Phantom: One Last Chance Read Online Free PDF

took the photo and gave a little start. Her eyes grew moist as she continued to stare at it, until finally, she smiled sadly. “Well, this was taken here all right, but you’ll struggle to returnit to its rightful owner,” she said cryptically. “I think we’d better find somewhere to put your ponies for a while, then we can go inside.”
    The girls exchanged puzzled glances. Alice, Rosie and Mia untacked their ponies and tied them up in the sheltered yard, giving them small piles of sweet-smelling hay. Fran rooted out three rugs which had just come back from the cleaners and were almost the right size to keep the ponies warm. The girls followed her inside the rambling blue and white cottage and into the large flagstoned kitchen.
    “Take a seat, take a seat,” Fran said, immediately sloshing some milk into a saucepan on the stove. Every surface was covered in horse magazines, headcollars with frayed stitching, unconnected bits of bridle, numnahs, stirrup irons, and an assortment of cats and kittens. The girls had never been inside the higgledy-piggledy cottage before, and they smiled at each other as they cleared some chairs so they could all sit at thesolid, old wooden table. A large brown hen wandered in through the huge dog flap in the door, and clucked around, pecking at the floor before head-nodding her way back out again.
    “It’s odd that this photo should come to light now, I must say,” Fran said, putting mugs of hot chocolate down in front of each of them. She took a noisy slurp from one herself and looked at the photo again. “You found it in the woods, you say?”
    The girls nodded. “Why is it odd?” Mia asked.
    “Why?” Fran repeated, sadly. “Because both the horse and the woman standing next to her in this picture died not so long ago.”
    The girls gasped.
    “No way!” Rosie said, feeling goosebumps race up her neck.
    “I’m afraid so,” Fran said. “The woman was my good friend Caitlin McCuthers. She was the daughter of the vet, Mr McCuthers, who lives in the village. He’s treated all our animals for manyyears, right up until Caitlin’s death a few weeks ago. He was coming up for retirement at the end of the year anyway, but he decided to stop work a bit earlier than planned. Don’t blame him, either – I’d have done the same.”
    The girls suddenly looked at each other at the mention of Mr McCuthers – that was Neve’s grandfather! But Fran didn’t notice their glances, and before they had a chance to ask any questions, she carried on. “But I’m rushing ahead – I’d better start at the beginning… Caitlin loved it here and spent every spare second helping out when she was a teenager. Then, when she was old enough, I gave her a full-time paid job and she moved into the annexe next to this house. She was a natural with the mistreated horses and ponies that came through these gates. She had such patience and understanding, it was amazing to see. It was like she knew what each horse was thinking – she could really tune into them. Then Caitlin found out she was going to have a baby.She wanted to carry on living and working here, so I agreed. Never knew much about the father – he disappeared as soon as the baby was born. But Caitlin’s little girl grew up here and was always bobbing about the place, just like her mum.”
    “Neve?” Mia mouthed to the other girls as Fran took a gulp of her hot chocolate, lost in the photo. They shrugged, uncertain, then Fran continued. “Let me leave that there for a moment while we move to the horse. The horse in the picture is a mare called Fable. She was a thoroughbred – trickiest horse Caitlin and I had ever seen. Caitlin discovered her in the spring six years ago, while she was riding through the lanes on a hack. The mare was about to be loaded into a trailer. The man with her was being very mean, using a long whip and shouting at her. I remember Caitlin telling me that the mare turned to look at her and let out the most