Outside Chance (11 page)

Ben didn't quite know how to respond to this. Allerton's openness was somewhat disarming.

He turned into the car park of The Pig in a Poke, where a few more cars had now gathered. As he pulled the handbrake on he looked across at Ben. ‘You won't crucify us, will you? Even if you don't completely agree with our aims, you must see we have the animals' interests at heart.
I'd rather you didn't write anything at all than drag us through the shit.'

‘I said I'd be fair and I will. But I can't promise one of the nationals. I'd need something hugely controversial for that, a real exposé, but we should get a slot in one of the locals.'

‘Thanks.'

Allerton looked down at the steering wheel, a frown of concentration furrowing his brow. Ben waited, sensing that there was something else on his mind, but when it came it wasn't the breakthrough revelation he had hoped for.

‘When you preach, you can't choose your disciples,' he said eventually. ‘I'm aware that Baz and Della don't necessarily present an ideal image for the organisation, but they are loyal, and their hearts are in the right place.'

‘Even Baz?'

Allerton smiled. ‘Yeah, well, he's maybe a bit headstrong,' he conceded.

‘That's one word for it,' Ben said as he got out of the car. ‘I'd be careful if I were you. Too many like him and you'll have a mob on your hands. Tell me, do you get much bother from the police?'

He shook his head. ‘Only when we're actively protesting, but then they just move us on. It's all quite peaceful. Why?'

‘Just wondered. It'd be another angle but never mind.'

Allerton leaned across as Ben turned to slam the door. ‘And the article?'

‘I'll let you know,' he promised.

Ben had intended to spend the rest of the day dealing with his mail but somehow he couldn't settle to it. In the end, the discovery that he didn't have any stamps proved to be all the excuse he needed to put it off until another day, and he was able to let his thoughts run in the direction they had been pulling all afternoon.

Could the horse he'd seen that morning really have been Cajun King?

On the face of it, it was extremely unlikely. Given that ALSA had been a thorn in Eddie Truman's side for some time, if they had the horse they must have known that they would be prime suspects, and therefore it would be monumentally stupid to ‘hide' the animal within a couple of hundred yards of their HQ. Or were they completely confident that they could keep the location of their Nissen hut secret? If so, they were fools. The police would certainly know the identity of the more prominent members of the group, and it wouldn't take long, however careful they were, before one of them was trailed to their base.

Ben couldn't think that Allerton was anywhere near that stupid.

He made a cup of tea, stoked up the wood-burner and started again.

What had it been that Baz was so desperately afraid he would find out?

Why did he say they didn't want someone poking around
especially now
? Allerton had apparently not considered it a risk. But then again, when pressed, he'd spoken of a project. Could that be significant?

By the time he'd finished his tea, Ben had acknowledged the decision his subconscious had made somewhere on the journey home that morning. He was going to go back to ALSA HQ and take a second, unauthorised, look round. And because time was of the essence, he would have to do it tonight.

It was no longer raining when Ben left the house that evening, just after eleven, but the clearing skies had caused the temperature to drop and, with a lively wind, it felt raw out.

Once again he'd left Mouse behind and she'd made no complaints.

‘So much for the idea of Man's Best Friend – faithfully following at his heels through thick and thin!' he said as she regarded him sleepily from under one bushy brow. Clearly unimpressed by his histrionics, she closed her eye and sighed deeply. ‘If you wanted a guard dog, you should have bought a Rottweiler,' she seemed to be saying.

Because he didn't have to go to Wincanton Ben could cut a chunk off the journey and join the A303 further east, and it wasn't long before he was into the maze of roads through which he'd been taken that morning. Allerton had sought to confuse him, and had done a very competent job; but for all that they had forgotten to cover up the maps on the walls of the Nissen hut, and the one that Ben had managed to get a good look at had many coloured pins stuck in it and also a star near its centre. Armed with that information, and knowledge of the crossroads and the
geography of the immediate area, Ben had been able to consult a map of his own and make a fairly definite estimate of the position of the ALSA HQ.

Pulling up at the entrance to the muddy lane, Ben considered his options. He could, of course, drive straight up the track to the hut and park outside, and he was ninety per cent sure that it would be quite safe to do so. The other ten per cent of his mind, though, pointed out that if he did run into trouble, then the top of a long lane with no turnings wasn't the smartest place to be.

The ten per cent won out. He drove the Mitsubishi slowly on until he reached a convenient gateway, then parked up and disembarked into the cold night wind. Even though there was only the occasional gleam of moonlight, Ben had come prepared in what he jokingly thought of as his cat-burglar's outfit: jeans, roll-neck, leather jacket, woolly hat and gloves, all in black. It had come in useful on similar occasions in the past, but he thought, not for the first time, that if he was ever stopped by the police when wearing it, he would probably be taken in for questioning as a matter of course, whether they could connect him with any crime or not.

Rejecting the lane as a means of approach, on the grounds that it was too exposed, Ben took to the neighbouring field, keeping to the hedge line and finding after only a few steps that the grass was long and unpleasantly wet. By the time he'd covered fifty feet or so, both his leather trekking boots and the lower legs of his jeans were soaked through.

His plan was to look out for the tall ash trees that overhung the clearing and, after about two hundred metres, he saw them, silhouetted against the cloud-streaked sky. Locating the clearing was one thing; finding a way through the dense mass of tangled hawthorn and brambles that made up the hedge was another. By the time he did so he'd managed to rip his jeans and his face smarted from a dozen or more scratches. He was very thankful that he was wearing his gloves, although several of the more determined thorns had found their way through the thin leather and embedded themselves in his flesh.

As he'd hoped, he emerged from the undergrowth behind the Nissen hut, in the opposite corner of the grassy hollow from the approach track.

There was no sign of life. No lights burned behind the curtained windows and, as far as he could see, there was no vehicle parked on the grass in front of it. Ben relaxed a degree but clouds were masking the moon now, making visibility poor, so to be completely sure, he set off to patrol the perimeter, keeping as close to the hedge as he could.

It was just as well that he did.

About twenty feet up the track that led away to the farm, and barely discernible in the shadows, a small, dark-coloured car was parked.

Ben shrank deeper into the hawthorn. It was possible that it was just a coincidence – maybe the farmer's car – but he thought not. It was also possible that it was an amorous couple, but the car was a ridiculous distance from the road,
even supposing they were quite excruciatingly shy.

All in all, he felt pretty sure that someone had suspected he might return and had planned a little reception for him. The question was: were they waiting in the car, or in or around the hut? It seemed the only way to be certain was to try and get a closer look at the car, but it was obvious that he hadn't a hope of reaching it by way of the lane without being seen; so, reluctantly, he returned to the hollow and began to search the adjacent hedge for thin patches.

A couple of minutes and several more scratches later, Ben was in the field, level with the car. The wind was blowing across the lane towards him and it brought with it the low, monotonous jangle of a music radio station and a trace of smoke that wasn't tobacco.

Ben would have dearly liked to know how many people were in the car but the rampant hawthorn between him and the lane precluded that.

There were two objectives for this night-time visit, one being to have a closer look at the contents of the Nissen hut; the other was to pay a call on the horse in the neighbouring field. Having no wish to traverse the hedge more than was strictly necessary, Ben decided to deal with the horse first.

‘Neighbouring' was a loose term, he discovered, after negotiating a barbed wire fence and tramping for a good ten minutes across uneven ground, some of which was definitely on the damp side of marshy. Clouds, whipped along by the wind, intermittently covered the moon,
leaving him stumbling in almost complete darkness and able to navigate only by keeping his eye on the small cluster of outbuildings outlined against the sky. When he finally reached them, he found himself on the wrong side of an extremely muddy gateway, which he discovered by plunging his foot ankle-deep into a rain-filled hoofprint. His boot, already soaked, immediately filled up with icy-cold water.

Ben cursed under his breath but it was a little late to turn back, so, grimacing as his other boot filled too, he plodded on, nearly losing one of them altogether as he dragged his feet out of the mud to climb the metal five-bar gate.

Moonlight, which would have been helpful a minute earlier, now flooded the scene, showing him four buildings in various stages of disrepair, the closest of which was recognisable by its half-door as a stable. Ben froze, feeling horribly vulnerable, but either he hadn't been seen or there was nobody there to see, because the dreaded shout didn't come, and a few seconds later the moon went behind a cloud again and blessed darkness returned.

Moving closer to the building Ben made his way to the door and peered inside, almost jumping out of his skin as the horse had the same idea from the other side. It threw up its head and backed away, equally startled.

Unsure how close the farmhouse was, Ben unlatched the top door and pulled it, creaking and protesting, to join its counterpart, then he opened both by eight inches or so, took a deep breath and slipped inside. Somewhere in front of
him the horse moved restlessly on its straw bed, and Ben's heart-rate accelerated into the hundreds. With shaking hands, he took a small, rubber-coated torch from his jacket pocket and switched it on.

One glance was enough.

It wasn't Cajun King.

It was the right colour and size but anyone who had been brought up with horses, the way Ben had, could tell at a glance that it wasn't a thoroughbred. It was wearing a dung-stained, navy and red padded stable rug, but its visible parts – head, neck and legs – belonged to something more in the hunter line than to a racehorse. Unnerved by this unexpected late-night intrusion, the horse stood with its head high, showing the whites of its eyes as it watched Ben suspiciously. The stable wasn't by any means large and the animal seemed to fill it as it shifted first forwards, then back, on the verge of panic.

A few soothing words might have helped but Ben couldn't conjure up anything even remotely calming. His priority was to get out and shut the door before the horse did something stupid.

Within seconds he was out and leaning on the closed door, eyes shut, trying to steady his breathing.

So it wasn't Eddie Truman's missing horse. To be honest, he hadn't really expected it to be, but he had to be sure. If he'd had any real expectation, he'd have contacted the police and let them deal with it – scoop or no scoop.

Another ten minutes or so was spent on the return journey and it took him a further five to
locate the thin patch in the hedge that he'd forced himself through. Ben could hear the car radio still pulsing out its heavy beat but could no longer see it because by now the moon had deserted him, and he made his way to the door of the Nissen hut by guesswork and a fair amount of luck. Naturally, it was locked, but the whole affair was so flimsy and ill-fitting that a little judicious attention with the blade of his penknife, between door and jamb, soon had it swinging open. Swiftly he stepped inside and pulled the door to behind him. Then, swapping the knife for the torch, and shielding its light with his other hand, he moved towards the nearest desk.

Suddenly, shockingly, the lights came on.

‘
LEAVE SOMETHING BEHIND,
did yer?' The voice came from near the door and Ben swung round to see the all-too-familiar head of dreadlocks.

Baz.

Damn! Why hadn't he checked the car again?

‘What can I say? You made me so welcome,' Ben said, lifting his hands expressively and stepping back so that he was touching the bench.

‘I knew you were a bastard! I told him.'

‘Clever you!' In one fluid movement, Ben reached behind him, caught up a pot of assorted paperclips and corkboard pins and threw them in Baz's face.

Baz ducked, bringing his arms up to protect his eyes and, not wasting a moment, Ben lunged forward and gave him a powerful shove, sending him reeling back into the corner of the hut. Here, due to the contours of the building, his head connected rather firmly with the ceiling and he sat down, grabbing at the metal shelves to save himself but succeeding only in pulling one of the
five-by-three-foot sections over on top of himself.

The air turned blue.

Ben didn't offer to help him up. Taking advantage of the spectacular success of his spur of the moment attack he flicked the light switch off, whisked out the door and pulled it shut behind him.

After the brilliance of hundred-watt bulbs and the cream interior he could see absolutely nothing outside, and he didn't see whatever it was that landed a stinging blow across his shoulder and head, causing him to stumble and drop to his knees. He was, however, ready for it when it came again, throwing out his arm and grasping the weapon even as it cracked across his back a second time. Wrenching it from the hands of his assailant, Ben found himself holding what felt like a short length of partially decayed two-by-two timber.