The Bronze Lady (Woodford Antiques Mystery Book 2) (18 page)

Chapter 45

Thursday 25
th
February, 6.30am

Jennifer was having a pig of a day, and it wasn’t even daylight yet! She had been called out to an emergency at eleven o’clock the night before, when she was still up and dressed having only just arrived back at Gemma’s house from The Ship Inn. By the time she arrived at the stable yard an hour later there was no one about to let her in through the electronic gates, and she did not have a phone number she could ring because the person who telephoned from yard where the colicking horse was kept had withheld the number when they telephoned the surgery for her help. The call was automatically forwarded to her phone, and she forgot to ask the caller for their number.

After twenty minutes trying to find a way in she accidentally woke up the occupants of the neighbouring house with all the noise she was making and by constantly setting off the security lights. They did have the yard owner’s telephone number, much to Jennifer’s relief, but when she finally made contact with them they said the horse had relieved itself ten minutes after they called her and seemed much more comfortable so they had gone home to bed.

Resolving to put them on the practice’s blocked list Jennifer collapsed on her bed at half past one in the morning, fully clothed except for her boots which she had removed at the back door on her way in. At quarter to six her phone rang again, and this time it was a very panicky lady who arrived at a livery yard to find her horse trapped upside down on his back against the wall in his stable. Horses will often lay down in their stables, and sometimes they roll over and hit a wall, find they don’t have enough space to get back up, and are cast. The horse had clearly been stuck in this position for some time because he was dripping with sweat under his rugs and his metal shoes had made deep grooves on the wooden wall against which he had been thrashing around trying to find some purchase from which he could push himself over and upright. Jennifer was able to give the woman some calming advice over the phone while she made her way downstairs to the kitchen, where she made herself a quick cup of coffee to drink in her car on the way to the yard.

Fortunately this yard was only twenty minutes from Gemma’s cottage, but a few minutes after leaving home the car slowed and died to a halt. No fuel. In her fury during the early morning drive back to Woodford Jennifer had failed to notice the warning light.

She jumped out of her car and phoned her father while she started to walk quickly back to the house, so that by the time she was half way there he and Gemma had driven in convoy so Jennifer could swap to his car and Gemma could drive Peter back home.

With many thanks and apologies she re-started her journey, arriving at the yard to be greeted by an extremely grateful owner of an upright horse, who hugged her and insisted she make her another coffee while Jennifer checked the big grey gelding for injuries. Other than being very sweaty and having a slightly higher heart beat than his normal resting thirty five beats a minute, he seemed happy and was tucking into his hay as though he hadn’t eaten for hours. Which he probably hadn’t. They discussed adding extra table salt to his feed to help him replenish the electrolytes lost during his ordeal, and changes the owner could make to his rugging and his bedding and his turnout so he would be less likely to want to roll in his stable and become cast again.

While she was still there her phone rang again and her next emergency was in a field fifteen minutes away where a horse had stuck his front leg through some sheep fencing and was now attached to it with the wire firmly fixed between the shoe and his hoof.

Fortunately her father’s car carried an almost identical veterinary surgeon’s kit to hers, and she was able to quickly and efficiently remove his shoe and treat the minor cuts to the fetlock. By the time she left that field, it was daylight and eight o’clock, and she was no longer on emergency call out duty, but she was still a good half an hour away from home, and needed to drive there, wash, dress, breakfast, and be at the surgery ready for a packed morning of routine appointments by nine thirty.

She arrived back at Gemma’s house to find it empty; Gemma had obviously already left for the tearooms although Lisa would have opened them by seven thirty that morning, and judging by the absence of her own car, either where she left it by the side of the road or here on the driveway, her father and Gemma must have resolved the lack of diesel problem and he had taken it to work with him.

Jennifer moved about the house on automatic mode. She showered, re-dressed in clean clothes, made herself yet another cup of coffee and a couple of slices of toast which she ate sitting down at the kitchen table with her greyhound Lucy and Gemma’s Staffie Suzy paying close attention to any spare crusts which may be left over.

Jennifer was absolutely exhausted. It had been a long day yesterday. She had chosen to drive all the way there and back, and had found the time they spent with Brenda mentally challenging.

As she mulled over all she had seen and heard the day before she felt as though everything she thought she knew had been turned upside down, and it wasn’t a nice feeling. Jennifer wondered, not for the first time, if she had made the right decision three months ago when she resigned from her safe job in which, although the hours were similar to the ones she was working here, there had been no requirements for extra-curricular activities like driving an eight hour round trip, unpaid, just to look at a horse which defied everything she was taught at veterinary school.

Seeing that horse yesterday, and listening to Brenda and her father chattering away about roadwork and minerals had been a strange experience, and Jennifer had not found it a pleasant one. She felt much more comfortable dealing with horses who were cast in their stables or had minor wounds. Even major wounds she found fascinating and enjoyed assessing, cleaning and stitching, and then keeping a close eye on the wound over the next few weeks with regular dressing changes and working out which drugs to prescribe to treat any new symptoms which appeared.

But if she had understood correctly, Brenda’s horse Danny had rehabilitated without veterinary intervention. Bar shoes, pads, pain relief and box rest were the treatments Jennifer was familiar with for treating navicular syndrome and tendon injuries. If Brenda was to be believed Danny’s ‘treatment’ had been the removal of his supportive shoes, turned away for three months on a pea gravel track with other horses, a complete change of diet to something designed by someone with no qualifications which Jennifer recognised using a whole combination of ingredients she was unfamiliar with and which were not available in any of the local animal feed shops she frequented.

And now her own mother was thinking about going down that route too! Her mother who, for as long as Jennifer could remember, had been the complete opposite of fluffy bunny and tree hugging horse owner. Next she would be clothing her horses in rope halters and waving orange sticks at them, or even worse riding them without bits in their mouths. Although, she thought, Brenda didn’t do any of those things, so maybe it didn’t follow that taking the shoes off meant an end to everything that was familiar and logical to her.

Jennifer suddenly realised she had been sitting at the kitchen table for far longer than she should have done, and quickly gathered up her bag, coat, and her father’s car keys, called the dogs to come with her, and dashed out of the door.

Marvellous. Now she was going to be at least ten minutes late for the first appointment, a lameness examination. Great. After yesterday’s insights what on earth was she going to prescribe as the treatment?

Chapter 46

Thursday 25
th
February, 6.30pm

Jennifer sat in her car, on the driveway at Gemma’s cottage on Farnham Road. She was so tired she seriously considered going sleep where she was, in the driver’s seat. She summoned up the dregs of her energy to undo her seatbelt, pick up her bag from the passenger seat, open the car door and heave herself out. Peter had brought the dogs home with him a couple of hours earlier so at least she didn’t have to take them for a walk as well; she could just walk into the house, climb the stairs, strip, pull back the covers, and fall into bed.

A tremendous crash startled her into being on full alert. The sound appeared to have come from the auction house a few doors down. After a few seconds dithering she tentatively ventured along the pavement towards the origins of the noise. Although the sun had disappeared a while ago there was a full moon, for which Jennifer was grateful as she did not want to draw attention to herself by turning on her head torch if Black’s Auctions was being burgled. As she walked she could hear other sounds coming from the direction of the crash, but she wasn’t sure what was making them, and no one else seemed to be around.

She fished her mobile phone out of her bag ready to dial 999 if she saw anything suspicious, and continued to walk carefully and quietly. She still could not make out either what the noises were, or where they were coming from. By now she had reached the main entrance to the auction house and all seemed quiet and intact, the noise filling her ears was the sound of the blood pumping around her body. She remembered to breathe.

Jennifer turned and crept back past the auction house, and heard noises again. This time she could make out they were coming from behind the building, so she walked down the alley towards them, by now having pressed the first two nines, with her thumb poised over the third.

She reached the door to Paul’s house, or at least where the door should have been, and the source of the crashing sounds a few minutes earlier were clear to see. His front door had been smashed in with a post banger which was now lying on the oak floorboards of Paul’s hallway. Jennifer took a few steps back and pressed the third nine. She took even more steps away when the call handler answered the phone because the woman’s voice seemed to be shockingly loud in the relative silence of the evening.

‘Police,’ whispered Jennifer. ‘Police, quickly please, to Black’s Auctions at the top of Woodford High Street, on the Farnham Road. No I don’t know the postcode, sorry, but someone has broken into the home behind the auction house and I think the homeowner is in there too. No, I don’t know anything else. Yes I will. It may be a good idea to have an ambulance too, the door was smashed down so whoever has broken in is violent. No I don’t know if there are any guns.’

‘Hi Jennifer! What are you doing skulking around out here?’

‘Ssssssh!!!’ Jennifer almost leapt out of her skin, before she quickly walked out of the alley as Cliff Williamson was starting to walk in, pushing him before her so he had to walk backwards, until they were both standing out on the pavement.

‘Move, Cliff, move. Come on, we need to get out of here. Yes, yes, someone else is here,’ she said to the call handler who was squawking out of her phone wanting to know what was happening. ‘Cliff, come on, I have called the police, they are on their way. Someone has smashed down Paul’s door and I think they are still in there with him.’

‘What? I’m going in,’ and Cliff dashed down the alley and through the splintered wood that had once been a barrier to unwanted visitors.

‘Oh god,’ muttered Jennifer, ‘sorry’ she whispered into her phone and pressed the off button to silence the squawking, and followed him.

She carefully stepped through the damaged door and tiptoed towards the sound of men’s voices. On the way she admired Paul’s taste in home decoration, realising what a peculiar thing to be thinking whilst her heart was in her mouth. She arrived at the doorway to a living room, but stayed out of sight, straining to hear the low tones inside. There appeared to only be one other person beside Cliff and Paul, and from the sound of it that person was threatening to kill Paul.

Jennifer had heard enough, this was more than a break-in. She needed to let the police know how urgent the situation was, so she backed away quickly, dialling 999 as she went.

‘Police please,’ she whispered urgently, before screaming ‘AAARRRGGGGHHHHHHH!’ as she tripped over the post banger and crashed to the floor, dropping her phone and bag as she went. She heard an oath and someone ran past her and out of the doorway.

‘Jennifer, Jennifer, are you OK?’ Cliff was there, gathering up her phone and bag and putting his hand out to help her up.

‘Yes, yes, I’m fine, just banged my elbow when I went down. Oh god I am so sorry, I was trying to creep back out and phone the police.’

‘Well I am sorry you got hurt but thank goodness you did make a noise. Because of you, Tony ran away before he could finish the job he came here to do.’

The welcome sound of sirens filled the air, and Cliff checked she could stand before going back out to the road to guide the emergency services in. Now back on her feet and holding her injured arm against her body, Jennifer walked into the living room, where she stopped dead in her tracks. Paul Black was lying on the floor, covered head to toe in blood. His face was unrecognisable, and one of his legs was clearly broken with the shards of bone visible through the torn trouser leg.

‘Oh Paul, are you alright?’ What a stupid thing to say Jennifer, she thought to herself. Out loud she asked ‘Can you speak to me?’

Paul grunted through what must have been his mouth but it was so swollen and discoloured she couldn’t be sure where his lips were. He looked at her through one tear-filled eye, the other was a closed puffy mess which appeared to be swelling even more as she watched.

‘Oh Paul!’ Jennifer felt useless, she wanted to touch him, to reassure him, but his whole body looked as though it had been battered and she couldn’t be sure where was safe to put her hand without causing even more damage.

At that moment a couple of paramedics came into the room and all decisions were taken out of her hands. They were accompanied by several policemen, including the local PC Ian McClure and PCSO Sophie Boston, both of whom left as soon as they had seen that Paul was not going to be able to speak to them. Jennifer sat down on the sofa, recognising it as a Chesterfield and thinking again how inconsequential her priorities seemed to be. As she watched the paramedics calmly and quickly gain Paul’s trust and completing their assessments of his traumatic condition, she marvelled at their skills and confidence in this environment where horrific violence had been taking place only a few minutes previously.

Cliff came back into the room with PC Ian McClure, and they walked around the medical action to join her at the sofa.

Cliff sat next to her and put his arm around her. ‘Jennifer, are you OK? You are shaking. Shall I make you a hot drink? Ian needs to ask you some questions. Is that alright?’

Jennifer suddenly became aware of her own situation; of her throbbing elbow and her shaking body. She had a second’s notice enabling her to turn and lean over the arm of the sofa before throwing up.

‘Ian, there is a roll of paper towels on the window sill in the kitchen behind the sink, and the glasses are in the cupboard on the wall up on the left,’ Cliff said quietly, all the time with his hand gently stroking her back.

‘Oh I am so sorry,’ gasped Jennifer. ‘I had no idea I was going to do that.’

‘It’s OK, it’s the shock. You’ll be alright now. Thanks Ian,’ as the PC reappeared with the emergency tissues and reviving water.

‘I didn’t know I had eaten enough today to throw anything up,’ Jennifer tried a weak smile, before looking at Cliff. ‘Are you alright Cliff? You were in here with them. Did you say it was Tony Cookson who did all this?’ she exclaimed with disbelief.

‘Can we start at the beginning?’ asked Ian as he took the opportunity to take some control of the situation now that the two eyewitnesses were both in the same place and capable of speech. His questioning was delayed for a minute or so as Paul was carried out of the room on a stretcher, the paramedics assuring Cliff he was going to be alright, and that the air ambulance had landed on The Green and would be taking him to Swanwick Hospital.

Jennifer and Cliff related their experiences to Ian a couple of times while other police popped in and out with various questions for Ian to answer, disappearing again once they were satisfied. Cliff was getting more and more agitated that they were wasting time sitting on Paul’s sofa instead of going out and hunting down Tony Cookson, but Ian was firm that he and Jennifer had done as much as they could for Paul that evening, and they were to leave Tony Cookson to the police.

Eventually Ian was satisfied that Jennifer and Cliff had told him everything they could, which really wasn’t very much other than Jennifer had heard a noise at approximately half past six which could have been the start of the attack on Paul, and Cliff had found Tony with a baseball bat beating Paul as he lay on the floor of his own living room two minutes later. From the time Jennifer first dialled 999 to the time the police and paramedics arrived together was seven minutes. The whole incident had taken less than ten minutes, but the build-up and repercussions could be counted in years.

PCSO Sophie Boston came into the room to tell Jennifer that Peter and Gemma were outside waiting for her. The dogs had alerted them that she was home, and yet when she didn’t walk through the door after a few minutes Gemma had gone out to look for her in the immediate area, thinking she might have tripped over something on the way from the drive to the back door. When she heard the sirens and saw the blue flashing lights - not a weekly, monthly, or even yearly occurrence in Woodford - she worried that something had happened to Jennifer and had rushed inside to fetch Peter. They were very relieved when Sophie reassured them that Jennifer was not the one needing emergency treatment, although one of the paramedics suggested she go to the Accident & Emergency Department to have her arm x-rayed as it was swelling at an alarming rate. Gemma drove all four of them, including Cliff, to Swanwick Hospital and left Peter and Jennifer in the radiography department while she and Cliff went to find out what Paul’s condition was.

Fortunately there were no equine emergencies that night requiring Peter’s attention, nor were there any other human ones requiring the radiographer’s attention, so Jennifer was seen straight away. Nothing was broken, just bruising, an ice-pack and instructions to take ibuprofen. Jennifer always carried arnica with her, both topical and pills, so she opted for that rather than the prescribed NSAID.

They joined Gemma and Cliff on the surprisingly comfortable chairs in the waiting room, and drank unsurprisingly disgusting coffee while they waited several hours for any information about Paul’s condition.

Cliff reflected he had spent more time at Swanwick Hospital in the last three months than he had in the previous twenty years he had lived in Woodford. To his shame he had failed to be present for any of his children’s births.

In the early hours of the morning a friendly nurse came to tell them they could go and see Paul for a few minutes, and she led them to a curtained cubicle where he lay. Jennifer was relieved that his face looked a lot better now all the blood and been cleaned off and swelling around his eye had reduced, although the colours of the bruising were fascinating. Paul was obviously tired but very pleased to see some familiar faces, and profusely thanked Jennifer and Cliff for coming to his rescue.

‘I really thought I was going to die,’ he mumbled through swollen and split lips. As well as the obviously broken leg and bruising to his face, the only other injury Paul had received from Tony and his baseball bat was a severely bruised elbow.

‘Snap,’ he tried to smile at Jennifer when he saw hers in a sling. ‘Did he hit you too?’ his face and voice as full of concern as he could manage.

‘No, no,’ she rushed to reassure him. ‘This was all my own doing. I was admiring your oak floorboards at eye level.’