day the two Scotland Yard detectives had found him on the side of the road with another injured pony - and he considered briefly that one of them ...perhaps the black man because he was black ...And then he realised how horrible a thought it was and what it said about him that he even considered it ...and behind him the stallion continued to thrash and shriek.
He grabbed up the shotgun. God, he didn't want to have to do it this way, but he had no choice. He loaded the thing and approached the poor pony, but all the time his mind was feverishly casting up images of the past few days, of all the people who'd been near enough to the Land Rover ...
He should have been removing the pistol and the shotgun from the vehicle every evening.
He'd been too distracted: Meredith, the Scotland Yard detectives, his own visit to the local police, Gordon Jossie, Gina Dickens ... When had he last removed the pistol and the shotgun as he was meant to do anyway? He couldn't say.
But there was a single certainty and he damn well knew it. He had to find that gun.
MEREDITH POWELL FACED her boss, but she couldn't look at him. He was in the right and she was in the wrong and there were no two ways about it. She had been off her stride.
She had been enormously distracted. She had been ducking out of the office on the least pretext.
She certainly couldn't deny any of this, so what she did was nod. She felt as humiliated as she'd ever felt, even in the worst moments all those years ago in London when she'd had to face the fact that the man to whom she'd given her love had been merely a worthless object of a feminine fantasy long fed by the cinema, by certain novels, and by advertising agencies.
"So I want to see a change," Mr. Hudson was saying as a conclusion to his remarks. "Can you guarantee a change, Meredith?"
Well, of course she could. That was what he expected her to say, so she said it. She added that her dearest and oldest friend had been murdered in London recently and that was causing her to be preoccupied, but she would pull herself together.
"Yes, yes, I'm sorry about that," Mr. Hudson said abruptly, as if he was already in possession of the facts surrounding Jemima's death, as indeed he likely was. "Tragedy, it is. But life continues for the rest of us, and it's not going to continue if we let the walls collapse round our ears, is it."
No, no, of course. He was right. She was sorry she'd not been pulling her weight round Gerber & Hudson, but she would resume doing so the very next day. That is, unless Mr. Hudson wanted her to remain into the evening to make up for lost time, which she would do except that she had a five-year-old at home and -
"That won't be necessary." Mr. Hudson used a letter opener to clean beneath his fingernails, digging round industriously in a way that made Meredith feel rather faint. "As long as I see the old Meredith back here at her desk tomorrow."
He would, oh he would, Meredith vowed. Thank you, Mr. Hudson. I appreciate your confidence in me.
When he dismissed her, she returned to her cubicle. End of the day, so she could go home. But to leave so soon on the heels of Mr. Hudson's reprimand would not look good no matter how he'd concluded their interview. She knew that she ought to spend at least one hour longer than usual with her nose to the grindstone of whatever it was that she was supposed to be doing.
Which, of course, she could not remember. Which, of course, had been Randall Hudson's point.
She had a pile of telephone messages on her desk, so she fingered through these in the hope of finding a clue. There were certainly names and there were pointed questions and ultimately she reckoned she could start looking a few things up since most everyone seemed to be concerned about how the designs for this and for that were coming along, according to the messages. But her heart wasn't in it, and her mind would not cooperate at all. She had, she concluded, far more important subjects with which to be concerned than the colour scheme she would recommend for the advertisement of a local bookshop's new reading group.
She put