Free The Wild Boy and Queen Moon by K M Peyton

she just fall?’ she asked.
    ‘We can’t tell. You didn’t notice anything different from usual? Do you usually call in?’
    ‘No, I didn’t notice anything. I quite often call in. Not always.’
    She wasn’t going to say about her gut feeling that something had been wrong. There was no way to describe that.
    ‘That’s all for now. I’ve no doubt the inspector will want to ask you some more questions later, Mrs Fielding. About who might have been in the vicinity last night, that sort of thing.’
    He drank his tea and departed.
    ‘Oh dear.’ Mary Fielding looked at Sandy sadly. ‘It’s a bad business. Her savings are all gone. You know she keeps an envelope full of ten-pound notes under her mattress? I told them, and they looked, and it’s not there.’
    ‘Everybody knows that. Everyone in the village,’ Sandy said. ‘She tells everyone it’s safer than in a bank. And who does he mean, everyone in the vicinity? All of us? Last night?’
    It was a Monday morning, a week after Sneerwell had fallen off King of the Fireworks.
    ‘Everyone was here last night. Sunday night,’ Sandy said. ‘Sneerwell, Leo, Julia, Polly, Henry, Stick and Ball – even Uncle Arthur came down last night.’
    ‘That boy on the grey went past in the dark, flat gallop as usual. Glynn came down with the new gate.’
    ‘Dad and Ian, you and me!’ And Duncan, Sandy thought. But didn’t say. ‘Grandpa!’
    ‘Grandpa was the last to see her. He called in at teatime. He’ll get a shock when he hears!’
    ‘Where is he?’
    ‘He’s moving the electric fence in the top field.’
    ‘But anyone could have done it!’
    ‘Yes, of course. Anyone from the village. Or a stranger. The mattress isn’t a very original place to keep cash, after all.’ Mrs Fielding looked rather old suddenly, Sandy thought. ‘Poor Gertie – oh, poor Gertie! What a terrible thing to have happened to her! It can’t be anyone we know. They said she must have been lying there all night. Poor old soul!’
    ‘She might have fought back. She would, I think.’
    ‘She’s certainly a fearless woman. But this will do her so much harm, mentally. She won’t be able to live on her own after this.’
    ‘She’d never go in a home!’
    ‘No. Imagine! She’d drive them all mad. I don’t know what will happen.’ Mary Fielding slumped, in the old-looking way, and said nothing for a few moments, then she visibly pulled herself together and said briskly, ‘Well, I shall go along to the hospital and see how she’s doing, and I’ll take you to school on the way. It’s no good sitting here thinking about it. That’ll get us nowhere.’
    Sandy felt the day was half over, but she was as yet only half an hour late for school. Amazing. When she went in, in the middle of a lesson, and explained why she was late, she became the centre of attention all day and everyone wanted to hear the story of her going upstairs and finding the blood -covered old lady. She was almost a heroine, as if she had done something clever. She was ashamed of how she had reacted, but didn’t tell anyone that. Ian guessed. He said, nastily, ‘I bet you passed out, came to half an hour later and ran for Mummy.’
    ‘What would you have done, Bighead?’
    On the bus, going home, Leo said, ‘Are we all under suspicion then? We were all there last night.’
    ‘It was dark when I left,’ Julia said. ‘The light was on in her kitchen. She must have been OK then.’
    Julia was turning round from the seat in front. So far she had been quite bearable and Sandy and Leo had cautiously let her into their friendship – the part of it that was to do with the horses. She came down night and morning, devotedly, and helped around quite a lot. Sandy found her very useful and was impressed (without remarking on it) by her vast knowledge of The Horse, Its Ways and How to Look After It. Only Polly Marlin equalled her in this. She too had been there last night, late. Polly was famously, perennially, hard up,