Chapter Twelve

THE POLICE DOCTOR, A SERGEANT AND A CONSTABLE arrived in a gig around the middle of the afternoon. Nathan spotted them coming down the track and we waited for them in the yard outside the house, with chickens scratching round our feet. Alan introduced himself to the doctor, managing to sound pretty well in control of himself, and led him through to the stable yard. The sergeant, a sweating red-faced man, said they wanted to speak to Robin O’Kane. It was the first time I’d heard Robin’s surname. The sergeant didn’t put a ‘Mr’ in front of it. I volunteered to look for Robin and found him sitting alone on an old trough on the shady side of the house with the Old Man’s two Afghan hounds on either side of him, their eyes open and mournful, long ears flopping in the dust. He looked so terrified when I told him that the police wanted to speak to him that for a moment I thought he was going to run away.

‘It’s all right, it’s only because you saw him on the horse. Just tell them exactly what happened and don’t let them scare you.’

While he was with them I kept the Afghans company and twice heard the sergeant’s voice raised from inside the house. He sounded angry but I couldn’t make out what was being said. It was half an hour before Robin came stumbling out into the sun. He was looking round in a dazed way and when I got nearer I saw that he was shaking.

‘What’s wrong?’

He shook his head, bewildered. I asked if he wanted a cup of tea and he nodded his head but I couldn’t get him to come into the kitchen for it. The sergeant and constable were still in the parlour and that was too close for him. When I went into the kitchen the door to the parlour was closed and the sound of the sergeant’s voice came from the other side, too low to make out the words. I guessed it was Dulcie’s turn now. At least she wasn’t being shouted at, even scandalous housekeepers being a cut above Gypsy boys. The kettle was on the fire as usual so I made tea for Robin, strong with three spoonfuls of sugar and took it out to him in the yard. He drank it in three or four gulps and uttered some words at last.

‘What will I do?’

‘What’s happened? What did they ask you?’

‘They were asking did I do that to him, did I tie him on the horse.’

‘What did you tell them?’

‘God’s holy truth that I never did. Will you tell them, miss? Tell them it was you who found him and called me to him.’

‘I’ve already told them that.’

He shook his head again, so bewildered it was painful to see. ‘What will I do? What will I do without him.’

He was grieving for the Old Man. I should have realised before, but I think the rest of us were still too shocked for grief and, after all, we’d only known him for a few days. Robin had been with him for two years, up here in their own small world with the horses, his life governed by what the Old Man wanted.

‘You liked him?’

A nod. ‘I honoured him.’ There was liking as well as respect in his voice.

‘Do you think he killed himself?’

Another shake of the head, but no way of telling if it was a no or simple bewilderment. It would have been brutal to press further and I’d given him no answer to his question.

‘Somebody’s going to have to look after the horses,’ I said. ‘He’d have wanted you to do that, wouldn’t he?’

‘Should I put Sid back in his field or will the police be wanting him?’

I had to stop myself smiling at the idea of the stallion giving his statement.

‘Put him back in his field, I should.’ Then, because he was calmer now we were talking about horses I risked some more questions. ‘Was Sid in his own paddock as usual last night?’

‘Sure he was. You couldn’t go putting him down in the big field on account of the mares.’

‘When did you see Sid last – before it happened, I mean?’

‘After supper. Mr Beston and myself went up to see was he all right, like we do every night. An’ then I left Mr Beston up there with him an’ came down to my bed.’

‘Leaving him up there with Sid?’

‘I always did. He liked to be on his own up there and watch the sun setting.’

‘Were the dogs with him?’

‘No. They stay shut up inside of nights.’

‘Did he take Sid’s tack up with him?’

‘Why would he do that? He had no need of it, not meaning to ride him.’

And yet, some time between then and early morning the horse must have been brought down from his paddock and his saddle and bridle taken out of the tack room.

Robin stood up. ‘Shall I be seeing after Sid, then?’ Then, ‘Are they after taking Mr Beston away to bury him?’

I said I didn’t know, but when I was back in the yard and Robin had gone to see to the horse I had an answer. Midge came up to me, tense and white-faced.

‘The doctor’s taken the gig and gone. He’s sending up a covered cart to take Mr Beston away for a post-mortem.’

‘Where’s Alan?’

‘With Imogen somewhere. He had a talk with the doctor before he went. He won’t say much before he does a proper post-mortem, but Alan gathered he thinks the horse might have rolled on him. He had some ribs broken and a bump on the back of the head.’

‘That couldn’t have been from the stones on the beach the day before. It was the front of his head he grazed then.’

It was a relief to be with Midge, matter-of-fact about everything as usual, but even she was looking worn out. It was so hot in the yard by now, with the afternoon sun full on it, that we thought we’d both be better for some air. We walked up the track towards the woods. A long way ahead of us, Robin was leading Sid back to his pasture.

‘Nathan thinks I should have protected you from seeing him like that,’ I said. ‘I thought you were asleep.’

‘I woke up. You weren’t there and your towel had gone so I guessed you’d gone down to the bathing place. I was annoyed with you for not waking me to go with you. Then I heard the horse’s hooves in the yard and your voice and guessed something was wrong.’

‘When you went down to the yard, what exactly did you see?’

‘He was still on the horse’s back then. Robin was trying to get the horse to stand still and Dulcie was the other side. I think she must have been untying his foot from the stirrup. I asked what had happened and Dulcie said he was dead.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No. So I went up to them and saw his wrists were tied as well. I started trying to undo one of them and Robin helped from the other side because he’d got the horse quieter by then, and Dulcie went and got a knife from the tack room. When we’d got him cut free Robin asked me to take hold of the bridle so that he could lift him off.’

‘So you found the knots round his wrists were too tight to untie?’

‘For goodness’ sake Nell, why don’t you come straight out and ask it? I haven’t entirely lost my brains any more than you have.’

‘Ask what?’

‘Whether he could have tied the knots himself. Isn’t that what’s in your mind?’

‘Yes.’

‘In my opinion, no he couldn’t. I know about knots. When we were children my brothers were always tying me to trees and playing cannibals or Indians. I got quite clever at escaping. Look Nell.’ She stopped us beside the gate to the big hayfield. ‘Imagine the gate’s the horse. That gatepost is its neck and there’s a strap round it. You might be able to tie your left wrist to the strap, using your teeth and your right hand … he was right-handed?’

I tried to remember him doing something with his hands, but all I could picture was the arm sliding round Dulcie’s hips.

‘I think so.’

‘Anyway, once you’ve got one hand tied, how do you manage the other?’

‘I don’t know. I couldn’t find the bits of string and leather you cut.’

‘I told you we just threw them down. It wasn’t the first thing on our minds. Why? Have the police been asking?’

‘They didn’t ask me, but I think they’ve been giving poor Robin a bad time. You didn’t notice him or Dulcie tidying them away?’

‘I wasn’t thinking about that.’

We walked on up the track. Just past the gate to Sid’s paddock on the left there was a place in the hedge that looked as if it had been recently disturbed. A few hazel leaves had been torn away and were lying on the path, curled up in the sun. I wondered if a badger might have pushed through and looked at the bank under the hedge for more signs of it, anything to distract myself from what we’d been talking about. About halfway up the hedge, pushed in among the branches, there was something black and cylindrical. It wouldn’t move at first and came reluctantly when I tugged at it, tangling and pulling out more leaves.

‘What’s that doing there?’ Midge said.

She sounded alarmed and when I saw what I was holding I felt the same. It was the Old Man’s carriage whip, the one he carried with him when he patrolled his fields at night, the long lash still caught up in the hedge.

‘I don’t know.’ One thing I was sure about was that it hadn’t been used on Sid. His fine silver hide had been quite unmarked.

‘Did the Old Man put it there?’

It was possible, I supposed. If it had been simply lost or thrown away it wouldn’t have been so deep in the hedge. It might have been his equivalent of breaking his staff of office if he’d decided to kill himself. I untangled the lash from the hedge and coiled it in my hand. It felt odd holding it, knowing that the last touch on it might have been the Old Man’s, but we couldn’t leave it lying on the track. We turned to walk back down and as we got near the gate to the hay field a voice called hello from the other side of the hedge. It was Nathan coming down from the barn with a pack on his back and a rolled-up hay mattress under each arm. He looked too hot and bothered to notice the whip.

‘What were you two conspiring about?’

‘We were trying to work out if Mr Beston could have tied himself to the horse,’ Midge said, opening the gate for him. He made a noise that sounded like a strangled swear-word and dumped the mattresses on the grass. I’d known Nathan for more than a year and this was the first time I’d seen him angry.

‘I’ve had more than enough of this. I was going to wait until I’d got the three of you together but you can tell Imogen when you see her. I’m driving us to the station tomorrow, and we’re leaving.’

We stared. ‘Who?’

‘You two, Imogen and I. Alan should never have brought you into this, but since he’s stuck here it’s my responsibility to get you out of it.’

I felt like laughing. Back in Oxford, nobody had been clearer than Nathan about women’s right to equality. Now there was trouble he’d reverted instantly to protective Victorian male.

‘I can’t go,’ I said. ‘I’ll be needed for the inquest.’

That made matters worse. His face had been flushed anyway but now it turned as red as a peony.

‘It’s all wrong. You shouldn’t have to stand up there in public and be questioned in front of a jury. I’ll tell the police that we’re going away and that’s that.’

‘Not on my behalf,’ I said. It had struck me suddenly that Nathan was nervous of the police. Goodness knows why since his past – though not blameless by Oxford standards – was unlikely to have been criminal.

‘It’s not a game any more, Nell. It was different while it was just this Mawbray business but now—’

‘It never was a game. That’s why we can’t walk away from it.’

He stared at me then at Midge, picked up the mattresses and marched away down the track.

‘Poor Nathan,’ Midge said, sounding more sorry for him than he deserved. After all, she’d been more closely involved in it than he had.

‘Where’s he taking those mattresses?’

‘Down to the house. The men have decided to move back into the parlour.’

‘To protect us?’

‘I suppose so.’

It was a defeat, we knew. The end of our airy college above the world in the old barn. The Old Man’s death had dragged us back from theory into a very real world. Midge and I started walking after him back towards the house. We could see Dulcie down in the yard, scattering feed for the chickens. At least the police hadn’t kept her long.

‘Going on just as normal,’ Midge said.

‘Chickens still have to be fed after all.’

‘It was the same this morning. There we were, trying to get him off the horse, knowing he was dead, and she was behaving … oh, I don’t know … behaving as if it were just any other problem that had to be solved, as if it were a basket of washing or something. Only … only there were tears just flooding down her face.’

‘I can’t imagine her crying.’

‘I can’t now, but I didn’t imagine it. And yet she’s not somebody you can talk to, is she?’

‘I wonder why not?’

But Midge was right. We weren’t snobs – we were quite sure of that – but class came in to it. That and the fact that she was older and had a reputation. We approved very much of women exerting their freedom, it was just that we weren’t used to them looking and sounding like Dulcie.

Midge said suddenly, ‘I’ve been thinking about that anonymous note. Do you think Alan showed it to Mr Beston?’

‘I shouldn’t think so. He was too embarrassed.’

I thought of the grubby message: DID YOU ARSK DULSIE WHO HER BASTARD’S FATHER REALY IS. Hard to imagine Alan putting that in front of his uncle, even though it had been addressed to him.

‘But Mr Beston must have known there was gossip about her.’

‘I don’t suppose that would have worried the Old Man.’ (I was already slipping back into that way of thinking of him, rather than the funereal Mr Beston.) ‘He wasn’t exactly a model of respectability himself.’

‘But if it wouldn’t have worried him, why was somebody telling him to ask her?’

‘Because whoever it was didn’t know him very well. He or she wanted to make trouble for Dulcie and was getting impatient because it hadn’t happened. That note reads to me like one of a series. There was probably at least one earlier note telling him to ask her and whoever wrote it wants to know what happened.’

In the yard below Dulcie scattered the last of the feed, upended the bowl and went back inside with lazy, swaying steps. She never looked as if she was working hard, but somehow everything got done.

Midge said, ‘If there was a child, where is it now? She could have had it farmed out, I suppose.’ Then, tentatively, a few steps further on, ‘You don’t suppose … Robin?’

‘I was wondering that too. But would the ages fit? I’d guess he’s seventeen or eighteen, maybe older. If she’s in her thirties she could have had him when she was very young.’

‘But he’s Irish and she’s from round here.’

‘If she’d farmed him out to Ireland when he was a baby…’

‘And brought him back when she got the position with the Old Man?’

‘It’s possible,’ I said, ‘and you can imagine the Old Man being quite amused by the idea.’

*   *   *

When we got down to the house I propped the whip in the porch with an assortment of other whips and crops. The police had finished their questions and were drinking tea in the kitchen. We left them in possession, although they were a nuisance because the men were carrying their things down from the barn and had to pile them by the porch until they could get to the parlour.

The doctor had promised to send a covered cart up from town to collect the police and the Old Man’s body but it was early evening by the time it came lumbering down the lane. We directed it through the arch into the stable yard and stood in a line watching as the two policemen took out a stretcher from the back and carried the Old Man’s body from his tack room, still wrapped in the horse blanket. Robin was crying quite openly. With the suspicions about him and Dulcie in my mind I watched to see if she made any move to comfort him, but she was staring down at the flagstones, thinking her own thoughts. As the cart creaked away across the yard and through the arch I was surprised to find tears in my eyes. I wished I’d talked to the Old Man more when I had the chance – found out about seventy years or so of a life that sounded as if it had been bravely, if not wisely, lived. I knew that in spite of the differences in our views I’d already learned something from him and might have learned more, given time. There was silence after the noise of the wheels died away, then people started talking apologetically at first, then with more confidence, about the commonplace things of life going on. The parlour had to be reorganised and we’d all eat together in the kitchen, pooling our rations. I knew it was right and necessary but couldn’t face it yet. Besides, there was something that had been worrying me since Midge talked about the bump on his head.

*   *   *

I walked out of the yard and down the lane to the mares’ field on my own. My towel was still there on the gate, dried by a day in the heat. There was no mist by the river now, just long tree shadows from the sun slipping down in the west and a smell of hot earth and drying grass. It was the trees that interested me, willows and alders mostly. The willows were either leaning out over the water or pollarded with whippy little stems growing from upright trunks. The alders threw their branches out over the river with only scrubby twigs inland. Even if you’d ridden a horse at a canter straight along the bank, there were no overhanging branches to give you anything worse than a scratch. Next door though was another matter.

I walked on downriver to the gate that led to Mawbray’s land and looked over it, confirming what I remembered from our ride. A wooded spur came down to the river on the opposite bank, mixed wood with some big oak trees. The wood extended a little way on this side of the river, again with oak trees. We’d had to duck under the boughs as we rode past. I remembered bits of oak leaf in my mare’s mane. The question was whether any of the overhanging branches was thick enough to give a man a bad blow on the head. I stood at the gate a long time, trying to make out the shapes of them through the leaves then pushed it open and walked through. Trespassing now, with no excuse. I looked up into the wood on the far bank, half expecting to see the tall man glaring down at me again, but there was nothing. The oak branches on my side of the river were low growing and quite thick enough to do serious damage. The blow had been on the back of the head. If he’d simply galloped into a bough, it would have been at the front. The most likely explanation was that the horse had been rearing up on its hind legs at the time. There were hoof-prints in bare patches of earth under the trees, but a whole pack of us had ridden that way and back in the last few days. There was no way of telling in dry weather if one set were more recent. Then it struck me that a horse rearing would have to take all its weight on its back legs. If I could find a place where there was a low branch and a pair of unusually deep hoof impressions underneath I’d be making progress.

The work absorbed me more than anything I’d done for a long time, so much that I almost forgot why I was doing it and the grief and confusion up at the house. It was a relief, after all the philosophical theorising, to have a practical puzzle that might even have an answer. Either something had happened or it hadn’t. If it had happened, then happenings leave evidence. They wouldn’t be happenings otherwise. And if there’s evidence, it’s simply a question of finding it or not finding it. Thinking that out as I looked at dusty hoofprints under those trees was the second thing that summer that had an influence on my life, far more than Plato or ancient Greek (which, by the by, I still haven’t learned). The light was just right for the work, horizontal with the sun low, throwing every little detail in high relief. Twice I found pairs of prints deeply incised that might have been a horse rearing, but they were nowhere near the likely tree branches. One big branch at about the right height had a scuff mark on the earth under it that might possibly have been made if a horse had stood up on its hind legs then slipped, but it was near the gate with a lot of other tramplings round it, so inconclusive. Still, I liked that one best and went back to it, kneeling on the ground with my eyes only a few inches away from it. Suppose a horse, scared already, reared with a man tied to his back. Why at this place in particular, near the gate? If the gate had been closed, shutting off the horse from his home then somebody had opened it, the horse might have reared up the way they do sometimes before galloping off. I looked towards the gate, imagining a man there, opening it and might have screamed except shock punched all the air out of my lungs. There was a man there. From where I was crouching under the trees, looking up at him against the light, he was no more than a silhouette but he was watching me and I had the feeling that he had been watching for some time. I scrambled to my feet, catching my boot in my skirt hem and ripping it again, wondering which way to run. Then he spoke.

‘Have you found anything, Miss Bray?’

Meredith’s voice, not mocking, just interested. My heart started up again, thumping with relief and a little embarrassment.

‘I’m not sure. Come and see what you think.’

Amazingly, my voice sounded almost normal. He came through the gate and stood a little way from me, sensibly so as not to scuff the marks. I told him what I was looking at and why so he came forward and crouched down. The light wasn’t quite as good as it had been a few minutes before so my scuff mark didn’t seem so convincing.

‘The earth’s almost polished from the pressure,’ I said. ‘There was a lot of weight on it for a while.’

He looked down at it for a long time, then up at the branch.

‘You know the doctor found a bump on the back of his head?’ I said.

‘Yes. He thought the horse might have rolled on him.’

‘I can understand that would break ribs, but would it cause a bump on the back of the head?’

‘The ground’s hard,’ he said.

‘Oak branches are even harder.’

But the picture was too vivid in my mind as I said it and my rooting in the dust seemed suddenly disrespectful, in bad taste. Perhaps Meredith sensed that because he opened the gate for me to go back into the mares’ field as if this were no more than an evening stroll.

‘We were worried because you were missing supper, so I said I’d come and find you.’

‘How did you know where to look?’

‘I didn’t. I’ve been wandering all over the place.’ We were back on our own side of the gate, walking along the river bank. ‘I brought you some ham,’ he said, ‘in case you were hungry.’

The warm feeling that came over me was quite ridiculous, given the banality of the thing. I laughed, a release of tension probably, but it felt like a little gust of happiness. Here was a man I admired and wanted very much to think well of me doing something as simply kind as a friend or brother. I hoped the laugh hadn’t hurt his feelings and perhaps it had because he added, ‘I put mustard on it, but perhaps you don’t like mustard,’ in an almost humble voice. I assured him that I loved mustard and I was very hungry. To my surprise I suddenly was. He produced a greasy brown paper bag from his pocket and handed it to me.

‘Rather crushed, I’m afraid. Do you want to sit down?’

We sat on the bank beside an alder with a clump of yellow irises at our feet and gnats whining up and down. The ham was sandwiched between two bits of bread, no way of eating it elegantly, and yet somehow I didn’t feel self-conscious. He let me finish it before trying to talk, just sitting beside me and staring at the stream.

‘So you were looking for hoofprints on the other side of the gate. Did you think the horse might have jumped it?’

‘I’m sure not. It’s a terrible take-off and Arabs aren’t great jumpers. Anyway, there were other gates that had to be opened.’

‘Yes?’

‘Robin says the horse was in the top paddock as usual the night before. Somebody would have had to bring him down to this field, open and close the gate. The Old Man couldn’t have done that himself if his hands were tied.’

‘So you’re saying somebody must have helped him?’

‘I don’t think help’s what I mean.’

I wiped my buttery fingers on the grass. He had a way of looking at people that said ‘Go on.’ I’d noticed it in our discussions. It was one of his skills to make you bring the half-formed theories out of your mind and give words to them.

‘We’ve all been assuming that the Old Man killed himself, probably with somebody’s help.’

‘Yes.’

‘But there’s an alternative, isn’t there? You reminded me yourself that Mazeppa didn’t want to kill himself. He was tied on the horse against his will.’

‘Are you saying that’s what happened?’

‘When I saw him and Sid, they were coming from the direction of Major Mawbray’s land. Major Mawbray’s a cavalry officer. He thinks the Old Man killed his son. Even before that the two of them had quarrelled.’

‘That’s just a series of separate facts. It’s not a hypothesis.’

‘All right, if you want a hypothesis, here it is. Major Mawbray watched us when we were riding through his field on Wednesday. That’s not just part of the hypothesis. I saw him and he looked furious. The next bit is hypothesis. That was the last straw, so while we’re away at the coast he’s thinking of a way to punish the Old Man. Everybody round here will know how much Sid means to him, so, on the first night we’re back he waits until the Old Man’s somewhere else on his rounds, goes up into the top paddock and takes the horse.’

‘Wouldn’t that be difficult. He’s quite a spirited animal.’

‘Yes, but biddable and used to human beings. And remember Major Mawbray was a cavalry officer.’

‘Very well, we have Major Mawbray creeping on to his neighbour’s property and stealing Sid. What next?’

‘He wouldn’t think of it as stealing. He probably didn’t intend to keep the horse, but the Old Man would have gone to the top paddock as soon as it got light and found Sid gone. He’d have been furious and guessed immediately who’d taken him. So naturally he’d go looking for Major Mawbray.’

‘Who manages single-handed to overpower him and tie him on Sid’s back?’

‘It might not have been quite as cold-blooded as that. Suppose there was a fight and he managed somehow to knock the Old Man unconscious? It might have seemed a good idea to humiliate him by sending him back that way – only it went too far.’

‘That still leaves us with a middle-aged man…’

‘In poor health too, I admit that.’

‘… knocking out an old man and tying him on a restless horse single-handed.’

‘Does it have to be single-handed? What if he’s got a strong young son hidden away somewhere?’

He sighed, ‘So we’re back with Mawbray’s son again?’

‘Yes, we are. I’ve thought all along he might still be alive. I’m almost sure of it now.’

‘Because your hypothesis demands him. You’re getting dangerously close to a circular argument.’

But the way he said it didn’t sound sharp or hostile. I sensed that he was taking my theory at least half seriously. We sat in silence for a while. It was getting dark. He said he supposed we should be getting back, but made no move.

‘Miss Bray…’

‘Nell.’

‘Nell, I know it’s no use my telling you not to get involved. You are involved and that’s all there is to it. But I’m sorry. Sorry for all of you.’

‘It’s worse for Alan. And for Imogen.’

He sighed and I thought I probably shouldn’t have mentioned her. I couldn’t help feeling a bit annoyed and this time I was the one who said we should be getting back. He stood up and held out a hand to help me. I ignored it, scrambled up in a hurry to make the point that I didn’t need help, caught my boot in the torn hem of my dress and nearly pitched headfirst into the river. He grabbed my flailing hand just in time.

‘Naturally if you prefer to drown, I’ll respect your wishes and let go.’

He was laughing and far from being annoyed I found myself laughing too. ‘I can swim, you know. I can swim quite well.’

‘I’m sure you can.’

I hadn’t pulled my hand away from him and he seemed in no hurry to let it go. I could make a lot of excuses for what happened next: that it had been a long day and we were all under strain, that grief and shock do odd things to people, that I was a little jealous of Imogen, that he made the first move. They’d all of them be true except the last one. I made the first move. I stepped towards him up the bank and kissed him, full on the mouth. When his face came back into focus, it looked surprised but I thought not unpleasantly so and I must have been right, because then he kissed me. After that he said ‘Well.’ I said nothing, wondering what had come over me and whether I’d behaved like a free and honest woman or a silly fool and if my kiss had tasted of mustard and if it mattered. We walked up to the field gate and along the track to the house, saying nothing and with a little space between us that somehow seemed to be humming like bees in the sun.

‘Where have you been Nell?’ Midge said, back in the lamplit kitchen. ‘We were worried.’

Imogen just looked at me then at Meredith. Odd how some people guess.