The Price of Horses

by Ian Taylor

  Phil gave his wife a withering look. She was in one of her moods, and the less he

  said to antagonise her the better.

  Harry kissed Maureen on the cheek. "Okay, love?"

  "Well, no arms or legs fell off as I was coming down the stairs, so I guess I must be," she replied with a matter-of-fact shrug.

  Maureen glanced at Phil as he took his place at the table. The look conveyed the

  faintest hint of some ongoing secrecy between them. Phil avoided her gaze and focused on his sausage and hash browns. Harry, as usual, absorbed the situation.

  "Will we have another winner on Saturday, Phil?" Maureen asked with an ingenuous smile.

  "It's a cert. Good Times is ready." Phil laughed. "Even Harry's getting excited!"

  Harry weathered their laughter. He cast a glance around the table as he ate his gammon and eggs and wondered how long it would be before their relationships became unendurable. Perhaps he should remind them how much better off they were compared with their humble beginnings. But it was always the same with people: they had short memories when it suited them—and short memories were often the prelude to a demise.

  It was only money, after all, that held them together—and the complex ties that money brings. If they severed their connections with Birch Hall, the winds of life would scatter them across the earth like so many strangers.

  8

  Luke drove fast on a long empty stretch of minor road. He was furious with himself for getting involved in a heist with so many unanswered questions attached. He should have pressed Tam for more information and pulled out when the Scot refused to give it. Instead he had rushed headlong into almost suicidal danger, blinded by the goal he had set himself of buying land in order to help his people.

  He cursed the gorgio society that had caused gypsy travellers so many problems. He railed at travellers for accepting the unacceptable and shackling themselves to fixed sites. His task to free them was impossible. The only people he could work with were dodgy characters like Tam McBride who had no other aim than making money for themselves. The plight of gypsies didn't touch them.

  He should have realized that Tam would not have been able to pay him the full amount up front for a major heist. He regretted his savage attack on the Scotsman, which would not encourage the dealer to pay him any time soon. But it was violence borne of desperation.

  His only consolation was that Sy had given him Phil Yates's address. But the more he had learned about this Yates mush, the less likely it seemed that he would be willing to pay 300K for the T'ang horses. He was in a hurry and needed the money because he wanted to look at the small hill farm that was for sale an hour's drive northwest. He was hoping, if the place was any good, that he might persuade some of his clan to go shares with him, if he was unable to find the full purchase price himself. This depended, of course, on whether he could find anyone who trusted him. His ingrained secrecy and his dark reputation had done him few favours.

  Too late he noticed the patrol car parked in the side road. His heart sank when he glanced in his mirror and saw it pull out and pursue, blue light flashing. Then he heard the hated wail of the siren.

  He had no choice but to try to outrun it. The BMW had a good turn of speed, but it wouldn't have been his first choice as an escape vehicle. He floored the accelerator, but the patrol car clung to his tail. The chase went on for five miles, Luke expecting that any moment a second police vehicle would appear up ahead, blocking the road. His attention divided by glances in his rear-view mirror, he failed to register the roadworks and set of temporary traffic lights on the bend ahead of him until it was too late.

  A county highways maintenance crew was spreading tarmac. A tipper truck was shooting a load of stone chippings on to the newly laid road surface. Luke braked, but he might as well not have bothered. He shot past the red light and came to a sudden stop, the tyres of the BMW plastered with chippings and wet tarmac. He had spent his adult life trying to maintain invisibility, but now, in his imagination, he was as naked as a plucked chicken in a butcher's shop window.

  The familiar figure of PC Noel Bailey, flaccid and pale, tapped on his window. Luke opened it an inch.

  Bailey could hardly speak for laughing. "Well, now, my old pal Lulu! I think it's time we took you in and asked you a few hard questions."

  Luke shut his eyes, resigned. Five minutes later he found himself handcuffed to Bailey on the back seat of the patrol car. PC Alan Pearson, compact and muscular, was behind the wheel. Luke's last glimpse of the BMW was of it being towed on to the grass verge by a county highways truck.

  "Only guilty men run, right, Al?" Bailey remarked with a smirk.

  Pearson agreed. "He's guilty all right. You can smell it on him." He opened his window, wafting the air with his hand.

  "You've no right to handcuff me," Luke protested. "I ain't under arrest. I'm not a danger to anyone."

  "We don't want to lose you now we've got you." Pearson chuckled. "I don't see

  there's much you can do about it. And we can soon arrange to arrest you anytime we like."

  "Slipped up this time, Lulu." Bailey smirked. "Dropped right into our arms like a baby."

  Luke feigned bewilderment. "What's going on? I was just running late for an appointment."

  "An appointment?" Bailey echoed. "You're a big-time businessman now, eh?"

  "None of your concern, Bailey," Luke snapped.

  Bailey shook his head. "Bad news for you, Lulu. Whoever you're meeting's gonna be waiting a very long time. And I've got even worse news." He sniggered. "We've got a dead 'un this time."

  "Snake charmer now, eh?" Pearson commented. "Learn it in the jungle where you came from, did ya?"

  Luke's heart sank. This was serious. But he had to keep playing the innocent.

  "What the hell are you two on about?" he asked in a show of exasperation. "Just 'cos you spotted me in a motor don't mean you can pin every crime in the country on me! And that motor's legit, by the way. Belongs my brother. He'll be suing you for wrongful impounding."

  The cops laughed uproariously, as if he had told them the joke of the century. Bailey leaned forward and whispered into his fellow officer's ear. Pearson nodded, saying nothing.

  "Who's moving the loot, Lulu?" Bailey asked. "Tam O'Shanter, is it? See—we know. You'd never believe how smart we are these days."

  Luke was furious. Someone had been talking—but who? Not Tam and not the Boswells. And surely not the Woods. Maybe the incident had been on the local TV news? And these two cops, just for the hell of it, had thought they might try and stick it on him—

  for one simple reason: He was a gypsy. It was just a lucky guess, but there was no way

  they could prove it. At least he'd learned that the rich ex-con had died. Serve him goddamn

  right, the bloody psycho.

  But there was more to it than that. Or was there? Was it just the abandoned rope on the roof that had led the cops to think of him? A Luke Smith nine, case closed. He had left no fingerprints, wearing the surgical gloves until he had burned them in Tam's old Potbelly stove. He had worn his balaclava until he had flung himself on the back seat of the Volvo. Had the car been picked up on a local camera? Surely not. Surely Tam had chosen a camera-free route, taking care of himself, as usual, letting the cat burglar take all the risks. If he had been taken in for questioning, he would have invoked his legal guys and walked. It had happened many times before when valuable antiques had gone missing.

  It had to have been a TV news item. And the rest was simply guesswork—plus, of course, his reputation. He had nothing to fear. Pearson had let his HQ know they had picked him up, but he had still not been arrested. He would be free by tomorrow morning. He just had to stay cool.

  A sudden storm burst over them, with thunder, lightning and heavy rain. The car windows streamed. Pearson's wipers could barely cope.

  "Hell did this come from?" Bailey exclaimed.

  "I did it!" Luke laughed. "I put a curse on you! I can change th
e weather whenever I want. That's another thing you gorgios didn't know!"

  "Like hell you can!" Bailey replied angrily. "Where d'you keep your cloudbuster? You just stick it up your arse and blow, eh?"

  But Luke could tell that for all Bailey's bravado his voice held a detectable smidgeon of unease.

  Pearson seemed to be having problems with his driving. "Damn this rain. Road's slimy as shite! I can't see more'n fifty yards."

  A farm loomed up ahead through the rain. A tractor in a gateway pulled out, front

  wheels on the road. Pearson, still struggling at the wheel, didn't seem to have registered the vehicle's presence.

  "Watch that goddamn tractor!" Luke yelled.

  Pearson swerved to avoid the tractor, wrestling with the wheel. "We're skidding!" he cried. "It's not responding!" He tried to steer away from the tractor, but nothing happened. He hit the brakes. "Oh God!"

  The skidding car slammed into the grass verge fifty yards past the farm gateway. There was a loud report like a gunshot. The three men in the car realized it was a blowout.

  "Oh Christ, Al!" Bailey wailed.

  The patrol car veered across the road, collided with the right-hand verge, then rebounded back and hit the opposite verge. At this point the vehicle left the tarmac. The men in the car heard the horrible ripping and crunching sounds as the car tore through the lane-side hedge.

  The patrol car bounced and rolled down a sloping field, turning over and over as it went, eventually coming to rest on its roof, its engine still running.

  Luke heaved Bailey off his right leg with his left foot, then reached for the keys on the officer's belt and unlocked the handcuffs.

  "Bye, gorgios."

  Before the police officers could recover their wits, he climbed through the broken back window and disappeared into the encroaching dusk.

  Luke leaned on a woodside gate at the end of the field and looked back towards the scene of the accident. Bailey and Pearson had emerged from the car and were stumbling groggily away from the wreck. Then the vehicle burst into flames and exploded, and the officers flung themselves to the ground.

  Luke had seen enough. He vaulted the gate and vanished into the trees.

  The track through the wood led to a further gate and, beyond it, to another sloping

  field that levelled out and ended at railway lines. The light was fading fast, and his right knee was starting to hurt. He cursed. What had seemed a stroke of good fortune was quickly becoming the opposite. He hobbled down the field and followed the railway lines, knowing only from his innate sense of direction that he was going north.

  How long could he continue walking with an injured leg? An hour? Two hours? Then what? He couldn't strike out across open country with a leg that was rapidly worsening. He would have to follow the railway lines and hope they would lead to a town where he could nick a motor. Buying one was now out of the question. He needed to hang on to his remaining cash as his future became uncertain.

  But his escape and a stolen motor would soon be connected. He would have to change his plan, head back to the city and lie low at Radford's. But would he even be able to drive? His right knee hurt more with each step he took. He cursed his bad luck. He had escaped the law for his own body to take him prisoner!

  As the moon rose he arrived at a tunnel. He stared at the black gape of its entrance in the moonlight. He sat on a rail for a minute massaging his knee and wondering what he should do. He didn't like the idea of stepping into the tunnel, but he didn't have the

  luxury of choice.

  He set off warily into the tunnel. It was pitch black, and his torch was lost to him in the BMW. He almost turned back. But he had an uncanny sense that it was the wrong thing to do. Whatever it was that lay in wait for him, he felt his future was beyond the far end of the tunnel.

  He heard a goods train entering the tunnel behind him. He tried to run, but his knee wouldn't respond. At the last moment he flung himself into a recess in the tunnel wall and watched the monster as it thundered past. Then he dragged himself back to the lines and hobbled resolutely onwards.

  * * *

  Cath and Angie collected the eggs from their deep litter houses. It was a task they performed every morning after milking their goats in the milking parlour. An intercity train hurtled past on the nearby railway lines.

  Cath pulled a resigned face. "That's tomorrow's orders. Might be able to pay the electric bill."

  "We'd best get signed up with Phil Yates fast as we can! A fella like that could clear our debts without blinking." Angie, provocative as always, watched her mother's reaction.

  "Never!"

  In spite of Cath's uncompromising reply, Angie was unconvinced. The lack of eye contact and her mother's conflicted body language told a different story. Angie studied her as they collected the last of the eggs. Cath looked tired and was beginning to lose her vivacity. How long would it be before she simply gave up the struggle?

  Where some daughters would have felt like weeping at this sad observation, Angie was filled with outrage. Why should they have to battle so hard just to earn enough to eat and to keep the predators at bay? There was no easy money for them, as they received no farm subsidies. Every penny they earned was the result of hard work.

  She watched another intercity express flash past in the opposite direction. Her attitude towards the railway lines had changed. For the first fifteen years of her life her feelings towards them had shifted from fascination to mild irritation. Now they were taking on a more sinister aspect; they were beginning to symbolize the divided state of the nation.

  The express trains symbolized the future, which would be reached by speeding indifferently through a hinterland of floundering lives. If you were making it, you were on the train, the suffering world beyond the windows no more than a meaningless blur. If you weren't on the train, you were a mere helpless spectator, sinking in your personal morass, watching the winners hurtle by. The fact that no one on the train, conditioned as they were by the notion of progress, had the remotest idea of where they were heading wouldn't occur to her for a little while longer…

  On their way back to the house and the egg packing that occupied every mid-morning, Angie glanced at the two empty farm cottages that stood a mere thirty yards from the railway lines. It had been many years since they had housed farm employees. Her mother had tried to let them, but no one had stayed for long, as families these days preferred central heating, rather than crouching around open fires on winter nights. Holiday lets were out of the question, as the proximity of the railway lines, as well as the unmodernised interiors, had condemned them as a non-starter.

  The cottages were beginning to deteriorate like the rest of the buildings on the farm. Angie felt like screaming in frustration. It was a criminal waste that nothing could be done with them. Had expectations changed so much that even the homeless would reject them? But then, the urban poor would never cope in such a basic environment. She and her mother were rapidly descending towards the level of Transylvanian peasants. How long would it be before they only had a horse and cart to rely on?

  She pushed her negative thoughts away and began helping her mother, performing

  the routine tasks she could do with her eyes shut. But she knew this was only blind survival. Life lay in another direction. Not on the fantasy intercity express but in something more creative. It was their debt that was killing life off. Was the second-worst day in her mother’s life the day she and Matt took out the loan?

  After the egg packing was done, mother and daughter sat on the garden seat by the back door drinking tea and smoking cigarettes, their last remaining indulgence. The May

  morning was sunny and warm, and they shared the brief pleasure in silence. A flash of light from the top of the nearby sawmill caught their attention. Angie leaped to her feet and bared her breasts.

  "Screw you, Charlie Gibb!"

  "Angie!" Cath exclaimed in dismay. "Don't go giving him ideas!"

  "He wouldn't know what to do
with me if he had the chance!" Angie replied with furious contempt.

  "Don't give him any encouragement—you never know what might happen!"

  "Nothing will happen! He's afraid of females. He's only after our land."

  "Are you sure of that?" Cath asked.

  "Of course. He's had plenty of chances to grab me when I've been working alone round the farm. He's a voyeur." She laughed. "End of."

  * * *

  Charlie Gibb swung himself down from the loft to the first floor then descended the open wooden stairs to his ground-floor office. The shock of seeing the young girl like that had left him hot and confused. For a minute he didn't know what to do, as a torrent of repressed images cascaded through his mind. He was disturbed by the images, frightened by their power. There was only one safe way to quiet them, and he rushed outside into the bushes.

  Returning to his office, he sat at the time-scarred desk that occupied the length of one wall, put his wide floppy hat over his shock of albino hair and adjusted the eye patch that covered his wall eye. He took a file of papers from a drawer and studied the contents, his head turned sideways like a bird. He muttered to himself as he read.

  "This'll fix you, Cath Scaife. Then I'll have the pair o' you to myself. I could have been a lawyer. Ain't no one smart as Charlie Gibb!"

  He returned the file to the desk then sat back in his chair, smiling to himself. He had gone through the changes he would make when he had control of Cuckoo Nest a thousand times—and what he would do with the two women a thousand times more.

  He just had to wait until the pressure from Phil Yates got too much for them. And it would; it would wear them down like an illness. Then he would make his move. He would be Mister Gibb then, not just Charlie as he was now. He'd have respect.

  His reverie was interrupted by the ringing of his desk phone. It was an order from a local farmer, one of his many regular customers, for field gates and fencing. "Ayup, Charlie, can thoo cum oot reet away?" Of course he could. Charlie could. But not when he was Mister Gibb. Mister Gibb would have the power to keep folk waiting. He locked the mill, swung his spare frame into his old Land Rover and drove off to the farm to measure up.