Crisis
- Автор: Фрэнсис Феликс
- Год: 2018
- Язык: английский
- Год: Simon & Schuster
- ISBN: 978-1-4711-7311-0
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Crisis». Краткое содержание книги:
Harry knows very little about horses, indeed he positively dislikes them, but he is thrust unwillingly into the world of Thoroughbred racing where the standard of care of the equine stars is far higher than that of the humans who attend to them.
The Chadwick family are a dysfunctional racing dynasty, with the emphasis being on the nasty. Resentment between the generations is rife and sibling rivalry bubbles away like volcanic magma beneath a thin crust of respectability.
Harry represents the Middle-Eastern owner of the Derby favourite and, as he delves deeper into the unanswered questions surrounding the horse’s demise, he ignites a fuse that blows the volcano sky-high, putting him in grave jeopardy. Can Harry solve the riddle before he is overcome by the toxic emissions from the eruption and is bumped off by the fallout?
Declan and I had been over everything two more times and, on the second occasion, he had written it all down in chronological order.
‘You have to give them something,’ I’d explained to him. ‘You have to say that you agree with the facts as they have stated them so far — there’s no point in denying them when they have the CCTV and Zoe’s phone — and then you give your version of what happened last Sunday.’
‘My version?’ he’d said. ‘But I’m telling you the truth.’
‘Good. Then the police will be able to verify everything you say. Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell me?’
‘Nothing,’ he confirmed.
I was certain, however, that he hadn’t told me the whole truth. There were things that he obviously still didn’t want to divulge, in particular about why Zoe had wanted to see him in the first place. But this would have to do for now.
Declan read out his statement describing how Zoe had called him from the train and why he had gone to Cambridge to collect her. He then went through the full period between her getting into his car and him dropping her at Newmarket Station at three-thirty, before going home for evening stables.
He finished by saying that he’d found the mobile phone down the side of the passenger seat of his car on Monday afternoon where Zoe must have dropped it. He had panicked and hidden it in his wardrobe so his wife wouldn’t find it, but he now realised that he should have handed it straight to the police.
When he was finished, Declan laid the paper down on the table.
I could see in the chief inspector’s face that he didn’t believe a word of it and, to be honest, I wasn’t sure I did either.
‘Can I go home now?’ Declan asked.
15
Needless to say, the police did not allow Declan to go home, not on that evening, nor at any time on the next day.
‘Who’ll look after the horses?’ Declan asked me when I saw him just before he was taken off to spend his first night in a cell.
‘I’m sure Chrissie will have it all in hand,’ I said.
‘But she’s only the yard secretary.’
‘No matter. She seemed very capable to me. And Arabella will surely help too.’
He stared at me in disbelief. ‘Arabella is completely useless with the horses. Too bloody busy with her effing make-up.’
I didn’t know whether he was joking or not. Probably not, if his tone was anything to go by.
‘I’ll give her a call anyway. Let her know what’s happening.’
He didn’t look very happy at the prospect.
‘Tell her I’m sorry,’ Declan said.
What for? I wondered.
‘How about you?’ he said. ‘You can go and sort out what’s happening with the horses in the morning.’
‘Me?’ It was now my turn to stare at him in disbelief. ‘I know nothing about training horses. Don’t you have an assistant?’
‘He’s away in Scotland. His grandmother died. Funeral tomorrow.’
‘But I’ll be needed here,’ I explained. ‘To be with you.’
‘Not before nine-thirty,’ he said. ‘You told that detective yourself that I was entitled to proper rest and that I couldn’t be questioned again until nine-thirty. You need to be at the yard by six. You can then be here at nine-thirty.’
I looked at my watch. It was already almost midnight. I sighed.
‘Isn’t there anyone else you could ask?’
‘No,’ he said decisively. ‘Chrissie is good but she needs direction. Tell her to send the whole lot out for a canter. That can’t do any harm for one day. Other than tomorrow’s runners, of course. And tell Joe to get my two off to York by quarter past seven at the latest otherwise they’ll be late, and then I have two more tomorrow evening at Newmarket. But they can be walked over.’
‘Who’s Joe?’
‘My travelling head lad.’
‘Right,’ I said, resignedly.
‘And tell Chrissie to make Saturday’s declarations by ten o’clock. I’ll have to do the entries later in the day.’
‘Declan,’ I said. ‘You may not be in a position to do anything tomorrow.’
He stared again. ‘But they’ll have to let me go when they find out I’m telling the truth.’ I didn’t answer. ‘Won’t they?’
‘They can hold you for twenty-four hours, thirty-six if the superintendent authorises it.’ Which he probably would, I thought. ‘Then they can apply to a magistrate for extensions to that too. Ninety-six hours altogether. That’s four days.’
‘Four days?’ He suddenly looked despondent, and very vulnerable. ‘My whole training business may have gone down the tubes in four days.’
My forty-pound investment on Orion’s Glory for the Derby was beginning to look rather too speculative.
I called Arabella from the taxi on my way back to the Bedford Lodge, and to say that she was in a state of severe agitation would have been an understatement.
Drunk too, I thought.
She’d obviously been hitting the bottle fairly hard in the three hours since the police had departed with her arrested husband. Declan might have been right about her being useless when it came to helping with the horses, but it wasn’t so much the horses’ future, or even Declan’s, that she was concerned about, it was her own.
‘What am I going to do now that Declan’s in jail?’ she wailed.
‘He’s not in jail,’ I pointed out.
‘As good as,’ she said. ‘How can I face anyone?’
Her earlier cast-iron confidence that Declan was innocent had clearly evaporated.
‘The police took away his Audi,’ she said. ‘Wrapped it all up in white plastic and put it on the back of a lorry.’
‘Don’t worry,’ I said. ‘It’s normal procedure. They want to do forensic tests, that’s all.’
‘Forensic tests? For what? A body in the boot?’ Now she was openly crying, no doubt aided by the steady intake of alcohol.
‘Let’s not jump to any conclusions,’ I said, trying to sound reassuring. ‘He’s only being questioned at the moment.’
‘About what exactly? What are they saying?’
Discussions between a client and his lawyer are privileged and highly confidential; even the court couldn’t force me to disclose what Declan had said to me in the privacy of the legal consultation room. So how much should I tell his wife?
I decided that I could tell her whatever Declan had already told the police. That would be in the public domain sooner or later, especially if used as evidence in a trial.
But first, I had some important questions of my own, and for her.
‘Why do you call Peter Robertson “Pete”?’
There was a short but distinct pause from the other end. Perhaps she wasn’t as drunk as I’d assumed and she clearly retained some degree of control.
‘Why shouldn’t I?’ she said. ‘Zoe always called him Pete.’
‘But how do you know that? When did you last speak to her?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Some time ago.’
‘How long ago exactly?’ I asked. ‘This is important. Were you in regular contact?’
‘Why is it so bloody important?’
‘Because Declan collected her off a train at Cambridge Station last Sunday morning.’
‘What? Zoe? This Sunday just gone?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The day she died.’
This time there was a much longer pause from her end.
‘Is that why he was arrested?’
‘Almost certainly,’ I said. ‘The last person known to have seen the victim alive invariably becomes the chief suspect.’
‘Oh God!’ she cried. I could clearly hear her sobbing. ‘The police also took away our computers and Declan’s phone. I thought they were going to take his clothes as well but they simply padlocked shut his dressing room door.’