Asking For Trouble (18 page)

Theresa has been a little wild of late and caused us some anxiety. But it’s to be expected of youth. God willing, I shall hang on for a few more years yet, so that by the time she inherits, she will be older and wiser, ready to settle down. She has a good head on her shoulders and I don’t doubt she will cope
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I have told Jamie. He is perhaps disappointed, having worked so hard. But he is not so close a relative and, besides, he is one of those, I feel, who needs direction. Left entirely to his own devices and completely in charge, the temptation to realise a large sum of money could prove too much to resist. He might simply sell up. I don’t believe Theresa would do that. She knows how much the Astara Stud has meant to me. It’s a pity we are such a small family
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The letter concluded with a few more general phrases.

I sat back and thought hard. There was a waspish touch to the letter which rather appealed to me. Clearly Ariadne disapproved of Philip’s remarriage and hadn’t the slightest intention that a penny of hers should ever fall into the hands of the new wife and any children she might bring Philip. Poor old Phil had been cut off with the proverbial shilling. It was put more politely than that, but that’s what had happened and he’d know it.

The letter was dynamite. It was reasonable to suppose Ariadne had no idea it had come into Terry’s possession and that was why Terry had taken such trouble to hide it. How had she come by it? Had Philip shown it or sent it to her? Had she come across it by chance amongst her father’s papers and simply taken it? Had Ariadne – or anyone else – ever told Terry openly that she would be heiress to Ariadne’s entire fortune? And fortune it certainly must be. Or had Ariadne and Alastair deemed it unwise to tell such a young girl she was going to be very, very rich one day?

I pulled myself together. Speculation was dangerous. Nevertheless I was sure I had a valuable piece of information in my grasp. It opened a whole new aspect on the affair. Janice would certainly like to know about this letter.

I had to keep it safe. Above all, I had to keep it out of Jamie’s hands.

Ah, Jamie! I thought. He, too, had been cut out of the will. Too unreliable, Ariadne thought him, though he’d ‘worked hard’. Worked here, presumably, at the Astara. Someone must run the place. Neither Alastair nor Ariadne looked up to it. Nevertheless, she believed that given a chance, Jamie would sell up and blow the lot on a couple of years’ fast living. She knew him better than I did, and nothing I’d seen of him so far, made me doubt her judgement.

I tried to make the rabbit look as if no one had touched him. I couldn’t sew up the slit in his back but I pulled the cloth together and he looked intact. I folded the letter up as it had been in a tiny wad and put it in my purse. Then I thought, that was stupid, because if I had to open my purse in front of anyone, they’d see it. So I took it out again and smoothed both sheets out flat. The book of Turgenev plays was on the bedside table. I eased off the wrapper, smoothed the two sheets round the boards, and put the original wrapper back over it. It wasn’t perfect, but it would have to do until I could think of something better.

I went back to bed quite satisfied and fell fast asleep.

When I went down to breakfast at eight-thirty in a clean shirt and jeans, only Alastair was there.

‘Good morning, Fran! Sleep well? My sister breakfasts in her room. Jamie might join us later. He’s been out since six in the yard.’

I sat down and Ruby bustled in and put bacon and eggs in front of me. I hadn’t had bacon and eggs for breakfast for so long, I’d forgotten what it was like.

‘Glad to see you’ve got a decent appetite!’ Alastair said, meaning it kindly. ‘It’s going to be a nice day. I’ll take you out in the yard when you’ve finished and show you around. Do you ride?’

I confessed I only rode a bike.

‘Well, we might be able to find a nice quiet animal to put you up on. I’ll ask Kelly.’

I wasn’t very keen but thanked him, adding, ‘I thought I might try and get to Winchester and have a look round there, if that’s all right with you. If I go back to Basing-stoke, I’ll be able to get a bus from there to Winchester, won’t I?’

I’d two reasons for trying to reach Winchester. One was to try and track down the wine bar which had been the origin of the book of matches Edna showed me. The letter was important and suggested a motive for someone. But the match book was my only lead. My other reason was to phone Gan and get his opinion on my discovery. I’d already found I risked being overheard if I tried to phone from inside the house.

‘Look at the shops, eh?’ said Alastair cheerily. ‘Or King Arthur’s Round Table? They’ve got that in Winchester. Fake, of course.’ He chuckled. ‘They painted up an old table to please Henry the Eighth! I think Jamie is going in later this morning. He can give you a lift.’

My heart sank. I mumbled that I didn’t want to bother him.

Alastair said heartily, ‘Oh, it won’t be any trouble for him!’

I’d have liked to hear what Jamie had to say about it. Later on, I probably would.

Alastair led me out to the stableyard after breakfast. Jamie hadn’t appeared by the time we finished and although I looked for him in the yard, I didn’t see him. With luck, he’d already left for Winchester. Perhaps I’d been wrong in assuming he ran the place for Ariadne. Perhaps Kelly, whoever Kelly was, ran it.

It was now about half past nine and clearly, most of the morning chores had already been completed. Lie-abeds like me wouldn’t be much use around here where everyone was up with the lark, shovelling muck.

The yard was clean and tidy except for a stack of haybales in one corner. A girl was grooming a chestnut horse, working like a Trojan over it.

‘Ah,’ said Alastair, ‘come and meet Kelly.’

I had been supposing Kelly to be a wizened Irish groom in a check cap. But Kelly was also a first name, a girl’s name. I’d overlooked that.

She straightened up as we approached and came round the horse, holding a couple of brushes, one in either hand.

‘Morning, Mr Alastair!’ she said cheerfully, and gave me a curious look.

She was hefty in build, thighs like hams in tight jodhpurs and a bust like a ship’s figurehead bouncing around beneath a knitted pullover. Her sleeves were pushed up over her thick forearms and wrists. She had bright ginger hair, plaited into a single long braid and, as often goes with such hair colour, a pale skin which had freckled alarmingly in the sun. Alastair performed introductions while she rubbed the two curry brushes one against the other to clean out the hairs. She wasn’t hostile, but she didn’t know what to make of me. She smiled a little uncertainly and when Alastair mentioned finding a quiet animal for me to ride, said, ‘I’ll see what we can do.’

At that moment a man I hadn’t seen before came out of a loose-box and looked across at us. He was middle-aged, stocky and tweed-capped.

Alastair murmured, ‘Lundy, I wanted a word with him. Excuse me, won’t you?’

He set off towards the other man and left me with Kelly.

I took the opportunity to explain I wasn’t all that keen on being turned adrift on horseback.

‘If you’ve never ridden before,’ she said, ‘we might have a problem finding something suitable for you. There’s old Dolly, she might do. She can be a bit moody, though, and on her off days she goes on strike. She’d realise you were a novice straight away and play up. We aren’t a riding stables, you see. This is a breeding stud.’

‘What are they, racehorses?’ The question was probably foolish but not knowing one end of a horse from another, I could be allowed it.

Kelly shook her head. ‘No, future competition animals. Show-jumpers, dressage, eventers . . . We’ve a good reputation. The top riders come here to look over our stock.’

‘Who runs the stud?’ I asked. ‘I assume Alastair doesn’t.’

‘Oh no, Mr Jamie does. Has done for about six or seven years. Joey Lundy is head stud groom and I’m dogsbody. But Mr Jamie makes all the business decisions and does all the paperwork. Deals with buyers, that sort of thing. He’s fantastic – and the only one who can use the computer. The place was starting to go downhill before he came but business has picked up terrifically.’

I thought about this. ‘It’s been here some time, then, the stud?’

The horse stamped a hoof and looked round inquiringly. Kelly patted its rump. ‘The stud’s been here thirty years.’

That surprised me and I must have shown it.

‘Mr and Mrs Cameron founded it,’ she explained. ‘Then Mr Cameron died and Mrs Cameron carried on until her accident.’

It was beginning to fall into place. I asked, as tactfully as I could, whether the accident had put Ariadne in the wheelchair.

It had, said Kelly. But Mrs Cameron had continued to run the stud until just a few years ago. Then Mr Alastair, as she called him, had taken over for a few years. Then, as it got too much for him, Jamie Monkton had come along.

All this was fascinating but Kelly, as well as the horse, was getting restless. She wanted to get on with her work. I thanked her, apologised for taking up her time and for not being able to stay and lend a hand, and walked over to where Alastair talked with Lundy.

Lundy shook hands with me. He had a vice-like grip which mangled my fingers and he didn’t smile. He looked an ugly sort of customer closer to, his eyes small with yellowed whites, as hard as pebbles. I decided I didn’t want to tangle with him. He smelled strongly of horses and, I suspected, whisky, certainly not of cologne . . . but he looked just the sort of person to hang a body up as easily as a butcher does a side of beef. I wondered whether he smoked and resolved to look around the yard for the odd crushed packet or dog-end. But no doubt smoking was forbidden here for fire hazard reasons. All that hay and straw.

I told Alastair I was going back to the house. On the way I saw Kelly had finished grooming the chestnut and was walking towards a loose-box. She glanced across and waved. I returned the salute. She continued on her way, pausing only to stoop and heft a bale of hay which she carried before her into the box. I couldn’t have lifted it, at least not without ricking my back. She was the first person I’d met who heartily approved of Jamie. And that might be significant.

I thought that if I was quick about it, seeing that Jamie hadn’t yet shown his face, I might get out and catch the bus before he set out by car. But as I walked into my room, I knew Jamie was quicker off the mark than I’d been.

The reason he hadn’t been anywhere I’d been that morning was because he’d been in here, going through the room. Don’t ask me how I knew it had been Jamie, I just did. Well, it wasn’t likely to have been anyone else.

I was mad with myself, aside from being mad with him, because I should have expected this.

My holdall had been turned inside out. I’d left Gan’s camera in it and he’d found that and taken out the film. The celluloid reel sprawled in a tangle across the carpet. The film hadn’t been used, but he wasn’t taking any chances. I wondered what he’d been afraid I might have photo-ed. Himself, perhaps. It was a thought – another one which hadn’t occurred to me before. I was a really lousy detective, that was for sure.

The wardrobe door, which I’d closed, swung open. My skirt had fallen off the hanger on to the floor. I picked it up, muttering what I’d like to do to the culprit. He’d even gone through the pockets of the jacket, leaving them pulled out.

He’d also searched around in the dressing table and the chest of drawers. But he hadn’t touched the stuffed animals and – when I checked – I found he hadn’t touched the Turgenev. The letter was as I’d left it, wrapped round the boards.

He was determined, was our Jamie, but skimped detail. He didn’t know how much I knew and he wasn’t sure exactly why I’d come down here. He wanted to get rid of me, but not before he found out. He wanted to know exactly what I planned to do. But there’d been nothing he could find to tell him except—

I gave a screech. My notebook! Yes, he found it. He’d sat on the bed and read it, I could see the dent in the duvet. Then he’d thrown it down. I picked it up and looked through it. I hadn’t written much. Just a few key words with question marks. ‘T’s parents?’ ‘The last quarrel at home?’ ‘The man Gan saw?’ That sort of thing.

It told him enough. It told him I was playing detective and ‘playing’ was the right word for it. Had I been half way competent I’d have made sure the notebook was where no one could lay his hands on it or at least invented some kind of code instead of writing it out so plainly.

I tidied up, muttering to myself, put on my jacket and went downstairs.

Jamie was in the hall, standing before a mirror and adjusting his cap to a rakish angle. He thought himself quite something, that was clear. He’d also splashed around aftershave, one with cologne scent. It was trapped in the hall, the same cologne scent I’d noticed when Nev and I had come back from Camden, and which had told me we’d had a visitor in the squat.

Reflected in the mirror, he could see me and see the furious glare I was giving him.

‘Something wrong, Fran? Sleep badly?’ He grinned and turned to face me. ‘Bad conscience, perhaps.’

‘Tell me about it,’ I growled at him.

‘My conscience is clear, sweetheart. Alastair told Ruby to tell me you want a lift into Winchester.’

‘I don’t. I’ll go to Basingstoke and find another bus. Alastair had the idea I could go with you, but the bus seems much more attractive.’

‘Bad-tempered little tyke, aren’t you?’ He shrugged. ‘It’ll take you all day to do it by bus both ways. Anyway, Alastair wants me to give you a lift. We need to keep him happy, don’t we?’ He gave that nasty grin again. ‘Both of us.’

Alastair was walking back from the yard as we left. He waved at the car as it passed him. I waved back, trying to smile brightly.

‘That’s the ticket!’ Jamie said.

He succeeded, as he probably intended, in irritating me. ‘You think you’ve got all the answers, don’t you?’

‘Not all, Fran,’ he retorted. ‘Not as far as you’re concerned, but I reckon I can make an informed guess.’