‘Any news?’ Kate asked. ‘Did you find anything?’
‘Not really,’ I replied, giving her a quick ‘don’t go there’ glance.
I didn’t want to mention anything with Janie listening. I knew she was currently pretty pissed off with Ryan, but I thought she might still be loyal to Oliver. Not that that was going to stop me asking her some questions. That’s why I’d suggested that Kate should invite her in the first place.
‘Tell me more about Zoe,’ I said, rolling another pancake.
‘What about her?’ Janie asked.
‘Did she ever have a boyfriend?’
‘Not that I remember. All the boys at school tended to steer well clear of her. So did most of the girls.’
‘Did she ever talk to you about sex?’
She giggled. ‘What about sex?’
‘I thought teenage girls talk about sex all the time, just like teenage boys.’
‘Of course they do. But I don’t remember Zoe doing so. She was never “one of the girls” in that respect. Not in any respect, in fact. She was always so serious and anxious. I don’t think I ever heard her laugh.’
‘Did she talk at all about her life at home?’
‘She didn’t talk much about anything.’
‘Do you know if she got on well with her brothers?’ I asked.
‘I don’t recall her getting on well with anyone. She used to make things up about them all the time.’
‘What sorts of things?’ I asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know. Half the time she would praise them for being so brilliant and then she’d accuse them of being cruel towards her or the horses.’
‘Did the social services ever get involved?’
‘I know they did at least once,’ Janie said. ‘Two women turned up at school. But Zoe wouldn’t help them. In fact, she accused them both of lying and trying to put her into care. That was typical of her. Just when you tried to help her, she’d go and blame you for something you hadn’t done.’
‘Like cutting her arms?’ I said. ‘Kate told me.’
‘Exactly,’ Janie said. ‘She told a teacher I’d done it. All complete twaddle, of course, she did it to herself, but nevertheless it caused me all sorts of problems at the time. Stupid girl.’
‘I’m surprised the teacher believed her,’ I said.
‘I don’t think she really did but, you know how it is, everyone covers their own back, just in case. So the teacher simply passed on the accusation to her boss and it just spiralled out of control.’
‘But it was all right in the end?’
‘Yeah,’ Janie said. ‘Eventually. But not before I’d been given the third degree. I never trusted her again. No one did — not the kids, nor the teachers.’
‘Or believed her?’
‘Yeah, especially that. She used to invent stuff about people that was more and more weird. She’d accuse everyone of bullying her, which they probably did, but she’d make up awful things about them and then swear blind they were true. Mind you, she’d been doing that since primary school.’
‘St Louis Roman Catholic Primary School?’ I asked.
She looked at me strangely as if wondering how I knew.
‘It was in the medical records,’ I said, even though that was a lie. It had been in the Simpson White report. ‘Was Zoe a Catholic?’
‘I don’t think so,’ Janie said. ‘But I’m not one either. Only about half the kids at St Louis were, even though we all had to go to the Catholic church for school services.’
‘So was Zoe odd right from the start?’
‘I can’t really remember,’ Janie said. ‘I think so. She always seemed to live in her own fantasy world.’
Fantasist.
And no one would have believed her even if some of what she’d said had been true.
Our main courses arrived and the three of us talked about other things for a while but, eventually, I couldn’t resist returning the conversation to the Chadwicks.
‘Do you happen to know how old Ryan was when he left home?’ I asked.
‘Left home?’ Janie said. ‘Do you mean Castleton House?’
I nodded, popping a piece of beef in black bean sauce into my mouth.
‘He was still there when I arrived,’ said Janie. ‘But by then he was living in one of the flats above the old yard. The one that burned down, in fact. He only finally moved out when he got married.’
Eight years ago. He’d been thirty-four.
‘How about Declan?’ I asked.
‘He’d gone before I started. But only just, I think.’
Odd, I thought, for Declan not to have flown the nest sooner, considering the animosity between him and his elder brother.
‘Oliver’s very keen to keep his boys close around him. He’s always saying that he is head of the Chadwick dynasty, one that will dictate the direction taken by horse racing for decades to come.’
‘Has he been in touch with you again since this morning?’ I asked.
‘I’ve had a couple of missed calls on my mobile from the stable office number,’ Janie said. ‘I didn’t answer them on purpose. Let them stew for a while.’ She smiled at me but it wasn’t the real McCoy. It didn’t make it all the way to her eyes.
‘You’ll go back, then?’ I said.
‘Yeah. Probably.’ She sighed. ‘What else can I do?’
‘I’m sure there are other stables that would love to take you on.’
‘Better the devil you know,’ she said.
‘But make sure you ask for that raise,’ Kate said.
‘And compensation for hurt feelings,’ I added.
We completed our dinner in happy companionship.
‘Are you going home tonight?’ I asked Kate as we stood up to go.
‘Not unless you force me to,’ she said. ‘My bag’s in the Mini.’
I smiled at her and she smiled back at me.
‘Oh my God!’ Janie said with a laugh. ‘You two lovebirds. It’s enough to make me vomit.’
The three of us walked out of the restaurant door onto Newmarket High Street.
‘Have either of you two ever heard of a place in Cambridge called the Healthy Woman Centre?’
Both of them laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’ I asked.
‘The name,’ Kate said. ‘It’s so misleading.’
‘Why?’
‘Because everyone knows that the Healthy Woman Centre is just an abortion clinic.’
28
I didn’t sleep very well and woke on Tuesday morning with the rising of the sun at five o’clock.
My mind was simply too busy whirling facts round and round like clothes in a spin dryer. And the threads were getting just as tangled.
Newmarket in May comes alive well before six and I lay awake listening to the sounds of the morning. Kate was still sleeping soundly beside me and, being careful not to wake her, I got up and dressed.
I used a sheet of the hotel notepad to leave her a note on my pillow.
Gone out to the gallops. Back for breakfast at 7.30.
I walked up the Warren Hill training grounds to the very top where the tree plantation grows on the crown of the hill. I sat down on a stump and looked down on the town with the huge cantilever roof of the racecourse grandstand standing out white above the houses in the far distance.
I didn’t usually like early mornings but there was something rather special about being up here at this hour, before the ever-strengthening sunshine had driven away the last of the mist from the hollows.
Was it really only a week since I had first walked this same turf, getting mud all over my polished black city shoes?
So much had happened in that time but, here I was, still searching for the key to the mystery of why the seven horses had died in a stable fire.
Had it been just an attempt to cover the murder of Zoe?
Or was there another reason as well?