"But I'm not dressed," she interrupted indignantly.
"I couldn't give a shit," he said bluntly. "Get your arse up there and give your daughter some support because, by God, it'll be a first if you do."
"How dare-"
He cut her off and set in motion the series of calls thai would result in the Portland Search and Rescue helicopter being scrambled in the direction of St. Alban's Head for the second time in less than a week, when the ambulance service expressed doubt about their ability to reach a man in a remote grassy valley before he bled to death.
By the time Nick Ingram reached the scene, having driven his Jeep at breakneck speed along narrow lanes and up the bridleway, the drama was effectively over. The helicopter was on the ground some fifty yards from the scene of the accident, engine idling; Harding was conscious and sitting up being attended by a paramedic; and another hundred yards to the south of the helicopter and halfway up the hillside, Maggie was busy trying to catch Stinger, who rolled his eyes and backed away from her every time she came too close. She was clearly trying to head him off from the cliff edge, but he was too frightened of the helicopter to move in its direction, and all she was succeeding in doing was driving him toward the three-foot-high fence and the perilously steep steps that edged the cliff. Celia, clad in a pair of pajama trousers and a tannin-stained bedjacket, stood arrogantly to one side with one hand grasping Sir Jasper's reins tightly beneath his chin and the other wound into the looped end in case he, too, decided to bolt. She favored Ingram with a frosty glare, designed to freeze him in his tracks, but he ignored her and turned his attention to Harding.
"Are you all right, sir?"
The young man nodded. He was dressed in Levi's and a pale green sweatshirt, both of which were copiously splattered with blood, and his lower right arm was tightly bandaged.
Ingram turned to the paramedic. "What's the damage?"
"He'll live," said the man. "The two ladies managed to stop the bleeding. He'll need stitching, so we'll take him to Poole and get him sorted there." He drew Nick aside. "The young lady could do with some attention. She's shaking like a leaf, but she says it's more important to catch the horse. The trouble is he's torn his reins off, and she can't get close enough to get a grip on his throat strap." He jerked his head toward Celia. "And the older one's not much better. She's got arthritis, and she wrecked her hip riding up here. By rights, we ought to take them with us, but they're adamant they won't leave the animals. There's also a time problem. We need to get moving, but the loose horse is going to bolt in real earnest the minute we take off. It's terrified out of its wits already and damn nearly skidded over the cliff when we landed."
"Where's the dog?"
"Vanished. I gather the young lady had to thrash him with his lead to get him off the lad, and he's fled with his tail between his legs."
Nick rumpled his sleep-tousled hair. "Okay, can you give us another five minutes? If I help Miss Jenner round up the horse, we may be able to persuade her mother to go in for some treatment. How about it?"
The paramedic turned to look at Steven Harding. "Why not? He says he's strong enough to walk, but it'll take me a good five minutes to get him in and settled. I don't fancy your chances much, but good luck."
With a wry smile, Nick put his fingers to his lips and gave a piercing whistle before scanning both hillsides with narrowed eyes. To his relief, he saw Bertie rise out of the grass on the breast of Emmetts Hill about two hundred and fifty yards away. He gave another whistle, and the dog came like a torpedo toward him. He raised his arm and dropped him to the ground when he was still fifty yards away, then went back to Celia. "I need a quick decision," he told her. "We've got five minutes to catch Stinger before the helicopter leaves, and it strikes me Maggie'll have more chance if she's riding Sir Jasper. You're the expert. Do I take him up to her or do I leave him with you, bearing in mind I know nothing about horses and Jasper's likely to be just as frightened of the noise as Stinger is?"
She was a sensible woman and didn't waste time on recriminations. She handed the loop of the reins into his left hand and guided his right into position under Jasper's chin. "Keep clicking your tongue," she said, "and he'll follow. Don't try and run, and don't let go. We can't afford to lose both of them. Remind Maggie they'll both go mad the minute the helicopter takes off, so tell her to ride like the devil for the middle of the headland and give herself some space."
He set off up the slope, whistling Bertie to follow and gathering him in to his left leg so that the dog walked like a shadow beside him.
"I didn't realize it was his dog," said the paramedic to Celia.
"It's not," she said thoughtfully, shading her eyes against the sun to watch what happened.
She saw her daughter come stumbling down toward the tall policeman, who had a quick word with her, then hefted her lightly into Jasper's saddle before, with a gesture of his arm, he sent Bertie out in a sweeping movement toward the cliff edge to circle around behind the excited gelding. He followed in Bertie's wake, placing himself as an immovable obstacle between the horse and the brink, while directing the dog to hamper Stinger's further retreat up the hillside by dashing to and fro above him. Meanwhile, Maggie had turned Sir Jasper toward the quarry site and had kicked him into a canter. Faced with the unpalatable alternatives of a dog on one side, a helicopter on the other, and a man behind, Stinger chose the sensible option of pursuing the other horse toward safety.
"Impressive," said the paramedic.
"Yes," said Celia even more thoughtfully. "It was, wasn't it?"
Polly Garrard was about to leave for work when DI John Galbraith rang her front doorbell and asked if she was willing to answer a few more questions about her relationship with Kate Sumner. "I can't," she told him. "I'll be late. You can come to the office if you like."
"Fine, if that's the way you want it," he assured her. "It might make things difficult for you, though. You probably won't want eavesdroppers to some of the things I'm going to ask you."
"Oh, shit!" she said immediately. "I knew this was going to happen." She opened the door wide. "You'd better come in," she said, leading the way into a tiny sitting room, "but you can't keep me long. Half an hour max, okay? I've already been late twice this month, and I'm running out of excuses."
She dropped onto one end of a sofa, hooking an arm over its back and inviting him to sit at the other end. She twisted around to face him, one leg curled beneath her so that her skirt rose up to her crotch and her breasts stood out in response to her pulled-back shoulder. The pose was deliberate, thought Galbraith with some amusement, as he lowered himself onto the seat beside her. She was a well-built young woman with a taste for tight T-shirts, heavy makeup, and blue nail polish, and he wondered how Angela Sumner would have coped with Polly as a daughter-in-law in place of Kate. For all her real or imagined sins, Kate seemed to have looked the part of William's wife, even if she did lack the necessary social and educational skills that would have satisfied her mother-in-law.
"I want to ask you about a letter you wrote to Kate in July, which concerns some of the people you work with," he told Polly, taking a photocopy of it out of his breast pocket. He spread it on his knee and handed it to her. "Do you remember sending that?"
She read it through quickly, then nodded. "Yup. I'd been phoning on and off for about a week, and I thought, what the hell, she's obviously busy, so I'll drop her a note instead and get her to phone me." She screwed her face into cartoon pique. "Not that she ever did. She just sent a scrotty little note, saying she'd call when she was ready."