Riding for a Fall

By Marina Oliver

When Dodie Fanshaw goes to stay with her old friend Christine, she soon realises there are tensions, both in the family living at the Manor and the one where Elena is organising daughter Rebecca's wedding. John, the young brother of Robert, who owns the Manor, hates his Uncle Michael, Robert's Trustee, and because he wants to be a detective, gains a reputation as a snooper.
Then there is a tragic death, but was it the right victim? Plenty of people have both motive and opportunity, and Dodie is determined to discover the truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Belgrave House
• Release date: Sep 1, 2011
• ISBN: 9781947812239

Marina Oliver

Most writers can't help themselves! It's a compulsion. Getting published, though, is something really special, and having been so fortunate myself I now try to help aspiring writers by handing on tips it took me years to work out. I've published over 60 titles, including four in the How To Books' Successful Writing Series, and Writing Historical Fiction for Studymates.I have judged short story competitions, been a final judge for the Harry Bowling Prize and was an adviser to the 3rd edition of Twentieth Century Romance and Historical Writers 1994. If you want to find out more about your favourite authors, consult this book. I once wrote an article on writing romantic fiction for the BBC's web page, for Valentine's day.I have given talks and workshops for the Arts Council and at most of the major Writing Conferences, and helped establish the Romantic Novelists' Association's annual conference. I was Chairman of the RNA 1991-3, ran their New Writers' Scheme and edited their newsletter. I am now a Vice-President.As well as writing I have edited books for Transita, featuring women 'of a certain age', and for Choc Lit where gorgeous heros are the norm.I was asked to write A Century of Achievement, a 290 page history of my old school, Queen Mary's High School, Walsall, and commissioned to write a book on Castles and Corvedale to accompany a new circular walk in the area.Most of my Regencies written under the pseudonym Sally James are now published in ebook format as well as many others of my out of print novels which my husband is putting into ebook format. Our daughter Debbie is helping with designing the covers. For details of all my books and my many pseudonyms see my website.

Book preview

Mystery

AUTHOR NOTE

I've always loved horses, so setting a novel in a riding school seemed perfectly natural, and my sleuth Dodie, though wary of horses, was in a position to solve the mystery.

Chapter 1

Craning backwards to gain a final look at the valley spread below them, Dodie Fanshaw jerked against the seat belt as Elena slammed on the brakes.

'Trying to kill your old Ma?' she asked when she'd recovered her breath and pushed her sun specs back up her nose.

Elena did not reply. They had come to rest between a pair of open, ornate wrought iron gates attached to pillars surmounted by some gigantic birds of indeterminate ancestry. Two small, pretty lodge houses, multi-gabled and surrounded by neat cottage gardens, sat either side of the driveway, and beyond them a straggle of fat ponies clattered across the drive. Riding them, occasionally just sitting on them as on moving pillows, were several children aged about ten or eleven. At the rear was an older girl on a sleek black horse. She was holding on to the bridle of a small piebald pony on which a lanky teenage boy, scowling ferociously, sat.

'I'm so sorry,' she called out, bringing the two horses closer to the car. 'John here was supposed to be at the front to warn any drivers, but old Patch decided otherwise.'

'It wasn't my fault, Laura!' The boy frowned. 'I tugged and tugged but he wouldn't move! He was nibbling the hedge.'

'Sure you weren't lingering to listen to the argument in South Lodge? It's none of your business if the Potters fight!'

'No harm done,' Elena said, breaking in on the incipient squabble. 'I was able to stop. But oughtn't you to have a warning sign by the gate?'

'There is one, or there should be!' She glanced across the car and swore softly under her breath. 'Damn, it's been vandalised again. I'm so sorry. That's the third time this month someone has knocked it down. We'll have to avoid this path until I can get it set up again.'

She nodded and turned away. 'Come on John, we'd best catch up the others. Hold tight and trot on,' she added and slapped the pony's rump. It moved, startled, trotted for a few paces, and dropped to a walk as it passed out of sight behind the hedge surrounding the other lodge.

Laura smiled, raised her hand in salute, and followed.

'That must be part of Christine's riding school,' Dodie said. 'She always said she preferred horses to men, but I put it down to some affair which had gone sour. I thought she'd get over it when the next attractive man came along.'

'She might train them better to look and see what traffic's coming,' Elena grumbled as she put the car into gear and moved slowly forward.

'Poor lad, he was a year or two older than the others, and a bit too tall for the pony, but obviously not very skilled yet. About my level.'

Elena grinned. 'I'm looking forward to seeing you on a horse while we're here. I suppose this is the right entrance?'

'You'll be disappointed.' Dodie shuddered. 'Christine said there's only one road suitable for cars.' She looked around her at the avenue of huge chestnut trees which lined the curving drive, their summer foliage dark and heavy. 'There must be tracks of sorts. I understand it's a big farm.'

'Rutted farm tracks, I suppose, and since I don't have a four-wheel drive, no use to me.'

Dodie was smiling reminiscently. 'Why did I never marry a man who owned a stately home? I could imagine myself queening it in a place like this.'

'And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the room where Queen Elizabeth the First slept one night. You'd be bored within a month, herding all the visitors round and serving cream teas.'

'Ugh! And selling tacky souvenirs. I never knew old Christine came from the aristocracy. She didn't mention her family much.'

They had emerged from the shelter of the trees and the drive swung round and widened into a half-moon in front of the house. It was a beautifully proportioned Georgian house, facing south and built in the local warm, honey-coloured Cotswold stone. Three long windows to each side of the front door reflected the sun's rays.

'So that's the Manor,' Dodie said as the car halted in front of a modest portico. 'It doesn't look much like a stately home. Not like Chatsworth or Blenheim Palace.'

'It's quite a small one,' Elena said, 'and from what you've said the Carstairs are only minor gentry, farmers who happen to have a big farm.'

'Unlike your few square miles in Brazil,' Dodie teased. 'Your father was only a farmer too, Miss da Rocha, but things are on a much bigger scale over there.'

'Yes, and I really ought to go out soon and check up on Rodrigo. I may go this winter, when the wedding season calms down.'

There was no time for more. The front door had opened and a tall, thin woman with short grey hair, wearing trousers and a man's shirt, strode onto the step.

Dodie gulped as she stepped out of the car. The heels of her summer sandals sank into the gravel, and the light breeze caught the floating panels of her dress. 'Christine?' she asked, just controlling the shocked amazement she felt. Her friend looked more like seventy years old than the sixty she was. Her skin was coarse and leathery, her face full of wrinkles and her neck stringy, while the hands she held out in greeting were knotted and grimy, her nails short and ragged. Where had the svelte and shapely young girl gone, the fastidious, sophisticated girl who'd danced alongside her in the chorus when they were both young?

She's only four or five years older than I am, Dodie thought in panic. I won't be like that in a few years, surely! She pulled in her stomach. It wasn't just that Christine was thin, she always had been, while she herself carried more weight than she liked. She'd taken care of herself, and dressed as fashionably as, at her age and with her generous figure, she could get away with, while Christine looked weather-beaten and ancient. It was obvious that she paid no attention to fashion, and cared little what she looked like.

'Dodie, how wonderful to see you after all this time! It must be nearly forty years. And this is your clever daughter? She's a real beauty.'

'Just as if I'm a horse,' Elena muttered, and Dodie suppressed a grin. Elena had style, and even in a simple summer dress of forget-me-not blue linen, looked exotic with her blonde hair and olive skin.

'Lovely to see you again, Christine. This is some family seat you've got.'

'Not mine, though I grew up here. My parents never had time to set up home together, he was in the RAF and killed just before the end of the war, so Mother came back to live with her family. There's heaps of room. We had the same apartment I have now. Leave your bags, I'll get one of the boys to bring them up.'

'Boys? As in footmen, butlers, family retainers? I didn't realise you were so grand!'

Christine shook her head. 'Course not, we don't run to indoor servants any more, not like in my grandfather's day. Apart from Mrs Bond, who cooks and does what housekeeping Diane can't be bothered with, and Mrs Potter from the Lodge who does the cleaning. I meant one of Michael's sons. He's my cousin, and they're living here until Robert is of age. Michael's his uncle and a Trustee. But enough of that. You'll meet them all later. Oh, it's so good to see you! Come in.'

She took Dodie's arm and led her through the front door into a square hall dark with Tudor panelling. There were doors to either side and an archway ahead. This gave onto a wide passageway, and double doors faced them. They were standing open, showing glimpses of a formal garden with gravel paths and colourful beds. To the left was a flight of wide stairs with ornately carved bannisters topped by a wide flat handrail. Dodie had an unseemly desire to slide down this. It was something she'd longed to do but never achieved in her youth. She sighed for lost opportunities as Christine led the way up the stairs.

'My apartment is in the west wing, above the kitchens,' she explained. 'It's quite separate, and I have my own kitchen, look after myself.'

She led the way through a door close to the top of the stairs, into a narrow passageway with several doors opening to either side. The first on the right was ajar and revealed a neat kitchen, but Christine led the way into the room opposite, a comfortable if shabby sitting room. Old leather chairs and a huge sofa were were grouped at one end, and a small dining table and four chairs at the other. Dodie's gaze was drawn to the wide window, which dominated the room, and she moved straight across to look out.

'What a stupendous view!'

'The best in the house,' Christine said. 'Diane would have liked to have this wing. She's Michael's wife. We'll be meeting all the family at dinner. A command occasion in the Great Hall in your honour. Diane enjoys playing Lady of the Manor.'

Dodie was looking out over neatly-fenced paddocks where several horses and ponies grazed, and beyond them across the steep-sided valley beyond the entrance lodges, to a range of undulating hills. To either side were more fields occupied by sheep and cattle, and beyond these belts of woodland. To her left the sun shone, gilding the foliage. It was an idyllic English country scene.

'You must have wonderful sunsets.'

'One of the best times of day, when all the work's done and I can relax with a drink and watch the horses grazing and the sun go down. In the summer, anyway. We stable most of them in bad weather. Sit down, and I'll make us some tea. The bathroom's next to the kitchen, and I'll show you your rooms later.'

'Why did you leave the stage?' Dodie asked a few minutes later. They were all sitting facing the window, she and Elena on the sofa and Christine in one of the chairs with the tea tray on a beautiful, probably Regency mahogany pedestal table beside her. It was only the newly affluent who cherished and preserved antiques, she thought. People who'd grown up with them took them for granted and used them.

She looked round the room. It was a mixture of antique and new. A walnut bureau bookcase, probably Chippendale, sat next to a modern beech bookcase. The table was heavy Victorian mahogany, the chairs modern ladder back.

Christine shrugged. 'Bored, I suppose. I'd felt limited here, wanted to get away, and the stage offered that chance, but I'd had enough.'

'You once said you had cousins living at home.'

'Bob and Michael were ten years younger, and Barbara four, though she only visited occasionally. We didn't have a lot in common, then or now.'

'Barbara? That's Mrs Wilmott, my client, isn't it?' Elena said.

'Yes, and the reason you're in this area, and I've persuaded your mother to visit me at last. More tea, Dodie?'

'Thank you. And you started the riding stables.'

'I'd always been horse-crazy. The stables were here, but we only had a couple of horses for the family. No one but me rode regularly after my grandfather died, and I had to find a way to make a living. Mother's pension was enough for her, and I'd no taste for anything else. It seemed the logical thing to do, and Bob, Michael's older brother, encouraged me. He lent me money to set up. Michael was against it then, and he'd like to get me out now, but I have the right to this apartment under my grandfather's will, and he can't do a thing about it.'

'It must be uncomfortable, all living in the same house.'

'I don't have to see them unless I want to. And when Robert is five and twenty they'll be gone. Only five more years. Irony is that by then I'll probably be ready to retire gracefully.'

'Then what? Sell the business?'

'No. Laura, Michael's youngest, wants to take over. She's done some of her exams, and by then should be fully qualified.'

'Laura? We met her by the lodge gates. With a string of children.'

'Which reminds me, they'll be back now from their ride, and I ought to go and supervise. Let me show you your rooms, and then, Elena, you're going over to see Barbara, aren't you? Norman's Acre isn't far from here.'

Elena nodded. 'I know the way, I've been there before. And Ma will rest her weary legs, no doubt.'

'She can come down to the stables and see the horses if she'd bored. Sure you don't mind being left alone, Dodie?'

'Of course not. I think I'll soak in a bath, ready for tonight. Must do justice to the Great Hall.'

* * *

John led Patch out into the paddock and turned the pony free. It moved only a couple of paces before lowering its head and beginning to graze.

'Greedy pig! You're a fat slug!'

He turned away, and after a swift glance into the stable yard, took to his heels and ran round the outside of the house until he came to a small door set in the thick walls of the Great Hall, the oldest part of the house. He looked round carefully. Good, no one was in this part of the garden. Mr Potter would be busy with the vegetables, no doubt. Looking down to make sure he himself had left no tell tale footprints, he scuffed the ground slightly, and opened the door. This was like tracking in reverse. Did real detectives have to cover up their traces? He let himself in, ready with an excuse if anyone was there. Mrs Potter might be laying the table for dinner with Christine's guests. But the table was laid, silver and crystal gleaming on the dark oak refectory table. John crept cautiously towards a door at one end. It was slightly ajar and he listened for a moment, holding his breath, before poking his head round. Good, there was no one there, as he'd hoped. Though Uncle Michael and Brandon both had keys they often forgot to lock the door, or didn't bother. He'd discovered some interesting things there, though he really didn't understand the financial bits. They just seemed odd.

He slipped inside and closed the door. This was not so old a part of the house as the Great Hall, but had been added a century or so later. A modern lock had been fitted, but there was no key in it. The door still had a much older wooden bar, however, and John swung it across and dropped it into the slot. No one could come in and disturb him.

He crossed to the desk, lifted the telephone, and dialled Robert's mobile. Just as he was about to replace the receiver, it was answered.

'Robert? Robert, is that you?'

'Yes. John? How are you? Bearing up?'

'When are you coming home? Where are you?'

'In France, Brittany. You knew that was where we were going. I'll be home at the end of the week, with luck. What's the matter?'

'Oh, nothing much. It's horrid here without you, that's all.'

'I'm sorry, but you know I couldn't help leaving you there. We expected you to be with your friend. Come on, there must be something new. You sound upset. What is it?'

John gulped. 'That mare, you know, Graham Jarvis's, that was in foal? We saw her at Easter. The foal was dead when it was born.'

'What a shame. He thought it was going to be a winner. When did you find out?'

'Yesterday. I went over on my bike hoping to see it. I heard Mr Jarvis talking on the phone and he mentioned an abortion. Is a dead foal an abortion?'

He heard Robert smother a laugh. 'I don't think so. If it was full term they'd call it a still birth, surely. Like babies, I expect. An abortion's much earlier. But sometimes people use the word wrongly, about something terrible they dislike or despise. I imagine he was talking about something like that.'

'Oh. Perhaps.'

'How's your riding? Has Aunt Christine been teaching you like she promised?'

'Yes, and I'm fine when I don't have to ride a stupid slug of a child's pony! I started jumping yesterday. Only over logs, but I stayed on!' He crossed his fingers as he said this. It hadn't been his fault, and he'd only fallen off once.

'Well done. You'll be able to show me next week.'

'If they're not all too busy with this wedding! Why do people have to make such a fuss?' He listened for a moment then dropped his voice. 'Hang on, there's someone trying the door.'

'Where are you phoning from?'

'The estate office. That's a separate line, no one can listen in on an extension. It's OK, I barred the door and they've gone now. They'll think no one's here and it's locked. And it wasn't anyone with a key, or they'd have tried it.'

'Where? Speak up, I think my battery's going. Look, I'll have to ring off. I can't recharge my mobile here.'

The line crackled, John heard no more, and with a sigh he put down the phone. He waited another five minutes, to let whoever it was get well away, and occupied himself reading the letters and memos which his uncle had placed in the out tray for his secretary, who came in twice a week, to deal with. There was nothing interesting, nothing he could put in his detective notebook, and he left, risking being seen if whoever it was remained outside. He'd say the door must have stuck, and he'd been waiting for his uncle.

* * *

'She was never so hearty when we danced together,' Dodie said. 'She was really elegant and I thought she was so glamorous! At sixteen a few extra years are so important.'

'She's different now.'

'I suppose it's generations of squirearchy coming out, or years of bawling at ponies across paddocks. I just hope she doesn't try to get me on a horse! The wretched animals always knew I was terrified of them and got rid of me as fast as they could. It was a sore point with your father, as well as lots of sore spots on me, that I rarely wanted to ride with him. All the same, he was the best of my husbands.'

She smiled reminiscently. She might still have been married to Elena's Brazilian father, her third husband, if he hadn't been killed by rebels. She'd scarcely known Matthew, the first, for he'd been killed in Northern Ireland a few months after they'd married. Joe Broughton, the Californian, had lasted only a year while she'd been in Hollywood, and the last one not much longer. She'd remained friends with them both, however. She didn't believe in holding grudges, and just because marriage to someone was unpleasant or a mistake didn't mean they couldn't meet occasionally in a civilised fashion.

Christine had shown them to adjoining bedrooms separated by a bathroom, rooms which she said she always kept for guests. Dodie was enchanted to find hers had a four-poster bed complete with canopy above and hangings which matched the window drapes.

'So much more convenient for them, and my bedroom is next to the sitting room, so I can keep an eye on the paddocks or look across at the hills. Now, if you'll excuse me, I must go. Make yourselves at home, and I'll be back to change for dinner.'

Dodie left her own unpacking until later and went into Elena's room which had windows on two sides. She wandered over to the one facing north as Elena unpacked her suitcases and hung her clothes in the wardrobe. 'Just look at that huge stable yard! The house is much bigger than it looks from the front. That facade must have been built on a couple of hundred years ago. This part of the house dates back to Tudor times.'

She moved to the other window. 'The other wing over there is even older.'

'They have a medieval Great Hall, from what Christine said about dinner tonight.'

'That looks like it. Those high narrow windows look ancient.'

'They could use it for weddings.'

'Christine will show us round, no doubt. Sure you don't mind having this small room? I gather it was once a dressing room for the room I'm having.'

'At least they've installed modern plumbing,' Elena said, 'and just for us to share. This is fine for me. I'll be out most of the time, over at Norman's Acre. It's only a week to the wedding, and Mrs Wilmott sounded