The Price of Horses

by Ian Taylor

  the big horse trailer containing Prince of Thieves and Good Times. The rear was brought up by Bennett on the motorbike, with Royston and Kingsley in the Transit.

  Two bedraggled Dobermans appeared from the darkness and seemed pleased to see the gypsies. Sy opened the passenger's door of the pickup and the dogs leaped in. As he explained to Luke later, he would either sell them or use them as breeding stock, crossing them with greyhounds to produce more lurchers, the dog of choice for most gypsies.

  They turned out of the drive and headed for Cuckoo Nest. A minute later, three fire engines with sirens blaring approached from the opposite direction. They had made a twenty-mile journey along winding country roads to get to the scene from the nearest fire station.

  Cath and Angie were safe, but the irony of the situation was clearly evident to Luke. Fire had destroyed his family's trailer, but it had also consumed Birch Hall. Was this an example of cosmic justice in action?

  One final detail lodged itself in his mind: There was no sign of Harry's Range Rover that had been left on the drive. Who had taken it? Against seemingly impossible odds, had Phil somehow managed to escape?

  28

  The orchard at Cuckoo Nest was filled with shifting patterns of dappled sunlight, as the late morning sun shone through breeze-blown leaves. Beyond the fruit trees, Sy's sisters were busy picking strawberries for the shop in the local town. Royston and Farley were fixing the fences around the paddocks, where a new growth of bright grass had begun to carpet them once more.

  In the stackyard Bennett and a young gypsy youth worked on the tractor, which had at last been coaxed into life, while Kingsley and Angie flirted with each other as he taught her to ride Prince of Thieves bareback. The stallion considered Luke's friends to be his friends now, and he behaved respectfully to them all.

  Zanda, the Latvian girl, had decided to throw in her lot with the Boswells. She was busy in a pair of Angie's overalls, painting the dried-out exterior of the barn an earthy shade of burnt umber while Sy painted the higher parts from a new alloy extension ladder. He noticed how capable she was, working quickly and quietly with a practised economy of physical effort. She never stopped and didn't seem to tire. From peasant stock, he thought, used to hard work from a young age, like folk in England used to be.

  The pickup and horse trailer were pulled to one side of the stackyard, next to the truck and gypsies' living van. It was like a new world to Cath and Angie, as the farm's transformation took place, but without ruining the unique character of the place. Cath, slowly recovering from her ordeal, had never seen Cuckoo Nest this busy, not even in the years when Matt was alive. She and Luke watched the activity.

  "So the gavvers have decided that the burning of Birch Hall was no accident?" he said without the least trace of guile.

  "It's been all over the papers and TV," she replied. "The police are talking revenge. Gangland-type murders. Something to do with the theft of expensive horse figurines and the strange death of their owner."

  He pulled an incredulous face. "It's all a mystery to me. Out o' my league completely. I know naught about gang wars." This was partly true. The fire inspectors had blamed an oil lamp as the cause of the blaze that had reduced Birch Hall to a shell. But when he and his companions had dumped Harry, Brian and Steve in the dining room, the lamp had seemed safe enough.

  He wondered if Twin Brother had started the fire. Was total annihilation the injunction placed on him by his bosses? If so, they were as extreme as the tales he had read about the Sicilian Mafia. And what of Phil Yates, now named by the police as the missing seventh person who was wanted by the law for questioning? Had he got clean away in the Range Rover—was he planning his future under a new identity?

  He pushed these thoughts from his mind as he walked with Cath across the stackyard.

  "Y'know," he mused, "I like it here. I could almost settle down."

  She seized on his comment eagerly. "Stay with us, Luke. We'll help you clear your

  name."

  He resisted the temptation. "Best if I go to my uncle Taiso's. He knows folk who've got connections with top legal guys. I can afford to pay them." He smiled at her. "You up for a traveller wedding when I get back?"

  Both delight and doubt fought for control of her emotions. "Will your people accept me?"

  "They'd better! We can get wed on Taiso's land. It's only an hour's drive from here. He'll want to give us a proper wedding feast—everyone with the blood will be there. My dadu will come, and he'll be happy for us."

  They hugged each other in a long embrace. "What happened with those passports?" he asked. "Are those girls ever gonna be safe?"

  "Well, Sy seems to have adopted Zanda. I don't know if they'll become an item, but he's found out that her great, great grandparents were Kalderash gypsies from Hungary who were killed by the Germans in the war. He said she drew her family tree for him in the dust on the barn floor."

  It takes one to know one, he thought again. It wasn't just his earnestness that had persuaded the girl to go with them, it was something deeper: the connection of the kaulo ratti. He studied the girl across the stackyard. Though her hair wasn't as dark as his own, it was the shape of her face, the set of the eyes, the litheness of her build that gave the clues of her lineage. Sy had realised straight away.

  "How come she ended up with Harry Rooke?"

  "Sy said she was an orphan. She told him that criminal gangs buy or abduct the good-looking girls from the orphanages. And most Roma girls are attractive."

  Luke thought again about justice. Whose side would Malcolm McBride be on in a country where corruption was the new normal? Would he become a vigilante and shoot the officials?

  "What about the other girls?"

  "They're being looked after by social workers."

  "Will they be sent back?"

  She sighed. "That's difficult, 'cause no one knows who they really are or where they're from. Their passports are in bogus names with false dates of birth. They keep saying they were offered jobs, but the employers' names are complete fictions. They could be lying about their real names too, so trying to track them down on missing persons lists is impossible. Their details will be circulated through the Baltic states, but the girls all say they want to stay here. We've opened a real can of worms. No one knows what to do with them. They're staying in a hostel, but they could vanish under the radar at any time."

  "They wouldn't be here if they had something worth going back for."

  "Suppose not."

  He realised that Zanda must have anticipated this mess, so she seized her chance with the Boswells. Smart girl.

  * * *

  Later that day, when Cath and Angie were packing the strawberries in the farm kitchen, Luke arrived from the cottage with their borrowed travelling bag. He dumped it on the table. Cath and Angie peered into the bag. It contained bundles of fifty-pound notes.

  "I thought I'd relieve Phil Yates of a bit o' lucre. He owed me anyway. This should help clear your debts and get Sawmill Charlie off your back. I've given some to my cousins already, so the rest's yours."

  Cath and Angie flung their arms around him and kissed him.

  "You're free," he said laughing. "Great feeling, ain't it? You've struggled enough on your own. I think it's time you had a bit of assistance." He summarised the arrangement they had been recently thrashing out. "If my people rent the fields for their gryes and you have the rest, the fruit and the milk and meat, we're all happy, ain't we? And there'll always be some of us stopping here to see to their gryes and to help you out if you need 'em."

  "We might not be too popular with the locals," Cath said. "But we'll just have to live with that."

  "You never know. My people won't cause trouble. The locals might get to see we're clean hard-working folk. Like I said, if you put the earth first, travellers and settlers should

  get on."

  "Let's hope so," Cath replied. "It's an experiment."

  "It's time these bloody locals saw a bit further than t
heir nose ends!" Angie declared. "It'll do 'em good. I'll bet if there is any trouble it'll come from them." She had been told by Cath that they had gypsy traveller blood, and the revelation seemed to have acted like an elixir. Her daughter had decided that she had to get wed too, and had homed in on the twenty-year-old Kingsley. Poor soul, Luke had thought with a smile. He'll have to get used to doing as he's told.

  On his way across the stackyard, Luke met Bennett pulling up in the Transit. He had taken a break from tractor repairs to buy beers and an evening paper at the small supermarket in the town.

  "Learned anything?" Luke asked.

  Bennett showed Luke an item in the paper. "They're still on the lookout for Phil Yates. Some dinilos are saying he might've started the fire himself so he can get the insurance. You could give 'em a call and tell 'em he was with you!" Luke joined in Bennett's

  laughter. "And they're looking for a missing Range Rover," Bennett continued. "You sure

  that Malcolm mush never took it?"

  "How would he get it away? He'd have his own motor, so there'd have to be a second driver," Luke reasoned. “I'm sure Malcolm McBride was on his own. I got the feeling he was a lone wolf kinda guy. We gotta believe Phil Yates escaped. He mebbe knew a secret door we never found and was long gone once he saw he was finished. We'll have to spread the word, get our folk to be dikkerin him."

  Sy joined them, having finished painting the barn. He thought it unlikely Phil would ever surface again. "He's a marked man. The top gavvers are wanting to know how that Hirst mush was shot with his own weapon. Ain't no one'll ever do business with Phil Yates now. What's he gonna do—go back on the road with a Brush waggon and be selling carpets?" He shook his head. "Ain't nothing left for him."

  Luke made no comment. He had a feeling Phil Yates would bounce wherever he landed. But he had no desire to pursue him. He'd leave that to the professionals.

  They crossed the yard, walking past the newly-completed range of loose boxes they had created from a row of old cart sheds. "Prince of Thieves and Good Times are best mates ever since that ride to the death between you and Phil Yates," Sy commented, watching the two stallions grazing together in the orchard.

  "It's kinda strange, you calling it a ride to the death when neither of us has died," Luke mused. "I've a feeling Phil Yates is laying low and will come back for the grye. These stables gotta be locked of a night in case he thinks he can nick it!"

  Sy reassured him. "Me and Kingsley will be round all winter, lodging in the other kenner. We're gonna be kerengros! We'll be bringing some gryes down from Davey, and we'll have to ride the Prince when you're away and Good Times, too, to keep 'em on form." He laughed. "I like the thought of riding Phil Yates's winner! But, o' course, we'll be looking out for prowlers."

  "You better include Sawmill Charlie," Luke advised. "I'm surprised he ain't been

  down, shouting and waving his arms! Mebbe we've scared him off!"

  * * *

  As he spoke, Charlie was up in his loft watching the farm. What he observed made him moan and jabber in fury. "I don't like it. Them gyppos are all over. Cath Scaife's planning to get rid o' me, I know it. They're gonna put me on the bench and saw my head off! Make it look like I've had an accident. But they don't know who they're taking on. Ain't no one ever gonna kill Charlie!"

  He clapped his telescope to his one good eye and watched the farm a while longer. Then he swung himself down to the cutting floor, where he was fulfilling an order of new fence posts for Cath. He talked to the sawblade as it whirred and screamed.

  "Cath Scaife depends on me now. And she'll depend on me in the future. She's got a bit o' help, but they'll leave her. And I'll still be here!" He smiled as he worked. "One o' these days I'll be a farmer. One o' these days I'll have respect! I'll put a man in here to make fencing—but Mister Gibb will be growing lavender! I'll have a tea room for visitors. I'll have tours of the farm for townies. I'll—"

  His private monologue stopped as reality caught up with him. He adjusted his eye patch and pulled down his floppy hat and continued cutting fence posts in silence.

  * * *

  While everyone was busy around the farm, Luke dug a pit in the floor of one of the empty loose boxes. He lined the base and sides with boards treated with wood preserver, then brought the T'ang horses from the cottage and packed them carefully in a solid-sided box. He lowered the box into the pit and re-floored the entire loose box with paving slabs that he had found lined up in a corner of the barn, bought years ago for some forgotten

  purpose. He got Bennett to help him as soon as he had finished his work on the smoothly running tractor.

  "Why are we doing this?" Bennett asked. "An earth floor will do, won't it?"

  "We're using stuff that's already been got and paid for," Luke replied. "Makes good sense to me."

  They found they had enough paving slabs for three loose box floors. This pleased

  Luke, as the floor above the T'ang horses would not be the only one that was paved and therefore it would be less likely to arouse suspicion. He had no idea what to do with the figurines and was annoyed he had ended up with them. He found them strange and a little sinister and wondered if he should ask one of the old Boswell rawnis to exorcise them.

  Perhaps they had formed a magical attachment to Good Times. Well, he would put the chestnut stallion in the loose box above them. Maybe that would make them all happy.

  Next morning the gypsies, except for Luke, Sy, Zanda and Kingsley, left at first light and took the truck and living van with them. Sy and Kingsley, with Angie's and Zanda's enthusiastic assistance, moved into the second cottage, which was rent-free now, of course.

  Sy and Zanda set off with the horse trailer to Davey Wood's land to fetch two more vanners to Cuckoo Nest. Luke and Kingsley were alone at the farm finishing off the work on the loose boxes, which were for valuable non-vanners, like Prince of Thieves and Good Times.

  They had not had time to complete the locked tack room that would extend from the front elevation of the range of loose boxes—Luke envisaged that most of the horses kept at the farm would not be ridden bareback, so they had to create a space for saddles and harnesses. The doors of the occupied loose boxes were still not secured with temporary padlocks, a task they had planned for that morning.

  To their amazement they found Good Times' stall was empty. A search of the farm produced nothing.

  "That damn fella ain't finished yet," Luke said angrily.

  Phil Yates had returned for the horse as Luke had predicted. The man had lost no time, but had obviously set himself up in some new place equipped with stabling for his prize chestnut stallion.

  He must have had help, as it was at least a two-man task to get the animal away in the dark small hours while eight gypsy travellers were sound asleep! The night had been a stormy one, with everything that was loose making a clatter, perfect for the task of stealing a horse…

  But someone had to hold the animal while his accomplice padded its feet so it made no sound crossing the stackyard. And someone else had to supply a horse trailer—towed no doubt by the missing Range Rover.

  Luke cursed himself for underestimating his enemy.

  It seemed Phil Yates had got himself the makings of a new team. How long would it be, Luke wondered, before he tried again to abduct Cath—or maybe to get rid of himself? One thing was certain: Phil Yates was fighting back.

  Luke did not believe the man's confession, volunteered as they sat on the riverbank after their race. The more he thought about it the less credible it seemed. Phil Yates was a man who thought only of himself. His rapid rise to affluence would have been at many other people's expense. But he simply didn't care; he thought he could do as he pleased and would never be held to account for the hurt he caused. He would have forgotten he had even made that confession. Such a person would never change.

  The phone call Luke received later that day from Malcolm McBride put the matter more succinctly. Luke was working with Sy, Zanda and Kingsley on the n
ew tack room when Angie called him to the farmhouse.

  "There's a strange man wants to speak to you," Angie said, looking intrigued. "He says his name's Twin Brother. He gave me a number for you to call him back."

  Luke and Malcolm talked for some fifteen minutes. The gist of the conversation developed Luke's own inchoate thinking with regard to Phil Yates and justice. The Scotsman talked about cause and effect, action and consequence. "It's a fact of existence, a law o' physics, ye ken." As regards Phil Yates, Malcolm said, a counterweight would be placed one day, by human or "invisible" forces, in the other side of the scale.

  So should he get justice, Luke asked, by hunting the man down? Or should he wait for hidden powers to do the job for him? "I'd be grateful if ye'd leave it wi' me, Luke. The fella's not worth fighting o'er."

  There had to be a reckoning, Malcolm agreed. Justice was a natural mechanism "built into the invisible structures o' creation, ye ken." It "supplies life's checks and balances, even if we dinna ken it." It was a vital attribute of the mystic fluid, the "vril or whatever folk wish to ca' it," that held the universe together. "Dinna fash yoursel though, Luke. I'm creation's humble journeyman in the case. That villain will pay for the hurt he's done ye all."

  Malcolm would give no further elaboration, so Luke went back to work on the tack room and waited for events to unfold.

  29

  Phil walked slowly around the moorland farmhouse and outbuildings, taking in the ancient slab roofs and massive stone walls that befitted the degree of exposure and remoteness of the place. He had only seen the property once on the day of his purchase, and the detail of its construction hadn't completely sunk in. Winter here would be difficult, he could see that, but he would cope if he had to. However, he hoped to be long gone by then. For now it was an ideal hideaway.