The Stabbing in the Stables (12 page)

J
UDE RANG
S
ONIA
Dalrymple's number, but only got the answering machine. So she put in a call to Long Bamber Stables to check with Lucinda Fleet that it would be all right for Donal to work on Chieftain the following morning.

“Yes, that's fine. I'd been expecting him to turn up sometime soon. I'll hide the petty cash.”

“I have actually just met Donal.”

“Oh yes?”

“He lives up to his image, doesn't he?”

“A point of honour with him, I've always thought.”

“But as a healer…?”

“Oh, he's good. Whatever power it is that's needed, Donal's got it. I always recommend him to all my owners.”

“Yes. Something's just struck me, Lucinda…”

“Oh? What's that?”

“If you recommend him to all your owners, then presumably you also recommended him to Sonia?”

“Yes.”

“And yet, when Chieftain got lame and the vet couldn't do anything about it, she turned to me rather than to Donal.”

If a shrug could be audible, than that's what Jude heard down the phone line. “So? It's a free country. If she doesn't want to take my suggestion, then that's up to her.”

Again Jude was aware of the frostiness between the two women, the feeling she had got when she'd first heard Lucinda mention Sonia Dalrymple's name. “Yes…Incidentally, Donal said something about Chieftain.”

“Mm?”

“He said he could guess how the horse got lame.”

“Did he?”

“Do you know what he meant by that?”

“No.” But something in Lucinda's voice betrayed her. She did know exactly what Donal had meant. But there was no way she was going to tell Jude.

“By the way, do you know whether Sonia has ever met Donal?”

“I don't know for certain, but I'd have thought she must have done at some point. They both keep coming down to the stables, they probably have seen each other.”

“But you don't know whether they've ever had any disagreement about anything?”

“Why should they have?”

“Only because Sonia didn't consult Donal about Chieftain.”

There was a level of exasperation in the sigh that came from the other end of the phone. “Jude, I've no idea. And I've got to give a riding lesson in five minutes, so if you don't mind—”

“Sorry, sorry. You haven't heard from Sonia recently, have you?”

“She rang this morning. Said she wouldn't be able to come and sort out Chieftain for a couple of days.”

“Oh?”

“She's gone to a health farm. Yeomansdyke. Do you know it?”

“Yeomansdyke as in the hotel?”

“Yes. Down towards Yapton.”

“I know it. In fact, someone gave me a free day voucher there as a Christmas present.”

“Then you've got some wealthy friends.”

“Oh, it never occurred to me that the place was that expensive.”

“Well, it is. Membership's about as much as I make in a good year here at the stables.”

“Not that that'd be a problem for Sonia.”

“Of course not. She often goes to Yeomansdyke to recuperate after Nicky's been home.”

“Lucinda, what on earth do you mean by—”

“Must go. My lesson's arrived.”

Which was very frustrating and left Jude with more than one unanswered question.

 

“Hello, Mother, it's Stephen.”

He sounded more formal than ever. Round the time of the wedding, he had quite often relaxed into calling her “Mum.” Such intimacy now seemed to have vanished like it had never existed.

“Oh, how nice to hear from you. How is everything?”

“Total chaos at work. Just don't seem to have a moment.”

“But it always seems to be like that, doing…what you do…” Whatever that might be. Carole reckoned she was destined never to understand her son's work.

“Well, let me tell you. Now is absolutely worse than ever.”

“At least they pay you well.” Why Carole had said it, she didn't know. The words sounded crass, not at all what she had intended. She had an unfortunate knack of saying the wrong thing.

“I bloody earn it,” said Stephen, justifiably piqued. “Anyway,” he went on brusquely, “you rang. Was there something you wanted?”

This put her on the spot. She had rung because she was anxious about the state of her son's marriage, but it was not in her nature to raise the subject directly. She knew there were women who could boldly ask, “What's going on with you and Gaby?” but she also knew that she wasn't one of them. “Erm…” She hesitated, sounding, to her distaste, just like David. “It's just, I spoke to Gaby last week…”

“Yes, she said you'd rung.”

“…and I just wondered whether…erm…”

“What?” he asked shortly, sounding as grumpy with her as he had in his early teens.

“She sounded a bit down to me. I just really wondered whether she was all right…?”

“She's fine,” he said in the same tone of voice.

“Oh, good. Because she's normally such a lively person, I was a bit worried to hear her so—”

“We're both fine, thank you, Mother. As you know, we both have very stressful jobs and—”

“Yes. Gaby was off work when I spoke to her. Is she better now?”

“There was nothing wrong with her. She just needed a break.”

“I thought she sounded—”

“There is nothing wrong with either of us, Mother…except that we don't get enough relaxed time together.”

“Well, if you need anything that I—”

“We don't need anything—except for a bit of space. Our relationship is fine, and it's our business, and the last thing we need is other people poking their noses into it.”

And he rang off. Carole felt as though she had received a physical slap in the face. To her surprise, she felt tears prickling at her eyes—and it was a very long time since that had happened. By sheer willpower, she stemmed them. But she didn't feel good.

And, in spite of Stephen's assurances, her worries about the state of his marriage multiplied.

She felt in need of comfort, of moral support. But there was no one in at Woodside Cottage.

 

Yeomansdyke Hotel catered to the super rich, of whom there were a surprising lot in the West Sussex area. Other clients came from London, and quite a few from the States. It was not a country house hotel, like the Hopwicke, where Carole and Jude had once become involved in the mysterious death of a young solicitor. There the aim had been to reproduce the atmosphere of an Edwardian weekend party, whereas at Yeomansdyke the atmosphere aimed for was one of sheer luxury. It was not a place for people who needed to know how much anything cost.

Yeomansdyke had been built by a Victorian entrepreneur who had made a killing in the lawn tennis boom of the late nineteenth century. Because of his sporting interests, he had designed the grounds to accommodate tennis courts, stables and an artificial lake for fishing and boating. The house itself was a huge structure in ornate red brick, whose spacious reception areas and plethora of guest bedrooms facilitated its conversion in the 1980s to a leisure complex for those who had cleaned up in the Thatcher financial bonanza.

As health faddishness developed during the 1990s, the hotel's small gym and pool area had been expanded into a large health spa, which offered every kind of traditional and alternative therapy. There the jaded wealthy could have their bodies balanced, their chakras realigned, their toes articulated, their force fields refocused, their skins scoured and scrubbed with a variety of unguents, their limbs wrapped in seaweed, their flesh exfoliated or their colons irrigated.

Though Jude believed in the efficacy of many of these treatments, she was less than convinced by the way the health spa offered them, in a kind of pick 'n' mix assortment for the idle rich. Her own approach to alternative medicine was very different from the Yeomansdyke way.

But the fact remained that she did have a voucher for a free day at the place. It had been given her as a Christmas thank-you by a grateful client who, though Jude hadn't thought about the fact before, was extremely well heeled and could afford such gestures.

Jude got the silver envelope out of the drawer where she had shoved it carelessly on Christmas Day. “A full day's treatment in the understated luxury of Yeomansdyke's state-of-the-art health spa, with use of all the facilities. Just ring to book your day and one of our fitness professionals will advise you on the exciting range of health and beauty treatments available.”

So Jude rang to book her day. Or, since it was by then early afternoon, her less than half a day. But the fitness professional to whom she spoke said, yes, it would be fine for her to go straight there and wondered whether she would be requiring the services of a personal trainer to work out her gym routine. Jude, whose consistently good health derived from walking and yoga, declined the offer. She said she'd rather assess the therapies on offer when she got to Yeomansdyke, and the fitness professional was very happy with that. Without the words actually having been said, Jude got the distinct impression that business was pretty quiet that afternoon.

Carole, she was sure, would have given her a lift to the hotel, but Jude didn't want to impose. She ordered a cab and, aware of her neighbour's sensibilities to the slightest of imagined slights, fixed to be picked up at the seafront end of the High Street.

Close to, Yeomansdyke was even huger and more impressive than it had been in the brochure or glimpsed from the road. At the reception a smartly suited young man of exquisite manners and a vestigial Swiss accent directed her to the spa entrance, where a female receptionist of equally exquisite manners welcomed her and proffered a silver menu of available treatments. Avoiding the most exotic, Jude plumped for a full body massage. After that she planned to have a swim and then maybe make a further selection. The receptionist summoned a girl in clinical white, who—also exquisitely mannered—led Jude to the changing area, found her a locker and produced a swooningly soft bathing robe and pair of slippers. On hearing that her client had not brought a bathing costume, she offered a broad array from an adjacent cupboard. Jude, never one to be self-conscious about her substantial figure, chose a black two-piece, too substantial to come under the definition of “bikini.” But she didn't put it on. Massage first.

Then the girl in white led her through to an elegantly tiled treatment room, and left her alone. A minute later, her masseur appeared. Tall, thin and very dark, his name was Ahmet and he wore a white uniform. And he was good. Jude knew more than a little about various forms of massage, and the minute Ahmet started on her shoulders, she recognised she was under the hands of an expert. So she abandoned herself to the sensation. He said little, but—clearly it was part of the job description for anyone working at Yeomansdyke—he had exquisite manners.

The massage was thorough and took nearly an hour and a half. At the end, feeling deeply toned and relaxed, Jude showered off the oil on her body, donned her borrowed bathing costume and made her way to the swimming pool. It was set in a mini Crystal Palace, a huge vaulted structure of cast iron and glass; its previous role as a conservatory was hinted at by the huge potted palms and other tropical trees on the poolside area. The atmosphere was steamy and deliciously warm, in vivid contrast to the cold, darkening February outside.

There were wicker loungers and tables around the pool. Abandoning her robe, slippers and towel, Jude eased herself down the steps into the water, whose temperature exactly matched that of the ambient air. She swam a brisk ten lengths, using the efficient crawl she had perfected during one long summer with a lover in the south of France. Then she bobbed about in the water for a few minutes, taking a covert look at the other spa users, searching for Sonia Dalrymple.

There was no sign of her in the poolside area. Four or five loungers were occupied, all by women, no men. And none of the bodies on display could ever have been mistaken for Sonia's. Perhaps it had taken a long time for these women—or, more likely, their husbands—to attain the kind of wealth that made the Yeomansdyke experience accessible, but none of them was in the first flush of youth, and indeed the first hot flush of the menopause was quite a distant memory. No, if Sonia Dalrymple was around, she was in some other part of the spa.

Jude got out of the water, towelled herself down, resumed her bathrobe and slippers, and ambled back to the spa reception.

“I was rather expecting to meet a friend of mine here today. Mrs. Dalrymple…I don't know if she's been in.”

“Yes, Mrs. Dalrymple has booked into the hotel for three nights. She's in one of the tanning suites at the moment,” said the girl with exquisite politeness. She consulted a printed sheet. “Suite 4.”