The Stabbing in the Stables

by Simon Brett

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Well, be very careful. Don’t forget you’re dealing with a very dangerous paranoid Paddy who has a lot of form for acts of violence.” Yet again he demonstrated an ironical awareness of his image, the fact that he could choose when he wanted to live up to it.

  “Putting Lucinda on one side,” said Carole, “who else might be in the frame?”

  “Ah.” Donal squinted at her. “I didn’t have you down as a racing woman, Carole.”

  “What do you mean? I’ve never been to the races in my life. I’m certainly not a racing woman.”

  “No, but you use racing talk.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “‘In the frame.’ Now isn’t that a reference to horses in a photo finish?”

  “I don’t know. Is it?”

  “Well, what else could it be?”

  “I thought it had something to do with pictures, or photographs, that kind of frame.”

  “No, no, I’ve done my research. The phrase definitely comes from the racing world.”

  “It’s funny, Donal,” said Jude. “I wouldn’t have had you down as an expert on semantics.”

  “Which just shows how wrong you can be. Never judge a book by its cover.”

  “No. Well, you are a dark horse.”

  “Ah, you see now, Jude. You’re a racing woman too.”

  Jude chuckled. “I have been racing, and I love it, but I wouldn’t say I was a racing woman.”

  “Well, I think you both are racing women.” Donal looked down at his empty glass. “Mind you, you don’t seem to be very fast-drinking women.”

  Jude’s eyes flashed a quick message to Carole, who stood up and said, “Let me get this one. You still all right, Jude?”

  “Nearly ready for another.” Her glass was half full, but she reckoned drinking with Donal might make him more relaxed and communicative.

  With Carole at the bar, Jude plunged straight back into interrogation mode. “We did hear something about the circumstances of your being banned from this pub, actually.”

  “Oh yes?”

  “Your having a fight with Walter Fleet…”

  “Uh-huh.” He didn’t seem upset by her line of questioning, just waiting to see where she was really heading.

  “Presumably the police knew about that?”

  “Of course. Another reason for them to make me their first suspect.”

  “We did also hear about something you said when you were arguing with Walter…”

  “Well, you have been doing your research, haven’t you?” he commented sardonically.

  “Apparently you said, ‘You’re not worthy of her! She’s beautiful and you don’t deserve her!’”

  “What if I did?”

  “To the casual listener, that could make it sound as if your argument with Walter was about a woman.”

  “I suppose it could.”

  “So was it about a woman?”

  “You’re a nosey cow, aren’t you, Jude?” But it was said without malice; he was still feeling the benefits of two large Jameson’s and a third in prospect.

  “Yes, I am a nosey cow, which is why I would quite like an answer.”

  “And why should I give you one?”

  “Why not?”

  She had taken the right approach; he appeared tickled by her response. “So you’re reckoning maybe I was having a bit of the old illicit sex with Lucinda. Is that where you’re coming from?”

  “It’d fit the known facts.”

  “But it might fail rather badly to tie in with the unknown facts, mightn’t it?” He smiled teasingly, as if weighing up what kind of answer to give her—and indeed whether to give her an answer at all. Eventually he said, “Suppose I was talking about a horse.”

  “The ‘she’ who Walter was ‘not worthy of ’?”

  “Why not? It could have been a horse.”

  “I think the odds are against it.”

  Donal Geraghty chuckled. “You’re doing it again. You are a racing woman, you know.”

  “Maybe,” Jude conceded with a smile. “But is the horse answer the best I’m going to get?”

  “It is so,” he replied, affecting an even heavier brogue. “That’s the best you’ll have from me. And, as it happens, it’s God’s honest truth. The owner of the stables and the mad Irish tinker had words about a horse—that’s all there was to it.”

  “But surely—”

  “Here are the drinks,” said Carole.

  Donal smiled at Jude, as if he’d engineered the end of their previous conversation. “And that’s all I’m going to tell you,” he said, reaching for his glass, without any thanks, and taking a long swallow.

  “All you’re going to tell me about that,” Jude countered. “Maybe you’ll tell me more about something else?”

  Carole, recognising that Jude might be getting somewhere, sat down quietly with her drink.

  “And what might that something else be?” asked Donal.

  “Ooh…” Jude teased. “What about blackmail?”

  He chuckled. “I don’t think there’s anything I could be blackmailed about by anyone in the world. You see, the one qualification you have to have for being blackmailed is to have something to lose, and”—he shrugged—“that counts me out.”

  “I wasn’t meaning you being blackmailed. I was meaning you blackmailing someone else.”

  “Oh yes?” He knew exactly what she was referring to, but played deliberately dumb.

  “When we were at Long Bamber you spoke of your knowing something about a couple’s marriage, and their being prepared to pay you money to keep you quiet.”

  “Did I now?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you want me to tell you who I was talking about?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, aren’t you just the nosey one, Jude? I don’t suppose you were thinking of offering me money for the information, were you?”

  “No.”

  “So let me get it straight what you’re asking me. I have some information that is worth money to me. You want me to give you that information for free. It doesn’t sound like much of a deal.”

  “I’ll buy you another drink.”

  “Well, that’s exceedingly generous, and yes, I’ll take you up on that deal.” He emptied what was left in his glass, and smiled impudently at Carole. “Maybe you’d like to get me topped up, dear?”

  Biting her lip to hold back an interesting variety of responses, she returned to the bar, where she had to take her place behind a queue of anoraked ramblers who had just entered the pub.

  “But you could buy me a whole bottle of Jameson’s, Jude,” Donal went on, “—a crate of the stuff—and I still don’t see why I should tell you the secret that will hopefully provide me with a nice little meal ticket for the next few months—my only prospect of a meal ticket, as it happens. Why should I?”

  Jude’s charm had been known on occasions to work wonders. Oh, well, it was worth a try. “Because I’m asking you to.”

  Donal Geraghty shook his head. “You know it’s a long time since I’ve done something stupid for the sake of a pretty face. I think I could be said to have learnt my lesson there.”

  She tried another approach. “Then let me try a bit of guessing.”

  “Guess away. It won’t get you anywhere.”

  “If you have a secret about a married couple, then it’s probably not something they told you deliberately. It’s more likely to be something you overheard.” He offered no encouragement, but Jude persevered. “So the couple didn’t know you were there, and, given the kind of places where you spend most of your life, it was probably round some stables or other that you heard whatever it was—possibly some stables that you were at the time using as your ‘no fixed abode.’ Not Long Bamber, because Lucinda wouldn’t let you stay there, but somewhere else…round here…? You said at the stables that you needed to come down to Fethering. So if it’s, as you say, your only meal ticket, maybe your secret involves people
who live round—”

  “Will you shut up!” He was rattled now. It might be something she had said that had so suddenly changed his mood. Or it might be the return of his hangover. His hands twitched and once again there was a sheen of sweat on his brow. He was in desperate need of another infusion of alcohol. “Will you hurry along with that drink, you silly cow!” he shouted.

  Carole was prepared to put up with a lot in the cause of criminal investigation, but not to be called names in a public place in Fethering. Whatever would people think of her? She was unable to stop herself from shouting back, “I’ll thank you not to be so appallingly rude!”

  The customers who hadn’t been silenced by Donal’s outburst certainly were by Carole’s response. Raised voices were not common in Fethering. It was a very long time since anything so interesting had happened in the Crown and Anchor.

  The shouting had another effect too. The door from the kitchen burst open, and framed in it stood the shaggy outline of Ted Crisp. “All right, what’s going on here?” he bellowed.

  His eyes moved round the room, and very quickly fixed on the source of the disturbance. “Why, you little swine!” he said, as he moved forward. “Are you too Irish to understand plain English? You’re banned from this pub! Get out!”

  Donal rose to his—remarkably steady—feet. For a small man, he carried a lot of menace. “And who’s going to make me get out?”

  “I am.” Ted Crisp’s huge body loomed over his opponent. If there was going to be a fight, it looked like an unequal one.

  But Donal was fast. Feinting with his right hand up towards the landlord’s face, he flicked a hard left fist straight into the bulging midriff. As Ted folded in the middle, Donal’s bunched right hand caught him full in the nose. Instantly, blood spattered.

  But, in spite of his injuries, Ted Crisp was surprisingly speedy in his response. His huge arms swung forward and the hands caught on the shoulders of his retreating assailant. Quickly, they closed together around the stubbly neck.

  Donal twisted and wriggled, raining blows into the unprotected stomach in front of him. Dripping blood from his opponent’s nose flecked his face and clothes. But still Ted did not release his grip.

  “All right, you asked for it, you stupid bastard!” the Irishman gasped through his constricted throat.

  The movement was so fast that none of the appalled audience could have described what happened. Just suddenly there was a small knife in Donal’s right hand. Jerked upwards, the blade disappeared into the folds of Ted Crisp’s fleece.

  That did make him release his grip. Tottering backwards, the landlord fell against the support of his bar. His opponent, without even wiping it, slid the bloody knife back into its hiding place. He looked around the silent onlookers with something approaching glee. Then, with a defiant laugh, he rushed out of the pub.

  20

  THE APPALLED SILENCE continued. Then, to her surprise, Carole found herself rushing forward to Ted Crisp’s side. A patch of red, almost black against the dark blue of his fleece, was spreading on his chest. “Are you all right? Ted, are you all right?”

  His eyes looked wearily down at the spreading blood, then seemed to swim for a moment, unseeing. Oh God, Carole found herself thinking, don’t let me lose him. She was surprised by the strength of the emotion. In the past she had had an incongruous relationship with Ted, and like most incongruous relationships it had been brief. And yet, now his life was threatened, she felt this surge of panicked desperation at the thought of his dying.

  The moment passed. Refusing Carole’s offered arm, Ted Crisp pushed himself against the counter back up to a standing position. “God, that Donal’s a stupid bastard.” Then, looking round at the hushed circle of Fethering pensioners, he said firmly, “No one gets to hear about this, okay? I’m not going to mention it to the police, and I’ll be bloody angry if I hear anyone else has done so. I don’t want the Crown and Anchor getting a reputation for violence, just because of one lunatic Irishman. He’s had a grudge against me for a long time, that’s all. So I’ll thank you all to forget this ever happened—have you got that?”

  Without waiting for a response—and rather magnificently—the landlord turned on his heel and walked round the counter into the pub kitchen. Even if she’d wanted to, Carole could not have stopped herself from following. And Jude went along too. Behind them they heard the shocked silence give way to twitterings of excited conversation.

  The chef, who had been blithely heating up crumbly cod pies during the recent altercation, looked up in surprise at the invasion of his kitchen. His eyes widened as he saw the stain on Ted’s chest.

  “Don’t worry about it. Only a flesh wound. Get back to your cooking.”

  Unwillingly, the chef did as he was told. Ted subsided into a wooden chair.

  “Do you have a first aid kit?” asked Jude practically.

  “Over in that cupboard by the window.”

  Carole moved towards him, reaching to unzip the perforated fleece. He brushed her hand away. “I can do it.”

  But he couldn’t. After a couple of attempts, he let his arms flop to his sides and offered no resistance as Carole cautiously unzipped the garment and eased it off his shoulders. On the dirty grey of the sweatshirt beneath, the bloodstain was much bigger, seeping down towards the waistband of his jeans.

  “Going to have to get that off too.”

  He nodded, grimacing at the promise of pain. First Jude used a dampened tea cloth to wipe away the blood from his nose. After that, she stood ready, the plastic first aid box open on a table beside her, while Carole first pulled the fabric away from the stickiness around the wound, then lifted the sweatshirt up from the bottom. His face set in a determination not to cry out, Ted raised his arms and let her slip it away from his body.

  Jude moved in, towel at the ready. “Stop me if it hurts.”

  “Doesn’t make much difference if it hurts or not,” said Ted, reasonably enough. “Got to be done.”

  There was a second of stillness, while the two women looked at his torso. There was a lot of blood, its source apparently just below the left breast, still flowing through the matted hair of his paunch till it darkened into the top of his jeans.

  All Carole could think was how near the knife had gone to Ted’s heart, how nearly he had been killed.

  Jude moved the damp towel determinedly forward, and starting from the bottom, swept upward over his skin in gentle but firm strokes, mopping away the blood. For a moment the flow threatened to drench the flesh again, but then it slowed to a trickle. Jude wiped the gory towel around the area of the wound itself, finally revealing a one-inch open line of puncture in a fold of skin.

  “See,” said Ted Crisp, who couldn’t see it. “Just a flesh wound. Thank God he’d only got a Stanley knife. The blade’s too short to do any serious damage.”

  Jude looked closely. “Might benefit from a couple of stitches.”

  “No. Just slap a dressing on. It’ll be fine.”

  Dubiously, Jude did as he suggested. A bit of gauze over the cut, a rectangular dressing of lint, held in place by strips of semitransparent white tape.

  “Well, you’re patched up.”

  “Sure,” said Ted. “I’m fine. Pass me that T-shirt hanging on the back of the door.”

  Carole did as instructed. The T-shirt had been printed for a lager promotion some several summers before and, from the smell of it, had hung on its peg ever since, absorbing the aromas of the kitchen.

  Carole pulled the neckband wide to fit over his shaggy head, guided his arms into the armholes and pulled the T-shirt down to cover him.

  All three of them looked anxiously at the site of the wound to see if any telltale blood would seep through.

  None did. Disguising the effort it cost him, Ted Crisp rose to his feet. “Well, I don’t know about you two, but I could use a large drink.”

  Carole followed him through into the bar. She was still in shock, not from the violent confrontation she had just witnesse
d, but from the strength of her emotional reaction to Ted’s jeopardy.

  Until the other lunchtime customers had left, Ted Crisp was particularly loud and jovial in the bar, like a national leader determined to dispel press speculation about his health. But he drank a lot—Scotch, unlike his usual bitter—to counter the shock he had undoubtedly felt. And all the time, his two companions kept looking uneasily at his chest, to check that the flow of blood had really been staunched.

  When there were just the three of them left, Carole asked, “Are you really not going to tell the police, Ted?”

  “What use would it do?”

  “It might remove Donal from circulation.”

  “And what use would that do? He’s not really a threat to anyone.”

  “You say that, with a fresh stab wound only inches from your heart?”

  Ted could not prevent a small shudder at the image. “Look, if I do shop him, the cops’ll just have another go at stitching him up for the Long Bamber murder—which I’m sure he didn’t do.”

  “I think you’re being very altruistic.”

  “Altruistic nothing, Carole. I just don’t see the point of someone being charged with a crime they didn’t commit.”

  With her Home Office background, she could not help agreeing with him.

  “It’s a pity, though,” mused Jude, “that we’ve lost touch with Donal. I think he does know something about what happened to Walter Fleet. He hinted as much.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.” Ted’s voice was heavy with mock apology. “I’m sorry that my inviting him to stab me has resulted in your losing your best source of information.”

  “You know I didn’t mean that.”

  He grinned weakly. The skin that showed above his unkempt beard was pale and strained. However much bravado he was showing, the fight had traumatised him.

  “No, I know you didn’t. Well, I can’t imagine Donal’s gone that far. He won’t stray out of the area. Shouldn’t be too hard to find him. He’ll lay low for a few days in some unsuspecting owner’s stables, then he’ll be back round his usual haunts—the Cheshire Cheese, George Tufton’s yard, Fontwell races. You’ll track him down soon enough.”