Dead on Course

by Glenis Wilson

  ‘Why was I taken hostage in that old stable, though?’

  ‘When Barbara’s stables expanded, she ordered extra feed from Lutens. He was told to store the bags down in the old block until they were needed. That’s how he knew about it being isolated. I guess when he panicked about Dunston still being alive, he thought it would be safe to use it to hold you hostage. I was supposed to kill Dunston and he used you as the lever to make me do it.’

  ‘Well, it’s all over now,’ Sir Jeffrey said. ‘You can relax, Harry – go back to being a jockey.’

  ‘What about Jake Smith? Have you told him?’ Annabel queried. ‘Is he off your back, too?’

  ‘He knows Jo-Jo’s death was a horrible accident – she wasn’t the target.’

  ‘So you’ve solved the Golf Course Murder.’ Annabel deliberately gave the words capital letters.

  I groaned and drained the last of my coffee. ‘I expect that’s what will haunt me now, along with the Leicester races murder.’

  ‘I think you’ll live it down in the end, Harry.’

  ‘I sincerely hope so, Jeffrey.’

  ‘As long as there isn’t a third case, of course.’

  ‘God forbid … I couldn’t stand a third.’

  We were all laughing as I stood up to go.

  ‘Best get back. Leo’s seen so little of me he’s starting to think he’s an orphan.’

  ‘Come and see us again.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  I took my leave and turned the car towards home. But halfway there, mulling over the events of the evening, I realized there was one other person who needed to know the facts about Jo-Jo’s death. And I had promised to tell her – Alice.

  It wasn’t too late to call on my way back.

  Half an hour later, I parked outside Alice’s house in Newark, walked up to the door and rang the bell. No one answered. I tried a knock. The door swung inwards a little. It wasn’t fully shut. Hesitating a moment, I called her name. Silence.

  Feeling uneasy, I pushed the door open and stepped inside. Calling her name, I walked down the hall to the kitchen. The street lamp outside shone a glow through the window. The light wasn’t bright but it was enough for me to see her.

  Alice lay on the kitchen floor, face down. She was dead. Must have been dead for some days, judging by the smell emanating from her body, the blood congealed and black. The back of her head had been smashed in.

  In shocked horror, I stood and stared down at her. I’d liked Alice. Brash and common, she might have been, but underneath she was good-hearted, had cared a lot about Jo-Jo. I’d thought her a survivor in a harsh world. I was wrong.

  And then it really hit me. I knew who’d killed her. I could hear again his words as he’d sat opposite me in the pub.

  If Jo-Jo hadn’t met him, she’d still be alive …

  It had been Alice who had introduced Jo-Jo to Louis Frame.

  Later, Jake Smith had said he’d spent the night with Alice.

  What he hadn’t said was that he’d killed her.

  Looking down at her lifeless body, I also knew I was the only person who could identify her killer.

  I’d been here before.

  What the hell did I do now?