The following morning, with Toni in the office catching up on some paperwork, Agatha and Roy set off to pay a visit to the Montgomery Stables. Roy had offered to drive, but Agatha found his sparkling gold Lexus a little ostentatious for her taste and far too conspicuous for a private detective, so they took her anonymous dark-grey saloon instead.
“You certainly brighten up the inside of this car,” she said, eyeing Roy’s burgundy chinos, yellow waistcoat and dusky pink shirt. Agatha loved colourful fashion, providing that colour was deployed with taste and elegance. For business, muted colours were often more appropriate. Her own light-grey skirt and jacket almost matched the car’s upholstery.
“It’s called style, darling,” Roy smiled, waving a hand in a sweeping theatrical gesture. “Don’t even attempt to understand.”
Agatha sighed, shook her head and started the engine.
The stables were tucked away amid a patchwork of fields beyond Blockley on the road to Draycott. They approached the cluster of stable buildings along a track with a copse of oak trees to one side and a four-bar wooden fence to the other. The fence enclosed a flat area surfaced with what looked to Agatha like a mixture of ash and rags. From her research, she knew this was a special material spread on areas used for training horses. Beyond this enclosure was an old farmhouse and a structure that looked like a small barn. Another enclosure near the barn was laid out with show-jumping gates and walls. Three horses grazed in a paddock adjacent to the show-jumping area.
As they pulled up outside the farmhouse, they were greeted by a pleasant, rosy-cheeked woman in her late thirties wearing a heavy sweater, beige jodhpurs and muddy boots. A black Labrador dashed from her side and danced around Agatha and Roy, lashing their legs with his tail in a lavish welcome ritual.
“Piper, here!” called the woman and the dog slunk back to her side. “Sorry about that. He loves visitors. Can I help you?” she asked, wiping her hands on a towel.
“We’re looking for Tamara Montgomery,” said Agatha, frowning at Piper’s muddy paw mark on top of her sandal.
“You’ve found her.” Tamara smiled, and Agatha noted the lines that appeared at the sides of her mouth, as well as the crinkles at the corners of her eyes. This woman wore no make-up. “What can I do for you?”
Agatha introduced herself and Roy, explaining that they needed to talk to her about Mary Brown-Field. Tamara’s face fell.
“I can’t help you,” she said.
“We know that you and Mary had … issues,” said Agatha. “We’re trying to find out more about her. Her father has accused Sir Charles Fraith of murdering her. We need to make sure that he can’t railroad the murder investigation. Sir Charles didn’t do it. We have to make that clear or the Brown-Fields will crush him.”
“I don’t know…” Tamara said, shaking her head. Agatha had noticed her shoulders droop slightly when the Brown-Fields were mentioned, almost as if the mere thought of them had drained a little life from her. “You’d better come inside.”
She showed them into the main farmhouse building, pausing in the porch to remove her boots. Piper trotted ahead of her. A wide door with upper panels that were a delicate web of stained-glass flowers led into the hall. Piper nudged it open with his head. Tamara turned right to take them into the kitchen. Agatha glanced left, where there was a neat office with a desk, computer and filing cabinets. The kitchen was tidy and clean. Tamara offered them coffee and they sat at wooden chairs around a long table. Under the table, Agatha felt the soft, warm body of Piper as he draped himself across her feet. The silvery grey sandals she was wearing left most of her feet exposed. A heavy Labrador blanket might be nice on a cold winter morning, she thought, but it wouldn’t take long today for her feet to overheat. She gave the dog a nudge with her toes. He was way heavier than Boswell or Hodge and refused to budge.
“I’m sorry about what happened to Mary,” Tamara said.
“I would agree with you,” Agatha replied, “but then we’d both be lying wouldn’t we?”
Tamara stared at her, clearly taken aback; possibly, thought Agatha, even slightly appalled that she had been so forthright.
“Don’t look so shocked,” she said. “I wouldn’t have wished what happened to Mary on anyone, but I won’t pretend that I’m sad she’s gone. I had plenty of reasons to hate her, and I’ve heard that you did too.”
Tamara opened her mouth as if to respond, then burst into tears, burying her face in her hands. She pushed back her chair, the legs screeching as they scraped across the tiled kitchen floor, stood up to grab a handful of kitchen roll and blew her nose loudly. Piper scuttled out from beneath the table and made for the safety of his basket in the corner of the room. Agatha wiggled her toes to cool off her feet.
“It’s true,” Tamara gasped, wiping her eyes and sucking in great gulps of air. “I had … no … reason to like Mary or her family.”
“It seems that they’re not easy people to like,” said Roy. “Believe me, Tamara, you are not alone.”
“You don’t understand,” said Tamara, calming herself and taking her seat again. “They made my life a living hell. They are utterly despicable,” she added, a note of anger in her voice, “and I hate the whole bloody lot of them!”
“Again,” said Agatha, “you’re not alone.”
“But I didn’t kill her,” Tamara said quickly. “I could never do anything like that.”
“Somebody killed her,” Agatha said. “The police even think that I may have had a hand in it. I didn’t, but there’s no doubt that I had a motive. What had Mary done to make you despise her? What might give you a motive?”
“I don’t think I can…”
“Have you already been interviewed by the police?” Roy asked.
“No, no, they haven’t…”
“They will,” said Agatha. “Eventually they will come to speak to you and you will have to tell them the truth. Whatever was between you and Mary will come out—unless I can find the murderer first and hand him, or her, to the police on a plate. Anything you can tell us might help with that.”
“It’s all to do with this place,” Tamara sighed. “The stables. My mother died two years ago and my father followed soon after. They left this house and the stables to me, along with a fair amount of cash. I was still competing then—I’ve been riding since before I could walk—but I never truly realised how much it all cost. My parents must have spent a fortune over the years to get me to the level I was at. With them gone, I had to cope on my own, and the business here began to suffer.”
“But everything around here looks in such good order,” said Roy. “Even outside is neat and clean. At a stables, I expected a lot more mud and … other stuff.”
“I work hard to keep everything shipshape,” said Tamara, “and I get a little help from a couple of local girls who do chores in return for riding lessons, and a friend who helps out from time to time. The real problem is that I have no clients.”
“What do you mean?” Agatha asked. “And what’s this got to do with the Brown-Fields?”
“When money started getting tight,” Tamara explained, “I suppose people must have realised that I was struggling. I had some small local sponsors, but it was never enough. Then I was approached at an event by a man who offered me a tempting amount of money to make sure that I didn’t win. He said it was a betting scam. I was desperate. I took the money.”
“Was this man Mary’s father?” Roy asked.
“No, no, he would never get involved in anything like that personally,” Tamara explained, “but it must have been someone who worked for them. So I threw the contest—like a boxer taking a dive in the fourth round. It was some time later that Mary came to me at another event and showed me photographs—photographs of me accepting a wad of cash from that man. She said she would expose me as a cheat unless I helped her to win and kept myself out of the running.”
“Blackmail!” said Roy. “She was a cunning little devil, wasn’t she?”
“But you couldn’t actually guarantee her any wins could you?” Agatha reasoned. “There were lots of other talented riders competing. She couldn’t get to them all, so why risk blackmailing you?”
“Because she and her father had something else in mind,” said Tamara. “When I stopped winning, appeared to lose my form, my sponsors had to withdraw their funding. Then rumours started spreading that I was all at sea without my parents. People used to pay a lot for stabling here. But they love their horses—I completely understand that—and who would risk an animal they loved with a woman they had heard might be losing her marbles?
“One by one they drifted away, until now the only horses left here are my own. The Brown-Fields were behind those rumours, I’m sure of that. Mary offered to buy the business. She offered less than half what it’s worth. She was furious when I wouldn’t sell it to her, but I couldn’t just sell up and go—this is my home! She kept on at me, threatening, bullying, telling me and everyone else how useless I was and that the business was a mess. Now I suppose her father will start coming after me…”
“They had plans for their own equestrian centre,” said Agatha. “Maybe they saw you as competition and wanted you out of the way. That would be just like Mary.”
“And she may well get what she wants, even from beyond the grave,” Tamara admitted, shaking her head. “When you arrived I thought for a second that you might be new clients, but…”
“Buck up!” said Agatha cheerily, the germ of an idea forming in her head. “You need to find your old competitive spirit again, Tamara. You might be down now, but you’re not out. You’re still standing and you mustn’t give up. We never give up, do we, Roy?”
“Never,” agreed Roy. “You don’t allow it.”
“And I’m not allowing it now, either.” Agatha nodded. “Come on, Tamara, why don’t you show us around?”
“All right,” said Tamara, giving herself a shake. “Let’s go outside.”
Piper leapt out of his basket, wagging his tail, and led the way back to the front door. Tamara pointed out the exercise area that Agatha and Roy had passed as they drove in, showed them the food store, the stable yard, the loose boxes and the tack room, where saddles, reins, blankets and all manner of riding paraphernalia were stowed neatly on shelves. It all, thought Agatha, looks delightfully fresh and inviting, if you’re a horse.
“The rear of the barn,” said Tamara, pointing, “is a traditional hay store, but the front has been converted into a spa area.”
“Sounds lovely,” said Agatha. “Relaxing in a hot tub after being bounced around in a saddle must be very soothing for your … bottom.”
“It’s not for the riders,” laughed Tamara. “It’s for the horses!”
She flung open a side door to the barn and they walked into a space that was taken up mainly by a long, narrow pool and a fibreglass-and-steel contraption that looked big enough to contain a large horse.
“Quite narrow for swimming laps, I’d have thought,” said Roy, nodding at the pool.
“It’s not really for swimming,” Tamara explained. “We can make water flow down the pool at varying rates, and the horse walks against the flow. Over there,” she said, pointing to the contraption, “is a kind of jacuzzi. The aqua therapies help to deal with any niggling little injuries the horses might pick up.”
Leaving the barn, they strolled in the sunshine down to the paddock, where the three horses walked over to join them at the fence. The largest of the three was a glossy chestnut with a white blaze down the middle of its face. The other two were roughly equal in size, one grey and one black. The chestnut nuzzled Roy’s shoulder and he stroked its nose. From somewhere inside her sweater Tamara produced an apple. Holding it in both hands, she squeezed, twisted and broke it in half. Agatha was impressed. Tamara was a strong woman. Had she and Mary ever gone head to head, Tamara would certainly have come out on top.
“That’s Saturn,” Tamara said to Roy, handing him half the apple. “You can give him this. Hold it in the flat of your hand. He’s very gentle.”
“He’s magnificent,” said Roy. Agatha was a little surprised at the way Roy was gazing at Saturn. The horses had the same sort of soft, adorable eyes as Wizz-Wazz, the donkey they had both come to know not too long ago, but they were far bigger creatures. In fact, up close, they were so big that Agatha decided to keep her distance.
“The police will ask,” she said, declining a proffered piece of apple to feed one of the other horses, “where you were on Saturday when Mary was murdered.”
“I was here,” said Tamara. “One of the girls was here with me until her parents came to pick her up.”
“And who are these two beauties?” Roy asked stroking the other horses. Agatha frowned at him. They had come here to question Tamara, but that was not the sort of question they needed to be asking. They were supposed to be investigating a murder, not patting ponies!
“Cloud and Midnight,” said Tamara. “You can probably guess which is which.”
“Do you know anyone else we might talk to who held a grudge against Mary?”
“There was one French girl—Claudette, I never knew her second name—who couldn’t stand her,” said Tamara. “I believe they actually came to blows. That was a real surprise because Claudette was such a lovely person. Then, of course, there was Deborah Lexington. That was a huge tragedy. It was all glossed over as an accident, but Deborah has never recovered. She can’t ride any more. Can’t even walk, from what I heard.”
“Really?” said Agatha. “I think we need to talk to both of them. Do you have their details?”
“I do for Deborah, I think.”
“Was she a friend of yours?”
“I wouldn’t say that. Her horses were beautiful and she made sure they were very well looked after, but I think she liked the idea of being associated with the sport more than the horses themselves. Her family had lots of money and she was keen that everyone knew it. She used to spray very expensive perfume around. She said she adored horses but didn’t want to smell like one. She and her brother live not too far away, but if you want to talk to Claudette, you had best contact the Colonel.”
“The Colonel?” Roy arched an eyebrow. “Sounds very mysterious.”
“Not at all,” Tamara smiled, running her hand down Midnight’s neck and pressing her face to the side of his head, something the horse obviously loved. That, thought Agatha, is clearly why she doesn’t invest in make-up. “The Colonel is one of the good guys. He’s involved in organising the events, the scoring and the overall rankings of the competitors. He must be nearly eighty now but he’s still very much on the ball. He knows everyone. He will definitely know Claudette.”
“Would he have been at the charity event at Mircester Manor Park?” Agatha asked.
“I doubt it,” Tamara said. “That wasn’t part of the competition calendar. The top riders wouldn’t have been there either. They would have been in France, preparing for the event in Bordeaux this weekend. They like to have as much time as possible to settle their horses and get them in shape after they’ve been transported any great distance.”
“Can you put us in touch with the Colonel?”
“Of course. We can phone him from my office.”
“Thank you,” Agatha said as they began to walk back towards the farmhouse. “You’ve been a big help. In return, we may be able to do something for you.”
“We may?” said Roy.
“Yes,” said Agatha, “and it’s more of a ‘you’ than a ‘we.’ You see, Tamara, Roy is something of a public relations and marketing genius. He is the man behind Wizz-Wazz the donkey.”
“I thought I recognised you!” said Tamara, turning to Agatha, realisation dawning on her face. “You’re the Donkey Lady, the one who was on TV saying ‘Snakes and b—’”
“That’s entirely beside the point,” Agatha butted in, skating over the brief moment of celebrity that had been generated by her infamous TV appearance with the flatulent Wizz-Wazz. “Roy is just the man to put your stables on the map.”
“I am?” said Roy.
“You are,” Agatha assured him. “You have all the right contacts to bring in sponsorship, and with Tamara’s help you’ll be able to reach out to everyone who should know about this fantastic facility. A fresh image, some marketing spin and you can give Montgomery Stables a real shot in the arm.”
“Well, I suppose I could,” said Roy, stroking his chin.
“But … but there’s no way I can pay for that sort of help,” said Tamara.
“We could start off,” said Roy, gazing towards the horses in the paddock, “with a few riding lessons in lieu of a fee, then work something out once things are up and running again.”
“That would be marvellous,” said Tamara. “Mrs. Raisin, I don’t know how I can ever thank you…”
“Just make it work,” said Agatha. “With Roy’s help, you have to turn this place into a huge success. That will be a real poke in the eye for the Brown-Fields.”
In the office, Tamara called the Colonel and introduced Agatha, who arranged to pay him a visit that afternoon. Once Tamara had dug out Deborah Lexington’s address, Agatha and Roy said their goodbyes, Piper escorting them to the car before galloping back when Tamara called him.
“That was a great idea, Aggie,” said Roy, buckling his seat belt. “I never thought about learning to ride before, but I know I’m going to love it. Saturn is just gorgeous, isn’t he? I’ll have to get all the gear, of course—the boots, those trousery things, the black hat…”
“I want you to keep an eye on Tamara,” said Agatha. “She seems perfectly nice, but she had plenty of reason to want Mary dead. She is also clearly a great source of information about Mary’s friends and enemies. I need you back here to start working with her tomorrow and finding out all you can.”
“Find out all … Oh my God!” Roy gasped, holding a hand to his chest. “I’m going under cover!”
Roy babbled with excitement all the way back to Mircester. He was going to learn to ride, he was investigating a murder and he was to be working on a covert operation. He was practically a secret agent! Agatha was relieved to be able to drop him off in Mircester at an upmarket department store where she knew they would be delighted to sell him the finest equestrian clothing at eye-watering prices. She realised that she would have to suffer a mini fashion parade when she got home later, but it would be worth it to have some peace and quiet while she found her way to the Colonel’s house. She put in a quick call to Toni to ask her to dig up some background on Deborah Lexington, then set off.
Colonel Steven Warbler-Dow lived in Maugersbury, just outside Stow-on-the-Wold. Agatha had been given specific directions about how to reach the house, but more than once had the feeling that she must have gone wrong. The roads were so narrow and flanked so tightly in places by enviably opulent family homes that she felt as if she must be on a driveway, passing through the carefully tended gardens. Where houses gave way to hedgerows, she caught glimpses of glorious countryside, folds of green rolling into distant hills bathed in sunshine.
Before long, she identified a turning that took her to the short stone-chip driveway of the Colonel’s house. To the right was a lawn, separated from the drive by a flower bed bursting with spring colour. Ahead was the house itself, a large two-storey L-shaped villa with an elaborate thatched roof that made Agatha’s own look positively primitive. Along the ridge line the thatch was doubly thick, the edges cut in a traditional skirt of curves and points, before it swooped down, curving gracefully around upstairs windows that peeked out from beneath the grey reeds. Where part of the ground floor extended out beyond the upper wall line, the thatch cascaded lower still, the angle of the roof allowing it to cover the extension. It was a delightful house, large enough, Agatha guessed, to swallow both her cottage and James’s, but small enough still to be a very comfortable home.
She parked close to the house, beside a wooden garage that she estimated could house at least three cars, and stepped out to be greeted by a loud “Hello, there!” from an elderly man striding confidently towards her. He was tall, with a grey beard and a balding head, a combination that Agatha had never found particularly attractive, although his beaming smile and twinkling blue eyes more than compensated for him having hair growing in the wrong places. You must have been a handsome devil in your youth, she thought, and you haven’t lost it entirely.
“You must be Agatha,” he said.
“And you are the Colonel?” she responded, shaking his hand.
“Steven, please,” he said. “Come inside. Can’t talk in this scorching sun.”
They walked towards the house, past a tangled heap of rusting metal that Agatha had first taken to be a sculpture but now realised was an old lawnmower.
“What happened to your mower?” she asked.
“Damn thing was always breaking down,” explained the Colonel, chuckling. “So I shot the bugger. Put it out of its misery with my old shotgun. Left it there as an example to the others.”
“The others?”
“Abbott and Costello.” He smiled. “Here comes one of them now.”
A silver disc, looking like a miniature flying saucer, glided across the lawn towards them.
“Automatic lawnmowers,” said the Colonel. “I’ve got two of them. They patrol the lawn. They’re programmed to know where the edges of the lawn are so that they don’t stray into the flower beds. They cut only a little on each outing and deposit the cuttings back onto the lawn as compost, then they make their way back to their charging stations to recharge on solar power. All very eco-friendly.”
The disc buzzed past them. I wonder what Boswell and Hodge would make of that, Agatha thought—scrap metal, probably.
“Amazing,” she said, making an attempt to appear interested.
“Now what was it that you wanted to talk to me about, young lady?”
Agatha glanced over her shoulder, half expecting to see Toni standing there. Young lady? He meant her! The Colonel was turning out to be a bit of a charmer.
“Show-jumping,” she smiled, “and murder.” She explained about Charles and how he had been accused of Mary’s murder.
“I heard about that,” the Colonel said, scratching his beard. Agatha noticed that the tips of two fingers on his right hand were missing. “Nasty business. I’ve met Sir Charles a few times over the years. Seems like a decent sort.”
“He is indeed,” Agatha agreed, “absolutely decent. No doubt about it. A decent sort.”
The front door stood open, inviting them into a hall where the walls were hung with framed photographs of soldiers posing with horses in an assortment of exotic locations as well as with camels in the desert, elephants in the jungle and all sorts of military hardware.
“My study will be best.” The Colonel held open the door to a wood-panelled room dominated by a desk not unlike the one in Agatha’s office. A large, thick ledger with a well-worn green leather cover lay in the middle of the desk. Agatha sat in a deep-buttoned dark-red leather armchair and the Colonel settled into a similar chair on the other side of the desk, fishing a smartphone out of his pocket and placing it beside the ledger.
“So how can I be of help, my dear?” he asked.
“In order to find the killer, I need to know more about Mary, about her friends and, more particularly, her enemies. I’m focusing on those involved in competitive show-jumping. Tamara Montgomery told me you knew absolutely everyone.”
“That is true,” the Colonel said, touching one of his truncated fingers on the smartphone screen. The ledger magically opened, revealing a laptop computer inside. He clearly enjoyed Agatha’s look of amazement. “Cool, eh? That’s what you young people say, isn’t it?”
“Very impressive,” Agatha conceded.
“Obviously you know that I’m heavily involved in organising events,” he turned the ledger so that the laptop screen faced towards him, “but the lists of names and contacts I have here are strictly on a need-to-know basis. It would be thoroughly bad form for me to share.”
“We already have lists of Mary’s acquaintances,” Agatha explained, avoiding using the word “friends,” as she seriously doubted Mary had had any of those. “I really need to know more about what went on at these events so that I can work out who might have wanted to murder … Lady Mary.” She used Mary’s title deliberately, hoping that a show of respect for rank would go down well with the Colonel.
“I don’t really concern myself with tittle-tattle and barrack-room gossip,” he said, “but I will help as much as I can. I’ll just see if my wife can rustle something up for us.” He prodded his phone with a blunt finger. There was a click as an invisible intercom system switched on. “Jen, how about some tea and biscuits?”
“Thanks,” came a voice from loudspeakers somewhere in the room. “I’d love some.”
Click.
“Not really the plan. Still, best plans never survive contact with the enemy, eh?” The Colonel chuckled. “Adapt and survive. How about this instead?” He jabbed another icon on his phone screen, and a section of wooden panelling behind him opened up, revealing a drinks cabinet. “A little sherry, maybe?”
“That would be very nice,” Agatha smiled. “Where do all these high-tech gizmos come from?”
“Most of them I build myself,” the Colonel explained, pouring them both a drink from a crystal decanter. “Spent my working years in the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. I’ve always loved horses, of course, but I think I’ve always loved machines and gadgets just a little bit more. The future is high-tech, young lady.”
He handed a glass to Agatha and saw her looking at his fingers.
“Wounded in action,” he said, holding up his hand.
“Were you shot?”
“No, rotor blades got me. I stepped out of a helicopter and saluted my generals.”
“With two fingers? That wasn’t a very nice salute.”
“They weren’t very nice generals.”
“Just as well they weren’t your privates…”
The Colonel chuckled. “I like you,” he said. “If I were forty years younger…”
“I’d be a schoolgirl and you’d be arrested.”
He guffawed with laughter and gently clinked glasses with Agatha before lowering himself into his seat again.
“All I can really tell you,” he said, “is that Mary Darlinda Brown-Field was a young woman with a lot of problems. She could be very charming, but she also had a knack of upsetting people. I’m sure you know that already.”
“First-hand experience,” Agatha agreed, “but I have no real experience of the sort of competition environment at show-jumping events, or the people involved. I’ve only ever been to one small charity event.”
“The big events are quite something.” He nodded. “The international scene is for the super-rich. Jen and I are, you might say, comfortably well off, with my army pension and some family money, but those who compete at the top events live a lifestyle that most can only dream of.”
“Is Claudette one of those?”
“Claudette Duvivier? Do you know Claudette?”
“No, but I would very much like to meet her.”
“Let me see what I can do,” he said, picking up his phone. He chose a number from a speed-dial list and Agatha listened patiently to a one-sided conversation. “Claudette, my dear! Yes, yes, I’m looking forward to it. Yes, Jen will be coming, too. Claudette, I have someone here who would love to meet you. Her name is Agatha Raisin. Really? La dame what? All right…” He covered the phone with one hand and spoke softly to Agatha. “She wants to know if you are la dame d”âne … the Donkey Lady.”
“La dame … Yes,” Agatha admitted, taking a gulp of sherry. “That’s me. I didn’t realise I was famous in France.”
The Colonel gave a Gallic shrug and returned to the conversation. “Yes, that’s her.” There was a pause. “If that’s what you want, my dear. I’ll check.” He covered the phone again and addressed Agatha. “Are you free to go on a little trip on Friday and Saturday? Claudette would love to meet you. I’d say yes if I were you.”
“Then yes,” said Agatha.
“She can.” The Colonel resumed his phone conversation. “Very well. Friday morning. ETA with you at the mill at ten hundred hours. Bella? Yes, I can bring Bella if your chap can look after her at the airport. That’s a splendid idea. Perfect weather for her. Au revoir, my dear.”
He put down his phone and beamed at Agatha.
“We’re going on a trip?” Agatha asked. “Where are we going?”
“To meet Claudette,” he said.
“I know you like springing little surprises,” said Agatha, gesturing towards the laptop and the drinks cabinet, “but if this is on a need-to-know basis, then I am surely one of the ones who need to know.”
“You’ll need your passport and a couple of posh frocks for dinner,” he advised. “You’re coming with us to Bordeaux.”