Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

“My diary. He’d never look in there.”

“Is it just for this year?”

“No, it’s not marked up as a diary. I just go on until I run out of space and then start another one.”

Sonia flicked through and found the relevant dates. Jude checked them against notes in the little book she had picked up at Woodside Cottage.

One of the dates seemed particularly to trouble Sonia. “That was just after Christmas, I remember. The twins were still here, still on holiday.”

“And you had a big row? Quite common in families at Christmas, I believe.”

“Yes, but…” Sonia choked back a sob. “This one was worse. The reason we had the row was…worse.”

Jude bided her time. She had an instinct that the revelation would not stop there.

“The girls had gone to bed, and Nicky had gone up to say good night to them, and then I remembered some dirty clothes I had to pick up from Alice’s room and I…I found Nicky on Alice’s bed. He was…touching her.”

“And that prompted the row?”

“Huge row. Worst row ever. Nicky stormed out of the house.”

“And came back the next morning calmed?”

Sonia nodded tearfully. “That’s why I insisted the girls go to boarding school. At least during term time Nicky can’t…can’t get at them.”

Jude took a folded newspaper cutting out of her notebook and spread it out on the table. “This was printed a couple of days later. The events it refer to happened the night Nicky stormed out of here.”

Sonia Dalrymple can only have had time to read the headline HORSE RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN before she burst into uncontrollable tears.

To Jude it all made sense now. What Sonia had said about her husband interfering with his daughter served only to confirm her thesis. The theory of a connection between horse molestation and paedophilia was gaining credibility in academic circles. And Jude had a feeling Sonia might have suspected what Nicky had been up to.

“Is it a possibility you’d thought about before? Something you were afraid might be true?”

The shattered woman managed to nod assent.

“This morning,” said Jude grimly, “only about an hour ago, I saw your husband at the old stables at Cordham Manor. He had a knife with him.”

“Oh, no,” Sonia moaned. “Conker.”

“Yes, I think he was out to harm Conker.”

It seemed impossible that Sonia’s crying could become more intense, but it did. Jude reached out and placed a hand on her arm. “Don’t worry. Conker’s all right. And, as you see, I’m all right. I have Donal to thank for that.”

“Donal?” Sonia repeated in bewilderment.

“Yes. He saved my life by stabbing Nicky.”

“Stabbing?”

“Only a flesh wound. I’m sure your husband has patched himself up at Heathrow, bought a new shirt and will be fine for his business meetings in Chicago.”

“Yes.” There was a long silence. “Oh, Jude, what do we do?”

“I think we have to tell the police.”

She nodded in the face of the inevitable.

“But will there be any evidence?”

“Donal and I can testify to the attack he made on us this morning. With regard to the horses, well, the dates offer quite a strong pointer. I would imagine the police could get some DNA evidence-maybe from the kitchen knife that was found in the hayloft. I think there will probably be enough to convict him.”

“Yes. Yes.” Sonia had stopped crying. She now seemed confused, as she tried to work out the ramifications of what she had just heard.

But she didn’t seem surprised. The news that her husband was the Horse Ripper confirmed something that she had been thinking for a long time. And maybe, finally, it offered her a justification for leaving him.

“A lot to take in, Jude,” she said slowly. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“Yes. And then, of course, there’s something else, isn’t there?”

“Hm?”

“What Donal saw from the hayloft…”

“Ah. Ah, yes…”

“…and was prepared to blackmail you about…”

“Mm.”

“Can you tell me about it? I know you couldn’t before, and from seeing what keeping the secret was doing to your body, I know how much it meant, but now…”

“Now…it seems a lot less important. I was terrified how Nicky would react if Donal told him-that’s why I was prepared to pay Donal so much money.”

“When did he first make his demands?”

“I can’t remember. Month or so back maybe.”

“Before Walter Fleet’s death?”

“Oh yes.”

“So you don’t know exactly when he saw you?”

“No, and it was only later I worked out that the hayloft must have been his vantage point. Anyway, it all seems rather less significant now. I mean, given the new circumstances. I can’t see that Nicky and I are ever going to back into a normal married situation again.”

“I’d doubt it.”

“So the fact that I was having an affair with another man suddenly becomes infinitely less important.”

“Donal saw you together? From the hayloft?”

Sonia Dalrymple nodded, suddenly more confident. “Yes. Of course at the time I had no idea he was up there. I had no idea he was even using our stables as a temporary home until the police raided the place.”

“But why were you and your lover out there?”

“I don’t know. I was afraid in the house. This place is so dominated by Nicky’s presence, even when he’s not here. I suppose I was a bit worried about leaving evidence that Nicky might find, but it wasn’t really that. I just couldn’t relax in the house.”

“Whereas in the stables…”

“Yes. And there was something rather exciting about the whole set-up. Adolescent thrills, like having a snog in the cycle sheds.”

Jude chuckled softly. “You don’t have to tell me who the man is…unless you want to.”

“Oh, why not? You know everything else. Alec Potton.”

“God.” That really did knock Jude sideways.

But it also gave her another idea. “And when was the last time you and Alec were together in the stables?”

Sonia Dalrymple dropped her head into her hands for a moment of complete silence before saying, “That’s what’s so dreadful. It was late afternoon on the day that Walter Fleet was murdered. That’s why I was late meeting you at Long Bamber Stables. I’d been with Alec for the last two hours. And then Nicky came home early from a business trip, and so nearly found Alec and me together, and I went into the house to see Nicky and Alec stayed hidden in the stables and it was so ghastly-”

Jude let her get no further. Brown eyes sparkling, she exclaimed, “But, Sonia, if Alec Potton was with you for all that time, then there’s no way that he could have killed Walter Fleet.”

“I know, I know.”

And Jude finally understood the magnitude of the secret that had been torturing Sonia Dalrymple.

Hilary Potton’s kitchen was surprisingly old-fashioned for someone whose husband worked in the fitted kitchens business. Maybe it was just another reflection of the state of their marriage, of Alec’s priorities lying increasingly outside the domestic nest. But Hilary put together an excellent lunch, pasta with tuna and broccoli in a creamy sauce. She had good domestic skills. Maybe they would be put to good use one day in another marriage. Because, from the way Hilary talked about the future, meeting a nice caring New Zealander was included in her plans.

Carole kept trying to get the conversation back to Alec, and indeed to Walter Fleet’s murder, but without marked success. The marriage, along with everything else that had happened in Fethering, would soon be in the past, and Hilary didn’t want to talk about them. A few necessarily uncomfortable months lay ahead of her, until her husband was finally behind bars for a good long stretch, and then her new life would begin to blossom.