No Going Back by Lyndon Stacey Page A

Tamzin in the kitchen, freshly showered and making coffee, face bare of make-up and hair twisted into an untidy knot.
    â€˜Thought you’d done a runner and stolen my dogs,’ she commented, and she was so totally different from Amanda that he wrapped her in a hug and then kissed her soundly.
    â€˜Sorry about last night,’ he said awkwardly.
    She looked up at him, her skin golden against the white towelling robe. ‘Don’t be daft! As long as you’re OK.’
    â€˜I’m fine.’
    â€˜Why don’t you ride out with us this morning?’ she suggested, handing him a mug. ‘On exercise, I mean.’
    â€˜Because I haven’t ridden since I was a kid,’ Daniel responded. ‘And I hardly think exercising a racehorse is the best way to ease back into it.’
    â€˜Nonsense – it’s like riding a bike. It’ll come back to you. You could ride Rex – he’s as good as gold.’
    â€˜He’d need to be,’ Daniel said with feeling. ‘Look, thanks for the offer, but I’d better get on.’
    â€˜Oh, OK. Didn’t realize you were busy.’ Her disappointment showed.
    â€˜I’m seeing Drew this afternoon – picking him up for lunch.’
    Daniel saw his son once a fortnight, and on the one weekend in six that he didn’t work on Saturday, Drew sometimes joined him at the flat, staying Friday and Saturday nights.
    â€˜Oh, I see. Well, why don’t you bring him over? He might like to see the horses.’
    â€˜Thanks, he’d love it, but he’s in Taunton and we’ve booked a bowling lane for the afternoon.’
    After an early breakfast, Daniel remained long enough to see Tamzin ride out on exercise with her string: seven blanketed horses, muzzles snorting steam, eager to be on the move. Tamzin rode at the back, sitting easily on a brown gelding that jiggled sideways and tossed its head impatiently. She raised a hand in farewell as she passed Daniel, and he thought he detected a certain wistfulness in her smile. He had an uneasy feeling that their ‘no strings’ relationship was assuming a more serious nature, and half regretted his weakness in staying the night.
    Leaving the yard, with a couple of hours to spare before he needed to set out for Taunton, Daniel turned the wheels of his red Mercedes estate towards Stack Bridge. He was sure Taz wouldn’t turn down the chance of a second walk, and he wanted to take another look at the place in broad daylight.
    The car was a scruffy, high-mileage example of the marque, bought when he was in the Dog Unit, primarily for the purpose of transporting his dogs to and from his base, where he would pick up his van. When they broke up, Amanda had claimed the smart sports saloon they’d jointly owned, but he wasn’t precious about what he drove. At least there was no need to worry about dirt or the odd scratch on this one, and very little chance of it being targeted by thieves. His colleagues at work had joked that a full tank of petrol doubled its value.
    Stack Bridge car park on a sunny Sunday morning was somewhat more populated than it had been on the Friday evening Daniel met Reynolds there. Parking the Mercedes next to a gleaming new sports car whose owners looked as if they feared that such decrepitude might be contagious, he let the dog out, calling him immediately to heel. Leaving the car park, he retraced the route he’d taken with Reynolds.
    Moments later, a black 4x4 approached at high speed, barely slowing to take the rise of the bridge so that its seconds scraped the tarmac briefly on the other side. Within seconds it had rounded the bend and disappeared from view.
    In his haste to pull Taz to safety, Daniel had missed getting the number plate, but as the car flashed by, he’d caught a glimpse of the driver, and unless he was very much mistaken, it was none other than Reynolds’s surly ‘brother’.
    Well, well. So they were