A Room Full of Bones: A Ruth Galloway Investigation

moment.’
    Judy looks up from the paper. ‘Jumping Jack hasn’t got a hope in the 2.10 at Newmarket.’
    For a second, Len Harris looks angry, then he grins. ‘No, but we don’t want him handicapped too heavily for Cheltenham. Do him good to lose a few races.’
    ‘What will the owners say?’
    Len Harris shrugs. ‘They’re in Dubai. They won’t know.’
    Judy stands up. ‘I’m sorry about your boss.’
    Harris’s face doesn’t show emotions very easily but, for a second, he looks genuinely bereft. ‘It’s hard. He was a one-off, the governor. Some people thought he was stuck-up, but around the yard he was one of the lads. And he loved the horses, he really understood them.’
    ‘What will happen with the yard now?’
    Harris’s face darkens. ‘That’s up to the kids, I suppose. Caroline would probably like to take over but she hasn’t got the experience. Randolph’s a waste of space. Tamsin’s up in London. I suppose the yard’ll be sold. Owners are already taking their horses away.’
    ‘Already?’
    ‘Oh yes. There’s not much sentiment in racing, you know.’
    Judy does know. She wonders what will happen to Len Harris if the business is sold. Plenty of racing stables in Norfolk but he looks a little old to go job hunting.
    ‘I’ve been asked to look at the CCTV footage,’ she says. ‘Is there anywhere I can do that?’
    ‘Yes. There’s a room in Caroline’s cottage. I’ve got the key.’ He fumbles through sets of keys hanging over the desk. Not a very secure system, thinks Judy.
    As they go out into the yard, there is a tremendous banging and clattering from one of the boxes in the far corner. Harris sets off at a run. Judy follows him.
    Inside the box, a bay horse is sprawled awkwardly on the ground, almost sitting, front legs straight, back legs collapsed. Its eyes are rolling and it’s clearly in agony. Two stable lads are struggling to get the horse on its feet, hauling on ropes, pushing at its rump. Len goes into thebox and joins in the effort, bracing his legs against the wall to push with his back.
    ‘What’s happened?’ asks Judy.
    ‘Cast himself,’ pants Len. ‘Probably colic.’
    Judy can see that the animal’s stomach does look distended, a symptom of colic. The horse appears in terrible pain, almost bellowing, the white of his eyes yellow. She looks at the laminated card on the stable door. The horse is called Fancy, she reads, and he’s a four-year-old colt.
    ‘Shouldn’t you get the vet?’
    ‘He’s coming,’ says Len shortly. ‘Now, please, can you leave us to get on? The cottage is by the gates.’
    Judy walks back through the yard with Fancy’s tormented neighing ringing in her ears. She feels very shaken. It’s part and parcel of looking after horses, she knows, but she can’t forget the look in the poor animal’s eyes. She hopes the vet gets there soon. She’d wanted to be a vet once too, before she’d realised that you needed three As at A-Level.
    Judy had imagined Caroline very elegant, a grown-up version of the sort of girl who used to intimidate her in her pony club days. But the woman who greets her at the cottage door couldn’t be further from the twin-setted Home Counties lady of her imagination. To be frank, Caroline looks a mess; her dark hair is unbrushed and her eyes are red and swollen. She is wearing jeans and her top is on inside out. She hardly seems to take in Judy’s explanation about who she is and what she wants to do.
    ‘I thought you were my sister Tamsin,’ says Caroline. ‘She’s coming from London.’
    ‘I’m so sorry about your dad,’ says Judy.
    Caroline’s eyes fill with tears. ‘It just doesn’t seem possible that he’s gone. I keep expecting him to walk in.’
    ‘It’s hard, I know,’ says Judy. Empathetic echoing, the books call it.
    ‘I just feel so terrible …’
    It must be awful to lose your dad, thinks Judy, however old you are. She hopes that Caroline’s family gives her some support, but she doubts it somehow.
    ‘The tapes?’ she prompts gently.
    ‘Oh, yes …’ Caroline gives her a tremulous smile. She keeps looking towards the door, which is freaking Judy out slightly. ‘This way.’
    The room by the front door is full of screens. There are five cameras in different parts of the yard: one by the main gates, one by the house gates, one in each quadrangle and one at the far gates, ‘where the original house once stood’ Caroline explains.
    Judy settles down to look, gratefully