Outside Chance (12 page)

Robbed of this instrument the attacker laid into him with fists but, as with the timber, the blows were only moderately competent, and Ben was able to discard the wood and catch hold of the flailing arms. He discovered, from the size of bone, that he almost certainly had a female to contend with. It seemed likely that it might be the pink-haired artist, Della.

To someone with ethics this presented a thorny problem, but when, a moment later, she made very efficient use of a set of surprisingly sharp teeth, Ben found his conscience liberated. Turning rapidly on his heel like a hammer thrower, he swung Della round through three-
hundred-and-sixty degrees and released her in the general direction of the hedge. The crash of twiggery and muffled screaming that followed seemed to suggest that his efforts had been successful and, recovering his balance, Ben sprinted away.

Unwilling to face the perils of the hawthorn yet again, he hoped he had enough of a head start to make it down the muddy track before Della and Baz could get their act together, get back to their vehicle and come after him.

In the next instant he decided that as Baz had not yet reappeared it might be in his best interests to try and disable the car first, or even – as he was prepared to gamble that they wouldn't have removed the keys – use it himself.

This last idea strongly appealed to him and he altered course accordingly, feeling, as he did, the first few large drops of rain that probably presaged a downpour.

The car was there, unattended, and so too were the keys. Ben slid thankfully into the driver's seat, almost choking on the lingering smoke, and gunned the engine. Old and shabby it might have been, but after turning over a few times, the car started as sweetly as he could have wished. At last, he felt, something was going his way.

Standing on the accelerator Ben tried all the levers and switches, turning on not only the headlights but also the windscreen wipers, the indicators and the heating system in the process. As the lights lanced out through the rain, the first thing they illuminated was Baz's running form. No more than thirty feet away, his stride
faltered and stopped as he registered the oncoming car.

Ben wouldn't have run him down but Baz didn't know that, and, though he held his ground for the space of a few heartbeats, his nerve broke, and he dived for the tangle of brambles and hawthorn that comprised the lane boundary. As he drove out into the hollow and skidded round the corner into the muddy track Ben thought, with amusement, that the surrounding hedges had taken quite a battering over the past hour or so.

With the window wound right down to avoid becoming high on the car's residual fug, he took the rough lane at a highly uncomfortable rate, bottoming the vehicle out several times on the ridges between the puddles before lurching, thankfully, on to the tarmac at the end.

Transferring to the Mitsubishi moments later, Ben was about to drop the keys of the borrowed car in a ditch when an idea occurred. Retracing his steps, he tossed them through the open window of the car, on to the driver's seat, before jumping into his own vehicle, backing out of the gateway and accelerating noisily away, leaving a trace of rubber behind him on the road surface.

A couple of minutes later, he was back on foot, having tucked the Mitsubishi out of sight in yet another gateway twenty or thirty yards down the next turning he'd come to. Panting hard from his run, he hid himself behind the hedge and waited.

He needn't have hurried. It was a full five minutes before he heard Baz and Della approaching and
they
certainly weren't hurrying.
Ben could hear them from a long way off, bickering like a pair of children over whose fault it was that he'd managed to get away.

‘There's the car. I told you the one we heard was a different one. This old heap of crap never sounded like that!' That was Della.

‘I bet he's taken the fucking keys! I'll fucking kill him!'

‘Yeah? You and whose army? You haven't exactly been impressive so far.' Her voice was loaded with scorn.

‘Well, neither were you.'

‘At least I hit him. You just got dumped on your arse!'

‘I told you. He threw stuff in my fucking face!'

Ben heard the car door open.

‘The keys are here. I'll drive.' Della again.

‘You fucking won't!'

‘I will. You're stoned out of your mind.'

‘So are you.'

‘Not as much as you. That's why he made a fool of you. No, come to think of it, you were a fool already!'

‘Oh, ha fuckin' ha. At least he didn't have a chance to start poking around. I knew he was trouble but Henry wouldn't listen – oh, no. “We can trust him,” he says. Just wait till I tell him!'

A door slammed, the car started up and, over the sound of the engine, Della said ‘Come on, get in.'

Presumably he did, because after a moment Ben heard a second door slam and the car pulled away.

In the silence that followed its departure, Ben
stepped cautiously from his hiding place. Unwittingly, Baz had supplied the one bit of information that had been worrying him: whether or not they had already alerted Henry to the attempted break-in. As they hadn't, now was undoubtedly the optimum time to pay a return visit. Throwing caution to the wind, he jogged back to his car and then drove it along the track to the Nissen hut.

This was in darkness once more, and again Ben used his penknife to effect entry, pausing on the threshold this time, to switch the lights on before entering.

The hut was empty, as he'd been pretty sure it would be, and, shutting the door behind him, he pulled a chair across the doorway. At least if anyone did turn up whilst he was there, they wouldn't be able to creep in without him knowing. His search of the ALSA premises was brief and almost completely unrewarding. What little paperwork he found was mainly concerned with protest campaigns, both past and planned, fundraising, and newspaper advertising.

The calendar and maps were dotted with what might have been interesting information, but as this was displayed in some sort of shorthand, it was of little or no use to Ben. On the day of Cajun King's abduction there were no entries on the calendar, and nowhere could he find any reference to Eddie Truman or his stables, until he discovered, on one of the notice-boards, a newspaper cutting about the death of one of Truman's horses on the gallops. Underneath this someone had written, ‘Murderer!' in red capital
letters. Looking forward through the next month or two was no more informative. At the beginning of March ‘Operation Big Top' was announced but, although it sounded most likely to be a circus, Ben could find no further clue as to what the operation entailed.

With growing frustration he turned his attention to the racks of metal shelves near the door. Someone, presumably Baz, had stood these upright again and piled the files, books and pamphlets untidily on them. A cursory glance through one pile wasn't promising, and Ben was ready to admit defeat. In films and on TV he'd watched detectives calmly sorting through the contents of desks and address books, even taking photographs with miniature cameras and rock-steady hands, but Ben wasn't a TV detective: his heart was pounding, he was perspiring freely and he was as jumpy as a cat.

Regarding the remaining jumble of material with weary hopelessness, he gave up. Turning the lights off he removed the chair and cautiously opened the door, waiting silently for a moment or two before venturing across the threshold. If anyone was waiting they were holding their breath, just as he was. Half a minute later he was out of the door, had locked it, and was in the Mitsubishi. Nobody sprang from the shadows; in fact no one moved at all. It looked as though Ben had been completely alone in the clearing this time, but, even so, the thought of returning to continue his search held no allure whatsoever. Feeling suddenly dog-tired, he headed for home.
Ben slept late the following morning and awakened, for the second morning running, to the sound of the telephone ringing.

He put out a hand to locate it, picked it up and said, ‘Yeah, hello,' without opening his eyes.

‘You lying shit!' a voice greeted him.

Ben's eyes snapped open and he sat up, frowning.

‘Who is this?'

‘As if you didn't know. I thought you were on the level. I persuaded the others to trust you, and you pay me back like this!'

‘Allerton? Henry?'

‘Yeah, Henry. Gullible Henry,' came the bitter affirmation. ‘Why the hell did I trust a reporter? I must need my bloody head seen to. And now I've got Della and Baz on my case and the office looking like a bombsite. Why did you have to trash the place, Ben? After everything I told you. Christ, I really had you wrong, didn't I?'

‘Hold on,' Ben exclaimed, trying to take it all in. ‘Trash the place? I didn't.'

‘Don't give me that crap, Baz saw you.'

‘Oh, and he'd be a reliable witness, wouldn't he? High as a kite half the time, I'd say.'

‘Are you denying you went back to the hut last night?'

Ben hesitated. His inherent honesty had got him into trouble a number of times, and had almost certainly held back his career, but he just couldn't seem to shake it. ‘I'm not denying that I was there, but whoever trashed the place, it wasn't me,' he said. ‘If I were you, I'd look a little closer to home.'

The conversation with Allerton left him feeling a little unsettled. He seemed a decent, if misguided, sort and Ben hadn't liked going behind his back in the first place, but, on top of that, to be blamed for something that he had not and would never have done made it so much worse.

A late breakfast was interrupted by yet another call, this time from the editor who had commissioned the piece on the Hungarian horsemen, checking on his progress. The idea of spending the day in and around Truman's yard held little appeal for Ben in his current state of mind, and so he seized on this alternative with alacrity, promising that he was intending to spend the rest of the day with the troupe, who should by now have arrived and started to set up at their new venue.

Deciding to put Eddie Truman and the whole Cajun King incident out of his mind for the day, Ben set off just before midday for West Sussex and the equestrian centre where the Csikós were to put on their show for the following three nights.

In mainland Europe, the troupe rarely put on such a quantity of small-scale performances, their reputation being for spectacular equestrian
son et lumière
style shows, staged at historic outdoor venues on spring and summer evenings.

The circumstances of their touring England at such a strange time of the year had come about precisely for that reason. When the millionaire promoter who had paved the way for this visit had first approached them they had turned him
down, their diary for the year already full. But Ronnie Devlin was determined, finally convincing them that a series of smaller shows at indoor venues in the early part of the year was an ideal way to introduce their special magic to the English public. He planned a tour for them that would culminate in three full-scale spectaculars, shortly before they were due to start their season on the continent. He was, he told them, completely confident that at the end of it their troupe would be a hot property and able to push their performance fees sky-high when they returned the following year.

After much persuasion the Csikós agreed. It had been their intention to extend their tour to England – one of them confided in Ben – just as soon as they had enough financial security to make a trip across the Channel a viable proposition. Devlin had provided that security and so the deal was struck, with all parties very content.

After stopping twice to ask directions, Ben located the Csikós' new camp in a field close to the indoor arena where they were to perform. As before, the four enormous horse-transporters and one big stock lorry were drawn up in a row; beyond those, Ben could see the two articulated lorries that carried the props, sound-and-lighting equipment and feed supplies. Parked in a quiet corner was the farrier's van, the gas-powered forge already in use, and, under trees at the side of the field, business was underway at the large catering wagon.

As he turned through the gateway and saw the hustle and bustle of the camp, Ben experienced
a bubbling undercurrent of excitement. It reminded him suddenly, sharply, of the sensation he'd often felt as a child when he and his brother had arrived – in their parents' horsebox – at a particularly important show. The memory wasn't one he welcomed.

He parked and went in search of a familiar face. The entire troupe was well aware of him and knew his business but, having only known them for a relatively short time, he found their collective dark, gypsyish looks rather confusing. The majority of the Csikós were members of two families – the Bardus and the Vargas; some, by marriage, were members of both. As yet, with the exception of Nico and two others, Ben could not, with confidence, put names to the faces.

He found Nico and one of his brothers busy with a mallet, two iron posts and a quantity of orange plastic netting, apparently mending the fence that formed the boundary of a temporary paddock. In the far corner of this, standing together in a big, open-fronted barn, were the ten untrained horses that formed a ‘wild' herd for the purposes of the performance.

There were also, Ben knew, fifteen highly-schooled performing horses. Most of these were Hungarian-bred but they also included two Arabs, three Andalusians, one huge grey shire, and Bajnok, the beautiful black, Dutch-bred Friesian, who was Nico's pride and joy. These ridden horses, many of them stallions, were never turned out together for fear of injury.

‘Nico. How's it going?' Ben called as he approached.

‘Ben! Good, good.' Nico flashed his brilliant smile. ‘But where were you when we had all the hard work to do?'

‘Oh, you know us Englishers, soft as butter; can't stand the pace,' he replied airily. ‘Trouble?' He indicated the fence.