Silks

CHAPTER 6

Mr and Mrs Barlow hovered around us as Bruce and I made an inspection of the rest of their son’s house. Everywhere we went they followed and watched. Everything I picked up to look at they took back from me and replaced exactly as it had been.

The police forensic team had previously moved through the house covering every shiny surface with a fine silvery powder, fingerprint powder, hoping, no doubt, to display some of Steve Mitchell’s dabs. In due course, at pre-trial disclosure, we would find out how successful they had been.

According to the television reports Scot, or Hamish, had been found lying on his kitchen floor in a pool of blood with the pitchfork stuck in his chest. If there actually had been a pool of blood, someone must have since cleaned it up. However, the floor and the cupboard doors were covered with numerous little yellow labels with numbers written on them, which, I knew from experience, were to show positions where blood spots had been discovered. Unlike on some old American TV murder stories, there was no convenient white outline drawn on the floor to show the position where the body had been found.

Lying face down on the kitchen table was a broken photo frame, its glass badly cracked but still held in place by the silver surround. But there was no photograph in the frame and the back of it was hanging off. As with everything else, it was covered with the slimy fingerprint powder.

‘I wonder what was in here,’ I said to Bruce, holding up the frame to show him.

‘It was a picture of our Millie,’ said Mrs Barlow from the doorway.

‘Do you have it?’ I asked her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘He must have taken it.’

The emphasis she placed on the word ‘he’ left me in no doubt that she meant Steve Mitchell. But why would he take it? I wondered if the police had found the photograph at Mitchell’s house, but, surely, even the most stupid of murderers wouldn’t take such a clue home with them from the scene of the crime, although I knew some did, like keeping a souvenir, or a trophy.

‘Was it a portrait picture?’ I asked her.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It was taken when she was at work in the equine hospital. It showed her with a horse. It used to be hers but Hamish had it when…’ She couldn’t finish. Tears began to well up in her eyes.

‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Barlow,’ I said. I knew only too well the despair that grief can engender.

‘Thank you,’ she said, dabbing her face with a white handkerchief that she had deftly removed from the sleeve of her dress. I imagined that she must have shed many a tear over her dead children.

‘But it must have been a fairly significant photograph to have been in a silver frame,’ I said. ‘Do you remember which horse Millie was with?’ I looked at Mrs Barlow.

‘I’m afraid I don’t,’ she said. ‘We lost touch with them both really, when they moved to England.’ She made it sound like England was half-way round the world from Glasgow. ‘But I recall seeing the picture in her room after she died. Hamish said he wanted it. To remember her by.’

‘Where did she live?’ I asked.

‘What? When she wasn’t living with that man?’ she said with unexpected anger. She quickly composed herself. ‘She had a flat at the equine hospital. She shared it with another vet.’

‘Do you know who?’

‘I’m sorry, I can’t remember her name,’ she replied.

‘But you are sure it was a female vet?’

‘Oh, I think so,’ she said. ‘At least I always thought it was a woman. She wouldn’t have shared a flat with a man. Not my Millie.’ But her Millie had shared a bed with Steve Mitchell.

DC Hillier had listened to most of the exchanges between the Barlows and me but he seemed unconcerned and disinterested. He had been too busy looking at his watch.

‘Have you seen all you want?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got to go now and I need to lock up.’

Bruce held the Barlows at bay in the hallway while I had a quick peep at the bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs. There was nothing unusual or unexpected. There were no giveaway signs of a permanent female presence, like tampons in the medicine cabinet or a lady’s smalls in the airing cupboard. Overall there was not much to see. Hamish Barlow had been a tidy man with a wardrobe of smart designer clothes and two cupboards on his landing full of racing-related memorabilia like piles of race cards, bundled copies of the Racing Post and numerous horse-related magazines and books. But there were no skeletons with them for me to find. And no other photo frames, with or without photos. Nothing at all that seemed to me to be in any way abnormal.

The policeman ushered us all out of the house, and then he padlocked the clasp on the front door and invited us all to leave the premises. I would have liked to have had a little longer to look around the garden and the garage. Maybe next time. Oh God, I thought. Next time.

A cold sweat broke out briefly on my forehead and I felt foolish in spinning through 360 degrees just to ensure that Julian Trent was not creeping up behind me. He wasn’t. Of course, he wasn’t. Calm down, I told myself, and my heartbeat slowly returned to normal.

‘Do you have a telephone number where my solicitor could contact you?’ I asked the Barlows as they were getting into their car.

Mr Barlow, who had been mostly quiet after his earlier outburst, suddenly turned to me and said, ‘Why would he want to contact us?’

‘In case he has any more questions for you,’ I said.

‘I don’t want to answer any more of your questions,’ he said.

‘Look,’ I said. ‘I know you don’t want to help me, but I am as interested as you are in finding out who killed your son.’

‘Mitchell killed him,’ said Mr Barlow emphatically.

‘How can you be so sure?’ I asked him.

‘Because Hamish used to say that, one day, Mitchell would kill him as sure as he killed his sister. And now he has. I hope he rots in hell.’

There wasn’t much answer to that. I stood and watched them drive away. There were other ways of finding their telephone number if I needed it.

‘Mr Barlow seems a bit too keen on hell and damnation, if you ask me,’ said Bruce as he reversed his car back onto the road.

‘He’s a good Scottish Presbyterian, I expect,’ I said.

‘Bit too dour for my liking,’ said Bruce. ‘And I wouldn’t want to cross him in a dark alley.’

‘He’s all talk,’ I said. ‘He’s far too God fearing to actually break the law. That’s God’s law, of course. Ten Commandments and all that. All Presbyterians love their Bible.’

‘Not really my scene,’ said Bruce.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Nor mine either.’ Except that English law owed much to the principles of the Ten Commandments, especially that one about bearing false witness against one’s neighbour. Who, I wondered, was bearing false witness against Steve Mitchell?

Bruce dropped me back at the Swan Inn to collect my rental car, before making his apologies and rushing off for a meeting with another client. Meanwhile I decided, as I was almost there, to go and revive some memories by driving around Lambourn, and also to take the opportunity to see Steve Mitchell’s place, at least from the outside.

It had been nearly fifteen years since I had lived in Lambourn and I had only been back there a couple of times in the interim, but nothing much had changed, except that there were now many more houses on the outskirts of the village and some of the shops had different names. The place felt the same. Just being here rekindled that feeling of excitement that had gripped me as a twenty-one-year-old starting an adventure, chasing a dream.

I stopped the car on the road opposite the end of the driveway belonging to the trainer for whom I had worked as an unpaid assistant all those years ago. Nicholas Osbourne still trained at the same establishment and I was tempted to drive up to his yard but, in truth, and for reasons I couldn’t really understand, our relationship had not been great since my departure. It was why, one day, I had suddenly transferred my horses from him to Paul Newington, and that hadn’t helped Nick’s feelings either. So I now moved on and went in search of Steve Mitchell’s house.

He lived in a modern red-brick detached monstrosity on the edge of the village set back from the Wantage Road. Behind the house was a small stable yard of half a dozen boxes with a small feed store and tack room. It wasn’t yet big enough to be a full commercial racehorse training concern but there was plenty of room for expansion on the grassy field behind. I imagined that Steve had built the place himself with a view to turning to training after retiring from the saddle.

Everywhere was quiet and deserted so I wandered around the empty yard and looked into the six stable boxes. Two of them showed evidence of recent equine habitation with brown peat horse bedding still down on the concrete floor and water in the troughs in the corners. Two of the others had an assortment of contents ranging from some wooden garden furniture put away for the winter and an old push-along mower in one, to an old disconnected central-heating boiler and a stack of large cardboard boxes in the other, the latter obviously still unpacked from some past house move.

The last two stables in the line were empty, as was the tack room, save for a couple of horse rugs bundled in a corner. The feed store contained a small stack of hay and several bags of horse nuts, together with four bales of the brown horse bedding, one of them broken open and half used. Leaning up against the far end wall of the store were two long-handled, double-pronged pitchforks, identical, I imagined, to the one found embedded in Scot Barlow’s chest on Monday afternoon.

The house was not so conveniently open as the stable block so I walked round the outside, looking in turn into each of the plentiful ground-floor windows. The daylight was beginning to fade fast before I had made my way completely round the house and I might have missed something, but there was absolutely nothing I could see to help me either way. So dark had it become by the time I had finished that several of the security lights were switched on by their movement sensors as I made my way back to the Hertz Mondeo and drove away.

I looked at the car clock. It told me that it was almost five o’clock. Five o’clock on a Friday afternoon. The start of the weekend. Funny, I thought, I hadn’t liked weekends much since Angela had died. Occasionally I went racing and, more occasionally, I actually rode in a race, but overall I found the break from chambers life rather lonely.

I drove back into the centre of Lambourn, to the equine hospital on Upper Lambourn Road, and explained to the receptionist through a sliding glass panel that I was looking for someone who had shared a room with Millie Barlow before last June.

‘Sorry,’ she said in a high-pitched squeak, ‘I’m new here. You’ll have to ask one of the vets.’

‘OK,’ I said looking round the bare vestibule. ‘Where are they?’

‘We’ve got a bit of an emergency at the moment,’ she went on in her squeak. ‘They’re all in the operating theatre.’

‘How long are they going to be?’ I asked.

‘Oh, I don’t really know,’ she squeaked. ‘They have been in there for quite some time already. But you’re welcome to wait.’ I looked about me again, there were no chairs. ‘Oh,’ she said again with realization. ‘You can wait in the waiting room if you like. Through there.’ She pointed at a wooden door opposite.

‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Please will you let the vets know that I am here.’

‘Yes, OK,’ she said. ‘As soon as I can.’

I didn’t have much confidence that she would remember.

I went through the door into the waiting room. It reminded me of going to the dentist. Adozen pink upholstered armchairs with pale wooden legs and arms were arranged around the walls with a few occasional tables between some of them. There was another door at the far end with a half-full wire magazine rack standing beside it, and the hard floor was covered with a thin blue carpet. It was functional rather than comfortable.

A man sat on one of the chairs on the right-hand side and he looked up as I entered. We nodded at each other in informal greeting and he went back to reading some of the papers he had spread out around him. I sat down opposite him and glanced through a copy of Country Life that someone had left on a chair.

Ten minutes or so passed. I went back out to the receptionist, who assured me that the vets were still operating but shouldn’t be much longer. I was sure she actually had no notion how long they would be but, nevertheless, I went back into the waiting room and sat down.

I had looked at all the estate agents’ adverts in the Country Life and was beginning to read the book reviews when someone came through the far door. It was a woman wearing green scrub tunic and trousers with short green wellington boots. Avet, I surmised, fresh from the operating theatre. But it wasn’t me she was after. The other man stood up as she entered.

‘How’s it going?’ he said eagerly.

‘Fine,’ she replied. ‘I think we have managed to save most of the muscle mass in the shoulder. It shouldn’t greatly impair him after proper healing.’

The man let out a sigh of relief. ‘Mr Radcliffe will be relieved to hear it.’ He didn’t sound to me like he was the only one.

‘I have to get back in there now,’ said the vet. ‘To finish off. We will keep him here overnight and see how he’s doing in the morning.’

‘Fine,’ said the man. ‘Thank you. I’ll call you around nine.’

‘OK,’ she said. The man knelt down and began to collect together some of the papers he had been working on. The vet turned to me and raised her eyebrows as a question. ‘Are you being looked after?’ she said.

‘No, not really,’ I said. ‘I was hoping to talk to someone who knew one of the vets that used to work here.’

‘Which vet?’ she asked.

‘Millie Barlow,’ I said.

The reaction from the man was dramatic. ‘Right little bitch,’ he said almost under his breath, but quite audibly in the quiet of the waiting room.

‘I beg your pardon?’ I said to him.

‘I said that she was a right little bitch,’ he repeated standing up and looking at me. ‘And she was.’

‘Look, I’m sorry,’ the vet said to me. ‘I have to go and close up the wound on the horse we have been operating on. If you’d like to wait, I’ll talk to you when I’m finished.’

‘I’ll wait,’ I said, and she disappeared through the door.

The man had almost collected his stuff.

‘Why was she a right little bitch?’ I asked him.

‘Who wants to know?’ he said.

‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m Geoffrey Mason, I’m a barrister.’

‘I know you,’ he said. ‘You have horses with Paul Newington.’

‘I do indeed,’ I said. ‘But you now have the advantage over me.’ I looked at him quizzically.

‘Simon Dacey,’ he said holding out his hand.

Ah, I thought, no wonder he thinks Millie Barlow was a little bitch, she had ruined his party by killing herself in one of his bedrooms.

‘Do you have a problem?’ I asked him, nodding towards the door through which the vet had disappeared.

‘One of my yearlings got loose,’ he said. ‘Gashed himself on a parked car. Always happens to one of the good ones.’

‘Will he be all right?’ I asked.

‘I sincerely hope so,’ he said. ‘He cost almost half a million at the sales last month.’

‘But he must be insured,’ I said.

‘Just for transport home and thirty days,’ he said. ‘Can you believe it? That ran out last Monday.’

‘But surely,’ I said, ‘aren’t all racehorses insured?’ I knew mine was.

‘Mr Radcliffe, that’s the owner, he says that the premiums are too high. He has about a dozen with me and he says he would rather spend the money he saves on another horse. He maintains that’s the best insurance.’

I knew that my insurance premium on Sandeman was quite high, more than a tenth of his value. But that was relatively small as he’d been gelded and there were no stud prospects. For a potential stallion with a good bloodline the premium would be enormous. But, even so, it was quite a risk.

‘Doesn’t he insure any of them?’ I asked.

‘Not normally, but I know he insured Peninsula against being infertile or being injured so he couldn’t perform at stud.’

Oh, I thought, Mr Radcliffe owned Peninsula. He wouldn’t be short of a bob or two.

‘So tell me why Millie Barlow was a right little bitch,’ I said, bringing the subject back to what really interested me.

‘She ruined my party,’ he said.

‘That’s a bit ungracious,’ I said. ‘The poor girl was so troubled that she killed herself. She probably didn’t ruin your party on purpose.’

‘But she did ruin it, nevertheless,’ he said. ‘Why didn’t she go and do it somewhere else? That party for winning the Derby was the best day of my life until she spoiled it. How would you like it? Some of my guests were royalty. What chance do you think I have of them coming again? I’ll tell you. None. The damn police even ended up questioning a Crown Prince about his visa. I ask you.’

I could see his point of view.

‘Do you know why she killed herself?’ I asked him.

‘No idea,’ he said. ‘I hardly knew her.’

‘Did you know she was having an affair with Steve Mitchell?’ I asked.

‘God, yes,’ he said. ‘Everybody knew that. Worst kept secret in Lambourn. Look, I really have to go now. Evening stables are already well under way.’

‘OK,’ I said. ‘Thanks. Can I call you again if I need any more answers?’

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘I’m representing Steve Mitchell,’ I said, handing him one of my cards.

‘Oh, are you?’ He smiled, looking at it. ‘Seems you may have your work cut out there.’

‘Why does everyone think he did it?’ I asked him.

‘Because everyone in Lambourn would have heard them arguing at one time or another. They have been heard standing in the street shouting at each other. And word is that either of them would have thought nothing of putting the other through the wings.’ Putting someone through the wings of a fence by squeezing them for room was one of the worst crimes one jump jockey could do to another. Even though the wings were nowadays made of bendable plastic, it was still one of the most dangerous of falls, and one of the most likely to cause serious injury.

‘And no one much cares for either of them,’ he went on. ‘Barlow was slightly weird, and Steve Mitchell is arrogant.’

‘But do you really think he’s a murderer?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I have to say I was surprised when I heard he’d been arrested. But people do funny things when they’re angry. They lose control.’

How right he was. I’d once helped prosecute a psychopath who’s family had sworn that he wouldn’t normally have even said boo to a goose, but in a rage he had literally torn his wife limb from limb, with nothing more than his bare hands and a potato peeler.

‘So can I call you if I need to ask you anything else?’ I asked.

‘I suppose so,’ he said. ‘But I can’t think I would know anything that everybody else wouldn’t know. I didn’t have much to do with either of them. I don’t have jumpers in my yard.’

‘Sometimes even the smallest thing is important in a defence,’ I replied.

‘Do you really think he’s innocent?’ he asked me.

‘That’s not relevant,’ I said. ‘My job is to cast doubt on the prosecution’s case. I don’t have to prove his innocence, just create a reasonable doubt in the jury’s mind about his guilt.’

‘But surely,’ he said, ‘if you believe he’s guilty then you’re not doing the public any service by getting him off.’

‘It is the prosecution’s job to ensure that the jury have no reasonable doubt, not mine.’

He shook his head. ‘It’s a funny old system,’ he said.

‘I agree,’ I said. ‘But it has worked pretty well for hundreds of years.’

The jury system had its origins in Roman times, when huge juries would vote on the guilt or innocence of the accused. The right to be judged by a jury of one’s peers was established under law in England as far back as the thirteenth century, although there were semblances of it even before then. Under English law there is a right to trial by jury for all but very minor offences, as there is enshrined in the United States Constitution. But that is not the case around the world, not even across Europe. There is no such thing as a jury trial in modern Germany, for example, where a judge or panel of judges decide alone on guilt or innocence.

‘I really must go,’ said Simon Dacey, collecting the last of his things.

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Nice to have met you. Good luck with the yearling.’

‘Thanks.’

We didn’t shake hands because his were full of papers, so we nodded again as we had done when I had arrived and he departed, me holding the door open for him on his way out.

I sat down again on a red armchair. The clock on the wall read 6.15.

What was I doing? I asked myself. I had now told far too many people that I was the barrister acting for the defence in Steve Mitchell’s case, but I knew that I shouldn’t act. I couldn’t act. I was a potential witness in the case, but only I was aware of that. No one, apart from Scot Barlow and I, knew of our little exchange at Sandown. Or did they? Had Barlow told someone that he had been seen by a ‘bloody amateur’ in the showers? I doubted it. So what should I do?

All my training told me to go and make the incident known to the police, or at least to the prosecution. All my instincts as a barrister were to walk away from this case and never look back for fear of being turned to a pillar of salt like Lot’s wife. Maybe I should just let justice take its course and have nothing to do with it.

But what was justice? I had been emphatically told by someone to take the case and then to lose it. Was that justice? If I walked away would someone else be frightened into ensuring that Steve Mitchell was convicted? Did the very fact that someone was so keen to see him sent down for the murder prove that he didn’t do it? Then where would justice be if I walked away? But even if I could successfully defend him, where would that then leave me? ‘Next time, I’ll smash your head,’ Trent had said. ‘Next time, I’ll cut your balls right off.’ If I walked away and Mitchell was convicted with someone else in the defence chair, would Trent and whoever was behind him still come after me? And that prospect brought a cold sweat to my brow and a tremor to my fingers.

‘Angela, my darling,’ I said quietly into the empty waiting room. ‘Tell me what to do?’

She didn’t reply. Once again, I longed for her presence and her wisdom. She had always instinctively known what was right. We had discussed everything, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. She had trained as a psychologist and even the most mundane of family conversations between us could turn readily into a deeper analysis of meaning. I remember one year casually asking her whether we would be going to my father’s house or staying with her parents for Christmas. Several hours later we had delved into the inner feelings we each had for our parents, and more particularly our feelings for our parents-in-law. In the end we had remained at home for the festivities, and we had laughed about it. How I now missed laughing with her.

Without warning my eyes began to fill with tears. I couldn’t help it.

The lady vet in the green scrubs chose this moment to reappear. I quickly wiped my eyes on my sleeve and hoped she hadn’t noticed.

‘Now how can I help you?’ she asked wearily.

‘Busy day?’ It was more of a statement than a question.

‘You bet,’ she said, smiling. ‘But I think we saved Mr Radcliffe his money.’

‘Bad?’ I said.

‘Not life threatening,’ she said. ‘But it could have stopped him racing if we hadn’t been careful. We had to rejoin some tendons and sew back some muscle tissue. He’s young. He should heal as good as new. Stupid horse gashed its shoulder on a car wing mirror after breaking free.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Simon Dacey told me.’

She raised her eyebrows in slight surprise.

‘And who are you exactly?’ she asked.

‘Geoffrey Mason,’ I said, pulling out another card from my pocket and handing it over.

‘Not selling, are you?’ she asked, glancing briefly at the card.

‘No,’ I laughed. ‘I’m after some information.’

‘Why?’ she said. ‘What information?’

‘I’m a barrister and I’m representing Steve Mitchell.’ There I go again, I thought.

‘Arrogant little shit,’ she said, somewhat surprisingly.

‘Is he?’ I said. ‘Why?’

‘Thinks he’s God’s gift to women,’ she said. ‘Expects every female round here to drop their knickers on demand.’

‘And do they?’ I asked.

She looked at me and smiled. ‘Remind me never to be in the witness box when you’re asking the questions.’

‘I’ll try.’ I smiled back. ‘But at least tell me your name so I can be sure.’

‘Eleanor Clarke,’ she said, reaching out a hand, which I shook. ‘I thought you said you wanted to ask about Millie Barlow.’

‘I do,’ I said. ‘Did you know her?’

‘Certainly did,’ said Eleanor. ‘She lived in the house here with three others of us.’

‘House?’ I asked.

‘Yes, there’s a house out the back where some of the staff who work here live. I live there and Millie lived there until…,’ she tailed off and looked down.

‘Until she killed herself?’ I asked, finishing her sentence.

‘Yes,’ she said, looking back at my face. ‘That’s right, until she killed herself. But she didn’t sleep there every night.’

‘Because she was with Steve Mitchell?’ I said it as a question.

‘Yes,’ she replied rather hesitantly.

‘Was she sleeping with anyone else?’ I asked.

‘God, you’re sharp,’ she said. ‘But I’m afraid our Millie would sleep with anyone who asked nicely.’

‘Any man, you mean,’ I said.

‘No,’ she replied. ‘Millie wasn’t really that choosy. But she was a sweet girl. We all missed her after…’

‘Why do you think she did it?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Lots of people said afterwards that she had been depressed but I didn’t think so. She was always so happy. She always had a plan to get rich quick.’

‘Was she selling sex?’ I asked.

‘No,’ she said with some emphasis. ‘I don’t think so. I mean, perhaps I exaggerated a bit. She didn’t sleep with everyone. She had her favourites. And she would say no occasionally, especially to some of the married ones. She wasn’t all bad.’

‘But she was living with Steve Mitchell?’ I asked.

‘Not really,’ Eleanor said. ‘She lived in the house here but she did spend nights away with Mitchell, yes. Him more than any other, I’d say. But they were hardly living together.’ I wondered if Mrs Barlow would be pleased or not. I wondered how strict Millie’s upbringing had been. Maybe as soon as she was free of her father’s control she went a little mad, sampling life’s pleasures in excess.

‘How did she get the anaesthetic?’ I asked.

‘Well, we have it here, of course, but it’s funny.’ She paused.

‘What’s funny?’ I encouraged.

‘The toxicology report on Millie indicated that she had injected herself with thiopental.’

I looked at her quizzically. ‘Why is that funny?’ I asked.

‘We don’t use thiopental in the hospital. We use ketamine, usually mixed with either xylazine or detomidine.’ I raised a questioning eyebrow. ‘They’re sedatives,’ she explained, leaving me none the wiser. ‘Both types will cause unconsciousness, but thiopental is a barbiturate anaesthetic and ketamine is a hydrochloride salt.’

‘Isn’t it a bit odd that she used a different drug than you use at the hospital?’ I asked.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘a vet can get medicines from any drug supplier just by filling in a form. And anaesthetics are used by vets all the time.’

‘But it does mean she didn’t kill herself on the spur of the moment,’ I said. ‘Not if she had to order the stuff especially rather than just take some from here.’

‘She may have already had it,’ Eleanor said. ‘I have a few things in my bag that didn’t come from the hospital drug store. And barbiturate anaesthetics are used a lot. Thiopental is what’s used every day in most vets’ practices to put dogs and cats to sleep.’

‘Where does the hospital get its drugs?’ I asked her.

‘We have a specialist veterinary pharmacist in Reading,’ she said. ‘We have a delivery almost every day during the week.’

‘She must have ordered it separately from them,’ I said.

‘No,’ she replied quickly. ‘They had to check their records for the police and there was nothing.’

‘How odd,’ I said.

‘Even if she had wanted to, she would have had trouble using any of the hospital stuff anyway,’ said Eleanor. ‘We have a very tight system of control. Anything like anaesthetic has to be signed out of the hospital drug store by two vets. Look, I’ve got to go. We aren’t normally open after six and there’s someone waiting to lock up.’

‘How about the horse you operated on?’ I said.

‘He’s in the stables at the back now for the night. He has a monitor on him and CCTV to the duty vet’s room. Otherwise we’re closed, except, of course, for emergencies.’

‘But I would really like to ask you some more questions about Millie,’ I said imploringly.

‘Let me get changed first,’ she said. ‘I fancy a drink. Are you buying?’

‘How about supper?’ I said.

‘Don’t push your luck, Mr…’ She looked again at my card. ‘Geoffrey Mason.’

‘No. Sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I didn’t mean it like that.’

‘Oh, thanks,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Just when I thought I was being asked out on a date, he says he didn’t mean it.’ She laughed. ‘Story of my life.’

We went in separate cars to the Queen’s Arms in East Garston, a village a few miles away.

‘Let’s not go to a pub in Lambourn,’ Eleanor had said. ‘Too many listening ears and wagging tongues.’

I was there well ahead of her. I ordered myself a diet Coke and perched on a bar stool, thinking about what questions I needed to ask and wondering why I thought that Millie Barlow’s death could have anything to do with that of her brother.

I just didn’t like coincidences, although they could never be used as evidence on their own. After all, coincidences do happen. Like all the ones involving the assassinated presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy. Lincoln had a secretary called Kennedy, and Kennedy had a secretary called Lincoln, and both were succeeded by a Vice-President Johnson. But I still didn’t like them.

I did not immediately recognize Eleanor Clarke when she walked into the dimly lit bar. She had changed out of her functional green scrubs and rubber boots and was now wearing a white rib-pattern roll-neck sweater over blue jeans. However, the main reason I didn’t know her at first was because her blonde hair was no longer tied in a ponytail but hung down close to each side of her face. My first instinct was that the change of hairstyle was a mistake as it hid her beautiful arched cheekbones and somewhat reduced the sparkle from her stunning blue eyes.

I was suddenly quite shocked by these thoughts. I had hardly given a woman’s face a second glance since the day I had first met and fallen instantly in love with Angela, and I had certainly not thought of beautiful cheekbones or stunning blue eyes on anyone else.

‘There you are,’ said Eleanor, coming over and sitting on the bar stool next to mine.

‘What are you drinking?’ I asked her.

‘G and T, please.’

I ordered and we sat in silence as the barman poured the tonic over the gin.

‘Lovely,’ she said, taking a large gulp. ‘It’s been a long day.’

‘I’d better order you another,’ I said.

‘I’m driving,’ she said. ‘I’ll just have the one.’

‘You could stay for dinner,’ I said.

‘I thought you didn’t really mean it.’ She looked at me with the sparkly blue eyes. They smiled at me.

‘I meant that,’ I said. ‘I just didn’t mean…’ I was getting lost for words. ‘You know, anything else.’

‘Like what?’ she said all seriously, but now with laughter in her eyes.

‘Were you a barrister in a past life?’ I said. ‘I feel that I’m being questioned in court.’

‘Answer the question,’ she demanded with a stare.

‘I just didn’t want you to think I was propositioning you or anything.’

‘And were you?’ she asked.

‘No, of course not,’ I said.

‘Oh thanks. Am I that unattractive?’

‘No. I didn’t mean that.’

‘We seem to be going round in circles here, Mister Barrister Man,’ she said. ‘So what did you mean?’

‘I thought it was going to be me asking you the questions,’ I said. ‘Not the other way round.’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’m ready. Ask away.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘Firstly, will you stay to dinner?’

‘Yes,’ she replied without hesitation.

‘Good,’ I said.

‘Are you married?’ she asked suddenly.

‘Why?’

‘I just wondered,’ she said.

I didn’t immediately respond.

‘Well, are you?’ she persisted.

‘Why do you want to know?’ I asked again.

‘Need to know where I stand,’ she said.

‘But I’m not propositioning you, so why does it matter?’ I said.

‘You might change your mind,’ she said. ‘And I can’t be bothered to invest any emotion unless I know where I stand. So, are you married?’

‘Are you?’ I asked her back.

‘Only to my job,’ she said. She waited a moment in silence. ‘Well?’

‘I was,’ I said slowly.

‘Divorced?’ she said.

‘Widowed.’

‘Oh.’ She was embarrassed. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked.’

‘It was a long time ago,’ I said. But it felt like only yesterday.

She sat silently as if waiting for me to go on. I didn’t.

‘Still painful?’ she asked.

I nodded.

‘Sorry,’ she said again. Some of the sparkle had gone out of her eyes.

We sat in silence for a while.

‘What do you want to know about Millie?’ she asked eventually.

‘Let’s go and eat,’ I said.

We opted for a table in the bar rather than in the restaurant. No tablecloth, less formal, but the same menu.

I chose a fillet steak while Eleanor decided on the pan-fried sea bream.

‘Would you like a glass of wine?’ I asked her.

‘I’m still driving,’ she said.

‘You could leave your car here,’ I said. ‘I’m sure the pub won’t mind if you leave it in their car park. I could drop you back at the hospital and you could collect it in the morning.’

‘How about you?’ she said. ‘What are you drinking?’

‘I’m on diet Coke but I’ll have a small glass of red with my dinner,’ I said. ‘I do have to drive. Back to London tonight.’ I had rented the car for only two days.

‘Couldn’t you stay down here and go in the morning?’ she said.

‘Are you propositioning me now?’ I asked.

She blushed. ‘I didn’t mean that.’

Pity, I thought, again surprising myself.

I could always have called Hertz to keep the car for another day, but somehow I felt that I was betraying my Angela even to contemplate spending the night away from home, especially in order to have a lengthy dinner with another woman. I told myself not to be such a fool, but I felt it nevertheless.

‘How well did you know Millie?’ I asked, changing the subject and saving us both some embarrassment.

‘Pretty well,’ she said. ‘We worked together at the hospital for three years and lived in the house together for most of that time.’

‘Do you know why she killed herself?’ I asked.

‘No idea,’ she said. ‘She seemed pretty happy to me.’

‘Did she have money worries?’ I asked.

‘No,’ Eleanor replied emphatically. ‘In fact she always seemed rather well off. She bought a brand-new red Mazda sports car the year before she died and she always had lots of nice clothes. I think her father still sent her an allowance, even though we all earn pretty good money at the hospital.’

I thought back to my earlier encounter with the Barlow parents in their ill-fitting clothes. Did they seem the sort of people who could afford to send their high-earning daughter an allowance?

‘Was she pregnant?’ I said. It was only a wild thought.

‘I think it highly unlikely,’ said Eleanor. ‘She used to boast that she had a good supply of the morning-after pill just in case she forgot to take her other pills. She was medically trained, remember.’

‘And medics have a higher suicide rate than almost every other profession,’ I said.

‘Do they?’ She seemed surprised.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I had to research the rates last year for a case where a doctor was accused of assisting a suicide.’

‘I suppose medics have the knowledge of how to take their own lives,’ she said.

‘Painlessly, you mean,’ I said.

‘Absolutely. Just like putting an old dog to sleep,’ she said. ‘They also have easy access to the necessary drugs.’

‘Did Millie get on with her brother?’ I asked.

‘Well enough, I think,’ she said. ‘But I don’t think he was too happy with her reputation.’

‘Reputation?’ I asked.

‘For being the easiest ride in the village.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not really a reputation to cherish.’ Especially not in Lambourn, where riding was its lifeblood. ‘How many casual lovers would you say she had?’

‘At least half a dozen on the go at once,’ she said. ‘I think you could safely say that she wasn’t particularly discreet. Suffice to say she liked jockeys.’

‘Was Reno Clemens one of them?’ I asked.

‘Probably,’ she said. ‘I didn’t actually keep a list, but he was often around her. I sometimes saw them together in the pub.’

‘But you didn’t see him in her room?’ I said.

‘We have a sort of unwritten rule in the house,’ she said. ‘Long-term relationships are OK, but no casual partners to stay over. Needless to say, Millie broke it all the time. It was the only thing we argued about. But no, I can’t say I ever saw Reno there.’

‘How about Steve Mitchell?’ I asked. ‘Did he stay over?’

‘No never,’ she said. ‘Millie was always too keen to go to his place. She was always telling us about his hot tub.’ She lifted her eyebrows in disapproval.

‘Why exactly do you dislike Mitchell?’ I asked her.

‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘When I first came to Lambourn about ten years ago he was just starting as a jockey and we went out for a while. I thought he was serious but he wasn’t. He was two-timing me with some stable hand and, when the silly bitch got pregnant, he dumped me and married her.’ She paused. ‘I suppose she did me a favour really.’

‘How long did his marriage last?’ I asked.

‘About six years. They had two children and Steve became very successful. They built the Kremlin together.’

‘The Kremlin?’ I asked.

‘That’s what everyone calls that red-brick eyesore he now rattles around in on his own. When Natalie, his ex-wife, finally saw some sense and left him, he came back to my door and wanted to carry on as if nothing had happened. I told him to piss off and Steve didn’t like that. He likes to get his own way. I actually think he then made such a fuss over Millie to get back at me.’

So Steve’s affair with Millie Barlow hadn’t just been a fling as he had claimed, but had continued long after his wife had found out and left him. Mr and Mrs Barlow senior had been right, and Mitchell had indeed lied to me about it.

‘Didn’t Steve mind that she had other partners as well as him?’ I asked.

‘Mind? Are you kidding? According to Millie, Steve loved a threesome, or even more.’

‘Do you think she was telling the truth?’ I said.

‘You may have a point there. Millie was a good vet, very good in fact, but she was known to exaggerate things a tad.’

‘Do you remember a photo of her and a horse in a silver frame?’ I asked.

She nodded. ‘Her prized possession.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘It was a picture of her with a new-born foal,’ she said.

‘But why was it so special?’

‘It was the first foal she had ever delivered on her own, just after she arrived in Lambourn,’ she said. ‘Bit of an emergency in the middle of the night. She was the only vet on duty. But she did OK, apparently. I was away.’

I was disappointed. I thought it would be more interesting than that.

‘Why are you interested in the photo?’ she asked me.

‘Because someone took it from Scot Barlow’s house,’ I said.

‘What, when he was murdered?’

‘That I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But it is missing now.’

‘Perhaps it was for the silver frame,’ she said.

‘No. Whoever took the photo left the frame. That’s how I know the photo’s gone.’

‘Well, I can tell you that it was of Millie and a foal that was lying in the straw, with the mare and a stud groom behind.’

‘Do you know who the stud groom was?’ I asked. ‘Or who took the photo?’

‘No idea,’ she said. ‘But I know which foal it was. That’s why it was Millie’s prize possession.’

‘Go on,’ I encouraged her as she paused.

‘Peninsula,’ Eleanor said with a flourish.

Was that the reason why Millie Barlow was at Simon Dacey’s party? Or was that just a coincidence? But, I didn’t like coincidences.