Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

“Better. Better,” Sonia murmured.

“There’s something new, isn’t there?”

“What do you mean?”

“Something new that’s upsetting you. Since you came to see me at Woodside Cottage.”

Sonia Dalrymple’s ravaged face turned to Jude, and the tears began again.

“Is Nicky coming home?”

A little nod. “He rang this afternoon. He wasn’t meant to be back till Sunday, but he’s getting an early flight tomorrow. Which reminds me, I must ring the police.”

“What?”

“Oh, they said they wanted to talk to Nicky when he was next home. Presumably just to check if he knows anything about the stuff they found in the hayloft, which of course he doesn’t.” Panic crossed Sonia Dalrymple’s face. “And he’ll be back tomorrow.”

“It’s not just that that’s got you into this state, is it, Sonia? You’re used to Nicky coming home unexpectedly.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose I am. I never really get used to it, though.”

“It still frightens you?”

A little wordless nod. Sonia Dalrymple was too crippled, too abject to maintain her usual front of omnicompetence. She couldn’t pretend about the state of her marriage to Jude.

“Do you think you’d be happier apart from him?” Jude asked gently.

The nod that greeted this was shamefaced. “But he’d never accept that. Nicky would never accept anything that made him look stupid, that made him look in the wrong.”

“Yes, but if your health is suffering like this…There’s got to come a point when you put your well-being before his.”

“There are the girls to think of too.”

“Teenage girls are remarkably resilient.”

“But then there’s”-Sonia Dalrymple gestured hopelessly around her luxury home-“all this.”

“It would be possible to get out. It can be done. People have done it.”

“I know, I know. I can see all that stuff when I’m on my own here. I build myself up, psych myself up, work out all the bold sensible things I’m going to say, but then, when Nicky comes home…”

“You’re afraid of him?”

Sonia nodded. “It’s like he-his very presence-drains all the confidence out of me. All my will goes. I’m just…feeble…”

“Is it the violence that makes you so afraid?” Jude waited, fully expecting a denial of the charge. Sonia had never admitted before that Nicky sometimes hit her.

But no, the allegation was allowed to stand. Maybe it was her reduced state, or Jude’s calming presence, but Sonia did not even attempt to defend her husband. She almost smiled through her tears as she replied, “No, it’s not the violence, really. When he hits me, it’s almost a relief. That I can cope with; that I understand. Painful, horrible, yes, but in a way straightforward. It’s the way he undermines me verbally that really hurts. That’s what melts away my personality to nothing.”

Jude had a sudden thought. She would be taking a risk saying what she was about to say, but she thought the risk was worth it. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

“Oh?”

“Perhaps ‘tell’ isn’t the right word. ‘Confess’ might be nearer the mark.”

Sonia’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement, which was a welcome sign. The more she thought about things other than her own predicament, the more her contorted body would relax.

“Right, Sonia. What I have to admit is an act of trespass.”

“Really?”

“Here. Into your premises.”

“You broke in?”

“Effectively, yes.” She decided not to admit that her trespass had been accompanied. No need for Carole’s name to be mentioned. “A few days ago, while you were staying at Yeomansdyke. I didn’t break into the house, just the stables. And that was hardly ‘breaking in’-everything was unlocked. But I went into the hayloft.”

“And you found the stuff up there? It was you who alerted the police to what they’d find?”

The idea angered Sonia, and Jude was glad to be able to allay that suspicion. “No. In fact we-I only missed the police by minutes. They arrived here just after I’d left. Someone must have tipped them off, but it certainly wasn’t me.”

“But why did you come here? What made you think you’d find anything in the hayloft?”

“Donal.” Sonia trembled at the name. “Some things Donal had told me made me suspect that he might have pitched camp in your stables.”

“What did he say?” she whispered.

“Nothing directly. I just pieced things together.”

“And you knew you were going to find the bloodstained clothes?” Sonia was almost weeping now. “Alec’s bloodstained clothes?”

“No. All I expected to find was evidence that Donal had set up base in the stables. The bloodstained clothes were a total surprise-well, ‘shock’ is probably a better word.”

“But Donal didn’t tell you anything else, did he?” Fear had reduced Sonia’s voice to a thin whisper.

“He implied to me that he was preparing to blackmail somebody-a married couple, or one member of a married couple.”

“Oh God. He didn’t tell you what it was about, did he?”

“No, he didn’t.”

The answer seemed to remove a great strain from Sonia Dalrymple. Her body untwitched, like a baby going to sleep, as the tension flowed out of her. If there had been any doubt in Jude’s mind as to who was the target of Donal’s planned blackmail, it had now been dispelled.

But finding out what he wanted to blackmail Sonia about would have to wait. Jude had another question of greater priority. “You know that, as well as the bloody clothes in the hayloft, the police also found a bloodstained knife.”

Sonia nodded. “Presumably the murder weapon?”

Jude didn’t disillusion her. “Did you see it?”

“No. They described it to me. A Sabatier kitchen knife, I gather.”

“Do you have such a knife in your kitchen?”

“Well, yes, of course. Everyone does, don’t they? The police checked through the stuff we’ve got, but I don’t suppose-” Sonia stopped short and looked at Jude curiously. “You’re not suggesting that the murderer stole the knife from our kitchen?”

Jude shrugged. No need at that time to remind Sonia that the police had in their possession the knife that killed Walter Fleet. And that it had been a bot knife, not a kitchen knife. “It’s possible,” she replied.

She sat on the sofa beside her client. “You were talking about Nicky coming home unexpectedly…”

“What?” Sonia looked confused by the sudden change of subject. “Oh, yes.”

“So he’s coming home tomorrow?”

“Mm.”

“And the last time he was home was, well, just before you went into Yeomansdyke?”

“Yes.”

“And the time before that?”

“Well, he was home for a weekend at…No.” Sonia corrected herself as the memory came back to her. He did come home for…well, really just a few nights at the beginning of February.”

“Would that stay have included the night that Walter Fleet was murdered?”

“Well, it…I’m not sure. I…” A strange, new expression came into Sonia Dalrymple’s face. “Yes. Yes, it was late that afternoon that he came home.”

“My name’s Nicky Dalrymple. We met when you came to visit my wife.”

“That’s right. And you gave me that very generous cheque for the N.S.P.C.C.”

“Yes,” he said shortly. “I believe you also do…some kind of therapy with Sonia.”

“I do.” When she heard that kind of scepticism in a voice, Jude never bothered with further explanations.

“I’m phoning because…I wonder if we could meet?”

Jude bit back the teasing instinct to ask if he too was in search of therapy. She didn’t think Nicky Dalrymple was the kind of man who would understand the concept of a joke. “Yes, of course.”