‘His dam’s in foal to the same sire this year?’

‘If you are referring to the dun colt, that’s correct.’

‘Exciting prospect. Next you’ll have to try her with this guy.’ Blair went to see Beck, admiring his ferocious beauty beyond the grilles, his deep rumbling voice doing little to calm the aggressive display.

‘That’s for Mrs Ledwell to decide,’ Lester muttered, adding under his breath, ‘Not your bloody place.’

Blair cracked a hoarse laugh and Lester realised he’d been heard. He ground his teeth as he crossed the yard under the man’s watchful gaze, hatefully slow and lopsided under the weight of the cob’s saddle, its leather-cased sandwich box and hunting flask already attached.

The Australian stood framed in the stable door, a big menacing shadow. ‘I’m on my way to lunch in Leicestershire. My most enthusiastic owners have bought each other His and Hers eventers for Christmas that they want me to take away for further education. Ronnie kindly offered me her lorry.’

‘Hmm…’ Lester knew he had at least two horse boxes of his own.

‘Could use a decent run, she reckons. No good lying idle, classy machine like hers.’

Lester marched past him, suspecting the Australian of at least one double entendre.

‘We look out for each other, me and Ron.’

‘Not my business what you get up to,’ he muttered, throwing the saddle up on the cob, refusing to be drawn into it.

‘This Horsemaker bloke, Lester,’ he squinted over his shoulder where the pack of dogs they’d brought had Stubbs cornered in the tack room, ‘d’you know much about him?’

Lester’s gnarled fingers slowed over the buckles, sensing common ground. ‘Heard he got into a spot of bother a while back.’

‘It was more than a spot, Lester. It was a bloody great black hole.’

‘Sorry! I left half my clobber here!’ exclaimed a breathless voice as, with a squeak of muddy buggy wheel, Carly charged across the yard from the direction of the rear track, pushing two of her brood, the third – a little shaven-haired thug – stomping in her wake carrying a fluffy sabre of some sort, and trailing their evil-looking dog who started barking and dragged him into the tack room to join the pack. ‘Get Mum’s purse from in there, Ellis!’ she shouted as she gathered the keys which she waggled at Lester with a self-mocking expression as he emerged from the cob’s stable. ‘Had to break into my own house just now.’ She grinned.

She’d changed into tight ripped jeans and a boxy fake fur jacket, ankle boots coated in mud. She must have come across the fields, Lester realised, rather admiring her tenacity, although he did wish she’d exert it elsewhere.

Carly was looking at Blair with sleepy-eyed interest. ‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’

Clearing his throat brusquely, Lester said, ‘Blair is an event rider friend of Mrs Ledwell’s, Carly.’ He paused, uncertain how to introduce her. He could hardly classify her as a groom, especially dressed like that. She did all sorts of jobs from what she’d said. ‘Carly is… a working girl from the village.’