Scout and the Mystery of the Marsh Ponies (6 page)

“He won’t be for long if Tallulah keeps riding him into fences like that,” Charlie added, quietly enough for Alice not to hear, as they sat back on the paddock fence again.

“Oh, I know he’s good, don’t worry,” Tallulah smirked. “Poppy Brookes said as much. I can’t wait to see her face when she sees me riding him at the weekend – she’ll be so jealous! I definitely want him, Dad. Let’s take him now.”

Alice froze. It suddenly clicked – Tallulah and her dad had come in their horsebox! It hadn’t registered at first, but now it was suddenly, horribly clear why they’d brought it. Surely they couldn’t just leave this second with Scout? Even Tallulah couldn’t expect Alice to have a hurried goodbye while she looked on, as if the last year with Scout counted for nothing. She felt her breath come fast and her throat tighten. Her eyes began to sting as she looked towards Tallulah’s dad.

“Of course we can take the pony now, princess,” he boomed, reaching for his cheque book. “Anything you want. Now, who do I make this payable to?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Starr,” Mrs Valentine said, her smile still in place but failing to keep a hint of irritation out of her voice. “I deal in cash only, no cheques, and I can’t let you take him until he’s been paid for.”

Alice let out a massive sigh, almost laughing
in relief and not even realising that she’d been holding her breath. This bought them more time to stop the sale, to stop her losing Scout. She turned to the others, who were looking as shocked and relieved as she was.

Tallulah huffed, then rode Scout back into the yard and leaped off, throwing the reins at Alice. Scout turned towards Alice, his ears out sideways, and nudged her hard. He leaned his head against her chest for a moment as she hugged him, breathing in his soft, warm, familiar pony smell. As Alice slid the saddle off his back and the bridle over his ears, gently letting the bit come out of his mouth, she could hear Tallulah, her dad and Mrs Valentine talking. Moments later, Tallulah pranced back to Scout’s stable.

“Dad’s just arranged everything,” she smiled. “He’s going away later this morning on a business trip. He doesn’t get back till Friday lunchtime, but Mrs Valentine’s agreed to cancel the advert and keep the pony just for me. So, Dad’s arranged to
meet her back here at three o’clock on Friday. Then he’ll be all mine and I can take him home there and then. Only that doesn’t leave me much time to prepare him for the Sweetbriar Stud show, so you’ll have to give him a shampoo for me ready for when I pick him up – okay?”

Tallulah smiled sweetly, while Alice fumed quietly inside. She wasn’t Tallulah’s new groom, even though Tallulah was acting as if she was.

With that, she said that she’d ‘pop in’ the day before collecting the pony to measure him up for rugs. She leaned over his stable door and gave him a quick hard pat that sent him scuttling sideways. He let out a long, juddering sigh before turning to his haynet and taking a pull at it distractedly. Tallulah skipped out of the yard, chattering incessantly as the horsebox started up and drowned out her voice.

They heard another engine purr into life.

“I almost forgot,” Mia said urgently, running towards the gate, “we still need to get some
answers out of Mrs Valentine! Quick, before she drives off!”

They all rushed round to the drive. The horsebox was slowly manoeuvring into it, briefly blocking Mrs Valentine in. It was a hot day, and Mrs Valentine had her windows open. Her handbag was lying on the passenger seat, her mobile phone beside it. Mrs Valentine looked up and smiled.

“I told you the first person to see that pony would buy him,” she said with a touch of triumph in her soft voice. “And I was right, wasn’t I? Now, I really must go.”

“Oh, before you do,” Mia said quickly, “we’ve just got a few questions.”

Mrs Valentine glanced up the drive. The horsebox was still manoeuvring so she was still stuck.

“I really don’t have time,” she said casually. “Maybe another day?”

“Well, this won’t take long,” Mia replied, “and
you can’t exactly go anywhere right now, anyway.”

A flash of irritation crossed Mrs Valentine’s face. She waved her hand, and Mia took this as a signal for her to carry on.

“We went to your address yesterday,” she said, “the one you gave Alice when she took Scout on loan last year.”

“And?” Mrs Valentine replied, her stare fixed on the horsebox ahead.

“It doesn’t exist,” Charlie said.

“Alice must have written it down wrong,” Mrs Valentine said coolly, revving her engine.

“And we found out that you’d lied about Scarlett owning Scout since he was a foal,” Mia continued, determined not to be put off.

Mrs Valentine glanced up the drive. The horsebox was slowly moving off, but not fast enough. Suddenly, she turned to look at the girls. For the first time, her face was steely. Even from behind her glasses her glare was distinctly icy. Alice wondered how she’d never seen this mean
side before as Mrs Valentine’s voice became a hiss.

“Now, you listen here! Sunny is
my
pony, and he is up for sale. Nothing you might ask or find out is going to change the situation – got that? So don’t go poking your noses in where they don’t belong – that’s a warning.”

The mobile phone on Mrs Valentine’s passenger seat startled them all as it burst into life. Charlie just glimpsed the flashing screen. All she saw was one letter – ‘R’ – before Mrs Valentine snatched it and pressed it to her ear.

“Another one?” she said cryptically. “Good. I’ll see you this Thursday, in that case.”

Mrs Valentine ended the call. The horsebox was turning out of the drive. Mrs Valentine revved the engine, then in a shower of gravel she shot forward, a smile spreading across her face.

Chapter Nine

“T
ALLULAH
! Of all the people in the world!” Alice sighed for the five hundredth time the next morning as they stood about in the yard while their ponies ate their breakfast. Alice scuffed a weed with her foot, imagining all kinds of horrible scenarios – the worst being that after a few months of Tallulah ruining him, Scout would be up for sale again and would end up being passed from one person to the next, getting more and more scared, more and more lonely, with no one to love him.

“But at least there’s a silver lining to this admittedly very big black cloud,” Charlie said, trying to sound hopeful as Alice wiped away another tear.

“Er, like the biggest thunder cloud you could ever imagine!” Rosie added helpfully, picking up Pumpkin, the ginger yard cat. He rubbed his head against her chin, purring loudly.

“But the silver lining is that at least we’ve got until three o’clock on Friday, when Tallulah’s dad is coming with the money,” Charlie continued, nudging Rosie. “That gives us a bit of time to work out why Mrs Valentine warned us off. It’s obvious there’s something she doesn’t want us to discover. If we can find out what it is we might be able to stop this sale.”

“Well, we know from the phone call that she’s got something on this Thursday,” Mia added, looking hopeful. “If we can find out what that is, and who ‘R’ is, that might give us another lead.”

“We could trail her! See where she goes!” Rosie piped up, excited.

“Considering we don’t even know where she lives,” Charlie said, “that might be a bit tricky.”

At that moment their thoughts were interrupted
as they heard a van rattle and bump down the track and a car horn bip-bip.

Beanie raced to the gate, followed by the girls, as Jock Beamish, their farrier, climbed out of his Land Rover, waving to them as he went round to the back to get out his gear. His own dog, a black labrador called Henry, leaped down and went flying around the yard with Beanie, barking and rolling about excitedly.

Jock, who earned the nickname from his time as a National Hunt jockey before he retrained to be a farrier, lugged his gear into the yard. He stood and wiped his old, furrowed brow for a moment then dragged his hand across his heavy leather chaps, smiling all the while.

The girls loved it when he turned up at Blackberry Farm, as regular as clockwork and always on time, every six weeks, to shoe the ponies. They rushed about, making him tea which they slopped over the edges of the cup onto the yard in their hurry to rush back, and offering
him biscuits, slices of home-made fruit cake and thick wedges of bread spread thickly with butter and jam.

The girls would all crowd round as he spoke slowly, his low gentle voice lulling the ponies to sleep. He told them about stealing the Gold Cup in the dying strides on a huge, raw-boned bay, Faraway Kingdom, and storming the Grand National by ten lengths on the small but bold grey, Dreamer’s Town. In between raising clenches on the nails, easing off shoes, knocking new ones into shape and taking the long, dark nails one by one from his mouth to tap in, he would regale them with stories from his racing days. He told them the secrets of the weighing room and all the practical jokes the jockeys used to play on each other, and the best way to ride a fence at speed. Rosie always made him repeat that bit, stating that she needed to know for when she jumped Dancer, making the others giggle as they all knew Dancer was the slowest jumper in the universe.

As Mia, then Charlie and Rosie led their ponies out one by one, Jock worked away between slurps of hot, sweet tea and mouthfuls of Victoria sponge cake, whistling almost under his breath to the ponies whenever he wasn’t talking. When they were finished, Alice led out Scout.

Jock stood looking at his neat black hooves for a moment before moving with a slight arthritic limp (“from too many years riding in the rain”) to stand behind Scout.

“Any problems?” Jock asked Alice slowly.

Alice sighed and shook her head. “Not with his hooves, anyway.”

Jock bent and picked up Scout’s near fore, expertly taking the shoe off in no time before carefully scraping his sole, talking away quietly as much to soothe Scout as to make conversation.

“I remember the state this boy’s hooves were in when I first saw them after he’d been living on Dragonfly Marsh,” Jock said, gently shaking his head. “But you’re not alone, are you, boy? I’ve shod
a few of you that have come off there in the last year, all with the same hooves. Soft they are, from standing day and night in that wet marshland. It don’t take long for a hoof to turn if it’s not being checked each day, that’s for sure.”

The girls had been closing their eyes like Scout and enjoying the sun while they sat on upturned buckets and listened to Jock. In an instant, they jumped up and looked at each other, nearly tipping over their makeshift seats, and startling Scout.

“Hang on,” Mia said, swishing her black hair over her shoulder, suddenly alert. “Are you saying other ponies have been grazed on Dragonfly Marsh, besides Scout, I mean?”

“I am indeed saying that,” Jock replied, wiping his brow with a look of surprise as he saw the four girls’ faces all staring at him intently. “Important, is it?”

“Could be.” Alice nodded, suddenly getting excited. “I know Mrs Valentine said she only had Scout, but nothing else she’s told me so far is true.
So, I wonder if she owned any other ponies on there, too…?”

Jock frowned, and Mia, Charlie and Rosie rapidly brought him up to speed.

He listened quietly, tilting his head, then smiled kindly, draining his cup in one big swig.

“Well, let me see if I can help you four,” Jock mused. He paused for a moment, then continued. “The first time I noticed this kind of hoof was on young Scout here, and since then I’ve seen a few of them, one here, then one there, spread out all round this county. I always check where they come from, though – hard to miss it. Hooves from the Marsh are like a fingerprint, identifying any pony that’s been kept on it as clear as day. It doesn’t matter if they’re shod or not, it’s the insides, the frog and the sole that turn soft standing in all that wet land.”

“So how many ponies with hooves like this do you think you’ve seen?” Charlie asked, getting excited.

Jock smoothed Scout’s hoof with a rough hand. “In total, including Scout? About six, I’d say. Now I come to think on it, it’s been pretty regular – one every two months or so, I’d reckon.”

Mia ran to get her notebook as Jock pulled a small, worn diary out of his back pocket. He flicked through the pages, then began to write a list of the names of the owners, their phone numbers and a description of the ponies that he’d shod that had been on Dragonfly Marsh. The girls looked at each other, convinced that Jock’s new information had to be significant.

“We need to speak to the owners to find out who they got their ponies from,” Mia said, her mind starting to whir as she realised what this new information might mean for their case.

“And you’re sure that these ponies are all ones that have come from the Marsh?” Rosie asked, frowning. The others looked at her reproachfully. Jock never mistook a hoof.

He nodded at Rosie with a wry smile, then
went back to rasping Scout’s hooves, making sure that every clench was smoothed over so that they couldn’t catch on anything.

“Right, we need to start calling these numbers,” Charlie said, pulling out her phone.

“And try to work out who ‘R’ is, and what’s happening tomorrow,” Mia agreed, reading back over the clues in the notebook and seeing the one that they’d added after Mrs Valentine’s phone call at the yard the day before.

Jock leaned over the notebook, frowning as he started to gather up his tools.

“‘R’? Tomorrow?” he said, pausing for a moment with his rasp and hammer in his hand. “I’m on official farrier duty tomorrow morning, at a Roger Green auction. I wonder if that’s anything to do with it?”

Alice squealed, suddenly brightening and clapping her hands. “That has to be it! It can’t just be a coincidence – Mrs Hawk bought Scout from a Roger Green auction, and Mrs Valentine
must have bought him from Mrs Hawk.”

“I bet it’s all connected!” Mia said excitedly.

“Any chance you’ve got room to take the four of us?” Rosie asked hopefully. “We can help hold your hammer and nails…?”

Jock smiled. “If it helps young Alice here keep Scout, and your parents say you can come, I’ll happily have you as my guests.”