Time to Pay

by Lyndon Stacey

  He opened the door and stood to one side.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we will. Well, see you later. Let me know if you figure anything else out, yeah? And if you want any help . . .’

  Gideon watched as Lloyd climbed into the Range Rover and disappeared up the drive to the Priory. Then, stepping backwards into the hall, he slammed the heavy oak front door with as much force as he could muster, causing Zebedee to retreat into the kitchen with his tail between his legs.

  At the Priory the next morning, Pippa seemed a little out of sorts. Her reply to Gideon’s usual greeting was decidedly short on warmth and her conversation was stilted, to say the least.

  ‘Have I done something to upset you?’ he enquired eventually, tired of trying to draw her out. He was helping her prepare the midday feeds.

  ‘What, you mean apart from lying to me and sneaking around behind Lloyd’s back?’

  ‘Oh, he ran straight to you with that little lot, did he?’

  ‘And why shouldn’t he? Perhaps he felt I had a right to know!’ she suggested icily, pausing with a scoopful of molassed chaff in her hand.

  ‘And exactly when have I lied to you?’

  ‘All along, it seems. Asking me if Lloyd had worked out what that list was about, when you knew all the time.’

  ‘I didn’t know all the time,’ Gideon protested. ‘And how is that lying? I just wanted to know if he’d made any sense of it, that’s all.’

  ‘You thought he was hiding something.’

  ‘Is that what he told you?’

  ‘He didn’t have to. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Else why didn’t you just ask him, instead of going to everyone else first? Maybe you wouldn’t have got yourself beaten up, if you’d done that.’

  ‘I didn’t get beaten up. Anyway, I did ask Lloyd what he knew about Sam Bentley and Robin Tate, after hunting the other day. You were there, you heard me.’

  ‘But you didn’t say why you wanted to know.’

  ‘Well, does it matter so much? Lloyd didn’t seem too bothered when I told him last night. Why does it matter to you?’

  ‘Because you’ve never liked him, and you’d love to find something against him, just so you could say “I told you so” to me!’

  ‘Well, it’s nice to know you’ve got such a flattering opinion of my character.’ He picked up Nero’s bucket and began to stir the feed with a wooden spoon.

  ‘Well, you can’t deny you’ve never liked him,’ Pippa declared, turning slightly pink, but pressing on nevertheless.

  ‘He’s not my choice of a lifelong buddy, if that’s what you mean, but that’s got nothing to do with it. If you must know, I didn’t bring the subject up because I thought you might take it the wrong way. Can’t think why,’ he added, turning away to pick up another feed bucket.

  ‘Well, how am I supposed to take it when I find out that someone who’s meant to be my friend is digging up dirt on my boyfriend? And what’s this about blackmail? Who’s blackmailing who? Damien?’ she asked incredulously. ‘Is that what you’re trying to say? That he was going to blackmail the people on the list? That’s ridiculous! For God’s sake don’t try that one on Tilly, it’d just about finish her!’

  ‘Which is exactly the reason why I was trying to find out what it was all about before I said anything.’ Gideon straightened up with a bucket in his hand. ‘I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. But if you want to believe I’d do it just to spite you and Lloyd, then you go ahead! And don’t go thinking it makes any difference to me if you want to spend the rest of your life with him – I’ve got my own life to live.’

  ‘With Eve.’

  ‘Yes – with Eve,’ he retorted, shaken by the depth of her indignation. ‘Do you have a problem with that?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  ‘Well, you seem to have a problem with everything else I do.’

  Gideon was aware the argument was degenerating into a childish slanging match, but he’d gone too far to draw back. Blast Lloyd and his tale-telling! He’d never fallen out with Pippa in such a wholesale fashion before. They’d had disagreements, certainly, but nothing like this.

  ‘Perhaps it’s a good thing Nero’s going back tomorrow,’ Pippa said, and the implication was plain: without Tilly’s horse to work on, Gideon wouldn’t necessarily have to visit the yard every day.

  With an effort, Gideon finally regained control of himself, biting back the heated response he’d been on the point of uttering and gathering up four of the feed buckets. He’d been in danger of doing the very thing he’d been trying to avoid all this time.

  ‘These are ready,’ he said coolly.

  Pippa stared angrily at him, conscious perhaps that in withdrawing quietly from the fray, Gideon had left her last stinging remark underlined. But she was clearly too steamed up to take it back. She picked up the remaining buckets and stalked past him out of the feed store.

  Gideon’s row with Pippa left him feeling uncharacteristically wound up for the rest of the day, and when Eve arrived in the evening she picked up on his mood straight away.

  The truth was, he was annoyed with Pippa for suspecting him of base motives and equally annoyed with himself for allowing her to draw him into such an unproductive argument. They had both, he was sure, reacted in exactly the way that Lloyd had hoped they would, and that annoyed him most of all. In spite of his friendly overtures the evening before, Gideon had no doubt that Lloyd would like nothing better than to see them fall out. His frequent, overt demonstrations of affection towards Pippa showed his insecurity all too clearly.

  ‘She’ll come round.’ Eve moved her fingers up the back of his neck and into his hair. She’d arrived at seven thirty with tortellini and garlic bread from her local deli, and they’d eaten well, before refilling their wine glasses and moving into the sitting room.

  He rolled his head on the sofa-back to look at her.

  ‘Sorry. Am I being rotten company?’

  ‘Just a bit preoccupied, that’s all. Tell me again about yesterday.’

  Gideon repeated what he’d told her earlier, making light of the affair and merely saying that Lloyd had turned up in time to save his bacon, albeit in a passive manner.

  Eve wasn’t deceived.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re not telling me,’ she said shrewdly, ‘but I have absolutely no sympathy anyway. I warned you not to go on poking your nose in where it so obviously wasn’t wanted, but I might just as well have saved my breath.’

  ‘I didn’t intend to investigate any further, but the opportunity was there and it seemed a shame not to take it,’ Gideon said apologetically.

  ‘Make a good epitaph, that,’ Eve mused, nestling closer and resting her head on his shoulder. ‘It was a shame. So, what did you find out? Do you think this Norris woman was having an affair before her husband committed suicide? We do agree he committed suicide, right?’

  ‘Yeah, it looks like it. But if she was getting it on with the brother-in-law, I’m not sure we can really blame her. From what she told me, life with Julian was pretty dire. It sounds as though he was chronically depressed and only functioned properly on a business level. Her social life was non-existent, and it’s hardly surprising she turned to his brother for support. I just hope it works out for her now.’

  ‘You don’t think she could have tipped those men off?’

  Gideon shook his head.

  ‘I suppose it’s possible but, to be honest, she just didn’t seem that interested. She’s a very busy lady.’ Remembering the office, he suddenly recalled the rows of files and the handwriting that had intrigued him. With an apology to Eve, he slid out of her embrace and went to retrieve Nero’s file from under the cushions of the armchair across the room.

  Eve raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Novel filing system.’

  ‘I shoved it under there last night, when Lloyd was here.’

  ‘You still don’t trust him, then . . .?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I did it without thinking, really.’

 
Gideon sat down and opened the file, leafing through until he found the underexposed photocopy. As soon as he looked at it, he knew he’d found a match. Even if the beautiful, flowing handwriting hadn’t been unusual enough in itself, Julian had had a singular way of forming his aitches – taking the tail down below the line and back, in an old English or Gothic style.

  ‘Well. That puts a new slant on it,’ he told Eve. ‘It wasn’t Marcus that kept the diary; it was Julian Norris. I recognise his handwriting from the files in his office. Where does that leave us?’

  ‘Read it out to me again.’

  Gideon did so.

  ‘That first bit,’ Eve said, when he finished. ‘About Major Clemence and the running – that just sounds like someone whingeing because the training’s getting tough. Then it says something about promising Damien . . . Read it again.’

  ‘“I’d leave, but I promised Damien and I don’t want to let . . .” Then it fades,’ Gideon said. ‘Actually, it makes a kind of sense, because Julian was supposed to be keeping an eye on Marcus – so maybe that’s what he meant by promising Damien. And he didn’t want to let – him down, perhaps?’

  ‘Could be. And the next bit, where he gets all agitated and says it’s a nightmare, and he’s scared, and all that stuff. Could that be after Marcus’ suicide?’

  ‘I suppose it could, but why should he be scared? What of? Not Damien, surely? He couldn’t really blame Julian, could he?’

  ‘Unless . . .’ Eve said slowly.

  ‘Yeah. Go on.’

  ‘Well. What if Julian felt he was to blame – not just him but all of them? What’s that bit? Something about telling the truth . . .’

  ‘Er . . .’ Gideon scanned the blurry script. ‘It says “I still want to tell the truth. Gary wants . . .” Gary; I wonder if that could possibly have been Garth – you know, the teacher I told you about. But why should they be to blame? The poor kid committed suicide. Are you saying they drove him to it?’

  ‘Oh, God, I don’t know!’ Eve sounded as frustrated as Gideon felt. ‘We really need that diary. It’s the key to everything. If you’re right about it being blackmail, then Damien must have found something in that diary – maybe even on that page – that incriminated the six people on the list.’

  Gideon put the photocopy back in its sleeve and leaned back in the chair.

  ‘If we’re right, then the diary is the key to everything from Damien’s murder onwards. It could even explain the original break-in. What if they were trying to find the diary before the police or anybody else did? Someone is obviously desperate to get their hands on it and equally desperate that I don’t. I can’t see that it’s going to stop until either he or I find it.’

  ‘A diary?’

  Tilly Daniels had driven the horsebox over to pick up Nero and, by dint of waiting in the lane outside the Gatehouse, Gideon had hitched a lift up to the Priory with her. His question had clearly taken her by surprise.

  ‘You were asking about diaries the other day, weren’t you?’ she remembered. ‘Did that have something to do with this?’

  ‘Yes, it did. You see, I found a photocopied page from a diary in Nero’s file, but I didn’t know whose it was . . .’

  ‘In Nero’s file? Why didn’t I notice it?’

  ‘It was a duff copy – underexposed – and Damien had used the other side for scrap, to scribble a note. You wouldn’t have even seen it unless you’d taken it out of the sleeve.’

  ‘So whose diary is it?’

  ‘Well, at first, I thought it might have been Marcus’,’ Gideon said. ‘That’s why I asked if he’d kept one.’

  ‘Only when he was a kid.’

  They were approaching the Priory stableyard, and Gideon wished the drive had been three times the length.

  ‘Well, now I’m pretty sure it belonged to Julian Norris.’

  ‘It was Julian’s? But why on earth did Damien have it?’

  She swung the lorry round in a sweeping curve and pulled up, looking curiously at Gideon as she applied the handbrake.

  ‘I think Julian gave it to him. Look, I’d rather not talk about this in front of the others. Can I pop over and see you sometime?’

  ‘Sure. Why not come in the morning and ride out again? We’re still short-staffed and Ivan’s got a dentist’s appointment.’

  ‘OK – but not with the first lot. That’s way too early; I need my beauty sleep.’

  ‘But I don’t understand why you’re even interested in this diary,’ Tilly said, carefully reversing towards the archway into the yard.

  ‘It’s a bit complicated. I’ll tell you tomorrow.’

  ‘OK.’ She shrugged slightly. ‘But if there was anything like that amongst Damien’s things, the police would have it now. They came and bagged up everything they could find, the day he was shot. All his personal papers, bank statements, correspondence, the lot. Just carried it off with them.’

  The following morning brought no repeat of the crisp misty conditions of Gideon’s first ride out. He awakened to the sound of rain spattering against his bedroom window and it was still raining when he stepped out of the Land Rover in the yard at Puddlestone Farm.

  ‘Hello. Wasn’t sure you’d come,’ Tilly called from a stable doorway. ‘Isn’t it foul? I hope you’ve got waterproofs!’

  ‘I’ve brought a change of clothes. Who am I riding? Comet again?’

  ‘Well, you could, but I was rather hoping you might take Nero for me, as it’s his first time back on the gallops. None of the girls are too keen, and Gavin . . . Well – you saw him last time!’

  ‘OK.’ Gideon spoke lightly, hiding his misgivings. Nero, on the gallops, on a cold, wet, windy day, and with an audience, wasn’t a very appealing idea. ‘Did you have this in mind when you suggested I ride out this morning?’

  ‘No!’ Tilly exclaimed indignantly. Then added, with a twinkle, ‘Well, yes – actually, it did occur to me. Do you mind?’

  ‘No, that’s OK. Bring him on.’

  It wasn’t until they were on their way back from the gallops that Gideon had a chance to speak privately with Damien’s sister. Nero had behaved like a perfect gentleman, and they had been discussing his future and the possibility of running him at Towcester at the end of the week, when Tilly suddenly switched subjects and asked about the diary.

  ‘I don’t understand why Julian should have given it to Damien,’ she said. ‘What possible interest could it have been to him?’

  ‘I think it had to do with what went on at the training camp at Ponsonby Castle.’

  It was still pouring and Gideon’s jacket had long since stopped repelling the rain. Water had permeated his soft suede chaps and soaked the jeans underneath, and as he spoke he felt the first icy trickle run into his left boot.

  ‘You mean Marcus.’

  ‘Yes, I think so, but until I see the rest of it I can’t be sure.’

  ‘I see. Well, I wish I could help, but I certainly don’t remember ever having seen anything like that among Damien’s things. I could ask Beth, if you like. Why didn’t you tell me before?’

  ‘To be honest, I didn’t realise what it was until a day or two ago.’

  ‘So why do you want to see it? What does it say?’

  ‘That’s just the problem; it’s only one page and so much of it is illegible that I’m not sure. But if Damien went to the trouble of photocopying it, it must be something important, don’t you think?’

  ‘If he photocopied it, perhaps he gave it back. Have you thought of that?’

  Gideon nodded.

  ‘Yeah. I thought I might call in on Marion on my way home. Look, I’m sorry to bother you with this after everything that’s happened, it’s just that I’ve been asking around about that list we found, and it seems that someone would much rather I didn’t. And now I’m pretty sure the list and the diary are connected in some way. All six names were on that Olympic selection course with Marcus, and I’m pretty sure that’s what the extract from the diary is all about. It seems too much o
f a coincidence to be one – if you know what I mean.’

  Tilly rode in silence for a moment or two, frowning.

  ‘You’re saying that Damien made the list after reading Julian’s diary?’

  ‘That’s what it looks like.’

  ‘Then it’s got to be something about Marcus, hasn’t it?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘But I don’t understand. I mean, I know Julian took it badly – we all did – but it was no-one’s fault. Damien understood that.’

  ‘I think we need to find the diary,’ Gideon stated. ‘I’ll call on Marion and, in the meantime, if you think of anywhere it could possibly be . . .’

  ‘But I can’t. We went through practically everything after we had the break-in, because the police wanted to know what was missing.’ She hesitated, and Gideon saw the dawning of an idea. ‘Oh my God! You don’t think that’s what the burglar was looking for?’

  ‘It’s just possible.’

  Tilly’s horse stumbled and she shortened her reins and pushed it on, looking at Gideon in mounting horror.

  ‘What on earth’s in it then, to make someone take a chance like that to get hold of it? Oh, God, Gideon! You don’t think . . .? This doesn’t have anything to do with the shooting, does it? You don’t think Damien found something out . . .?’

  ‘I thought that, at first, but it doesn’t really add up, because whoever it was that tried to warn me off, did it after Adam Tetley was arrested. I can only think that whatever it was that Julian Norris wanted Damien to see concerned all of them: all six names on the list.’

  Tilly had turned quite pale.

  ‘Oh, my God! This is a nightmare! You don’t think they were all involved? That they plotted to kill Damien? I can’t believe that – you don’t believe that, do you? I mean, there’s Lloyd, for one; we’ve known him for ever.’

  Gideon thought of Garth Stephenson and Robin Tate. He’d liked them both, but how far could he trust his own judgement of character?

  ‘No. I don’t think it was a plot, but I can’t help wondering if the diary didn’t have something to do with it.’

  ‘But what? And why didn’t Damien tell us – tell me, at least?’

  ‘Perhaps he wanted to get to the bottom of it before he said anything. I expect he didn’t want to upset you,’ Gideon suggested gently. Quite naturally, the thought that Damien might have been using the information for less honourable purposes hadn’t occurred to her; after all, he still found the idea difficult to accept, himself.