Time to Pay

by Lyndon Stacey

  Zebedee almost turned himself inside out with excitement when Gideon finally pulled himself into the driving seat of the Land Rover, and he had to endure having his ears and the side of his face thoroughly washed as the dog greeted him.

  ‘All right lad, that’s enough,’ he said eventually, leaning his head against the bodywork and fighting the powerful impulse to close his eyes for a few blissful moments. His head was pounding, whether as a result of the shocks or whatever he’d been forced to inhale he wasn’t sure, and his chest felt a little tight, as if he were perpetually on the verge of coughing. But in spite of these discomforts, and a host of overstretched muscles and overstimulated nerve endings, his main problem was staying awake.

  Best keep moving.

  The keys were in the ignition where he’d left them, and he started the engine, put the Land Rover into gear and let in the handbrake. At the end of the long and bumpy drive, Gideon hesitated at the junction with the road.

  Left, up to the A354 and the sixteen or more miles to Tarrant Grayling, or right, and take the six or seven miles of back roads to Wareham, and Eve?

  There was never any contest. Even without the added attraction of a spot of TLC, he seriously doubted his ability to steer between the hedges and the cars for sixteen miles along a busy main road in his present state.

  It wasn’t until he was about halfway to Wareham that it occurred to him that he should probably have brought the fencer with him as evidence, but there was no way he was going to go back for it.

  Eve’s home was the top floor of a large Georgian town house, reached by an outside stair with an ornamental black wrought-iron banister.

  Gideon stood with his foot on the first step, gazing up, and wished heartily that she’d bought the whole house.

  Taking a deep breath he started the climb.

  ‘Gideon? What on earth are you doing?’

  Gideon opened his eyes and blinked, trying to focus on Eve’s face. She was frowning in bewilderment, which wasn’t altogether surprising, as he was sitting on her doorstep, leaning against the glossy red paint of her front door, and he very much suspected he’d been asleep.

  ‘You look terrible,’ she added, before he could answer her opening query. ‘Where are your boots?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he mumbled, becoming vaguely aware of another figure standing behind her. He screwed his eyes shut, then looked again. A man – perhaps fiftyish – jeans, a well-cut jacket, and thick, wavy, greying hair. Urbanity personified.

  ‘Are you drunk? No, of course not,’ Eve answered herself. ‘Come on. Let’s go inside.’

  Gideon got his feet under him and discovered that her companion was holding a hand down towards him. It wasn’t the moment for pride; he took the help it offered.

  Inside, he paused by the inner door and Eve gestured to the sofa, a huge squashy affair of black leather, scattered with a multitude of tasselled and beaded cushions in rich Indian silks.

  Gideon looked down significantly at his filthy jeans and bootless feet.

  ‘Oh, for goodness sake! Don’t worry about that. Sit down before you fall down. What on earth happened to you? No – before you answer that – would you like something to drink? Coffee, or something stronger?’

  ‘Better be coffee, I think,’ Gideon decided. He wasn’t sure his body could cope with alcohol, at this juncture. He already felt as though he had the mother and father of all hangovers.

  The grey-haired man cleared his throat.

  ‘Ah, I think perhaps I’d better be going . . .’ he began, hesitating between the sofa and the front door.

  Eve stopped, halfway to the kitchen, and turned back.

  ‘Trevor, I’m sorry. I haven’t even introduced you to Gideon. Gideon, this is Trevor Erskine. You remember, I told you about him.’

  ‘Oh, the artist? Pleased to meet you.’ Gideon held out a hand, which, after a moment’s hesitation, Erskine shook.

  ‘Um . . . Unusual wristwear,’ he remarked diffidently, gesturing with his other hand.

  Eve came up to Gideon’s shoulder, and they all peered in silence at the bloodstained orange twine bracelets just visible under the cuffs of his jacket.

  11

  ‘SO, WHAT NOW? Are you going to tell the police?’ Eve asked, when Gideon had completed his tale. She was sitting sideways on the sofa next to him and had listened with an expression of growing horror as he spoke. She was no fool, and his attempts to gloss over the details had received short shrift, the full facts leaving her compassionate and furious by turns.

  Trevor Erskine had long gone, diplomatically taking his leave soon after the discovery of the baling twine. Eve had seen him to the door, promising to call the next day, and they exchanged kisses, cheek to cheek, before he stepped outside.

  When she’d returned to Gideon, he’d looked up at her, holding his wrists forward, and said, simply, ‘I’m sorry.’

  She’d returned his gaze, her expression unreadable, then moved into business mode.

  ‘Right, first I cut that stuff off, then you have a bath, and then you can tell me all about it. And I mean all.’

  She’d used her kitchen scissors to cut the orange twine, hissing through her teeth at the mess it had made of his wrists. Initially agonising, the hot bathwater had eased the stiffness in his muscles and cleansed the bloody sores on his arms, and by the time he’d settled down on the sofa, wrapped in a whiter-than-white towelling bathrobe, his natural resilience had kicked in and recovery had begun.

  Now, as Eve asked the inevitable question about calling the police, he looked down at his bandaged wrists and the still-warm, empty mug he was cradling.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Of course you can. I’ll do it for you, if you want. You can’t just let something like this happen and not do anything. It’s . . . it’s barbaric!’

  ‘But just think of all the questions,’ Gideon protested. ‘And I’d have to see a doctor—’

  ‘And that’s a bad idea?’ Eve broke in. ‘You were almost dead on your feet an hour ago!’

  ‘That was then,’ Gideon pointed out. ‘I’m a lot better now.’

  Eve groaned in sheer frustration.

  ‘Well, apart from the question of a doctor – don’t you want to see these people caught?’

  ‘Of course I do. But what I want even more is to find out who sent them.’

  ‘I agree. But let someone else do it! I’m serious, Gideon! Look at what could have happened today. As bad as it was, you were lucky. What if you hadn’t managed to get free?’

  That was something Gideon didn’t care to contemplate, but he tried to make light of Eve’s anxiety. ‘It was a warning. Don’t worry; now I know the stakes are high I’ll be more careful.’

  Eve made another exasperated noise. ‘You can’t just let it go . . .What about your policeman friend you were telling me about the other night?’

  ‘Logan?’ Gideon considered the idea. ‘Well, I’d rather not, he’s a bit of a pit bull when he latches onto something, but I guess it’d be a stage better than Rockley or Coogan.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Gideon! How far do you intend going to protect Lloyd and Pippa? It’s not as if you’ve any evidence that Lloyd’s done anything wrong. I can’t see why you don’t just come right out and ask him about it. Or is there something you’re not telling me?’

  ‘No, nothing. And I think I will ask Lloyd. But I’d rather do that before I turn the list over to the police.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t ring this Logan, I’m going to ring the local lot, so the choice is yours,’ Eve told him. ‘But meantime, I’m going to call the deli and get them to bring something round. I take it you don’t fancy going out to eat?’

  ‘My clothes are in the washing machine.’

  ‘Ah. So they are. By the way, where are you parked? They’re getting quite strict about that in this road.’

  ‘Round the back, half on the pavement. Which reminds me . . . Zeb’s still in the Land Rover. I don’t suppose he could come in, could h
e? He could stay in the kitchen . . .’

  Logan’s mobile phone routed Gideon straight through to the answering service when he first tried to ring, so he left a message for the policeman to call back, which he did, twenty minutes later.

  ‘OK, what is it this time? A car number plate you want traced? Somebody’s criminal record checked?’

  ‘No, not exactly.’ Gideon wished it was, then at least he might be getting somewhere, instead of feeling stiff and sore and having little idea who he’d upset and why. ‘I er . . . ran into a bit of trouble.’

  ‘Why doesn’t that surprise me? Are you OK?’

  ‘Yeah, just about. Can I talk, off the record?’

  ‘I guess so. But I’ve just finished a double shift, so it better be good! Do you want me to come over?’

  ‘Well, I’m not at home,’ Gideon warned. He explained where he was and gave Logan a very brief outline of the afternoon’s events. ‘Um . . . I don’t suppose you could take a look at the place on your way over?’

  ‘You don’t want much, do you?’ Logan grumbled, but Gideon guessed that wild horses wouldn’t keep him away now he’d heard Gideon’s tale.

  ‘Will he come?’ Eve wanted to know, coming through from the kitchen with the deli meal on two red-and-gold-edged plates. ‘By the way, your clothes are in the dryer.’

  ‘Yeah, he’ll come,’ Gideon said, rubbing Zebedee’s upturned belly with his foot. ‘Though he’s just finished a double shift. God knows when he sleeps; I think he must do it standing up!’

  PC Mark Logan arrived around eight, carrying Gideon’s boots; five feet ten of unflappable calm, with razor-cut fair hair and blue eyes. He’d been Gideon’s salvation on one previous occasion, and Gideon trusted him implicitly, but he had to keep reminding himself that Logan’s first duty was to the law and while he was sometimes prepared to stretch the rules in certain circumstances, it was no good asking him to ignore them completely.

  ‘Interesting,’ Logan said, when he’d been introduced to Eve, and accepted the offer of a coffee. ‘I’ve taken some photographs and I’ve got the electric fencer in my van. We might be able to lift some prints off that but I doubt if we’ll be able to trace it; it looks pretty old and there are dozens of them lying about on farms. Could have been bought twenty or thirty years ago. We might have more chance with the battery. The building at the end – where you said you saw the Land Rover – was empty, and there were tracks, so it looks as though you were right about that. Not much else to see. There were a couple of people up there feeding their horses, and I had a chat with them. The place was an old abattoir, did you know that?’

  ‘Guessed it might be, what with the meat hooks, and there was a kind of gutter down the middle of the floor.’

  ‘Yeah. Well, I got the name and address of the guy that owns the place and I’ll follow that up, but I wouldn’t hold my breath, if I were you. It’s hardly likely that either of the men will have any known connection with the property. That would be very careless.’

  ‘Well, thanks, anyway,’ Gideon said.

  ‘If you’d called it in, we could have sent in CSI and done the job properly,’ Logan observed.

  ‘Yeah . . . It’s a bit complicated . . .’

  ‘Isn’t it always, with you? So are you going to let me in on the secret? Presumably this wasn’t entirely unprovoked, so what have you been up to?’

  ‘It was apparently in the nature of a warning.’

  ‘I guessed that, but from whom and about what?’

  ‘I can’t give you names,’ Gideon warned. ‘At least, not all of them.’

  ‘Can’t or won’t?’

  ‘All right, won’t.’

  ‘So it involves someone you know,’ Logan stated.

  Gideon hesitated.

  ‘Not Barrington-Whatsisname, your landlord?’

  ‘No. Not Giles. Or Pippa. Look, I’m not sure this is going to work.’

  ‘Sorry, but you can’t stop me thinking. It’s my job, after all. Thanks.’ This last was to Eve, who had handed him a mug of coffee.

  ‘I made it strong, as you asked, but are you sure it’s all right? It looks revolting!’

  ‘It’s fine, I’m a caffeine junkie,’ Logan told her, with a flash of his appealing boyish grin. ‘If you filtered all the caffeine out of my bloodstream, I’d probably keel over and sleep for about a year!’

  Eve laughed, handed Gideon his third mug of coffee and sat down.

  ‘You’re not joking. I think that’s all that’s keeping Gideon awake, too. He was asleep on my doorstep when I found him.’

  ‘Some solvents have that effect,’ Logan said, nodding. ‘It’s not unlike getting drunk, I’m told, complete with the hangover, although far more dangerous, of course. You can quite easily wake up dead.’ He took a mouthful of coffee. ‘So has this got something to do with Garth Stephenson?’

  ‘What?’ Gideon was startled. ‘Oh, of course, the other night.’

  ‘Garth Stephenson; aged thirty-four; teaches PE and history at Montague Park School, Charlton Montague. Born in Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire. Unmarried; no kids; former competitive swimmer who represented England several times in the Nineties; how am I doing?’

  ‘Better than me. I didn’t know about Aylesbury or the swimming,’ Gideon said. ‘I might have known you’d follow it up.’

  Logan shrugged. ‘It’s what I do. Do you think he might have had something to do with what happened to you? What did you want him for, the other night?’

  Having promised Logan information, Gideon now found himself in a quandary, unable to think of anything he could say that wouldn’t lead the policeman to make a connection with Damien Daniels and there, by progression, to the murder inquiry. He knew that if that happened Logan would have no choice but to immediately turn the whole thing over to DI Rockley.

  ‘I found a list of initials and phone numbers – at least, that’s what it turned out to be, it had been disguised – and I’ve been trying to find out what the connection is between them. Garth Stephenson was one of them.’ Even as he said it, Gideon knew Logan wasn’t going to settle for such a vague explanation, and wished he hadn’t let Eve talk him into phoning the man.

  ‘You found it? Where?’

  Gideon knew if he mentioned the horse, Logan would soon unearth details of its owner.

  ‘Well it was given to me, amongst some other bits and pieces of paperwork.’

  ‘By whom?’

  ‘I’d rather not say, just at the moment.’

  ‘So why didn’t you ask this mystery person about it?’

  ‘I did. They didn’t seem interested, and it turned out it wasn’t theirs.’

  ‘Most people would have left it at that . . .’

  ‘I thought I recognised one of the phone numbers, and I was curious.’

  ‘So you started asking questions? You must have had some idea what connected the names on the list.’

  ‘I thought I had, but I turned out to be wrong,’ Gideon said.

  ‘So what was it?’ From the tone of his voice, Logan’s patience was wearing understandably thin.

  Gideon hesitated. ‘I can’t tell you, right now. I need to speak to someone first.’

  ‘Oh, come on, Gideon! You haven’t told me a bloody thing! You say you’ve got no idea what it’s all about, but you must know enough to worry someone. You don’t get done over like you were for nothing, and I didn’t come all this way to listen to a load of meaningless bullshit! Tell me something. What did you speak to Stephenson about?’

  ‘I asked him about some of the other names on the list.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘And I think he knew what it was all about, but he wasn’t telling. I got the impression that whatever it was happened a long time ago. He didn’t want to tell me because it wasn’t just him involved, but he didn’t show any aggression towards me. I’d be very surprised if today was anything to do with him.’

  ‘OK, so who else have you talked to?’

  ‘Someone called Sam Bentley
. He owns a health club called Bentley’s of Bath. He wasn’t nearly as laid-back. He actually tried to buy me off until he realised I didn’t have the first idea what was going on.’

  ‘It’s not such ancient history, then,’ Logan observed, writing the name in his pocketbook. ‘What was it you said that got him so worried – or is that something else you can’t tell me?’

  ‘I asked him about the other names on the list, too.’

  ‘But he didn’t tell you anything?’

  ‘I think he knew them.’

  ‘Did you tell him who wrote the list?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He said he didn’t know the person.’ Gideon was uncomfortably certain that if ever the time was right to divulge the identity of the list’s author, Logan was going to be a long way short of happy with him.

  ‘So who else was on this list?’

  ‘Robin Tate. I’m told he’s very well off, works in London and is married to Vanessa. Apparently they live at Wimborne St Giles. I haven’t spoken to him yet.’

  ‘But one of the others might have,’ Logan pointed out, writing the names down. ‘And . . .?’

  ‘Julian Norris. But he died last year in a car crash and his name was crossed out.’

  ‘So the list is at least a year or more old.’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘How many names in total?’

  ‘Six,’ Gideon said slowly.

  ‘And you’ve given me four.’

  ‘Mm.’

  Logan tapped his pen on his teeth.

  ‘OK, was there anything else on the paper?’

  If he told Logan the truth, would he make the connection with racing and from there to Damien Daniels? Gideon had a feeling he might.

  ‘Just some doodles,’ he said. ‘The sort of thing you do when you’re on the phone.’

  Out of the corner of his eye he could see Eve glance sharply at him, but ignored her. Although he wasn’t happy deceiving Logan, he told himself it was only temporarily. It was becoming fairly obvious that, sooner or later, he’d have to hand the whole business over to the police.