Time to Pay (32 page)

‘Yes, he was. It was his last year in competition. After what happened, he lost heart and gave up pentathlon.'

She sat silently for a moment, apparently lost in her memories.

‘It was suicide, wasn't it?' Gideon prompted.

‘What was?' Marion asked sharply.

‘Marcus.'

‘Oh, yes. Sorry. The thing is, after Julian's crash, somebody started a rumour that
that
was suicide, but there was absolutely no evidence. I mean, I know he was depressed, but that doesn't automatically mean that he took his own life. I didn't want the kids growing up with that hanging over their heads, but in the end they got to hear of it anyway from other children at their school. Of course, they were devastated – you know how cruel kids can be – and that made me really angry.'

Gideon had an idea that Marion Norris in a rage would be a force to be reckoned with.

‘Anyway, the police were quite satisfied it was an accident,' she added with a touch of defiance. ‘The thing was, he was supposed to be on his way home, but the accident happened in Winterbourne Whitechurch, and nobody knows why he was there. But he must have had a reason; maybe he was visiting a customer or something, who knows?'

‘People are always looking for something to gossip about,' Gideon said soothingly.

‘Yeah, and now it's me and John,' she said, confirming Gideon's earlier supposition. ‘Oh, well. You certainly get to know who your real
friends are. But you were asking about Marcus; yes, he jumped off the top of some building after they'd all been out drinking one night. Some kind of ruin in the grounds of the castle they were staying at. No-one quite knows why, even to this day. He was the youngest at the camp and a couple of the other guys said he'd been a little homesick, but I can't see that that's a reason to kill yourself, can you? I mean, if the worst comes to the worst, you can always ask to go home, can't you?'

Gideon shrugged. ‘Kids tend to get things way out of proportion, don't they? Maybe he was scared of letting everyone down, or maybe it was the drink that got to him; it can affect some people that way, especially if they're not used to it. Did Julian ever talk about it?'

Marion shook her red frizz. ‘Not much. All I know is that they'd been out drinking and on the way home the boy went off on his own. Nobody knew what had happened until he didn't turn up back at their rooms and one of the coaches went looking. It was a horrible shock, but nobody's fault, as far as I can see. I never did succeed in getting Julian to see that, though.'

‘Do the names Sam Bentley or Garth Stephenson mean anything to you?' Gideon asked. They were so far into confidences that he didn't feel that subtlety was called for.

Marion frowned. ‘They do seem familiar. I think I've heard Julian mention them in the past. Sam Bentley, definitely. In fact, I think he might have been on that same course. Why?'

‘Well, Tilly found a list of names in Damien's
things and she has no idea what it's to do with, or even whether it's important or not. I said I'd try and find out, that's all.'

‘Are you saying Julian was on it?'

‘Yes, but crossed out.'

‘Because of the crash.'

‘I imagine so.'

‘And what
have
you found out?'

‘Not much.' His recent experiences had made Gideon cautious. ‘I think I shall have to admit defeat.'

Marion put her cup down, apparently losing interest.

‘Well, I suppose I'd better try and find those brochures for you – no, you sit there and finish your tea.'

She rummaged among the parcels, keeping up a running commentary, and, after a minute or two, pulled out a medium-sized cardboard box from the middle of the pile.

‘This could be it. God! They really went to town on the sticky tape, didn't they? Anyone would think they were being dropped in by helicopter, the way this is wrapped! It's always one extreme or the other. Would you be a love and pass that knife from the shelf behind you?'

Gideon turned to locate it, and his eye fell on a row of box files, each labelled neatly in black ink. He picked up the Stanley knife that lay in front of them, and then paused to give the files a second look. The writing touched a chord in his memory but – like meeting someone where you don't expect to – he couldn't remember where he'd seen it before.

‘Whose handwriting is that on the files?' he asked, leaning forward to hand the knife to Marion.

She looked.

‘Julian's. Why?'

‘It's beautiful. I wondered if it was yours.'

‘I wish! No, mine's very ordinary. Julian did quite a bit of calligraphy – even the illuminated stuff. I'll show you some in a moment, if you like.'

‘Thanks, but actually, I'd better be on my way. I've taken up too much of your time as it is.'

‘Not at all. It's been nice to talk.'

As Gideon left the NSS offices five minutes later with a handful of brochures, Marion Norris was already back to business, sorting through paperwork with her mobile phone tucked under her ear. She didn't even look up when he raised a hand before shutting the door.

Gideon walked back to the Land Rover, busily assimilating the new information he'd gleaned. Logan had said to find a common denominator for two or three of the names and then try to see where the others fitted in. It was looking pretty certain that the common denominator was the Modern Pentathlon and, more specifically, the training course before the Dubai Olympic Games, in which it seemed Lloyd, Robin Tate, Adam Tetley, Sam Bentley and Julian Norris had all taken part. That just left the schoolteacher, but Gideon was willing to bet that if he dug a little deeper, he would find that Stephenson had been there too.

The only connection with Damien that they all shared appeared to be Marcus, who'd tragically committed suicide on that same course. Marcus, the sensitive young man who Gideon suspected had kept a diary detailing the bullying he'd suffered while he was away from home.

Gideon got into the Land Rover and shut the door, putting the sheaf of brochures on the passenger seat.

There was something staring him in the face but he just wasn't seeing it. He decided it was time he took another look at the photocopied page and, if necessary, ask Tilly if she had any idea where Marcus' diary might be.

He sat gazing through the windscreen at a patch of tulips in the Norrises' front garden, but they only registered as a red blur as his thoughts raced this way and that. The people named on the list knew he had a copy of it; what if they thought he had the diary, too? Was that why he'd been attacked? But if that was the case, why hadn't they tried to make him give it up?

Gideon ran his fingers through his hair and dragged his gaze back into focus. Maybe he was getting carried away. Tetley had shot Damien. The police had incontrovertible evidence against him; they had the gun.

But what if he hadn't been in it alone? There were five names on that list, if you discounted Norris. What if more than one were involved? What if they
all
were?

Oh, God! Lloyd!

It was high time he confronted Lloyd.

With this in mind, he backed the Land Rover out of the drive and set off back to the Priory.

The sky had clouded over while he'd been in talking to Marion Norris and, by the time Gideon turned into the long winding lane that led to Tarrant Grayling, a steady drizzle had set in and patchy fog had begun to form in the river valleys.

About a mile from the Gatehouse, where the road was not much more than a single track, he saw a large green and yellow tractor nosing out of a field gateway.

‘No,' he muttered. ‘Stay there. Oh, you imbecile!'

When he was not more than twenty yards distant, the tractor lumbered out in front of Gideon's Land Rover, coming to a halt diagonally across the tarmac so that he was forced to slow up and stop.

‘Oh, bugger!' he muttered. He repressed an urge to lean on the horn, knowing that with some farmers that was all that was needed to make them go even slower. Hopefully, the driver was just pausing to shut the gate.

Sure enough, the cab door opened and a figure in a grubby green boiler suit jumped down, raised a hand in Gideon's direction, and hurried back through the gateway, his cap pulled well down against the rain.

‘Yeah, well, get on with it.' Gideon sighed and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, listening to the irritating squeak and scrape of the wipers. On each side of the narrow lane, soft grassy verges and shaggy unkempt hedges put paid to any thoughts of squeezing past, four-wheeled drive
or no, and as there was no sensible alternative route to the Gatehouse, he had no choice but to wait.

In his wing mirror he caught sight of the approaching headlights of another vehicle, which in due course pulled up behind the Land Rover and waited in its turn.

Peering through his streaky windscreen, Gideon watched in vain for the return of the tractor driver and suddenly the vehicle started to rock as Zebedee broke out in a furious spate of barking.

‘Quiet, Zeb!' he said, his patience beginning to wear thin. Where was the bloody man?

A movement in his wing mirror caught his eye and he saw that the occupant of the car behind had got out and was walking forward to see what the hold-up was. Gideon wound down his window a little but as he drew level, instead of leaning down to speak to him, the man yanked the Land Rover door open, put a meaty fist in to grasp Gideon's jacket and hauled him out onto the verge.

Caught entirely unawares, Gideon went sprawling in the long wet grass and, in the back of the Land Rover, Zebedee went absolutely crazy.

GIDEON'S FIRST INSTINCT
was to get to his feet as soon as possible but the owner of the meaty fist plainly had other ideas, and he found himself flattened, face down, amongst last year's bramble runners at the foot of the hedge, with what felt like a knee in the small of his back.

His first thought was to curse himself for a stupid, unwary fool. It wasn't as if he hadn't been warned, for God's sake!

There was no sense in struggling. It was impossible to mount any form of resistance from the position he found himself in. Shouting was still an option, but there was only the tractor driver within earshot, and Gideon wasn't naïve enough to continue supposing that the blockage was anything other than part of the whole set-up.

‘You jest lie still, matey,' a rough voice advised unnecessarily, then shouted, ‘Hurry up, for Christ's sake!'

Suffering from a severely restricted lung capacity, all Gideon could hear for a moment was
his own breathing and the patter of the worsening rain. Then, above it, came the sound of footsteps running on the road.

‘Right,' his captor said briskly. ‘Let's get 'im up before somebody comes. But watch 'im though!'

Gideon's upper arms were grasped and the weight lifted cautiously from his back, but if they expected him to scramble instantly to his feet, they were forced to think again. As they pulled on his arms he remained limp, the whole of his six foot four, fourteen-stone frame dragging downwards.

One of the men muttered a curse.

‘Come on, get up, you bastard!'

They hauled him to his knees, but hadn't got the height to raise him any further. Gideon let his head slump forward, as if unconscious, hoping that if they thought him incapacitated, they'd be lulled into a false sense of security and lower their guard.

‘What's the matter with 'im?'

‘Buggered if I know. C'mon, stand up! Stop fuckin' around!'

The rain was fairly pelting down now, soaking coldly through Gideon's guernsey and running through his hair. It drummed on the hollow metal of the vehicles and blattered on the road, and it was a moment before he recognised the swishing hiss for what it was . . .

An approaching car.

‘Shit! Someone's coming! Leave him and go. Quickly!'

Abruptly, Gideon's arms were released and he had to put his hands down to save himself from falling on his face in the grass once more.

He scrambled to his feet and raced after the two men, who were both heading for the dirty blue hatchback, but they weren't hanging around. When Gideon was still some yards away they were in the car and had the engine started, and as he came level with the driver's door, the hatchback went into rapid reverse and the approaching Range Rover had to swerve to avoid being hit.

The blue car reversed into a gateway, then drove out and away with a spray of mud and a squeal of tyres.

‘Bugger!' Gideon said forcefully, staring up into the rain. He hadn't even been able to read the number plate of the blue car, due to a combination of mud and the rapidly failing visibility. He thought back over the last couple of minutes. ‘
Matey
' the man had called him. Where had he heard that before?

‘Gideon? Are you OK? What the hell was all that about?'

The Range Rover had stopped a little way behind his own vehicle, with two wheels sunk into the soft grass of the verge, and as luck would have it, its driver was Lloyd. He came striding towards Gideon with a look of bewilderment on his face.

‘Yeah, I'm OK,' Gideon told him. ‘Just cold, wet and distinctly pissed off!'

‘So what was all that about? What did they want?'

Gideon came to an abrupt decision. ‘Look, it's a long story. You're getting wet and I'm getting wetter. Why don't you come back to the Gatehouse and I'll try and explain.' He looked at the tractor,
still blocking the lane. ‘I don't suppose you know how to drive one of those things . . .?'

Lloyd did, and while he set about moving it off the road so they could get past, Gideon rang the police and reported it abandoned.

The Gatehouse was blessedly warm and dry after the foggy dampness outside. Gideon showed Lloyd through to the kitchen, where Elsa took one look at him, jumped off the Aga and disappeared into the sitting room.