The Kill Call

from rats.’
    ‘Not from the rats themselves. From their fleas.’
    Fry shuddered, and began to regret that she’d mentioned Eyam at all. Rats and fleas were two of the things she hated most in the world.
    ‘Watersaw,’ said Cooper, when he saw the sign at the entrance to the Forbes’ drive. ‘There’s a Watersaw Rake near here. One of the old opencast workings. Abandoned now, but it would be the nearest one to the crime scene, I think.’
    There seemed to be horses everywhere at Watersaw House. As soon as Fry parked her car in the entrance to the stable yard, a huge black horse ran up to the post-and-rail fence and hung its head over to stare at her. She couldn’t squeeze past the car door without brushing reluctantly against its inquisitive muzzle.
    ‘It looks quite friendly,’ said Cooper.
    ‘Are you sure?’
    The one other thing Fry knew about horses was that they were supposed to like sugar cubes. But who on earth used sugar cubes any more, let alone carried them around in their pockets in case they met a horse?
    But she did have a packet of mints in her pocket, and she took it out. The horse nuzzled her jacket, as if searching the rest of her pockets, a quick frisk on suspicion of possession. When she unwrapped a mint and held it out on her palm, the horse went straight for it.
    Fry was used to seeing horses, but usually at a safe distance – the mounted unit controlling a crowd at a football match, Up close, she was amazed by the way the animal’s lips unfurled and grasped the mint. She had never realized horses had such prehensile mouths, almost like monkey’s. She supposed it was a characteristic you had to develop when you had no hands to use.
    ‘You seem to be bonding,’ said Cooper, sounding quite impressed.

    ‘Animals are all right, as long as they know who’s the boss.’
    But then the horse began waggling its ears, and showed its teeth. That was definitely a threat. She backed away, and turned to find the owner of Watersaw House regarding her with scarcely disguised contempt.
    Today, Mrs Forbes had removed her riding boots and replaced them with a pair of green wellies. Definite working boots, a crack in the side, mud and straw stuck in the ridges of the soles. They seemed to be at least a size too big, because they flapped as she moved about the yard. To Fry’s surprise, she was also wearing a head scarf. She didn’t think non-Muslim women wore head scarves any more – well, except the Queen, and Tubbs off The League of Gentlemen .
    ‘Mrs Forbes,’ she said. ‘Detective Sergeant Fry, Edendale Police. I spoke to you on Tuesday morning at the hunt, if you remember.’
    ‘Oh, yes. What can I do for you?’
    ‘We’d like you to assist us with our enquiries.’
    ‘Good heavens, do you people really talk like that?’
    Mrs Forbes laughed. Fry bristled.
    ‘It’s about the death of Mr Patrick Rawson,’ she said. ‘We’re trying to gather as much information as we can about the circumstances of his death. Oh, this is my colleague, Detective Constable Cooper.’
    Mrs Forbes examined Cooper with a critical eye, like a buyer weighing up a specimen of bloodstock. Fry wasn’t sure whether she was imagining it, but the woman’s expression actually seemed to soften a little. Mrs Forbes said nothing, but there was definitely a form of private communication going on that Fry wasn’t party to.
    ‘I see you run a livery stables, Mrs Forbes.’
    The woman waved a hand around the yard. ‘Yes, indeed. Twenty-eight stables, eighteen turn-out paddocks, purpose-built boxes, indoor and outdoor manèges … everything you could want. We offer full-time or part-time livery. These girls you see here are some of our DIY-ers.’
    Fry studied the youngsters brushing their horses and sorting out their tack. She could see straight away that these weren’t the kind of kids who hung around in the alleys of housing estates in Edendale, drinking bottles of lager and passing round a joint. These girls smelled of saddle soap and horse manure instead of alcohol and cannabis. Yet there was something elusively similar in their manner, a total absorption in their own world, and a hostile stare for the outsider. And in both cases, as Fry well knew, the outsider meant her.
    ‘We turn them out and bring them in, but the girls do their own feeding, grooming and mucking out,’ said Mrs Forbes. ‘I like to see young people who aren’t afraid of a bit of hard work, don’t you?’
    A younger woman dismounted