by Jo Bannister
Which made getting out of here a matter of some urgency. With the light on, and his glasses on, and some of his scattered wits returning to the roost he was able to make a reasonable assessment of his situation. The good news was that he wasn’t restrained in any way. The less good news was that it was hardly necessary: he was enclosed in a box, travelling at perhaps fifty miles an hour, secured by doors that opened from the outside and constructed with the containment of a ton of agitated horseflesh in mind. He wasn’t going to get free by setting his shoulder – even his good shoulder – against the door and heaving.
Nor was he going to climb out over the back ramp and drop to the road as the van slowed for a bend. He’d seen horse trailers with the top shutters pinned back to aid the circulation of air, with a broad gap between the top of the ramp and the roof. But this wasn’t a trailer but a box, and the ramp closed up to the roof. There were ventilators along the eaves on both sides but he wasn’t getting out that way either.
He gave the roof a closer look. It occurred to him that might be the weak spot in a horse-box, particularly a rather elderly little one. It was the one part that was never built to withstand the weight or determined assault of a horse. He thought it might be timber, in which case there was the possibility of a rotten spot; but it was metal, folded down and secured with rivets.
So if he couldn’t get out he’d have to get someone to let him out. He sat down in the straw again, keeping a cautious distance from the pony, to think about it. It was night: even had he the means to write messages on scraps of paper he could poke through the ventilators it would be morning, and him and the van long gone, before anyone found one. What else? Smoke-signals? He couldn’t risk starting a fire in here – plus, not being a smoker, he hadn’t a lighter on him.
He was discouraged but not yet despairing. He did have on him the most potent weapon that a man can carry, the lethal weapon by whose deft use puny humans have turned animals that were stronger and faster than them, with sharp claws and massive jaws or thundering hooves and great spreading horns, into expensive wallpaper – his human brain. He could think. There would be a way out of this. As his mind cleared, he would find it. He sat in the straw and tried to tease out some options.
The box journeyed into the night. He had no sense of the direction they had taken. Daniel’s head ached and he wasn’t sure how much time was passing. He owned a watch but he didn’t have it on.
If someone chanced by the netting-shed they’d realise something was wrong. He’d left his telescope on the gallery and the door unlocked. But what chance was there of that? Brodie was on her way back from Germany – she might call him when she got home but if it was late she might well wait until morning.
Brodie? Think it was too late to disturb him and tell him about her day? No, he thought with a wry smile, there was every chance that she would either call at his house or try to phone him. And she’d expect him to wait up for her, so if she got no reply she’d want to know why. So sometime tonight he would be missed. It wasn’t a lot to look forward to but it was something.
And there was more. Something had already gone wrong with her plan or this pony wouldn’t be amiably chomping hay beside him as they rumbled through the darkness into the South Downs. It would be standing in a Customs shed somewhere, surrounded by policemen, while someone stood by with a sieve. What that meant to Daniel was that even now Brodie could be trying to report the cockup to him, anxious to find someone to blame before everyone else involved blamed her.
Knowing he was missing was one thing, finding him another. But then, she didn’t have to find him. Deacon would be looking for the pony, using all the facilities at his command, and when he found it he would find Daniel as well. There were things about Jack Deacon that Daniel didn’t like, and more things that he didn’t understand, but he knew he was a good detective. He would find both of them. Though how quickly, and in what condition, he was unwilling to speculate.
Incredibly in the circumstances, Daniel found himself yawning, his head nodding on his chest. He blamed the concussion, but tension was probably at least equally responsible. Finally he decided there was no reason to fight it. He’d searched his prison and found no way out. Coming back to his predicament fresh might help. Feeling the cold, like a small frightened animal he burrowed into the straw in the corner of the box furthest from the pony’s feet and let the tiredness take him.
‘It isn’t possible,’ Brodie stated blankly, too amazed to know how foolish she sounded. ‘We had him in sight the whole way.’
‘Well, obviously you didn’t,’ barked Deacon, ‘or the damn pony would still be on the box.’
‘They must have left it in the yard in Belgium,’ ventured Jill Meadows.
‘Why?’ demanded Deacon. ‘The whole point of carrying the pony was to stuff it with drugs. Why in God’s name would he take it somewhere for that to be done but then leave it there?’
‘Maybe it all went wrong,’ hazarded Brodie. ‘Maybe the sedative was too strong, or a package ruptured. Maybe it died and he had to leave without it.’
Maybe it was that simple, thought Deacon. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d seen good work scuppered by bad luck.
‘What does he say?’ asked Meadows. ‘Where does Windham say it is?’
‘I haven’t asked him,’ growled Deacon. ‘I’m not sure I’m going to.’
Brodie’s brow gathered in a puzzled frown. ‘Why on earth not?’ She might have put it stronger than that, but she’d known this man long enough to know that he didn’t make a lot of mistakes, and the ones he did make weren’t stupid ones. Whether or not she could see it, he would have a reason.
‘Because if I do he’ll know we’re onto him. If I question him about the pony, he’ll know we’ve been watching him and he’ll know why. I don’t think I want to tell him that. If I don’t, maybe he’ll have another go at bringing home the bacon. Maybe – just maybe – we’ll be luckier then. If he realises he’s been rumbled but I haven’t the evidence to hold him, he’ll walk and either set up a new system or get someone else to run the old one. Either way, we’ll be back at square one.’
Brodie thought about it. ‘But surely he knows we’re wise to him now. Is there anything more to lose?’
‘Possibly. It depends on why he left the pony behind. If he dumped it because he realised we were following it, then yes, we’re blown, we might as well turn the heat up and hope he’ll bubble. But if he left it behind because it was sick, he might be thinking the reception committee was just the luck of the draw. If they get him back on the road as quickly as possible, he might think that’s his shakedown for this month and arrange another shipment as soon as he can.’
Brodie grimaced. ‘He saw me. He can’t think that was a coincidence.’
‘Why not? You have a reason to be here – to meet the pony. OK, he was surprised, but if he didn’t already suspect he’d been set up that wouldn’t tell him. He has no reason to connect you and me, after all. If you tell him it’s all part of the service, he may well believe you.’
She nodded slowly. It was a toss-of-the coin thing: heads or tails, it might as easily be one as the other. She was glad it wasn’t her call. ‘What are you going to do?’
Deacon hadn’t decided; but he knew he had to, and he had to do it now. If he was going to let Windham run, every minute’s delay made it likelier he’d smell a rat. Which didn’t matter if he already knew what was going on; but it was possible that he didn’t. However he weighed the odds, Deacon came back to that. Heads or tails, and no way of predicting which.
He called the Customs shed. ‘Let him go. Apologise. Sincerely. Tell him his name came out of the hat, there’s a bit of a push on from head office, help him load his horses and get him on his way.’ Then he called Voss. ‘Follow him. Let’s see what he does next.’
To Brodie it seemed obvious. ‘He’s going home. Even if he’d got the pony with him, that’s where he’d be going now. He has no reason not to, and every reason to do what he said
he’d do. He’s not going to risk blowing his cover by getting inventive.’
Knowing she was right did not incline Deacon to be generous. ‘This could have been avoided,’ he said bitterly. ‘Three days you were watching that pony. And you still managed to lose it.’
Meadows said nothing. There wasn’t much she could say: it was true. He’d trusted his newest DC with an important task and she’d let him down. She doubted he’d trust her with another.
But Brodie wasn’t apt to take criticism lying down, even when it was justified. And this wasn’t. ‘We did our best, Jack. We stayed as close to it as we could without being seen. I’m sorry it went pear-shaped, but short of dressing up as a pantomime horse and travelling with it we did everything in our power to make this work. I don’t think anyone else could have done better. Including you.’
Meadows was watching her open-mouthed. She’d never heard anyone speak to Deacon like that. She was wondering where to hide if he went ballistic.
Instead he just grunted, ‘But the bottom line is, we’re no idea where the damn pony is, or even if it’s alive or dead. And I’m the one who has to explain to God why we’ve nothing to show for a week’s work, a left-hand-drive car and a Eurostar ticket to Germany.’ He didn’t mean God, of course – he meant Superintendent Fuller, who had to approve his expenses.
Brodie had her mouth open to correct him -‘Two Eurostar tickets …’ On second thoughts she shut it again.
When the van stopped, instantly Daniel was awake. He wasn’t sure what it meant but he knew it meant something. The engine stopped and he heard the sound of the cab door. Then nothing. He waited, the nerves drawing tighter under his skin and in his belly. He heard the breath snatching in his throat and tried to steady it. He tried to ready himself for whatever was coming.
The groom’s door in the side of the van opened and the man stood framed in it, darkness behind him, his face lit by the interior lamp. He had a walking stick in his hand. Daniel’s heart gave a little hopeful flutter. He was no kind of an athlete, never had been, was always the last child left sitting on the bench in PE, but there was a chance – he put it no higher than that – that even he could outrun a lame man.
Then he looked again at the stick and understood. It had a brass handle in the shape of a horse’s head. A heavy brass handle. It wasn’t an aid, it was a weapon.
In his other hand he had a length of rope. ‘Turn round.’
Daniel shook his head. ‘No.’ His voice was shaking too.
The man sighed. ‘Understand one thing,’ he said. ‘All my working life I have handled horses. They weigh perhaps 600 kilos each, and much of the time they don’t want to do what I need them to. They’re strong and they’re fast and when they’re frightened they’ll fight, with their teeth and their hooves. Any one of them is capable of killing a man. But in the end, they all do what I want them to.’ He didn’t wave the stick in a menacing fashion. He didn’t have to. The menace was implicit.
Daniel bit his lip. Then he turned around.
Chapter Twenty
‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ said the man with the accent. ‘It’s late, I’ve had a long drive, I just want to get some answers and then go to bed. Yes?’
Mostly for the sake of his self-esteem, Daniel made himself consider before answering. ‘Yes. Probably.’
The man nodded amiably. He wasn’t a big man – bigger than Daniel, but still not big in the way Jack Deacon was big. He was, however, formidably functional: compact and hard-muscled. It never occurred to Daniel that he could win a fight with anybody; it occurred to him to wonder if he could survive a fight with this man. He might find out. But it would be better to keep any sparring on an intellectual level. Daniel had always been better at thinking than doing.
‘Good,’ said the man. ‘Now. This pony belongs to you?’
‘Yes,’ agreed Daniel. As far as he understood it that was in fact the legal position.
‘It was bought for you in Germany by Mrs Brodie Farrell.’ He said it carefully, as if he’d learned the name by rote.
There was no point denying what he plainly knew. ‘Acting as my agent,’ said Daniel. ‘That’s what she does – she finds things.’
‘But the pony was for you not for her.’
‘It’s my name on the bill of sale.’
‘Yes.’ The man gave a little sigh which Daniel didn’t understand. ‘So why did you want this pony? It’s a very ordinary pony.’
‘It’s carrying an embryo transplant.’ He was proud of himself for remembering that. ‘From a bloodline we thought was lost.’
‘So I was told,’ nodded the man. ‘What bloodline?’
Panic flicked Daniel’s gut from the inside. He tried desperately to wing it. ‘The stallion,’ he said with a confidence he didn’t feel. ‘It was a very important stallion in its day. But we thought the bloodline had died out. Then Mrs Farrell heard of a last daughter still alive in Germany. I bought an embryo transplant, and this pony is carrying it.’ He looked at the man unblinking for so long that his eyes began to burn.
‘Please,’ asked the man firmly, ‘what is the name of this stallion?’
It was no good: Daniel didn’t know. He’d been told, but he’d never thought it would matter and he couldn’t remember.
Again the little sigh, half sad, half disappointed. ‘Of what breed was this stallion, then, that it was so important to preserve his bloodline?’
It was there, just at the back of his mind. He nearly got it. ‘Ox-bow?’
The man was nodding gently. ‘This isn’t your business, is it, Mr Hood? You know as much about ponies as I know about nuclear physics.’
‘Funnily enough,’ said Daniel, ‘I know more about nuclear physics. But you’re right, I don’t know much about ponies. I still own this one.’
For a few moments the man just watched him. Then he said, ‘If you know nothing about ponies, Mr Hood, I wonder what you know about mules.’
It may have been word association, but something seemed to kick him in the belly. He caught his breath. ‘Also nothing. Except that one of their parents is a donkey …’
‘No,’ said the man carefully, ‘I think you know more than that. I think that the reason you’re interested in this pony is the same reason I’m interested in it. I think you know very well that what it’s carrying is not an embryo transplant.’
Daniel despised lying, but even if he hadn’t he’d have been monumentally bad at it. His face registered every thought that passed through his head. He could have denied this, but he couldn’t have denied it convincingly. He said nothing.
‘So,’ said the man. ‘You worked it out. Now I need to know who else knows.’
‘The police,’ Daniel said. ‘The police know’
The man chuckled. ‘Well, maybe they do and maybe they don’t. Either way, it suits you for me to think so. But why should I believe you?’
Daniel shrugged. It was a little more lopsided than usual because his hands were lashed to the breast-bar behind his back. They were still in the horse-box, the pony an interested observer. ‘You said it: I know nothing about horses. I only got involved because Dimmock police were trying to work out how the drugs were coming in and …’
He saw too late where he was going with this, tried to keep Brodie out of it. ‘Someone thought of a way to test what was being done and who was doing it. All they needed was a name for the paperwork. It seemed simple enough. The general feeling was that even I could manage that.’
The man nodded. ‘Mrs Farrell.’
‘It’s a CID operation,’ said Daniel stubbornly.
‘Mrs Farrell came up with the story and booked the transport.’
‘Detective Superintendent Jack Deacon is in charge,’ insisted Daniel. ‘Don’t think you can scare her off without taking him on’.
‘I’m not interested in scaring anyone off,’ said the man negligently. ‘Tell me how much they know, and how much they just think they know.’
Daniel saw no reason not to.
The time for discretion had gone. ‘They thought they knew it all. But they needed the pony to prove it. They expected to have it by now. If you’ve still got it, I imagine they’re surer than ever that you’re doing what they thought you were doing but they’ve lost the evidence.’
The man considered. ‘So if we say nothing and do nothing they can prove nothing.’
‘I suppose.’ There was something bizarre about talking this candidly with a man that far on the wrong side of the law. It shouldn’t be this polite. But events had progressed beyond the point where either man stood to gain anything by subterfuge. Laying their cards on the table was the only sensible alternative. Nothing that Daniel could either learn, guard or impart now would significantly impact on the outcome. That was good, because it meant Windham’s friend with the brass-headed walking-stick had no reason to see him as a threat. But it was also strange. He felt at a gut level that he should be fighting this man, intellectually if not with his fists. He was involved in a vile trade and Daniel had nothing but contempt for him. All his instincts said they shouldn’t have been chatting amiably about how Deacon’s case was coming together.
Perhaps similar thoughts were passing through the other man’s mind as he watched Daniel with sombre eyes. Or perhaps not. ‘There is of course the question of what to do about you.’
Daniel was quite proud of his casual little shrug. Though he didn’t believe he was in any real danger, there was an anxious knot in the pit of his stomach that couldn’t help wondering. ‘They know by now that I’m missing. They’ll have guessed why. Someone will have seen this van parked outside my house. You won’t get it out of the country. The best thing you can do now is leave it here – wherever here is – with me and the pony inside. By the time we’re found, you could be halfway home.’
