He nodded, still staring in front of him. I got out of the motorcar and started to walk toward the archway. I heard Darcy slam his door and his footsteps clattered on the cobbles as he came after me.

“Hey, you,” a voice shouted, and a young man came striding toward us. He was redheaded, red faced and scowling. “What do you want? Not more reporters, are you? You’re the third lot this morning and we’ve work to do.”

“Who are you?” Darcy asked him.

“Ted Benson, stable manager,” the man said, eyeing Darcy with dislike, “and for that matter who might you be?”

“Darcy O’Mara, Lord Kilhenny’s son and heir.”

The man sneered. “I’m surprised you dare show your face around here after what your old man did.”

“My old man, as you so crudely put it, is innocent until proven guilty,” Darcy said. “And what happened to Harry?”

“You mean the old man who looked after the horses when your father ran the stable? Mr. Roach got rid of him. Too old to do the job anymore. He needed a younger man, with more modern ideas.”

Darcy was looking around the stables where a horse’s head looked out of each open door. “You’ve still got Sultan, I see,” he said, and went over to stroke the nose of a big dark bay. The horse whickered and rubbed up against Darcy.

“He seems to like you,” Ted Benson commented, sounding surprised. “He doesn’t get on with anyone else here and he’s a devil to ride. Pity because he’s strong over the jumps.”

Darcy gave the big horse a final pat and came back to me.

“So you weren’t here when there was the doping incident?” he asked.

“I was not. Mr. Roach hired me after he got rid of your father. He tried running the place himself for a while but that was a disaster. He knew nothing about horses, did he? Not a thing.”

“So what is going to happen to the stables now?” Darcy asked.

“Search me,” Benson said. “I don’t even know if my wages are going to be paid. And we certainly can’t go ahead and enter any of the races in the upcoming meetings. I’m not paying jockeys out of my pocket and the Garda have said nothing. Looking for a will and the next of kin, I suppose. Probably put the whole bally lot up for auction. Some good horses here.”

Darcy was looking around as if he couldn’t wait to be off again. “We won’t trouble you any longer,” he said, and he escorted me back under the archway. I could feel Ted Benson watching us all the way back to the Rolls.

“He was an unpleasant sort of chap, wasn’t he?” I said.