Time to Pay (6 page)

‘Well, most of the girls wanted to come to the service, but Megan was there – she's our house-help and extra groom. The house was locked but not alarmed, because she needed to get herself some lunch. Normally she'd be in or around the yard, within sight of the house . . .'

‘But today . . .?' Gideon prompted.

‘Well, apparently two of the horses got out, so she had to go and round up a couple of the farm workers to help find them.'

‘Got out, or were let out?'

‘That's what I was thinking,' Hamish agreed. ‘We didn't advertise the service but, as you saw from the numbers, it wasn't exactly a secret. Oh, God! You hear about this happening but you never
really think it will happen to you, do you? Lucy says Barbara's in a bit of a state.'

Gideon drove as fast as he dared but nevertheless, when they reached the farm some fifteen minutes later, there were already two police cars and a van parked by the low garden wall. The front door stood open, and Hamish leapt out of the vehicle almost before it had stopped moving and headed up the garden path.

Gideon parked the Mercedes and then followed more slowly, passing a uniformed policeman in the doorway. The officer, perhaps assuming he was one of the family, didn't question his right to be there, so Gideon went on in, lured partly by a desire to help and partly by good old-fashioned curiosity.

Out of habit, he made for the kitchen, glancing through the open lounge door as he passed. Two men in white coveralls were at work in there, bent over the huge oak sideboard on the far side of the room. Their starkly clinical figures looked incongruous standing on the deep-pile carpet, amidst the cosy luxury of the sitting room, like white paper cut-outs on a velvet-draped stage. Thankfully the room didn't appear to have been too badly desecrated.

In the kitchen he caught up with Hamish, and found also Barbara, an older woman who was presumably her sister Lucy, and Detective Inspector Rockley. Gideon paused in the doorway just in time to hear Barbara say, in a voice that shook piteously, ‘But why did they have to mess up the cottage? I was trying to keep it nice for when Damien comes back. They've spoiled it.
Damien will hate finding it like that; he's so tidy.' Tears shining in her eyes, she looked up at her husband who stood with his hand on her shoulder. The black of mourning accentuated the lacklustre quality of her skin, and she looked desperately frail.

‘We'll put it right again,' Hamish promised, as one might to a child, but this time it seemed she was not to be comforted.

‘You can't,' she said brokenly and, with aching sympathy, Gideon witnessed the dawning of the full, devastating truth. ‘He isn't coming back. He's gone; my baby's gone. Why did he have to leave me? Why? Why Damien? Why?'

She cried out the last words with a sudden rush of grief and then began weeping with terrible keening sobs, rocking to and fro as if the pain was physical.

‘No, Babs, please . . .' Hamish pulled her towards him and held her tight but the wailing continued unabated. He looked helplessly round at the others, and it was Rockley who said decisively, ‘She needs a doctor. Do you have a number?'

By the time the doctor arrived, just over fifteen minutes later, Barbara Daniels' heart-rending sobs had quietened but she still rocked constantly in her husband's arms, eyes wide open and tears streaming down her cheeks.

Rockley beckoned to Gideon and led the way outside, wandering down the path with every appearance of enjoying the sunshine, and stopping to rest the seat of his grey trousers against the garden wall.

Gideon did the same. The rough stone was
warm, and aubretia sprouted from the cracks to tumble down the sides in purple and white cascades. A fly buzzed and settled on his hand. He shook it off.

‘Hamish a particular friend of yours?' Rockley asked after a moment.

Gideon shook his head. ‘No. Actually, I hardly know him. I drove him back from the reception because his car was blocked in in the hotel car park, that's all.'

‘What was Damien's relationship with his father like, do you know?'

‘OK, I think. I'm not really sure. Surely you're asking the wrong person . . . One of his family – Tilly or someone – would know much more.'

‘No. I'm asking the right person.You strike me as more than averagely perceptive, and I'm interested to know what
you
think.'

Gideon was surprised. ‘All right,' he said slowly. ‘For what it's worth, I think the whole family are very close. I also got the impression, from a couple of things he said, that a certain amount of pressure was brought to bear by Hamish to get Damien to give up his racing career, but I don't think that came between them at all. After all, it was understandable, don't you think? Jump racing is a dangerous game, and having already lost one son . . .'

‘Some families don't seem to have much luck, do they?' Rockley pushed a pebble round with the toe of his shoe, watching it with apparent concentration. Suddenly he kicked it away. ‘And what about you? Have you remembered anything else about the morning Damien was shot?'

Gideon shook his head. ‘Nothing. I've told you everything.'

‘Perhaps you'd go through it again for me . . .'

‘I went over it again with Coogan, just two days ago.'

‘Nevertheless, if you don't mind,' Rockley said placidly.

Gideon swallowed his frustration and complied. After all, the police had a job to do, and he wanted Damien's killer found, as much as anyone. The constant repetition, though, was keeping the horror fresh in his mind.

‘And other than the dog walker, you didn't see a soul?' Rockley asked when he'd finished.

‘No.'

‘And on your previous rides, can you remember whether you saw anyone then? Maybe more than once?'

‘No, sorry. If we did, then I don't remember. Do you have any ideas about the motive yet?'

‘We always have ideas – it's finding the right one that's the problem.'

‘In other words – mind your own business,' Gideon observed. ‘I suppose it's no good asking if you're making any progress?'

‘The release of information has to be very carefully thought out,' Rockley told him. ‘A careless word could warn our murderer that we were onto him. He might destroy evidence or even flee the country. It's safer to say nothing.'

‘On the TV they said you were looking for the drivers of a white van and a red hatchback . . .'

‘Only to eliminate them from the investigation. We made a list of vehicles that people
remembered seeing in the lay-by on the main road, and so far those are the only two we haven't traced, but to be honest, if the owners don't choose to come forward, there's not much we can do. It won't necessarily be important.'

‘So, do you think this is related?' Gideon waved a hand towards the house.

Rockley pursed his lips. ‘Can't say for sure, at this point, but the possibility can't be ignored. Unfortunately this kind of burglary is all too common, as you probably know, targeting a house when the family are at a funeral. The Danielses did the right thing in leaving someone to keep an eye on the house but it seems, in this case, that the thieves were prepared for that.'

‘So, does that make a connection more likely?'

Rockley shrugged. ‘Perhaps. Perhaps not. We'll know more in a day or two.'

GIDEON LEFT PUDDLESTONE
Farm as the rest of the family and staff began to return from the reception. It was late afternoon, and he called Giles on his mobile to reassure him that he hadn't driven the Merc into a ditch – or anything else, for that matter.

‘If you're not doing anything, why don't you come for supper?' Giles was apparently none the worse for wear, which didn't surprise Gideon. He seemed to have been born with an astoundingly hard head where alcohol was concerned, and had been notorious at university for being able to drink anyone under the table.

‘I'd say yes but I'm not sure whether Eve's coming over.'

‘If she is, bring her along. I was going to show you the plans for the launch, and with her background she might have some useful suggestions.'

Eve was very much her own woman, and Gideon hesitated to make plans on her behalf. He'd have liked to ask whether Lloyd would be there, but good manners forbade it.

‘I'll see, but I'll get the Merc back to you, whatever.'

‘OK, well let me know.'

When Gideon finally turned between the stone gateposts at the end of the drive to Graylings Priory, the first thing he saw, parked outside the Gatehouse, was Eve Kirkpatrick's cream-coloured Aston Martin. He stopped the Mercedes behind it, shaking his head in mild exasperation at the haphazard way she had parked. Never one to slot into one space if there were two available, she had left the rear end of her expensive sports car jutting some eighteen inches out into the lane, just asking to be hit by a careless driver. Admittedly, it was a private drive, but Gideon knew she'd have parked the same way anywhere. His own Land Rover was parked on the short drive in front of the shed-cum-garage.

The lights were on in the Gatehouse, one burning in almost every room, as far as Gideon could see, and smoke curled from the central chimney pot.

‘Hi,' he called, opening the heavy oak front door.

‘Hiyah.' The response came from the kitchen, at the back of the house, and Eve came through to the hall, tall and stately, with a glass of red wine in her hand. Born of an English father and Jamaican mother, she was six feet tall and had olive skin and wavy black hair that, worn loose, reached the small of her back. More striking than beautiful, she was forty-two, the widow of a property developer, and had been left, by her own admission, quite disgustingly
well off. She worked from choice rather than need, and the small art gallery she ran had become one of the most prestigious on the south coast.

‘This isn't half bad,' she said, holding the glass up. ‘Where did you get it?'

‘Giles,' Gideon said, putting a hand down to greet Zebedee who came, wagging delightedly, to meet him.

‘You've been a long time. How did it go?' Eve asked, leaning forward to kiss Gideon on the cheek. ‘Sorry I couldn't make it.'

‘The service went OK, but there was a bit of a drama afterwards,' he said, going on to tell her about the break-in at the farm. ‘Actually, I've just been talking to Giles. I've got to take the Merc back, and he wondered if we'd like to come to supper – both of us.'

‘That's kind of him,' she said in her rich, musical voice. ‘What time?'

The evening was as pleasant as it could be, following, as it did, on the heels of such a day. They dined ‘in state' as Giles dubbed it, in the wood-panelled dining room, with candles for light and a CD of Gregorian chants playing softly in the background.

Eve, a child of the Sixties, was dressed, as often, in long flowing garments of Indian cottons and silks, this evening in gold and amber, which lent her whole being a kind of ethereal glow in the soft light. Around her neck hung a huge red and gold pendant, and countless bangles and bracelets jangled on her wrists. Gideon thought she looked
like a dancer from some Eastern land, and felt a warm contentment that it was
his
bed she was sharing, that night.

Lloyd
was
there but, for once, his presence didn't grate on Gideon. He seemed a little preoccupied, and Gideon wondered if it was reaction to the service, overindulgence at the wake, or a combination of the two. Pippa sat next to him, her jeans and lambswool jumper a sharp contrast to Eve's ethnic finery. Gideon caught her eyes on the older woman a couple of times, and wondered what she was thinking. Being based primarily on a mutual sexual attraction, his four-month-old relationship with Eve was mostly a thing of the night, and it was pretty much the first time Giles and his sister had had a chance to get to know her properly.

The conversation during the first course was inclined to dwell on the events of the day, but as the lamb pasties were polished off and fruit salad passed round, Giles changed the subject to that of his latest business venture.

After years of flirting with first one outrageous idea, then another, he had finally come up with a possible winner. The Graylings estate had, amongst many other resources, several acres of extremely productive orchards, said to have been planted by the Franciscan brothers who'd inhabited the original priory, long since gone. A certain amount of scrumpy cider had always been made, but a foray into the world of winemaking had led to Giles blending apple juice with the grapes from the age-old vines in the greenhouses, and developing a light, sparkling apple wine that he was now preparing to
launch onto the market under the name Graylings Sparkler.

They had, in fact, been drinking Sparkler with their meal, and to Giles' delight, Eve, who had a far more discerning palate than the rest of them, had pronounced herself agreeably surprised.

‘To be honest, I expected it to be nothing more than a glorified cider,' she admitted. ‘But it's really rather good. There's grape in there too, isn't there?'

‘Just a little.'

‘It works,' she said, and Gideon knew that she wouldn't have said it unless she meant it.

‘I'll buy a case,' Lloyd agreed, nodding.

Pippa gave him a dig in the ribs. ‘You'd buy anything remotely alcoholic,' she said, laughing.

‘You make me sound like some old soak,' he protested. ‘I only buy what I like – it's just that I tend to like most things.'

‘So how are you planning to promote this?' Eve enquired of Giles, ignoring the other two.

Given this invitation, Giles immediately started to run through his plans for the launch and marketing of the wine, which kicked off with a grand reception at the Priory in just over a week's time.

‘You've invited the press and local hoteliers, I presume?' Eve broke in, arching black brows drawn down over equally black eyes.