The Price of Horses

by Ian Taylor

  same mocking expression.

  "Oh—Jesus!"

  He stared at the figurine in rising fear and climbed out of the car. He walked towards it but found he was unable to touch it. Was it cursed? Had Luke Smith and his clan laid a malediction on all the figurines? Was he, Lucky Phil Yates, trapped in their web? Was his so-called luck being turned against him? Was he going to start vomiting hair and needles? Were all the horses in the world plotting to kill him?

  He hurried back to the Mercedes and drove around the figurine. A moment later he glanced in the rear-view mirror. To his horror he saw that the drive was empty—there was no sign the figurine had ever been there. That was the only proof he needed: he was trapped in a world of illusions created by vengeful horses!

  Luke tucked the T'ang horse figurine under his arm and watched the Mercedes speed away down the drive. With Phil out of the way, they could move on to the next stage of his plan.

  But again he was torn between pursuing his revenge and searching for Cath and Angie. He had managed to force the ancient lock on the door to the ice house and had found the figurines but no captives. He had located no basement door either. Where were Cath and Angie? He began to despair of ever finding them—and their captor had just driven away…

  He phoned Farley. "It's time."

  * * *

  Dot was slumped unconscious on the sofa. Maureen shook her gently but was unable to rouse her.

  "Dot? Dot—wake up!"

  Harry strode in, mobile in hand. "Can't raise Bri and Steve. If they've cleared off for the night without permission, they can pack their stuff and go for good!" He saw Dot. "Damn! She don't look well."

  "It's your fault all this," Maureen stated accusingly.

  He resented her hostile tone. "Hell d'you mean?"

  She continued undaunted. "Dot saw through you, y'know. You and Phil. All the scheming. The dirty deals. How many lives have you ruined, Harry? Look at her. All she wanted was a caring guy. Not all this…" She waved her hand at the expensive furnishings.

  "This place is your bloody power trip! It's you that's pathetic, not her!"

  He hit her. She fell, striking her head on a heavy oak side table, then lay still, bleeding profusely. He stared down at her. After the failed Viagra and his deepening sense of sexual futility, he realised he felt nothing. He picked Dot up and carried her from the room.

  He took her down the long corridor that ran the length of the ground floor until he reached the back entrance that led to the courtyard and garages. His Range Rover was parked in the yard. He laid Dot gently on the back seat. She was still out cold.

  "Time to get you dried out." He doubted that she could hear him.

  He got in the Range Rover and drove from the yard. He'd had enough. When he had got his sister sorted, he intended to sever himself from all connections with Phil. The man had become impossible to endure, with his towering ego and endless suspicions. He had the impression lately that Phil had started to lose his grip, with his chronic anxiety, his fluctuating moods and his constant need for reassurance, not to mention the thirty-second blackouts and physical collapses.

  They should never have burned Ambrose Smith's trailer. Phil's triumphant revenge had been short-lived and had morphed into paranoia. Was Cath Scaife really the witness to the fire, or was Phil just looking for a scapegoat?

  It had got to the point where the man didn't trust anyone—and from this evening's evidence, he had even begun to doubt himself. Harry had visions of a near-future fallout. Well, he'd get in ahead. He would see his legal guys first thing in the morning.

  He caught sight of something lying across the drive and slammed on his brakes.

  Dot, unnoticed, rolled off the back seat on to the floor. What the hell was happening? Was

  it his turn to start seeing things?

  A scatter of two dozen large logs completely blocked the drive entrance. He got out of the Range Rover and stared at them. What was going on? Had the minders done this as a final fuck you? But surely not. He couldn't believe they had abandoned the place. Were they running some lucrative racket he wasn't aware of?

  He tried Brian's mobile, but there was still no response. Steve's was the same. Had

  they also picked up bad vibes from Phil and decided to pull out? But they knew too much about the private business of the Hall simply to walk away. He'd find them and sort them out.

  Someone was just begging for trouble. Whoever it was, they had raised their nemesis!

  25

  Harry began carrying the logs from the drive. He had shifted around half of them when he noticed a figure in a cat mask watching him from the grass at the side of the drive.

  "Who the fuck are you?" He remembered he had left his handgun in his bedroom, but no matter, he'd sort the idiot without it.

  "A ghost from the past," the figure replied. He raised his mask.

  Harry remembered Hirst's mugshot. His fury boiled over. "Luke Smith!"

  Luke took a step closer. "Comeuppance time, Harry."

  Before Harry could make a move Sy, also masked, materialised behind him and cast a skip net over him as Kingsley roared up on Bennett's motorbike. Harry tried to fight his way out of the net but fell with a cry of fury. Luke and Sy roped the net closed and hooked it to the back of the bike.

  Luke looked down at Harry. "Can't let you have all the fun, can we, birthday boy?"

  Harry tried in vain to fight his way out of the net. Luke and Sy stood over him as Kingsley revved the bike.

  "D'you think we should chuck this dinilo in one of the ponds back there?" Sy asked. "Hang a couple o' rocks from his dick?"

  Luke stared down at the man in the net. "Hear that, Harry? Ain't a nice way to die. But mebbe not as bad as being burned alive in a trailer."

  "How much d'you want?" Harry spluttered. "I'll pay."

  "You bet your dumb life you will," Luke replied savagely. "Where've you hid Cath and Angie?"

  Harry made no reply. Kingsley revved the bike.

  "You let me go and I'll tell you," Harry offered.

  "You tell me first and I'll think about it,” Luke replied.

  "Forget it," Harry growled. "Let me go or you'll never find 'em."

  Harry thought of his sister lying in the Range Rover and urgently needing his help. But he knew Luke Smith might never free him, even if he told him where the farm women were being kept. Stalemate.

  Luke knew if he freed Harry the big man would almost certainly lie and do his best to fight back. He would be a hard man to beat, even with three against one. He decided the best way was to soften him up.

  At a signal from Luke Kingsley set off down the drive on the motorbike, dragging Harry behind him.

  Harry screamed.

  After half a minute Kingsley turned the bike and roared back.

  "Feel like telling me now?" Luke asked.

  A spirit of defiance had arisen in Harry. He had no intention of selling himself cheap. These people had no standards, no principles. He was dead whatever he told them. He would say nothing. He almost felt like the young powerhouse he used once to be. It was a great feeling, overwhelmingly welcome. "Fuck you, you goddamn scum!" he roared.

  Kingsley set off again down the drive.

  Harry yelled defiantly in the spirit of his reborn inner strength.

  * * *

  Half an hour later, all the logs had disappeared and the drive and lawn were deserted. The

  Range Rover's engine was still running, the driver's door wide open, but Harry was nowhere to be seen.

  There were signs of movement inside the Range Rover. With considerable difficulty, a sequined arm hauled a body up off the floor. Dot's head appeared above the passenger's seat then vanished again, as the tightness of her dress inhibited her movements like a self-imposed straitjacket.

  Her head appeared again, slowly followed by the rest of her. She dragged herself onto the back seat, managed to get the back door open, then collapsed head first on to the drive.

  She lay still for a
minute, then began crawling along the grass at the side of the drive, leaving a trail of sequins behind her that glittered under the moon like a snail track. Slowly she headed towards the house with the laborious exertions of a small bug crossing the expanse of a Herdwick carpet. She paused to rest, as small bugs do, then began to crawl forward again…

  * * *

  Malcolm had lost track of the gypsies. They seemed to be working in small units, picking off the occupants of the house and bringing them back to the dining room. He had been impressed with the gypsies' speed and efficiency, working in silent harmony in the darkness where even SAS teams might have struggled.

  He understood that this was their natural environment and had been for centuries. Evidently some of them still possessed the skills of their forebears with only their night vision and common purpose to guide them. No wonder police and gamekeepers had found them difficult to apprehend.

  There had been time, in the gypsies' absence, for him to explore a little of the house. He had found a female, the one called Maureen, in the drawing room and the naked body of a dead man in a first-floor bedroom. He had identified the man from items in the jacket pockets of his suit as Detective Inspector Nigel Hirst, obviously a bent cop in Phil Yates' pay.

  He had carried the woman and the cop to the dining room to join the three men already there. An hour earlier he had watched from the corridor as Harry's birthday celebrations were in full swing. He almost laughed. How lives can change.

  It wasn't clear what the gypsies intended to do with the collection of persons in the dining room. But he had ideas of his own. He had no wish to fight the gypsies; they had made his own task a lot easier, but he was happy to use his stun gun on them—and his Walther if he had no choice—if they came back to the house and caused him problems.

  Phil Yates had driven away earlier, and he had to wait for his return. In the meantime, he must find out where the man kept his liquid assets—probably in a safe in an office or study. And he had a humorous notion of what to do with the occupants of the dining room…

  * * *

  After twenty minutes of determined effort, Dot reached the steps of the main entrance to the house. She crawled up the steps, slow and deliberate, like some scaly vertebrate taking its first hesitant excursion on land. The doors of the main entrance stood wide open, letting in the exuberant night wind, as if the place had been suddenly abandoned. Gripping the door frame, she dragged herself upright and staggered into the house.

  She located the dining room and stumbled through the door. In an attempt to regain a semblance of dignity, she straightened her sequined dress and patted down her dishevelled hair. She succeeded in covering everything she touched with mud from her grimy hands.

  The main lights in the room were turned off. The fancy antique oil lamp burned in the centre of the table, shedding its soft homely light on a scene difficult to imagine outside the pages of a horror novel.

  Brian and Steve sat on opposite sides of the table, their arms and legs taped to their

  dining chairs, their mouths sealed with gaffer tape and their foreheads glued to the top of the table. Malcolm was not in the least concerned that they should see him. He was going to shoot them anyway when he was ready.

  Harry, plastered with mud, sat at the head of the table, the remains of his birthday cake before him. On top of the cake were a few lit candles, their flames guttering in the draughty wind that now frisked unhindered through the entire house like an anarchic free spirit.

  In addition to the cake, half a dozen glasses and bottles of liquor stood on the table, as if those who had not already collapsed were still determinedly drinking. A closer inspection revealed that Harry would not be drinking anything at all, as his forearms were glued to the table, his mouth covered with gaffer tape and his legs taped firmly to his dining chair. The tape had been the gypsies' idea. The glue and the unavoidable use of his stun gun were Malcolm's.

  Maureen sat opposite Harry at the other end of the table. Dried blood covered the side of her face and neck and had soaked into her gold-coloured dress, turning the silk into a muddy brown. Her eyes, wide open, stared at her husband. Hirst sat next to her with the dark bullet hole in the centre of his forehead. Both he and Maureen were, of course, dead. They required little gaffer tape or glue, only sufficient to keep them upright.

  When Harry saw Dot, he struggled massively and tried to cry out. The oil lamp rocked dangerously, threatening to topple over. Oil spilled on to the table.

  Dot swayed towards the table and steadied the lamp. "Careful, Harry! You'll be causing an accident!"

  She sat at the table, reached for whisky and a glass, poured herself a drink and drained the glass in one gargantuan gulp. She lit a cigarette but lost consciousness immediately, falling face down on the table. Her cigarette went flying, rolling along the table. It lay there smoldering by the spilled oil from the lamp.

  The spilled oil caught fire. Flames licked along the table. Harry struggled. The oil lamp fell over, spilling more oil. The flames spread.

  Malcolm stood in the doorway. He studied the scene for some moments before

  he could decide on what action he should take. He abandoned the idea of the Walther. Instead he took his camera from his backpack and photographed the bizarre tableau. He sent a copy to his paymasters and another to Tam. He accompanied the former with the cryptic message up north they go one better than Russian roulette. To Tam he said six down and one to go.

  He might even describe a similar scene in the film script he was writing—and part financing—on the hilarious misadventures of the London mob. It was to be his literary swansong. He wondered if his new bosses would be smart enough to understand the script. Better if they waited for the movie.

  The gypsies had done a good job, but they had not delivered Phil Yates. However, he would easily find him. He was looking forward to meeting the man who had inflicted on his brother such pain and humiliation.

  He wished to point out that actions of such indulgent cruelty invited a proportional response to maintain the forces of the universe in equilibrium. He wanted to make it clear that justice was a natural mechanism that no one could escape. Karmic law, no less. Hubris and nemesis, or what you will. He was merely the cosmic instrument on this occasion.

  Phil Yates would not escape. The force of his single-minded purpose would bind them together as effectively as shared leg irons.

  * * *

  In the outbuilding, Angie and Cath lay huddled together on the floor. It was the only thing Angie could think of doing to keep her mother alive. She had no idea how long they had lain there, but gradually Cath's body had begun to feel as if it was absorbing warmth from her own. Her mother's pulse had definitely grown stronger. .

  Angie had nothing except sounds on which to place her attention. Outside the night had become wilder. She could hear the wind shrieking through gaps under the roof tiles

  and buffeting the walls like huge spectral fists. She could hear nothing for the sound of the wind. No footsteps, no voices. It was as if they were trapped in the most remote building on the planet. A weather station in the north of Greenland, perhaps. Or an abandoned frontier post of the Foreign Legion.

  What had happened to Luke? Her last contact with him seemed ages ago, way back when he was leaving for a meeting with his father. Had he moved on with his life and forgotten them? Would she never see him again? Her mother had mentioned unfinished business that had drawn the three of them together.

  She wondered what on earth this business could be. Her mother had never said. Was it over already? Was this the inevitable conclusion? Were they doomed to die in this nameless place? Was their farm just a fading memory?

  She had searched the interior of the building but had found no key to the door. On inspection she had realised there wasn't even a lock. The place must be padlocked on the outside. How many people had keys? The two thugs, perhaps. And Phil Yates. No one who would help them. She had switched off the light, but there was no sign of daylig
ht in the cracks around the door.

  Night seemed so much longer when you were waiting for it to end. But when the daylight finally arrived, Phil Yates would come with it to play his terrifying game with the gun.

  26

  Before Luke drove away from Birch Hall to catch up with Sy, he had decided to divide responsibilities. Farley had set off to Cuckoo Nest with his lurcher bitch and the truck and living van to keep an eye on the raklies and watch out for Sawmill Charlie. Kingsley, Royston and Bennett were asked to look for Cath and Angie. Harry had remained resolutely mute and the two minders had shrugged and denied all knowledge.

  Luke had told his three companions to search for a hidden room on the top floor of Birch Hall that he might have missed. If they couldn't find one, they should look for a door and a staircase leading to a basement. Then he thought of the age of the house and of the religious conflict that had existed back then. He had read about it in visits to the library in his search for more information on gypsy history.

  Had the first owner of Birch Hall been a Catholic sympathiser? Did the house have a priest hole? Had the Catholic mass been performed in a secret chapel hidden somewhere in the building? He had phoned Kingsley and tried to explain his feelings, but the three travellers he had left behind hadn't grasped what he was trying to say. He had become convinced that Cath and Angie had been hidden in a secret room. He asked Kingsley to find it.

  Look under carpets for trapdoors, he advised, that might lead to a secret place big enough to hide two people. Kingsley had assured him they would, and he'd phone Luke if they found one. But no phone calls came. Luke wondered if Kingsley thought he was crazy. The young gypsy's knowledge of history went no farther back than waggon time.