* * *
As soon as Sara saw Kate and Jack, she knew they had something to tell. They looked like they were ready to explode if they didn’t release their information immediately.
They went inside the pub. It was awash in polished horse brasses, with a huge fireplace along one wall. The Floridians were sorry it wasn’t alight. They took a table in the corner by a window that looked out to the street, then ordered great heaps of fish and chips.
“And tomato sauce,” the waitress said. This was English for ketchup.
“No!” they said. “Malt vinegar.”
The waitress gave a little smile and went away.
“So?” Sara said as soon as they were alone.
Jack motioned for Kate to go first.
“I want to say that asking for ‘something no one else knew’ worked. Clive was very pleased to be asked that.” Kate paused. “Remember how Mr. Howland said Diana wanted to breed horses?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Clive thinks Sean was stealing semen from some big-time racehorses and selling it.”
The visions that conjured made Sara say, “Ewww.”
Jack laughed in a dirty kind of way. “Bet when he showed up, the horses came running.”
“It was illegal,” Kate said.
“That’s what he was doing in the cemetery with those men,” Sara said. “Selling it to them.”
“Probably,” Jack agreed.
“I bet it was for Nadine,” Kate said. “I wonder if he did know she was pregnant? He worked with animals so he probably knew the signs.”
“Poor guy,” Jack said. “In love, about to be a father and no way to support a woman who was used to great wealth. Her daddy had even remodeled a room for a place she just visited. How could he compete with that?”
“That gives Mr. Howland a motive for murder,” Sara said. “He didn’t want his daughter running off with some low-class nobody. He was an extremely ambitious man, and this handsome stable lad was destroying his life plan.”
Kate was looking at her hands. “Maybe returning to Oxley made him remember what he’d done. Maybe he did take his own life.”
Their platters of divine English fish and chips arrived. “Keto be damned,” Sara mumbled as she shook the malt vinegar onto the fat “chips.” In the US, they’d be called home fries.
The waitress left and they were alone again.
“What about you?” Sara asked Jack. “Find out anything interesting?”
Jack smiled. “Just a little.”
“Out with it,” Kate said, her mouth full. Their drinks were lukewarm.
“Byon said he didn’t believe Diana actually liked men.”
“Hated them or liked women better?” Sara asked.
“Sex,” Jack said. “Liked women for sex.”
“Proof that she and Sean weren’t a couple,” Sara said. “Damn! But I’d like to know what happened to her. What else?”
“Byon said that after that night, Nicky changed.”
Sara closed her eyes for a moment. “I sometimes forget how good carbs taste. Anyway, how did he change? From what I gather, Nicky didn’t have many friends, so after everyone left, he was alone with his father. He must have been depressed.”
“Byon said that for the first year, he used to drive up from London every weekend, but Nicky was always angry and drunk. Byon stopped coming. Oh! And he said they missed Clive.”