‘Oh God, I hope he hasn’t hit him,’ I said, turning distractedly, but my new friends had moved on, out of earshot, not at a gallop but a fast trot, in single file across a ploughed field. I was last. Thumper, aware of this, registered his displeasure by lifting his front hooves off the ground when I held him back, but still I held him, because I’d spotted something fawn and inert in the bushes.

‘Shit!’

I was off in a trice, pulling the reins over Thumper’s head, dragging him into the undergrowth. There in the bracken lay the hound: stretched out stiffly, a terrible gash to its head. I gazed in horror. Blood was pouring down its cheek. Oh God, was it dead? I lurched forward, touched it. Shook it. It most certainly was. Either that or unconscious. I felt for a heartbeat. Nothing. I shrank back, aghast. Oh God, I’d killed a hound. Or Thumper had, which was surely one and the same thing. My hand flew to my mouth.

‘Oh God, I’m so sorry!’ I wailed, crouching over it again, stroking its poor fawn coat, the reins looped over my arm as Thumper danced impatiently on the end. ‘You poor thing!’ I whispered. There he’d been, happily running along with his mates one minute, and then, courtesy of yours truly, stone dead the next. Tears sprang to my eyes and I gulped hopelessly, wringing my hands. Thumper cavorted, but I ignored him. In fact right now I downright hated him and spun round to tell him so in no uncertain terms.

‘You stupid stupid horse!’

I cast about desperately for help. One by one the hunt was disappearing across the ploughed field over the brow of the hill and, horrified as I was, I couldn’t help feeling relief. For something else was building in my breast. Some other, weighty emotion. Terror. I was fairly sure that up there in the litany of hunting sins, this was the most heinous. Forget not having the right kit. Forget not addressing the master correctly, overtaking him, the whipper-in, the pack; this was the black cap. Not just for the hound, but for me too.

Dry-mouthed, I stared at the empty horizon. All gone. No one even in the distance. But if I was tempted momentarily to get back on and just turn and belt for home, for the safety of my cottage and a nice cup of tea, I resisted manfully. No. What I’d do, what I’d jolly well do, was get back on and catch up with them. Yes. Tell them exactly what had happened. Fess up.

Heart pounding and feeling very fluttery and sweaty-palmed, I somehow, with the help of a log, got back on a prancing and distressed Thumper – but not as distressed as I was, oh God no – and around we spun. We galloped off across the middle of the sticky plough, then through a gate and sharp left across a meadow. The riders in the distance were going at speed now, and I realized I’d have to leap a ditch or two along the way to catch up. But ditches were nothing to me now. Risking my own neck was a mere trifle. In fact breaking it was hugely preferable to what was about to befall it.

In a trice I was steaming up a grassy hill beside Polly, the nurse. A good person. A nice person. Think of the hours she worked, the minimum wage, the bedpans. She’d understand. And maybe it wasn’t dead, after all? Maybe she’d administer mouth to mouth?

‘Polly –’

‘Oh, hi, you’re back! We were worried about you. Gosh, you must have jumped those ditches – well done!’

‘Polly, I –’

‘Holes on the right!’ she shouted in warning as we careered past a badger set.

Thumper swerved violently to avoid the craters in the ground, and of course I was doing my level best to stay on, let alone speak. And with every furlong we galloped, we were getting further away from the poor dead hound. One of many, of course. So many. Look at them all streaming out ahead. Heaps of them, so of course he wasn’t missed. But I must impart my intelligence. Must divulge the grave news. We were jumping now, a series of little blackthorn hedges, not very big, but as I landed beside Polly’s huge grey, I screamed, ‘I’ve done something – I must tell you!’

She swung around. Only, to my horror, it wasn’t Polly at all; it was Emma Harding.

She looked annoyed at being yelled at, mid-jump. ‘Oh, it’s you.’ She glared. ‘I hope it wasn’t you on the crops back there.’

‘What?’ We’d straggled to a halt before a massive hedge that not even the thrusters could jump.

‘Someone went on the crops, and you were specifically told to keep to the edge.’

I gazed in wonder. She’d slept with my husband for four years, wanted my children’s inheritance, and now she was telling me not to trample a few Weetabix seedlings?

‘And you should have a red ribbon on that horse’s tail if it kicks.’

I went pale. Did she know? Had she seen?

‘He doesn’t kick,’ I heard myself splutter.

‘Well, he nearly got my horse back there. I saw him lash out.’

‘You barged into me,’ I retorted. ‘And how dare you even begin to lecture me about how to behave when you have behaved so abominably, so despicably, you – you hussy!’

All my rage, all my pent-up emotion flooded out as I regarded her up on her grey mare with her carefully painted face. So much I wanted to say seethed and jostled within, but which words to choose? Surely I could do better than hussy? Strumpet, perhaps? As I struggled to find a twenty-first century expletive I was capable of uttering, she watched disdainfully. Her red lip curled as she looked me up and down.

‘Just don’t bite off more than you can chew, hm?’

And with that she was off. From a standing start to a canter, as the field circumnavigated the hedge through a series of gates, then out into open country again. I was on her heels whether she liked it or not. For Thumper had got second wind and seemed determined to stick like glue to Miss Harding’s mare. And of course she rode right up at the front, so that’s where I ended up: with Hope and Chad, Simon, who had the grace to look abashed as I came thundering up, the terrifying Mary Granger of the stony face, who bonked blacksmiths, Angie, whose eyes were round as I yet again rocketed past her horribly out of control, and then Sam, who, with intrinsic style, was executing a stately collected canter at the head of the field. He raised an ironic, here-we-go-again eyebrow as I cannoned past, but no more than that. Pulling for all I was worth and travelling at a speed that made my eyes stream and the wind rush in my ears, I at least managed to turn a circle before I reached the hounds. I bounced inelegantly back, features jockeying for position, hat over my eyes, everyone staring in wonder, even the children having never seen the like. Suddenly I found my reins being firmly taken from me. It was Angie, and her eyes were sparkling.

‘Poppy, I’m going to have to take you home,’ she told me. ‘I have never been so embarrassed!’

I couldn’t breathe, such had been the exertion of trying to stop Thumper. Such was my terror and lack of fitness. I could only nod; try to get some air into my lungs. I felt terribly sick. At that moment a grim-faced whipper-in swept past silently in the opposite direction.

‘One of the hounds is missing,’ Mary Granger, a face like thunder, informed us, riding up. ‘We’re going to have to hang around here a moment while Martin goes back to look. It’s literally nowhere to be seen. Seems to have vanished into thin air.’

She rode off to tell the others; to inform the rest of the field. I gazed after her, stricken.




22

That should have been my moment. Of course that should have been my moment. All I remember, though, was turning back from staring at Mary’s retreating back, and looking into Angie’s glittering eyes as she held my reins. My own eyes cast wildly about: I saw Simon and Emma talking to Sam, grave and deadly serious. My throat clenched with fear, my heart with it. I wished so badly I was not with the thrusters, but with the Pollys and Grants of this world. I could see them at the tail end of the field, sharing a joke and a hip flask, laughing uproariously, Grant even lighting a cigarette. Please, God, I thought, let me go to them; I could tell them. Then they could pass it on, like Chinese whispers. But Angie still had hold of my reins and was telling me in low, measured tones, as one might a child who’s run in the road and scared one enough to yell initially, that of course it wasn’t my fault, because I hadn’t been out before, but if only I’d gone to her first, she could have lent me something more suitable.

‘If only you’d asked, you could have had Clarissa’s pony. It’s hunted seven seasons, knows exactly how to behave. You are a goon, Poppy.’

I listened to this almost in a dream. It was said, certainly, in something more like her usual friendly voice as she relaxed her grip on my rein. And she was my friend; my good friend, who I could tell, surely? I opened my mouth to speak, but my mouth was so dry my teeth stuck to my upper lip. By the time I’d licked them free, Sam had ridden up beside her, mobile clamped to ear, and was talking to her, relaying what he was hearing to Angie. Angie, who, I suddenly noticed, had a mustard collar to her blue coat. Did that make her a hunt official? Like part of the secret police? My befuddled mind swam as she bestowed a dazzling smile on Sam, then, realizing the smile was inappropriate, adopted a grave expression as she listened to what he had to say, as indeed, I did too.

They’d found the hound, stone dead in a copse, apparently. A nasty gash to his head. Kicked, by the looks of things. Someone had even had the gall to hide him with some bracken.

Angie’s expression was no longer manufactured; there was genuine horror in her eyes as she gave a sharp intake of breath. Mary Granger, beside us, who was as tough as old rhino hide, put a hand over her mouth. Sam rode off, white-faced. And then it spread, in a rolling tide, around the field. The hound was called Peddler, it was Mark, the huntsman’s, favourite. He’d bred him and walked him as puppy. Yes, definitely kicked, and then hidden with a blanket of bracken – no, actually, a shallow grave had been dug, to secrete it. Never had I felt such fear. Never had my heart beat so loudly or had I felt so surrounded by a mob. The horses stood steaming, withers heaving, glad of the respite from galloping, and as they tossed their heads and their bits jangled, it seemed to me redolent of the jangle and click of the tricoteuse.

In a matter of moments, anger had replaced shock around me. How could someone? One of the children perhaps, but no, they’d all been through the Pony Club, knew how to behave. And most children were escorted. And to dig a grave … No, no, unthinkable, it must have been an adult, they stormed. But what a craven one. Word spread to the back of the field and I saw Polly and Grant and crew stop their laughter as their jaws dropped in horror. In that moment I also saw Emma Harding’s hard little grey eyes come round to seek mine. I met them, but only briefly. I turned away, trembling. Then, as I slowly raised my head, it was to see her ride across to talk to the master. To Sam.

The minutes ticked by. Angie was being sweet now, offering me her hip flask, perhaps feeling guilty for her earlier outburst, but I couldn’t tell her now, could I? Because why hadn’t I owned up immediately? Suddenly all the prisons in all the world sprang to mind, the convicts within staring out at me, gripping the bars, plaintive eyes saying: you see? That’s why we’re here. Because something happened and we didn’t own up. But accidents do happen, terrible ones – hit and runs, lashing out at the wife in an argument. Of course we didn’t mean it, but this is where we end up, this is how it happens. I nearly fell off my horse.

The whipper-in, the telephonic messenger who’d found the hound, arrived back. He ignored us and swept on, his mouth set in a grim line; he headed towards the hounds, who were at a distance to the rest of the field on the brow of the hill. We saw him canter steadily up to Mark the huntsman, all alone, still working his hounds, still drawing the covert. The last to know. As the message was conveyed, I saw Mark put his hand over his eyes, and with that gesture I knew I’d hurt someone very badly. One of the terrier men, on a quad bike, we heard, had picked up the hound, Peddler, and was taking it back to the kennels. Meanwhile we carry on. The show must go on.