‘No. His school was very much into it,’ Tilly said. ‘You know how some schools are into rowing or rugby? Well, his was into pentathlon. In fact, they said three out of the four Olympic team members were old boys of his school, that year. Marcus could already ride and he was a very good runner and swimmer; no doubt the masters were rubbing their hands in glee when he came along. He really was very good; tipped for the team. But to be honest, I always wondered if he had enough competitive spirit to make the very top. I guess we’ll never know.’
Gideon would have liked to hear more about Marcus, as it had been him that both Bentley and Stephenson had mentioned, but he had no wish to delve into what had to be very painful memories for Tilly.
Beth changed the subject, asking about their progress with Luigi, and the moment passed.
By the time Gideon drove away from Puddlestone Farm, he was in two minds about whether to ring Angie Bowen and excuse himself from helping out with her farrier-phobic horse. His head was aching fiercely once again and he felt dog-tired, but he hated to let her down.
Maybe the horse would behave itself and the whole business would be over in half an hour or so, he thought with little optimism, as he painfully hauled the Land Rover’s steering wheel round to send the vehicle in the direction of the Radcliffe Trust stables. Power-assisted steering had never seemed like such a good idea as it did now.
At first it appeared that he might be in luck. The chestnut mare offered no objections to the farrier paring her hooves and tidying them up with the rasp in readiness to fit the shoes. She even stood quietly while the man tapped her feet with the hammer.
Angie looked pleased.
‘Seems pretty quiet,’ the farrier grunted, fishing a glowing shoe from the white-hot heart of the mobile forge in the back of his van, and doing a little preparatory shaping on the anvil.
From that point onward, things went sharply downhill. From the moment the farrier approached with the hot shoe the mare began to look anxious, but the problem came when he pressed the metal to her hoof. With a sizzle, a cloud of acrid smoke began to billow through and around his arms and the chestnut stood straight up on her hind legs, pulling her foreleg free of the farrier’s grasp and almost ripping the lead rein out of Gideon’s hands.
The farrier swore and dodged out from under the flailing hooves, and the horse touched down and rose again, her eyes white-rimmed and fearful. She repeated the action three or four times more in quick succession, rising a little less high each time, until Gideon was able to step forward and put his hand on her neck, soothing her with his voice.
The chestnut threw up her head but after a tense, twitchy moment, she stood still, nostrils flaring.
‘Sorry, mate,’ Gideon said quietly to the farrier, who retrieved the shoe with a pair of tongs and threw it back into the forge. ‘Caught me napping.’
‘Couldn’t have stopped her, anyway,’ the man said. ‘They wanna stand up – they stand up.’
‘Should think she must have got burned at some time, accidentally,’ Angie said. ‘Never had one react quite that badly before.’
‘What d’you wanna do?’ the farrier asked.
‘Gideon?’
Gideon wanted nothing so much as to take a good, strong painkiller and lie down in a darkened room. The violence of the chestnut’s protest had done his shoulders and headache no favours at all.
‘OK. Let’s see if we can get her front shoes on cold, and then do some work on the smoke problem another day. Perhaps we can borrow a bee-smoker, or something.’
It took three-quarters of an hour and an enormous amount of patience to get the mare to consent to having front shoes fitted and Gideon was regretting the suggestion long before they’d finished, but finally it was done.
They turned the mare out to roll in the sand of the school, and went into the staffroom.
‘All I seem to have done today is drink coffee,’ Gideon remarked, collapsing thankfully into one of the comfortable chairs. The farrier had gone on his way, already late for his next appointment, and they were the only occupants of the room.
‘Well, if you’ll pardon me saying so, you look as though you could do with it,’ Angie said frankly. ‘I was going to ask a favour, but I’m not sure I should, after all that. You look a bit under the weather.’
‘Well, you can try but I’m not making any promises.’
‘Actually, it wasn’t for me, it was for a friend. Vanessa Tate – you met her last time you were here.’
‘I remember.’
‘She wondered if you’d call in and have a look at her dog . . .’
‘Today?’
‘Well, she said she’d be there all afternoon.’
At least it wasn’t another wild and unpredictable horse, Gideon supposed. A dog, he might just be able to cope with.
But should he?
In view of yesterday’s events and the accompanying warning, should he really go anywhere near Robin Tate or his wife, however innocent the context?
‘Don’t feel you have to, if you’d rather not; I just said I’d ask,’ Angie said, seeing his hesitation and misunderstanding the reason for it. ‘You don’t mind?’
‘No, of course not,’ Gideon heard himself say.
‘I’d have to show you where she lives, on the map.’
‘OK.’ Somehow, it seemed, his acquiescence had been assumed, and suppressing the memory of Eve’s pleas, he nodded. After all, he was going to see a dog; Vanessa’s husband probably wouldn’t even be there.
12
THE TATES’ HOME was, as Lloyd had once said, massive. Gideon drove the Land Rover between magnificent wrought-iron gates and stopped, his eyes taking in the three-storey stone-built manor house with its immaculate sweep of gravel and swathes of daffodils, and his mind toying with the idea that the people on the list were all in regular contact with one another, and this was a ruse to lure him in and shut him up for good.
But that was rubbish, of course. Why go to all the bother of delivering such an extravagant warning one day, if they’d been planning to bump him off the next? He’d been at their mercy – if they had wanted to take it further, they could have. He was getting fanciful. Besides, they’d hardly have involved Angie Bowen in their scheme, or invited him to Tate’s own home.
Perhaps it was a test, to see whether he did, in fact, heed the warning, or whether he took the opportunity to question Robin Tate.
Gideon put his foot on the accelerator and moved forward slowly, as three springer spaniels and a golden retriever came bounding down the drive to meet him.
Perhaps it was just that they had a problem with one of their dogs . . .
Vanessa Tate came down the front steps of the house to meet him, slim, dark and attractive, as he remembered.
‘Gideon, thank you so much for coming,’ she called, as he got out of the car.
He was immediately mobbed by the four dogs, the spaniels jumping up and wagging ecstatically round his legs and the goldie standing back and barking his deep bark at one-second intervals.
‘Oh, I’m sorry! Purdey, Minnie, get down! Lewis, do be quiet! Gideon, come on in. They’ll settle in a minute.’
Gideon followed her through the imposing front doorway into an equally impressive hall, and from there to a kitchen straight out of a fitter’s brochure: all gleaming chrome, cream-painted timber and polished marble.
‘Have a seat, Gideon. Isn’t it daft? No matter what size the house is, we always end up in the kitchen. Can I get you a coffee? Or tea?’
‘Thanks, but no. I’ve just had one at Angie’s. So what’s your problem? Angie said it’s a dog; not one of these surely?’
The four dogs had trooped in with them and two of the spaniels had already settled down on a purpose-built bed under one of the worktops. The goldie pushed forward for a fuss and was then supplanted by the third springer.
‘You wait,’ Vanessa said.
Sure enough, as Gideon began to stroke the spaniel’s ears, the goldie backed off a step or two
and the barking started again.
‘Lewis, stop it!’ his owner said after a moment. ‘Minnie, go and lie down.’
The spaniel cast Gideon a wistful look and did as it was told, but the goldie carried on barking.
‘Lewis! Go and lie down!’ Vanessa raised her voice to be heard over the noise of the dog.
Lewis didn’t take any notice whatever, each bark reverberating in Gideon’s throbbing head like a physical blow. Next time he saw Logan he’d update him on the lingering effects of solvent abuse, he thought.
‘It’s classic attention-seeking behaviour, of course,’ he said after a moment.
‘Yes, I know. But what can I do about it?’
‘Have you tried ignoring him?’
‘Well, I’ve tried, but someone usually gives in before he does. Robin hasn’t got a lot of patience, especially when we’ve got visitors. He usually gives Lewis a bone to shut him up.’
‘Which is rewarding the behaviour,’ Gideon pointed out.
‘Well, shouting doesn’t stop him.’
‘For an attention-seeker, any attention is better than none. The best way to punish this kind of behaviour is to withdraw the very thing the dog wants: attention. So you just say firmly, “Lewis. No!” Then, if he carries on, take hold of his collar without looking at him, lead him out of the room and shut the door.’
‘He’ll just bark outside the door,’ Vanessa stated.
‘Well, let him.’ Gideon got up and led Lewis from the room, shutting the door when he would have come back in. The dog immediately started barking again.
‘Don’t shout or talk to him,’ he said returning to his seat. ‘He’ll have to stop sometime, and when he does, give it a moment and then quietly let him back in, tell him he’s a good lad – without any fuss – and get him to lie down. Once he’s settled down, you can give him a little attention. That way you’re rewarding the good behaviour, not the bad.’
‘I see what you mean. But he’s very stubborn.’
‘He won’t learn overnight, the habit is too ingrained for that, and has been too successful. But you’ll be surprised how soon he works out what’s best for him. Dogs aren’t stupid, in spite of what some people would have us believe. But you must stop your husband giving him bones to shut him up. What more could a dog ask for?’
Outside the door Lewis barked on, monotonously.
‘Perhaps I will have that cuppa, if it’s still on offer,’ Gideon said. ‘Tea, this time, and I don’t suppose you’ve got a couple of paracetamol . . .?’
‘Oh, dear! Have you got a headache?’ Vanessa asked sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry. What rotten timing for a job like this!’
Five minutes later Lewis was still barking, although to Gideon’s ears there was slightly less conviction in the tone.
‘Of course, you can get collars that puff air or citronella at the dog whenever he barks, and I believe they do work, but I don’t feel that Lewis would have learned anything if you did it that way, because you’re treating the symptom, not the cause. I’d be surprised if a bright dog like Lewis didn’t just find some other way to get your attention.’
‘Oh, he would. It’s funny, most people don’t think he’s very bright – just a big lovable teddy bear – but he is, you know. Oh, listen . . . He’s stopped.’
He had indeed. After a couple of dejected whines they heard a deep sigh, and then the door rattled as Lewis flopped against it.
‘OK, leave him a moment, then go and let him in,’ Gideon told Vanessa. ‘Don’t make a big fuss. Just talk normally to him and tell him to go to his bed.’
Vanessa did as he suggested, and Lewis came in happily waving his plume of a tail. He walked up to Gideon who carefully didn’t look at him, and on the second time of asking, the dog lay on his bed with a gusty sigh and put his nose on his paws.
‘That’s brilliant. I don’t think it’ll take him long to get the idea, but you must be consistent, and so must everyone else in the house. Dogs are just like kids, they’re past masters at playing one person off against the other.’
‘Robin does like to make a fuss of him,’ Vanessa admitted. ‘Lewis’s his dog, really.’
‘That’s OK. I’m not saying don’t make a fuss of him, far from it, but for the moment, it must be on your terms. Call him to you for a fuss, or go to him, but don’t let him initiate it and make sure that he knows when it’s over. It’s best to find a word to end it: “OK lad, that’s it,” or something like that. It might seem hard, but it’s kinder in the long run. Dogs need boundaries, just the same as everyone else.’
At that moment, an outer door banged and footsteps were heard approaching the kitchen.
‘Where is everyone? Nessie? Lewis?’
The four dogs leapt up and when the door opened they were all there, fawning round the feet of a tall slim man of about Gideon’s age, with thinning brown hair and glasses. He was wearing a pair of oil-stained jeans and a faded sweatshirt, and looked nothing like the successful City businessman Lloyd had described.
‘Hello, my beauties!’ he exclaimed, and the dogs went wild with delight.
‘Robin, this is Gideon Blake. Remember, I told you about him?’
Her husband looked up.
‘Oh, yes; the animal shrink,’ Tate said, but his smile seemed friendly. ‘Have you cured him?’
As if to answer him, Lewis backed off and began to bark once more.
‘Apparently not,’ Tate observed. ‘There’s nothing else for it; we’ll have to wire his jaws together!’
Gideon smiled tolerantly.
‘When you want him to stop, tell him so, and send him to his bed.’
Tate tried it but, predictably, Lewis took no notice whatsoever, and Gideon suspected that the dog regarded him as a playmate rather than the pack leader.
Gideon looked at Vanessa.
‘So, what are you going to do about it?’
To his gratification, she proceeded to follow his instructions to the letter, and within moments the spaniels were in their beds and Lewis was barking on the other side of the door once more.
‘Poor old lad!’ Robin said. ‘He was just pleased to see me.’
‘Shhh!’ his wife said.
Gideon could see that training the husband might be more time-consuming than training the dog.
It took slightly longer for Lewis to calm down this time, but calm down he did, and went to his bed when he was told, with no more than a sideways look at Robin.
‘Yup, he’s bright, all right,’ Gideon said with satisfaction. ‘And you did that exactly right. You wouldn’t believe how long it takes to get through to some people. The dogs themselves are a doddle!’
He refused a second cup of tea, saying he had to be on his way, but somehow motorbikes crept into the conversation, and before he knew it he was having a conducted tour of Robin Tate’s collection of new and antique machines, which he kept in a purpose-built stone barn.
‘You like?’ Tate asked, as Gideon gazed in admiration at a 1948 Ariel Square Four.
‘Oh, yes.’
Tate grinned.
‘I thought you did. You’ve turned a particularly interesting shade of green.’
Gideon laughed. By the time he tore himself away, some three-quarters of an hour later, he and Tate were well on the way to becoming friends, and had made tentative plans to meet up for a ride one day and take Vanessa and Eve out for a meal.
‘Funny, your name came up in conversation the other day,’ Gideon said as they strolled out to the Land Rover. ‘Lloyd mentioned you – do you remember Henry Lloyd-Ellis? Can’t remember how we got round to it, but we were talking about pentathlon, and he said you were on the bronze medal team in Dubai.’ He could hardly tell Tate he’d done an Internet search.
‘Lloyd? Haven’t seen him for years. Yes, he tried out for the team that year and was absolutely gutted when he wasn’t selected. Should have been really, on merit, but Harry Saddler – the coach – picked a young team, and Lloyd was five or six years older than mos
t of us.’
Hoping his instincts weren’t wide of the mark, Gideon took a chance.
‘Adam Tetley was on the team, too, wasn’t he? Did you know they’ve arrested him for Damien Daniels’ murder?’
‘Yes, I heard. Frankly, I find that hard to believe. Adam was always a bit of a chancer, but there was no real harm in him, I would have sworn to it.’
‘They found the gun.’
‘Yes, I know. Do you know him, then?’
Gideon shook his head.
‘No. I know – knew – Damien, and I know his sister, too. That family has had more than their fair share of tragedy.’
‘You mean Marcus, I suppose? Yeah, that was awful. I didn’t know him well, because he was quite a bit younger than me, but it affected everyone at the camp. It was bound to. Morale wasn’t good anyway that year.’
‘Why not?’
‘One of the coaches had a sadistic streak – at least, that was how it seemed – and a lot of the younger lads were terrified of him.’
‘Marcus, too?’
‘Difficult to say. As I said, I didn’t know him very well, but in view of what happened it looks as though he must have been.’
‘Was there a chap called Sam Bentley at the camp, too?’ Gideon couldn’t resist asking, in spite of what Eve had said. He thought Tate looked at him a little more closely.
‘There might have been,’ he said slowly. ‘There were around twenty of us; I can’t remember all the names. He certainly wasn’t picked for the team. Why the interest?’
Gideon shrugged, his hand on the door of the Land Rover. ‘Just something someone said.’
‘I see.’ Tate looked at his watch. ‘Look, sorry, I’d better go. We’re going out to dinner with friends tonight.’
‘Of course. Sorry.’
‘No worries. We’ll go for that ride one day though, OK?’
Gideon slept long and deeply that night, and woke to the sound of his telephone ringing. He opened a blurry eye and picked up the receiver, his bedside clock telling him that it was ten past ten.
‘Gideon?’ It was Logan.
‘Hi, Mark.’ Gideon propped himself up on one elbow.
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