The Price of Horses

by Ian Taylor

  He visualised the scene as she described it: Hirst's car skidding to a stop on the loose surface of the lane, Phil and Harry jumping out and racing towards the trailer, Hirst

  leaning against his car, watching…

  "I stepped back quickly into the trees," she said, "because I didn't like what I was seeing, and I didn't want them to spot me."

  The horrific scene played out in his mind: Harry shooting Nip, then kicking the dog's body aside, Phil throwing a petrol bomb through the trailer's window, the trailer bursting

  into flames, his mother and sister trapped inside screaming…

  Cath, distressed, struggled with her narrative. Luke watched her intently.

  "I couldn't believe how fast the flames took hold of the trailer. And I couldn't help. I couldn't help!" She wept, blurting out the story through her tears. "The big man—I didn't know his name back then—turned on Old Musker, who was just standing there staring at him in horror…then he shot him in the head, and Old Musker fell backwards on top of his bender."

  She was having too much difficulty speaking. He took her in his arms and held her close. After a minute she began again.

  "Hirst was there with the car. Harry threw Old Musker and the dog in the boot. Phil and Harry got in and Hirst turned the car around." She paused, staring into his eyes. "That's when they saw me."

  "They saw you?" he exclaimed, dismayed.

  "I was caught in the headlights. I'd come out of the wood to try to help…I don't know how…and was on the grass verge…just standing here. They must have seen me, but how clearly I don't know. I expected them to come after me, but they drove off. And I ran away."

  She began to weep bitterly. "I just ran away!"

  "Enough," he said. "Let's get you home."

  * * *

  Cath sat on Luke's bed in the cottage. They had gone there automatically, keeping away from Angie, who knew nothing about the trailer fire except for a few fragments of local gossip. Luke entered the room with mugs of tea for them both. They drank in silence. When they had finished, she leaned her head against his shoulder.

  "Okay now?" he asked, encircling her with his arm.

  "I don't know how I drove home," she said, her voice still choked with the horror of her relived experience. "I couldn't stop shaking and crying. I wanted Matt to get the police, but he said, if they sent Hirst, we'd be Phil Yates' enemies. I cut my hair short—the way it is now—in the hope I wouldn't be recognised. We had Angie to think of…she was just a baby. The gypsies who came each year to pick fruit used to talk of the tragedy, but we said nothing. I've been ashamed of our cowardice all these years." She wept again and dabbed her eyes. "I still think one day Phil Yates will make the connection and realise I was the witness. I've been living with the fear of that for fifteen years."

  He looked at her earnestly. "Would you tell a court what you've just said to me?"

  "Matt's dead. Angie's almost grown up. Yes, I'd do it now, if it'll help you get justice."

  They sat in silence for a while. An intercity train hurtled past, heading north on the downline. A few minutes later another shot past on the upline.

  "Sitting here watching trains makes me wonder," he said with a puzzled frown, "which of us is smarter. The gorgios going past at a hundred miles an hour, or us sat here going nowhere. We've seen some o' the worst stuff folk can throw at us, but we're still here, and sometimes we can even smile. But we'll never forget what happened and mebbe it's made us wiser. But one thing I do know, in both gorgios’ and travellers’ worlds, there has to be justice; there has to be a reckoning. If there ain’t, the human world’s gonna spin out o’ kilter, like a chavvy’s top on rough ground.”

  17

  Charlie Gibb's home was a converted railway passenger carriage that stood close to the sawmill. It was bought by his grandfather from British Railways in the sixties, when large quantities of old rolling stock were being sold off. It was lifted into place by an enormous crane. Buying the carriage had been cheaper than building a house, and planning permission back then had been straightforward. Ted Gibb had been a local character and got his own way with the planning authority. No doubt because he wasn't an albino, Charlie often thought to himself.

  Charlie had not yet been born, but he had seen the photographs his teenage father had taken of the grand arrival of the railway carriage. A business and a home had been provided, which had saved Charlie from competing in the non-albino world. Gradually Charlie had managed the work with his one good eye and, on his father's death from septicaemia following an accident, had the mill put into his sole ownership.

  He was happy there, or as contented as his appearance allowed him to be. But he aspired to more than a life in the mill. He wanted to own land. He craved the respect and social status of a farmer, even if he only ended up with a couple of hundred acres.

  An electric cable ran from the mill to the railway carriage. He had no Internet, but he watched his small portable TV for an hour or two most evenings. He had never been able to overcome the stigma of his appearance to allow himself to relax after work in one of the few remaining local pubs. Life had marked him as an outsider.

  Charlie, in his eyepatch, was seated in an armchair worn smooth and shiny with years of use. He watched Crimewatch, a programme he didn't like to miss, as it was a rare chance to indulge in media therapy. Compared with criminals, he felt he was a vastly superior being. It was the next best feeling to being a farmer. On this particular evening an item gripped his attention and he turned up the volume.

  Luke Smith's face filled the screen, accompanied by the presenter's voiceover:

  "This is Luke Smith, who escaped from custody while being taken in for questioning concerning the death of a retired businessman.”

  The camera then focused on the presenter and Nigel Hirst, who sat at a table in the studio. The presenter announced that:

  "Detective Inspector Nigel Hirst is leading the manhunt."

  The camera zoomed in on Hirst, looking sour and vindictive in his crumpled charcoal-grey suit. Hirst took up the narrative:

  "Luke Smith is wanted for questioning in connection with a burglary that took place in the Home Counties on (he gave the date) in which the unfortunate businessman died (he gave the man's name). Smith was apprehended but escaped from custody; in the process he may have been instrumental in causing a serious traffic accident. He is believed to be armed and highly dangerous and should not be approached. He has traveller connections and may be hiding out with a criminal element within the travelling community."

  The camera panned out to reveal the presenter:

  "Anyone who knows Luke Smith's whereabouts should ring the incident room…"

  Charlie was unable to wait any longer. He turned the TV off, crammed on his floppy hat and went out.

  He peered through the uncurtained kitchen window at Cuckoo Nest. Luke and Cath sat at the table deep in conversation. Luke picked up a small object that lay on a tissue in front of him and studied it. He wrapped the object in the tissue and put it in his pocket.

  "What are you going to do with it?" Cath asked.

  "I've a plan, and I think I can use this," he replied, tapping his pocket. "But it's too much to do on my own. I'll have to make peace with my people."

  "Have you fallen out with them?" She didn't expect an answer.

  "What happened after that fire… Guess I went a bit wild. They think I'm too much of a chancer."

  "Are you?"

  He looked at her with the serious expression she associated now with his deepest concerns. "Whatever I've done in the past, it's been either to find out the truth of that fire or to get money to buy land for my people to stop on. I've gotta know we've a future as dromengros, as real travellers. We can't go on being picked on by the likes of Phil Yates and Harry Rooke and an endless line o' gavvers."

  "You're a kind of Robin Hood, wouldn't you agree?"

  He laughed. "I've read a bit about that mush, but I think it was only a story. The old-time witches us
travellers know all call him the Green Man, the spirit o' the wildwood, that's inside all animals and everything in nature. But I've a spotted grye called Prince of Thieves I might race against other travellers one day, so I guess I'm delib'rately making a link with that other Robin Hood, the one in the story books."

  Cath listened, fascinated. There was so much depth to this man, so much courage and clear vision. She felt humbled. He had spent his adult years risking his life and his freedom for his people, however unorthodox his choices might have been. She had stayed at home, fretting about being discovered by Phil Yates.

  Charlie, outside the window and unable to lipread, whined and moaned with frustration. Should he go to the police and report this felon? But that would set Cath against him. He had seen the object that Luke put in his pocket and it led him to a single conclusion. "Ah, Cath Scaife," he hissed, "you're planning to kill me, ey? Big mistake you're making!" He turned from the window and strode away into the darkness, laughing eerily as he went. "Ain't no one can kill Charlie Gibb!"

  * * *

  Malcolm McBride noted that his camera was fully charged up. He unplugged it and put it away in his camera bag. He added the bag to the items he was assembling in the kitchen of the cottage he was renting for the summer: walking boots, hooded camouflage jacket,

  field glasses, a large bag of high-protein snacks, two flasks of Douwe Egberts coffee (his

  favourite beverage), Ordnance Survey Explorer maps, his powerful zoom lens and tripod. Yes, he was ready for an interesting day out. He would not take his sniper's rifle. That could wait for a later occasion.

  He put the items in the Jag and set off into the maze of country lanes. Flights to the Med excluded, it had been years since he had ventured further than the M25, and he drank in the rural landscape of the North like an elixir. But he found his critical faculties had also woken up and were keeping disapproving pace with his journey.

  There was too much monoculture on these farms, he thought, most of the crops destined for distilleries or cattle feed. An inefficient economy. There were too few hedges and trees, depriving wildlife of places to live. He passed through village after village without any sign of a shop or post office, a school or a pub.

  Village England was becoming a dormitory for affluent townies, with little evidence of vibrant communities. Landscape as appendage to life in the city. Or as money-making machines for rich landowners. He felt sad. His years inside the circuit of the M25 had blinded him to the tragedy that was being enacted elsewhere.

  He arrived at the entrance to Birch Hall. What egomaniac had created such a pompous gateway? A silver-spoon guy, perhaps. Or some merchant adventurer replacing his half-starved tenants with sheep. Or money from the slave trade, maybe. And now it belonged to some race fixer.

  The sight of the Birch Hall gateway made him feel angry. The history of the Big House was far too often a history of major crime, of human rights abuse and, in this case,

  animal cruelty. But crime didn't always have to go unpunished, to be read about in reappraisals of history. Crime should be punished as soon as it was recognised. The human race no longer had the luxury of time; it couldn't wait for history to catch up.

  He had once thought of himself as a bringer of justice, but now, increasingly, as a parasite preying on its hosts. How could he bring justice to a criminal underworld that had forgotten its true meaning, an underworld that had slid into the abyss?

  Any day, his paymasters could themselves become the targets, as ruthless new players rose to take control. So it would go on, it seemed: justice fallen victim to the greed and casual violence of a world decaying from the inside out. It was time to retire, to make this his last official contract.

  But this job had at least a semblance of the values of the old criminal underworld. A wrong had been committed: an outrageous invasion of a private person's space. A death of one of their own had resulted (even if he despised the man). And the prime mover of these unhappy events was the owner of this ancient pile. Without this player's presence, his brother's suffering would not have occurred. He hoped his final job for the mob would also be the first and last for his wounded brother. It was time for Tam, like himself, to retire and leave the insanity behind.

  There was no sign of surveillance cameras on the trees by the gateway—the race fixer obviously felt as secure as a Norman baron in his mediaeval castle. But he was about to change things. He got out of the Jag and took photographs from a variety of angles of the entrance to Birch Hall. Stage One was almost accomplished. He returned to the Jag and drove off to consider Stage Two. Everything in life should have structure.

  * * *

  The days passed at Birch Hall without any troubling incidents. Phil and Harry decided it was time to pay a belated visit to their private gym in a large ground-floor room at the back

  of the Hall that had once been the library. Phil, in gaudy gymwear, went straight on to the treadmill. Harry, in shorts and T-shirt, went to the bench. Hirst arrived ten minutes later and perched insouciantly on the exercise bike.

  "Have you ever wondered," Hirst began, "that the guy you thought you saw that

  night might not have been a guy at all?"

  Harry stopped pumping iron. Phil slowed the treadmill.

  "Well, have you?" Hirst repeated cuttingly, as if he was questioning a suspect.

  Phil looked tense. "Go on."

  Hirst smiled crookedly. "Might have been a woman."

  Phil stopped the treadmill and got off. Harry sat up.

  "Wasn't a gyppo woman," Hirst continued, "because they died. It was either a New Age hanger-on or someone local. Who d'you know with long hair from back then?"

  Phil scowled. "No one. I looked."

  "At the women?" Hirst asked.

  Phil's temper flared. "I looked!"

  Hirst shrugged. "Just a thought."

  Steve tapped on the door and entered. "Mail for you, Phil." He handed Phil a medium-sized plain brown envelope, then left quickly before anyone had time to find him extra duties.

  Phil looked at the envelope. All it bore was the name P Yates followed by a postcode. He tore it open. It contained a photograph of a black hearse entering the gates of Birch Hall. The house could be seen at the end of the drive. "What the hell's this?" He showed it to Harry and Hirst.

  "Looks like someone's giving you a warning," Hirst said with a smile. "It ain't a gyppo this time. They don't have the smart software to create something like this."

  Harry turned the photograph over. "I guess this guy thinks you owe him."

  Phil snatched the photograph from Harry. On the back was printed the bleak message: 300K AND COUNTING.

  Phil roared one single word "Tam!!"

  Harry shook his head. "It can't be. Tam could never do this—not in the state we left him in. He'll be living on painkillers for months."

  Phil objected. The figure at the Winning Post bar flashed into his mind. "It can't be anyone else. He might still be a cripple, but he's paying someone to put the frighteners on. Whoever took this photo was here!"

  Harry and Hirst looked at each other. "You're right." Hirst sniggered. "Maybe next time he'll send you a pic with a hearse leaving Birch Hall, with your good self laid in an open coffin! You could frame that one!"

  "Fuck off, Nige!" Phil retorted scornfully.

  Hirst got off the bike. "I'll leave you to figure it out." He moved to the door. "Catch you later."

  "Mebbe we should have got rid of Tam while we had our best chance," Phil gave voice to his fears.

  "It's only a pic, Phil. What more can he do? We're as safe here as Churchill in his War Room!" Harry put the photograph back in its envelope. "If it'll make you feel better, I can pay Tam a visit."

  Phil shook his head. "You're right, Harry. It's only a photo. The clown's just trying to punch above his weight. Let's forget him." He paused, frowning thoughtfully. "Mebbe Nige has a point though—we didn't look hard enough for that witness."

  Harry disagreed. "Nige is just winding y
ou up—you know what he's like. No witness, no case—and it's a cold case now anyway. Very few are revisited."

  Phil stared from the window, which looked out on to a wide paved courtyard and the

  range of garages that had once housed Broughams and Landaus. "We'd lose all this if the truth came out. This beautiful place. This piece of old England. Don't you care? You're

  tied into it as tight as me."

  Don't remind me, Harry thought. But that can be changed. Before he could think of a suitable protest, Steve stuck his head around the door again.

  "Phil, Charlie Gibb to see you."

  Phil scowled. "I thought that weirdo might turn up."

  * * *

  Phil, in a purple tracksuit with a towel draped around his neck, sat at his office desk. Charlie, in his eyepatch, hat and work clothes, sat opposite. Harry, in T-shirt and joggers, stood watchfully by the door.

  "Got a problem, Charlie?" Phil asked, jutting his chin out aggressively.

  "I got a claim on Cuckoo Nest," Charlie stated firmly. "Cath Scaife and me gonna be partners. That's agreed. Ain't no competition."

  Phil was surprised and disappointed that the albino showed no sign that he was intimidated by the setting, by the obvious trappings of wealth and power. He leaned back in his chair and studied Charlie with a smile. "Is that so?"

  "I'm gonna pay off her debt," Charlie announced. "That's what's gonna happen."

  Phil suppressed his irritation. Why was he even talking to this idiot? His mind beat an insistent tattoo: Get rid—Get rid—Get rid. "Too late, Charlie. She's signing with me. I made her an offer she can't refuse."

  He turned away on his executive's swivel chair and looked out of the window in order to demonstrate his indifference to Charlie's case. But he was painfully aware that his deal hadn't been finalised. Was it possible this weirdo could get in ahead? He turned back to his visitor.