jockey had suggested the pony’s hiding place. Donal was blackmailing the Dalrymples. Nicky had arrived to silence the Irishman for good.
“Don’t make a sound,” she whispered, as she hurried out to the main yard. She didn’t know yet the details of how she was going to do it, but she was determined to prevent any harm from coming to Donal.
In his search of the premises, Nicky Dalrymple had reached the stall where Conker had been hidden. He stood in the doorway, his back to Jude, the knife still in his hand.
“What are you doing here, Nicky?”
He turned as if he had been stung, and the face he revealed was a terrifying one. Congested with unreasoning fury, his expression had erased all trace of his good looks. There was something savage, even bestial, about him.
“I could ask you the same,” he hissed. “I can’t remember what your name is…”
“Jude.”
“Well, Jude…” He raised his knife hand as he approached her. Jude backed away towards the main gates, but she knew escape was hopeless. If she ran, a man as big and fit as Nicky Dalrymple would overtake her within seconds. No, argument was going to be a better defence than flight. Still not much of a defence, though.
The knife blade showed a dull gleam in the pale sunlight. Nicky’s contorted face almost smiled. “Have you ever heard the expression ‘being in the wrong place at the wrong time’? Because I would say you, at this moment, are the perfect example of that.”
“What-you’re planning to kill me?”
“I don’t think you’ve left me much alternative. You’re not the kind of person to keep quiet about something like this. Or the others.”
He was now closing in on her, with his back to the hay-barn entrance. Jude backed away till she came up hard against one of the stables’ rotting gateposts, and tried desperately to think of reasons for him to spare her life.
“Look, Nicky, nothing’s happened yet. You’re quite safe at the moment. So long as you don’t attack either me or Donal, you’ll be all right.”
He looked bewildered. “Donal? You mean that tinker and thief who-”
But that was as far as he got. Suddenly a small demented fury was on his back, reaching strong hands to grip at his throat.
Donal. Who had somehow found the strength to drag himself up out of the barn and come to Jude’s rescue.
It was an unequal contest. Nicky Dalrymple was twice the size of his assailant and at the peak of fitness. Donal was still suffering cracked ribs and all the other pains of his previous night’s beating. With almost contemptuous ease, Nicky swung the Irishman round off his shoulders and sent him crashing to the ground next to Jude. At the impact Donal let out a shriek of agony.
“So I’ve got two of you to dispose of now, have I?” Nicky Dalrymple felt the weight of the kitchen knife in his hand. “Two who know rather more than they should about my activities.”
“I’d be open to negotiation,” said Donal, with some of his old bravado. “I’m sure we could reach a mutually agreeable sum of money that would pay for my silence.”
“I’m afraid we’re beyond that. This has got very serious now. I’ve got far too much to lose to allow either of you ever to speak to another human being.”
As he moved towards them, Nicky Dalrymple became calmer. The natural colour returned to his face. He was once again the successful man, the practical man. He was facing a problem, but he had worked out a way of dealing with that problem, and he was about to put it into practice.
“Now do you feel strongly about which of you goes first?” He smiled graciously. “Etiquette, of course, demands that it should be the lady…”
He moved towards Jude, the kitchen knife raised.
“So, Hilary, are you going to go on working at Allinstore?”
“For the time being, yes.”
“What, still the same shift? Four to eight every weekday except Wednesday?”
“That’s it. I haven’t any alternative, Carole. I’m afraid Alec’s earning capacity is rather diminished by being in police custody. But, of course, when Imogen and I move I won’t work.”
“What will you live on then?”
“Property prices are a lot cheaper in New Zealand.” Australia was apparently no longer part of the equation. Carole got the feeling Hilary Potton had been planning her escape for quite a while. Probably long before her husband’s arrest made it a real possibility.
“And then,” she went on, “I’m set to make quite a lot of money from the newspapers.”
“Really? What, you mean writing about the murder case?”
“Yes, obviously nothing can appear in print until Alec’s convicted, but I’ve already had exploratory approaches from the News of the World, the Mail and the Express. I’ve been in touch with a very high-profile publicist, who’s going to handle all that for me.”
There was no mistaking the glee with which Hilary Potton announced this. Not only was she planning to take extreme revenge on her ex-husband, she was also going to attain the kind of media celebrity of which she had always dreamed.
Nicky Dalrymple slowly brought the knife to touch Jude’s cheek, running it along the smooth skin, almost like a lover’s caress.
Then he raised it to stab, his eyes narrowing to focus on the top of her cleavage.
Jude felt calm, satisfied with the life that she had had, and closed her eyes to await the blow.
Then she was aware of a sudden movement from below, and just managed to see Donal’s hand dart upwards, as he plunged a Stanley knife into Nicky Dalrymple’s stomach.
The banker looked down in horror, to see the blood spreading over his perfectly laundered Turnbull amp; Asser shirt. Off guard, he hardly resisted when Donal Geraghty snatched the kitchen knife from his hand.
Nicky Dalrymple was in shock. He gave a bewildered look at what had been his two prospective victims, then turned and staggered back towards the road, whimpering like a child.
38
Jude called the Fethering taxi firm she always used, and they said “because it was her”, they’d have someone there in twenty minutes. She asked for the car to come to the entrance to the old farm, where Nicky Dalrymple must have parked his BMW. No need to involve Yolanta Brewis in further questions and explanations.
She also insisted that Donal should come with her, and he was too exhausted by his recent exertions to put up much of an argument. “But no hospitals,” he said.
“No hospitals. I’ll put you to bed in my house.”
“When did I last have an offer like that?” he asked with a weary wink.
Of course, what she was doing meant that Jude was not fulfilling her promise to Imogen, that she would stay with Conker until Sonia arrived. But, as with charities, when it came to the crunch, Jude always put human beings above animals.
She checked that the pony was happy-which she was, extremely. And Conker was even happier when the buckets of carrots and pony nuts were moved to within her range. Jude left her chomping merrily.
Under other circumstances, she would have stayed to run a bath for Donal and see him settled into bed at Woodside Cottage, but she was in a rush, so she just showed him where everything was. The cab was still waiting outside, ready to move onto her next destination.
“Right,” she said as she was about to leave. “Have you got everything you want?”
Donal grimaced ruefully. “Well, now, you wouldn’t happen to have a bottle of Jameson’s in the house, would
