Perkin watched my surprise with irony and said, ‘Mackie chose everything in a revolt against good taste.’
‘It’s happy,’ I said. ‘Light-hearted.’
The remark seemed somehow to disturb him, but Mackie herself arrived with damp hair at that point looking refreshed and pleased with life. Her reaction to Doone’s first cautious words was the same as everyone else’s. ‘Great. Where is she?’
The gradual realisation of the true facts drained the contentment and the colour from her face. She listened to his questions and answered them, and faced the implications squarely.
‘You’re telling us, aren’t you,’ she said flatly, ‘that either she killed herself... or somebody killed her?’
‘I didn’t say that, madam.’
‘As good as.’ She sighed desolately. ‘All these questions about doping rings... and boyfriends. Oh God.’ She closed her eyes briefly, then opened them to look at Doone and me.
‘We’ve just had months and months of trouble and anxiety over Olympia and Nolan, we’ve had the TV people and reporters in droves, driving us mad with their questions, we’re only just beginning to feel free of it all... and I can’t bear it... I can’t bear it... it’s starting all over again.’
Chapter 10
I borrowed the Land Rover and at Doone’s request led him down to the village and into Harry and Fiona’s drive. I was surprised that he still wanted me with him and said so, and he explained a little solemnly that he found people felt less threatened by a police officer if he turned up with someone they knew.
‘Don’t you want them to feel threatened?’ I asked. ‘Many policemen seem to like it that way.’
‘I’m not many policemen.’ He seemed uninsulted. ‘I work in my own way, sir, and if sometimes it’s not how my colleagues work then I get my results all the same and it’s the results that count in the end. It may not be the best way to the highest promotion,’ he smiled briefly, ‘but I do tend to solve things, I assure you.’
‘I don’t doubt it, Chief Inspector,’ I said.
‘I have three daughters,’ he said, sighing, ‘and I don’t like cases like this one.’
We were standing in the drive looking at the noble facade of a fine Georgian manor.
‘Never make assumptions,’ he said absent-mindedly, as if giving me advice. ‘You know the two most pathetic words a policeman can utter when his case falls apart around him?’
I shook my head.
‘I assumed,’ he said.
‘I’ll remember.’
He looked at me calmly in his unthreatening way and said it was time to trouble the Goodhavens.
As it happened, only Fiona was there, coming to the kitchen door in a dark blue tailored suit with a white silk blouse, gold chains, high-heeled black shoes and an air of rush. She smiled apologetically when she saw me.
‘John,’ she said. ‘What can I do for you? I’m going out to lunch. Can you make it quick?’
‘Er...’ I said, ‘this is Detective Chief Inspector Doone, Thames Valley Police. And Constable Rich.’
‘Policemen?’ she asked, puzzled; and then in terrible flooding anxiety, ‘Nothing’s happened to Harry?’
‘No, no. Nothing. It’s not about Harry. Well, not exactly. It’s about Angela Brickell. They’ve found her.’
‘Angela...? Oh yes. Well, I’m glad. Where did she go?’
Doone was very adroit, I thought, at letting silence itself break the bad news.
‘Oh my dear,’ Fiona said, after a few quiet revelationary seconds, ‘is she dead?’
‘Yes, I’m afraid so, madam.’ Doone nodded. ‘I need to ask you a few questions.’
‘Oh, but...’ She looked at her watch. ‘Can’t it wait? It’s not just a lunch, I’m the guest of honour.’
We were still standing on the doorstep. Doone without arguing produced the photograph and asked Fiona to identify the man, if she could.
‘Of course. It’s Harry, my husband. And that’s my horse, Chickweed. Where did you get this?’
‘From the young woman’s handbag.’
Fiona’s face was full of kindness and regret. ‘She loved Chickweed,’ she said.
‘Perhaps I could come back when your husband’s at home?’ Doone suggested.
Fiona was relieved. ‘Oh, yes, do that. After five tonight or tomorrow morning. He’ll be here until about... um... eleven, I should think, tomorrow. Bye, John.’
She hurried back into the house, leaving the door open, and presently, from beside our own cars, we saw her come out, lock the back door, hide the key under the stone (Tut, tut, Doone said disapprovingly) and drive away in a neat BMW, her blond hair shining, cheerful hand waving goodbye.
‘If you had to describe her in one word,’ Doone said to me, ‘what would it be?’
‘Staunch,’ I said.
‘That was quick.’
‘That’s what she is. Steadfast, I’d say.’
‘Have you known her long?’
‘Ten days, like the others.’
‘Mm.’ He pondered. ‘I won’t have ten days, not living in their community, like you do. I might ask you again what people here are really like. People sometimes don’t act natural when they’re with policemen.’
‘Fiona did. Surely everyone did who you’ve met this morning?’
‘Oh yes. But there’s some I haven’t met. And there are loyalties... I read the transcript of part of that trial before I came here. Loyalty is strong here, wouldn’t you agree? Staunch, steadfast loyalty, wouldn’t you say?’
Doone might look grey, I thought, and his chatty almost sing-song Berkshire voice might be disarming, but there was a cunningly intelligent observer behind the waffle, and I did suddenly believe, as I hadn’t entirely before, that usually he solved his cases.
He said he would like to speak to all the other stable girls before they heard the news from anyone else, and o the men, but the women first.
I took Doone and Rich to the house in the village which I knew the girls called their hostel, though I’d never been in it. It was a small modern house in a cul-de-sac, bought cheaply before it was built, Tremayne had told me, and appreciating nicely with the years. I explained to Doone that I didn’t know all the girls’ names: I saw them only at morning exercise and sometimes at evening stables.
‘Fair enough,’ he said, ‘but they’ll all know you. You can tell them I’m not an ogre.’
I wasn’t any longer so sure about that but I did what he asked. He sat paternally on a flower-patterned sofa in the sitting-room, at home among the clutter of pot plants, satin cushions, fashion magazines and endless photographs of horses, and told them without drama that it looked possible Angela Brickell had died the day she hadn’t returned for evening stables. They had found her clothes, her handbag and her bones, he said, and naturally they were having to look into it. He asked the by now familiar questions: did they think Angela had been deeply involved in doping horses, and did they know if she’d had rows with her boyfriend.
Only four of the six girls had been employed at the yard in Angela’s time, they said. She definitely hadn’t been doping horses; they found the idea funny. She wasn’t bright enough, one of them said unflatteringly. She hadn’t been their close friend. She was moody and secretive, they all agreed, but they didn’t know of any one steady boyfriend. They thought Sam had probably had her, but no one should read much in that. Who was Sam? Sam Yaeger, the stable jockey, who rode more than the horses.
There were a few self-conscious giggles. Doone, father of three daughters, interpreted the giggles correctly and looked disillusioned.
‘Did Angela and Sam Yaeger quarrel?’