“Well, I went in there-you know, having seen the body-looking for someone to help, and I saw that there was a kind of bed made up there, with a sleeping bag.”
“Yes, that sometimes gets used-you know, if a horse is ill or foaling, some of the owners insist on staying on the premises. It’s not used very often.”
“I got the impression, the night I was there, that it had been used quite recently.”
“No,” said Lucinda firmly. “I’d know if someone was sleeping there.”
“So Donal never slept there?”
“Good God, no. I put up with a lot from him, but there’s no way I’d let him doss down in my stables. Other people’s stables, maybe. Well, I know he squats in other people’s stables. Not mine.”
“Ah. Right.”
The conversation was temporarily becalmed. Lucinda Fleet still reminded Jude of a smaller, more mature version of Sonia Dalrymple. But close to, the differences between the two women were more cruelly marked. Lucinda looked older than she had in the police spotlights at Long Bamber Stables. Probably late forties. Her face, which must once have been as pretty as Sonia’s, was scored with tiny lines and weathered by a lifetime of working out of doors. Though she took care of the nails, her hands were cracked and reddened. Even so, all the hard manual work-and presumably the riding-had left her with an enviably trim figure.
Beneath the woman’s no-nonsense exterior, Jude could sense a deeply hidden thread of pain. Not the pain of her recent bereavement, but something longer-lived and more profound. Maybe one day Jude would find out its source.
Carole jump-started the conversation again. “Just another thing about this Donal…”
“Yes?”
“You describe him as a kind of vagrant, whose always hanging around places where there are horses…”
“If you like.”
“Well, isn’t that exactly the sort of person the police suspect was responsible for all these knife attacks on horses?”
“No!” Lucinda was suddenly animated and furious. “Donal would never do anything like that! He might hurt a human being-he’s done that often enough in his cups-but there’s no way he’d ever do harm to a horse. Donal loves horses.”
Jude came in smoothly to ease the slight atmosphere following this exchange. “Could I get you another fizzy water, Lucinda?”
“No, thanks.”
“Or…we were thinking of having lunch here. I don’t know if you-”
“No. I never have lunch.” She looked at her watch, a man’s one on a battered leather strap. (Maybe Walter’s? Maybe her one gesture of mourning for her dead husband?) “I must get back to the stables. Always too much to do.”
“Incidentally,” said Jude, “about the stables, Lucinda…”
“Hm?”
“What are your plans?”
“What do you mean?”
“For Long Bamber Stables. I mean, now that Walter’s dead.”
Lucinda looked at Jude curiously. “Well, keep the business going. I have no other visible means of support. Walter’s death doesn’t really make much difference to that.”
“Oh?”
“Walter was only ever ‘front of house.’ Schmoozing up to the owners-particularly the women. He never did any of the actual hard work.”
“Was that because his injuries prevented him from doing any?”
Lucinda Fleet let out a derisive snort of laughter. “It was very variable-what Walter’s injuries did and didn’t allow him to do.”
“Ah.”
“No, he was fundamentally lazy. Loved life back when he was the golden boy of eventing, and people fell over themselves to do things for him. When he lost that status, he still expected people to fall over themselves to do things for him. Only the trouble was, by then he wasn’t surrounded by ‘people.’ Just me. Which meant that I ended up doing everything. I know it doesn’t do to say such things, but it’s a huge relief to me that Walter’s dead.”
That was pretty unambiguous. The two neighbours exchanged a look. Carole reckoned they were both thinking exactly the same thing: that Lucinda Fleet was as tough as the old boots she was wearing. But that wasn’t what Jude was thinking.
“Do you think there’s something going on with her and Donal?”
“What-Lucinda?”
“Yes, obviously, Jude.”
“Why should there be?”
“Well, she made no secret of the fact that her marriage was unhappy, so maybe she sought…I don’t know what the word is…solace perhaps?”
“Sex.”
“All right…outside the marriage? Maybe that was a reason why she liked having Donal around so much, and why Walter loathed him?”
“I think you’ve been reading too much News of the World, Carole.”
“I have never read the News of the World.”
“I know you haven’t. Just a joke. But you do seem to be developing rather a prurient mind. Isn’t it possible that Lucinda just found Donal useful to help out with the horses-like she said?”
“Well, yes, it’s possible,” Carole conceded, “but there has been a murder here. High emotions are involved. If Donal was Lucinda’s lover, he might well have wanted Walter out of the way. And the police must have had some stronger reason to arrest him, you know, beyond the fact that he’s a vagrant who hangs round horses.”
“They haven’t arrested him. They’ve only taken him in for questioning.” Jude found it odd saying lines like that. Usually it was Carole, with her Home Office background, who was hot on details of police procedure.
But her friend was too excited to bother about such things. “I think it’s very likely that Donal did kill Walter Fleet.”
“Which Donal are we talking about here? The ex-jockey?”
They hadn’t heard the approach of Ted Crisp to their alcove, bearing the steak-and-Guinness pies they’d both ordered.
“Yes,” said Jude. “Why-do you know him?”
“Certainly.” Ted scratched his beard. “He holds something of a record here, actually.”
“What’s that?”
“He is the only person I have ever banned from the Crown and Anchor. There have been people who I’ve warned, but generally speaking, the natives of Fethering are a biddable, docile lot. Donal’s the only one who’s ever started a fight in here.”
“Who did he have a fight with? Was the other man one of your regulars?”
“The other man used to come in occasionally. Won’t be doing that so much now, though.”
“Oh?”
“Because he’s dead. He was that Walter Fleet-you know, the one who got stabbed up at Long Bamber.”
“And Donal picked a fight with him? In here?” asked Carole.
“That’s right. Six months ago, maybe a bit longer. Hot summer evening, I remember that.”
“Do you know what the fight was about?”
“Hard to tell. Donal was so drunk, he was hardly intelligible. And Walter wasn’t in a much better state either. They had this big slanging match, and then Donal went for Walter.”
“If they had a slanging match,” said Jude, “you must have heard something.”
“It was all pretty indistinct. But I do remember Donal shouting something like, ‘You’re not worthy of her!
