Ghosts from the Past

by Sally Spedding

  “The madman’s in here with Kevin, our jockey,” she hissed, leading the way into a vast, vaulted space lined with trophies, photos and sculptures of racehorses, warmed by a huge, glowing wood-burner and lit by six suspended contemporary iron nests swaying on some invisible air current.

  Not cheap.

  Nor the fitted kitchen and its red Aga installed at the nearest end where two men of contrasting age and size sat at a long, wooden table with an empty coffee mug apiece. Next to the older, taller man lay an open sketching pad bearing scattered crayons, while over the back of the chair lay a boy’s red anorak with a Superman logo below the collar. The man’s hand rested on it as he stopped talking to look up at us.

  A coiled spring came to mind.

  “I told you to keep out of my sight,” he snapped in French at his daughter. “Go and see to Vervain. Tomorrow is most definitely on, despite your efforts at sabotage.”

  She threw me a look of despair before running out, while the much younger, fair-haired man I assumed to be Kevin Lockley, and who’d not yet turned round, clamped his chapped hands around his head.

  “Monsieur Lyon, n’est-ce-pas?” Alain Deschamps got to his feet and came over to shake my hand. His sharp, blue eyes soon strayed to the noticeable swell of support bandaging around my left ankle. “I appreciate you coming over, but are you sure you’re…”

  “Up to the job? Try me. I’m fine. On the mend and…” for the third time that day, I whipped out my ID. “Mathieu must be found alive and well as soon as possible. Has this house and outbuildings been thoroughly searched?”

  A snort of disdain.

  “Thorough would not apply to our local flics, Monsieur.”

  “Why you got rid of them, wasn’t it, sir?” said Lockley.

  Just then, the landline telephone set between wall units began to ring. The trainer gestured for his jockey to take it. “If it’s another reporter, just say piss off.”

  He did, and returned to the table. “I wonder who tipped off the BBC though? That was a bolt out of the blue…”

  “When?” I asked.

  “While sir was with the farrier.”

  “You should have told me,” said his boss.

  The jockey looked abject.

  I spotted Laure beyond the window, head down. Miserable as sin, too.

  “Maybe there’s someone or more than one, who wants to give your family full exposure,” I ventured. “Someone with a grudge, perhaps?”

  A shake of the head. Was it too quick, I wondered as the Frenchman’s unnerving focus turned on me with his own question.

  “So, you’re staying at the Coed Glas Hotel near Fishguard, but how well do you know this area?” This column of a man, clean-shaven, clean bones with the same hungry hawk look as his daughter, stood over his son’s sketchbook.

  “I’m learning fast, and judging by who I’ve met on my travels, it’s got extremes.”

  “Extremes?”

  I paused. “Either friendly, outgoing like your mother, Mr Lockley, or downright hostile.”

  “He’s right,” said Kevin, perking up. “It’s weird how bloody nosy most of them are too, but when you want help, like while I was out searching for Mathieu earlier, d’you get it? No. And look what happened while you tried doing this place up?” He eyed his boss. “Every bloody obstacle under the sun suddenly appeared. Remember?”

  “How can I forget? But look, Monsieur Lyon, we came here for its beauty and tranquillity,” Alain Deschamps said with a thread of wistfulness in his voice. “And so far, despite everything, we’ve thrived. I’ve had more winners since leaving France, than in all the years before. Thanks to Kevin here, and loyal owners especially one based near Aberaeron. But it was My Head Lad who really twisted my arm after… after my wife…”

  He struggled to regain his composure.

  “I already know,” I said, recalling Laure’s brief, tragic story. “But if you want me involved, I’ll need to be put properly in the picture. Danny Lennox, for a start. Laure seems to rate him...”

  A small frown deepened between the trainer’s eyebrows.

  “I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘anything in trousers’ but I’m convinced she’s held a flame for him ever since he knocked on our door at Les Saules Pleureurs.”

  Weeping Willows…

  “You’re right, sir,” Kevin said. “And there’s an ex-wife somewhere up north. Showed me her photo straight off when we first met.”

  “Duns, to be exact,” interjected the trainer. “Near the Scottish border. I hope to God he’s not decided to up sticks there without telling anyone.” He ran a forefinger around the rim of his mug, making it squeak. “I admit I’ve been worried about him recently.”

  “But would he really leave all this?” The jockey’s impatience to be off home was obvious. “With Mathieu gone missing as well? Danny told me you’d given him the family he’d never had. But if he has gone, he must be travelling light as I didn’t see him put any gear in his car.” He glanced at his expensive watch. Doubtless a gift from a grateful owner.

  “Did anyone see him leave after he’d helped Laure get back here with Vervain?” I asked, sensing both events might be connected.

  “No,” said the Frenchman. “He kept his old Range Rover the other side of Ty Capel by the graveyard. Vervain had kicked it once. Near the petrol tank. That was why.”

  “And has your son anywhere in particular he likes to play?”

  “Yes. A derelict farm over near the quarry. You see, Monsieur Lyon, I’m convinced he’s out there somewhere, maybe trying to make us anxious. Any attention’s better than nothing isn’t it?”

  I tried not to register surprise at this odd remark. But hadn’t that unhelpful school secretary implied neglect? Didn’t those savage cuts to Laure’s hair speak more loudly than mere words?

  “I’m no child psychologist,” I said. “You know him best. Nevertheless, I’ve seen enough damage caused to young lives by unjust custody orders, drugs and other crime to realise each child had their own way of coping with life. And death.”

  Alain Deschamps turned the pages of his son’s sketchbook back and fore. From where I stood, the boy’s drawings seemed to represent a strong imagination.

  “You see,” he said, “since Christine died, I’m afraid both my kids have problems coming to terms with it.”

  “Christine was your wife?” I had to be sure.

  A nod.

  “And her relationship with Laure?”

  Another shrug as a draught of wind down the chimney made the wood-burner’s glow fiercer than ever and the posh lights to flicker. “Pas mal. But what could I do?” He turned to me. “Do you have kids?”

  Damn…

  I mentally glimpsed Alison again in that sequined halter dress. How her body had felt against mine between the sheets. How I’d wanted to stay in bed with her for ever…

  “Not yet. No.”

  And was the jockey smiling?

  “I think I know why Mathieu skips school,” he volunteered. “He can’t get his head round the lingo. Or the other kids. Can you blame him? I can just about say bore da and nos da and I’ve lived here for yonks.” He turned to his employer. “But he’s never out this long, is he, sir?”

  Silence, save for that roaring wind rattling every loose thing. A mug of hot coffee

  would have been very welcome indeed.

  “I’ve put in for a trace on that call which Cardigan HQ passed on to DC Evans at the hotel,” I said. “Be interesting to see who was responsible. I also called in at the school. Must say, the secretary there hardly put out the welcome mat.”

  “Great,” said Kevin getting up and pulling his hand-kmitted jumper’s hood over his head. “Time for action. I’m off to that farm.”

  “Call me when you get there,” said Deschamps as if he’d not heard a word. “Will do.” Kevin paused by the door. “Like you sir, I’ve tried Danny’s Nokia but it’s dead.” He then paused. “Was never sure about him from the start, to be honest. Away with t
he fairies if you ask me.”

  Deschamps closed his son’s sketchbook.

  “Fuck Danny Lennox.”

  *

  With that young jockey gone, I summarised to my host what the hotel’s beleaguered owner had told me about DC Evans’ less than fragrant brother who owned a powerful rifle and police issue radio. I then asked if he’d noticed him around Glan y Mor or Ty Capel.

  “No. And another good reason to keep that flic out of it.”

  “Would you object if I asked your other staff where they were at one o’clock. today?”

  “When?”

  “Say, half an hour?”

  “There’s only Gilles, our farrier who’s on site all the time.”

  “How long’s he been with you?”

  A moment’s awkwardness. I knew the signs.

  “You’d better know. He’s got history, but never put a foot wrong since I took him on in the autumn of 1975.”

  “History?” I queried. “You mean form?”

  “For le cambriolage. He served six years, in Poitiers.”

  “Burglary? That’s a hefty term. There must have been something else.”

  “He’d been a user.” The trainer placed himself by the window. “Needing the money, he’d said. I helped his rehabilitation only because he was the best farrier in the region. We all go off the rails sometimes, don’t we?”

  That last, slow dance…

  “Any other staff I should know about?” I pressed on.

  “My vet, other stable hands and work riders come in early every morning. Mathieu adores them all.”

  “In total?”

  “Six. Utterly reliable.”

  “Does he get on with this Gilles?”

  Another pause broken by two intrusive phone calls. Twice the receiver being slapped back into its cradle made me start.

  “So-so. Gilles tolerates him, but it’s dangerous near the flames, and Mathieu doesn’t always understand.”

  “And your daughter?”

  “Monsieur, as you must have already guessed, Laure is Laure.”

  *

  I went over to the boy’s things on other side of the table.

  “May I take a look?”

  “Of course. She’d suggested he draw rockets to keep him occupied. They’re his favourite subject. As you can see, he’s a gifted little artist. His bedroom’s up there if you want.” He pointed to stairs at the far end of the huge, vaulted room. “Next to his sister’s, with his name on the door. I’ve not touched anything. Nor did those two dumb flics. I made sure of that. A pair of monkeys if ever there was.”

  “At lest they’ve access to a helicopter with thermal imaging, etcetera.”

  “But unlike them, Monsieur Lyon, you seem to have a brain. And initiative.”

  *

  We agreed to meet up in fifteen minutes time when the Frenchman would fill in the yawning gaps in his family’s story. When perhaps - if Mathieu hadn’t simply wandered off - some real progress as to possible motive and opportunity for other less innocent scenarios could be discussed. However, several things had already struck me as odd. One, this man’s strange self-containment. His sang-froid coupled with the complete lack of any family photographs around the house. Yes, there were thoroughbreds a-plenty, leaping and galloping, passing winning posts, but if I was to become properly involved, I’d need a recent image of Mathieu sharpish. And the rest.

  *

  With the place to myself, I inspected the boy’s anorak. The label said Millet’s. It seemed hardly worn with a plaid lining for extra warmth. In the right-hand pocket I found two screwed-up Chewit wrappers and an HB pencil stub, probably from school. The left pocket yielded nothing save a few strands of dried moss and biscuit crumbs. Digestives, I noticed.

  I remembered my own pockets at that age, while Carol and myself still had our parents. Fat, white marbles with a twist of vivid colour inside. A neat, black torch and best of all, a penknife with ILFRACOMBE scripted along its polished, wooden handle.

  Once Mum and Dad had died and we’d moved in with our grandmother, these precious items mysteriously vanished. Only years later did I discover that my sister Carol, overly tidy and practical, had thrown them away.

  I’d recognised that same loss in Laure’s eyes, and wished her father - in public at least - could show her rather more empathy. Perhaps to survive in his thrusting world, she too, had adpoted his same detachment, especially where Mathieu’s absence was concerned.

  His sketchbook proved intriguing and, still unable to shift that supposedly reformed farrier from my mind, I studied the six skilfully finished drawings of rockets - all showing intricate and realistic detail - all with French titles. Marraine Rapide, L’Aventurer Express des Étoiles, Lumière de Ciel, Christine et sa Charette…

  I looked more closely at this last, colourful drawing and there, in the second of its thee windows was the face of a woman with bright yellow hair and tears on her cheeks.

  His mother.

  Had the young artist having finished this, gone out for some reason on the spur of the moment? Had something upset him? Or, as Alain Deschamps had suggested, was his plan to cause trouble? And who was the black-faced godmother in the first drawing, travelling skywards in a matching black machine? I needed to ask, and also discover the context of Christine Deschamps’ suicide. If she’d been alone. If a final, insurmountable straw had been the cause.

  *

  Then came sounds of shouting and shod hooves striking the yard’s Tarmac. Beyond the window, a tall, chestnut beast was resisting the trainer’s efforts to saddle him. And was that Laure looking in through the glass, keeping her eye on me? Biding her time?

  Seconds were ticking away.

  Still without the aid of my stick, I managed to climb upstairs with the so far meagre pickings turning over in my mind. Yet surely I was missing something that was probably staring me in the face. An important clue that only a half-wit would miss.

  Fifteen minutes was almost up, with no sign of the lad’s father re-joining me. A man tuned in to tight schedules as he was, should be here without me having to beg. Perhaps after all, the prospect of opening Pandora’s box had less appeal than being bitten by a bad-tempered horse.

  The door to Laure’s room which I’d correctly guessed overlooked the small graveyard, was marked by a simple black L and locked. Mathieu’s, however, off of the landing’s centre, was wide open as if he’d just left it. His Petit Prince curtains still drawn, and the matching duvet piled into a heap on the single bed reinforced this impression. Again, not a single photograph or passport was on show, nor any further evidence of his handwriting. Plenty of the usual toys, however, including several plastic spaceships, made in Taiwan, while books mostly on the planets and the moon landing, filled a narrow shelf over his bed.

  I pulled one out and checked the frontespiece.

  10 septembre 1986. À Mathieu, mon cher filleul de ta marraine. EJ x x

  Whoever and wherever this godmother was, she’d clearly been or still could be, an important part of his life. But why that black face in his sketchbook, when everything else had been so vividly coloured in? Was she perhaps of mixed race? Even Algerian?

  In the room’s far corner stood a decorated wooden chest, not unlike the one Carol and I shared as orphaned kids at our grandparents’ house. I opened the lid on more toys, puzzles, a well-worn Rubik’s Cube, draughts and a scaled-down chess board with plastic pieces. And then, having dug right down to the bottom layer crammed full from younger days, felt something that made me snatch my breath.

  Hair.

  Lots of it, glued around an undressed doll’s bland, vinyl face. I sniffed its slight floral scent, touched the fine, blonde fibres, realising they were human. Also, instinctively, that they were female.

  Be careful on two counts, I warned myself while the rain against the roof above, began to ease. Had this weird doll made in Nantes with instructions to hand wash only in lukewarm water, been buried so deep in the box because it had been stolen? If
so, from whom? And if, as my instinct also suggested, it represented Mathieu’s blonde-haired, dead mother – possibly important traces were best left undisturbed.

  Nothing that my former forensic colleagues couldn’t sort out if necessary.

  Having pulled out a less obvious section of hair and secreted it inside my jeans’ s back pocket, I returned the doll to its original place, closed the box lid and fractionally parted the curtains. The scene below was one one of rain-soaked chaos. Kevin Lockley yelling out a name at the top of his voice then, with both index fingers shoved in his mouth, whistling with such a penetrating energy that a monster of a black horse being shod in the open shed behind him, knocked over the farrier and reared up, almost striking its head on the roof.

  Laure helped the sour-faced man to his feet and grabbed the halter rope while her father still tried to calm the chestnut; sweat lathering its muscled flanks. Then Vervain, who’d somehow barged his way out of his box, was careering round and round. Dung dropping like coconuts from under his raised tail.

  No time to check out the Head Lad’s own little bathroom, instead, I made it down the stairs and, forgetting to grab my jacket, was soon among the melée with that pale grey horse bearing down on top of me. Wild eyes, blood-red nostrils, and Laure screaming at me to get out of the way. But I’d not out of the way in France last year when the going got tough, and I certainly wasn’t going to here.

  “C’mon, mate,” I said, holding out my arms to the animal. “Give over, eh?”

  Immediately, he pulled up, sniffed around my hair with a whiskery mouth, and allowed me grab his halter.

  The yard fell silent as Laure came over and retrieved her precious horse. Relief softening her tense features as she thanked me, while Kevin who’d repeatedly said sorry to his boss, gave me the thumbs up.

  “I must find my dog,” he then said. “She ran off before we reached Hafod Wen, that old farm, and she’s nowhere round here either.”

  “Remember our priority?” Said Alain Deschamps.

  Whether the young jockey had heard him or not, he wheeled out a muddy quad bike from an empty loose box, mounted it and left the yard in a storm of spray.

  *

  Gilles Dugard. The half hour was up.