As Alan and Etta retreated outside, a hot breeze was nudging the golden weathercock. The shrill, desperate whinnying was continuous now. A stable lass, with fuzzy dark hair, very reddened eyes and a large bottom, emerged from the flat over the tack room, tugging on a rugger shirt and buckling up her jeans.
Introducing herself in a breathy voice as Tommy Ruddock, she said Collie, the head lad, was at Market Rasen, with the yard’s best horses, History Painting and Don’t Interrupt. She showed them Oh My Goodness, Wondrous Childhood, who was lazy at home but caught fire at the races, and Asbo Andy, who was very naughty and always running away on the gallops.
Etta noticed how pleased the horses were to see Tommy.
‘Asbo Andy sounds like darling Stop Preston. He’s naughty too, isn’t he?’ asked Etta, who was then horrified to see Tommy’s face collapse as she mumbled, ‘Preston’s gone to Harvey-Holden. I’ve looked after him since he was a yearling, it’s very hard when they go.’ She wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her rugger shirt.
‘I’m so sorry, it must be dreadful.’
‘Horace was Preston’s friend,’ sniffed Tommy, leading them towards the next box, where the half-door hid a skewbald Shetland. ‘That’s why he’s yelling his head off. He and Preston have been together all that time too.’
‘Poor little thing,’ but as Etta stretched out her hand, Tommy pulled it back just in time to stop Horace biting her fingers off.
‘He’s not himself,’ apologized Tommy. ‘And this is Sir Cuthbert, the old man of the yard, who belongs to Lady Crowe.’
The dapple-grey horse was turned away from them, his body slumped, his head drooping in the corner.
‘He loved a sweet little mare called Gifted Child. They were turned out together this summer. He was Gifted’s sugar daddy, very protective, always pushing other horses away. Now she’s gone to Harvey-Holden he’s heartbroken, won’t eat and walks his box.’
‘Perhaps he could befriend our horse, Mrs Wilkinson, if she comes here,’ suggested Etta. ‘Perhaps you could too, she needs so much love.’ She noticed a bramble covered in green blackberries poking through the roof.
Moving on to the last box, they discovered a handsome but sulky-looking Pakistani brushing down a beautiful chestnut, which flattened his ears and darted his teeth at them.
‘That’s our newest horse, and that’s our newest lad,’ said Tommy brightly as the Pakistani merely grunted in acknowledgement of Etta’s ‘Hello’. ‘He’s called Furious.’
‘The horse or the lad?’ asked Alan.
‘Where did he come from?’ asked Etta.
Tommy waited until they were out of earshot, then said, ‘Larkminster Prison, both Rafiq and Furious. As therapy and to learn a trade while he was inside, Rafiq looked after Furious, one of the prison’s rescued racehorses. Furious has settled in but he doesn’t like other horses and he hated being turned out. But Marius has found him a sheep friend, and they’ve finally bonded. Furious stayed out all last night, and Rafiq and I crept out with a torch. Furious had wrapped Dilys, his sheep, round him like a duvet, it was so sweet. He’s aloof, Rafiq, but he’s a real softie round horses.’
‘Mrs Wilkinson has a goat friend called Chisolm,’ said Etta eagerly. ‘Do you think Marius might let her come here as well?’
‘Don’t see why not,’ said Tommy, ‘plenty of empty boxes.’
Tommy showed them the tack room, which smelt of hoof oil, saddle soap, liniment and leather. On the walls were framed photographs of past winners, flanked by overjoyed owners and by Marius and Olivia, radiant and separate in their glamour. Riding many of the horses was a laughing jockey. Etta suddenly realized this was the wild and wicked Rogue Rogers, who’d once lived in Willowwood.
‘You poor darling,’ said Etta, putting an arm through Tommy’s, ‘you must miss Olivia terribly.’
‘We all do, we just hope she’ll come back.’
Alan, looking at Olivia’s picture, was strangely uncommunicative.
Tommy then took them back to Marius’s office, where he could presumably distance himself from any goings-on in the house. Much tidier than the kitchen, it contained another television also tuned in to At the Races with the sound turned down, a laptop, a microwave and a fridge. On the shelves were directories called Horses in Training and Races and Racecourses, files entitled Blood Tests and Tracheal Washes and individual box files containing the progress and medical history of each horse. Those marked Bafford Playboy, Stop Preston, Ilkley Hall, Gifted Child, etc., had been hurled on the floor and were no doubt destined for the