Joe was the first to recover from the surprise of finding himself in the presence of a bright-faced, extremely pretty and self-assured woman. But it had been the sight of the unfashionable abundance of light auburn hair which had silenced him. Hunnyton also had been knocked sideways. What on earth could he be thinking? Joe caught the man’s eye and asked him a silent question. Hunnyton pulled a comedy villain’s face and shrugged a shoulder, saying clearly: “No idea! Nothing to do with me, guv.” Joe’s waggling eyebrows replied in kind: “Me neither!”
Joe held out a hand and shook the doctor’s, introducing himself, and then he presented Hunnyton.
“Well, I’d have been happy to welcome PC Plod up from Bury but—a Scotland Yard Assistant Commissioner and a Detective Superintendent from Cambridge? They’re really rolling out the big guns! Do you two normally work together?”
“No, Miss … Doctor … just for this one outing,” Hunnyton supplied.
“I’ve made some coffee. Suit you both? Good. Sit down, will you, and if you can stop gurning at each other like loonies, we’ll get started.”
While she poured coffee into blue-and-white china cups and passed around a plate of shortbread biscuits, she explained her presence in her father’s house. Adelaide Hartest had only been in the village a week or two. She was taking time off from St. Thomas’s Hospital in London, where she’d begun her medical career as a junior doctor and was about to enter general practice if her father could scrape the money together to buy her a partnership. Joe steeled himself to nod sympathetically through an outpouring on the difficulties that beset a woman forging a career for herself in the man’s world of medicine in this post-war era, but none came. She was focussed and succinct.
Joe took the notebook she passed him and began to read through it, checking that it corresponded with the notes he’d already seen in the file. He’d deliberately handed the reins of the conversation to Hunnyton and he listened with half an ear as the superintendent held up his end. The young woman appeared to be asking more questions than the detective.
“But why? I can’t understand. Why there? Why then? In the stables at crack of dawn with no company other than the two inexperienced lads? Deliberately encountering a stallion with a reputation for violent behaviour? Was the woman mad? You’ll have to tell me—I never met her.”
She listened to Hunnyton’s explanation with incredulity. “You’re saying it was done in a spirit of rivalry? Like children showing off in a playground? Lady T. was letting everyone know that when it came to horses she was more skilled than her husband’s student? Ooo … er … mmm … Something going on there, wouldn’t you say?”
Joe was beginning to wonder if the girl communicated in anything other than questions when she abruptly changed gear.
“Silly women! That’s the sort of behaviour you might expect from men. They have more opportunities, of course, for affirming their superiority—they can always shoot more birds, pee further, drink more whisky and seduce more women.”
Hunnyton froze her with a scandalised glare straight from the pulpit.
Deflected by its force, her attention slid over to Joe. “Tell me, Commissioner—you’re clearly a successful member of the competitive sex—how do you go about establish a pecking order?”
“Oh, all of the above come in useful,” he said with a happy smile. “Luckily I have a lot of gold braid to do my bragging for me these days. My other accomplishments, I’m sorry to say, have not stood the test of time and are getting a bit rusty.”
“Ah! The uncertainties of middle age! Like motorcars, men need a yearly check-up. If you’re seriously concerned about your declining capacity in any of the aforementioned skills, pop in and consult me. I’m sure I can do something for you.”
It was Joe’s turn to launch the pulpit stare, though there was a trace of laughter held in check as he replied, “Unless you’re an adept with a twelve-bore shotgun, madam, I’m not sure you can help. The old eyes are less sharp than they were perhaps but—as for the other organs you questioned … what were they?—kidneys, liver …”
“Yes, yes. I understand. Tongue in good working order, too.”
“I’m sure we take your point, Doctor.” Hunnyton mastered his disapproval of this exchange and reclaimed his hostess’s attention. “How else could the lady demonstrate her pre-eminence? Assuming she needed to. You have to admit—it would have been quite a coup de théâtre if she’d pulled it off. Parading with a famously fierce stallion trotting behind her on a lead and eating out of her hand right in front of the eyes of the breakfast crowd? A crowd that knows its horseflesh,” he added thoughtfully. “Well, that beats a talent for flower arranging and needlepoint. Nothing like it since Professor Champion put on his show in the Ipswich Corn Exchange when I was a nipper!”
Hunnyton’s eyes blazed suddenly with a storyteller’s zeal. He pushed back the wayward lock of sandy hair from his forehead and launched into his reminiscence. “Battle between Man and Stallion, it was billed. One night only. Vicious horse will be tamed before your very eyes by Professor Champion, the King of all Horse Educators. Very fine show it was, too! That Champion may have been no more a professor than I was but otherwise he was all he was cracked up to be. He squared up to that horse—Draco, the Transylvanian Man-Eater, his name was. A thundering big black stallion, all rolling eyes and gnashing teeth. Took a crew of six strapping lads to keep it under some sort of control. In two minutes, the beast was eating out of his hand. After half an hour of sashaying around the arena, he’d got a saddle on him and a young lad hopped aboard and trotted him round the ring! To put the final flourish on a memorable evening, I had my first pint of Greene King Ale in the Nag’s Head before my old dad and I climbed back in the cart and turned for home.”
His boyish blue eyes misted over in pleasurable nostalgia, and Adelaide’s hazel eyes twinkled back her appreciation of his story. She gave him a sweetly indulgent smile.
“There he goes again,” Joe thought. “He’ll be breathing down her nostrils any minute.”
“I’m sure you’ve understood it exactly, Superintendent,” the doctor commended him. “But, poor woman! What a desperate thing to do. Sad and wrong-headed. And never likely to work the magic she wanted it to. When will women ever learn there’s nothing that can bring back a husband who’s determined to go astray? No demands, no persuasion, no appeals to conscience and duty.” She sniffed. “I always prescribe a boot up the backside to help him on his way if anyone ever asks me. Not that they do very often. We old maids are not expected to have any useful insights into the married state. But you can bet that’s what all this was about: a skirmish over an unworthy man. A tug of war that led to death. Two deaths. I add the name of the horse, Lucifer, to the butcher’s bill. Now, you chaps will want to know who put her up to it.”
“What makes you think she had an accomplice?” Hunnyton asked.
“It’s pretty obvious. My father says she was an unadventurous woman, not given to original thought. He thinks someone planted the idea in her noddle and gave her some professional advice.”
“Advice? What advice are you thinking of?”
“Pa was the first medical man on the scene—I suppose you know that. He attended to the body of Lavinia Truelove before anyone else saw it. He checked it for signs of life, of course.”
Joe referred to the notes. “He stated that he shot dead the horse, which had retreated back into its stall and was stamping and quivering in apparent fear at the back. He was curious enough about this behaviour to have the carcase hauled back to his surgery for inspection and wrote a full autopsy. Very interesting. Especially the observation of the condition of the mouth.”
“That made me angry! The sides of the mouth had been subject to abrasion of some sort. The wounds were not healed and the horse must have been in some pain,” Adelaide said.