Time to Pay

by Lyndon Stacey

  ‘The Land Rover is more of a staying chaser than a five-furlong beast,’ he said lightly. ‘Hope I haven’t woken your parents.’

  ‘They’re in the front room watching a film. Or at least Mum is. It’s a fair bet Dad nodded off about ten minutes after it started. Come in and sit down.’

  Gideon followed her through to the newly refurbished kitchen and sat while she made them each a mug of coffee. She put a biscuit tin on the table beside his mug and it was only then that he realised he hadn’t eaten since a sandwich lunch at midday.

  Tilly sat opposite him, and quickly spotted the bag-wrapped package he’d laid on the table.

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Gideon took the book out and pushed it towards her. ‘What you want is on the last written page, where the ribbon is. It seems he abandoned the diary after that.’

  She reached for it with shaking hands, and he helped himself to a biscuit and watched the frown grow on her face as she read.

  She reached the bottom of the page, glanced briefly at Gideon, and then started again at the top, as if needing a second chance to take it in. When she finished, this time, she put the book down and fished in her pocket for a handkerchief.

  ‘I don’t know what I expected,’ she said a little unsteadily. ‘It wasn’t suicide, was it? Marcus didn’t kill himself.’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’ Gideon couldn’t quite gauge her mood.

  Her eyes were swimming with unshed tears but suddenly she smiled and they spilled over and down her cheeks.

  ‘He didn’t kill himself!’ she repeated, and what Gideon heard in her voice was immense relief. It completely vindicated his decision to tell her what Damien had discovered.

  ‘We always worried, you know?’ she went on. ‘We thought perhaps it was because he was away from home; that he was homesick. He didn’t want to go, you see. At the last moment he got cold feet but Damien persuaded him – no, that’s not fair – we all did. We all wanted him to do it, because we thought he’d always regret it if he didn’t. And then, when . . .’ She plied the handkerchief again. ‘We all felt so guilty! It was awful!’ she concluded with a rush of remembered grief.

  Gideon didn’t know what to say, but he felt he’d lived through so many emotions with this family that he knew them well enough for silence, and so just waited, occupied with his own, far from pleasant, thoughts. The journey from Charlton Montague had given him plenty of time to reflect on the sequence of events since Damien’s death and, finally, he felt he was beginning to see just a glimmer of light at the end of the long and very dark tunnel.

  After a few moments, Tilly picked up the diary and looked at the page again.

  ‘It’s amazing to finally know, after all this time, but there’s a lot he doesn’t say. I mean, this game they were playing . . .’

  ‘I think I can help you there. That’s where I was this evening. I went to see one of the guys who was there that night. The one Julian calls Gary. He filled me in.’ And starting from the beginning, much as Stephenson had, he told Tilly exactly how her younger brother had died.

  She listened, for the most part in silence, until he reached the part about Marcus looking scared, then she broke in, ‘Yes, he would have been. He never liked heights.’

  When Gideon came to the end, she frowned. ‘Tell me again. That part about the ruined castle. Who did he say dared Marcus to climb the wall?’

  Gideon searched his memory.

  ‘Lloyd, I think. Yes, I’m sure he said it was Lloyd. Why?’

  All at once, Tilly looked bitterly angry.

  ‘Why would he do that? He knew very well that Marcus was terrified of heights! Why did Lloyd pick the one thing he knew he would really hate?’

  16

  ‘YOU THINK LLOYD knew he’d be scared?’

  ‘I don’t just think it, I know it,’ Tilly asserted. ‘When Marcus was fifteen, he and a friend climbed up a haystack Dad had made down in the lower pasture, and when Marcus got to the top he just froze and wouldn’t come down. In the end we had to dismantle half the stack so that it was like giant steps and he managed to kind of shuffle down those on his bottom. But he was in a hell of a state; he almost fainted and he was as white as a sheet.’

  ‘And Lloyd knew about that?’

  ‘He was here. He helped us with the bales. So he knew damn well Marcus couldn’t have walked along that wall!’

  She faced Gideon over the old pine table, her expression a mixture of anger and bewilderment.

  ‘They’d all been drinking,’ Gideon pointed out, in Lloyd’s defence. ‘I don’t think any of them were capable of being very rational.’

  ‘But that was deliberately cruel! He was our friend.’

  ‘I know. But reading that diary this afternoon, I think I got a pretty good idea of what it was like on that course; Julian wrote in some detail and he wasn’t enjoying it much. Most of the trainers were ex-army, and they were pretty tough, especially on the fitness side of things. From what he said, Lloyd came in for quite a bit of teasing from them because he was the oldest, while Marcus seems to have done extremely well. Julian wasn’t even sure that Lloyd would make the team . . .’

  Tilly was watching him intensely.

  ‘You’re saying he was jealous of Marcus?’

  ‘Well, it wouldn’t have been surprising, would it? Lloyd probably saw it as his last chance for glory – at thirty-odd, he wasn’t going to be in contention for another Olympic team – and it’s quite possible that he saw Marcus as the young gun who was going to cost him his place . . .’

  ‘Gideon! You don’t think he did it on purpose? That he meant him to fall?’

  ‘No, I wouldn’t go that far. I don’t think he planned it, as such. I think it’s more likely that it was a spur of the moment thing, brought on by the drink and a fair bit of resentment. Basically, it was a chance to get back at the boy. If Marcus bunked out and didn’t try, he’d be humiliated in front of his peers. If he tried and fell, there was always the chance that he might be put out of action, which would have been all to the good from Lloyd’s point of view, but to be fair, I’d guess he was thinking more along the lines of a sprained ankle or a broken arm. I should imagine Lloyd was probably as shocked as the rest of them by what actually happened. No wonder he was so keen to cover it up. If Damien had found out that it was him who suggested the dare – knowing what he did – he’d really have been in hot water!’

  ‘But he was our friend . . .’ Tilly said, brokenly, the sense of betrayal bringing tears to her eyes again. ‘And what about yesterday? Do you still think he attacked Reuben?’

  ‘I don’t like the idea, but I can’t really think who else, can you?’

  Tilly shook her head.

  ‘No, I suppose not. But I still find it hard to believe Lloyd would do something like that. I mean, it’s one thing to goad someone into a dangerous situation – if that’s how it was – but quite another to go to them with the cold-blooded intention of beating them up! I’m sorry, I just can’t get my head round it.’

  ‘He may not have done the physical part himself,’ Gideon suggested. ‘I’ve a fair idea Lloyd knows where he can get his hands on a bit of extra muscle when he needs it and, unless I’m very much mistaken, this isn’t the first time he’s tried to get hold of the diary.’

  Then, realising that if Lloyd was to be brought to book, Tilly would almost certainly find out anyway, he took a deep breath and told her everything he knew, from the break-ins, the attacks on himself, and what he’d discovered about Damien’s blackmailing activities.

  Strangely, she accepted this last information more readily than he’d expected, especially when he explained his theory as to where the money had gone.

  ‘He just wanted them to suffer like we did,’ Tilly said when he came to the end. ‘Oh, God! This is a nightmare!’ She buried her face in her hands momentarily, then rubbed her eyes and looked up at Gideon. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘Well, I’ve got the beginnings of an idea,’ he
said slowly. ‘I was thinking about it on the way over. The thing is, although we’ve got a lot of pointers, we haven’t actually got much evidence, so we’re going to have to trick Lloyd into showing his hand. It may not work, but I think our ace in the hole is the fact that, as yet, he doesn’t know that we know about the diary . . .’

  The grand opening of the Dorset Cottage restaurant was at lunchtime on Friday, five days after Gideon retrieved Julian Norris’ diary from its hiding place in the hollow tree. Owned by friends of Eve’s who had entered, at her instigation, into a mutually beneficial business relationship with Giles and his sparkling apple wine, all the Priory crowd had been invited to its launch, and it was at this function that Gideon intended to set his plan in motion.

  In the intervening time he worked on a portrait commission, saw a woman about a dog with a travel phobia, rode work with Tilly twice, and took Blackbird over the cross-country course on Home Farm, practising for the upcoming team chase.

  His relationship with Pippa was still strained and for the most part she seemed to be avoiding him, but the upside to this unhappy state of affairs was that it made it easier to keep his newfound knowledge about Lloyd to himself.

  On Thursday evening, which was unseasonably mild, he and Eve took the motorbike out, collected fish and chips, and ate them from the paper on the seafront at Lyme Regis.

  Despite his busy schedule, barely an hour passed when Gideon didn’t find himself going over the plan that he and Tilly had hatched in the early hours of the Monday morning, searching for possible flaws or loopholes. Gazing out over a calm sea, with Eve leaning against him, the leather of her motorcycle jacket creaking as she unashamedly picked the crispest chips from their joint portion, Gideon’s mind wandered once again. It seemed to him there must be a myriad of opportunities for their scheme to fail, but he could see no way they could make it any more watertight.

  Beside him, Eve sighed deeply.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked, giving her shoulder a squeeze.

  ‘Yeah, just thinking.’

  ‘’Bout what?’

  ‘Things.’

  ‘What kind of things?’ Gideon felt a little uneasy. It was the kind of non-conversation that he felt sure was shared by lovers everywhere and which, in his experience, often presaged a discussion of some importance. ‘Is something wrong?’

  She turned her head to look at him, her heavy loose plait flopping over her shoulder.

  ‘No, not really. It’s perfect. Almost too perfect. That’s what makes me feel a little sad. It’s like . . . nothing this good can last. It reminds me of those films where the hero and his girlfriend are just blissfully happy at the beginning, and you think – uh-oh, that can’t last. Trouble ahead!’ She smiled. ‘Listen to me – what am I waffling on about? Take no notice.’

  Gideon squeezed her shoulder again, harder this time. Considering his plans for the next day, it wasn’t really what he needed to hear.

  ‘C’mon, it’s turning cold,’ he said cheerfully, slapping her leather-clad rump. ‘Let’s get back and have something deeply warming and disgracefully alcoholic!’

  The Dorset Cottage stood in a prime position, just off the main road, in a village outside Chilminster. Eve was all for creating a splash by turning up on the Triumph, but Gideon managed to talk her out of it; for his purposes, it would have been far from ideal. He argued that her sleek, cream Aston Martin was just as much of a head-turner, and would probably do the reputation of her friends’ new restaurant far more good, but, when they came to set off, it stubbornly refused to start. In the end they went, to her evident disgust, in Gideon’s Land Rover.

  ‘It wouldn’t be so bad if it was one of those shiny new ones,’ she complained as she gathered her long skirts in before slamming the door. ‘But this one looks as though it’s seen service in both world wars!’

  ‘Think of it as shabby chic,’ Gideon advised.

  Giles, Pippa and Lloyd were already there when Gideon and Eve arrived, although when they met up, glasses of Graylings Sparkler in hand, Giles was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘Networking,’ Pippa explained. ‘It’s probably a good thing Tilly couldn’t make it. I think he’s going to be talking business all day.’

  Gideon also felt it was as well she wasn’t there. Even had the scheme he’d evolved with Tilly not relied on her being at home, he wasn’t at all sure she could have carried off meeting Lloyd without betraying her changed feelings towards him. He wasn’t finding it easy himself, and he wasn’t nearly so emotionally involved, to say nothing of never having liked the man in the first place.

  The party was encouragingly well attended, with a significant media presence. Gideon thought he detected Eve’s hand in the organisation, and mentioned it.

  ‘Well, what use are contacts, if you don’t use ’em?’ she replied.

  Her artist friend, the effortlessly urbane Trevor Erskine, was present, and came up to speak to them, glancing quizzically at Gideon as they shook hands.

  ‘No unusual fashion accessories this time, then?’

  Gideon grinned.

  ‘No. It didn’t catch on, for some reason.’

  He caught Pippa looking at him curiously, but she apparently couldn’t bring herself to ask.

  ‘Private joke,’ he said lightly, and wasn’t fooled by her bright, brisk change of subject.

  A little later, returning from the loo, Eve leaned close to Gideon and, pointing discreetly, asked, ‘Who’s that, over there by the window? The blonde woman in the grey trouser suit?’

  Gideon glanced across and saw a tall, slim, attractive woman with long, ash-blonde hair and aquiline features. She looked smart, sophisticated and vaguely familiar. He searched his memory.

  ‘I’m not sure, but I think it might be Harriet Lloyd-Ellis. Why?’

  ‘Oh, Lloyd’s ex?’

  ‘Yes, it is,’ Pippa said, overhearing. Lloyd had deserted her some five or ten minutes earlier, ostensibly to go and talk to Giles, but Giles was now in plain view, and Lloyd had not as yet reappeared. ‘Why do you ask?’

  Eve returned some vague answer, but when Pippa herself drifted away to talk with an acquaintance, she explained.

  ‘I didn’t want to say anything with Pippa here, but when I went to find the loo I took a wrong turning and ended up out the back, and who should I see out there but Lloyd and the blonde.’

  ‘Yeah, I think they still see quite a lot of each other because of the kids.’

  ‘Hmm, well, I shouldn’t think there was much of each other that they don’t see, judging by the way they were carrying on when I spotted them,’ Eve remarked dryly. ‘Luckily they didn’t see me. I just stepped backwards and pulled the door to.’

  ‘You’re kidding! Poor Pips!’

  ‘Yeah. He’s a twenty-four-carat bastard, isn’t he?’ Eve agreed. ‘I hate to admit it, but you might have been right about him all along.’

  Gideon’s mind was racing. That was a development he hadn’t expected. Why separate if they still felt that way about each other? Or had absence made the heart grow fonder, as the saying went? The thought that Lloyd might have been cheating on Pippa, all along, made his blood boil, and made him all the more eager to reveal Lloyd for the criminal he believed he was.

  But, silently, Gideon was beginning to fret.

  His plan relied on Lloyd being within earshot when Tilly phoned, and so far he hadn’t stayed close long enough for Gideon to set it up. Any moment now they’d be asked to take their places for the meal, and by the time that was over the general exodus would no doubt start.

  Looking around, he saw that Lloyd had joined Pippa, in a small group that included Giles. Touching Eve on the arm to alert her to his departure, Gideon worked his way through the throng of happy, chattering faces until he was just a couple of feet away. Eve caught up and looked over his shoulder as he took his mobile phone from his pocket and scrolled through the menu.

  ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just a message. Nothing important.’


  Finding Tilly’s number, Gideon pressed a couple more buttons and sent a blank text message winging its way to her, then – praying that this wouldn’t be one of the times when the phone company inexplicably kept the message for half an hour or more before delivering it – he sidled, with apologies, into Giles’ group, making room for Eve at his side.

  The conversation seemed to be about drag hunting, and Lloyd was holding forth with some amusing tale of his past exploits when Gideon’s phone began to ring.

  ‘Oh, sorry!’ he exclaimed, digging it out of his pocket. ‘Should’ve switched it off. Oh, it’s Tilly! Excuse me . . .’ Half turning away, he put the phone to his ear.

  ‘Hi Tilly. Is everything all right?’

  ‘How’s it going?’ she asked. ‘I thought you were never going to text me. Is he listening?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK. Well, I’ve dropped it off.’

  ‘Reuben did?’ Gideon said loudly, launching into his half of their prearranged conversation. Behind him, he sensed a pause in the chatter as the group heard his exclamation. ‘For me? What kind of package?’

  ‘Just a package, done up in paper. He was adamant that you should have it.’

  ‘Well, did he say what was in it?’

  ‘No, not a word. Is Lloyd listening?’ she added, in a lower voice.

  ‘Yeah. OK. Yeah, we’re all at the restaurant . . . No, it’ll be OK there. Yeah, sure . . . OK. Well, thanks, Tilly . . . You too. Bye.’

  He switched the phone off and rejoined the group. Just before he’d cut the connection he’d heard her say, with a catch in her voice, ‘Get the bastard for me, Gideon!’

  ‘Tilly all right?’ Giles asked, concerned.

  Silently Gideon blessed him for providing the opening he needed.

  ‘Yeah. Odd though . . .’

  ‘What is?’ Eve asked. Gideon hadn’t let her in on the scheme, for the simple reason that he knew she’d do everything in her power to stop him going through with it, and, given her resourcefulness, he thought it more than likely that she’d succeed.

  ‘Well, you remember I told you about Reuben, the old charcoal burner that lives on Tilly’s farm?’ he said now.