Chapter 66
SIXTY-SIX
Most of Saturday passed without incident, unless you counted the motocross competition that was being noisily contested in the woods. The only silver lining was that Will, watching the little bikes from the kitchen, said thoughtfully, ‘That looks quite cool.’
Kate glanced at him, surprised. ‘Would you like to try it?’
He nodded. ‘Maybe.’ He wandered off, back to his game.
She spent some time putting up Christmas decorations with Tilly, while Matt went out and bought a tree, which they placed at the base of the stairs.
At about five, the bikes finally packed it in.
She heard Will shouting from the small sitting room, but assumed he was simply engrossed in a Fortnite battle.
It was a moment or two before she caught the anguish in his tone and realised something was wrong.
She hurried to the sitting room. Matt was already there, holding a bawling Will. She glanced at the computer screen. It said in big letters: ELIMINATED BY HAZHAM.
‘What’s happened?’ she asked. ‘Did he lose?’
‘Worse than that,’ Matt said quietly. ‘He was wiped out by his own teammates. They ganged up on him somehow – I didn’t catch the details; it’s quite hard to do, apparently.
And it was this guy, Hazham, who did it.
’ He paused. ‘He’s another friend of Andy’s – a bit older than Will, with an American accent, Will said. I think it might be Hamish Finch.’
Furious, she snatched up Will’s headset and said into the microphone, ‘How could you? That is completely despicable behaviour.’ She heard laughter, barely suppressed, and flung the headset down again.
They were still consoling Will when Tilly came in. ‘Mummy, something’s wrong with Fresco,’ she said anxiously. ‘He’s not eating and he looks uncomfy.’
Kate got a torch and went outside with her to see. She was no expert, but even she could tell, from the way the pony was pawing the ground and sweating, that it was in pain.
Abruptly, Fresco threw himself to the ground and rolled. When he got up, he was breathing hoarsely. The whites of his eyes looked red, as if they were bleeding.
‘What’s that?’ Kate said, pointing. On the floor of the stable was some odd-looking blue grain. She’d seen something like it before, she was certain, but she couldn’t remember where.
Tilly said nervously, ‘I don’t know. But he was eating it when I came to skip out. Didn’t you give it to him?’
‘No,’ Kate said. Suddenly she remembered where she’d seen grain like that before. The pest controller had poured a couple of scoops into a bait box.
‘Oh my God,’ she said slowly. ‘I think it’s rat poison.’
Pulling out her phone, she called Fresco’s owner, Mary Snow.
‘Call the vet,’ Mary said at once, when she’d explained. ‘No, I’ll do it – they know me and they’ll come out straight away. In the meantime, try to get him to drink, and walk him in a circle. He’ll want to roll, but it’s best not to – he might twist his gut.’
‘Got it.’ And then, because Tilly, next to her, was desperately asking if Fresco was going to be all right, she said, ‘How serious is it?’
Mary hesitated. ‘It depends how much he’s got hold of. A pony’s a lot bigger than a rat, but they love grain, and that blue stuff’s been coated with apple juice, so it’s even more attractive. Horses can’t vomit, either, so any kind of colic can be fatal. Is Tilly with you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Get her to walk him. Walking’s to distract Fresco, as much as anything, but it’ll distract her as well. And, if it is a bad outcome, at least she’ll feel she did all she could.’
By the time the vet arrived, Fresco’s head was drooping and Kate thought, when she shone the torch on him, that she saw blood glistening in one nostril. A tremor shuddered up the pony’s neck.
‘Yes, this looks like rat poison all right,’ the vet said grimly as she prepared an intravenous drip. ‘It’s an anticoagulant, so we’re going to get some saline and vitamin K into him, then you can walk him again.’
When the IV line went in, Fresco bled profusely from the puncture wound.
‘That’s to be expected,’ the vet said. ‘But if he fits, or comes off his feet, I’m afraid we’re in a very different ball game.’
Fresco staggered, and for a moment Kate thought he was going to collapse. Then he shook his head and steadied himself.
‘Tough little fellow,’ the vet said, squeezing the bag to make the saline go in faster.
The vet stayed until midnight, by which time she thought Fresco was probably out of danger.
But she still wanted him walked every half hour.
Tilly was exhausted, but there was no way she was leaving the pony, so Kate took over with the promise that Tilly could lie down in the stable and keep an eye on things. She was asleep within minutes.
Matt came out with coffee.
‘Jamie?’ he asked quietly, handing it to her.
Kate nodded bitterly. ‘Who else? Maybe when he knew we’d be distracted by what his son had just done to Will.
He could have nipped through The Old Tennis Court’s back gate, emptied a couple of pouches of grain on the stable floor, and been out of here within a minute.
’ She glanced up at The Old Tennis Court.
All the lights were off, but that didn’t mean much.
‘You know, it’s a good thing we don’t have a shotgun.
If we did, I think I’d have emptied it into him by now. ’