by Ann Granger
The jacket was a well-worn Harris tweed with leather patches on the elbows. Fearon dragged it on over his sweater, tugged a disreputable flat cap over his wet hair and set off briskly towards the yard. Meredith found herself scurrying along to keep up with him.
‘Tack room!’ said Fearon laconically, throwing open the door as they reached it.
Meredith looked in. Saddles, gleaming immaculately and stirrup irons polished, hung neatly on pegs. Bridles hung above. Compared to the bungalow the tack room was a miracle of neatness.
‘I’ve only five horses here at the moment,’ Tom said moving on to the first loose-box. ‘The old mare here should do you all right.’
He said this suspiciously blandly and Meredith glowered at him. He had opened the loose-box door and disappeared inside, returning leading a bay horse of about fifteen hands by the halter.
‘She’s twelve years old, nice old girl, good mouth and nice manners which puts her ahead of some women – and she won’t set you down in the dirt. Let me know if you’re interested and I’ll throw a saddle over her for you.’
‘Thank you,’ said Meredith, patting the mare’s nose.
‘Got a side-saddle back there in the tack room if you prefer,’ said Tom in that bland way.
‘All right!’ said Meredith crossly. ‘I’m not simple! You can pack in the jibes.’
Fearon’s tanned cheeks stretched into a grin. He returned the mare to her loose-box and, coming out again, leaned against the closed door with his arm folded and regarded her steadily from beneath the dragged-down brim of his flat cap. ‘All right, Miss Mitchell, what do you want to know?’
To her annoyance, Meredith felt the blood surge into her face. She drew a deep breath and said quickly, ‘I came to talk about Harriet.’
‘I rather thought that was it.’ Fearon pushed himself away from the door. ‘It’s warmer in the tack room. There’s an oil stove in there.’
She followed him back into the little harness store and sat down on a bench while he lit the paraffin stove which soon filled the room with its smell and heat.
‘Isn’t that thing dangerous? I mean, I would have thought you’d worry about fire.’
‘I’m careful.’ Fearon gave her a dry glance. ‘And you try cleaning tack with frozen fingers.’ He sat down on a bench against the opposite wall and rested his arms on his knees, hands loosely clasped. He had surprisingly fine hands, long, slender and strong, but there were tell-tale scars across the knuckles, pale against the tanned skin. He’d been in his share of fistfights had Mr Fearon. But how long ago? Were the scars just mementos of boyhood?
‘I’m sorry about Harriet,’ said Meredith slowly. ‘I was looking forward to knowing her better.’
‘Were you now?’ His tone was almost insulting, not quite.
Meredith kept her temper. ‘Yes, I liked her very much.’
Fearon grunted. ‘Shook me up a bit, that yesterday,’ he said unexpectedly.
‘Yes, I’m sure it did. It was horrifying to see her fall.’ Meredith paused and added, ‘I’m not surprised you had a drink and I’m sorry if I was critical just now.’
‘Keeps the cold out.’
‘It doesn’t, actually. It’s a misconception. You just get an illusion of warmth and afterwards you’re colder. The veins expand or something and you lose body-heat.’
‘What are you, for chrissake?’ he asked. ‘A ruddy Mother Superior?’
‘No, I was just wondering about Harriet. She seemed ill at the meet just before the accident. Didn’t you think so?’
He grew cautious. ‘I never knew her ill. She was pretty fit.’
‘But she wasn’t fit at the meet, was she?’ Meredith persisted. ‘She was slumped in the saddle and slurring her words. Would she have been drinking before she arrived there, do you think?’
‘Now you listen to me, Meredith, or whatever your name is!’ Fearon said fiercely. ‘Harriet might have had a glass or two that morning but she wasn’t drunk! In five years I never saw Harriet the worse for drink. I saw her knock back a few glasses but never saw her tight! Have you got that through your head? I don’t know why she was the way she was just before that young blighter with the placard made Blazer rear up, but she wasn’t ill and she wasn’t drunk, got that?’
He was really angry now and in the close proximity of the tiny over-filled tack room he loomed distinctly dangerous.
‘All right,’ said Meredith meekly.
Fearon relaxed marginally but was terminating the interview. ‘I’ve got work to do. Phone if you want me to saddle up the mare and I’ll have her ready for you by the time you get down here.’
‘Thanks.’ They had both risen to their feet.
‘See you around, I dare say,’ said Fearon with heavy politeness.
‘Yes, good bye!’ Meredith escaped through the door he held open and walked quickly home feeling both discomfited and dissatisfied. Silly idiot! she chided herself. Barging in there! She sighed. And I still don’t know if he was the man I saw outlined on Harriet’s blind. She frowned. If Harriet wasn’t ill and she wasn’t drunk, then what was wrong with her?
At that moment, back in Bamford, Chief Inspector Markby was about to be given the answer to that question.
‘The post-mortem report is in on the Needham business!’ Pearce greeted him.
Markby, taking off his overcoat and sticking it haphazardly over a peg, grunted. He paused by the windowsill on the way to his desk to peer at an African violet in a pot. A row of smaller pots alongside it contained leaves from this parent plant from which he was hoping to strike new plants, so far without result.
He sat down and picked up the sheaf of papers neatly set out on the top of his desk. After a moment he whistled softly under his breath, then called sharply, ‘Pearce!’
‘Yes, sir?’
‘The deceased lady was brim full of tranquillisers.’
‘They wouldn’t have mixed well with booze,’ said Pearce. ‘They were all drinking some stirrup cup or other, you said.’
‘Yes, they were. Tranquillisers . . .’ Markby leaned back. ‘No wonder she fell off. She certainly looked and acted odd beforehand. It lets young Pardy off the hook, I suppose. We can still charge him with reckless behaviour. But the reason she fell so easily and so heavily would seem to be that she was light-headed from a mixture of drink and pills. Funny . . .’ He screwed up his eyes and stared unseeingly at the calendar on the further wall. ‘I wouldn’t have thought she was the type to take tranquillisers. Very self-possessed, confident – not nervy or depressed.’
‘Never can tell,’ said Pearce wisely.
‘True. If it results in young Pardy being charged with a lesser offence, Deanes will be highly satisfied. Or disappointed, perhaps. That book of his has been finished some time, by the way, and is about to appear in the bookshops. It’s called Revolutionary Youth.’
‘I’ll look out for it,’ said Pearce expressionlessly.
‘It deals with kids who take up causes and get drawn into violent activities as a result. They raid research labs and let out the animals, that sort of thing. Or demonstrate . . . like Pardy. I’m being uncharitable possibly, but I wonder if Deanes wasn’t looking forward to a little publicity over Pardy’s case to promote his book? He may well be disappointed that the whole thing seems likely to fizzle out as death by misadventure.’
Markby turned his eyes back to the report. ‘She’d had a dickens of a lot to drink. Not just the one stirrup cup I saw her take. She must have had several tots before she started out. If she’d been stopped in a car with this level of alcohol in her, she would have lost her licence for a year at least and got a hefty fine. In view of this, I can’t see the coroner bringing in any verdict of unlawful killing. Pardy was stupid and the results were tragic. But she would have fallen off anyway once the hunt started out in earnest At the first hedge she tried to clear.’
‘What about the letter Mr Fearon got, sir?’
‘Ah, that’s another matter and I want to follow it up.
I’m pretty sure Pardy sent it but so far can’t prove it. I’ll put my last dollar on it there were others. I’ve arranged to drive out and have a word with the Master tomorrow morning. So much for my Saturday. He might have received some – or know who has. You’d better go round and ask some of the other hunt subscribers. The letter Fearon got was a very nasty piece of threatening mail. Pardy, if it was Pardy, may have slipped up and written one by hand. Although if they use newspapers to do it, they generally stick to the one method. We’ll see.’
‘Come in, my dear chap, come in,’ invited Colonel Stanley. ‘Excuse me if I don’t get up. Ruddy sciatica has got me today. Can’t move off this confounded sofa. I feel like a damn old woman. Have a drink?’
‘Normally, I’d say, not on duty,’ Markby said with a smile, shaking the Master of the Hunt’s hand.
‘Of course you would. But this isn’t normal. I was at school with your father, you know. Of course, he was senior to me. I was just a squib and he was a six-former, very fine chap and took no notice of grubby little oicks. Quite right too. So you’ll have a whisky? You’ll have to do the honours. Pour me one too, dash of soda, don’t drown it.’
Markby ‘did the honours’ and settled down in a vast, chintz-covered, feather-cushioned armchair. The walls of the room were hung with sporting prints and photographs of men and women in riding garb. A dull grey winter Saturday morning was kept out by tall windows hung with faded velvet drapes. There was a distinct lingering odour of tobacco and dogs. A log fire roared in the open hearth, spitting out sparks. It was untidy, comfortable and very English.
‘Don’t need to ask what’s brought you!’ said Stanley abruptly.
‘Yes, I’m sorry about it.’ Markby cupped his hands round the tumbler of tawny liquid.
‘No need to tell you how I feel. Or other folk. She was a fine girl, fine girl!’
‘She’ll be much missed.’
‘My dear chap—’ the Master paused. ‘Indeed, yes, indeed. What are you going to do about it?’
‘Well, you’ve heard about the traces of tranquillisers found in the deceased’s blood?’
‘I have. I don’t mind telling you, I find that a bit rum. Harriet wasn’t the nervy type. I’ve seen that girl ride straight at an obstacle would make many a man blanch.’
‘It does confuse the issue. Would she have fallen off, but for the mixture of drink and pills?’
‘I would have said,’ the Master observed grimly, ‘that with a bloody great placard waving under the horse’s nose, there was every likelihood she’d fall off!’
‘Good horsewoman, though, would you say? You spoke of her riding straight at difficult obstacles.’
‘Excellent. I take the point you’re trying to make. But I certainly hope that odious little twerp with the placard isn’t going to get away with it!’
‘Oh, he’ll be charged with something, but quite with what, we’re not yet sure.’
‘Personally, I’d call it murder!’
‘Yes, sir.’ Markby paused tactfully. ‘In a court of law, however . . .’
‘Yes, yes,’ Colonel Stanley interrupted testily. ‘I understand. The law’s an ass. Dickens wrote that. He was right.’ He shifted awkwardly on his sofa and his face contorted in pain. ‘Her cousin Frances telephoned me last night. She’s abroad but is getting the first available flight back. Naturally the news came as a terrible shock to her. She heard it from that dry old stick, Simpson. She’s shocked and she’s unhappy, Alan, about the post-mortem report. She swears Harriet never took those fool pills and she wants to know if anyone has found any in the cottage. No chance of a mistake, I suppose?’
‘By the pathologist? No, none. It’s not that uncommon. People get careless about mixing drink and pills. Especially at Christmas.’
‘We were discussing it, my wife and I. She must have taken the things that morning before she set out. Seems very odd. What for?’
‘I am looking into that, sir.’
The Master glanced at him. ‘I’ve every confidence in you, dear chap. I’m not criticising. I know you won’t let it go until you’re satisfied.’
Markby put down his tumbler on a small table, laden with copies of The Field. ‘There’s another matter I’d like to discuss, if I may?’
‘Go ahead.’
‘You heard that someone let the horses out of Tom Fearon’s stables on Christmas Eve?’
‘Yes, I did! Damn fool thing to do!’
‘A letter of sorts was also pushed through Tom’s letterbox. Very abusive. I was wondering, would you know if any other subscriber to the hunt had received similar hate mail? It’s an offence to send such stuff and we’d certainly try and put a stop to it.’
It seemed to him that his host looked even more uncomfortable and it wasn’t, thought Markby to himself, because of the sciatica. He knew something about other letters.
‘I did receive one myself,’ he said at last. ‘About a month ago. Threw it into the fire. Lot of half-baked nonsense. I didn’t want my wife to come across it, though – you understand. That’s why I destroyed it straight off.’
‘If you should receive another, could I ask you to pass it to us?’ Markby asked.
‘Well, I suppose I could. But one gets those things from time to time. One doesn’t have to worry about them.’
‘Would you know if anyone else got any?’
‘Can’t say I do.’
‘I see. Yours, was it written or typed or what?’
‘Neither. Lots of newsprint cut out and stuck on. Rather messily, incidentally.’
‘That sounds similar to Tom’s. Well, we’ll see if any more turn up.’
Stanley sighed. ‘I’ll be frank with you. I’d rather it were kept quiet if any more do. The hunt can do without a report like that in the local press. It would inspire the cranks and a shoal of other letters.’
‘I promise you we’ll be discreet.’
‘Discretion,’ said the Master slowly. ‘Not much of that about these days. Things one reads in the press! People seem to have some urge to tell everyone else all the things which in my day we kept quiet about! Dirty linen washing in public isn’t in it! Things change and not for the better, to my mind. But I’m getting on and who cares what I think? Different sort of people turn out on the hunting field these days, too. Some of them hardly seem to know one end of a horse from another. No hunt manners. Not their fault, they just don’t know the drill. They barge around upsetting other, nervous horses and young riders. The language too, in front of ladies and children, I mean . . . and some of the behaviour at hunt balls. Not that in my young days there were never some wild moments. But it was a different sort of wildness, if you take my meaning.’
‘I think I do. Still, it’s a good thing from the hunt’s point of view that new blood is coming along, surely? The sheer expense of keeping hounds and so on. The more people contributing, the merrier, I’d have thought.’
‘Oh, I don’t deny it. And some of the newcomers have money to throw around, so I’m not going to prevent them throwing some of it towards the hunt. That fellow Green’s been very generous. Know him?’
‘I’ve met him, only once.’
‘Big financial wizard in the City, I understand.’
‘So I’ve heard.’ Markby drained his tumbler and stood up. ‘I’m obliged to you for giving me your time, especially in the circumstances. Hope the sciatica improves.’
‘I’m happy to help if it means the right thing is done by poor Harriet. My wife is very upset about it. Ah, well . . .’ The Master turned a shrewd pale blue eye on Markby. ‘How’s that pretty sister of yours? Family well?’
‘All very well, thanks.’
‘That husband of hers, still doing the cooking? Saw him on telly the other day, local station, after the news. He had an apron on. Seems a rum sort of go. In my day we left cooking to the women unless, of course, it was a fancy French chef. Can’t he do any other job?’
‘He likes doing the one he’s got. He writes about it, too.’
‘Tomorrow, Sunday,’ Markby said to Pearce on his return, ‘I am going to have free. Let no one mention horses to me or they will get very short shrift.’
By Sunday morning the grey skies had cleared away. The wind had dropped and air was fresh and crisp. Markby telephoned Meredith and asked her if she was interested in a country walk that morning.
‘Yes,’ she said, adding rashly, ‘you can come back here to lunch afterward.’
That was a pretty daft offer, she thought as soon as she had put down the phone. She was a rotten cook. There were pubs all over the place which served perfectly acceptable Sunday lunches. Why couldn’t she have let him take her to one of those? She resisted the thought that she liked the idea of him sitting at her kitchen table. Instead she told herself that it was only fair to offer hospitality. He’d taken her to dinner at The Black Dog and through him she’d spent Christmas at Laura’s. Besides, she ought to be able to manage a lunch. Hadn’t she cooked for herself and Harriet last Monday?
That was only a few short days ago but now seemed light years away. To produce the same lumpy cheese sauce dish would be morbid, to say the least, and not exactly a Sunday-lunch menu. Meredith was suddenly swept up in an insane desire to impress, well, produce something decent. A hunt through larder and freezer turned up frozen chicken Kiev. No one could go wrong with frozen ready-prepared Kievs. Just stick them in a hot oven. A packet of savoury rice. Meredith read the instructions. That didn’t seem to present any problems. You just put it in the pan with water and let it boil itself dry. ‘Until all liquid is absorbed’ the packet said. She had tomatoes and half a head of expensive out-of-season lettuce. She could make a side salad. Pudding? Meredith dived back into the freezer and rooted about. A cheesecake lurked at the bottom. It looked good in the picture. That would do.
He turned up shortly after ten in gumboots, corduroys, pullover and the trusty green weatherproof. They climbed the stile into fields beyond the Haynes’ cottage and set off.
