A Very Private Murder (20 page)

I sweet-talked Janet Threadneedle into staying a little longer with her sister, so we were able to hold the reconstruction of her shopping trip on both the Monday, which was a bank holiday, and Tuesday, which wasn’t. We have specialists we can draw on for tasks like that, so I’d no need to be involved. Wednesday morning their results and a copy of
The Sun
were on my desk, awaiting my scrutiny.

The Sun
headline shouted
Atta Girl!
over a full-page photo of Superintendent Kent astride the three would-be bank robbers, shotgun held across her chest, their faces pixellated out but hers aglow with triumph. The brief text underneath proclaimed that this was exactly the type of policing we needed in the lawless Noughties. I turned to page three to see what I was missing (Emily-Mae, who is studying architecture.
Her front balcony looks good enough to us!
) and turned the page again to find the football, but it wasn’t the beautiful game that caught my eye.

It was a photo of the royal princes, William and Harry, skulking out of a club called Chinawhite in the early hours, each with the obligatory blonde giving support. The photographer had struck gold, catching ‘Kevin’ in mid- blink, his eyes half closed as if surrendering to the effects of an evening’s imbibing. Presumably the Sioux uprising on Salisbury Plain had been quelled, I thought, and the thought saddened me.

The reconstructions of Janet Threadneedle’s last ride had produced five probable sightings, and the person who called out to Ghislaine at the ceremony had been identified as a youth who lived in Elland. I sent Maggie to interview him, and Serena and Dave to talk to the five possible witnesses. I didn’t know how Superintendent Kent organised her mornings but I was on the road east before she could include me in her itinerary. Diary synchronising would have to wait awhile.

Outside Dunkley I telephoned ahead and was sipping coffee in Martin Chadwick’s front room before ten o’clock. I’d expected hunting prints and the odd Stubbs, but the walls were adorned with cinema posters from the Fifties. Brando, brooding in
A Streetcar Named Desire
; hapless Jimmy Stewart in
Vertigo; Shane; The African Queen
. Memories came flooding back, the very names triggering off whatever it is that controls our happiness and that feeling of well-being we call nostalgia.

‘You’re a cinema buff,’ I deduced.

‘You’ve noticed.’

‘I’m trained to pick up things like that.’

‘Fifties cinema. I reckon it was the golden age.’

‘I’d probably agree with you.’

‘How’s the coffee?’

‘Fine. Just fine. I hope I’m not keeping you from your work.’

‘No. I’ve a surgery later, that’s all. So, how can I help you, Inspector?’

He was wearing jeans again, with a white shirt and a quilted body warmer, even though it was a mild day. The rain had stopped and the cloud cover broken up. Shafts of sunlight shone on the low table between us, illuminating the steam that rose from our coffees, and a ginger cat purred comfortingly in the fireplace, dreaming of past conquests. ‘I was hoping you could tell me something about the horse racing industry,’ I said. ‘As you know, I’m looking into the murder of Arthur George Threadneedle. We have our suspects among his business interests, but these days that’s not good enough. We apply as much effort and credence to eliminating all other possibilities as we do to chasing the favourite candidate. I’ll be grateful for anything you can tell me about Threadneedle and about the horse called Peccadillo.’

He smiled. ‘Does this mean I’m a suspect? Did I ought to have my solicitor?’

I didn’t smile back. ‘I’m not regarding you as a suspect, Mr Chadwick, but if you are about to say anything that might be incriminating, let me know and we’ll consider the need for a solicitor then. At the moment I’m asking you for general information, that’s all. Let’s say you’re my local expert witness.’ What I really wanted from him was the dirt on his fellow villagers, but first I needed him talking.

‘Right. Fire away.’

‘How well did you know Threadneedle?’

‘Not very. He kept animals and I’m a vet. That’s about it.’

‘He and his wife held musical soirées. Were you invited?’

‘No. They were couples only, I’m told.’

‘Are you implying that there’s some significance in that?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah. Just malicious talk by small-minded people. You can’t scratch your balls in a place like this without word getting out that you have crabs. I suppose I ought to tell you about the drugs.’

‘I’m all ears,’ I told him.

‘It won’t have escaped your notice that although I live in a horse racing centre I don’t have much business with the horses.’

‘You’re right; it hasn’t.’

‘That’s because I won’t play their game. I don’t like the way they treat them so the trainers retaliate by taking their business elsewhere. And it’s a lucrative business.’

‘What drugs are we talking about?’

‘Phenylbutazone and Ketamine hydrochloride, better known as Bute and Special K. As a veterinary surgeon I’m authorised to prescribe them, but not in the quantities they’d like.’

‘Are we talking about human consumption or equine?’

‘Both, Inspector. Bute is a tranquilliser, used mainly to treat arthritis, and Ketamine is an anaesthetic with hallucinogenic properties. It’s class C, only available under the Medicines Act. I’m told that it’s more predictable than LSD, but I wouldn’t know.’

‘What’s the objection to Bute?’ I asked.

‘Overuse. They stuff the poor animal full of it, just in case. Or they use it to prolong its competitive life long after it should have retired. It has side effects, including kidney damage.’

‘And Threadneedle asked you to supply him?’

‘That’s right.’

‘You refused?’

‘Not at first, but he only had about ten horses in training. Then he started asking for ridiculous quantities. He made noises about making it worth my while …’ Chadwick rubbed his finger and thumb together in the universal gesture for bribery ‘… and I was tempted for about ten seconds. Having a bent vet in your pocket could be highly profitable for somebody unscrupulous, but the risks were too high for me. He was sounding me out, but I suggested he take his business elsewhere. I think he’d overstretched himself financially, and peddling a few drugs was one possible way of improving his cash flow.’

‘Presumably this was before the fire.’

‘Oh yes. A few months before. He’d asked me to sign a markings certificate for him, which I did. That confirms that the horse they are hoping to race is the same one that was born to that particular thoroughbred stallion and dam, which it was. They were nondescripts, never likely to be more than selling platers, but Peccadillo was a fine-looker; had potential, he thought.’

‘Did you sign?’

‘Of course. No reason not to.’

‘Were you aware that Threadneedle was telling people that Peccadillo was an offspring of Shergar?’

‘Ha ha! You’ve heard about that, have you? It was village gossip. People around here might be cabbage-looking but they’re not green. Threadneedle hinted that Shergar was the genuine sire to drum up interest in his syndicate. It certainly looked the part but I doubt if anybody fell for it, apart from him.’

‘Does who your parents are make any difference?’ I asked. ‘Presumably the laws of genetics are the same for humans as for horses, but I don’t recall hearing of Roger Bannister’s children running the mile any faster than he did.’

‘You’re dead right, but don’t tell the breeders that. To them, ancestry is everything. And racing improves the breed.’

‘You sound sceptical.’

‘Just a little. You mentioned Roger Bannister. He ran the mile in three minutes fifty-nine seconds, back in 1952. The record at the moment is sixteen seconds faster.
Sixteen
seconds. That’s four seconds a lap quicker. The record for the Derby is two minutes thirty-two seconds, set by Lammtarra in 1995, knocking a whole second off the previous record, set back in 1936.
One second
in nearly sixty years. So much for racing improving the breed. Shergar won four, or was it five, races. He was retired to stud, where he sired about forty foals at, oh, think of a number, fifty thousand pounds a time. Then he was stolen. None of them has won anything significant. A horse called Northern Dancer is in the record books as siring over a hundred stud stallions that went on to produce over a thousand offspring. Storm Cat himself sired over a thousand foals.’

‘What happens to them all?’ I asked. ‘They can’t all be racing against each other.’

‘Good question,’ he replied. ‘It’s a bit like blue tits.’

‘Blue tits?’

‘Mmm. Blue tits need only produce two offspring to maintain numbers, but they lay about eighteen eggs. If it wasn’t for predators – magpies, sparrowhawks and cats – we’d be up to our elbows in blue tits in five years. It’s the same with thoroughbreds. Some of them have successful careers; some don’t but the owners cash in by breeding from them; a significant number become steeplechasers. The lucky ones get away with it, but generally speaking they’re not built for the jumps, not robust enough, so they break a leg and have to be put down. Nine in a single day at Cheltenham recently.’

I sipped my coffee and looked beyond him, out of the window, thinking about what he’d told me. The clouds had cleared and beyond his paddock a flock of rooks was soaring high above the chestnut trees in some spring ritual that would ultimately help perpetuate the species. I wondered if blue tits were part of their diet and decided to change the subject.

I said: ‘When I was a kid there was a man down our street who kept racing pigeons. He let me help him clean out their boxes. I loved sitting there, surrounded by them as they fed and bowed and curtsied to each other. It was like being in a different world. Then, one day, he didn’t see me approaching. He picked up this bird and wrung its neck. It was dead, just like that. He loved his pigeons, but he didn’t carry passengers.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Chadwick replied. ‘People who race greyhounds are the same. They make super pets, but if they can’t race they’re surplus to requirements and have to go.’

‘How well do you know Ghislaine Curzon?’ I asked in a conversational tone, adding, so I couldn’t be accused of trickery: ‘You were seen with her a week ago.’

He gave a little snort of pleasure at the memory and wrapped his coffee mug in his fingers, holding it close. His fingernails were bitten down to pink stumps. He looked me in the eyes and smiled but didn’t blush. ‘I’ve known her all her life, Inspector,’ he said. ‘It was the RCVS spring ball last Tuesday. Local branch, that is. I invite Ghislaine every year and she does me the honour of accompanying me when she can.’ The smile slipped from his face as he went on: ‘I suspect it’s because she feels safe with me. It does my kudos with the group good, and I’m grateful for the few crumbs that fall from the table. That’s all.’

‘I know the feeling,’ I told him, rising to my feet. Oh yes, I certainly knew the feeling. I thanked him for his time, told him I’d no doubt have some more questions, and picked up my coffee mug. We walked through into his kitchen, towards the outer door, and I rinsed the mug under the tap, leaving it upside down on the draining board. He pulled the door open for me but I paused, one leg outside, one in, and said: ‘You told me that a significant number of racehorses that were bred every year went into steeplechasing.’

‘That’s right.’

‘So what happens to the rest of them?’

‘The rest of them? Well, a few are adopted as pets. Lawn ornaments, we call them, and the others, most of them, are exported to Belgium. The Belgians put them in pies and eat them.’ 

The landlord of the Alice Hawthorne was watering his hanging baskets as I drove by, so I swung into his car park. It was early, but I stopped and we wished each other a good morning and commented on the weather.

‘Need a drink?’ he asked as he tipped the last few drops of water onto the cobbles.

‘Any chance of a coffee?’

‘Oh, I think we might manage one.’

I followed him into the gloom of the bar and he led me to the end where the Douwe Egberts dispenser stood. It was hot and strong and loaded with enough caffeine to dull an amputation.

‘Cor! That’s good stuff,’ I said, lowering my cup.

‘So have you caught him?’ the landlord asked.

‘The murderer? No, but we will. Did Threadneedle come in here when he lived nearby?’

‘All the time. Thought he owned the place.’

‘Did you know about the syndicate he was running?’

‘For that fancy horse he’d bought? We heard about it.’

‘Were you invited to join?’

‘We were
offered the opportunity
. Unfortunately, due to prior commitments, we had to reluctantly decline the offer.’

‘Did he have any takers?’

‘Not that anybody’s admitted to.’

‘Did he push the Shergar angle?’

‘Just enough to appeal to the greedy and the gullible.’

‘Who are usually the same people.’

‘Exactly. He’d fallen for it, over in Ireland. Some pinhooker had kidded him on that it was a classic contender when all it was good for was pulling a milk float. It looked good, but it had no heart. You can’t see heart, but that’s what wins races.’

‘So it had a race?’

‘No. But we watched it on the gallops. Drew quite a crowd did young Peccadillo. We thought maybe the jockey was holding him back, but he said he wasn’t. Threadneedle chewed him off a strip and sacked him, but it didn’t help – the horse was a waste of a good skin.’

‘What’s a pinhooker?’

‘Oh, a dealer who finds cheap flashy horses and sells them on.’

‘I see. Some of them make a living from it, do they?’

‘More than you’d believe.’

‘Did
anyone
buy into the syndicate?’

‘Word has it that Curzon bought a share. Serves him right if he did. Couldn’t have happened to anyone better.’

I slid my cup across the counter for a refill. ‘You said that with feeling,’ I told him. He replenished it and placed two sachets of sugar in the saucer even though I hadn’t touched the first two.