Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

The National Spirit Bar was so full that Carole and Jude might easily have missed him, but they separated to do a dutiful trawl around the room, rejoining at the door to report their lack of progress. They checked the Salmon Spray Bar, which was equally crammed with people downing paper plates full of food-and a surprising amount of champagne. Being so much smaller, this was easier to search, but there was still no sign of Donal. They were making for the Premier Bar when Jude noticed the horses were moving from the parade ring towards the course.

“Oh, quick! I haven’t backed anything!”

“Surely finding Donal is more important than putting money on a horse?”

“Yes, but we haven’t found him, and he’s sure to be watching the race from somewhere, so we’d do better to continue looking after it’s finished.”

“But you can give one race a miss, can’t you, Jude?”

“No way.”

Jude’s fancy in the third was a tall rangy bay called Tout Complet, which she managed to get from a trackside bookmaker at nine to one.

They were too late to take their accustomed place in the stand, and watched the race from the grassy area just by the entrance to the premier stand. The horses were so close they could see every fleck of sweat and spatter of mud.

Tout Complet did everything that was required of it, staying close up to the pace for most of the race in fourth or fifth position. Then in the last five furlongs, he slowly accelerated, picking off the tiring horses in front of him, until he jumped the last just ahead of its nearest challenger. By this time Jude was bouncing up and down, shrieking deliriously. Carole, though less flamboyant in her excitement, also found herself shouting for the horse to win.

And it very nearly did. On the run-in, though, the odds-on favourite, which had been only fourth at the last jump, showed its flat-racing pedigree and sprinted to win by a short head.

“Oh well.” Jude looked glumly down at her ticket before tearing it neatly in two and dropping it into a nearby litter bin.

“You so nearly won ninety pounds,” Carole commiserated.

“A hundred and eighty.”

“What?” Maybe, Carole thought, there’s some aspect of racecourse mathematics that I haven’t grasped yet. “How’s that?”

“I put twenty on that one.”

“Twenty?” Carole’s jaw dropped, and, not for the first time, she wondered where Jude got her money from.

Her friend grinned. “You have to speculate to accumulate.”

“Maybe. But you may have observed that, while you are doing very well on the speculation front, you haven’t so far done much in the way of accumulating.”

“No. Early days, though. Three more races to come.”

“Surely you’re not going to bet on-” But Carole didn’t get the end of the sentence out. Instead she pointed towards the Salmon Spray Bar. Scuttling towards it was the unmistakable figure of Donal Geraghty.

“Come on. We’ll get him!”

Though it hadn’t given them as good a view of the course, their position by the entrance to the enclosure was now an advantage. They were well ahead of the postrace crowd and quickly into the bar. Donal, up at the counter trying to catch the barman’s attention, saw them immediately. They’d been worried how he might react. Do a bunk? Turn violent? After all, the last time they’d met, he’d just plunged a knife into the ample form of Ted Crisp.

But the incident did not seem to weigh on Donal Geraghty. Instead of more extreme actions, he just gave a crooked smile and said, “Well, isn’t that luck? Somebody to buy me a drink just at the moment I need one.”

“I’ll do it,” said Carole, moving up to the bar and opening her handbag. “White wine, Jude?”

“Please.”

“And is yours still the large Jameson’s?” She tried to sound as though she spent all her life ordering drinks for knife-wielding ex-jockeys at racecourse bars.

“Could you make that a quadruple? Gets too crowded in here to do a second round.”

He backed away and leant against the shelf round the edge of the bar, designed for the eaters to balance their paper plates of food. “So…Jude isn’t it?”

“That’s right.” She perched on one of the few tall stools.

“And what can I do for you? Is it a tip you’re after?”

“Might be glad of a tip later. I’ve had a disastrous afternoon so far.”

“Well, I can tell you what’ll win the next. It’ll cost you, though.”

“Cost more than a quadruple Jameson’s?”

“Maybe.”

Jude found it strange that he’d made no mention of their most recent encounter, given how dramatic it had been. Maybe he was ashamed of what had happened, but he didn’t show any signs of embarrassment. He behaved instead as if he had forgotten about the incident, as if it had never taken place.

Carole joined them with the drinks. The white wine came in little bottles containing two modest glasses’ worth. Her instinct would have been to buy only one for the two of them, but she wasn’t sure such parsimony would be appropriate to Jude’s expansive mood on the racecourse. Still, bearing at mind that they’d come in the Renault, Carole determined only to sip at hers.

Donal almost snatched his quadruple Jameson’s and, as ever without thanks, took a long sip. Jude didn’t beat about the bush. “When we last spoke, you were talking about blackmail.”

“Was I now?”

“Yes,” said Carole incisively, “and, in case you’ve forgotten, when we last spoke was in the Crown and Anchor, where you attacked the landlord with a knife.”

“So? Are you suggesting that gives you some kind of hold over me?”

“I’m suggesting that, if you don’t want to have even more dealings with the police, you might be wise to cooperate with us.”

“Hm.” Donal assessed this for a minute, then turned, with the satirical look of a submissive lapdog, to Jude. “So how can I help you?”

“You implied that you knew something about a married couple, and you were prepared to demand money from them to secure your silence on the matter.”

“‘Demand’ is a strong word.” He grinned. “I’d prefer ‘ask.’”

“Whatever. I want to know whether the married couple you’re putting the squeeze on are Yolanta and Victor Brewis.”

The fact that she knew the names shocked him. Thrown for a moment, he took a long shuddering swallow of Jameson’s. Seeming calmed, he smiled mischievously. “No. There’s all the answer I’m giving you. No.”

“So it’s the Dalrymples?”

The flicker of Donal Geraghty’s eyelids told Jude she’d hit a bull’s eye, but of course he denied the assumption. “I think you’re narrowing down your suspects too much. There’s going to be more than one couple having extramarital flings in a place like Fethering. Surely you know that.”

“I do. But, till you told me, I didn’t know it was an extramarital fling we were talking about.”

His face registered annoyance at his carelessness. “Ah, well now, I didn’t say…”

But backtracking was hopeless. Emboldened by the information she had procured, Jude pressed her advantage. “And might this extramarital fling have something to do with Walter Fleet’s murder?”

He smiled enigmatically. “I don’t think the change of circumstances there are going to stop me from getting my little meal ticket.”

“What change of circumstances are you talking about?”

“You mean you don’t know?” Teasing out his narrative, he took another long pull at his glass of Jameson’s and smacked his lips elaborately before continuing. “The case is over.”

“How do you mean?”

“The police know who killed Walter Fleet.”

“How?”

“Because they’ve had a confession.”