Simon Brett - The Stabbing in the Stables

“What’s Imogen’s reaction to the idea of New Zealand?” asked Carole when she could get a word in edgeways.

“Oh, I haven’t talked to her about it in great detail yet. I don’t want to worry her. She’s got enough on her plate at the moment.”

Yes, thought Carole, she certainly has. And she wasn’t sure that playing a supporting role in her mother’s “new life” in New Zealand would be the best outcome for Imogen.

Carole found it strange how her attitude to Hilary Potton had changed. When they first met, she had thought her a potential kindred spirit. But the more time Carole spent with her, the more she became aware of the woman’s deep selfishness and taste for self-dramatisation. She knew it was never possible to look inside another marriage and find the real truth, but she was beginning to feel a little sympathy for Alec Potton.

Hilary’s clearing up the pasta bowls and fetching fruit and cheese gave Carole an opportunity to redirect the conversation. “Going back to that awful night when Walter Fleet was stabbed…”

“Do we have to go back to it?” Hilary laid out the second course on the table. “You can imagine what it’s like for me, particularly in the new circumstances, you know, with Alec. And the thought that I’ll have to go through it all over again when the trial starts-have the media spotlight on me, all those endless television interviews-it doesn’t bear thinking of.”

But the mock shudder with which she uttered these words suggested that she already was thinking of it quite a lot. And with considerable enthusiasm.

“Well, I was just working something out.”

“Yes?”

“That night was a Tuesday, wasn’t it?”

“Was it? I can’t remember.”

“Take my word for it, it was.”

“All right.” Hilary Potton shrugged. “I don’t really see that it’s important.”

“It may not be. But please, just indulge me for a moment while I try to work this thing out.”

Another shrug, this time of uninterested acquiescence.

“And obviously you weren’t anywhere near Long Bamber Stables at the relevant time…”

“No.”

“…because you were here at home with Imogen.”

“That’s what I said, yes.”

“And yet, every weekday except Wednesday, you do a four-to-eight shift at Allinstore.”

“Oh yes. Yes, I do, but…that evening there was a delay. Imogen got held up at school, so I had to call in to Allinstore to say I’d be late, and then,” she concluded lamely, “I somehow didn’t make it.”

“And is that what you told the police when they questioned you?”

“Yes, of course. Or I would have done if the police had asked me about it in detail. But in fact Alec had told them that Imogen and I were here, and I was just asked to confirm what he’d said.”

“But how could Alec have known you were both here at relevant time…”

“Sorry?”

“…if he was at that very moment at Long Bamber Stables stabbing Walter Fleet to death?”

Hilary Potton looked straight at Carole, and there was a new hardness in her eyes. Their conversation had definitely reached another level. Whether that level would have incorporated denial or outrage or negotiation was impossible to say.

And nor was Carole about to find out, because at that moment the front doorbell rang, and Hilary Potton went out to the hall, to return with a jubilant Jude. “Don’t you understand-it’s all all right,” she was crowing, as she followed Hilary in, leaving the door open behind her.

“No, I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“Oh, hello, Carole.” Jude gave only a glancing acknowledgement to her friend before bubbling on. “Your husband could not have killed Walter Fleet. He has an alibi for the time when the murder took place.”

There was no disguising the effect this news had on Hilary Potton. Disappointment burned in her eyes. Images on the screen of her mind of nice caring New Zealanders were instantly switched off.

“What was his alibi? Where was he?”

Given the facts, Jude thought it more diplomatic not to answer at that particular moment. “The person who can vouch for him is contacting the police direct. I don’t think anyone else should be told at this point.”

“I’m Alec’s wife. I have a right to know.”

“I’m sure you will hear the details from the police very soon.”

“Well, I…” Hilary Potton was momentarily lost for words. Then exasperation returned, exasperation with its usual target. “Isn’t that typical of bloody Alec? Presumably, if someone else had an alibi for him, he knew about it too. He could have stopped all this nonsense about going in for days of questioning and confessing to the murder.”

“Then why do you think he didn’t?” asked Carole softly.

“Hm?”

“Why did he confess to a murder he didn’t commit? When there was someone who could give him an alibi all the time?”

“Well, presumably…I don’t know. God only knows what goes on inside that man’s head.”

“Suppose,” suggested Jude, “that the revelation of who he was with might have injured that person.”

“I don’t see how it could.”

“If that person were a married woman…”

“Oh God. Alec wasn’t with one of his floozies, was he?”

“I’m just saying that might be a possible explanation for his behaviour.”

“That he was saving a lady’s honour?” asked Hilary cynically. “What a chivalrous gesture. Pity he never gave a thought to saving my bloody honour.”

Carole picked up the conversation-or had it now become an interrogation? “As Jude says, that’s just one possibility. Another possibility is that Alec confessed to protect someone else.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that he knew who had committed the murder, and he was prepared to take the rap for him. Or her.”

“But why the hell would he do that?” Hilary Potton was blustering now.

“Love? Duty? Who can say? Who can say what goes on inside a marriage?”

“Carole, are you suggesting that I killed Walter?”

“No, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that your alibi for the relevant time looks pretty shaky. Of course, it would be possible to check at Allinstore about your calling in to say you were delayed that afternoon and-”

“No! No, don’t do that.”

“So are you telling us you weren’t here between five and six that Tuesday evening?”

There was a long silence. Then another voice behind them said, “You might as well tell the truth, Mummy. You weren’t here, were you?”

Imogen Potton stood in the doorway, wearing fleecy pyjamas with a design of rabbits on them. Her teeth had been cleaned and her brace was a line of unforgiving metal. From one hand dangled a teddy bear whose fur had almost all been loved away. The small breasts that pushed against her pyjama tops looked out of place on one so young.

“I don’t know where you were at that time,” she said. “I hadn’t seen you for the previous forty-eight hours. And I didn’t see you again until about quarter past eight that evening, when I assumed you had just come in from Allinstore. Go on, that’s true, isn’t it, Mummy?”

Hilary Potton nodded wordlessly, as her daughter went on. “I had been worried about Conker. I kept hearing these stories about someone going round and…attacking mares…always the mares…and I couldn’t have borne it if Conker…Conker was the only creature in the world I cared about.” She fixed her mother with a venomous eye. “I had long since stopped caring about you. I don’t think I ever cared about you. I think I always hated you…because of the way you treated Daddy and…

“I care about Daddy, but it was difficult to care about him…because he was always changing his mind…and always saying he’d be somewhere at a certain time and then not turning up…So I cared about Daddy, but I couldn’t rely on him…But Conker, Conker understood me. I couldn’t bear the idea of someone hurting Conker. If she’d died, I would have died.”