`Oh, God,' Gideon groaned. `Okay. For the horse's sake, say I'll come.'
`When? Do you want to speak to her?' Pippa paused with her hand on the phone. `Quick!'
Gideon made a face. `Not really. Tomorrow, if she wants.' From what Gideon could hear as he polished off two more sausage rolls and a flapjack, Stephanie did want, and Pippa confirmed it when she came back to the table.
`She says she'll be in all morning,' she reported. `Actually, she sounds really desperate. I always thought that stallion would be too much for her but she would have it. I think it's a kind of status symbol, you know, like owning a Rottweiler. He's always been a handful but apparently he's got worse and worse. According to her, they can hardly get near him now.'
Gideon groaned once more. `Why do people leave it until things are totally out of hand before they ask for help?' he wanted to know.
`Pride?' Pippa suggested. `Or ignorance? But to be fair, Stephanie did get a behaviourist in a few months ago. Obviously it didn't work.'
The meal was completed in companionable silence and was followed by Irish coffee, served sacrilegiously in mugs instead of glasses. Gideon sat back to enjoy it in drowsy contentment, and if the Tom Collins affair nagged at the back of his mind, he lazily pushed it away. It had been a long day. Time enough for problemsolving tomorrow.
`I suppose you'll be wanting my car again,' Pippa remarked presently.
`Well . . .'
`Would you mind if I came too? It's a while since I've seen The Master at work.' She gave him a coy, sideways look.
`You can come if you promise not to mention the words "Horse Whisperer",' Gideon said severely.
Pippa laughed. `Okay. I promise. Guide's honour.'
They arrived at Stephanie Wainman's Chilminster home shortly after ten o'clock the following morning. The house was not as large as Graylings Priory but a great deal more self-important. Whereas the Priory had the look of having evolved comfortably over the centuries into its present sprawling, haphazard form, the Wainmans' residence had all the pomp of some Georgian architect's ego, and stood foursquare with Doric columns flanking the front door and twin flights of steps leading down on to an immaculate, pea-gravelled drive.
Gideon thought it exactly fitted the first impression he'd formed of Stephanie herself expensive-looking but lacking depth.
. The stables were situated at a short distance from the house, round a brick-paved courtyard with a central flowerbed. Pippa parked her car outside and they walked in under an arch with a clocktower, to be faced with a scene straight from a manufacturer's brochure. Even in the rain the place looked spotless. Paintwork gleamed, the bricks underfoot were swept clean, each stable bore the name of its occupant over the door, and there was not a rug or tool in sight. Even in the flowerbed, winter pansies obediently bloomed in regimented rings.
As they entered the yard, a long grey head appeared interestedly over one of the shiny painted doors, trailing a mouthful of hay. `He'll be out on his ear if he drops that!' Gideon murmured to Pippa whose mouth twitched.
They were met by a tiny, middle-aged man who identified himself as Mick Winters, the groom, and told them that `Miss Stephanie' would be down shortly.
,Miss Stephanie' appeared on cue, less than a minute later, accompanied by two cocker spaniels and driving what looked like a covered golf-buggy, even though the walk from the house could have been no more than fifty yards. She disembarked at Gideon's feet.
`I'm so pleased you could come. You're a real life-saver!' she declared with her best smile and an outstretched hand, apparently forgetting that she'd barely acknowledged his long-haired presence on their last meeting. `And, Pippa darling! How lovely to see you. You must come and say hello to Sebastian in a minute.' She kissed Pippa on both cheeks and hugged her, before turning back to Gideon.
`I do hope you can sort Wings out. Daddy says if you can't then he'll have to go, and that would be such a nuisance when I've got him this far. He cost a small fortune, you know. He's full brother to Popsox, the Olympic showjumper. I expect you've heard of him? Everybody has. Winters, have you got his bridle?'
`Yes, miss,' Winters said gloomily as they began to walk across the yard. `I haven't tried to put it on him though, and neither will LU
'Winters got bitten last week,' Stephanie explained. `And last month Wings knocked him out and got loose. We were away at the time but luckily he didn't go far. Winters found him down by the lake in the morning. But it's gone on long enough, this business. He's got completely out of hand.'
She stopped by the closed doors of a large loosebox that stood on its own next to what looked like a storage barn. `Well, here he is. Winters has the bridle.'
`Is the top door always kept closed?' Gideon wanted to know. `This side is, but he can see out of the back, into the field. If we leave this one open the mares call to him and he gets randy. It makes him even more difficult to handle.'
`You don't use him as a stallion, then?'
`No. We were hoping to but at the moment we can't trust him.' Winters held a stallion bridle towards Gideon but he waved it away. `No, thanks, Mick. Just a rope or lead rein will do.'
`You be careful then, Mr Blake,' the groom said, looking doubtfully at Gideon. `He's a real devil, he is! Evil!'
`Oh, I doubt it,' Gideon said lightly. `I expect he's just got his problems, the same as the rest of us.'
`Oh, stop fussing, Winters! He'll be all right!' Stephanie stated impatiently. `It's what he's paid for.'
You're all heart, lady, Gideon thought as he moved towards the stable door. Stephanie made to follow him.
`I'd like a little time with him, if you don't mind,' he said. `Alone.'
`Okay. Whatever,' she declared airily. `Be all mysterious.' Gideon decided to ignore the taunt but Pippa was cross on his behalf.
`Oh, for heavensakes! It's not that at all. Sometimes it's the owner themself that's part of the problem, so it helps to see the horse on its own first.'
`Oh, it's all right, darling. I was only teasing. Gideon knows that, don't you, Gideon?'
`Oh, sure,' he responded blandly.
`So, Pippa and I will go and see Sebastian. And I'm sure Winters has plenty to do,' Stephanie said briskly. `We'll leave Gideon to his whispering.'
As they moved away, Gideon opened the stable doors just wide enough to slip inside and did so, closing and bolting the lower half behind him. The stable was lit from the opposite corner by an open half-door that looked out over fields, which was exactly what its occupant had been doing before he turned to look at Gideon.
Neither of them moved a muscle.
In the yard outside, Stephanie's carrying tones could clearly be heard. `I wish I'd sold him two years ago. I had an offer, you know. But he was all right then, and I'd got big plans for him. He was going to take me to the Olympics. If I'd known what trouble he was going to be . . .'
Her voice faded as she moved further away, but Gideon was no longer listening anyway, his mind already completely taken up with a far more compelling matter: the instantaneous and unshakeable certainty that he'd at last found the mystery stallion he'd been searching for.
He looked quite monstrous as he stood across the stable from Gideon. Over seventeen hands tall at a guess, and in the light from the open door his coat shone a deep copper chestnut, but it was neither of these things that triggered the recognition. The horse emanated a buzz of energy, or personality, that identified him to Gideon as surely as if he had been labelled.
There was no aggression in his body language as he turned to look at the man who was invading his space, merely curiosity and a thread of anxiety that made his ears flick to and fro a time or two. He was a stunning-looking horse, and with his colouring and the long white stockings that gave him his name, it would have been impossible to have mistaken the identity of his famous brother, even had Stephanie not named him.
With an effort Gideon strove to push away the muddle of questions and thoughts that were crowding into his mind. He needed a clear hea
d to focus on the stallion's own problems. He knew how dangerous this horse could be; he still had the fading bruise on his shoulder from their first encounter to remind him. The horse was quieter this time, of course, not stressed-out as he'd been before, but even so he began to show signs of agitation as Gideon watched, shifting his weight and raising his head slightly, nostrils flaring.
Keeping his own body language submissive and nonthreatening, Gideon moved closer.
It was the best part of twenty minutes before he opened the top door on to the yard and nodded to the others, who were waiting a little way off.
`It was so quiet, we thought you were either doing well or else he'd murdered you!' Stephanie remarked as they approached. She didn't look as though she'd been unduly worried, to Gideon's eye. `No, we're both okay.'
`So, what's the problem? Have you sorted him out?'
Gideon gave her a withering look. `You've been having trouble for how long? Six months? A year? You can't seriously expect me to sort it out in twenty minutes! I'm a behaviourist, not a bloody magician!'
`There's no need to be rude!' she said, her eyes flashing dangerously. `Christ! You may have a way with horses but you certainly haven't got much of a way with people!'
Gideon looked up into the drizzle and took a deep, steadying breath. `You're right. I'm sorry, okay? Now, about Wings. Do you always bridle him when you do anything with him?'
'We used to,' Stephanie said, a slight pout suggesting she still hadn't entirely forgiven him. `He won't let us catch him now.' `How on earth do you manage? Mucking out, grooming and such?'
`Winters puts hay out in the field in the morning and opens the door to let Wings out. Then he cleans the box out and Wings comes back in for a feed in the evening.'
`So you don't handle him at all?'
`Up until a month ago we did,' she said defensively. `But he's got so much worse lately, and Winters won't touch him since he got knocked out.'
`I'm no coward!' the groom put in hastily. `But he's a big horse and he goes mad. I'm not gettin' myself killed for nobody!' he finished, with a defiant look at his employer, who ignored him.
Gideon was standing just inside the loosebox with a rope held loosely around the stallion's neck. He rubbed his hand gently in a circular motion along the horse's powerful crest, and although Wings kept a wary eye on him, he seemed fairly relaxed. In spite of this, Gideon wasn't fooled. He knew that the closer his hand strayed towards the stallion's head, the tenser he would become.
`He's certainly not evil or mad,' he told them. `What he is, is very uncomfortable. He's in pain from his mouth - teeth, I should think, or a tooth. Anyway, he's terrified of being bridled. I should imagine it's become agony to have a bit in there. He's obviously come to associate human contact with having a bridle on, and he knows that hurts. Before long the bridle doesn't even come into it. In his mind, humans mean pain. Has he lost weight lately, or is he normally lean like this?'
`A bit, the last few weeks, but he's never been fat.' Stephanie dismissed that with a wave of her hand. `But what's wrong with his teeth? He's only six. What could be wrong? It's ridiculous!'
'Gideon's not a vet, Stephanie,' Pippa interposed quickly, anticipating the pithy retort that was forming on his tongue. `I suppose it could be an abscess or too many teeth coming through, like kids get.'
`The thing is to get him somewhere where there are X-ray facilities and find out,' Gideon said, making an effort to hold on to his patience. `Rosetti's place, for instance.'
`Well, how on earth am I going to get him there?' she asked peevishly. `Can't you make him quieter? I thought that's what you were here for.'
`I can't do anything until we sort out the pain in his mouth.' Gideon was exasperated, as usual, by the wilful stupidity of those who should know better.
`And then he'll be all right?' she persisted.
`No. Then we can start to rebuild his trust in us. But it won't happen overnight. There are months of learned behaviour to overcome. We'll have to see how he is. He may possibly benefit from being turned out to grass for a few weeks and then starting fresh. We could try join-up, perhaps. That might give him a good start.'
`Like I've seen on TV?' Stephanie lost her petulant look. `Yeah, just like that,' Gideon said, wearying of her.
The natural method of bonding using discipline and reassurance through body language had been given a lot of publicity recently, and this obviously recommended it to Stephanie. It was probably something she could drop into conversation on social occasions, Gideon thought uncharitably: `We used join-up, you know,' rather like having one's own therapist or fitness coach.
`How do you know he's in pain?' Pippa asked interestedly, as Gideon slid the rope off Wings' neck and let himself out of the stable. The stallion backed away instantly, ears close to his head. `Couldn't he just be head-shy? I mean, it's not like lameness, is it? There's nothing to see - no obvious swelling or anything.'
Gideon hesitated. It was almost impossible to put into words. He didn't fully understand it himself and wished Pippa had kept her question for the journey home.
`Instinct, I suppose. It's difficult to say. It's in his body language.'
How to explain the sense of harmony he experienced from a healthy animal and the discord where pain or illness was present? It sounded wildly improbable even to himself, and he certainly wasn't going to try it on Miss `Tough as Nails' Wainman!
`If you want to arrange it with Rosetti, I'll come and help load him into the box for you,' Gideon offered, more for the horse's sake than anyone else's. `In fact,' he said, thinking quickly, `I've got to see Sean later. I'll arrange it with him and let you know, if you like.'
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Pippa raise an eyebrow in surprise but Stephanie seemed to find nothing unusual in people exerting themselves on her behalf.
`Okay, let me know what he says,' she agreed, apparently not feeling that gratitude was called for. `Pippa darling, you'll have a cup of coffee before you go, won't you? It's all in the tack room, so it won't take a mo.'
`You came over uncommonly helpful back there,' Pippa said quizzically, as they began their homeward journey some twenty minutes later. `What happened? Did you fall for her warmth and charm?'
`She's a real sweetie,' Gideon said sourly. `Prime spinster material.'
Pippa laughed. `Actually, underneath that rich-bitch exterior, I think there's probably a shy, insecure person trying to get out.'
`It should try a little harder!'
`She's the classic spoilt only child. I should imagine she's never sure whether people are interested in her for herself or Daddy's money. It can't be easy.'
`My heart bleeds . . .'
`Okay. So she's a bitchy snob. In that case, why did you offer to arrange everything for her?'
`For the horse's sake, and ... er, you remember the night I was abducted?'
`Of course. It's not the sort of thing you forget easily, is it?' `Well, think about the half-wild stallion I had to catch. Joey said it was copper-coloured with white legs . . .'
`Not Whitewings!' Pippa exclaimed, and the car swerved towards the kerb as she turned her head to look at him. `Are you sure?'
`Absolutely,' Gideon stated, calmly putting out a hand to steer them on to a safer course.
`But why?'
`That's the rub,' he said. `The more I think about it, the less sense it makes. I mean, when I thought the stallion must be Sox - from Joey's description - it made sense in as much as he's valuable and his youngstock would be. But this Whitewings is a complete unknown.'
`Except that he's a full brother to Popsox. Surely they weren't trying to kid someone that the foal was his? After all, they do look alike. But why go to so much trouble for just one foal? I mean, how much could the stud fee be, for heavensakes?'
`You wouldn't. Not for one,' Gideon said slowly. Then he slapped his leg in triumph. `That's it! You've got it! Well done!' He leaned across and gave Pippa a resounding kiss on the cheek, which made the car wobble dangerou
sly again.
`Well, I'd be feeling pretty pleased with myself if I knew just
what it was that I'd come up with,' she said, glancing at him in some amusement.
`Yeah, sorry. I just need to check something with somebody and then I'll explain,' Gideon promised, reaching for his mobile phone.
FOURTEEN
IT WAS STILL RAINING when Gideon pulled up outside Redbarn Farm that evening, which suited his mood.
When he'd rung to arrange the meeting with the vet, he'd merely said that Mary had wanted him to come to sort out something about Tom's affairs. Rosetti must have known his partownership of Sox would eventually come to light, so he would have seen nothing strange in that. Nevertheless, Gideon had delayed ringing him until he was on his way to the farm, just in case the idea of contacting Slade crossed Sean's mind. He didn't really think it would but recent experience had made him cautious.
As Gideon slid out of Giles' Mercedes - generously loaned, as Pippa needed her car - he was hailed from the direction of the hospital yard. Rosetti was waiting under the stable overhang. Gideon ducked his head into his collar and splashed across at a run.
`What a miserable night!' was Rosetti's greeting. `Is it ever going to stop raining?'
He led Gideon into the hospital block and from there to his office, where an electric fire kept the winter chill at bay. He waved his guest into an upholstered chair and offered him soup, coffee or chocolate from a vending machine.
`Tea's run out, I'm afraid,' he said apologetically. `Clare - our head nurse - is supposed to keep it stocked up but she doesn't drink tea, so it only ever gets re-ordered when the coffee runs out. Anyway, help yourself.' He sat down in one of the chairs and looked across at Gideon. `Now, what can I do for you?'
Gideon hesitated. It was daft that he felt awkward, after all, he'd done nothing wrong. `I went to see Mary the other day,' he said finally. `She wanted me to look at some papers she'd found.'
'Ah,' Rosetti said. `So she knows about Sox. Tom should have told her at the start. I always said so.'
`So why didn't he?'
`I think because he was ashamed to admit he was in trouble again. He'd promised Mary a new bathroom and he'd lost the money that he'd put by for it. He just couldn't face disappointing her.'
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