‘See that foal?’ said Torquil, staring critically at the picture. ‘You know what it looks like? Lethal white syndrome. Heard of it?’ he asked his wife and sister-in-law. ‘You’ll know all about that, Kinvara,’ he said, clearly under the impression that he was graciously offering a way back into polite conversation. ‘Pure white foal, seems healthy when it’s born, but defective bowel. Can’t pass faeces. M’father bred horses,’ he explained to Strike. ‘They can’t survive, lethal whites. The tragedy is that they’re born alive, so the mare feeds them, gets attached and then—’
