Tremayne came home and frightened Ingrid away like Miss Muffet and the spider.
‘What did she want?’ he asked, watching her scuttling exit. ‘She always seems scared of me. She’s a real mouse.’
‘She came to tell me something she thinks should be known,’ I said reflectively. ‘I suppose she thought I could do the telling, in her place.’
‘Typical,’ Tremayne said. ‘What was it?’
‘Angela Brickell was perhaps pregnant.’
‘What?’ He stared at me blankly.
I explained about the used test. ‘You don’t buy or use one of those tests unless you have good reason to.’
He said thoughtfully, ‘No, I suppose not.’
‘So,’ I said, ‘there are about twenty lusty males connected with this stable and dozens more in Shellerton and throughout the racing industry; and even if she
‘But it might.’
‘She was a Roman Catholic, Ingrid says.’
‘What’s that got to do with it?’
‘They’re against abortion.’
He stared into space.
I said, ‘Harry’s in trouble. Have you heard?’
‘No, what trouble?’
I told him about Doone’s accusations, and also about duckweed’s way of winning and about Lewis’s more or less explicit admission of perjury. Tremayne poured himself a gin and tonic of suitably gargantuan proportions and told me in his turn that he’d had a rotten day at Chepstow. ‘One of my runners broke down and another went crashing down arse over tip at the last fence with the race in his pocket. Sam dislocated his thumb, which swelled like a balloon, and although he’s OK he won’t realistically be fit again until Tuesday, which means I have to scratch around for a replacement for Monday. And one lot of owners groused and groaned until I could have knocked their heads together and all I can do is be nice to them and sometimes it all drives me up the bloody wall, to tell you the truth.’
He flopped his weight into an armchair, stretched out his legs and rested his gaze on his toecaps, thinking things over.
‘Are you going to tell Doone about the pregnancy test?’ he asked finally.
‘I suppose so. It’s on Ingrid’s conscience. If I don’t pass on what she’s said, she’ll find another mouthpiece.’
He sighed. ‘It won’t do Harry much good.’
‘Nor harm.’
‘It’s a motive. Juries believe in motives.’
I grunted. ‘Harry won’t come to trial.’
‘Nolan did. And a good motive would have jailed him, you can’t say it wouldn’t.’
‘The pregnancy test is a non-starter,’ I said. ‘Ingrid threw the empty box away; there’s no proof it really existed; there’s no saying if Angela used it or when; there’s no certainty about the result; there’s no knowing who she’d been sleeping with.’
‘You should have been a lawyer.’
Mackie and Perkin came through for their usual drink and news-exchange and even Chickweed’s win couldn’t disperse the general gloom.
‘Angela pregnant?’ Mackie shook her head, almost bewildered. ‘She didn’t say anything about it.’
‘She might have done, given time,’ Tremayne said, ‘if the test was positive.’
‘Damned careless of her,’ Perkin said. ‘That bloody girl’s nothing but trouble. It’s all upsetting Mackie just when she should be feeling relaxed and happy, and I don’t like it.’
Mackie stretched out a hand and squeezed her husband’s in gratitude, the underlying joy resurfacing, as persistent as pregnancy itself. Perhaps Angela Brickell too, I speculated, had been delighted to be needing her test. Who could tell?’
Gareth gusted in full of plans for an expedition I’d forgotten about, a fact he unerringly read on my face.
‘But you said you would teach us things, and we could light a fire.’ His voice rose high with disappointment. ‘Um,’ I said. ‘Ask your father.’
Tremayne listened to Gareth’s request for a patch of land for a camp fire and raised his eyebrows my way.
‘Do you really want to bother with all this?’
‘Actually, I suggested it, in a rash moment.’
Gareth nodded vigorously. ‘Coconut’s coming at ten.’
Mackie said, ‘Fiona asked us to go down in the morning to toast Chickweed and cheer Harry up.’
‘But John
Mackie smiled at him indulgently. ‘I’ll make John’s excuses.
Sunday morning crept in greyly on a near-freezing drizzle, enough to test the spirits of all would-be survivors. Tremayne, drinking coffee in the kitchen with the lights on at nine-thirty, suggested scrubbing the whole idea. His son would vehemently have none of it. They compromised on a promise from me to bring everyone home at the first sneeze, and Coconut arrived on his bicycle in brilliant yellow oilskins with a grin to match.
It was easy to see how he’d got his name. He stood in the kitchen dripping and pulled off a sou’wester to reveal a wiry tuft of light brown hair sticking straight up from the top of his head. (It would never lie down properly, Gareth later explained.)
