Gently at a Gallop by Alan Hunter Page A

seen the poem. She just glanced at it, but he read it. And the way she behaved, sir, I think he was catching on. If he didn’t know before, he knows now.’
    ‘There’s still Berney’s behaviour to explain.’
    ‘He could’ve been scared stiff of Rising, sir.’
    ‘And our rider on his dark horse.’
    ‘Perhaps that fellow doesn’t come into it.’
    Gently laughed at Docking’s fervent expression. ‘There’s one more objection. Would Mrs Rising have done it?’
    ‘We can show opportunity, sir. And a pretty fat motive.’
    ‘But would she have done it?’
    Docking was silent.
    The Lotus slid docilely into High Hale, where the clock on the flint church tower was showing four thirty. Above the trees above the cottages the bland front of The Lodge displayed its slatted windows. Gently eased to walking-pace.
    ‘It’s an amusing theory,’ he said. ‘But just now we’ll keep it on the file. Meanwhile there’s that stallion Rising was good enough to mention – I think we should take a look at that.’
    ‘That’s at Home Farm,’ Docking said glumly. ‘It’s at the back of the heath, off the Low Hale road.’
    ‘And the Manor House,’ Gently said. ‘Where would that be?’
    ‘It’s in the same direction,’ Docking said. ‘Sir.’
    They drove up past the heath again and as far as the grove of oaks. Here one of the narrow roads to which Gently was becoming accustomed bore away to the right. It skirted the heath on one hand and standing crops on the other, separated from them by low banks where grasses tangled with stubs of hawthorn. Then a plastered farmhouse appeared to the left, half-concealed by the lift of the fields. It had steep roofs of glazed blue pantiles and was hemmed by brick outbuildings and bushy elders.
    ‘Does Creke have any neighbours?’ Gently asked.
    ‘No, sir,’ Docking said. ‘Farmers don’t go in for them.’
    ‘How far is the Manor House from here?’
    Docking considered. ‘I’d say another mile, sir.’
    They reached a junction with a concrete track which led across the fields to the farmhouse. The junction was marked by an island of trees in which nestled a farm building and a pond scummed with weed. In the field opposite a big combine-harvester was puffing steadily through a stand of barley, while under the hedge lay four or five bicycles. A man lounged by them, smoking, watching.
    ‘Farmer Creke, sir.’
    Gently parked the Lotus. Creke made no motion to come across. A lean, hard-framed man with greasy black hair, he leaned against a field-gate, his eyes inspecting them. He was around fifty, probably six foot, and his black hair extended to ghostly sideboards. He was smoking a small, sooty briar from which smoke rose in regular puffs.
    Gently got out and walked over to him.
    ‘Mr Creke?’
    Creke looked him over with quick grey eyes. He shifted his pipe to the side of his mouth. ‘That’s me,’ he said. ‘Who are you?’
    Gently introduced himself. Creke nodded. He nostrilled a couple of wisps of smoke.
    ‘So what’s on now?’ he said. ‘Your blokes were here Wednesday. I can’t tell you more now than I could then.’
    ‘Do you know Gerald Rising?’ Gently asked.
    Creke took a few draws. ‘What about him?’
    ‘We’ve been talking to him.’ Gently said. ‘About your black stallion. About the way you can handle it when it’s out on service.’
    Creke spat past his pipe. ‘He’s a big-mouth,’ he said. ‘I’ll have a word with him too when I see him.’
    ‘But he’s right about the horse?’
    ‘Right nothing,’ Creke said. ‘Prince is quiet as a baby if you don’t rattle him.’
    ‘But if you do . . . ?’
    Creke eased himself off the gate. ‘Let me give you a tip,’ he said. ‘Rising’s an Aussie. He didn’t know the first blind thing about horses when he came up this way a few years back. His missus taught him all he knows and that’d go on a picture postcard. He doesn’t know a horse and he can’t ride one. What he says about them