stables were at risk only from knife-wielding ex-jockeys who might chose to set up temporary homes there.
The two women moved through into the small covered yard and looked around. Short of using one of the empty stalls, or bedding down on the neat stack of hay at the back of the central area, there was no suitable accommodation on the ground floor. But the rungs leading up the wall to the trapdoor in the wooden ceiling looked much more promising.
“Donal!” Jude called out, her voice suddenly loud after the silence of their approach. “Donal, are you up there?”
There was no answer. Jude and Carole looked at each other, the latter’s expression full of trepidation, as she whispered, “Suppose he’s just waiting up there, with his knife?”
“I really don’t think he represents any danger to us.”
“After what he did to Ted? Why not?”
“Don’t know. Instinct.”
Carole’s “Huh” fully expressed her views of the value of instinct in such circumstances.
But her friend just shrugged and started up the ladder. After a moment’s hesitation, Carole followed suit. Through both of their minds went the same thought. Damn, we should have brought a torch.
They needn’t have worried. As soon as she pushed up the trapdoor, Jude was aware of some light source above and, as she poked her head up through the aperture, she could see the Velux window set in the pitched roof. She pulled herself up into the loft space and looked around, waiting till Carole had joined her before saying anything.
“Well, it looks like we were right.”
The space was surprisingly tidy, and somehow gave the impression that it had never been used since the place was converted. The Dalrymples appeared never to have taken advantage of the space for storage.
But someone had taken advantage of it as a bedroom. Long damp-speckled cushions from garden loungers had been laid down on the bare boards, and a grubby-looking sleeping bag had been placed on top. Beside the makeshift bed an old wine box stood, candles and matches on its surface, tins, boxes and unidentified garments shoved inside it.
“I bet this is Donal’s little hideaway.” It was strange. In spite of her recent shout up the ladder, which would have alerted anyone who happened to be in the vicinity, up in the little loft Jude felt the need to whisper.
“But there’s no sign of him, is there?”
“No.” Jude knelt down and scrutinised the sleeping bag. “He hasn’t been here for a while either. There’s dust all over this.”
“Oh well.” Carole, anxious to leave, edged back towards the ladder. “At least we know a place where he might come to.” All she wanted to do was to get back onto the road outside the Dalrymples’ house. They’d been very lucky so far, nobody had seen them. But they shouldn’t push their luck. Now it was time to go.
“Just a minute,” said Jude, and she moved back towards the sloped window to get a better view of the bed. As she did so, she glanced down at the window sill. “Well, well, well.”
“What is it?”
Carefully in her gloved hands, Jude lifted up an object, covered in a thin layer of dust, not as much as on the sill where it lay. A Sabatier kitchen knife, discoloured with stains of rust or possibly blood. She ran the blade against the leather of her Florentine glove, leaving a distinct thin line. It was still sharp.
“A murder weapon?” she suggested.
“No,” said Carole with some exasperation. “You may have forgotten, but the police already have a murder weapon. The bot knife that was found at the scene of the crime.”
“Oh yes. Yes, of course.” Jude returned the knife to its dusty haven, and redirected her attention to the makeshift bed on the floor. “It’s uneven.”
“What?”
“The bed. The foot end is higher than the pillow end.”
“Well, why not? It’s not a proper bed, it’s just been assembled from bits and pieces. Probably those disgusting things it’s been put on are uneven.”
Jude said nothing, but moved forward and knelt down near the far end of the cushions. She reached under them, felt around and then pulled out a bundle of something.
Uncurled, it was revealed to be a frayed and battered Barbour, wrapped around a pair of gloves.
Spattered all over both were the unmistakable rusty spots of dried blood.
22
“Good God,” said Carole. “So it was Donal, after all.”
“We don’t know that. It could have been someone else.”
“For heaven’s sake, Jude! This is pretty incontrovertible evidence. The bloodstained garments that were worn when he killed Walter Fleet are found here in Donal’s hideaway-what more do you want?” Carole was irritated to see her friend was grinning at her. “And what’s that expression meant to mean?”
“Just that I thought you were meant to be the rational one, and what you just said did make quite a few major leaps of logic. For a start, we don’t know that these were the clothes worn by the murderer of Walter Fleet. And, on top of that, though there seems to be evidence that someone’s been squatting in this loft, we have no proof that that person is Donal Geraghty.”
“Now you’re just being picky.”
“Well, even if your theory’s true-say it is Donal who’s been camping in here, say these are the clothes worn by the murderer-what’re we going to do about it?”
“Obviously, Jude, we take the evidence to the police…or no, we don’t touch it. We call the police here and we-”
“Tell them that we just happened to be trespassing in the Dalrymples’ stables, and we just happened by chance to come upon these bloodstained garments?”
“Ah. I see your point. No, what we do is, we get as far away from here as possible, and then we send the police an anonymous tip-off, recommending that they take a look in the Dalrymples’ stables.”
“And how do we do that? Phone calls are traceable, so are text messages, faxes, e-mails…”
“We find a way to do it.” Carole was getting exasperated by Jude’s uncharacteristic assumption of the wet- blanket role, and even more exasperated because she reckoned Jude was only doing it to tease her. “That’s not what’s important. What is important is that we get away from here as quickly as possible.”
“Hm…Well, we’re not leaving till I’ve had a little look at what we’ve found.”
“But you can’t…you mustn’t…” Carole’s Home Office training once more asserted itself. “If you touch anything, you’ll probably get arrested for the murder yourself. You can’t risk leaving any DNA.”
“I think I’ll be all right,” said Jude, showing off her hands in the Florentine gloves. Carole watched, appalled, as her neighbour carefully inspected the bloodstained pair of gloves, almost turning them inside out to check for any marks of identification. But she was disappointed. Just cheap, ordinary woollen gloves that could be bought at any store or market in the country. And the one-size-fits-all expandable sort that gave no indication even of the wearer’s gender.
“What about the jacket?” Jude picked up the Barbour and looked at it. Old, well worn, average size. She held it up to the window. In better light, even more dull blood spatters were visible on the old waxed fabric. If this was not the garment worn by Walter Fleet’s killer, then there had been another recent bloody murder in the Fethering area.
Holding up the jacket by its collar, Jude checked the pockets. The inside ones yielded only a pencil stub and a crumpled tissue, the latter wonderfully revelatory to a police forensics team, but entirely useless to the unqualified amateur.
Jude moved on to the outside pockets. Just a few bits of lint and shreds of paper. A wizened stump of carrot and a few fluffy Polo mints, presumably intended as treats for some lucky horse.
Punctiliously, she returned each item to where she’d found it. Only the small upright slit pockets remained. Nothing in the left one. But in the right…her gloved hand closed round a scrap of slightly shiny paper.
