Stephen Booth - The kill call

Had she heard that right? Five thousand pounds? It was more than many thieves and other petty criminals were fined, even after repeated appearances in Edendale magistrates’ court. Fry wrote it down just to be sure that she remembered it properly.

‘I wanted to ask you about something you said yesterday,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

‘You mentioned that Patrick Rawson had tried to blame the allegations against him on rival dealers.’

‘That’s right, he did.’

‘I’m wondering if there were any particular rivals who might have had a grudge against him.’

‘Of course you are,’ said Walsh. ‘That makes sense. Well, I’m sure there must have been a few over the years. We didn’t really go into that as a serious possibility, you know. It was just Rawson trying to weasel his way out.’

‘I understand that. But if there was any chance…?’

‘I’ll have a trawl through the intelligence, and send you any names I come up with.’

‘Thanks. It’s appreciated.’

‘Can I ask how Patrick Rawson died?’ said Walsh.

‘It seems his head was kicked in by a horse.’

‘That’s the rumour I heard. Poetic justice, if you ask me.’

‘So the results from the postmortem suggest that Patrick Rawson’s head injury was caused by a blow from a horse’s hoof. The impression of the steel shoe is quite clear in his skull.’

‘He was kicked in the head by a horse?’

‘Or trodden on, while he was already on the ground.’

‘An accident, then,’ said Cooper. ‘An accident, after all.’

But Fry didn’t look too sure. ‘We can’t assume that. We won’t know for certain until we’ve established the sequence of events. And that means tracing the people who were present when he was killed. I’d be very interested to hear their account of the incident. And their explanation of why they rode off and left him to die, if it really was an accident. Even if there was no intention to kill, they could still find themselves facing manslaughter charges.’

Cooper was flicking through the list provided by Horse Watch. Brief details of missing and stolen horses, with phone numbers for the owners. No names, which was a pain. It made you look inefficient from the start when you had to ask an IP’s name.

A 14.2 hh chestnut mare of unknown breed, fifteen years old, suffers from arthritis. Very friendly. Taken from a farm near Buxton.

Dutch Warmblood mare, grey, 15.2 hh, thoroughbred in appearance, very well mannered and friendly. Stolen from a field in Derbyshire.

They all represented someone’s valued animal, often a friend. These were animals that had never been recovered. Who knew what might have happened to them?

There was another list circulating in the office, too. The complainants against Patrick Rawson and his associates in the Trading Standards investigation. There were even more of those, and they all had to be spoken to. But at least Dermot Walsh had supplied full names and addresses.

‘Which one of those is the most local?’ asked Fry, looking at Walsh’s list of aggrieved horse owners.

‘Just a second,’ said Cooper. ‘Yes, this one. Naomi Widdowson, Long Acres Farm.’

‘Widdowson?’

‘That’s right.’ Cooper looked up at the tone of Fry’s voice. ‘And an address near Eyam, too. Is there something in particular we should ask her, Diane?’

‘No,’ said Fry. ‘I’ll take that one myself.’

Cooper shrugged and passed her the details, then went back to his list from Horse Watch.

Piebald gelding, only owned by IP for six weeks, therefore no photos. Black and white, 15.3 hh, five years old. Stolen while on loan as companion horse.

Irish Draught gelding, grey, 16.1 hh, eleven years old, suffers from navicular and coffin joint arthritis. Stolen while on loan.

Stolen while on loan? Why did that crop up more than once? Was it common?

He sighed, anticipating the emotion and anger he was about to encounter, and began to make some phone calls.

Long Acres Farm wasn’t really in Eyam at all. It was a nominal address for an out-of-the-way holding that looked to be a lot closer to Birchlow than to Eyam. But Fry wasn’t surprised. That was typical of the eccentric way the parish boundaries were drawn in this part of the world.

Fry was certainly no expert on farming, but she thought Long Acres looked too small to be a farm. There were stables and a few paddocks, certainly. But nowhere near as much land as the Forbes owned at Watersaw House. This was on a much smaller scale, more run down, the surroundings much less pristine and tidy. Fry could see that she and Murfin would have to cross a makeshift drainage channel and a yard that had yet to be brushed out and washed down since the horses had passed through. She guessed there must be a shortage of willing stable girls on the Widdowsons’ payroll.

Jackdaws shouted and chattered in the trees as they stood by the car and looked at Long Acres. Large, muddy puddles lay between them and the house.

‘Come on, Gavin,’ said Fry.

‘Oh, shit.’

Naomi Widdowson had blonde hair tied back in a ragged ponytail. Dyed blonde, of course. Fry couldn’t often be fooled about that, but even someone like Gavin Murfin must have been able to see those roots. Naomi struck Fry as a bit hard-faced, her skin a bit too weathered. That was probably due to spending too much time outdoors.

‘Mrs Widdowson, is it?’ said Fry, showing her ID.

‘Miss. What do you lot want? I don’t like you being here.’

Fry tried to ignore the belligerent reception. It was something you got used to after a while, even from people you were trying to help. She looked around the yard, with the stone house to one side and the stables on the other, a row of horses’ heads peering out at her from around their hay racks.

‘Nice place. Do you live here alone?’

‘No. It’s my mum’s house really. My boyfriend Ade helps me with the horses. And there’s my little brother, Rick. But you knew that, didn’t you?’

‘No. That’s why I asked.’

‘It isn’t Rick you’re looking for, then?’

‘No — you, Miss Widdowson. We had your name from Dermot Walsh, of Trading Standards. You were interviewed some time ago as part of their investigation into fraudulent trading in horses.’

‘Oh, that,’ said Naomi, with a shrug.

‘You can’t have forgotten it.’

‘No. She was a mare that a woman had on loan from me. When the passport scheme came in, this person forged my consent on the application and got a passport for my horse, in her name. And then she sold the mare on. In foal, too. But it’s all over and done with. Someone got a rap on the knuckles. And then they were free to go off to rob some other poor sod.’

‘You weren’t satisfied with the outcome?’

Naomi laughed bitterly. ‘That doesn’t even deserve an answer. There are still a lot of con merchants out there,’ she said.

‘Speaking of which — did you ever come across Mr Patrick Rawson?’

‘No,’ said Naomi.

‘You never met him?’

‘No. But he’s one that people talk about a lot.’

‘People?’

‘Horse people. Whenever a few of us get together, at a meeting or an auction, or something. His is a name that comes up. There used to be a piece on a website, warning against him. But he got a lawyer to make us take it down. Threatened to sue for slander.’

‘Libel,’ said Fry.

‘What?’

‘That would be libel, not slander. A published form of defamation.’

‘Oh, thank you for the legal nit-picking. How is trying to protect other people from a con man a crime? That’s what I want to know.’

‘It depends how it’s done,’ said Fry.

Naomi sneered. ‘You lot are bloody useless. You and those Trading Standards people. You never did anything to Rawson. He got away scot free.’