Dead Man Riding (18 page)

‘We managed to untie him,' she said. ‘Robin and Dulcie and me. He's in the tack room.'

‘Where's the horse?'

‘Robin's shut him in the stallion's box. He's still with him, trying to calm him down.'

Meredith, Alan and I went into the tack room. An old table that was usually scattered with bits of leather and mending tools had been cleared and the Old Man was laid out on it, covered in a yellow and red horse blanket. Dulcie and Midge must have done that because Robin had the horse to deal with. Meredith gently drew back the blanket from his face. The Old Man's eyes had been closed and his face was gaunt but calm, the red gash from the fall on the beach standing out on the thin, weather-beaten skin. The sun was coming in through the window, shining on the picture of the galloping horses and breaking waves above his head and the Byron quotation. There were bits of grass and leaves in the Old Man's silver hair, earth and grass stains on the sleeve of his shirt.

‘It looks as if the horse might have rolled on him.'

My own voice, sounding terribly calm. I wished I hadn't said that with Alan there but shock seemed to have turned me into two people, one of them drowning in what was happening, the other one watching and analysing. Tears were running down Alan's face. Meredith moved away to the far end of the tack room to give him some time to himself and I followed.

‘Did you make the
Mazeppa
connection at once?' Meredith asked me.

‘Yes. I suppose … something like that was in my mind after that business on the beach.'

‘You mean you expected it?'

‘Not expected, no. But when I saw his foot was tied to the stirrup I thought … it was the kind of thing he might do.'

‘In the Byron, doesn't Mazeppa survive?'

‘Yes, the horse drops dead and some Cossacks cut him free.'

‘The horse might have dropped dead this time. It must have been terrified.'

‘He risked Sid's legs on the beach. There was a ruthlessness about him, wasn't there? Horse and warrior taking their risks together.'

He glanced at me. ‘You understood him rather well, didn't you?'

‘I don't know.'

Alan turned the blanket back over the Old Man again and left, his steps slow and heavy on the stone floor. I couldn't look at the picture of the horses any more or the shape under the blanket, so much smaller now the life had gone out of him. I stared at a saddle stripped down for cleaning, a bunch of leather thongs hanging from a peg. They'd been left untidy and uneven, unusual in this neat room. I knew if I was going to say anything it must be now and to Meredith.

‘Those thongs – some like that were tying his feet to the stirrups. I … I think I might have heard him last night coming in to fetch them, and the saddle and bridle too probably.'

‘When was that?'

After Imogen had come back, but of course I couldn't talk about that even if all the men had guessed.

‘Some time after one o'clock but before it got light. His hands were tied too. That's what scares me. At first I was sure he'd done it himself. You could tie your own feet to the stirrups, even tie the stirrups together under the horse's belly … if you leaned down from the saddle, say, and hooked the string with a riding crop…' (As I talked, I was visualising the Old Man doing it) ‘but I don't see how he could tie his own hands…' My voice was becoming unsteady. ‘I'm sorry, forgive me, I'm talking nonsense.'

He looked at me and sighed. His hand, pleasantly cool, came round my wrist and I felt myself being guided over to an old armchair against the wall. Shock must have been setting in badly by then, because I didn't try to resist.

‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I'm afraid if you're starting this there are no half measures.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘If you begin following a logical course of thought, you can't tell yourself that you'll only go so far then stop. Either don't start or go as far as it takes you.'

‘I haven't had time to think.'

‘You've had as much time as you're going to get. You know we have to report this to the police? In a few hours it won't be our private property any more.' It sounds brutal, but the way he said it wasn't. He was talking to me quite calmly, like an equal.

I said miserably, ‘I think I've already started.'

‘Yes, I think you have too. So you have to use your eyes and your brain and your instincts and go where they take you, whether you like it or not.'

‘Like being tied to a wild horse?'

‘Perhaps. You were saying that you didn't see how he could have tied his own hands. Did you say that to Robin?'

‘I … I don't think so. I told Robin we'd better get him back to the stable yard as he was. I thought … I supposed he'd still be on the horse when we got back down there but Robin and Dulcie and Midge must have…'

‘Did you call Dulcie?'

‘No, she just walked into the stable yard, the way she does.'

‘What about Midge?'

‘No, but we sleep just over the stable yard remember. Midge must have heard something and come down.' I was amazed, when I thought about it, at Midge's competence and calmness.

‘You said it scared you when you saw his hands were tied. What did you mean?'

‘I thought it meant somebody else must have known what he was planning to do – must have helped him.'

‘Did you get as far as wondering who?'

‘I don't see who it could have been except Robin. He could get Sid to stand still, tie the knots and … oh.'

I pictured Robin in the grey light before dawn, tying the Old Man's hands to the leather strap and the Old Man watching calmly, probably giving him instructions on exactly how to do it.

‘He'd do anything for the Old Man,' I said. ‘You could see that.'

‘You know assisting somebody to commit suicide is a serious crime. It would be no defence to say you were told to do it.'

‘I know. So how can I be the one who puts Robin in prison? The police would probably be happy enough with that. You said yourself that Gypsies get blamed for everything round here.'

‘What happened to the leather thongs and the string?'

‘I don't know. I suppose they're still out there in the yard somewhere'.

‘The police might want to see them.'

‘Yes, if we put the idea in their heads. Do we have to do that?'

Meredith didn't answer because Alan's voice came from outside the tack room, calling for him. When we went out to him he was dry-eyed but still shaken, standing close to Imogen.

‘What happens now?'

‘We shall have to inform the police. I suggest that you and I go down and get that over as soon as possible. As Miss Bray saw him on the horse it might be a good thing if she came with us.'

Meredith's tone was businesslike and that seemed to help Alan because he blinked and said yes, yes of course. Midge, Kit and Nathan were in the yard but there was no sign of Robin or Dulcie. I went over and took Midge aside.

‘I'm sorry you had to see that.'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘Do you know what became of the string and the bits of leather?'

‘We got a knife out of the tack room and cut them. I suppose we just threw them down.'

I walked all round the yard as unobtrusively as possible, but there was no sign of them at all, not an inch of leather thong or string. Somebody must have tidied them away, but it would have been brutal to start asking questions about a detail like that. Besides, I wasn't sorry not to find them.

The next job was getting the wagonette ready to go to the police station. Nathan volunteered to go to the mares' field to fetch Bobbin and I went with him because I'd have to face it again at some time. Something was obviously worrying Nathan and as soon as we were away from the others he came out with it.

‘You shouldn't have let her get involved.'

‘Midge? But I had no choice.'

‘You could have warned her, told her to stay upstairs.'

‘I'm sorry, but there were other things to think about. I had to tell Alan.'

In different circumstances I'd have been amused by the assumption that Midge was a delicate flower who needed protecting, but I agreed with him. I wished I could have saved her from it as well. We walked in silence up the track to the mares' field. Now it was just any meadow on a fine summer's morning. The mist had burned away, the mares gone back to their grazing and Bobbin's placidity seemed entirely unaffected. The only strange thing was not seeing the Old Man. I hadn't realised until then how his presence had worked itself into every corner of the place. Back in the stable yard when we managed to get the harness into a tangle I expected him to turn up and sort it out for us with his brown bony hands.

As Alan got into the wagonette, Imogen came up to him and took both his hands in hers for a moment. He bent and kissed the back of her hand that was clasped round his own, not in the tentative way he'd done when we went off on our ride but with a desperate need as if she were the only thing that made sense. I had a sudden, sharp memory of our evening in the college garden.
Dead, for my life! Even so; my tale is told.
It seemed another world already.

*   *   *

Meredith asked me to drive, which was typically sensible. For one thing it gave me something else to think about. For another, it meant he and Alan could sit in the back and talk. I couldn't hear what they were saying above the clattering of Bobbin's hooves and the jingling of the harness but I guessed it must be what we'd discussed back in the tack room. Put brutally, what exactly should we tell the police? It wasn't an easy thing to have to do, given Alan's obvious grief and shock, but decisions had to be made in the course of the drive.

We left Bobbin and the wagonette in the stables of the public house again and walked to the police station. We got some curious looks on the way but didn't take much notice because Meredith was talking to us quietly but firmly, back in tutorial mode.

‘You should both keep in mind that the police aren't stupid. Don't on any account try to lie to them about any matters of fact. On the other hand, you're under no obligation to talk about what you surmise, guess or suspect. The same applies to questions about Mr Beston's health and state of mind. It's perfectly reasonable for you, Nell, to tell them about the time you saw him taken ill. When it comes to what happened on the beach, that's a more difficult question. It must be a matter for surmise unless you can say for certain that he threw himself off rather than falling.'

I didn't say anything to that. I was certain in my own mind that the Old Man had intended to kill himself, but it would be difficult to explain why to anybody who hadn't been on the ride. An old man falls off a horse, it happens all the time.

Alan said, ‘What about the telegram to me, and shooting Kit and so on? Do I tell them that?'

‘Probably yes. They're both facts, and witnessed by other people as it happens. His state of mind is relevant.'

‘Because the police will think he killed himself because he murdered young Mawbray?'

‘It would be a reasonable assumption.'

I said, ‘And from their point of view quite useful. It closes an embarrassing case after all.' I was feeling rebellious and it must have come out in my voice because they both looked at me.

‘Don't you want that to happen?' Meredith asked, not argumentative but as if he really wanted to know.

‘But if he didn't kill young Mawbray—'

‘Oh for Christ's sake, let's go in and get it over with.' It came from Alan as a cry of pain and I realised how thoughtless I was being. Even if he hadn't known the Old Man well, he was a relative and the one most closely affected. We crossed the street and went into the police station without another word.

*   *   *

The police officer we saw was the same Inspector Armstrong who'd spoken to Alan and Meredith on their first visit – a broad-shouldered man in his fifties, plump and balding. He spoke unusually softly for a policeman in a lowland Scots accent and had a relaxed, almost kindly air but shrewd eyes. When we were first shown into his office there was the business of introducing me and finding an extra chair, then Alan burst out as soon as we were sitting down.

‘My uncle's dead.'

Once he'd got that out, he managed the rest well and calmly. His uncle had been found early that morning, tied into the saddle of one of his horses, dead. Armstrong listened calmly, not taking notes yet.

‘Was it you who found him?'

‘No,' I said. ‘I did.' I told him all of it just as it happened, going to the river to swim, seeing the horse coming out of the mist and knowing at once that something was wrong. ‘But I couldn't get the horse to stop, so I ran for help and luckily I met Robin.' I realised I didn't even know Robin's second name.

‘The Gypsy lad?' Armstrong said.

‘Yes. He got the horse to stand still and we took him back to the yard.'

‘Did he say anything?'

‘Robin?'

‘Mr Beston.'

‘He was dead. I'm sure he was dead as soon as I saw him.'

‘On the horse?'

‘Yes.'

Inspector Armstrong sighed and sat back in his chair. ‘Where is he?'

Alan glanced at us both. ‘My uncle?' Armstrong nodded. ‘Up at the house. In the tack room.'

Silence inside the room. Outside a cart rolled past and the window frame vibrated. Armstrong seemed to be thinking hard, eyes closed and chin propped on his fingers. After a long time he unpropped his chin and spoke.

‘We'll have to bring him down for the doctor to look at him and we'll be wanting statements. I'm afraid you'll have to give one, Miss Bray, since you found him. It won't be too alarming, just tell the story as you told me and we'll write it down for you to sign.'