name. “Yes…Incidentally, Donal said something about Chieftain.”

“Mm?”

“He said he could guess how the horse got lame.”

“Did he?”

“Do you know what he meant by that?”

“No.” But something in Lucinda’s voice betrayed her. She did know exactly what Donal had meant. But there was no way she was going to tell Jude.

“By the way, do you know whether Sonia has ever met Donal?”

“I don’t know for certain, but I’d have thought she must have done at some point. They both keep coming down to the stables, they probably have seen each other.”

“But you don’t know whether they’ve ever had any disagreement about anything?”

“Why should they have?”

“Only because Sonia didn’t consult Donal about Chieftain.”

There was a level of exasperation in the sigh that came from the other end of the phone. “Jude, I’ve no idea. And I’ve got to give a riding lesson in five minutes, so if you don’t mind-”

“Sorry, sorry. You haven’t heard from Sonia recently, have you?”

“She rang this morning. Said she wouldn’t be able to come and sort out Chieftain for a couple of days.”

“Oh?”

“She’s gone to a health farm. Yeomansdyke. Do you know it?”

“Yeomansdyke as in the hotel?”

“Yes. Down towards Yapton.”

“I know it. In fact, someone gave me a free day voucher there as a Christmas present.”

“Then you’ve got some wealthy friends.”

“Oh, it never occurred to me that the place was that expensive.”

“Well, it is. Membership’s about as much as I make in a good year here at the stables.”

“Not that that’d be a problem for Sonia.”

“Of course not. She often goes to Yeomansdyke to recuperate after Nicky’s been home.”

“Lucinda, what on earth do you mean by-”

“Must go. My lesson’s arrived.”

Which was very frustrating and left Jude with more than one unanswered question.

“Hello, Mother, it’s Stephen.”

He sounded more formal than ever. Round the time of the wedding, he had quite often relaxed into calling her “Mum.” Such intimacy now seemed to have vanished like it had never existed.

“Oh, how nice to hear from you. How is everything?”

“Total chaos at work. Just don’t seem to have a moment.”

“But it always seems to be like that, doing…what you do…” Whatever that might be. Carole reckoned she was destined never to understand her son’s work.

“Well, let me tell you. Now is absolutely worse than ever.”

“At least they pay you well.” Why Carole had said it, she didn’t know. The words sounded crass, not at all what she had intended. She had an unfortunate knack of saying the wrong thing.

“I bloody earn it,” said Stephen, justifiably piqued. “Anyway,” he went on brusquely, “you rang. Was there something you wanted?”

This put her on the spot. She had rung because she was anxious about the state of her son’s marriage, but it was not in her nature to raise the subject directly. She knew there were women who could boldly ask, “What’s going on with you and Gaby?” but she also knew that she wasn’t one of them. “Erm…” She hesitated, sounding, to her distaste, just like David. “It’s just, I spoke to Gaby last week…”

“Yes, she said you’d rung.”

“…and I just wondered whether…erm…”

“What?” he asked shortly, sounding as grumpy with her as he had in his early teens.

“She sounded a bit down to me. I just really wondered whether she was all right…?”

“She’s fine,” he said in the same tone of voice.

“Oh, good. Because she’s normally such a lively person, I was a bit worried to hear her so-”

“We’re both fine, thank you, Mother. As you know, we both have very stressful jobs and-”

“Yes. Gaby was off work when I spoke to her. Is she better now?”

“There was nothing wrong with her. She just needed a break.”

“I thought she sounded-”

“There is nothing wrong with either of us, Mother…except that we don’t get enough relaxed time together.”

“Well, if you need anything that I-”

“We don’t need anything-except for a bit of space. Our relationship is fine, and it’s our business, and the last thing we need is other people poking their noses into it.”

And he rang off. Carole felt as though she had received a physical slap in the face. To her surprise, she felt tears prickling at her eyes-and it was a very long time since that had happened. By sheer willpower, she stemmed them. But she didn’t feel good.

And, in spite of Stephen’s assurances, her worries about the state of his marriage multiplied.

She felt in need of comfort, of moral support. But there was no one in at Woodside Cottage.

Yeomansdyke Hotel catered to the super rich, of whom there were a surprising lot in the West Sussex area. Other clients came from London, and quite a few from the States. It was not a country house hotel, like the Hopwicke, where Carole and Jude had once become involved in the mysterious death of a young solicitor. There the aim had been to reproduce the atmosphere of an Edwardian weekend party, whereas at Yeomansdyke the atmosphere aimed for was one of sheer luxury. It was not a place for people who needed to know how much anything cost.

Yeomansdyke had been built by a Victorian entrepreneur who had made a killing in the lawn tennis boom of the late nineteenth century. Because of his sporting interests, he had designed the grounds to accommodate tennis courts, stables and an artificial lake for fishing and boating. The house itself was a huge structure in ornate red brick, whose spacious reception areas and plethora of guest bedrooms facilitated its conversion in the 1980s to a leisure complex for those who had cleaned up in the Thatcher financial bonanza.