Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

“It’s in connection with…that appalling business up at Long Bamber Stables. I’ve been giving the police some information they required, and I think there are a few points you might be able to help me with.”

“Really?”

“Well, I am right-you were the one who actually found Walter Fleet’s body, weren’t you?”

“Yes, that was me.”

“I wonder then, when would it be convenient for us to meet?”

“As soon as you like.”

“Shall I come to your place?”

Some instinct for caution stopped Jude from saying yes. “No, everything’s a terrible mess here. Could we meet at”-the unlikeliest of venues came into her mind-“the Seaview Cafe?”

“Mother, I want to come down and see you.”

“What?”

“With Gaby, of course.”

“Oh?”

“There’s something we need to tell you.”

“Something you can’t tell me over the phone?”

“I-we would rather do it in person.”

“Very well.”

“Are you free tomorrow?”

Carole was thrown. “Tomorrow? Sunday? Um, yes. Yes, I think so.”

“We’ll come down to Fethering and take you out to lunch somewhere.”

“Come here. I’ll cook Sunday lunch for you.”

“But-”

“No, Stephen, I insist.”

“All right. We’ll aim for about twelve-thirty. I must dash. All hell breaking loose here at work.”

When wasn’t all hell breaking loose at Stephen’s work, Carole wondered as she put down the phone. She felt bad. The small triumph she had achieved in persuading him to have lunch at High Tor was swamped in the dread of the confrontation ahead. Her son and Gaby were coming to announce the end of their marriage. Why hadn’t she bitten the bullet and stayed with David? Why hadn’t she been a better role model?

“There are, as I say, one or two things the detectives asked me which-though I answered them to the best of my ability-well, I just wondered why they were asking them, and thought maybe you might be able to clarify that for me.”

Though his exterior urbanity remained intact, Jude could detect from Nicky Dalrymple’s body language that he was far from at his ease. He looked huge, perched on the edge of one of the Seaview Cafe’s plastic chairs. The place had only just opened, and the few other customers sipping their mournful teas were too far away to compromise the security of Jude and Nicky’s conversation.

Deliberately, she tried to shut her mind to the fact that she was sitting opposite a man who used violence against his wife. Though she desperately sought the ending of that situation, Jude knew it would not be improved by her intervention. The impetus had to come from Sonia, and Jude was determined to help her find the strength for that impetus. In the meantime, she would forget the character of the handsome man in front of her, and concentrate on what he had to say about the night of Walter Fleet’s murder.

“The detectives mentioned a couple of things that made me curious, and, as I said on the phone, since you found Walter Fleet’s body…”

Jude’s customary conversational manner encouraged people to speak, made them feel at ease to say anything they wanted. She didn’t feel inclined, though, to make anything easy for Nicky Dalrymple.

“I was interested to know whether, when you found the body, you saw anyone else at the stables?”

She was intrigued by the question. Surely the police hadn’t implied to Nicky that she had seen anyone else? Maybe it was just the fact that she’d heard the click of a wooden gate, that she’d just missed seeing someone. Either way, her instinct told her to ration very carefully the amount of information she gave. That way Nicky Dalrymple might be forced to show his hand, to reveal what he knew.

“I was in no doubt that someone else was in the stables,” she replied. “Or at least had been in the stables very recently.”

“Yes, but you didn’t actually see anyone?”

She had a brainwave. “I wasn’t the only witness.”

“Oh?”

“What other people”-no harm in cloning Carole a few times-“may have told the police they saw, I wouldn’t know.”

“No. No. Of course not.” Nicky Dalrymple was in difficulties. Jude took indecent pleasure in seeing the overconfident bully squirm. There was something of which he needed to unburden himself, and her uncooperative response seemed to be the best way of making him do it.

“Look, the fact is, Jude-you don’t mind my calling you ‘Jude’?” he asked, flashing one of his dazzling smiles.

But she was immune to his charms. She knew he was just prevaricating and said nothing.

“The reason I’m asking all this,” he struggled on, “is that the police asked me whether I went to Long Bamber Stables that night.”

“That’s an odd thing to ask.”

“My feelings exactly, but…er…”

“So you told them you didn’t go there?”

“Of course.”

Suddenly she saw it all. Nicky Dalrymple had been at Long Bamber Stables the night Walter Fleet died. He’d denied it to the police detectives, but they’d left open the possibility that he might have been seen there. The reason that Nicky Dalrymple had sought her out was because he wanted to know whether Jude had seen him at the stables. Definitely time for a tactical lie.

“I didn’t know it was you,” she said. “I only the saw the outline of a tall figure in the gateway as you left the yard.”

“Oh, well then, I-”

She saw too much relief in his eyes, too much hope of escape, and cut it off at source with another lie. “But of course another witness saw where you’d parked the BMW.”

“I didn’t park it in the car park. It was off the road, up a farm track.”

“Which is where the witness saw it,” said Jude, grateful for Nicky Dalrymple’s unprompted generosity with information. “So I suppose the police,” she went on, “putting two and two together, concluded that you must have been there.”

For one of the very few times in her life, Jude got a charge of intense pleasure from her own cruelty. Nicky Dalrymple’s handsome head dropped forward onto his hands.

“All right. I’ll tell you what happened.”

“Have you told the police yet?”

“No, but I’ll have to, now I know that you know.” All trace of bravado was gone from his voice. “The fact is, I arrived home earlier than expected. I’d had some business in Rome, we got it sorted far quicker than expected, my secretary rescheduled my flight and I got back to Unwins about five that afternoon.”

He paused to retrieve his precise memories or, Jude wondered cynically, to invent them. “Well…I’m afraid Sonia and I had a row, and a lot of stupid, hurtful things were said-she’s always been prone to hysterics.” Even when digging himself out of a hole, he couldn’t resist a side stab of disparagement at this wife. “And she said something which implied she knew a man who would be kinder to her, more considerate than I ever was.

“Well, I’m afraid that made me very jealous, and I insisted on her telling me who the man was.” Jude wondered how physical a form his “insistence” had taken. “Eventually, she told me it was Walter Fleet. I knew him for a smarmy bastard, always chatting up the ladies, but I hadn’t realised he’d ever tried his smooth tricks on my wife. And I’m afraid what Sonia said made me absolutely furious-I have quite a short temper, you know.” I know, thought Jude. “So I jumped into the car and drove straight to Long Bamber Stables.”

He stopped, seemingly aware of how carefully he must negotiate the next bit. Perhaps he was even rehearsing how he would present his embarrassing admission to the police. The silence was filled only with the clack of teacups on saucers, the complaints of distant seagulls and the regular sighing of the sea.