Then, after cups of tea and plenty of hugs for Cracker and Frostie, the girls climbed into Mr Honeycott’s pick-up truck for their lift back to the farm.
With no feeds to lug over to the common land, or water to change, or hay to spread out, the late afternoon stable chores were over far too quickly. So instead they spent ages hanging out with their own ponies, and talking about the Christmas outfits they’d wear to Fran’s charity ride on the twenty-third of December, the day after next.
“Well, there’s no way I’m dressing Phantom up,” Charlie grinned. “If I put reindeer antlers on him I’ll probably get a repeat performance of that bolt I had up the Abbey track!”
“I’ve got a bunch of pink tinsel to wrap around me and Wish,” Mia grinned, getting excited already about the hack.
“I hope it’s not too dull if it’s just all round the roads,” Rosie groaned. “I feel like that’s all we’ve done recently. The tracks through the Abbey are pretty much the only safe woodland ones that don’t freeze up.”
“Were the only safe ones,” Alice corrected her. “Anyway, even if it is all road work, it’s still for a good cause.”
While they waited in the stables for Charlie’s mum to turn up, they quickly texted Fran, to find out how Cracker and Frostie were settling in.
They’re delightful, but won’t be here long! New home found for them together ALREADY. Will update you at Charity Ride!
“I can’t believe it!” Alice said, happily. “And they get to stay together, too!”
“I want to know more right now,” Rosie said, urgently, feeling the excitement bubble up inside her, “it’ll feel like forever waiting ’til we see Fran at the ride!”
“If the ride goes ahead, that is,” Mia said, gesturing outside. The mist was starting to roll in again, glowing silver in the late afternoon light. “If this stuff doesn’t clear there won’t even be a ride.”
Charlie suddenly felt a shiver. “It was misty when the Greenfield ponies were let loose, wasn’t it?”
The others thought for a moment, then Mia nodded. “And it was mentioned in the paper, when Mrs Maplethorp’s gates were opened.”
“When Cracker and Frostie were abandoned,” Alice added, “it was misty then, too…”
“It could be coincidence, couldn’t it?” Rosie frowned.
“Fran’s got all her horses safe in barns, remember,” Mia said, trying to sound positive. “And Rosie’s right, it could just be a coincidence.”
At that moment Charlie’s mum’s car pulled up. The girls said goodbye, and left the yard reluctantly. Their own ponies may have been safely tucked up in their stables, but they still felt uneasy about what new disaster the silver mist might leave in its wake.
CHARLIE had taken ages to fall asleep. She’d been looking outside her window every five minutes. Not that it had helped. The mist had grown thicker, making her more and more unsettled. When she was woken by the insistent, brash ring of her phone, the room was still pitch black.
“Neve?” Charlie yawned, rolling over as she answered the call. She felt all disorientated, wondering why Pirate’s loaner would be calling her in the middle of the night. “What’s up?”
Charlie’s yawn ended abruptly as she heard the panic in the voice at the other end of the phone. She was sitting upright in a second, her heart drumming inside her chest so hard that she thought it might explode. Only one thought was in her head.
“Pirate!” Charlie gulped. “Is he okay?”
Charlie was struggling to piece together Neve’s desperate words, but with a sickening dread she realised that Hope Farm had been broken into, and horses set loose. Pirate was fine, his barn hadn’t been broken into, but Neve’s next words made Charlie’s heart pound even harder.
“Some of the horses in the stables were let out?” Charlie gasped. This was a new development – until now horses had been let out of fields. But stables…? Suddenly it dawned on her what Neve was getting to. She felt her stomach flip upside down, but she still wasn’t prepared for the news that was about to hit her.
Neve’s voice began to crack, and she became tearful. Charlie didn’t want to hear what Neve was saying, but she couldn’t block the words out. Cracker and Frostie, along with another couple of horses had been let out of their stables. A motorbike had been heard, circling and revving its engine hard. Neve wasn’t sure if it was just to make a quick getaway, or a deliberate attempt to scare the horses. Either way, they’d bolted, scattering onto the lanes. By the time Fran had found them, it was too late. About two miles away towards town, in thick mist on a blind corner, she’d discovered Frostie, who was quivering by the verge. Cracker lay beside him in the road. A lorry driver had been kneeling by the handsome bay horse’s head. Cracker’s eyes were open, but they’d never see again. He was dead.
Charlie couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night. She didn’t know how she would manage to find the words to tell the others. The following morning, she turned up at Blackberry Farm with puffy eyes, still numb. Alice wouldn’t believe her, even though she knew it must be true from Charlie’s face. Rosie bit her lip hard, but couldn’t keep the tears from tumbling down her face and even Mia, who was normally so composed, sat heavily at the kitchen table, too stunned to talk.
Mrs Honeycott dabbed her eyes a couple of times as she made the girls hot, sweet drinks. Will sat awkwardly at the table. He looked like he wanted an excuse to leave the kitchen, and seconds later he nipped out to feed the waiting ponies in the yard without the girls even having to ask. Mr Honeycott offered to run the girls home and sort out the stables himself, but all they wanted was to be with their ponies.
On the way to Dancer’s stable, Rosie saw some tufts of brown hair, mixed with white, blown to the edge of the tack room. She bent and picked them up. It was Cracker and Frostie’s hair, from when the girls had groomed them the day before. Rosie stroked it, hardly able to believe that less than twenty-four hours earlier, Cracker had stood in that very spot, quietly being brushed and fussed over, ahead of Fran’s arrival. Now everything had changed. Mia came and stood next to her friend. Rosie’s body shook with a huge, jagged sigh. She gave a tuft of the brown hair to Mia. They both slipped them into their pockets before heading to their ponies.
Wish was at the stable door, looking for Mia. The mare’s huge dark-brown, long lashed eyes looked sad, as if Wish was sensing Mia’s mood. Wish stretched out her muzzle, and blew warm breath through her nostrils over Mia’s face, tickling Mia with her whiskers. The mare briefly rested her chin on Mia’s shoulder. When Mia let herself into her pony’s stable, she slid her hands under Wish’s blanket, taking comfort from her pony’s warmth. Wish stood quietly and for a moment, a peaceful hush fell over the stables. But the silence didn’t last long.
“Ow, Dancer!” Rosie squawked indignantly, through her tears. “There really is nothing stashed away under my hat!”
Rosie let herself out of Dancer’s stable, and let herself into Wish’s, rubbing her forehead.
“I hope your pony’s better at giving sympathy than Dancer,” Rosie grumbled as she gently tapped Wish’s muzzle. “She never misses an opportunity to rummage for a treat, no matter what the occasion.”
“A bit like her owner, then,” Alice said with a half sniff, half laugh as she let herself out of Scout’s stable, and into Wish’s, too. Charlie joined them, looking puzzled.
“What’s up?” Rosie asked, wiping her dripping nose on her glove.
“Neve just called,” Charlie said. a “I texted to ask if she knew who Fran had lined up as Cracker and Frostie’s new owners. She called me straightaway.” Charlie took a deep breath. Even saying Cracker’s name bought a fresh lump to her throat.
“And?” Alice asked. Yesterday they couldn’t wait to find out, but now Alice wasn’t sure she even really wanted to know, because if it was somewhere perfect, it would make Cracker’s death even more painful to bear.
Charlie sighed, screwing up her face slightly. “Well, you might not believe this,” she said, �
��but it was Nick Webb. Nick went with Billy to see Fran about both horses yesterday afternoon, before all this happened. Fran said they’d already decided to have them before they’d even seen them close up. Nick was going to give a generous donation for them too, apparently. So, once the twenty-one day notice had run out, they were both destined to go to the Abbey to be polo ponies. Because Thimble’s injured, Cracker was going to be one of Estoni’s rides in some of the chukkas to give Stormchaser a breather and Frostie was going to India as a stand-in for Rumour in the Winter Cup. They were all really excited.”
The girls looked at each other, bewildered.
“How do they even know they’d be any good at polo?” Alice asked. “They can’t train them that quickly, can they?”
Charlie shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense either way. If Nick said he wanted them, why would Billy return later that very same evening and let them both out, knowing that something bad could happen to them?”
“I… I know it’s going to be really difficult,” Mia said, taking a deep breath, “but I really think we should ride over to Hope Farm. I think we need to see if there are any clues, this time without Archie on hand to clear away any evidence.”
The girls were glad of something positive to do. Sitting around had only made things feel ten times worse. But grooming their ponies, getting tacked up and riding over to Hope Farm felt like they were at least doing something to work out what was behind Cracker’s death, and all the other field break-ins.
The mist had cleared once more, leaving its icy mark on the countryside. The sky was bright blue, the sun high. But the girls couldn’t take pleasure in the wintry, frost-dusted lanes, knowing that Cracker would never enjoy the sun on his back, ever again. They took the quicker, cross-country route over the rutted fields from Blackberry Farm, rather than sticking to the lanes. They were desperate to reach Fran’s, fuelled with a fresh determination to solve the mystery. But they had to take it steady over the rough ground, especially after Scout stumbled and almost went down on his nose.
They finally arrived at Hope Farm’s gates, their faces set grimly. They looked for Frostie as soon as they’d jumped off their ponies. A pinched, frightened appaloosa face bobbed over the stable door. Frostie let out a low, anxious whicker and the girls rushed over to give him the biggest hug they could, their sadness resurfacing.
Neve came running out of the annexe to meet them. She showed them the motorbike tyre marks in the bare earth near the gate at the base of the drive. Neve was about to leave them to it, and head back to the main house to see if Fran needed any help, when Alice stopped her for a moment.
“Did you hear the motorbike last night?” Alice asked, glancing up and seeing that the annexe where Neve lived was set slightly closer to the lane than Fran’s house.
Neve flushed. “I did,” she said slowly. “But not until it was too late. I heard the revving and horses squealing, and I was out of bed in a second. I flew downstairs but by the time I was out of the front door I could hear hooves on the lane and… and the bike had gone.”
“Was it a growly, powerful revving?” Rosie asked. “Or a thin, tinny sort of sound?”
Neve looked at Rosie like she was mad. “Does it matter?”
Rosie looked uncertain. “It might do.”
Neve thought hard. “It was kind of deep and nimbly, and really loud. Does that help?”
The Pony Detectives looked at each other, feeling confused. Rosie had asked the right question – Neve’s description really didn’t sound much like Billy’s motorbike.
“Did you see or hear anything else?” Charlie pressed.
Neve shook her head. “Sorry, no. Look, I’d better be getting back to Fran.” She sighed heavily and headed off to the main house.
Alice was still standing and looking from the tyre marks by the lane to the annexe.
“What’s up?” Mia asked, knowing that Alice was putting something together in her mind, and wishing that she could see it too.
“Well, everyone talks about how powerful this motorbike is,” Alice said, one hand on her hip, the other holding Scout’s reins. “And in the dead of night, it’d sound even louder. Wouldn’t it have woken Neve up as it arrived? She wouldn’t just have heard it as it was leaving, after the horses were already loose, would she?”
“What, so you think that someone might have wheeled it here,” Charlie said, screwing up her face, “then only started the engine up once the horses were let loose?”
Alice shrugged, not quite sure what it was she was thinking.
“But why not just roll the bike away with the engine off in that case?” Charlie countered. “Otherwise, by starting up the engine, Billy might as well advertise that he was at each yard. He can’t be that crazy, can he?”
Rosie let Dancer crop the few green shoots of grass by the edge of the Hope Farm drive. The cobby pony wandered to the end of her reins. “If you ask me, it’s crazy that anyone would use a motorbike to sneak around on in the middle of the night, anyway,” Rosie said.
Mia face lit up. “That’s true! Why would anyone use a noisy motorbike if they didn’t want to be caught?”
The girls looked at each other, feeling more tied up in knots than ever with what was happening. Suddenly they heard running footsteps and saw Neve heading back towards them, pulling something out of her pocket.
“I meant to show you this… I don’t know if this is important or not,” she explained and handed Charlie a red, shiny wrapper.
The girls gasped, recognising the wrapper instantly. “This is from the Abbey café!” Rosie squeaked.
“Where did you find it?” Charlie breathed.
“On the drive, earlier,” Neve explained. “I thought it was rubbish, so I picked it up and put it in my pocket to chuck in the bin. Only, I forgot all about it until just now.”
At that moment, Fran called over for Neve’s help, so she quickly said her goodbyes, making the girls promise they’d let her know of any progress they made. After hasty reassurances, the Pony Detectives swiftly turned their attention back to the wrapper in Charlie’s grasp.
“I wonder if this is what Archie found at Greenfield’s,” Mia said, “and what Billy was arguing about with Archie last Sunday?”
“I bet it was!” Charlie said triumphantly. “This seals it. It has to be Billy! Come on, we’ve got stacks of evidence against him now, what are we waiting for? He might be trying to sneak round intimidating everyone on that petition without the Abbey finding out, but I think Nick Webb deserves to know exactly what his precious polo player has been up to!”
Charlie gathered her reins, feeling fired up and furious. She was about to mount, when Mia raised her hand.
“Hang on a second,” Mia said quickly. “Isn’t this just like the motorbike clue? Isn’t it just a bit, I don’t know, too obvious? Billy might as well have knocked at the door and introduced himself. I think there’s something more going on here than we’re seeing.”
“Like what?” Charlie demanded, fed up of feeling stumped. She wanted answers, and fast, after what had happened to Cracker.
“That’s the bit I don’t know,” Mia confessed, as frustrated as Charlie by their lack of progress. It was really bugging her that they seemed to be stuck in reverse.
The girls stood shivering in the arctic breeze as their ponies began to get restless.
“Well, we’re not likely to come up with any amazing revelations standing here,” Rosie said. “My brain is literally going to freeze any second, and then I won’t be able to think at all.”
“I’ve got an idea, though,” Mia suggested, her eyes lighting up. “How about we pay the Perryvale Polo Club a visit on our way home? If we could speak to Mr Perryvale again, maybe he could tell us more about the last time Billy got caught letting out horses. You know, like who caught him, or why he did it. It might give us a lead in this case!”
“And Mr Perryvale’s been really helpful so far,” Alice added. “I’m sure he’d be okay about us asking.”
“His grooms must be nice, too,” Mia reasoned, “because they helped take back the Greenfield’s ponies.”
“Oooh!” Rosie suddenly brightened. “And he’s really rich, isn’t he?”
“Yes, but what’s that got to do with anything?” Mia asked.
“We can ask him to sponsor us for the Charity Ride at the same time!” Rosie smiled.
Charlie nodded, squeezing Phantom and setting off. “Right then, let’s ride over to the Perryvale Polo Club. We’ve got to do something.”
Rosie and Mia jumped back into their saddles, and called out a goodbye to Neve. They were just about to set out for the Perryvale estate, when something about the gatepost at the entrance to Hope Farm caught Alice’s eye. It was slanted slightly sideways. Near the top was a curved dent, like a horse had kicked out at it. She frowned, and looked towards the base of the post. And there, lying in the ground, was a yellowy orange fragment.
Alice quickly slid back out of the saddle and picked up the hard, thin plastic. It was a triangle shape, with a sliver of black lettering on it. The edge was splintered. There was a dark scuff on it, like it had been caught by a hoof too.
“What is it?” Rosie asked. Alice couldn’t keep a sad smile off her face.
“It looks like part of a number plate,” Alice said, looking up. “I reckon a horse kicked out at the bike last night, and caught both the post and the bike. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was Cracker, trying to protect Frostie.”
“And if it was,” Mia added, “Cracker might just have left us the biggest clue to solving who’s behind this mystery, once and for all.”
MIA had felt quite grand, as she led the others on the ride up the long drive to Mr Perryvale’s country house. The drive was lined with evenly spaced, leafless poplar trees, the tips of their branches tinged with a white frost. The trees bent lightly in the chill wind. Farmland stretched either side of the driveway. At the very edge of the landscape on her left, she could see the rise of the Abbey ruins above dense boundary hedges. Polo ponies, with neatly hogged manes and wearing smart royal blue rugs, lifted their heads to watch the four ponies ride past. The paddocks looked well kept, recently pooh-picked and furnished with piles of hay.
Stormchaser and the Silver Mist Page 10
