The four of us sat there in silence for a few moments. Declan even patted me on the knee under the table.
But the DCI wasn’t giving up that easily.
‘We do not have a definitive time of death for the victim,’ he said slowly. ‘Only that she was killed sometime before the fire started. She may have been already dead when Mr Chadwick returned to his stables on Sunday afternoon.’
‘So where was the body in the meantime?’ I asked.
The DCI clearly didn’t like the fact that it was me asking him questions when he’d intended being the interrogator.
‘We are still examining Mr Chadwick’s car.’
‘Oh, come on,’ I said, waving a hand at him. ‘If there was blood in the boot, you would know it by now. Or are you seriously suggesting he left a dead body on show for several hours in the front passenger seat of his car while it sat in his stable yard for all to see?’
‘He might have stashed the body somewhere else.’
‘Where exactly?’ I asked. ‘Admit it, Chief Inspector, you’re just fishing.’ I stood up. ‘My client will answer no further questions.’
The DCI was beginning to lose his cool. ‘But he hasn’t answered any questions at all as yet.’
‘And he won’t,’ I confirmed.
The DCI looked up at the clock on the wall.
‘Interview terminated at 3.20 p. m.’
18
I made it back to Newmarket with twenty-five minutes to spare before the first race, and Kate was waiting for me at the racecourse entrance.
In weather terms, the day had been spectacular with clear blue skies and abundant sunshine. Hence the temperature had risen such that it felt more like midsummer than mid-May. And Kate had taken full advantage, wearing a bright yellow sundress with a wide black leather belt over it, which did everything possible to show off her gorgeous attributes. I was surprised to see that she was also wearing black high-heeled shoes.
Close call, I thought.
I’d almost come in my wellingtons, the same as I’d worn on the gallops the previous morning.
In fact, I had misjudged the dress code altogether.
Of course, I knew that one dressed up for Royal Ascot, but I quite expected a weekday evening meeting at Newmarket to be casual, scruffy even. How wrong I was. The sunshine had brought the ladies out in their finery, albeit without quite the degree of fancy millinery found in East Berkshire in June, and most of the men were in jackets and ties, or suits.
I felt very underdressed in chinos and a sweater.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to Kate. ‘I should have worn my suit.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ she said. ‘Anything goes these days.’
And she was right. Among the sartorially elegant were a smattering of jeans and T-shirts and even a few pairs of flip-flops, not that they would be allowed in the Premier Enclosure if the notices at the entrance were to be believed.
But it wasn’t only the smartness of the people that was a surprise to me.
My only previous experience of attending horse racing had been as a teenager at a wet Saturday afternoon point-to-point at Flete Park in South Devon, where the mud had been ankle deep and a seriously overcrowded beer tent the only shelter from the persistent rain.
Newmarket on this sunny, warm evening could not have been more different.
The public enclosures were pristine, with manicured velvet lawns, neatly trimmed hedges and an abundance of bright yellow and red flowers, seemingly matching the terracotta-red roofs of many of the buildings. Even the track itself would have put many a domestic garden to shame with its lush green grass awaiting the arrival of the horses.
‘Drink?’ Kate said.
‘Absolutely,’ I replied. I looked around. ‘Where?’
She laughed.
‘Tattersalls have a permanent box here. It’s not booked by the bigwigs tonight so, after you called, I went and asked my boss if the staff could use it.’
She held up some badges.
‘Fantastic. Lead on.’
We went into the grandstand and then up in a lift to the top floor where the thick-pile carpet would not have been out of place in a five-star London hotel.
Definitely not wellington-boot territory.
A party was in full swing in the Tattersalls box with about a dozen people already there. Kate made introductions before getting us drinks from the bar in the corner.
‘We’ve all clubbed together to pay for the drinks,’ she said. ‘But we’ll have to go down if we want any food. The racecourse catering is far too expensive.’
‘I don’t want anything yet,’ I said. ‘Later maybe.’
Indeed, I had hopes of partaking of the hotel dinner we’d missed the previous evening, or maybe even the room service.
We took two glasses of Prosecco out onto the box terrace and looked out across the Heath towards the west. It looked fantastic in the late afternoon sunshine. So did Kate. I took her hand in mine and she looked at me and smiled. Last night’s troubles were just a fading memory.
‘I love evening racing,’ she said. ‘So easy to come after work. But this is the only evening meeting of the year held here. All the others are on the July course.’
‘The July course?’ I said.
She laughed. ‘Newmarket has two racecourses, three even, if you count the round course, but that’s only used once a year, for the Town Plate. This is the Rowley Mile course.’
‘Named after King Charles II,’ I said, remembering the history.
‘That’s right,’ Kate said. ‘We race here in the spring and autumn. But, in the summer, it’s only on the July course down the road over there.’ She pointed into the distance.
‘In July,’ I said, mocking her slightly.
‘Yes. In July.’ She smiled again. ‘But, rather confusingly, also in June and August. We’ve had some great Friday nights there. They put on a band after racing. Good bands, too. It’s always packed.’
‘We’ll have to go one night,’ I said.
‘Will you still be here by then?’
‘Probably, the way things are going at the moment.’
‘How was it in Bury St Edmunds?’
‘Fine, I think.’ I wondered how much I could tell her. ‘They haven’t released Declan yet but I don’t believe they have enough to charge him.’
‘How long can they keep him locked up?’
‘Twenty-four hours initially. That’s up at nine o’clock this evening. But they can apply for extensions from the courts. Four days is the maximum but I’d be very surprised if they get that long. There simply isn’t the evidence, and I’m pretty certain he didn’t do it.’
‘So who did?’ she asked.
‘That, my darling, is the million-dollar question.’
The horses came out onto the course for the first race, cantering down to the start far away to our right.
‘We must have a bet,’ Kate exclaimed. ‘Come on!’
She dragged me back inside the box.
‘But on what?’ I said. ‘I don’t even know which horses are running.’
She thrust a racecard into my hands. ‘Choose one.’
‘But I don’t know which are any good.’