‘Oh.

She, then?’

‘At Derby. We got her at the horse sales.’

Fry looked along the line of loose boxes. She remembered Gavin Murfin doing that in Sutton Coldfield. Here, she wasn’t sure what it was supposed to tell her, except that horses ate hay, which she thought she probably knew already.

‘I see you have one empty stall.’

‘We had a nice old gelding, but he got bad with arthritis. I really cried when he was PTS.’

‘PTS?’

The woman sneered again. Fry was getting tired of that expression now.

‘Put to sleep,’ said Naomi.

‘Oh, you mean killed.’

Her face froze. ‘We have our horses put to sleep humanely, when it has to be done at all.’

‘I’m not suggesting you don’t do it humanely, Miss Widdowson. But, let’s face it – whatever way you do it, they’re still dead, not asleep.’

Somewhere, a tune started up. A loud, irritating noise, high-pitched and tinny. It was a familiar tune, but it seemed to be coming from one of the stables, and it took Fry a moment to recognize it. Then the noise stopped just before the zap of laser guns came in. The Star Wars theme. It conjured up images of Han Solo and that big, hairy Wookiee – what was his name?

‘Yes, that’s my brother,’ said Naomi, as a heavily muscled young man peered over the half-door, clutching his mobile phone to his ear. ‘That’s Rick.’

‘Good morning, sir,’ said Fry.

Rick Widdowson merely nodded, and went back to whatever he’d been doing in the depths of the stable. Perhaps it was uncharitable to think that he’d only been keeping his head down until it became clear he wasn’t the subject of the visit.

Murfin had walked over towards the horses and was clicking his tongue at them. The animals stared at him as if he was mad. He clearly wasn’t carrying anything edible. Or was he?

‘What are their names?’ he called.

Fry winced. It was the way you’d ask a doting mother the names of her triplets. These were just animals, after all, weren’t they? Yet Naomi Widdowson didn’t bat an eyelid.

‘That’s Bonny at the end. Baby is the one in the middle. And the gelding is called Monty.’

‘Thank you.’

Taking the cue that Murfin had given her, Fry looked at Naomi again.

‘Does the name Rosie mean anything to you?’

‘No.’

‘I mean a horse, not a person.’

‘Still no.’

‘What about the horse that was fraudulently traded?’

Naomi shook her head empathically. ‘She was called Star. What is this about, anyway? Is there a reason for you being here, or did the police just have some time to spare in between harassing motorists?’

Fry smiled. ‘How would you describe Patrick Rawson? Was he a plausible sort of man? What did he look like?’

Naomi opened her mouth, then shut it again. She glowered at Fry, angry now. ‘I told you, I never met him. What sort of trick are you trying to pull?’