Cut Throat

by Lyndon Stacey

  ‘Accelerating, you say?’

  ‘Yes, I think that’s what she said,’ Richmond replied slowly. ‘Yes, she did, because she said none of them had heard it approaching and then suddenly it was there . . .’ He paused, his voice trailing off. ‘Why do you ask? You’re not thinking . . . ?’

  ‘I honestly don’t know,’ Ross said, unhappily. ‘But I think you’ll have to consider it. Your Mr X must know how much Peter means to you and we’ve made it more difficult for him to get at the horses. What if he’s trying a change of tactics?’

  ‘But, Ross!’ Franklin was clearly devastated. ‘Peter could have been killed! Surely he’d know the police would have to be involved if there were any suspicion of foul play? Besides, if Peter had died I would never have paid him another penny. I would have hunted him down. If he knows me, he would have known that. If it was him he took a terrible risk. Ross, you don’t seriously think . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve thought all round it. It just seems too much of a coincidence, you making a stand over payments and this happening. But I agree, he would have been taking one hell of a risk. Perhaps he felt he had nothing to lose. Has he left any messages since last night?’

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t been home. Oh, God, Ross! This is getting out of hand. I never thought . . . I mean, horses are one thing, but this? Surely not?’

  Ross was silent. He really didn’t know what to say. But the more he thought about Peter’s accident, the less likely it seemed to him that that was what it was.

  ‘I’ll have to pay.’ Franklin’s voice deepened with defeat. ‘I won’t risk my son. Nothing’s worth that.’

  ‘Don’t give in yet,’ Ross said impulsively. ‘If somebody can keep an eye on him, Peter is surely in the safest possible place for the time being. That should give us two clear weeks to flush this bastard out. What d’you say?’

  Richmond sounded tired. ‘What can we do in two weeks? It’s been months.’

  Ross wished he knew.

  ‘We’ll call his bluff,’ he said. ‘Take the fight to him. Force him to make a mistake.’

  ‘If it was him last night, he’s already made his biggest mistake,’ Franklin said, anger overcoming despondency. ‘I’ll get on to McKinnon. See what he says.’

  ‘Do the police have anything on the car?’

  ‘Only that it was stolen. Taken from a pub car park. They found it half an hour or so after the – after it hit Peter. It was on its roof in a field just outside Salisbury, blazing merrily. They’re satisfied that it was joyriders. They don’t expect to catch the culprits.’

  ‘Who knew that Peter was going on the trip? Darcy said it was a last-minute decision.’

  ‘Poor Darcy. He’s very cut up over this,’ Richmond said. ‘He’s convinced he persuaded me to let Peter go, but to tell the truth, I probably would’ve given in anyway. Either way, if you’re right and it wasn’t an accident, it wouldn’t have made any difference, would it? I mean, they would just have chosen another time and place.’ He paused, thinking. ‘I don’t know who else could have known about the outing, except perhaps the parents of the other children. Oh, this is crazy, Ross! If someone hates me this much, you’d think I’d know about it! It just doesn’t make any sense.’

  It made some kind of sense to someone, Ross thought, but to whom?

  ‘I really wish I could help,’ he said. ‘I suppose McKinnon has checked your telephones?’

  ‘He does it every few weeks,’ Franklin confirmed. ‘He’s about due to do it again now.’

  ‘See if he’ll do it right away, like this morning,’ Ross advised. ‘I can’t see how else anyone could have known about Peter’s outing, unless they were watching the house. And . . . er . . . do you have smoke alarms?’

  ‘Some.’ Franklin was appalled. ‘You don’t think . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think,’ Ross admitted. ‘But we’d be stupid to take any chances. The battlefield has been extended. You’ve got to try and second-guess the bastard.’

  Franklin sighed, reluctantly agreeing, and after promising to visit Peter that evening, Ross rang off.

  A combination of the sticky heat and Leo in one of his more than averagely annoying moods had Ross feeling scratchy and bad-tempered before the day was very far advanced, and he was glad when Lindsay’s familiar red MG turned into the yard.

  She hadn’t come, it transpired, with the intention of riding but fell in quickly enough with Ross’ idea of hacking the horses to the river and letting them splash around in the shallows.

  She exchanged a flowery cotton skirt for Sarah’s ‘emergency’ jeans, which were kept in the tackroom in case of torrential rain or some other disaster. A string of pearls and matching earrings were taken off for safety and she joined the others in the yard, flashing a reproving look at Ross who was plainly amused at the sight of her in jeans two sizes too big.

  Turning the trouser bottoms up a time or two, she mounted Gypsy, and with Leo, Danny, Sarah and Ross all suitably mounted, it was quite a procession that wound its way through the shady lanes to the copse that bounded the river.

  Here they passed a pleasant half-hour letting the horses play in the water. Ross was aboard Bishop, whose taste ran no further than to pushing his nose about in the shallows. Gypsy, on the other hand, pounded the surface of the water vigorously with a playful foreleg, showering her rider and all those within six feet with river water.

  Ross watched Lindsay laughing, the sun shining through her fair hair and the thin cotton blouse that she wore, and found the knowledge that she was forbidden fruit increasingly difficult to accept.

  ‘You look very serious,’ she teased as they turned for home. ‘Is life so very hard?’

  ‘I was thinking about Peter Richmond,’ Ross said, only half truthfully, and then felt guilty as the laughter died out of her face.

  ‘I heard about that,’ she said, frowning. ‘What an awful thing to happen. Have they traced the driver yet?’

  ‘It was a stolen car,’ Ross told her. ‘Joyriders, the police say.’

  ‘Prison’s too good for them,’ Lindsay declared vehemently. ‘Like drink-drivers, they should be publicly flogged.’

  ‘If they can catch them,’ Ross agreed, glancing sideways at her fine-boned, determined face, and liking it just as much in anger as in laughter. He realised that he had loved the girl for quite a while.

  Roland was waiting when they arrived back in the yard. He ambled out of the cool darkness of the tackroom, a beer in his hand, and smiled up at the riders in his lazy fashion.

  ‘Nice day,’ he observed, looking infuriatingly cool himself, in a white linen suit.

  Nice day for doing nothing, Ross thought, mildly irritated.

  ‘You’re looking damned attractive as usual, cousin,’ Roland said to Lindsay. ‘You would appear to have lost a little weight, though,’ he added thoughtfully, eyeing the jeans.

  ‘Idiot,’ she said affectionately, laughing at him. ‘If you want to do something useful, you could always bring out a few more of those beers.’

  ‘Is it the butler’s day off?’ Roland asked. ‘Well, I suppose I could do it, just this once. Do you know, I think I shouldn’t mind being a butler. Shouldn’t be surprised if I made a very good one.’

  As he wandered off into the tackroom once more, apparently considering this notion, Lindsay laughed out loud. ‘He’s nuts,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘Anyone would think he hadn’t two brain cells to rub together but he’s really very bright. He only started acting the fool to annoy Uncle John, I think. It certainly does that.’

  Ross was puzzled. ‘Why should he want to? Did they fall out or something?’

  ‘In a way. Uncle John had Roland’s life all mapped out. He wanted him to follow in his own illustrious footsteps. He was made up to Colonel very young, you know. A natural soldier. For a while it looked as though Roland was going to be the same but then he lost interest and resigned his commission. My uncle was very disappointed, though I must say I rather
admired Roland for it. It can’t have been an easy decision to make. Uncle John is very strong-willed and made no secret of his feelings.’

  ‘Like father, like son.’

  Lindsay squinted into the sun, looking over Gypsy’s back at Ross. ‘You’re right. Most people don’t think they’re at all alike,’ she said, ‘but they are, you know, though they’d be the last to see it.’

  Roland reappeared at this point with a four-pack of cold beers held aloft, balanced on an imaginary tray. ‘Last pack,’ he announced. ‘You’ll have to draw lots.’

  ‘There are plenty, more in the cottage,’ Danny said, coming out of Simone’s stable. ‘Anyway, Sarah doesn’t drink beer.’

  ‘You don’t?’ Roland bent a lofty, inquisitive eye on the girl. ‘A female of some delicacy, I perceive.’

  Sarah flushed darkly at finding general attention focused upon her and glanced suspiciously at Roland, unsure if he was laughing at her.

  ‘Don’t take any notice of him, Sarah,’ Lindsay advised. ‘He’s a wretch. I expect Maggie has some lemonade in the fridge. Actually, I think I’d prefer that too.’

  Lindsay departed fairly soon afterwards, and after visiting Maggie and charming a slice of apple pie out of her, so did Roland.

  Ross waited until after the evening meal, when the fiercest heat had abated, before working Bishop in the school, practising speed turns and angled take-offs. He returned the big horse to his box after three-quarters of an hour, well pleased with his performance.

  After a quick change of clothes and a clean-up, he was about to set off to visit Peter when Bill hailed him. He was wanted on the telephone.

  ‘Hi, Ross, it’s me,’ Lindsay’s cheerful tones greeted him. ‘Look, I’m sorry to bother you, but I wanted to catch you while it’s still light. You see, I can’t find my pearls.’

  ‘Your pearls?’

  ‘My necklace and my earrings. You remember, I took them off this morning when I came out riding? I put them in my skirt pocket when I took it off and by the time I changed back, quite frankly I’d forgotten about them. I thought perhaps I’d dropped them in the office, but you obviously haven’t found them. I suppose they could be in the yard . . .’ Her voice trailed off, sounding doubtful.

  ‘Well, I’ll certainly have a look,’ Ross assured her. ‘But I’m sure somebody would have found the necklace by now if it had been out in the open. Have you looked in your car?’

  ‘Yes, straight away. Oh, what a nuisance! It’s typical of me. I’m sorry to be such a pain.’

  ‘Nonsense. We all lose things.’ But Ross was struck by an unwelcome thought. This wasn’t by any means the first time things had gone missing. ‘Look, I’ll go and have a look right now, before I go out. I’ll give you a ring if I find anything.’

  He rang off with an idea already forming in his mind and an inner voice warning him at the same instant that he’d do better to forget it. He gave the yard and tackroom a sketchy search and climbed into the jeep, still uncertain as to whether or not he would put his plan into action.

  He drove towards Salisbury with the warm evening wind in his hair and the dog’s head resting on his shoulder. He tried to concentrate on Franklin Richmond’s troubles but other thoughts intruded: riding Ginger at the weekly Lea Farm show the next evening; the loss of Lindsay’s jewellery and his suspicions about Leo.

  Peter Richmond was not alone when Ross was shown into his room at the hospital; both his father and Darcy were at his bedside. But lying back on his pillows, with both legs raised in traction, Peter’s pale and strained face, in which the eyes were dark smudges, was the one that caught and held Ross’ attention. He smiled and walked forward as Darcy made way for him.

  ‘Hiyah, soldier! How ya doin’?’ Ross asked cheerfully.

  Peter mustered an answering smile. ‘Hello. I’m okay, thank you. But it does hurt.’ Peter’s good manners didn’t desert him, even in these unhappy circumstances. ‘Doctor Trent says I’ll be up and about in no time.’

  Ross pulled up a chair, admiring the young boy’s courage.

  ‘Sure you will,’ he said. ‘Look, I asked your dad and he said he’s fitted you up with a VCR, so I’ve brought a couple of our training videos along with me. The first one’s Clown, so you can see what kind of progress he’s making. And you’re not to laugh at the bit where I fall off!’

  Ross saw instantly that he’d struck gold. Peter’s eyes lit up eagerly as he took the cassettes. He thanked Ross profusely and looked hopefully at his father.

  ‘All right,’ Franklin said, with the air of one reluctantly granting a favour. ‘I’ll put one on for you. I can see visitors will be just so much excess baggage from now on.’

  Peter grinned, confident of the affection behind the assumed tone.

  Ross saw Darcy smiling at the invalid with shared enjoyment of the moment and thought that though the boy might be lacking a mother’s love, he certainly didn’t miss out on family feeling.

  He stayed a while, commentating at Peter’s request on the first of the videos, before a nurse came to turn them all out and give the boy some medication.

  The dog was waiting for him in the jeep and jumped up, tail waving.

  ‘Okay, Fido,’ Ross said, cuffing it playfully. ‘Are you gonna drive, or shall I?’

  He drove home steadily, his mind on his proposed plan of action. The yard was deserted. A light showed in the cottage but the windows of the two bedsits above the stables were dark and Leo’s motorbike wasn’t in the shed.

  He had no excuse for backing out now. Leo rarely returned before closing time and Ross could usually hear his bike’s powerful roar as it decelerated in the lane outside. There would be no better time for taking an unauthorised snoop around his room.

  The dog padded up the stairs at his master’s heels and he unlocked the door to his own room and let it in. Pausing only to collect a torch, he went out again, turning off the light and closing the door behind him.

  Pulse rate accelerating, he stepped across the narrow landing to Leo’s door and paused, listening intently. Below, one of the horses pulled at the hay in its rack and snorted as dust tickled its nostrils. Nothing else stirred.

  Ross took the key to his own door from his pocket and slotted it into Leo’s. It wouldn’t turn. For an instant, Ross experienced a strange mixture of disappointment and relief. Then he tried the handle and the door opened smoothly. It hadn’t been locked.

  With his circulation doing overtime, Ross took one last look down the darkened stairs then slipped into the room, closing the door behind him.

  The curtains were open and a glimmer of light from the yard lit part of the ceiling but it was not enough to search by. Ross cupped the torch in his hand and, forcing himself to take his time and be methodical, began to go through Leo’s things.

  With the light shaded he could only see a small part of the room at any one time and it occurred to him with a sudden flash of amusement that it would be just his luck to work his way round the room and then find Leo already in residence, asleep on the bed, or worse still, waiting for and watching him.

  Once the picture had formed in his mind, it wouldn’t be banished and Ross couldn’t settle again to his task without risking a quick unmasking of the light to scan the whole room.

  No one lurked in the shadows. He shaded the light once more and continued his search.

  He wasn’t surprised to find the groom’s room untidy and disorganised, for although Leo was an efficient worker, neatness was definitely not his forte. Discarded shoes and items of clothing littered the floor and hung from every chairback and open cupboard door.

  A place for everything and everything out of its place, Ross thought wryly as he picked his way round the room.

  It resembled a church jumble sale that had been hit by a particularly vicious tornado. And, what was more, the room smelled faintly of tobacco smoke, which definitely contravened yard rules. Ross wondered that Maggie hadn’t complained about that when she came to clean up once a week. On the floor
at the head of the bed were a couple of bottles of spirits and judging by the labels, Leo had expensive tastes.

  Ross worked his way briskly through the bedsit, which was an exact mirror image of his own, finding that the wardrobe and the chest of drawers were the only places that were tidy. These held a collection of designer garments and two or three leather jackets that would have cost the best part of two weeks’ wages and appeared not to have been worn.

  Ross frowned. It began to look as though his suspicions concerning Leo were justified and it seemed his thievery was not restricted to his working environment.

  The minutes ticked by and Ross’ nerves didn’t improve. The longer he searched, the more he wanted to finish and get out of the room and, conversely, the less inclined he felt to leave without finding anything.

  What he expected to find he couldn’t really have said. A string of pearls would have been nice. But Leo, if he was guilty, was not only an opportunist, he obviously also knew where he could pass on his stolen items fairly smartly.

  Disappointed, Ross finally gave up and moved to the door. Hanging on a hook on the back of it was the denim jacket Leo often wore in the early mornings.

  Having searched all the other pockets he had come across, Ross quickly went through these. A pack of chewing gum, a folded pen knife and a tube of Polo mints, which the horses were very fond of, in the left, and in the right an oily rag, a few coins and two dog-eared business cards.

  Ross casually turned them over: M. A. Kendall – Wholesale Butcher, and Simmonds-Fox & Son – Bespoke Tailors. With a sigh, he returned the objects to their respective pockets and turned to give a last quick flash of the torch round the garment-littered interior.

  Suddenly a light came on in the yard, and before the full significance of this had penetrated Ross’ consciousness, he heard the door at the foot of the stairs open and the sound of someone’s carefree whistling floated up to his horrified ears.