At Long Odds (A Racing Romance) (26 page)

As she made her routine check of the horses one morning she paused as she heard someone entering the yard. It was Kerry. The girl waved and jogged over.

‘You’re here early today,’ Ginny said as the stable lass fell into step with her.

Kerry shrugged.

‘Couldn’t sleep.’

Ginny knew the feeling.

‘What’s keeping you up?’ she asked.

Kerry made a reluctant face and stopped outside the next door, peering over to check its resident standing within.

‘I don’t know. I was worrying about Alex, I guess. He took Caspian’s defeat really hard.’

Now it was Ginny’s turn to shrug.

‘These things happen. He must have needed the run more than I thought. Alex didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘S’pose so, but try telling him that. Where are you taking Caspian next?’

Ginny laid a hand on Sequella’s nose as the mare pushed against it in greeting. For once she seemed to have got out of bed on the right side.

‘The Dewhurst with any luck.’

‘Wow. A Group One,’ Kerry mused.

Ginny considered what Kerry was refraining from mentioning. If Caspian couldn’t win a Group Three, how would they manage even tougher competition?

‘We’ll find out then how he stands up against the best,’ she muttered, more to herself than to Kerry.

‘I’m sure he will,’ Kerry said, her face brightening. ‘He works so well at home. Alex always says what a champ he is.’

‘I hope so. How are things going between you two, anyway?’

‘We’ve gone out a few times together.’ She tried to look nonchalant, scraping her booted toe against a stray wisp of straw on the ground.

‘Oh?’ Ginny raised an eyebrow and grinned at her.

‘Yes, but just as friends. There’s always been others with us.’

‘Do you think he likes you?’

Kerry carried on down the walkway towards Libran Charter who was watching them approach.

‘As a friend, I’m sure,’ she said in a disappointed voice.

Ginny longed to give the girl some hope, but she had to agree. Alex had shown no indication that he wanted to have Kerry as a girlfriend. Instead she said,

‘All the best relationships bloom from friendships.’

‘That would be heaven,’ she breathed. ‘But even now, I’m not totally disappointed. He’s such a nice guy, and I see him every day at work. He adds colour to the day.’

‘Aah,’ Ginny swooned dramatically. ‘Things would be completely black and white without Alex Napier there.’

Kerry snorted. She gave the old horse a kiss between his nostrils. Libran Charter fluttered his eyelashes in response.

‘Oh, look, Des has arrived. I better go help him get all the feed buckets ready. He was complaining about his back hurting yesterday.’

Ginny continued down the concourse alone. She stopped by Caspian’s stable as the colt waited with his head over the door, ready to greet her. She stroked his velvet-soft muzzle. He blew down her neck and gave her shoulder a gentle nudge. She smiled, allowing him to chew her jacket sleeve, marveling how she was yet to find any vice in this horse. She stretched her arm over the stable door and absent-mindedly removed some bedding from his mane. But something on the floor, partly obscured by the wood shavings, made her stop, and she peered further into the stable. Curiosity turned to dread and a cold terror clamped hold of her chest as she identified the object. In a panic she looked at Caspian more closely, examining his head and eyes. She slammed the bolts of his door back, making the colt throw his head in alarm and back away as she whisked inside.

‘Okay, boy,’ she said in a high quivering voice. ‘It’s okay. Come here. It’s all right. Let me have a look at you.’ She ran her trembling hands over his body, slipping her fingers under his elbow to check his heart rate, and any signs of distress. Turning her attention back to the floor, she stood, paralysed with fear, staring wide-eyed at the offending object.

‘Please, God,’ she whispered. ‘Please make it be all right.’ Tugging her phone out of her pocket, it took a couple of attempts to punch in the correct number. With one hand stroking the colt’s neck, she waited while the line rang.

‘Hey, Ginny. What’s up?’ Ray’s cheery voice answered.

‘Ray, you’ve got to get down here quick.’

‘What’s wrong? Are you okay?’

‘It’s Caspian. Someone has – I don’t know. Someone has given him something –’

‘Like what?’

‘Something. I don’t know! I’ve just found an hypodermic needle on the floor of his box. It’s empty! Ray, someone’s given him something!’ Ginny’s voice rose in panic, until she was almost hysterical.

‘Jesus,’ Ray muttered. ‘Does he look okay?’

‘He – he looks fine… I think. But I’m not sure! All I know is someone’s given him something that he shouldn’t have!’

‘Okay, okay. I’m on my way. Stay with him. And Ginny –’

‘Yes?’

‘Don’t touch the needle, whatever you do. I’ll be there as soon as I can.’

‘Hurry, Ray!’

Ray arrived after what seemed an age to Ginny. He hurried over to Caspian’s stable where she was inside waiting with the colt.

‘How’s he doing?’ Ray said as he let himself in.

‘He’s sweating. Mind where you step! The needle’s on the floor there.’

Ray stepped over the hypodermic syringe, where it lay ominously amongst the shavings. Ginny moved out of his way and stood by Caspian’s head, gripping his head collar.

‘He might just be picking up on your nerves. Let’s have a look.’ Ray took out a thermometer and a stethoscope from his bag and listened first to the colt’s heart then his lungs before checking his temperature. He turned to Caspian’s head, shining a light into his eyes, checking the colour of his eyelids then his nostrils for mucus.

‘There isn’t anything apparent that’s wrong with him right now,’ he pronounced.

‘But that doesn’t mean anything, does it? Whatever was in that syringe might be slow-working. It had been emptied! It can’t be anything good!’

‘Calm down, Ginny. His temperature is normal, as is his heart rate and his breathing sounds fine. I’m going to take some blood, and take it back for testing. We’ll know for sure then what’s been given to him. And as for this thing,’ he said pointing at the hypodermic needle, ‘I think you need to call the police. That will need testing as well. There’ll be traces of whatever it is still inside, but best let the police deal with that.’

Ginny faltered. She didn’t want the police involved, but how could she explain that to Ray? She cursed Mark. He’d gone too far this time. The police
had
to get involved now.

‘Okay, I’ll ring them,’ she agreed. She didn’t have to name names, did she?

*

‘So, tell me right from the beginning what happened this morning,’ the young police officer prompted as they stood in the office. Ginny was too restless to sit down.

‘Well, I went round checking the horses first thing –’

‘Is that something you usually do?’

‘Of course. I stopped at Caspian’s stable, and saw the syringe when I looked inside. Then I called Ray – my brother. He’s a vet. He came straight here and checked him over.’

‘Can you confirm you haven’t touched or disturbed the syringe since you found it?’

Ginny nodded.

‘Ray told me not to touch it when I called him. I put a head collar on Caspian to make sure he didn’t step on it either.’

‘Do you know of anyone who’d want to do this?’

‘No. No one springs to mind,’ Ginny said, trying to look straight into his eyes. She had rehearsed in her head earlier how much she would tell and she was determined to be believed.

‘No one who might have a grudge against you?’

‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘Have you received any phone calls or post from strangers which has seemed unusual or threatening?’

The muscles in Ginny’s throat contracted and she gulped.

‘No.’ She hoped he hadn’t noticed her hesitate.

‘Is there anything about – uh, Caspian, that his name?’ Ginny nodded. ‘Anything about him that might instigate this attack? Is he odds on for the Derby or something?’ He smiled as he said this, pleased with his own joke. Ginny was in no mood for humour.

‘A, the Derby was run nearly three months ago, and B, Caspian is a two-year-old. The Derby is for three-year-olds.’

The officer cleared his throat.

‘Of course. I was just using that as an example. What I mean is does anyone have a lot to lose if he wins a race?’

‘Well, the only plans we have at the moment are the Dewhurst Stakes, but that’s weeks away. It’d be silly to try anything now when it’s so far ahead. And he’s hardly going to be favourite for that, anyway.’

‘Right.’ He scribbled in his notebook before continuing. ‘Can you tell me how you came about having Caspian in your yard? Any previous owners or trainers?’

‘No. My father bought him in France as a yearling. He’s always been trained here.’

The officer suddenly looked up, pen poised, as if he’d just remembered something.

‘Have you got CCTV set up here?’

‘No, but I sure as hell am going to get it installed now.’

‘That’s a pity. Could have made things easier. But whoever did this couldn’t have been that smart. He left the hypodermic behind. Do you think the horse could have attacked him or something which would have made him drop the syringe and make a hasty escape?’

‘Well, I can’t really say for sure. I don’t know what happened, and horses can act unpredictably. Caspian doesn’t look like he’s been in a fight though and he’s not really the type to attack people. Besides, the door was closed properly. If whoever did this left in a hurry, wouldn’t that be one of the things he’d forget?’

He wrote this down in his notebook before continuing.

‘Do you lock your gates at night?’

‘Oh yes, for security, although it’s more of a deterrent rather than Fort Knox.’

‘Did the lock appear to have been tampered with?’

She hadn’t really taken much notice of the lock when she’d arrived earlier. It was locked as normal and nothing had been forced on it as far as she could remember.

‘No,’ she said slowly, running it through her mind. ‘But like I said, that lock is a deterrent. If someone really wanted to get in, it’d be easy enough to jump over the wall.’

‘We’ll be taking a look outside, I think, see if we can find anything. Thank you for your time, Miss Kennedy. And if you remember anything else – anything that you think might help us, no matter how small – just give us a call.’

‘Thank you,’ Ginny said, relieved that it was over. There hadn’t been too many awkward questions. He hadn’t delved too much into her personal relationships. The fact that she had broken up with her boyfriend and he had removed his horse from the yard had apparently been overlooked.

*

Ginny had an anxious morning, waiting for the blood tests to be analysed. The police had taken the evidence to examine for fingerprints and were then sending it to another veterinary lab for testing. Despite Ray’s assurance that he would ring the moment they had the test results, Ginny still rang him three times to see if anything had been finished. When eventually the call came through, she was with Caspian in his box.

‘Good news, Ginny. All tests were negative.’

Ginny fell back against the wall, weak with relief.

‘What does that mean, though? There must have been something?’

‘No, nothing,’ Ray said, sounding just as surprised. ‘You’re right, it is a bit odd, but he was clear of any substance in his blood. We did them all.’

‘What was in the syringe then?’

‘The other lab came back to us as we were finishing up. There were traces of DSS in it…’

Ginny gasped. DSS was used in small proportions to flush out the system when a horse had colic and was really, simply put, a detergent. From such a large syringe only a quarter of it would have been ample to kill a horse. ‘…but we had already run that test on Caspian, using two samples. Whoever it was must have got cold feet at the last moment. Maybe Caspian put up a bit of a fight, and he couldn’t do it.’

Such was her relief that Ginny was past caring why his attacker hadn’t managed to complete his task. The only thing that mattered was that Caspian was going to be okay.

‘Thanks, Ray. I’m sorry I had to drag you out of bed so early. I’m going to ring up one of those security companies now and get some CCTV installed.’

‘Good idea. I’ll leave you to it. I’ve got to get on.’

‘Okay. I really appreciate your help.’

‘Don’t mention it,’ Ray replied.

Don’t mention it
. Ginny pondered those words as she disconnected the call. Was this episode just another of Mark’s little reminders that she should keep quiet? He was sailing pretty close to the wind if he thought she could keep this fiasco to herself.

*

The security company was very efficient and, given the urgency of the situation, came out and installed the CCTV cameras that afternoon. One was positioned overlooking the entrance, with three others set around the yard, and another in the office. She was just finishing up for the evening, making doubly sure that the cameras were all operating when a knock on the door startled Ginny. Her immediate reaction was to check the CCTV was working so that whoever it was who had come to murder her, would be caught on camera.

‘Who is it?’ she said, her voice shaking.

‘It’s Julien.’

Relief flooded through her and she sat down in her chair with a bump.

‘Come in. It’s open.’

Julien walked in and immediately noticed the operation manuals on the desk and the new television screens.

‘I heard something was up. Why were the police here earlier?’

‘I’ll give you two guesses.’

‘What has he done this time?’

‘Left a syringe containing DSS in Caspian’s stable. It hadn’t been used on him, but he made his message clear.’

‘Shit. So you’ve told the police now,
oui?’

‘Only that someone had broken in. I didn’t mention Mark.’

‘Ginny! You have to tell them!’

‘I can’t!’ she exclaimed. It was easy for him to say. It wasn’t his yard or his prize horse that was in danger. ‘Next time he’ll kill Caspian. I know he will, even if it’s too late for him, he’ll still find a way to take his revenge.’