StillWaters:Book4oftheSophieGreenMysteries (19 page)

I explained about Jonathan and Laura chatting with the lifeguard—her name unknown but her face remembered—and how I’d seized the moment and acted on it. He looked grudgingly impressed, but then he asked if I could ride and I’m afraid my mind, distracted by the thought of Luke in tight riding breeches, was somewhere else and I blushed.

“What?”

“That is very cute,” Luke grinned. “Can you ride horses?”

“Um. Sort of. Not really.”

“So you’re going to do what on this advanced trek?”

“Watch you from the beginner’s class.”

“I don’t think he’ll be in the beginner's class—”

“No, neither do I, but if it turns out he’s with neither of us, one of us’ll have to blag it.”

Luke rolled his eyes. I’m not known for making the best of plans.

We made our way up to the sports café where the rest of the party was waiting, and I pointed out Jon to Luke. We were the only adults present who didn’t come with kids, kids who jumped up and down in excitement when they saw the battered stables minibus arrive and spent the whole ten minute journey chattering about white ponies called Crystal. I avoided Luke’s eye—when I’d been a kid I’d desperately wanted a pony. A white one. Called Crystal.

I looked over Jonathan Dempsey as we sat behind him. Had I seen him before? In Cornwall or anywhere else. In the cave, or tampering with my car? I honestly couldn’t say. He had one of those faces that sort of blends into any crowd and is forgettable even as you’re looking at it.

“I bet I get some godforsaken old nag,” Luke moaned as we disembarked into the cold yard, avoiding piles of manure. “Riding school horses are abysmal.”

“Yeah? Whenever I go near a stables they stick me with a giant black thing with rolling eyes and hooves the size of dinner plates, and it’s always called Satan or Lucifer or something.”

Luke laughed. “You’ll get a placid little mare. It’s the beginner’s class, remember?”

Yeah, right. As we picked out hard hats, a woman looked us over and consulted a list of horses and riders. They’d already asked for our height and weight (okay, so maybe I took a few pounds off mine) and as she scanned the list and saw my name, she smiled coldly and said, “Sophie Green?”

“Yes?”

“You’ll be riding Ivan.”

Luke looked up, alarmed at her voice, and I wondered what was so terrible about that. Ivan surely wouldn’t live up to his name. At least he wasn’t called Beelzebub. But it was when the woman looked at Luke, I recognised her expression, and felt a twist of something uncomfortable in my stomach.

She was staring at him like a hungry cat seeing a bowl of cream. That was how I used to look at Luke, before…before everything…

“Luke,” she said pleasantly. “So this is your ex-girlfriend.”

Luke put his arm around my shoulders, but it didn’t feel very natural. Every muscle in him was tense. “Sophie is my
current
girlfriend,” he said, and I realised that this girl must be Caro. Yeah—her ponytail was blonde, and she had the same tall, well-padded build I possessed myself. If she fell off a horse, her bones wouldn’t jar too much.

“But you’re in different classes,” Caro said, checking her clipboard.

“I didn’t want Luke to have to lag behind,” I said nervously. “He’s much more experienced than I am.”

She looked between us, her gaze unfriendly. She was neither pretty nor ugly, but plain in the truest sense of the word. If she got out of her horsey gear, did something with her hair and put on some makeup, she might pass for reasonably attractive.

“Luke, you’ll be on Martha,” she said, and walked out.

I looked up at Luke, whose face was stony. “I’m assuming that’s Caro?”

He nodded.

“Did you know she works here?”

“Of course I bloody didn’t. Would I have come here otherwise?”

He was now convinced that Martha would be a dreadful old nag, but to me she looked pretty fine, a chestnut mare who stood very tall and glossy on her impossibly thin legs. How can a leg so thin support such weight? I will never understand.

Luke practically vaulted into the saddle and laughed at me scrambling onto Ivan’s sky-scraping back. I swear, this horse must be in the Guinness Book of Records. There can be no taller animal. I clung to his black mane and hoped he was a Macbeth of a horse: a hell of a lot less nasty than he looks.

Jonathan Dempsey had gone straight into the stables and now he came out with a horsey-looking girl who was leading a piebald horse. He kissed the girl, swung into the saddle and trotted over.

Ivan took one look at Jonathan’s horse and went from standing to trotting in one movement. I’d never been on a trotting horse before, and I knew I was going to fall off, break every bone in my body, and lie twitching in a miserable heap as Caro rode a shire horse over my broken body.

I pulled desperately on the reins but Ivan the Terrible didn’t pay any attention. Or maybe pulling the reins was the wrong signal, because he suddenly started cantering. I bounced painfully about in the saddle, trying to keep my feet in the stirrups, and behind me someone shouted, but then the saddle suddenly felt horribly loose and before I could steady my chattering teeth to say so I went flying off through the air.

In the split second I was airborne I remembered something about rolling as you hit the ground, but there was no time to move at all before I slammed into the dirty paving of the yard, totally breathless, spots dancing in front of my eyes.

Chapter Eleven

“Sophie!” Luke’s face swam into view. “God, Sophie, say something.”

I couldn’t breathe. I opened my mouth and no breath came in. Panicked, I grabbed out for Luke, and somehow opened my lungs, and snatched a grateful breath.

“Ivan,” I gasped, “is terrible.”

Luke gave a tight little smile. “He apparently has a quarrel with one of the other horses. Sophie, can you move your toes?”

I wiggled them and nodded.

“Does it hurt anywhere?”

I gave him an incredulous look.

“Okay,” he amended, as other faces, voices, penetrated my shaky consciousness. Jonathan Dempsey and his girlfriend—Harriet?—Caro and the other stable hands, all looking worried. Caro, I noticed clearly, looked terrified.

“Can you get up?” Luke asked, and pulled me to my feet, his arms around me. I clung to him, and Caro moved away, all concern gone, scowling now.

“Come into the office,” Harriet said, leading us to the room where we’d got our hard hats. I pulled mine off with shaky fingers, suddenly feeling very hot, no air to my head, and fell onto a sofa crowded with other peoples’ coats and bags. “Do you want some water?”

I nodded, and as she left the room Luke said furiously, “That bloody horse is a fucking menace! What the hell were they thinking—”

“Actually, he’s as placid as they come,” said a voice from the doorway. Jonathan. “Ivan’s usually very gentle. It was my fault for bringing out Priscilla. He’s got a bit of a crush on her.”

“Funny,” I croaked, still feeling like someone was compressing my lungs, “when I have a crush on someone I don’t usually start running around at a hundred miles an hour.”

“No, sweetheart, you let your tongue loose and drive everyone mad with sarcasm,” Luke said as Harriet came back in with a bottle of water and a cup.

“We have tea and coffee,” she said anxiously, “or maybe something to eat?”

I shook my head. “No. Thanks.”

“I can drive you back to the village, if you want?”

I was about to say yes, when my eye fell on Jonathan. “No,” I said reluctantly, “I’ll stay here. Luke, you go on your ride.” Seeing he was about to start protesting, I added, “I know how
important
this is, uh, to you. I’ll stay here until you come back. If that’s okay?” I asked Harriet.

“That’s fine!” she said, looking relieved that the words Law and Suit hadn’t been said yet. “Jon, can you stay with her? And Luke, you’ll come with us?”

Luke looked mutinous, but he’d got my meaning. He nodded and so did Jon.

“Whatever you can find out,” Luke said in my ear as he bent to kiss my cheek.

“You too,” I replied, and then he was gone, looking like the lord of a Victorian melodrama, in his hard hat with his fine legs and his angry cheekbones. If he’d had a riding crop he’d have been smacking it against his hard thighs.

Mmm.

Jon asked me if I’d like tea or coffee and switched the kettle on. He looked nervous, and as my head cleared I realised why: Ivan had gone temporarily mad and I, as an inexperienced rider, could easily have been seriously hurt, or even killed. This would not reflect well on the stables.

“How are you feeling?” he asked.

I shrugged, never one to play down an injury. “Well, I’m okay,” I said. “That’s the second near-death experience I’ve had in a week.”

He looked surprised. “Are you just a magnet for trouble, or is there something more sinister going on here?”

You tell me, mate. “Well, I think it’s really mostly just coincidence. I mean, the last one was in Cornwall, in a place called Port Trevan…” I paused, and there indeed was a flicker of recognition in Jon’s face. “Oh, do you know it?”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I was down there not so long ago. Small world.”

“Yeah, tiny,” I said enthusiastically. “Where were you staying? Did you go to the pub on the harbour?”

“The, er, Dolphin? Blue Dolphin?”

“That’s it! Did you try their cod?”

“No, but I think Molly—”

His face suddenly closed.

“Who’s Molly?” I asked innocently. “I thought you were with that girl who came in, er, Harriet? Who works here…?”

“Yeah,” he mumbled. “I’m—we’re—yeah.”

“So was Molly with you in Cornwall? Is she your daughter?”

Automatically, he shook his head. “No, we’re not married. I mean, we don’t—no kids. We don’t even live together.”

“Oh.” I tried to think of another way to put this without pressing it. “Was it just you two in Cornwall, then?”

“No,” he said, “Chrissie wasn’t there. It was a work thing—five of us from work. Well, six, ’cos Gav brought his girlfriend,” he said, looking sulky.

“But you didn’t take Harrie?”

“Well, no—it was just supposed to be us five—we started the same time, did customer training together and all that. But Molly threw a hissy fit and came with us. Gav was all, ‘She’s been having a rough time recently’, so he let her come.”

“You didn’t get on?” Whoops, past tense creeping in there. But Jon didn’t seem to notice. He made a bit of a face.

“She was okay,” he said critically. “Bit of a drama queen. Still, Gav loved her.”

“Loved? What, did they break up or something?” I asked, pleased with this excellent line in.

“No,” Jon looked pained for a few seconds, as if I’d just kicked him, hard. “No, Molly died.”

“Oh my God!” I did my best to look shocked. “What, in Cornwall?”

He nodded.

“How? I mean, if you don’t mind—” If he did I’d castrate him.

“I don’t know,” Jon said helplessly. “The police said it looks like murder, but who’d want to kill Molly?”

By his own admission they’d not got on well. Maybe more people than he’d thought didn’t like her—

Suddenly, I remembered something. That night before she was killed, while I lay there being tortured by cherubs, a couple had argued outside my window. And he’d called her Molly.

“Oh God!” I said sharply.

“What? Are you okay? Do you want me to call a doctor?”

I shook my head. “Molly? Her name was Molly? I heard her arguing with someone outside my window… She wasn’t the hanged girl, was she?”

He nodded miserably. “When did you hear her?”

I started to say, the night before she was killed, but then I realised I’d hardly be expected to remember it exactly. “I don’t know. I think it was my first night there. Would that be right? I mean, it could even be after she was killed…”

Was that convincing enough? I peeked at Jon. He seemed taken in by it.

“Have you told the police?”

I shrugged. “I only just remembered it. I’ll give them a call later.” I gave a weak smile. “I don’t feel too good right now.”

We passed the rest of the hour talking about the village and the pubs and the seafood, and Molly Stanton didn’t come up again. But I was starting to wonder who she’d been arguing with. I really wanted to talk to Gavin Beasley now.

Luke came back from his ride looking windswept and happy, and I had no complaint at all about him pulling me to my feet, kissing me on the mouth and asking tenderly if I was okay. The more people who were deceived, the better.

But then one of the girls in jodhpurs came rushing in, a saddle in her arms, looking for Harrie.

“She’s outside,” Luke said. “What is it?”

His eyes zeroed in on the saddle, and before the girl could take it away he’d snatched at a strap hanging loose.

“It’s broken,” he said.

“I know. I just found it in the tack room.”

“It’s not broken,” Jon said, looking at the strap. “It’s been cut. Weakened, so it would snap.”

The girl nodded fearfully.

“Whose saddle is this?” Luke asked harshly. “Who wore it last?”

“I don’t know,” the girl stammered, but Jon was shaking his head.

“Ivan,” he said. He looked at me. “I think someone doesn’t like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone cut the girth, Sophie,” Luke said. “So the saddle would come loose and you’d fall.”

“It was the horse,” I said. “He cantered and I lost my balance…”

Luke shook his head. “The saddle slipped.”

“I didn’t think that fall looked right.” Jon was shaking his head.

Great, so now I can’t fall right?

Luke came over and put an arm around my shoulders. “You okay?”

“I think I might need a drink,” I said.

Luke nodded. “You two,” he looked severely at the stable girl and Jon, “tell no one about this.”

“The police…” the girl said.

“You said this was the second time something like this had happened to you,” Jon said, and all eyes swivelled in my direction.

“I had a bit of an accident last week,” I mumbled. “I’d really like to go now. Luke, can we go now?”

And with an easy air of male competence that I thought should have died when feminism came along, Luke took over, steering me out of the yard office like I was made of glass, calling to Harrie to get the minibus started, and shhing me all the way back to Eden.