Time for Hunnyton to show his cards, Joe decided. Professional etiquette told him he should wait until they were alone together before putting him to the question but a glance at the doctor’s face, good-humoured and quizzical, made this reticence seem unnecessary. “You’re getting it right,” he said. “But, Hunnyton, it’s time to come clean, I think. Son of a horseman of repute as you tell me you are, you must have acquired the knowledge of lures and bates—the ingredients must be as well known to you as the recipe for fruit scones. In Scotland this knowledge is passed down to a select few initiates, never more than one or two per district. The numbers of these have diminished drastically since the war and few remain on either side of the border. Now tell us, which local man would have had the skills to mark Lady Truelove’s card for her? Who would have the formulae for lures and bates off by heart?”

If Adelaide Hartest hadn’t been present, turning her bright, concerned face on the superintendent, Joe would have added: “Starting with your own name …”

Hunnyton replied at once. “Well, you can scratch my name from any list you’re drawing up. My pa was one of the Horsemen, no doubt about that, but they were so darned secretive no one but the members knew who they were, not even their families. Once a month on a Saturday, he’d put on his best suit with waistcoat and watch-chain. My mother would brush his hat and polish his boots and off he’d go to Bury. Sometimes Ipswich. Dad’s night out at the Whistling Ploughboy or the Great White Mare. I was a grown lad going about a grown lad’s business in Bury one Saturday when I came across him with his mates. Not a drinking outing—though much ale was drunk. I asked about, listened at locked doors and discovered the meetings were the monthly gatherings of the Horse Society. As hush-hush as any Masonic do. More so.

“At home he kept his horse remedies, pills and potions in a locked cupboard in his shed. Those were the days when vet’s fees were high,” he said with an apologetic grin to Adelaide. “He’d dispense them to anyone needing them, but there were one or two items in there he kept for his use only. We kids never knew what the mixtures were. He had a clever way of keeping his secrets. Every now and again when supplies were running low, he give us three boys a scrap of paper. A shopping list. Never on the same day and never together. He’d send us off to local chemists. Different chemists in different towns. When he’d gathered in all the ingredients, he’d mix them up in his shed. To this day I’m not sure I could reconstitute any of his recipes.”

“But someone in the village knows, evidently,” said Adelaide. “The knowledge was passed to—sold to—Lady Truelove, with awful consequences. Lure swapped for bate? Now that’s malice aforethought.”

“I’d call it murder, Doctor,” Hunnyton said.

“But murder that’s almost impossible to prove,” Joe warned. “I hardly like to think why we’re even bothering to attempt an enquiry.”

He was shot down by two focussed glares. Uncomfortably, he tried to justify his pessimism. “No evidence … time delay … lack of witnesses … laughed out of court …” He heard himself bumbling.

“All true, alas,” Hunnyton chimed in in reluctant support. “Give us some fingerprinting, footprinting, blood-typing and scene-of-crime forensic stuff to do and we’re your men.” He shook his head and glowered. “But this death by horse at arm’s length, weeks after the event … I dunno!” He sighed.

Adelaide nodded in agreement. “You know, if this were a medical problem, I’d say Lavinia’s death was not a solution but a symptom. A symptom of a great malaise in the family. All is not well up at the Hall, that much is clear.” She got to her feet and looked at her watch. Consultation at an end. “Time you gents went off to hear what Gracie Aldred has to say for herself, I think. I say—do you mind if I tell this to my father? The curry spices and stoat’s entrails? Professionally, he’ll be very intrigued. Might even put some on his shopping list.”

“Yes, Doctor, of course. Something may occur to him. He may, in spite of annoying Suffolky reticence,” Hunnyton gave her a cheeky grin, “be handed a confidence or two—something someone would rather not divulge to a policeman.” He rose to his feet. “Sadly, not everyone finds us congenial company.”

She went to stand in front of him, eye to eye.

Ouch! Not a good move, Doctor, Joe thought, knowing what he did of Hunnyton’s gentling powers.

“Look, Mr. Policeman, reticence is all very well in its place, which would be somewhere in about the middle of last century. You may call me ‘Doctor’ when I’m attending to your ingrowing toenail. ‘Miss Hartest’ when you see me in church. When you’re teasing me in my parlour, you must call me ‘Adelaide.’ And your name is?”

“It’s Adam. Adam Hunnybun,” he said without thinking.

Her face lit up with delight as she repeated the name to herself and, for an awful moment, Joe thought she might take him for the teddy bear he much resembled and give him a hug.

“And my name’s Joe,” Joe said, adding a silent, “As if anyone cared.”

CHAPTER 11

As they climbed back into the car Hunnyton grumbled, “How the blazes did she know I have an ingrowing toenail?”

“It’s the way you walk,” Joe said kindly. “You favour your left foot. Not a particularly adventurous guess—most coppers have them.” He found he was reluctant to leave go of the image of the young woman they’d just encountered. “That’s a wonderful girl! I wasn’t happy to hear her call herself an ‘old maid.’ ”

“Nor was I. She’s wrong on the first half anyway. Not what you’d really call old. She was twenty-seven last week.”

“Now how would you know that?”

“While you were being attended to in the rose garden I peeked inside the birthday cards lined up on the mantelpiece.”

“So—hardly old then.”

“No. And she was misleading us on the second half too, unless I mistake.”

“Now how would you know that?” Joe said again but his voice now conveyed a chilly rebuke rather than a question. A woman’s honour would always be defended by Joe whatever the circumstances. Whoever the woman.

Hunnyton picked up the warning and, as Joe had come to expect, backed away. Advance, retreat, concede territory, disarm, advance again, eyes averted. Joe wondered if he’d recognise the moment the superintendent was ready to throw the saddle over his back. “I wouldn’t know that,” the horseman said easily. “Evidence not so readily available. You might well have a better insight, city gent that you are. It just occurs to me that a woman of her quality, working at her trade, with her chances, well, it would be a bit of a surprise if … Just choosy, I expect. Hard to tell when she comes in from the garden looking like a rook-scarer that’s been pulled through a thorn hedge, but there’s something about her … She’s friendly and yet she has a sort of shield around her. Get close and you’d bounce off.”

“I noticed that, but she’s very unusual. I could swear I’ve seen her, or her like, somewhere before …”

“You have. You pass her every day on your way to work. On the Embankment. She’s standing with a dirty great spear in one hand, chariot reins in the other. She’s hurling abuse at the Roman army and she’s made of bronze,” Hunnyton said, chuckling. “Boadicea! Corst, blast! You wouldn’t want to get the wrong side of that one! Doctor Hartest is a corker but those pruning shears she keeps in her pocket are as much of a warning as the scythes on Boadicea’s chariot wheels. ‘Keep off! You could lose a limb.’ ”

This was a disappointing response. A crude cover to deflect the interest Joe was sure he’d noticed?

“You’re too severe,” he said easily. “I’ve remembered now where I’ve seen her before! She’s not the Queen of the Iceni, she’s a Botticelli goddess … Flora’s her name and she takes centre stage in the painting of Primavera.”