The Horse Dancer (40 page)

‘Grand name, eh?’ The man rubbed Boo’s forehead. ‘Grand name for a grand old boy. I’ve got a postcard in there of the old carriage horses on board. From years ago. Hold up and I’ll show you once we’re moving.’

‘How much?’ she blurted. ‘For him, I mean. How much do we have to pay?’

He looked surprised. ‘You don’t need to pay nothing on here, sweetheart. Oh, no. Ain’t no one paid to cross on this ferry since 1889.’ He chuckled. ‘About back when I started . . .’ He walked stiffly back to his cockpit and disappeared.

The ferry vibrated, then moved off smoothly from the north side of the Thames and out into the murky, swirling water. She stood alone on the open deck beside her horse and gazed down the desolate stretch of river at the hovering cranes, the gleaming hoods of the Thames Barrier and the blue and silver sheds of the Tate sugar refinery, breathing in the damp air.

She was hungry. It hadn’t occurred to her for the last twelve hours that her stomach could feel anything except knotted anxiety. She pulled her rucksack from her back, opened it and found a biscuit. She broke off a little and gave it to Boo, whose velvety lips pushed insistently at her coat until she gave in and handed him more.

She stood, with her horse, in the middle of a river, some strange hinterland, a dreamscape, from which she had not yet quite awoken. But perhaps not so strange; just another horse in a line that stretched back more than a century. And as the distance from the shore grew, her breathing steadied, her mind cleared, as if she was emerging from some great shadow. The pick-up truck was on the north shore, with all the mess and anxiety and fear that had suffocated her for months. It was all quite simple now. She found she was smiling, exercising muscles that seemed to have atrophied during the past few weeks.

‘Here,’ she said, granting Boo another piece of biscuit. ‘Time for us to go.’

Ben handed her another note:
He’s rung Linda four times
.

Natasha glanced at it while she fixed her wig, trying to force the hair grip through the mesh. Solicitor advocates had only recently been allowed the privilege of a wig; she had been against it but the partners in her practice had urged her to wear one. Her opponents would take her more seriously, they said. She suspected it was simply that they wanted the chance to up the charges to clients and the wig made that possible.

‘Call him back,’ she whispered, handing him her switched-off mobile phone. ‘His number’s in the directory. Tell him I can’t talk to him until we’re in recess.’

‘She said he sounded frantic. Something to do with . . . Sarah going.’

Across the room Simpson was attempting to pick apart Elsworth’s testimony. He’d have a job with that one, Natasha thought. He was one of the best in his field – and the rates he charged for expert-witness testimony were testament to it.

‘Tell him we’ll sort out her leaving date after he’s spoken to her about my card. And tell him I can’t answer any more calls so there’s no point in ringing me again.’

She began taking notes, trying to collect her thoughts.

‘You got him, right?’ From across the bench Mrs Persey’s thin fingers wrapped themselves around her wrist. ‘Everything you said proves she was abused by him.’ Her eyes were large, the strain evident despite the carefully applied makeup.

Natasha caught sight of the judge, who was watching their exchange, his expression unamused. ‘We’ll discuss it outside. But, yes, it went well,’ she whispered, and leant forwards to focus on Simpson.

Within minutes Ben was back.
Not going, gone
the note said.
Disappeared
.

She scribbled,
??? Where?

Natasha’s head sank into her hands.

‘Mrs Macauley,’ came the voice from the front, ‘are you all right?’

She straightened her wig.

‘I’m fine, your honour.’

‘Do you need to take a short recess?’

She thought quickly. ‘If your honour would allow it, a pressing matter has come up unexpectedly that I should deal with.’

The judge turned to Simpson, who was staring at her with barely disguised fury, as if she had planned it. ‘Very well. We will adjourn for ten minutes.’

He picked up the phone before it had even had time to ring.

‘She’s gone,’ he said. ‘Cleared out, with half her stuff.’

‘Have you rung the school?’

‘I played for time. Rang in saying she was sick. I thought if she turned out to be there, I could say I’d made a mistake.’

‘But she’s not there.’

‘She’s gone, Tash. Photos, toothbrush, the lot.’

‘She’s probably at the stables. Or with her grandfather.’

‘I rang the hospital. He’s had no visitors today. They’re certain of it. I’m on my way to the stables now.’

‘She won’t leave the horse,’ she said confidently. ‘Think about it, Mac. She wouldn’t leave the horse, and she wouldn’t go very far from her grandfather. He matters more to her than anyone.’

‘I hope you’re right. I don’t like this.’ Mac, unusually, sounded jumpy.

She thought suddenly of Sarah, silent and strangely accepting, the previous evening. She had known something was not right. But she had been so grateful to the girl for accepting the forthcoming upheaval without making a scene that she had not thought to question it. ‘I’ve got to go back into court. Ring me when you get to the stables. She’s got my card, remember? Like you said, she’s probably just gone to buy her grandfather some new bloody pyjamas at my expense.’

The cowboy was leaning against the rusting car, talking to one of the young boys, as Mac wrestled with the gate, trying to ignore the Alsatian, which issued a warning growl as he entered. He glanced to the railway arch; the horse’s stable was open. Clearly no one was in there.

‘Ah . . . Mr . . . ah . . . John? Mac – you remember me? Sarah’s friend.’

The cowboy stuck his roll-up into his mouth and shook Mac’s hand. He pursed his lips. ‘Oh, I remember you, all right,’ he said.

‘I’m looking for Sarah.’

‘You and everyone else,’ the old man said, ‘from here to Tilbury Docks. I’m damned if I know what the hell’s been going on here while I been gone.’

The boy glanced from John to Mac and back again. ‘Like I said, John, I’ve hardly been here.’

‘Fat lot of good you are.’

‘I don’t get involved with nothing. You know that.’

‘Has she been here?’ Mac said.

‘I only seen her for a split second. She never even told me what was going on. It’s a mess, that’s for sure.’ Cowboy John shook his head mournfully.

‘Hold on – you
have
seen her? Today?’

‘Oh, I seen her. I seen her seven o’clock this morning. Last I seen her she was taking off over the flyover like that damn circus horse had wings. How she never got herself killed is between her and the Almighty.’

‘She’s been out riding?’

‘Riding?’ Cowboy John regarded him as if he was stupid. ‘You don’t know?’

‘Know what?’

‘I been out looking for her all morning. She’s gone. She’s took that horse before anyone worked out what she was doin’ and she’s gone.’

‘Gone where?’

‘Well, if I knew that she’d be standin’ here now!’ Cowboy John sucked his teeth, irritated.

The boy lit a cigarette, his face bent low over the flame of his lighter.

Mac went to Sarah’s lock-up. ‘You got a key for this?’

‘I don’t own this place no more. I gave—’

‘I got one,’ the boy said. ‘She gave it to me so I could feed her horse when she weren’t here,’ he explained.

‘And you are . . .’

‘Dean.’

‘Ralph,’ said Cowboy John, shoving the boy with long brown fingers. ‘His name is Ralph.’

The boy fiddled in his pocket, withdrawing an oversized bunch of keys. He went through them carefully, finally pulling out one that he used on the padlock. Mac pushed open the door. The lock-up was deserted. There was no saddle on the rack, no bridle, only a webbing headcollar and some brushes in a box. ‘John? Are you saying you think she’s taken off with the horse?’

Cowboy John raised his eyes to heaven, and nudged Ralph beside him. ‘Quick, ain’t he?’ he said. ‘Yes, she’s taken the darn horse, and she’s left me a big ole pile of doo-doo in its place. I got some people who are very, very unhappy. I got a feeling all sorts has been going on here that I don’t know about.’ He eyed Ralph balefully. ‘But, for starters, I got to work out how to tell Le Capitaine in the hospital there I ain’t got the slightest idea where his precious little girl is.’

Mac closed his eyes for the longest time. He let out a long sigh. ‘That makes two of us,’ he said.

The sun was at its highest point, which, given the time of year, wasn’t very high at all. It had travelled round so that it faced her, causing her to squint under her hat, and she made a few mental calculations, trying to work out how far she could get before dark. Before Boo became too tired to go on.

An endurance horse could do fifty, maybe sixty miles in a day. She had read about it. Such animals had to be brought up to this standard slowly, their muscles hardened by relentless slow work, their backs and quarters strengthened by regular riding up and downhill. Their shoes had to be checked and their legs protected.

Boo had enjoyed none of these precautions. Sarah talked to him now as they headed through the suburbs at a brisk trot, following the signs for Dartford. She could feel the spring in his paces slackening, read the hope in his ears, his steadied gait, that she might ask him to slow. Not yet, she told him silently, with a faint squeeze of her legs, a gentle urging of her seat. Not yet.

It was busier here, and the sight of a girl on a horse drew curious glances, the odd shout from passing van drivers or children gathered outside the lunchtime queue for the chip shop. But she kept her head down, her only communion with her horse. She could usually get past them before they realised what they had seen.

She found a quiet street before she dared to use a cash machine. She dismounted, walked Boo across the pavement, pulled Natasha’s card out of her pocket and typed in the number she knew by heart. It was burnt darkly on her conscience. The machine hummed and considered her request for what seemed an interminable time. Her heart began to thump. They might know by now. Natasha would have discovered what she had done, the extent of her betrayal. She had wanted to leave them a note, to explain, but she couldn’t find the words, her head still muddied by fear, shock and loss. And she couldn’t risk anyone knowing where she was going.

Finally the message flashed up on the screen. How much money would she like? £10, £20, £50, £100, £250? After the weeks spent scrimping, worrying about individual pounds, the figures were dizzying. She didn’t want to steal, yet she knew that, once the Macauleys had worked out she had taken it, the card would be stopped. There would be no more money.

This might be her only chance.

Sarah took a deep breath and placed her fingers on the keypad.

He was waiting outside the courtroom when Natasha emerged at midday. He had his back to her and spun round when he heard her voice. ‘Any news?’

‘She’s taken the horse.’

He watched Natasha register this in stages: first, a kind of blank inability to digest what he had said, then the same disbelief he himself had felt. A kind of embarrassed half-laugh at the ridiculousness of the idea.

‘What do you mean she’s taken the horse?’

‘I mean she’s run away with the horse.’

‘But where could she go with a
horse
?’

Her eyes left his face and focused behind him on Cowboy John, sauntering along the corridor, humming as he came. It had taken him a while to get up the stairs. ‘I don’t know why you couldn’t have used a phone,’ he wheezed, clamping a hand on Mac’s shoulder. He smelt of old leather and wet dog.

Mac stepped back, propelling the old man forwards. ‘Natasha, this is . . . Cowboy John. He runs the stables where Sarah keeps her horse.’

‘Used to run. Hell! If I’d kept a hold of things we’d never’ve been in this mess.’ Cowboy John took her hand briefly, then bent low over his knees, hawking into a handkerchief.

Natasha winced, her hand still in mid-air. A small group of people were watching them surreptitiously. Along the corridor a thin, expensively dressed blonde woman had been shocked into silence.

‘So what do we do?’

‘Findin’ her would be a start. I say we split up and start askin’ around. Girl on a horse like that gotta attract some attention.’

‘But you said you’d been looking for her this morning and didn’t hear anything. John saw her near the marshes,’ Mac explained.

John touched the brim of his hat, his rheumy eyes looking off into the distance. ‘She knew where she was headed, that’s all I’ll say. Had a rucksack on her back, and she was hitting some speed.’

‘She’d planned it. We should call the police, Tash.’

John shook his head vehemently. ‘You don’t want to go involvin’ busybodies. That’s what got her into this mess in the first place. Besides – the police? Nonononono. That girl ain’t done nothin’ wrong. She’s made a mess, yes, but she ain’t done nothing’ actually wrong . . .’

Mac caught Natasha’s eye. Neither of them spoke. He waited, wrong-footed by her reticence. Then he reminded her, ‘You were the one who said we had a legal duty to report her missing.’

Natasha peered down the corridor and blinked hard.

‘Tash?’

What she said next made him dip his head, as if unsure he had heard her correctly.

‘Look, I don’t want to report her yet. She turned up the last time, didn’t she?’ Natasha turned back to John. ‘You know her. Where might she have gone?’

‘Only place that girl would ever go is to see her grandpa.’

‘Then let’s go there,’ Mac said. ‘We’ll talk to the old man. See if he has any ideas. Tash?’ She just stared at him. ‘What?’