Cut Throat (3 page)

‘Poison!' she said, shaking her head in disbelief. ‘Whatever next? Poor Mr Richmond is
so
unlucky.'

‘In what way?' Ross asked.

‘Oh, don't let's go raking all that up,' Bill said wearily. ‘What we've got to do now is make sure the others are all right.'

His wife ignored him.

‘His best horse was killed in a knife attack last year,' she told Ross. ‘It was horrible. We had the police here and reporters hanging around for days. Poor Sarah was that upset, she had to go on tranquillisers.' Her eyes shone, recalling the drama of it all.

‘Oh yeah. I remember now,' Ross said. ‘Lindsay told me about it when it happened. Didn't he win the Hickstead Derby?'

‘Yes, and it's history now, so just let it be,' Bill cut in.

Ross would have liked to know more but felt that provoking an argument would probably not be the best way to begin his association with the Scotts.

In the mellow light inside the cottage, the couple appeared to be in their mid-forties: he tanned, with receding salt-and-pepper hair and a deeply lined face; she a comfortably rounded, attractive brunette.

‘Have you been to England before, Ross?' she asked, as the meal wound to a close.

‘Once when I was a kid,' he said. ‘My father brought me with him on a business trip and we saw the Christmas show at Olympia. It was pure magic. I think that's when I decided I wanted to be a rider.'

‘It's a lovely show,' she agreed, getting to her feet. ‘More pie? Or cake?'

Ross declined, sitting back in his chair and looking about him. The cottage was attractive in a homey sort of way, furnished and upholstered with quality but not extravagance. Assorted mementoes of foreign holidays sat incongruously amongst more traditional English pieces, reminding Ross of the Buddha in his own room.

He would have liked to have questioned Bill Scott about the horses and the other staff, but as soon as the meal was over, the stable manager retired to his armchair once more and appeared to have his attention firmly fixed on the flickering screen before him. Ross thought that perhaps he didn't like to bring his work home, as it were.

‘Do the others eat here?' he finally asked Mrs Scott, obediently lifting his elbows as she wiped the table before bearing his plate away to the washing-up bowl.

‘During the day,' she replied. ‘Then young Sarah usually goes home for her dinner and Leo goes out, as often as not. They stayed on this evening, of course, because Bill was out. Are you sure you've eaten enough?'

‘Yes, thank you, ma'am. That was lovely.'

Mrs Scott laughed out loud. ‘The only person we call ma'am in this country is the Queen,' she told him. ‘You call me Maggie, like everyone else does.'

Ross smiled and nodded, liking her a lot more than he did her husband.

Soon, pleading exhaustion, he excused himself and made for his bed.

Apart from Leo banging the bathroom door when he came in at some ungodly hour, nothing disturbed Ross' sleep that night. He rose early from habit and spent ten minutes going through the exercises his physiotherapist had set him, adding one or two of his own for good measure.

On a table opposite the foot of his bed he had found a kettle, two mugs, and jars containing instant coffee, tea and dried milk. He filled the kettle from the tap in the bathroom and made himself coffee, drinking it black while standing at the window overlooking the yard.

From this vantage point the set-up looked neat and well-ordered. The buildings surrounding the yard were of red brick, and appeared old but immaculately maintained. All the paintwork gleamed and no stray buckets or abandoned tools were to be seen. It seemed that the Colonel liked his yard run with military precision.

In the centre of the open space a huge stone trough held water that reflected the sky. To his left as he looked from his window was a row of loose-boxes that opened directly on to the yard; opposite was a long wall with windows and two archways which he guessed led into a corridor with more stables. To his right were a barn, the driveway to the main house and, out of sight, the Scotts' cottage and the gravel drive leading to the road. In the far right-hand corner of the yard, between a large foaling box and the barn, the grassy track they had followed the night before led to a five-bar gate and a field bounded by woodland. From a second window at the other end of his room he had a view of the large sand arena where they had put the two-year-olds, and a steeply rising field that obscured the road beyond. Thankfully, the youngsters all looked fit and well.

It was a far cry from the vast dusty expanses and barn stabling that Ross was used to in America, but it was a glorious morning and a second chance beckoned. Whistling softly, he began to dress.

He heard Leo come out of his room, go downstairs and out into the yard, and then caught sight of him crossing to the stables on the other side.

When Ross made his appearance in the yard shortly afterwards, feeding had been completed and mucking out was well under way. Bill, Leo and Sarah, bustling about with wheelbarrows, mucksacks and buckets of water, greeted him with two ‘good mornings' and a ‘hi'.

Unsure what was immediately expected of him and anxious not to get in the way, Ross drifted into the tackroom. There, amongst the smell of leather, soap and metal polish, he immediately felt at home. Neat rows of gleaming saddles and bridles hung above wooden blanket chests, each bearing a different name: King, Simone, Clown, Cragside . . . He paused. Cragside was a big strong horse judging by the severity of his bridle. Fly, Butterworth, Bishop . . . Ross inspected each set of tack carefully, learning something about each horse from the tools of his trade. All the leather was supple and clean, the bits and stirrups shone. He was impressed.

‘Time for breakfast.' Bill Scott spoke from the doorway. ‘The Colonel wants to see you ride after you've eaten.'

As they crossed the yard towards the cottage, Scott gave Ross a sidelong glance.

‘You're lame,' he remarked, his tone faintly accusing.

‘A little,' Ross agreed. ‘It doesn't affect my riding.'

Considering that after his accident he had been told he would be lucky if he ever walked without a stick again, he had always felt it would be churlish to resent the slight limp he'd been left with.

Scott grunted. ‘I hope not.'

Breakfast would have been a solemn affair without Maggie's chatter. Bill Scott was clearly not disposed to talk and Leo Jackson proved to be reserved to the point of surliness. Ross wasn't sure whether it was the result of a heavy night, but when formally introduced, he acknowledged the newcomer's presence with only a brief nod and then returned his attention to his eggs and bacon. Wearing black jeans and a khaki tee-shirt, he looked in the daylight to be something over thirty, with dark hair and eyes, and a faintly olive complexion.

Sarah Owen appeared to be little more than a teenager and was painfully shy. She turned pink whenever Ross spoke to her and never once met his gaze during the entire meal. He sighed to himself. His workmates promised to be a laugh a minute.

Breakfast was barely over when Roger arrived, collected Bill and drove on down to the scene of the previous night's tragedy. They had been gone some twenty minutes when a white Mercedes pulled into the yard, and Sarah, who had at Ross' request been putting names to the horses' faces, paused and said unhappily, ‘That's Mr Richmond.'

Going across to meet the expensively dressed, middle-aged man who was climbing out of the car, Ross found him to be slightly overweight but good-looking, with dark hair going grey at the temples and brown eyes that clearly reflected his sadness at his horse's death.

Ross was mildly surprised by this. Youngstock turned out in a field to mature generally represented promise rather than an emotional bond.

‘Mr Richmond? I'm Ross Wakelin. Bill's with the vet. I shouldn't think they'd be much longer,' he said as they shook hands.

‘Have they said how it happened? What did Roger say?' Richmond was plainly agitated.

‘From what he said last night, I gather some kind of poison is a possibility,' Ross told him.

‘Bastards!' Richmond said bitterly. ‘Why now?'

‘I'm sorry?' Ross replied, bewildered.

‘Oh, no,
I'm
sorry.' Richmond almost visibly pulled himself together. ‘What a way to welcome you!' He turned as they heard the Range Rover returning. ‘Ah, here's Roger.'

The vehicle drew up beside them and the vet erupted from it in what Ross was coming to recognise as his typically energetic way. ‘Franklin, what a bloody shame. It would have to be one of yours!'

‘Was it poison?' Richmond demanded.

‘It was,' Roger confirmed, his good-natured face registering regret. ‘Hemlock. Hemlock Water Dropwort, to be precise.'

‘But . . .' Richmond appeared to be struggling to process the information. ‘When I got the message last night, I thought . . . Are you saying that this was something he found in the field?'

The vet nodded. ‘In a manner of speaking. I had my suspicions when Sarah told me there'd been a digger in, clearing the ditches. You see, the whole plant is poisonous but the root is by far the worst part and it's the only bit that's really palatable. It's supposed to be sweetish but I wouldn't recommend trying it. You'd probably be dead within minutes.'

‘You're saying that the digger exposed some of the roots and Sailor helped himself?'

‘I'm afraid so.' Roger held up a polythene bag that contained several creamy-white, elongated roots, three to four inches long, and a small quantity of muddy water. ‘
Oenanthe Crocata
. Otherwise known as “dead men's fingers”. You can see why. Easy to overlook when it's growing – it looks a bit like cow parsley.' He stepped back towards the Range Rover. ‘Look, I must go. I'll do a gut sample when the hunt stables collect him and let you know for sure. But it all fits. Bloody shame!'

‘Surely they won't feed a poisoned horse to the hounds?' Ross was surprised.

‘They don't feed much horsemeat to the hounds at all,' Bill Scott told him dourly. ‘Apparently it's too rich. Most of it's incinerated these days.'

Colonel Preston arrived in the yard five minutes later at nine o'clock prompt, and was standing talking to Franklin Richmond when Ross came down from his room having swiftly exchanged jeans for grey cord breeches and leather boots.

The epitome of the retired Army officer, from the tips of his carefully tended moustache to the toes of his gleaming brown shoes, the Colonel had greying hair under a flat cap and blue-grey eyes that missed nothing. He greeted his new employee politely with a handshake and a brief smile, subjecting him to a long searching look that Ross felt laid bare all his doubts and insecurities.

‘I've heard a lot about you, young man,' he said, genially enough. ‘Lindsay would have it that you're a pretty hot property. I shall expect great things.'

‘I'll do my best, sir,' he promised, returning the smile.

Behind them, Leo led a big brown gelding out of the covered stables.

‘Ah, King,' the Colonel said. ‘King's Defender. Let's see what you make of him.'

‘Sure.' Ross nodded. He greeted the animal with a pat and a Polo mint and then tightened the girth. The horse stood like a gentleman as Leo gave Ross an efficient leg-up into the saddle, and he rode into the school adjusting his stirrup leathers as he went.

Richmond and the Colonel made their way along the outside of the arena and leaned on the fence, the Colonel's tweed-suited frame propped upon a shooting stick. Bill Scott stood beside his employer and Leo and Sarah stood at the gate to the yard. The two-year-olds had been checked over and moved to another field, and half-a-dozen show-jumps of varying sizes had been erected for Ross' use.

He put his intensely interested audience out of his mind and concentrated on the job in hand. King felt mature, calm and confident, but Ross guessed he was going to have to work for his jumps. Nobody had told him anything about any of the horses as yet and he hadn't asked. He knew this was a test of his ability to read and adapt to his equine partners.

After ten minutes or so of suppling exercises – circles, serpentines and changes of speed – Ross put King's Defender at one of the easy training fences. The horse flicked his ears back and forth as he approached, waiting for Ross' command. Sensing what the horse wanted, he sat deep into the saddle and drove him hard at the jump. With a swish of his tail King responded and the coloured poles flashed safely by beneath his neatly folded legs.

Ridden decisively, the horse didn't put a foot wrong and Ross relaxed and began to enjoy himself. It had been nearly a month since he had last been on a horse, and the satisfaction of settling into a smooth partnership again was immense.

Leo led a second horse through the gate as Ross slowed up, and without stopping to speak to the Colonel, he changed horses.

The difference was absolute. This mare was smaller, much younger and bubbling with nervous energy. Ross rode her with gentle hands, playing with the bit in her mouth, asking her to listen. Gradually she settled. He turned her towards a small jump and she exploded into action. Caught momentarily off guard, Ross had to use much skill and not a little strength to bring her under control again.

Rebelling, she threw her head up, legs ramrod stiff, and stopped with her nose touching the poles. He swore at himself under his breath for being caught out like a novice. Swinging the mare away, he circled a time or two, then put her at it again.

This time he was ready. He kept her on a short bouncy stride and urged her on from three strides out.