They were silent together. A whinnying came from outside. "The ponies!" Meredith said.
"If you've got ponies here, Robbie Hastings would likely have brought them in off the Forest. Or he would have arranged with Gordon to fetch them. But in either case, he would have come by at some point to check on them. Why d'you have ponies here anyway?"
If anything, Gina looked more concerned than before at this ping-ponging of Meredith's conversation. She clasped both hands round her water glass and said to it rather than to Meredith,
"Something about ...I don't exactly know."
"Are they hurt? Lame? Off their feed?"
"Yes. That's it, isn't it. Gordon said they were lame. He brought them in off the Forest ...three weeks ago? Something like that. I'm not sure, actually. I don't care for horses."
"Oh, yes. I suppose. I've never quite seen the difference." She hesitated, as if considering something. "He did say ..." She took a sip of the water, lifting the glass with both hands as if she'd not have been able to get it to her mouth otherwise.
"What? What did he say? Did he tell you - "
"Of course one asks eventually, doesn't one?" Gina said. "I mean, here's a lovely man living on his own, good-hearted, gentle, passionate when passion's called for if you know what I mean."
Meredith blinked. She didn't want to know.
"So I did ask how he happened to be alone, no girlfriend, no partner, no wife. No one's snapped you up? That sort of thing. Over dinner."
Yes, Meredith thought. Outside in the garden, sitting at the wrought-iron table with the candles lit and the torcheres blazing. She said stiffly, "And what did he say?"
"That he'd been involved once and he'd been quite badly hurt and he didn't like to talk about it. So I didn't want to intrude. I assumed he'd tell me when he was ready."
"That's Jemima," Meredith said. "Jemima Hastings. And she's..." She didn't want to put it into words. Putting it into words might make it true and for all she knew it wasn't true at all.
She assessed her facts, for they were few enough. The Cupcake Queen was closed up. Lexie Streener had made phone calls that had gone unreturned. This cottage was semioccupied by another woman. She said, "How long have you and Gordon known each other? Been involved?
Whatever?"
"We met early last month. At Boldre - "
"Yes. At Boldre Gardens. What were you doing there?"
Gina looked startled. Clearly, she hadn't expected the question and even more clearly, she didn't much like it. She said, "I was having a walk, actually. I've not lived in the New Forest long and I like to explore." She offered a smile as if to take the sting out of what she said next.
"You know, I'm not sure why you're asking me this. D'you think something's happened to Jemima Hastings? That Gordon did something to her? Or that I did something? Or that Gordon and I together did something? Because I do want you to know that when I got here, to this cottage, there wasn't a sign that anyone - "
She'd stopped abruptly. Meredith saw that Gina's eyes were still fixed on hers, but they'd lost their focus, as if she was seeing something else entirely. Meredith said, "What? What is it?"
Gina dropped her gaze. A moment passed. The ponies whinnied outside once again and the excited warbling of pied wagtails broke into the air, as if warning one another that a predator was approaching. "Perhaps," Gina finally said, "you ought to come with me."
WHEN MEREDITH FINALLY found Robbie Hastings, he was standing in the car park behind the Queen's Head in Burley. This was a village at the junction of three roads, arranged in a line of buildings undecided between cob, half-timber, and redbrick, all of them possessing roofs that were equally undecided between thatch and slate. Midsummer, there were vehicles everywhere, including six tour coaches that had brought visitors to this place for what would likely be their only New Forest experience outside of riding through the lanes and seeing it in air-conditioned comfort from well-padded coach seats. This experience would consist of snapping photos of the ponies that wandered freely through the area, of having an expensive bar meal in the pub or in one of the picturesque cafes, and of making purchases in one or more of the tourist shops. These last largely defined the village. They comprised everything from the Coven of Witches -