“That would be me, sir,” the man said. “Lionel Foxtree, I am.”
“Well, Lionel Foxtree, do you think you’re capable of continuing this work unsupervised? Your master will be away for several days.”
Hearing this, Gatt exploded with indignation. “Several days? You said half an hour!” he shouted.
Will turned in his saddle to look at him. His eyes were cold.
“Well, that was when I simply wanted you to show us where Ranger Liam died,” he said. “But since you’ve refused to help us in the investigation, I’m going to have to arrest you and have you charged. That could take a day or two. Even a week.”
Gatt spluttered furiously as he searched for words. The farm workers turned away, but not before Will could see the smiles on their faces. Gatt was obviously a man who liked to get his own way.
“Arrest me?” he said. “You can’t arrest me! I’m a free man!”
“Actually, I can arrest you. I’m a King’s Ranger. You’ve refused to help me in an investigation, which is pretty much the same as impeding said investigation. I don’t want to do it. I’d prefer it if you’d simply show us where you found Liam. But if you force me to, I will arrest you.”
Their gazes locked. Gatt’s was hot and angry. Will’s was cold and unmoving. Finally, the farmer gave way.
“Oh, all right! Have it your own way! I’ll take you to where I found him!”
“That’s the spirit,” Will said. He gestured to a saddle horse that was tethered to the tail of the hay wagon. “And there’s a horse for you, right there.”
Thirty
Containing his annoyance as best he could, Gatt led them to the spot where he’d found Liam’s body. It was on a narrow but well-defined track, fringed on either side by scattered, low bushes. The ground was soft and easy underfoot, but not so much that it might cause a horse to stumble or lose his footing. Will swung down and studied the ground.
“Had any rain lately?” he asked.
Gatt shook his head. “Not since I found the body. But the ground is usually soft in these parts, except in high summer, when it tends to dry out.”
“Not high summer now,” Will said to himself, moving along the trail. It ran in a straight line here. There seemed to be no reason why Liam should have fallen from his horse.
“Where exactly did you find the body?” he asked.
Gatt walked his horse forward several metres. “Here. On the side of the trail. Just past those two trees.”
There were two sizeable trees, standing out from the general vegetation of bushes and shrubs in the area. They were about five metres apart, standing one on either side of the track. Will glanced at them. There were no low, overhanging branches that might sweep an incautious rider from his saddle.
“Figure he fell off his horse and broke his neck,” Gatt said.
Will pursed his lips. “Unlikely,” he said. All Rangers were excellent riders.
Gatt shrugged at the uncompromising reply. “Maybe his horse stumbled…” he essayed.
Tug, standing a little apart, shook his mane violently. Ranger horses don’t stumble.
“Or maybe he’d been drinking,” Gatt added.
Will turned a cold gaze on him. “Liam didn’t drink,” he said and Gatt shrugged.
“If you say. It was just a suggestion.”
Will didn’t answer. He was pacing back along the trail from where Liam’s body had been found, checking the horse’s tracks. With no rain in recent days and with the soft condition of the ground, they were still clear to see. Maddie had dismounted and was kneeling beside one of the trees, studying its trunk low to the ground.
Will turned to Gatt abruptly. “Thanks for your time, Farmer Gatt. We’ll trouble you no longer. You can get back to your work.”
Gatt looked surprised, and his bad mood lifted a little. He’d expected the Ranger to keep him here for hours, asking pointless questions. Now he found himself free to go about his business. But perversely, his curiosity was piqued. He’d noticed the way Will had been studying the tracks.
“So have you found something?” he asked. “Any clue as to what happened?”
Will shook his head. “Probably as you said. His horse stumbled and he fell. Just an accident.”
“Oh… well then…” Gatt still hesitated. He didn’t want to be left out if there was something significant to be known.
Will nodded to him. “We won’t bother you further,” he said.
“Right. I’ll be off then,” Gatt said. He turned his horse away and set it into a lumbering trot, heading back to his farm. As he rode away, he turned in his saddle several times to look at them. Will waved to him as he did. Finally, when he had rounded a bend in the track and was lost to view, Maddie spoke.
“So did you find something?”
Will nodded, and gestured for her to join him. They walked back down the track for ten metres and he pointed to the ground. “Look at the tracks Acorn left.”
“Acorn?” Maddie asked.
“Liam’s horse. See here, as they lead up to these trees, his gait is smooth and even. From the length of his stride and the depth of the hoofprints, I’d say he was at a full gallop. But as he passes the trees, the tracks are all over the place. He’s lost his balance and he definitely stumbled.”
Tug snorted and Will looked quickly at him. “It happens,” he said. Maddie was down on one knee, studying the tracks, and didn’t see that he’d addressed the comment to the horse. Instead, she rose and turned towards the nearest of the two trees.
“I noticed something on one of the trees,” she said. “It may be nothing but you should see it.”
“Or it may be something,” Will said. He followed her and looked where she was pointing. There was a faint scar in the bark of the tree, about half a metre above the ground.
“Something cut the bark here,” she pointed out.
Will raised his eyebrows. “Well spotted.”
She glanced up at him. “I didn’t think anything of it until you mentioned that Acorn seemed to lose his footing.” She turned quickly and walked to the opposite tree. “Let’s see if there’s a corresponding mark on this one.”
There was but it was very faint. If they hadn’t known to look for it, they might never have seen it. Will reached forward to touch it. There was a small piece of thin white thread sticking to the bark. He plucked it free.
“Could be fibre from a rope,” he said. He looked up and down the track, then at the tree opposite them. “So let’s say Liam is galloping along this track full tilt…”
“Chasing someone perhaps,” Maddie suggested and he nodded.
“That’s not unreasonable. And let’s say someone else has stretched a rope across the track between these two trees. Acorn hits it and stumbles, only just retaining his footing.”
“But the stumble is enough to throw Liam clear of the saddle and he pitches onto the ground up here…” Maddie walked quickly to where Gatt had told them he found Liam’s body. “And he’s killed in the fall.”
“That would explain the marks on the trees,” Will said thoughtfully. “As Acorn hit the rope, it would have cut into the bark with the impact.”
They looked at each other in silence for a moment. Then Will spoke.
“Someone wanted Liam dead,” he said quietly.
Maddie pursed her lips. “They couldn’t be sure the fall would kill him,” she said.
“True. But he would have been incapacitated—knocked out or winded by the fall. And they would have been ready to finish him off.”
“Of course we can’t be sure,” Maddie said. “It’s just a few jumbled hoofprints and a faint mark on a tree. That could have been caused by anything.”
“We need to have a close look at Acorn. If he hit that rope at any sort of speed, there’ll be bruising or cuts on his legs,” Will said.