Lady Tara seemed to have vanished. Wherever it was that she had gone to after leaving Chris and Charity to talk, Charity could not find her now. She gave up eventually, relaxing a little at this apparent stay of execution. Somehow she didn't feel that she would have done very well had she been called upon to talk shop with the stud farm manager for very long. Instead of looking for Tara too closely, therefore, she amused herself by wandering from stable to stable, stroking the occasional horse that happened to look out over the doors. Tara had evidently opened up most of the stables, for almost all of them had their half-doors pinned back. A lot of hopeful faces peered at Charity as she walked past, but she had no idea whether it was food or exercise that they were requiring, and made no attempt to fill either void. It was with some considerable delight that she found that the animals would deign to be petted, but she had no intention of getting any closer than was required in order to reach over the door and stroke a long nose. She valued her fingers too much to risk any extra attention from those disturbingly large teeth. Tara might be fooled by the soft brown eyes and innocent expressions, but Chris had as good as said that Tara didn't have a brain cell to her name. Presumably she made do with money instead.

The last stable in the row that Charity came to was shut, top and bottom, so she turned around and looked for something else to fill her interest until it was time to join Chris. She was still struggling with doubt over her chosen course of action, and opted in the end to find a place where she could sit down. She had no idea when the stable staff were going to start arriving, and she had no real wish to still be wandering around when that time came. She glanced at her watch, discovering that it was just past seven o'clock. The gloom that had so far been passing for daylight was beginning to clear, and the sky above her had begun to take on its more familiar sheen of blue. By the looks of things, it was going to be a nice day again. She wondered whether she would still be appreciative of that by the same time that evening. Was going to the police really going to solve anything? With her Dingle education she had developed a healthy distrust for anything in a blue serge suit, and she was not exactly filled with confidence following Chris's talk regarding certain members of the plainclothed squad either. Perhaps there was some other avenue that she had not yet fully explored. Some other route that she could take by which to rid herself of Tony Simpson and his colleagues back at the night-club. She could think of nothing, however, and with a heavy heart she slumped onto the grass, sitting on the verge with her knees drawn up to her chin. She could feel the mood settling upon her again, threatening to drag her down. Where was her usual resolve, her usual spirit? She had no idea, but she had a feeling that she wasn't going to see it in its entirety again until this was all sorted out once and for all. She leant back, staring around at the stables, unable to avoid comparing this sprawling, scenic display of opulence with her own lifestyle; or, more correctly, with the surroundings in which she had grown up. She knew very little about Chris Tate's small son save his name - but she couldn't help wondering what sort of a child grew up in a house the size of the Home Farm manor, surrounded by so much land, so many beautiful gardens, and so large and well-stocked a stable. Presumably he was never going to wind up embroiled in a murder case; although, given all that local lore suggested his father had been embroiled in, perhaps that wasn't the case after all.

The gentle banging of wood against wood interrupted her quiet thoughts, and she looked up from her contemplation of the neatly mowed grass at her feet. The stable door that she had noticed before, as being distinctive by the fact of its being closed, was apparently a little loose. It blew open and shut in the light morning breeze, slamming with varying force against the frame. The horse in the stable next door seemed disturbed by the sound, and its ears flicked left and right. It looked highly strung and nervous, as though about to kick up a fuss, and unwilling to have Tara bearing down on her shouting imprecations about her inadequacies, Charity rose to her feet and headed over to the offending door. It banged again as she drew near it, and the horse quartered next door snorted in unease. Charity reached out for the door, eager to pull it shut and make her withdrawal quickly, in case she found herself being accused of interfering. Her lack of welcome at the stables could hardly have been made any more obvious by Tara, and it would hardly be possible for her to explain that she had to remain close by until Chris was ready to see her again.

As soon as she touched the door she began to suspect that she had made a mistake. Perhaps there was something in the restlessness of the horse that went beyond mere irritation at the incessant banging. She felt a strange prickling at the back of her neck even as her fingers were closing around the door handle. A shadow moved in the periphery of her vision, warning her of something moving within the confines of the stable. She began to withdraw.

"Hello Charity." The voice of Tony Simpson was horribly predictable. She looked up into his eyes as he loomed in the doorway, and wondered what she should say to make the situation a little less awkward. There didn't seem to be anything, and with a nervous smile that spoke volumes, she took a step back. Simpson's hand closed around her wrist.

"Now now. Not leaving so soon, surely? I thought you might like to come on in and join the party." He stepped to one side, pulling the door open a little more. Inside the stable, sitting on a straw bale and looking greatly unnerved, was Lady Tara Thornfield. She looked even more pale than usual, her carefully applied eye shadow increasing the pallor of the skin around its softly unnatural colour. She glanced up at Charity, and her lips twisted into an uncomfortable and unwilling smile. Tony gestured at her.

"She didn't want to talk to me either, but I managed to persuade her that she should give me the benefit of the doubt. After all, we both know that there's somebody up here that you've been seeing a lot of just recently. For all I know it might be her, and you might have been talking."

"There's nothing for me to talk about, Tony." Very slowly, Charity obeyed his unspoken order to enter the stable. He pulled the door shut behind her, and looked it with a key from a large ring, presumably appropriated from Tara. There were no horses in this stable, Charity could now see - just a few bales of straw, one or two of hay, and several dirty-looking buckets. Some riding gear hung on the wall, looking outdated and rusty, and there were one or two very dusty rosettes pinned to a beam. She couldn't read the names of the horses, but she could see one or two years, imprinted upon the centres of the rosettes in gold stencilling. The one closest to her read 1995.

"I don't feel inclined to believe you, or your protestations of innocence, Charity." Tony was playing with something large and bulky in his coat pocket, and for the first time Charity began to wonder just how he had managed to force somebody as loud and as stroppy as Lady Tara to remain with him in the stable, presumably for some while. It was beginning to dawn on Charity just why she hadn't seen the co-owner of the stud farm in quite some time. "I've been hearing things. You, for instance, talking to people. Talking about the police, and about you having witnessed something." He shook his head. "I don't like talk like that, Charity; and I'm not the only one. All kinds of people get nervous about that kind of talk. All kinds of people start to panic." He stopped playing with the object in his pocket. "And you know what happens then, don't you."

"Yeah. You get even more obtuse than normal." She sighed. "Listen, just come with me and we'll talk this through properly. I don't know what you think you've been hearing, but you've obviously got the wrong end of the stick..."

"You think so? Voices carry in the quiet, especially at this time of the day, when there's nobody around yet. You might not have heard it yourself, Charity, but I certainly did. Let me refresh your memory. Youngish bloke; light hair and a suntan. Wheelchair. Am I ringing any bells yet?"

"Tony..."

"No." He pulled his hand out of his pocket, and she saw the black gleam of a pistol, its ugly barrel flashing the pale daylight into her eyes. That daylight seemed very distant now, filtered and muted as it was through the dusty, dirty windows of the stable. A piece of sacking hung most of the way over the largest of the windows, limiting the light still further. The whole effect was one of woeful under-illumination, doing nothing to lift Charity's flagging spirits. She tried out one final, charming smile.

"Tony, honestly, you've got this all wrong."

"Really?" He was polishing the gun absently on his sleeve, creating the convincing impression that he would be very easy just to overpower and disarm. She knew that that impression was very wrong. "I'm sorry, but I really don't believe you. Which is why we're going to sit here and wait for your friend to come back. Then we're all going to discuss this together." Charity bit her lip.

"She doesn't know anything about this," she offered as a last resort, nodding over at Tara. Tony raised an eyebrow.

"No? Well she does now, doesn't she. You must think I was born yesterday. Why should I believe that you've only told one person about our little problem? For all I know, half of this village knows all about it; but we'll deal with this little enclave right now, and let the rest sort itself out."

"You really don't--"

"Shut up." He gestured at Tara with the gun. "Sit over there with her, and don't say another word."

"We've got a long wait if you're planning to stay here until Chris comes back. It would be much better to--"

"If we're going to have a long wait, we're going to have a long wait." He sat down on an upturned bucket, looking completely unconcerned. "Make yourself comfortable."

"This is crazy, Tony." She did as she was told nonetheless. "By the time he comes back here the whole place will be crawling with stable staff. Whatever it is that you're planning isn't going to work."

"Nobody's going to come in here." He beamed at her, his teeth showing the traces of a few fights that must have happened since she had moved to Emmerdale. She wondered who he had fought, and who had won, and then wondered if she could be bothered to care. One eye on the stable door, she settled herself to wait. Quite suddenly her burgeoning good cheer, until recently causing her to feel decidedly buoyant, was now turning to something quite the opposite. Se suddenly felt as if she was never going to get out of this dusty, uncomfortable stable. Beside her Tara was clearly sharing her lack of optimism, and only Tony showed any sign of good humour. That alone was reason enough to fear for the future; but the future was no longer what concerned Charity. All that she was fearing for now was her life.