"How long has Mr. Sutton been in a nursing home?" I asked.
"Since just before Christmas. He'd been going downhill for quite a while. Such a shame. He seemed a nice old chap."
"Do you know which home he's in?" I asked her.
"Sorry," she said, shaking her head.
"And which house is his?"
"Number eight," she said, pointing across the road.
"Do you remember an incident when someone threw a brick through his window?" I asked.
"I heard about it, but it happened before we moved in," she said. "We've only been here eight months or so. Since Jimbo here was born." She smiled down at the baby.
"Do you know how I can contact Mr. Sutton's son?" I asked her.
"Hold on," she said. "I've got his telephone number somewhere."
She disappeared into the house but was soon back with a business card but without little Jimbo.
"Here it is," she said. "Fred Sutton." She read out his number, and Isabella wrote it down.
"Thank you," I said. "I'll give him a call."
"He might be at work right now," the woman said. "He works shifts."
"I'll try him anyway," I said. "What does he do?"
She consulted the business card that was still in her hand.
"He's a policeman," she said. "A detective sergeant."
So why, all of a sudden, don't you want to call this Fred Sutton?" Isabella demanded. We were again sitting in her car, having driven out of Willow Close and into the center of Hungerford.
"I will. But I'll call him later."
"But I thought you wanted to know about this brick through the window," she said.
"I do." I dearly wanted to know why the brick was thrown, but did I now dare ask?
"Well, call him, then."
I was beginning to be sorry that I had asked Isabella to drive me. How could I explain to her that I didn't want to discuss anything to do with Willow Close with any member of the police, let alone a detective sergeant? If he was any good at his job, his detective antennae would be throbbing wildly as soon as I mentioned anything to do with a Roderick Ward, especially if, as I suspected, DS Fred Sutton had been the policeman who had witnessed young Mr. Ward throwing the brick through his father's window in the first place.
"I can't," I said. "I can't involve the police."
"Why on earth not?" she asked, rather self-righteously.
"I just can't," I said. "I promised my young soldier I wouldn't talk to the police."
"But why not?" she asked again, imploring me to answer.
I looked at her. "I'm really sorry," I said. "But I can't tell you why." Even to my ears, I sounded melodramatic.
"Don't be so bloody ridiculous." She was clearly annoyed. "I think I'd better take you home now."
"Maybe that would be best," I said.
My chances of any future bonuses had obviously diminished somewhat.
I passed the afternoon using my mother's computer in her office and its Internet connection. She probably wouldn't have liked it, but, as she was out when Isabella had dropped me back, I hadn't asked.
I did have my own computer, a laptop. It had been in one of the blue holdalls I'd retrieved from Aldershot, but my mother hadn't moved into the wireless age yet, so it was easier to use her old desktop model with its Internet cable plugged straight into the telephone point in the wall.
I looked up reports of inquests using the online service of the Oxford Mail. There were masses of them, hundreds and hundreds, even thousands.
I searched for an inquest with the name Roderick Ward, and there it was, reported briefly by the paper on Wednesday, July 15. But it had been only the opening and adjournment of the inquest immediately after the accident.
It would appear that the full inquest was yet to be heard. However, the short report did contain one interesting piece of information that the Newbury Weekly News had omitted. According to the Oxford Mail website, Roderick Ward's body had been formally identified at the short hearing by his sister, a Mrs. Stella Beecher, also from Oxford.
Perhaps Mr. Roderick Ward really was dead, after all.
7
At nine o'clock sharp on Tuesday evening my mother received another demand from the blackmailer. The three residents of Kauri House were suffering through another unhappy dinner around the kitchen table when the telephone rang. Both my mother and stepfather jumped, and then they looked at each other.
"Nine o'clock," my stepfather said. "He always calls at exactly nine o'clock."
The phone continued to ring. Neither of them seemed very keen to answer it, so I stood up and started to move over towards it.
"No," my mother screamed, leaping to her feet. "I'll get it."
She pushed past me and grabbed the receiver.
"Hello," she said tentatively into the phone. "Yes, this is Mrs. Kauri."
I was standing right next to her, and I tried to hear what the person at the other end was saying, but he or she was speaking too softly.
My mother listened for less than a minute.
"Yes. I understand," my mother said finally. She placed the phone back in its cradle. "Scientific at Newbury, on Saturday."
"To lose?" I asked.
She nodded. "In the Game Spirit Steeplechase."
She walked like a zombie back to her chair and sat down heavily.
I picked up the phone and dialed 1471, the code to find the number of the last caller.
"Sorry," said a computerized female voice, "the caller withheld their number."
I hadn't expected anything else, but it had been worth a try. I wondered if the phone company might be able to give me the number, but that, I was sure, would involve explaining why I needed it. I also thought it highly unlikely that the blackmailer had been using his own phone or a number that was traceable back to him.
"What chance would you expect Scientific to have anyway?" I asked.
"Fairly good," she said. "He's really only a novice, and this race is a considerable step up in class, but I think he's ready for it." Her shoulders slumped. "But it's not bloody fair on the horse. If I make him ill again, it may ruin him forever. He'll always associate racing with being ill."
"Would he really remember?" I asked.
"Oh yes," she said. "Lots of my good chasers over the years have been hopeless at home only to run like the wind on a racetrack because they liked it there. One I had years ago, a chestnut called Butterfield, he only ran well at Sandown." She smiled, remembering. "Old boy loved Sandown. I thought it was to do with right-handed tracks, but he wouldn't go at Kempton. It had to be Sandown. He definitely remembered."
I could see a glimpse of why my mother was such a good trainer. She adored her horses, and she spoke of Butterfield as an individual, and with real affection.
"But Scientific is not the odds-on sure thing that Pharmacist was meant to be at Cheltenham last week?"
"No," she said. "There's another very good chaser in the race, Sovereign Owner. He'll probably start favorite, although I really think we could beat him, especially if it rains a bit more before Saturday. And Newark Hall may run in the race as well. He's one of Ewen's, and he should have a reasonable chance."
"Ewen?" I asked.
"Ewen Yorke," she said. "Trains in the village. Has some really good horses this year. The up-and-coming young opposition."
From her tone, I concluded that Ewen Yorke was more of a threat to her position as top dog in Lambourn than she was happy with.
"So Scientific is far from a dead cert?" I said.
"He should win," she stressed again. "Unless he crossfires."
"'Crossfires'?" I asked. "What's that?"
"It's when a horse canters and leads with a different leg in front than he does at the rear," she explained.
"OK," I said slowly, none the wiser. "And does Scientific do that?"
"Sometimes. Unusually he tends to canter between his walk and gallop," she said. "And if he crossfires, he can cut into himself, hitting his front leg with his hind hoof. But he hasn't done it recently. Not for ages."