‘Eating venison in Sherwood Forest was a hanging matter too,’ Harry observed.
I said, agreeing with Sam, ‘Some traps aren’t safe to set unless you know you’re alone.’
‘If Gareth’s confident after one day,’ Nolan said to me without much friendliness from the depths of an armchair, ‘what does that make you? Superman?’
‘Humble,’ I said, with irony.
‘How very goody-goody,’ he said sarcastically, with added obscenities. ‘I’d like to see you ride in a steeplechase.’
‘So would I,’ Tremayne said heartily, taking the sneering words at face value. ‘We might apply for a permit for you, John.’
No one took him seriously. Nolan took offence. He didn’t like even a semi-humorous suggestion that anyone else should muscle in on his territory.
Monday found Dee-Dee in tears over Angela Brickell’s pregnancy test. Not tears of sympathy, it seemed, but of envy.
Monday also found Doone on our doorstep, wanting to check up on the dates when Chickweed had won and Harry had been there to watch.
‘Mr Goodhaven?’ Tremayne echoed. ‘It’s Mrs Goodhaven’s horse.’
‘Yes, sir, but it was Mr Goodhaven’s photo the dead lass was carrying.’
‘It was the
‘Yes, sir,’ Doone agreed blandly. ‘Now, about those dates...’
In suppressed fury, Tremayne sorted the way through the form book and his memory, saying finally that there had been no occasion that he could think of when Harry had been at the races without Fiona.
‘How about the fourth Saturday in April?’ Doone asked slyly.
‘The what?’ Tremayne looked it up again. ‘What about it?’
‘Your travelling head lad thinks Mrs Goodhaven had flu that day. He remembers her saying later at Stratford, when the horse won but failed the dope test later, that she was glad to be there, having missed his last win at Uttoxeter.’
Tremayne absorbed the information in silence.
‘If Mr Goodhaven went alone to Uttoxeter,’ Doone insinuated, ‘and Mrs Goodhaven was at home tucked up in bed feeling ill...’
‘You really don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Tremayne interrupted. ‘Angela Brickell was in charge of a
‘But I understood from your travelling head lad, sir,’ Doone said with sing-song deadliness, ‘that they had to wait for Angela Brickell that day at Uttoxeter because when they were all ready to go home she couldn’t be found. She
Tremayne said blankly, ‘I don’t remember any of this.’
‘No doubt they didn’t trouble you, sir. After all, no harm had been done... had it?’
Doone left one of his silences hovering, in which it was quite easy to imagine the specific harm that could have been done by Harry.
‘There’s no privacy for anything odd on racecourses,’ Tremayne said, betraying the path his own thoughts had taken. ‘I don’t believe a word of what you’re hinting.’
‘Angela Brickell died about six weeks after that,’ Doone said, ‘by which time she’d have used a pregnancy test.’
‘Stop it,’ Tremayne said. ‘This is supposition of the vilest kind, aimed at a good intelligent man who loves his wife.’
‘Good intelligent men who love their wives, sir, aren’t immune to sudden passions.’
‘You’ve got it wrong,’ Tremayne said doggedly.
Doone rested a glance on him for a long time and then transferred it to me.
‘What do you think, sir?’ he asked.
‘I don’t think Mr Goodhaven did anything.’
‘Based on your ten days’ knowledge of him?’
‘Twelve days now. Yes.’
He ruminated, then asked me slowly, ‘Do you yourself have any feeling as to who killed the lassie? I ask about feeling, sir, because if it were solid knowledge you would have given it to me, wouldn’t you?’
‘Yes, I would. And no, I have no feeling, no intuition, unless it is that it was someone unconcerned with this stable.’
‘She worked here,’ he said flatly. ‘Most murders are close to home.’ He gave me a long assessing look. ‘Your loyalties, sir,’ he said, ‘are being sucked into this group, and I’m sorry about that. You’re the only man here who couldn’t have had any hand in the lassie’s death, and I’ll listen to you and be glad to, but only if you go on seeing straight, do you get me?’
‘I get you,’ I said, surprised.
‘Have you asked Mr Goodhaven about the day he went racing without his wife?’ Tremayne demanded.
Doone nodded. ‘He denies anything improper took place. But then, he would.’
‘I don’t want to hear any more of this,’ Tremayne announced. ‘You’re inventing a load of rubbish.’
‘Mr Goodhaven’s belongings were found with the lassie,’ Doone said without heat, ‘and she carried his photograph, and that’s not rubbish.’
In the silence after this sombre reminder he took his quiet leave and Tremayne, very troubled, said he would go down to the Goodhavens’ house to give them support.
