by Fiona Walker
‘Nice place, this. Better than most shouts. No family to tiptoe round yet either.’
‘Tell me about it. I had one last week where the wife was handbagging the son over the body.’
‘The worst is where they announce the death on Facebook while you’re still there and you can hear notifications coming in, pop, pop, pop. “Sorry for your loss.” They fall apart as soon as that starts.’
‘Don’t think this old boy can have much of a family.’
‘Got a lot of horses, though.’
‘Not big on grief, horses.’
‘You kidding me? My wife’s got one. No end of grief she gives me.’
Pip felt an urgent need for grief, yet hers still refused to come. Lester was even more buttoned-up and pragmatic, currently helping the police take apart the wine racks – there was a bit of difficulty getting the body out. Using the Captain’s own electric screwdriver hardly seemed reverent in the circumstances, especially if it was disturbing vital evidence.
There should be family here. They would demand answers. They would refuse to let this death pass without wanting to know why now, why today, why so sudden.
Pip hurried through the doorway in the wall to the stable-yards, crossing at speed to the steps in the third archway, creaking up them to the old observation tower where her network signal was strong enough for 3G. She could see the horses from here, black, grey, brown and gold shapes beyond the mould-laced glass windows.
Her breath caught in her throat. The Captain would have wanted his daughter here. She googled Ronnie Percy, knowing exactly which stepping stones of clicks would lead to her phone number.
Pip liked to keep online tabs on all the Percy family and Ronnie in particular, fascinated by how elusive she was. She was a single-minded surfer, using search engines like a government agent closing in on suspects, but Ronnie Percy moved mostly beneath the radar, with no social media account or up-to-date professional profile.
She’d known better than to ask the elderly Percys about their only daughter, the mere mention of her name enough to bring on an angina attack, and Lester was equally tight-lipped, but the long-term village residents whom Pip baked and cared for were far more forthcoming about Percy lineage and the infamous Bardswold Bolter.
In the post-war era Major Frank Percy, the Captain’s father, had brought fame to Compton Magna by breeding high-class hacks and hunters for the gentry, including the Queen, whose visits to see her youngsters had caused much verge-scything, hedge-trimming and hat-buying excitement in the village. Son Jocelyn, a dashing blond blade, had done a stint in the Household Cavalry, as was the Percy tradition, before he’d taken over at the stud in the late fifties. The young Captain and his hunting-mad wife, Ann, had introduced the very best thoroughbred blood to add the stamina that would take Percy horses out of the show ring and across all country, hailing a new era for the stud. Less enthusiastic about parenthood, they had just one daughter, Veronica, who had reputedly been welcomed to the world with ‘Shame it’s not a boy.’
Born with a foot in the stirrup and raised in the saddle, Ronnie was pretty, vivacious, fearless, and fast became a legend in the horse world, competing at the top level in three-day-eventing’s heyday, chasing Princess Anne and Lucinda Prior-Palmer across private parkland when barely out of ponies, and going on to be selected for the British team at just eighteen. Not long afterwards she’d married the handsome, brooding Johnny Ledwell and seemed set to hail yet another new era to Compton Magna, the couple barely checking between coverts as they produced three children in swift succession, adding more Percy lines, both human and equine, their horses sharp and clever, their children, Alice, Tim and Pax, destined to follow in the family hoof-prints.
Then in the early eighties, still just twenty-five, Ronnie had deserted her marriage, children, horses and the stud in a dramatic bolt, still talked about by the likes of old Mrs Hedges on Church Lane and the Misses Evans in the thatched cottage by the tennis club. Ran off with a handsome fancy man in his sports car, she did. Those poor little kiddies. Nobody had seen it coming. Such a pretty, friendly young mum she’d been, always full of beans.
There were almost no clues to tell Pip what had happened to Ronnie next. As far as she could tell, she’d fled to the wilds of Cumbria and seemed to have stayed in the north for almost two decades. More recently she’d been based in Germany, dealing horses for a few years, although information was scant.
Pip had pieced together enough to know that she now lived in Wiltshire where she helped organise a big horse trials. She was ex-directory, but the event website had her listed on its contacts page with an office address on a country estate, along with landline.
A camp, clipped male voice message told callers that the phone was only manned on Mondays and Tuesdays and gave an email address for horse-trials enquiries.
Undeterred, Pip searched on.
From her research, she also knew that Ronnie owned two competition horses ridden by a brooding Aussie veteran, the fortunes of which she’d been following all year on the British Eventing website’s results page and, more revealingly, on his head girl’s busy Twitter feed.
Pip went there now, rewarded straight away with a photo tweeted the previous evening of people relaxing with champagne flutes in folding picnic chairs by a horsebox, the most glamorous of whom was laughing as the two small dogs on her lap gave her kisses on both cheeks.
Pip didn’t need to check the schedules to know Ronnie Percy was watching her horses compete in a big international trials near Milton Keynes. Through the course of her detective work, she’d become quite the eventing expert. She’d recently tried to impress the Captain with her knowledge, but he’d lost interest, declaring it a foreigner’s game and that the Brits had no guts left.
Pip was determined to show nerves of steel.
The Aussie event rider’s number was listed on several sites selling horses. She rang it.
A voice as deep, rough and Australian as a dried bush creek answered. ‘Yeah?’
‘Is Veronica Percy there, please?’
There was a long, muffled pause, then Pip heard an echoing Tannoy, a whistle blow and a horse’s hoofs approaching.
The crackly Australian voice came back. ‘Who is this?’
‘It’s personal.’
Another pause, during which the hoof beats got louder, stopped for a moment, then thundered on amid a smattering of applause and whoops.
‘Tell them to fuck off.’ A husky voice laughed in the background.
The line went dead.
Pip gritted her teeth and texted. Captain Jocelyn Percy died last night. It was the first time tears had sprung to her eyes all day and she welcomed them with a sob of relief as she pressed send.
The phone rang less than a minute afterwards. ‘Who is this?’
4
‘Taking root here, I see?’
Carly looked up in shock. Bay was back. The toff cared! ‘They’re still in surgery. The dog’s died on the table twice.’
He looked at his watch. ‘That’s over two hours.’
‘Is it?’ Carly was shocked, glancing guiltily at her children, but they were more settled here than at home, Ellis playing Crossy Roads on her phone, Sienna entranced by the bead maze in the corner and Jackson asleep, although with no formula or nappies left, she was on borrowed time, and her waitressing shift started in less than an hour.
‘Every dog has his day. Some have groundhog days. I’m a repeat customer,’ Bay told the receptionist. ‘Brought a pony for a bone-cyst scan. Austen.’
‘Might not be quite ready for you. Can you fill in the consent forms while you wait?’
A small girl with lop-sided bunches burst in through the entrance. ‘Daddy, I’ve unloaded Toffee and tied him up to the trailer, but he’s not happy without a hay net. It’s really unfair to make him wait.’ She eyed Carly and her brood warily.
‘Tilly darling, this is Carly, whose dog’s life-saving surgery is causing the delay. He’s already stopped breathing t
wice, so if it’s third time lucky, Toffee will be straight in.’
‘Wow.’ The child’s eyes stretched wide. ‘That’s, like, really serious.’
Carly nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She thought it was a terrible thing to say to a child, but Tilly seemed remarkably robust, delighted, even. ‘I really wish I could be in there watching, don’t you? I’m going to be an equine vet one day, along with my friends Grace and Bella. We plan to open our own clinic and call it Horse-pital. Is this your baby?’
‘Yes.’
‘I don’t like babies much. You have lots of tattoos, don’t you? Is that poo on your shirt?’
‘She takes after her mother,’ Bay apologised over his shoulder, putting a hand on his daughter’s head and turning it ninety degrees until Tilly’s eyes alighted on a pile of Pony magazines.
Carly paced fretfully around the waiting room while Bay filled in forms. He was taking calls all the time now, voice languid and privileged, apologising to someone he was supposed to be meeting imminently: ‘Bloody bizarre morning – I’ll tell you when I see you. Yes, next week’s good.’ Then taking another: ‘Thanks for calling back, Lockie. You had any illegal lamping going on in your neck of the woods? Bloody nasty bastards left a bull-lurcher dying in one of my sheep fields. I’m going to chat to the rural crime guy at Broadbourne nick later... You do that, thanks.’ He rang off, his phone buzzing again straight away, now propped between shoulder and ear as he helped himself to a coffee from a high-tech machine, winking at her when he caught her watching.
Carly looked away. Jackson had woken up, nappy heavier than concrete shoes in the Thames, but seemed too hypnotised by the sparkly mood lights in the ceiling to notice. Ellis had gravitated towards Tilly, both entranced by a flat screen showing wormer ads, colic operations and terrifying dental footage.
‘Uuuuuugh!’ He pointed, thrilled by the goo and gore.
‘Diastemas are oral fissures usually due to jaw misalignment and prone to painful infection,’ she explained to him, in an eight-year-old-talking-to-a-simpleton voice, then returned to a word search in Pony.
‘Shudda brushed his teef prop’ly.’ He chuckled.
Bay was now lounging on a leather sofa with a macchiato, making calls and texting as though he had all the time in the world. His ringtone was a hunting horn.
‘Hi there – yes, still here... Yup, fire away, nobody’s listening.’
He had a handsome face in a posh sort of way, Carly noted, the sort you saw in aftershave ads aimed at older men, all straight nose and strong jaw staring out of power boardrooms across the City, not usually hauling battered dogs out of hedgerows. It wasn’t like any farmer’s face she knew, although her research was admittedly largely based on Emmerdale.
As she observed him, his eyes developed a frozen look. ‘Are you quite sure he’s dead?’
Carly felt a sharp bolt of dread as she imagined the vet calling through from the operating theatre, not wanting to break the news in front of such small children.
Beside her, Tilly had looked up from Pony with intent interest.
‘An ambulance means nothing,’ Bay was saying. ‘Oh, the police too?’
Carly relaxed, guiltily relieved that the death wasn’t their hunting dog’s, and the wide smile breaking across Bay’s face suggested it was no close friend.
‘Well, yes, an undertaker’s car would seem to prove it. Are you sure it’s not Lester?... Oh, right. Bloody hell. Poor sod.’ He clenched his fist in a discreet air punch.
Catching Carly listening in, he cleared his throat and spoke gravely into the phone: ‘A sad day, if it’s true. Such a legend.’ He rang off, scrolled to a number in his Contacts and dialled straight out. ‘Kelvin! Bay Austen. I might have some land acquisitions coming up for you to handle and I need you to be straight on it if so.’
Guessing the two calls weren’t unconnected, Carly was shocked by his gall.
Standing by the front desk now, she noticed the pretty young receptionist was discreetly checking her Instagram feed on her phone: lots of horse pics and fresh-faced selfies. ‘You got any vacancies coming up here?’
‘Oh, yah, I think there’s an application form for volunteers somewhere.’ She dug around beneath the desk.
‘Paid jobs.’ Carly crossed her arms in front of her filthy T-shirt.
The girl glanced doubtfully at her. ‘You’d have to talk to someone more senior than me. I’m only here on work experience.’
‘What I’ve learned from experience,’ Carly whispered kindly, ‘is to demand the minimum wage.’
‘Totes! Ha-ha.’ The girl pretended to be busy with the photocopier.
‘You have jobs, don’t you, Daddy?’ a voice shrilled behind her. Tilly had been listening in.
Writing another text now, Bay Austen didn’t look up. ‘You’re after a job?’
‘Yeah. Part time.’
‘Give me your number. I’ll put my farm-shop manager in touch.’
‘Thanks.’ Astonished, Carly dictated it, catching Tilly’s eye, and decided perhaps the little girl wasn’t quite so brattish as she’d thought.
‘It’s always busy around harvest.’ Bay saved her number. ‘The pay’s good and you get free veg if you don’t mind bent courgettes and ugly peppers.’
‘I believe in equal-opportunities ratatouille.’
‘Then it’s your lucky day.’ He looked up at her, the blue eyes sparkling. ‘I can see past the fact you’re a Turner.’
Carly’s gaze shifted instinctively and proudly to her children with their father’s coal-black hair and wolf-pale eyes. If she hadn’t wanted a job away from Janine and Feather Dusters so badly, she’d have told Bay to look at her middle finger.
A harassed female vet came out of a side door, surgical greens creased and splattered, peppery hair sprouting from the sides of an inadequate paper cap, bear-like eyes focused on him. ‘You know that dog’s been bred to kill?’
‘Aren’t we all, Gill?’
‘Lost half its blood, femur split like kindling and a bashed head that’s clotted to hell. It should be dead. No idea how you kept it alive long enough to get it here.’
‘Here’s your miracle worker.’ Bay indicated Carly.
‘Are you veterinary-trained?’ demanded Gill.
‘No.’ She glanced down at her fingers wringing together, cold and sweaty now. ‘Women in my family have healing hands, Mum always said. Please tell me he’ll pull through.’ She looked into the woman’s stern gaze, wondering where the kind, bearded male vet had gone. This one was scary.
‘She’ll pull through if I have anything to do with it. So you practised Reiki on her?’ The corner of her mouth curled, not unkindly.
‘Dunno. Mum swore I picked up a bird with a broken wing when I was a toddler and it flew clean away.’
‘Quite impossible,’ the vet said, ‘but there’s great potency in adrenalin, belief and kindness.’
‘And cranks who rub their hands together at the prospect of laying them on wads of cash.’ Bay chortled. ‘There’s your job opportunity, sweetheart. Chap my wife’s friends are fond of charges fifty quid to wave his pinkies over their horses’ chakras and pep their piaffes.’
‘Not all dressage riders are that naïve, Bay,’ the vet hissed. ‘Whatever you did,’ she turned to Carly, ‘it’s practical magic. I’ve not seen such a fierce will to live in a long time.’ Recognising that Carly was distressed, she smiled stiffly. ‘The worst bit’s over. Dogs have extraordinary powers of recovery. She’s already coming around from the anaesthetic. Wouldn’t surprise me if she bounces straight up, like Katie Jordan, ready for a Hi There shoot after a boob job!’ She forced a jolly laugh.
Carly looked at her blankly.
‘Katie Price? OK?’ suggested young Tilly.
‘Don’t be so impertinent, Matilda Austen. I know who I mean.’ The vet had turned to Bay again. ‘I gather she’s a rescue case. The RSPCA are usually pretty good at stepping in with veterinary funding, and we’ll call today pro bono. Paul’s ri
nging around sanctuaries now to try to find her a place.’
Carly thought of the animal’s desperate trust in her, a lifetime’s bond. She and Ash had talked more than once about a getting a dog, side-tracked into arguing Rotties versus Staffies. She’d worried it wasn’t the right time with a new baby.
‘How much will it cost to keep her?’ She had a small cash legacy from her mum, still on deposit for a rainy day. Waitressing was already bringing in a bit of cash, and if she added more cleaning shifts for Janine and maybe some farm-shop work she’d have a regular wage coming in again. She was sure she could cover the extra expense.
‘She’ll need referral to the orthopaedic specialist for a wire frame on that leg,’ the wild-haired vet explained. ‘After it’s set and pinned, she’ll require physio, probably hydrotherapy, plus repeat visits to adjust and finally remove the wires. Spaying is mandatory in cases like this, of course. And she’s riddled with worms. There will undoubtedly be a high degree of training, socialisation and rehabilitation involved, for which I can recommend a canine behaviour therapist locally.’ The figure she came up with was more than Ash’s flashy truck, the wall-mounted TV, games console and gym sub combined.
‘I can’t cover that,’ Carly said in a small voice.
‘Daddy, we can pay, can’t we?’ said the sing-song one.
Carly was seriously liking Tilly now.
‘No.’ Bay was adamant.
‘Let’s look at what’s best for this dog, shall we?’ The vet pulled off her green paper hat, revealing more untamed iron-grey curls. ‘There’s a super charity locally that rehabilitates lurchers, and I really think they’re the champions for your girl right now. If Paul can get her a place there, it’s her best chance of a future.’
Carly nodded, too choked to speak. Living with Ash was already like tiptoeing around a hound that had lost his pack. He had no head-space for a sick dog. She couldn’t hope to offer her the happy, loving home she deserved.
She looked to Bay for reassurance, but he was on the phone again, his back turned to them as he eagerly spread the news he’d just received. ‘We all knew he was on his way out... Absolutely. Place has been going downhill for years, doubt they’ll keep it going as a stud. On the bright side, we might have the Sixty Acres back in time for the opening meet.’
