He patted the horse as he passed, then caught sight of Mac, hovering beside her. 'Can I help you, young man? You interested in some eggs? Fruit? I got some fine avocados in today. I can do you a whole tray for just three of your English pounds.'
Mac was staring at Cowboy John as if he'd never seen anything like him. It might have been because John was wearing his scruffiest cowboy hat, a red handkerchief and the neon jacket that one of the road fixers had left the previous year. But it was probably the huge joint clamped between his yellowing teeth.
'Avocados?' said Mac, recovering. 'Sounds good.'
'Better than good, my man. These are on the very point of ripeness. Any riper they'd be busting out of their skins and whipping themselves into a guacamole. You want a feel? By God, that's gotta be the best offer you'll get all day.' He gave a dirty chuckle.
Mac walked in through the gates behind her. 'Show me the way,' he said.
Sarah led her horse to his stable. She removed the saddle and bridle, wiped off the raindrops and put them carefully into her lock-up, then began to muck out. At the far end of the yard, she could see Cowboy John presenting Mac with fruit and vegetables. Mac was nodding. He kept glancing around the yard, as if trying to take everything in, apparently asking questions. She could see John pointing out the various horses, his hens, the office. Mac seemed interested in all of it. Eventually, as she filled Boo's bucket with clean water, John and Mac strolled under the railway arch and up to the stable. It was raining even harder now, little rivers of water running down the slope, weaving through the cobbles.
'You done there, Circus Girl?'
She nodded, standing close by the horse.
'I never seen you for two days. You been having trouble getting over here? Old Boo here was threatening to bust out on me again this morning.'
She glanced at Mac, then at the ground. 'Something like that,' she said.
'You seen your grandpa?'
She shook her head. She thought, to her horror, that she might cry.
'We're going over there now,' said Mac.
Her head shot up.
'You want to?' he asked.
'You know this girl?' Cowboy John stepped back theatrically, then gestured towards Mac's cardboard box of fruit. 'You know Sarah? Man, you should have said something. I'd never have sold you that crap if I'd known you was a friend of Sarah's.'
Mac raised an eyebrow.
'I can't sell you those,' John said. 'You come back in my office and I'll give you the good stuff. I just keep that out there for the passers-by. Sarah? You say howdy to your old man for me. Tell him I'll be dropping by Saturday. Give him these.' He threw her a bunch of bananas.
As Mac followed John back to the office, Sarah could just make out a smile playing around his mouth.
Her clothes were still wet when she climbed into the car. He had received a parking ticket, and he was peeling it off the windscreen and leaning inside to throw it into the glove compartment when he noticed she was shivering.
'You need something dry to wear?' he said. 'There's a spare jumper in the back. Put it on over your uniform.'
She did as he asked. He pulled out into the road and began to drive, his brain racing as he tried to work out what to say. When they reached the traffic-lights, he said, 'So that's what it's all about. The absences. The disappearing.' He didn't mention the money.
She gave the smallest nod.
He indicated and turned left. 'Well . . . you're certainly full of surprises.' He felt reassured. She was just a kid with a pony. If a slightly oversized one.
'What was it you were doing? The whole jumping-up-in-the-air thing?'
She muttered something he couldn't hear. 'Levade,' she repeated, louder.
'Which is?'
'A movement from haute ecole. It's like dressage.'
'Dressage? Is that the thing where they go round in circles?'
She smiled reluctantly. 'Something like that.'
'And the horse is yours?'
'Mine and Papa's.'
'He's pretty smart. I don't know anything about horses, but he looks amazing. How'd you end up with a horse like that?'
She observed him for a moment, as if calculating how much information he could be trusted with. 'Papa bought him from France. He's a Selle Francais. They use them in the French riding academy Papa trained at.' She paused. 'He knows everything there is to know about riding.'
'Everything there is to know . . .' Mac murmured. 'Have you been doing that for long?'
'Long as I can remember,' she said. She was swallowed by his jumper. She had brought the sleeves over her hands, and brought her knees up under it. She resembled a very defensive ball of wool. 'We were meant to be going back. To see them. In France. Before he got ill.'
Mac could see her crossing the road between the buses and the lorries, then lost in concentration as she drew hoofprint circles in the grass. What on earth have we ended up with here? he wondered.
'It was going to be a treat,' she ventured. 'For me and him. A holiday. I've never been abroad.'
She fiddled with the sleeves of the jumper. 'I didn't want to miss it. Papa didn't want to miss it.'
'Well . . .' Mac glanced into his rear-view mirror '. . . a lot of people postpone their holidays when someone's ill. I'm sure if you explain what happened to him the travel agent will let you go when he's better.' He watched her bite her nails. 'We'll call them later. I'll help you, if you like.'
She smiled at him again, cautiously. Twice in one day, he thought. Perhaps we can do some good here, after all. He reached forward and set the satellite-navigation system. 'Right. Hospital,' he said. 'Let's turn the heating up. Can't have your grandfather seeing you soaked to the skin.'
Mac knew almost as little about medical matters as he did about horses, but it was clear even to him that, whatever Sarah chose to believe, Mr Lachapelle was not going on holiday - or even coming home - any time soon. He lay partially propped by pillows, his skin the liverish tone of the properly ill, and did not wake when they entered his room. Finally, when Sarah took his hand, he opened his eyes. Mac stood awkwardly near the door, feeling like an intruder.
'Papa,' she said softly.
The old man's eyes were immediately fixed on her, a veil lifting as he registered who was before him. He smiled lopsidedly.
'Sorry I couldn't come the last two days. It was difficult.'
The old man shook his head. He gave her hand a small squeeze. She saw his gaze slide over to Mac. 'This is Mac. He's one of the people looking after me.'
Mac felt himself being scrutinised. Despite the old man's frailty, there was something starkly assessing in his eyes, as if he was strafing him for clues.
'He's . . . very kind, Papa. Him and his wife,' she said, and Mac saw she had blushed, as if in her determination to reassure the old man she had exposed herself too much.
'Pleased to meet you, Mr Lachapelle.' Mac stepped forward and took the old man's hand. 'Enchante.'
Another small smile. A broader one from Sarah. 'You never said you knew French.'
'I'm not sure your grandfather will agree that I do,' he said. He took the chair on the other side of the bed. Sarah busied herself with her grandfather's cabinet, checking his washbag, repositioning the photographs.
Mac, uncomfortable in the silence, spoke again, conscious that his voice was a little too loud. 'I've been watching your granddaughter ride. She's amazingly talented.'
The old man's eyes slid back to Sarah.
'I rode out this morning.'
'Good,' he said slowly, his voice creaking like an underused hinge.
Sarah's smile this time was instantaneous and transformative. 'Good!' she repeated, as if confirming what he had said.
'Good,' the old man said again. The three nodded at each other in satisfaction. Mac guessed that this was a major breakthrough in conversation.
'He tried really hard, Papa. It was raining, and even though you know he can be really bad in the rain, he managed to stay focused. His mout
h was super-light, and he was listening, really listening.'
Sarah was riding now, her back straight, her hands in front of her. The old man was drinking in everything she said, as if he would absorb every detail. 'You would have been pleased. Really.'
'I never saw anything like it,' Mac interjected. 'I don't know anything about horses, Mr Lachapelle, but when I saw him doing all that leaping around on his back legs, it took my breath away.'
There was a sudden silence. The old man turned slowly to face his granddaughter. He was no longer smiling.
Mac faltered: 'It looked . . . great . . .' Sarah, he saw, had blushed to the roots of her hair. The old man kept his eyes on her.
'Levade,' she whispered, her voice heavy with guilt. 'Sorry.' The old man moved his head from side to side. 'He was just so full of energy. And I needed to give him something new to keep his attention. He needed a challenge . . .'
The more she protested, Mac saw, the more the old man shook his head in mute fury. 'Gourmand,' he said. 'Non gourmand. Small. Again.' Mac struggled to make sense of what he was saying until he realised there was no sense. He remembered dimly that stroke patients had trouble finding the right words. 'The. Avant. Non. Horse. Horse.' Evidently frustrated, he set his jaw and looked away from Sarah.
Mac felt mortified. Sarah was biting her nails. The old man's expression was mutely furious. This was all his fault, he thought. He tried to pretend he wasn't there, but then he lifted his camera, still hanging around his neck, and held it up. 'Er . . . Mr Lachapelle? I took some pictures of Sarah working. Trotting and stuff. I was wondering, would you like to see?' He leant over the bed and flicked through the digital images. Finally alighting on one that was unlikely to raise the old man's ire, he enlarged it. Sarah placed her grandfather's glasses on his face.
He studied it, seeming to disappear from them for a moment. Then he turned to Sarah, closing his eyes as if in great concentration. 'Mouth,' he said finally. His fingers fluttered.
Sarah peered at the picture. 'Yes,' she agreed. 'He was resisting me there. But he only did that at the start, Papa. As soon as I got his hindquarters engaged he lightened up.'
The old man nodded, apparently satisfied, and Mac felt a slow breath easing out of his own chest.
'Have you got any others?' Sarah asked him. 'From later on?'
Mac flicked through, then handed the camera to Sarah. 'Actually I've got to go and make a couple of calls,' he said. 'I'll leave you two alone. Here, Sarah, you can sort through the images like this. Enlarge them with this button so you and your grandfather can see them better. I'll meet you downstairs in half an hour.' He lifted the old man's hand. 'Monsieur Lachapelle, it was a pleasure.'
'Captain,' said Sarah. 'Everyone calls him Captain.'
'Captain,' said Mac, 'I hope to see you again soon. I promise we'll take good care of your granddaughter until you come home.' God only knows when that will be, he thought, as he left the room.
'You're kidding.'
'Nope. You want to see it?' He handed her the print he'd run off once he'd got home, Natasha reached into her bag, pulled out some glasses and peered through them. She hadn't had glasses before, he noted.
'It's not drugs,' he said, when she failed to speak.
She nodded. 'That's true.' She took them off and looked up at him. 'But a horse?' She handed back the prints. 'What the hell are we supposed to do with a horse?'
'Far as I can tell we don't have to do anything. She owns it, she looks after it.'
'But . . . all this time? That's where she's been?'
'I haven't confronted her about the money, but I think we can assume that's where it is going.'
'How does a kid like that end up with a horse?'
'She keeps it under a railway arch,' Mac continued. His brain was still spinning with the images of the inner-city yard. 'Turns out it's something to do with the granddad. He's some kind of horse master. And it's not a common-or-garden Thelwell pony,' he said. 'This beast is like something out of a Stubbs painting. It's pretty highly strung. She does all this . . . dressage stuff with it. Leaping around in the air.'
'Oh, God.' Natasha looked into the distance. 'What if it injures her?'
'Far as I could see, she was in pretty perfect control.'
'But we don't know anything about horses. The social worker didn't say anything.'
'The social worker doesn't know. She doesn't want them to know. She thinks if they do it will be taken away from her. Is she right?'
Natasha shrugged. 'I haven't a clue. I don't suppose there's much of a precedent.'
'She made me promise,' Mac said, 'that we wouldn't say anything.'
She was incredulous. 'We can't promise that!'
'Well, I did. And she's promised she won't miss any more school. I thought it was a pretty good deal.'
He had dropped Sarah at school at lunchtime, having hastily scribbled her a note. She had seemed unable to believe he was colluding with her. 'This is the only time,' he had warned, aware that he had already been too soft. 'We'll sort it out when you get home. Okay?'
She had nodded. She hadn't said thank you, Mac noted grumpily, then laughed at himself as he drove off. Thinking like a parent. How often had he heard his friends moaning about the supposed ingratitude of their kids?
Natasha sat down. She had muttered something about a tough case, inter-and intra-familial abuse, as if he would know what she was talking about. He realised, a little guiltily, that for years he had rarely listened to anything she told him about her work.
'Look, this is good news, Tash,' he said. 'It means she's not on drugs. It's not some dodgy bloke. She's just a teenage girl obsessed with horses. We can handle that.'
'You make it sound easy.' Her voice was almost resentful. 'But we've got a problem here, Mac. She can't cope with the horse by herself. That's why she's bunking off school. You told me the grandfather had been doing most of it. Who's going to look after the horse while she's supposedly sticking to her lessons? Are you going to do it?'
He half laughed. 'I can't. I know nothing about horses.'
'And I know even less. Is there someone who can do it for her?'
Mac thought back to the old American with his dodgy cigarettes. 'I think not. Yeah, I see your point,' he agreed. 'That's difficult.'
They sat in silence for some time.
'Okay,' said Natasha. She didn't look him in the eye. 'I've got an idea.'
Eleven
'Make him familiar with all sorts of sights and all sorts of noises. Whenever the colt is frightened by any of them, he should be taught, not by irritating him but by soothing him, that there is nothing to fear.'
Xenophon, On Horsemanship
It should probably have been obvious from the start, Natasha thought afterwards, that the Kent idea would be a disaster. Sarah had fiercely opposed the idea of moving her horse. 'No. He needs to be here, where I can keep an eye on him,' she had said.
'He'll be perfectly safe at Howe Farm. Mrs Carter's an expert horsewoman.'
'She doesn't know him. He'll be surrounded by people who don't know him.'
'I'm sure Mrs Carter knows even more about horses than you do.'
'But she doesn't know about him.'
It was odd, Natasha had thought, that this girl who had said virtually nothing for days was now raising her voice so insistently. 'Sarah, you haven't got time to do it all yourself. You've said as much. And if you want us to keep our side of the bargain, and not inform the authorities, you have to accept that we need to find a different way of looking after him, with your papa away. At Howe Farm he'll be cared for all week. Then we can go and see him at weekends, and you can spend all day with him.'
'No.' Sarah's arms were folded, her jaw set. 'I'm not leaving him somewhere I don't know.'
'But you'll get to know it. And it's just a short-term measure. It sounds like a more professional set-up than where he's at.'
Sarah virtually spat out her response. 'He's happy where he is.' She glared at Natasha. 'You know
nothing about him. He's happy living at Sparepenny Lane.'
Natasha struggled to keep her voice even. 'But it's not working, is it? Until we know when your grandfather's coming home, we can't manage as things are. You can't manage as things are.'
'You're not taking him away from me.'
'Don't be dramatic, Sarah. Nobody's taking him away from you.'
'Think of it as a holiday for him.' Mac was sprawled across the sofa, eating an apple. It was his house too, Natasha had to keep reminding herself. 'He can spend all day cantering around in the fields, or whatever it is horses do. That's got to be better than being stuck under a railway arch, hasn't it?'
With a barrister's assessing eye, she could see that Mac had her there. For a moment, Sarah seemed to weaken.
'I don't suppose he's had much time just pottering in a field, has he?' Mac threw his apple core at the bin. It hit the target with a metallic thud.
'I let him graze on a long rope sometimes,' she said defensively.
'But that's not the same as having the freedom to trot around as he likes, is it?'
'But he's never been in a horsebox.'
'Then he'll learn.'
'And he--'
'Actually, Sarah, much as I hate to lay down the law here, this isn't really up for discussion,' Natasha said firmly. 'You haven't got the time to look after him and do your studies. Mac and I don't know enough about horses to help you. We're happy to pay for him to be at Howe Farm, and when your grandfather's up and about we'll pay for him to be brought back here, and you can carry on as you did before. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go and do some work.'
She faltered as she left the room. Mac had looked suddenly awkward at the mention of Sarah's grandfather, as if he knew something he wasn't saying. She felt Sarah's mutinous eyes burning into her back long after she had left the room.
The journey was traumatic. They hired a professional horse-moving firm from Newmarket to transport Boo, as Sarah called him, on a Saturday. The enormous lorry had battled to get down Sparepenny Lane, Mac told Natasha afterwards, and the driver had seemed nonplussed at the address of the yard, even more so when he saw what it comprised. 'He was used to racing stables,' Mac said. 'Grand places.'
'I'm not surprised, given what they charged,' Natasha retorted. The horse, already spooked by some microcosmic change in the atmosphere, refused to enter the lorry. Sarah begged and pleaded with him, swore at everyone to keep back and attempted repeatedly to lead him up the ramp and into the plush interior. But Boo stopped, pulled back against her, several times rearing in fright, sending the small crowd of passers-by leaping backwards, as he clattered backwards on to the cobbles. The longer it went on, Mac said, the more people stopped in the street to watch, and the more upset the horse had become, sweating, white-eyed and almost uncontrollable. Boys had wheeled past on scooters; drivers, blocked by the horsebox, blew their horns bad-temperedly; Cowboy John, smoking in the gateway, tipped back his hat and shook his head, as if everything that happened was a matter for mild disapproval.