AFTER A NIGHT FILLED with exhausting equestrian dreams, saddled up and ridden hard for the finish by an over-exuberant jockey Ma, Rafferty overslept, and woke to aching bones and the realization that, in addition to his other troubles, he’d somehow caught the flu. By the time he finally got to the station, he wasn’t in the best of tempers. And the sight of a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed Llewellyn did nothing to improve his mood.
‘How’s that hunt for possible grudge-holders from Barstaple’s past going?’ he asked Llewellyn. ‘Found any matches yet with Aimhurst’s or Watts and Cutley’s employees?’
Contrarily, he half-hoped for a negative reply; it would give him the excuse he needed to have a moan. After all, he reasoned, it was Llewellyn’s peculiar combination of high morals, low vanity, an
