Longshot

Chapter 16

On Monday morning, first lot, I was back on Drifter.

‘He’s entered in a race at Worcester the day after tomorrow,’ Tremayne said, as we walked out to the yard at seven in the half-dawn. ‘Today’s his last training gallop before that, so don’t fall off again. The vet’s been here already this morning to test his blood.’

Tremayne’s vet took small blood samples of all the stable’s runners prior to their last training gallop before they raced, the resulting detailed analysis being able to reveal a whole host of things from a raised lymphocyte count to excreted enzymes due to muscle damage. If there were too many contra-indications in the blood the vet would advise Tremayne that the horse was unlikely to run well or win. Tremayne said the process saved the owners from wasting money on fruitless horsebox expenses and jockey fees and also saved himself a lot of inexplicable and worrying disappointments.

‘Are you going to Worcester yourself?’ I asked.

‘Probably. Might send Mackie. Why?’

‘Er... I wondered if I could go to see Drifter race.’

He turned his head to stare at me as if he couldn’t at once comprehend my interest, but then, understanding, said of course I could go if I wanted to.

‘Thanks.’

‘You can gallop Fringe this morning, second lot.’

‘Thanks again.’

‘And thanks to you for giving Gareth such a good day yesterday.’

‘I enjoyed it.’

We reached the yard and stood watching the last preparations as usual.

‘That’s a good camera,’ Tremayne said regretfully. ‘Stupid boy.’

‘I’ll get it back.’

‘Along his precious trail?’ He was doubtful.

‘Maybe. But I had a map and a compass with me yesterday. I know pretty well where we went.’

He smiled, shaking his head. ‘You’re the most competent person. Like Fiona says, you put calamities right.’

‘It’s not always possible.’

‘Give Drifter a good gallop.’

We went up to the Downs and at least I stayed in the saddle, and felt indeed a new sense of being at home there, of being at ease. The strange and difficult was becoming second nature in the way that it had when I’d learned to fly. Racehorses, helicopters; both needed hands responsive to messages reaching them, and both would usually go where you wanted if you sent the right messages back.

Drifter flowed up the gallop in a smooth fast rhythm and Tremayne said he would have a good chance at Worcester if his blood was right.

When I’d left the horse in the yard and gone in for breakfast I found both Mackie and Sam Yaeger sitting at the table with Tremayne, all of them discussing that day’s racing at Nottingham. The horse that Tremayne had been going to run had gone lame, and another of Sam’s rides had been withdrawn because its owner’s wife had died.

‘I’ve only got a no-hoper left,’ Sam complained. ‘It’s not bloody worthwhile going. Reckon I’ll catch flu and work on the boat.’ He telephoned forthwith, made hoarse-voiced excuses and received undeserved sympathy. He grinned at me, putting down the receiver. ‘Where’s the toast, then?’

‘Coming.’

‘I hear you played cowboys and Indians all over Berkshire with Gareth and Coconut yesterday.’

‘News travels,’ I said resignedly.

‘I told him,’ Mackie said, smiling. ‘Any objections?’

I shook my head and asked her how she was feeling. She’d stopped riding out with the first lot because of nausea on waking, and Tremayne, far from minding, continually urged her to rest more.

‘I feel sick,’ she said to my enquiry. ‘Thank goodness.’

‘Lie down, my dear girl,’ Tremayne said.

‘You all fuss too much.

Sam said to me, ‘Doone spent all Saturday afternoon at the boatyard.’

‘I thought he was off duty.’

‘He got a message from you, it seems.’

‘Mm. I did send one.’

‘What message?’ Tremayne asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Sam answered. ‘Doone phoned me yesterday to say he’d been to the boatyard and taken away some objects for which he would give me a receipt.’

‘What objects?’ asked Tremayne.

‘He wouldn’t say.’ Sam looked at me. ‘Do you know what they were? You steered him to them, it seems. He sounded quite excited.’

‘What was the message?’ Mackie asked me.

‘Um...’ I said. ‘I asked him why the floorboards didn’t float.’

Tremayne and Mackie appeared mystified but Sam immediately understood and looked thunderstruck.

‘Bloody hell, how did you think of it?’

‘Don’t know,’ I said. ‘It just came.’

‘Do explain,’ Mackie begged.

I told her what I’d told Erica at Tremayne’s dinner, and said it might not lead to anything helpful.

‘But it certainly might,’ Mackie said.

Sam said to me thoughtfully, ‘If you hadn’t stopped me, I’d have rolled up the curtain so as to go into the dock in a boat, and all that stuff under the water would have slithered away into the river and no one would have been any the wiser.’

‘Fiona’s sure John will find out, before Doone does, who set that trap for Harry,’ Mackie said.

I shook my head. ‘I don’t know who it was. Wish I did.’

‘Matter of time,’ Tremayne said confidently. He looked at his watch. ‘Talking of time, second lot.’ He stood up. ‘Sam, I want a trial of that new horse Roydale against Fringe. You ride Roydale, John’s on Fringe.’

‘OK,’ Sam said easily.

‘John,’ Tremayne turned to me, ‘don’t try to beat Sam as if it were a race. This is a fact-finder. I want you to see which has most natural speed. Go as fast as you can but if you feel Fringe falter don’t press him, just ease back.’

‘Right.’

‘Mackie, talk to Dee-Dee or something. I’m not taking you up there to vomit in the Land Rover.’

‘Oh, Tremayne, as if I would.’

‘Not risking it,’ he said gruffly. ‘Don’t want you bouncing about on those ruts.’

‘I’m not an invalid,’ she protested, but she might as well have argued with a rock. He determinedly left her behind and drove Sam and me up to the gallops.

On the way, Sam said to me dryly, ‘Nolan usually rides any trials. He’ll be furious.’

‘Thanks a lot.’

Tremayne said repressively, ‘I’ve told Nolan he won’t be riding work here again until he cools off.’

Sam raised his eyebrows comically. ‘Do you want John shot? Nolan’s a whiz with a gun.’

‘Don’t talk nonsense,’ Tremayne said a shade uneasily, and bumped the Land Rover across the ruts of the track and onto the smooth upland grass before drawing to a halt. ‘Keep your mind on Roydale. He belongs to a new owner. I want your best judgment. His form’s not brilliant, but nor is the trainer he’s come from. I want to know where we’re at.’

‘Sure,’ Sam said.

‘Stay upsides Fringe as long as you can.’

Sam nodded. We took Roydale and Fringe from the lads and, when Tremayne had driven off and positioned himself on his hillock, we started together up the all-weather gallop, going the fastest I’d ever been. Fringe, flat out at racing pace, had a wildness about him I couldn’t really control and I guessed it was that quality which won him races. Whenever Roydale put his nose in front, Fringe found a bit extra, but it seemed there wasn’t much between them, and with the end of the wood chippings in sight the contest was still undecided. I saw Sam sit up and ease the pressure, and copied him immediately, none too soon for my taxed muscles and speed-starved lungs. I finished literally breathless but Sam pulled up nonchalantly and trotted back to Tremayne for a report in full voice.

‘He’s a green bugger,’ he announced. ‘He has a mouth like elephant skin. He shies at his own shadow and he’s as stubborn as a pig. Apart from that, he’s fast, as you saw.’

Tremayne listened impassively. ‘Courage?’

‘Can’t tell till he’s on a racecourse.’

‘I’ll enter him for Saturday. We may as well find out. Perhaps you’d better give him a pop over hurdles tomorrow.’

‘OK.’

We handed the horses back to their respective lads and went down the hill again with Tremayne and found Doone waiting for us, sitting in his car.

‘That man gives me the sodding creeps,’ Sam said as we disembarked.

The greyly persistent Detective Chief Inspector emerged like a turtle from his shell when he saw us arrive, and he’d come alone for once: no silent note-taker in his shadow.

‘Which of us do you want?’ Tremayne enquired bullishly.

‘Well, sir.’ The sing-song voice took all overt menace away, yet there was still a suggestion that collars might be felt at any minute. ‘All of you, sir, if you don’t mind.’

Just the same if we did mind, he meant.

‘You’d better come in, then,’ Tremayne offered, shrugging.

Doone followed us into the kitchen, removed a grey tweed overcoat and sat by the table in his much-lived-in grey suit. He felt comfortable in kitchens, I thought. Tremayne vaguely suggested coffee, and I made a mug of instant for us each.

Mackie came through from having breakfasted with Perkin saying she wanted to know how the trial had gone. She wasn’t surprised to see Doone, only resigned. I made her some coffee and she sat and watched while Doone picked a piece of paper out of his breast pocket and handed it to Sam.

‘A receipt, sir,’ he said, ‘for three lengths of floorboard retrieved from the dock in your boathouse.’

Sam unfolded the paper and looked at it dumbly.

‘Why didn’t they float?’ Tremayne asked bluntly.

‘Ah. So everyone knows about that?’ Doone seemed disappointed.

‘John just told us,’ Tremayne nodded.

Doone gave me a sorrowful stare, but I hadn’t given a thought to his wanting secrecy.

‘They didn’t float, sir, because they were weighted.’

‘With what?’ Sam asked.

‘With pieces of paving stone. There are similar pieces of paving stone scattered on a portion of your boatyard property.’

‘Paving stone?’ Sam sounded bemused, then said doubtfully, ‘Do you mean broken slabs of pink and grey marble?’

‘Is that what it is, sir, marble?’ Doone didn’t know much about marble, it appeared.

‘It might be.’

Doone pondered, made up his mind, went out to his car and returned carrying a five-foot plank which he laid across the kitchen table. The old grey wood, though still dampish, looked as adequate for its purpose as its fellows still forming the boathouse floor and didn’t seem to have been weakened in any way. Slightly towards one end, on the surface that was now uppermost on the table, rested a long, unevenly shaped darkish slab of what I might have thought was rough-faced granite.

‘Yes,’ Sam said, glancing at it. ‘That’s marble.’ He stretched out his hand and tried to pick it up, and the plank came up an inch with it. Sam let it drop, frowning.

‘It’s stuck on,’ Doone said, nodding. ‘From the looks of the other pieces lying about, the surface that’s stuck to the wood is smooth and polished.’

‘Yes,’ Sam said.

‘Superglue, we think,’ Doone said, ‘would make a strong enough bond.’

‘A lot of plastic adhesives would,’ Sam said, nodding.

‘And how do you happen to have chunks of marble lying about?’ Doone asked, though not forbiddingly.

‘It came with a job-lot of stuff I bought from a demolition firm,’ Sam explained without stress. ‘They had some panelling I wanted for a boat I did up, and some antique bathroom fittings. I had to take a lot of oddments as well, like the marble. It came from a mansion they were pulling down. They sell off things, you know. Fireplaces, doors, anything.’

Doone asked conversationally, ‘Did you stick the marble on to the floorboards, sir?’

‘No, I sodding well did not,’ Sam said explosively.

‘Onto the underside of the floorboards,’ I said. ‘There were no slabs of marble in sight when Harry and I went into the upstairs room of the boathouse. I expect, if there are some other blocks still in place, that you can see them from underneath, in the dock.’

Doone with slight reluctance admitted that there seemed to be marble stuck to the underside of one more floorboard on each side of the hole.

The plank on the table was about eight inches across. Harry had taken three of them down with him; five altogether had been doctored. The trap with its missing section of beam had been three and a half feet across, and Harry, taking the envelope bait, had gone through its centre.

‘Have you finished snooping round my place now?’ Sam demanded, and Doone shook his head.

‘I want to work on my boat,’ Sam objected.

‘Go ahead, sir. Never mind my men, if they’re there.’

‘Right.’ Sam stood up with bouncing energy, quite unlike a patient suddenly stricken with flu. ‘Bye, Tremayne. Bye, Mackie. See you, John.’

He went out to his car carrying his jazzy jacket and tooted as he drove away. The kitchen seemed a lot less alive without him.

‘I’d like to talk to Mr Kendall alone,’ Doone said placidly.

Tremayne’s eyebrows rose but he made no objection. He suggested I took Doone into the dining-room while he told Mackie about Roydale’s gallop, and Doone followed me docilely, bringing the plank.

The formality of the dining-room furnishings seemed at first to change his mood from ease to starch, but it appeared to me after a short while that he was troubled rather by indecision as to which side I was now on, them or us.

He seemed to settle finally for us, us being the police, or at least the fact-seekers and, clearing his throat, he told me that his men with grappling irons and magnets had missed finding the floorboards the first time, probably because the floorboards weren’t magnetic. Did I, he wanted to know, think the trap-setter had taken magnetism into account.

I frowned. ‘Stretching it a bit,’ I said. ‘I should think he looked around for something heavy that would take glue, and with all that junk lying around there was bound to be something. The marble happened to be perfect. But the whole thing was so thoroughly thought out, you really can’t tell.’

‘Do you know who did it?’ he asked forthrightly.

‘No,’ I said truthfully.

‘You must have opinions.’ He shifted on his chair, looking around him. ‘I’d like to hear them.’

‘They’re negative more than positive.’

‘Often just as valuable.’

‘I’d assume the trap-setter had been a guest at Sam Yaeger’s boatyard party,’ I said, ‘only you warned me never to assume.’

‘Assume it,’ he said, almost smiling and in some inner way contented.

‘And,’ I went on, ‘I’d assume it was the person who killed Angela Brickell who wanted to fix the blame for ever on Harry by making him disappear, only...’

‘Assume it,’ he said.

‘Anyone could have killed Angela Brickell, but only a hundred and fifty or so people went to Sam’s party, and half of those were women.’

‘Don’t you think a woman could have set that trap?’ he asked neutrally.

‘Sure, a woman could have thought it out and done the carpentering. But what woman could have lured Angela Brickell and persuaded her to take all her clothes off in the middle of a wood?’

He sucked his teeth.

‘All right,’ he said, ‘I agree, a man killed her.’ He paused, ‘Motive?’

‘I’d guess... to keep a secret. I mean, suppose she was pregnant. Suppose she went out into the woods with... him, and they were going to make love... or they’d done it... and she said “I’m pregnant, you’re the father, what are you going to do about it?” She was full of jumbled religious guilts but it was she who was the seducer...’ I paused. ‘I’d think perhaps she was killed because she wanted too much... and because she wouldn’t have an abortion.’

He made a sound very like a purr in his throat.

‘All right,’ he said again. ‘Method: strangulation. Guaranteed to work, as everyone around here knew, after the death of that other girl, Olympia.’

‘Yes.’

‘Opportunity?’ he said.

‘No one can remember what they were doing the day Angela Brickell disappeared.’

‘Except the murderer,’ he observed. ‘What about opportunity on the day Mr Goodhaven fell through the floor?’

‘Someone was there to drive his car away... no fingerprints, I suppose?’

‘Gloves,’ he said succinctly. ‘Too few of Mr Goodhaven’s prints are still there. No palm print on the gear lever, for instance. I don’t know if we’d have worried about that if we’d thought he’d done a bunk. It was a cold day, after all. He might have worn gloves himself.’

‘You might have guessed at collusion,’ I suggested.

‘Did you ever consider police work?’

‘Not good at that sort of discipline.’

‘You don’t like taking orders, sir?’

‘I prefer giving them to myself.’

He smiled without criticism. ‘You’d be no good in uniform.’

‘None at all.’

He was entitled, I supposed, to his small exploratory excursion around my character; and if he himself, I thought, had been wholly fulfilled by uniform, he would still be in it.

Perkin in his overalls appeared in the open doorway, hovering.

‘Is Mackie over here?’ he said. ‘I can’t find her.’

‘In the kitchen with Tremayne,’ I said.

‘Thanks.’ He swept a gaze over Doone and the plank and said with irony, ‘Sorting it out, then?’

Doone said a shade heavily, ‘Mr Kendall’s always helpful,’ and Perkin made a face and went off to join Mackie.

‘About Harry’s car,’ I said to Doone. ‘There must have been just a small problem of logistics. I mean, perhaps our man parked his own car in Reading station car park, then took a train to Maidenhead station and a bus from there to near the river, and went on foot from there to the boatyard... wouldn’t that make sense?’

‘It would, but so far we haven’t found anyone who noticed anything useful.’

‘Car park ticket?’

‘There wasn’t one in the car. We don’t know when the car arrived in the car park. It could have been parked somewhere else on Wednesday and repositioned when our man discovered Mr Goodhaven was still alive.’

‘Mm. It would mean that our man had a lot of time available for manoeuvring.’

‘Racing people do have flexible hours,’ he observed, ‘and they mostly have free afternoons.’

‘I don’t suppose there’s a hope that my jacket and boots were still in the car?’ I asked.

‘No sign of them. Sorry. They’ll be in a dump somewhere, shouldn’t wonder.’ He was looking round the room again, and this time revealed his purpose. ‘About those guide books of yours, I’d like to see them.’

They were in the family room. I went to fetch them and returned with only three I’d found, Jungle, Safari and Ice. The others, I explained, could be anywhere, as everyone had been reading them.

He opened Jungle and quickly flipped through the opening chapters, which were straightforward advice for well-equipped jungle holidays: ‘Never put a bare foot on the earth. Shower in slip-ons. Sleep with your shoes inside your mosquito netting. Never drink untreated water... never brush your teeth with it... don’t wash fruit or vegetables in it, avoid suspect ice-cubes.’

‘ “Never get exhausted”!’ Doone said aloud. ‘What sort of advice is that?’

‘Exhausted people can’t be bothered to stick to life-saving routines. If you don’t drive yourself too hard you’re more likely to survive. For instance, if you’ve a long way to go, it’s better to get there slowly than not at all.’

‘That’s weak advice,’ he said, shaking his head.

I didn’t argue, but many died from exhaustion every year through not understanding the strengths of weakness. It was better to stop every day’s travel early so as to have good energy for raising a tent, digging an igloo, building a platform up a tree. Dropping down exhausted without shelter could bring new meaning to the expression ‘dead tired’.

‘ “Food,” ’ Doone read out.’ “Fishing, hunting, trapping.” ’ He flicked the pages. ‘ “In the jungle, hang fishhooks to catch birds. Don’t forget bait. You always need bait.” ’ He looked up. ‘That envelope was bait, wasn’t it?’

I nodded. ‘Good bait.’

‘We haven’t found it. That water’s like liquid mud. You can’t see an inch through it, my men say.’

‘They’re right.’

He stared for a second. ‘Oh, yes. I’d forgotten you’d been in it.’ He went back to the book. ‘ “It’s possible to bring down game with a spear or a bow and arrow, but these take considerable practice and involve hours spent lying in wait. Let a trap do the waiting...” ’ He read on. ‘ “The classic trap for large animals is a pit with sharpened staves pointing upwards. Cover the pit with natural-looking vegetation and earth, and suspend the bait over the top.” ’ He looked up. ‘Very graphic illustrations and instructions.’

‘Afraid so.’

Eyes down again to the book, he went on “All sharpened staves for use in traps (and also spears and arrows) can be hardened to increase their powers of penetration by being charred lightly in hot embers, a process which tightens and toughens the wood fibres.” ’ Doone stopped reading and remarked, ‘You don’t say anything about sharpening old bicycle frames and railings.’

‘There aren’t many bicycle frames in the jungle. Er... were they sharpened?’

He sighed. ‘Not artificially.’ He read on. ‘ “If digging or scraping out a pit is impracticable because of hard or waterlogged ground, try netting. Arrange a net to entangle game when it springs the trap. To make a strong net you can use tough plant fibres...” ’ He silently read several pages, occasionally shaking his head, not, I gathered, in disagreement with the text, but in sorrow at its availability.

‘ “How to skin a snake,” ’ he read. ‘Dear God.’

‘Roast rattlesnake tastes like chicken,’ I said.

‘You’ve eaten it?’

I nodded. ‘Not at all bad.’

‘ “First aid. How to stop heavy bleeding. Pressure points... To close gaping wounds, use needle and thread. To help blood clot, apply cobwebs to the wound.” Cobwebs! I don’t believe it.’

‘They’re organic,’ I said, ‘and as sterile as most bandages.’

‘Not for me, thanks.’ He put down Jungle and flipped through Safari and Ice. Many of the same suggestions for traps appeared in all the books, modified only by terrain.

‘ “Don’t eat polar bear liver,” ’ Doone read in amazement “it stores enough vitamin A to kill humans.” ’ He smiled briefly. ‘That would make a dandy new method for murder.’

First catch your polar bear...

‘Well, sir,’ Doone said, laying the books aside, ‘we can trace the path of ideas about the trap, but who do you think put them into practice?’

I shook my head.

‘If I throw names at you,’ he said, ‘give your reasons for or against.’

‘All right,’ I said, cautiously.

‘Mr Vickers.’

‘Tremayne?’ I must have sounded astonished. ‘All against.’

‘Why, exactly?’

‘Well, he’s not like that.’

‘As I told you before, I don’t know these people the way you do. So give me reasons.’

I said, thinking, ‘Tremayne Vickers is forceful, a bit old-fashioned, straightforward, often kind. Angela Brickell would not have been to his taste. If, and to my mind it’s a colossal if, if she managed to seduce him and then told him he was the father-to-be, and if he believed it, it would have been more his style to pack her off home to her parents and provide for her. He doesn’t shirk responsibility. Also, I can’t imagine him taking any woman out into deep woods for sex. Impossible. As for trying to kill Harry...’ Words failed me.

‘All right,’ Doone said. He brought out a notebook and methodically wrote ‘KENDALL’S ASSESSMENTS’ at the top of the page. Underneath he wrote ‘TREMAYNE VICKERS’, followed by a cross, and under Tremayne, ‘NOLAN EVERARD’.

‘Nolan Everard,’ he said.

Not so easy. ‘Nolan is brave. He’s dynamic and determined... and violent.’

‘And he threatened to kill you,’ Doone said flatly.

‘Who told you that?’

‘Half the racing world heard him.’

Sighing, I explained about my riding.

‘And when he attacked you, you picked him up like a baby in front of all those people,’ Doone said. ‘A man might not forgive that.’

‘We’re talking about Angela Brickell and Harry,’ I pointed out mildly.

‘Talk about Nolan Everard then. For, first.’

‘For... Well, he killed Olympia, not really meaning to, but definitely by putting her life at risk. He couldn’t afford another scandal while waiting for trial. If Angela Brickell had seduced him — or the other way round — and she threatened a messy paternity suit... I don’t know. That’s again a big if, but not as impossible as Tremayne. Nolan and Sam Yaeger often bed the same girl, more or less to spite each other, it seems. Nolan regularly rides the horse, Chickweed, that Angela Brickell had care of, and there would have been opportunities for sex at race meetings, like in a horse-box, if he wanted to take the risk. He could sue me for slander over this.’

‘He won’t hear of it,’ Doone said positively. ‘This conversation is just between you and me. I’ll deny I ever discussed the case with you if anyone asks.’

‘Fair enough.’ I thought a bit. ‘As for the trap for Harry, Nolan would be mentally and physically capable.’

‘But? I hear your but.’

I nodded. ‘Against. He’s Fiona’s cousin, and they’re close. He depends on Fiona’s horses to clinch his amateur-champion status. He couldn’t be sure she would have the heart to go on running racehorses if she were forced to believe Harry a murderer... if she thought he had left her without warning, without a note, if she were worried sick by not knowing where he’d gone, and was also haunted by the thought of Harry with Angela Brickell.’

‘Would Everard have stopped to consider all that?’ he mused doubtfully.

‘The trap was well thought out.’

Doone wrote a question mark after Nolan’s name.

‘Doesn’t anyone have a solid alibi for Wednesday afternoon?’ I asked. ‘That’s the one definite time our man has to explain away.’

‘And don’t think we don’t know it,’ Doone nodded. ‘Not many of the men connected with this place can account for every hour of that afternoon, though the women can. We’ve been very busy this morning, making enquiries. Mrs Goodhaven went to a committee meeting, then home in time to be there when you telephoned. Mrs Perkin Vickers was at Ascot races, vouched for by saddling a horse in the three-mile chase. Mr Vickers’ secretary Dee-Dee made several telephone calls from the office here and Mrs Ingrid Watson went shopping in Oxford with her mother and can produce receipts.’

‘Ingrid?’

‘She can’t vouch for what her husband did.’

He wrote ‘BOB WATSON’ under Nolan.

‘For him being our man,’ I said dubiously, ‘is, I suppose, Ingrid herself. She wouldn’t put up with shenanigans with Angela Brickell. But whether Bob would kill to stay married to Ingrid...’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t know. He’s a good head lad, Tremayne trusts him, but I wouldn’t stake my life on his loyalty. Also he’s an extremely competent carpenter, as you saw yourself. He was serving drinks at the party when Olympia died. He went to the boatyard party as a guest.’

‘Against?’

I hesitated. ‘Killing Angela Brickell might have been a moment’s panic. Setting the trap for Harry took cunning and nerve. I don’t know Bob Watson well enough for a real opinion. I don’t know him like the others.’

Doone nodded and put a question mark after his name also.

‘GARETH VICKERS’ he wrote.

I smiled. ‘It can’t be him.’

‘Why not?’ Doone asked.

‘Angela Brickell’s sexuality frightened him. He would never have gone into the woods with her. Apart from that, he hasn’t a driving licence, and he was at school on Wednesday afternoon.’

‘Actually,’ Doone said calmly, ‘he is known to be able to drive his father’s jeep on the Downs expertly, and my men have discovered he was out of school last Wednesday afternoon on a field trip to Windsor Safari Park. That’s not miles from the boatyard. The teacher in charge is flustered over the number of boys who sloped off to buy food.’

I considered Gareth as a murderer. I said, ‘You asked me for my knowledge of these people. Gareth couldn’t possibly be our man.’

‘Why are you so sure?’

‘I just am.’

He wrote a cross against Gareth’s name, and then as an afterthought, a question mark also.

I shook my head. Under Gareth’s name he wrote ‘PERKIN VICKERS’.

‘What about him?’ he asked.

‘Perkin...’ I sighed. ‘He lives in another world half the time. He works hard. For, I suppose, is that he makes furniture, he’s good with wood. I don’t know that it’s for or against that he dotes on his wife. He’s very possessive of her. He’s a bit childlike in some ways. She loves him and looks after him. Against... he doesn’t have much to do with the horses. Seldom goes racing. He didn’t remember who Angela Brickell was, the first morning you were here.’

Doone pursed his lips judiciously, then nodded and wrote a cross against Perkin, and then again a question mark.

‘Keeping your options open?’ I asked dryly.

‘You never know what we don’t know,’ he said.

‘Deep.’

‘It might be reasonable to assume that Mr Goodhaven didn’t set the trap himself, to persuade me of his innocence,’ he said, writing ‘HENRY GOODHAVEN’ on the list.

‘A hundred per cent,’ I agreed.

‘However, he took you along as a witness.’ He paused. ‘Suppose he planned it and it all went wrong? Suppose he needed you there to assert he’d walked into a trap?’

‘Impossible.’

He put a question mark against Harry, all the same.

‘Who drove his car away?’ I said, a shade aggressively.

‘A casual thief.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘You like him,’ Doone said. ‘You’re unreliable.’

‘That page is headed “KENDALL’S ASSESSMENTS”,’ I protested. ‘My assessment of Harry merits a firm cross.’

He looked at what he’d written, shrugged and changed the question mark to a negative. Then he made a question mark away to the right on the same line. ‘My assessments,’ he said.

I smiled a little ruefully and said reflectively, ‘Have you worked out when the trap was set? Raising the floorboards, finding the marble and sticking it on, cutting out the bit of beam — and I bet that went floating down the river — remembering to lock the lower door... It would all have taken a fair time.’

‘When would you say it was done, then?’ he asked, giving nothing away.

‘Any time Tuesday, or Wednesday morning, I suppose.’

‘Why, exactly?’

‘Anti-Harry fever was publicly at its height on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, but by the Sunday before, at least, you’d begun to spread your investigation outwards... which must horribly have alarmed our man. Sam Yaeger spent Monday at the boatyard because he’d been medically stood down from racing as a result of a fall, but by Tuesday he was racing again; on Wednesday he rode at Ascot, so the boathouse was vulnerable all day Tuesday and again Wednesday morning.’

Doone looked at me from under his eyelids.

‘You’re forgetting something,’ he said, and added ‘SAM YAEGER’ to his list.