Time to Pay

by Lyndon Stacey

  ‘I haven’t got it,’ he lied, his eyes glued to the blade that now hovered at neck level.

  ‘Then where the fuck is it?’

  ‘On the ledge.’ Gideon glanced past Lloyd at the top of the door frame, and had the satisfaction of seeing him draw back slightly and follow his gaze, but the knife remained alarmingly close.

  ‘Why would you put it up there?’ he demanded suspiciously.

  ‘To slow you down if you tried to make a run for it. And it worked.’

  ‘OK. Well, you can just get it down again. Go on,’ Lloyd said, gesturing with the blade.

  ‘Sure.’ Gideon moved cautiously past him. ‘You know, that thing you did with the clock was really clever, I have to admit.’

  ‘What clock?’

  ‘The one in the Daniels’ house, when you broke in on the day of the memorial service.’

  ‘You’re crazy! I was at the service, remember?’

  ‘I remember you turned up late,’ Gideon said, reaching up to feel along the ledge above the door. ‘But you gave yourself an alibi, didn’t you? You made it look as though the clock had accidentally got broken, knowing that the police would assume that the burglar had still been in the house at that time. But I think you moved the hands on, so it would look like you were at the minster mourning your lifelong friend while the thieves were still in the farmhouse.’

  Lloyd sneered and shook his head.

  ‘You’re crazy,’ he repeated. ‘Come on, hurry up! Where’s the bloody key?’

  Gideon turned, shrugged, and threw Julian Norris’ diary in Lloyd’s face.

  He was so close and had done it so quickly that Lloyd had no time to duck, and didn’t. The hardback book caught him somewhere around the bridge of his nose and, as his hands rose instinctively towards his face, Gideon caught the one that held the knife with both of his own. Bearing Lloyd backwards, off balance, he rammed his wrist against the spindle-turned posts of the banisters a couple of times and saw the paperknife drop from his fingers.

  With Gideon concentrating his efforts on the hand that held the knife, however, Lloyd’s other hand was left free, and he made good use of it by burying it with some force between Gideon’s left hip and ribs. It wasn’t a particularly debilitating blow, being delivered, as it was, from close quarters by the right hand of a left-handed person, but it was enough to momentarily wind him.

  Still holding onto Lloyd’s left wrist, Gideon leaned back and swivelled on his heels, pulling Lloyd off balance and releasing him to go staggering across the hall and crash into the dark oak coffer that stood against the wall.

  Lloyd recovered quickly, rubbing his wrist and regarding Gideon with intense loathing.

  ‘Whatever you might think I’ve done, you’ve got no proof. No fingerprints or witnesses. It’s only your word against mine, and when they find out that you had it in for me because I got to shag the girl you’ve always wanted, I don’t think they’ll take you too seriously, do you?’

  ‘Are you out of your mind? Is that what you really think?’

  ‘Oh, don’t play the innocent with me! I could see it from the start and it made fucking her oh so sweet!’

  Quite suddenly, Gideon was seething, and it must have shown in his face, because Lloyd took a step back and put his hands forward as if to fend him off.

  ‘Oh, no! You don’t want to fight me. Sure, you’re a big guy and you’d probably beat me, but what would Pippa think of that? You touch me and you’ll never get her; let me go, and forget all this nonsense about diaries, and maybe . . . just maybe . . .’ Lloyd had been edging sideways as he spoke, and was now level with the door to the hall. He paused, producing a false expression of sympathy. ‘. . . if you’re very lucky, she’ll come back to you when I’ve finished with her.’

  As Gideon started forward, Lloyd lifted the latch, pushed the heavy hall door open and slipped through.

  It only took Gideon a moment to realise what he was up to. From the far end of the hall a door accessed the garden room with its French windows onto the patio, from where the guests had watched the fireworks on the night of the launch party. He knew, as Lloyd obviously did, that the key to the windows was kept in a pot on the mantelpiece. He also knew that the hall door could be bolted from the inside, and he put his shoulder to it before Lloyd could do so.

  There was a yelp of pain, and he pushed it wide to find Lloyd backing away, rubbing one hand in the other.

  ‘For God’s sake, Gideon! I don’t want to fight. Leave me alone!’

  ‘Nobody’s asking you to fight. Just stand still and give me some answers. It was you, the night of the Sparkler launch, wasn’t it? It has to have been. You didn’t find the diary when you searched the farmhouse, and you knew we’d found the list amongst Nero’s things, so you thought you’d look and see what else there was to find. Not the diary itself, perhaps, but a reference to where it was, am I right? But what I don’t understand is why you didn’t just search during the day. I mean you’re in the yard quite a lot. Surely you could have found a moment when no-one was around. Why the hurry?’

  ‘It was that bloody policeman, Rockley,’ Lloyd said suddenly, bitterly, as if the words burst from him of their own volition. ‘He was snooping round all the time, asking questions, poking his nose into everyone’s business.’

  ‘Well, he’s a detective,’ Gideon observed, amused in spite of the situation, and secretly triumphant; Lloyd had started to talk.

  ‘So you thought you’d sneak out while everyone was watching the fireworks and have a good look round, uninterrupted. Only you weren’t uninterrupted, were you? Because I went out to check on Nero.’

  ‘I wish I’d hit you harder!’

  Lloyd was still backing slowly away but Gideon was following at the same pace, keeping the gap between them a constant six or seven feet.

  ‘Yeah, I bet you do. But it explains how the door was opened: Pippa didn’t forget to lock it, you just borrowed the key, as you did, I imagine, when you searched the Gatehouse the night I was at the gallery with Eve. But Nero’s file was in the Land Rover and it wasn’t there that evening, was it? So you came back in the middle of the night to have another look, but by that time I’d taken it in, so you drew another blank. I should’ve listened to Eve and set the dog on you!’

  ‘He wouldn’t hurt me, he likes me.’

  ‘Yeah, and I caught him rolling on a dead bird the other day, so I guess we can’t rely on his good taste,’ Gideon responded.

  ‘I was in the Gatehouse again, the morning you were up here doing your mumbo-jumbo stuff with Nero,’ Lloyd declared, ignoring his taunt. ‘You didn’t know that did you, Hercule fucking Poirot? And you’d left your little notepad out for me to see.’

  Gideon remembered. That had been the day after he’d visited Bentley and Stephenson. He’d been trying to make sense of things when Tilly had rung about Nero, and he’d left the notepad on the kitchen table.

  ‘You realised I was on your trail, so that’s when you set up that business with your two pals and the fencer, was it?’

  Lloyd grinned. He’d backed right across the hall now, skirting the table and benches in the centre, and was near the door to the garden room.

  ‘Begging for mercy, the lads said you were. Jesus! What wouldn’t I have given to see it?’

  Gideon didn’t waste his breath denying it.

  ‘And Reuben? Was that you or one of your bullyboys? You thought he’d be a pushover, didn’t you? But he wouldn’t tell you where the diary was, so you beat him up. If there’s any justice, that alone should see you put away for a good few years.’

  ‘But you can’t prove it – any of it!’ Lloyd spoke to him as if trying to explain something to a small and not very bright child. ‘All this supposition – it’s pointless. If you’ve got some idea that I’ll hold my hands up and confess everything, you’d better think again. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my name clear, believe me; anything at all. That’s the mistake Damien made.’

  Somewhere deep inside Gide
on, something froze.

  ‘So . . . Why do you think Adam Tetley shot Damien?’ he asked, striving to keep his voice calm. ‘On the face of it, he didn’t appear to have much to lose, even if the truth had come out.’

  ‘He and Damien had history,’ Lloyd answered, without hesitation. ‘Damien used to train a horse for him and they fell out, big-time. Damien dumped him in it with the company he worked for and he lost his job.’

  ‘Oh, so you knew about that, did you?’

  ‘Of course. I’ve known the family for years.’

  ‘So if you were looking for a scapegoat, Adam Tetley would be the obvious choice . . .’

  Lloyd became very still.

  ‘What are you talking about? I was miles away when Damien was killed. Out hunting, with dozens of witnesses; it’s a cast-iron alibi.’

  ‘Except that you weren’t all that far away, as the crow flies, were you? And at the end of the first line, your horse was lame and you had to walk it back to the lorry and get a fresh one.’

  ‘So what are you saying? That I tied Lady to a tree and sprinted three or four miles to shoot Damien, then sprinted back? I’m flattered you think I’m that fit, but get real!’

  He laughed, but Gideon thought he detected a thread of unease mingled with the scorn.

  ‘No, I don’t think you did that,’ he said. ‘But I found out something interesting the other day. I found out that your ex-wife lives just down the road from where Damien was shot.’

  Now he was sure he was onto something. Everything about Lloyd’s body language became guarded, and the muscles in his face tightened.

  ‘What’s that got to do with anything? She’s my ex-wife. We’re hardly on speaking terms. I wouldn’t see her at all if it wasn’t for my kids.’

  Lloyd moved a few steps away from the garden-room door, towards the end of the hall.

  ‘So it wasn’t Harriet that Eve saw you kissing, this morning? She was surprised; said you looked pretty wrapped up in one another . . .’

  ‘She’s a lying bitch!’

  Gideon’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Well, one of you’s lying, that’s for sure, and I know where I’d put my money. I’m saying maybe you rode your “lame” horse to your old home and then borrowed a car. How does that sound? I think you’d have had plenty of time to ride back afterwards and then walk the last bit on foot. The police were looking for a red hatchback at one point – does Harriet have a red hatchback tucked away in her garage somewhere, I wonder?’

  Lloyd began to sweat.

  ‘You’re crazy! The police have found the gun, remember? It was in Tetley’s locker and he had the key. Tetley shot Damien, not me.’

  He was moving with purpose now, across to the far wall, and Gideon began to follow, unsure what he was planning.

  He found out all too soon.

  A huge oak carver chair stood against the golden stone, tapestry-hung wall, and Lloyd jumped onto this, reaching high above his head to where a pair of swords was displayed. Standing on tiptoe, he managed to lift one off the brackets that held it.

  Still on the chair, he hefted the sword in his left hand, raising it and squinting down the thirty-inch blade. He looked disturbingly at home with the weapon, and Gideon slowed and stopped where he was, halfway across the hall.

  ‘British naval cutlass, late eighteenth century. Beautifully balanced,’ Lloyd said appreciatively.

  The blade was slim, subtly curved near the point, and the hilt handsome, with a finely chased knucklebow, but just at that moment Gideon couldn’t share his enthusiasm. He watched, heart thumping, while Lloyd reached the second one down.

  ‘That’s not bad, either. Try it,’ he invited, and the next moment the sword came flying in a deadly silver arc, straight towards Gideon.

  17

  GIDEON DODGED.

  Duellists in films might catch swords deftly by the hilt but he certainly wasn’t about to try, and, even had he done so, he would only have been able to hack and chop with a complete absence of skill.

  The weapon landed on the worn carpet behind him, vibration making the blade ring.

  Lloyd laughed out loud, his eyes glittering.

  ‘It won’t bite you! Pick it up. Let’s see what you’re made of.’

  Flesh and bone, Gideon thought mordantly, neither of which stood much chance of resisting the finely crafted steel blade of the cutlass.

  Why hadn’t he kept his mouth shut? So much better to have let Lloyd go, not suspecting that Gideon had guessed the truth, and then laid his theory in front of Logan or Rockley. If he’d had more time to think that was undoubtedly what he would have done, but the revelation had come in a flash and he couldn’t resist trying for a reaction. Now he was faced with a man who not only loathed him with a passion, but who also felt he had little to lose by killing him.

  ‘I’m not going to make it self-defence,’ Gideon said, backing away from the fallen sword.

  ‘Oh, go on,’ Lloyd urged, dropping down from the carver. He smiled in a manner that did nothing to reassure. ‘It’s ages since I used one of these. I might have forgotten how – you never know.’

  Passing the sword from one hand to the other, he shed his jacket and tossed it aside.

  Modern Pentathlon, Gideon remembered with uncomfortable clarity, consisted of shooting, running, swimming, riding and fencing. Any hope that Lloyd’s knowledge of swordplay was superficial vanished like a drop of water on a hotplate.

  Lloyd advanced, bringing the point of his cutlass altogether too close for Gideon’s comfort. He took another step or two backward.

  ‘You didn’t really think I came on my own, unprepared?’ he asked, trying to keep his voice and breathing steady. He pointed towards his chest, where the transmitter nestled comfortingly in his pocket. ‘I’m wired. The police have heard every word we’ve said. I should think they’ll be here any moment now, wouldn’t you?’ Remembering Tilly’s last, panic-stricken call, he fervently hoped it was true.

  ‘Nice try,’ Lloyd said. ‘Almost believable.’ He stepped forward and brandished the cutlass, its point describing a neat figure of eight in the air just inches in front of Gideon, who moved back smartly, almost falling as one of the benches for the refectory table caught him behind the knees. It tipped over with a bang, and Gideon stumbled sideways. Now it was his turn to sweat.

  Lloyd seemed to find it highly amusing.

  ‘Not quite so keen to fight now, are we?’

  ‘Give it up, Lloyd. I’m telling the truth. You’ll never get away with this. Too many people knew I was coming here.’ Gideon looked around for inspiration and found it over the fireplace on the opposite side of the hall, where were displayed two crossed pikes and a shield. The pikes combined a spearhead and an ugly-looking elongated axe, mounted on a wooden staff of some six feet in length. They were polished to gleaming perfection, and had probably not been wielded in anger for the best part of five hundred years, but to Gideon, at that moment, they represented possible salvation.

  ‘What if I don’t care?’ Lloyd said, the sword still in dazzling motion. ‘I’ll say you were determined to fight. I had to defend myself. I’ll put the sword in your hand. What’ll I get for self-defence? Five or six years, halved for good behaviour – what if I thought it was worth it, to get you out of my life?’

  The sword sliced through the ether, so close that Gideon felt the wind of its passing. A look at Lloyd’s face revealed that he was deadly serious; his hatred of Gideon was greater than his fear of the consequences.

  Gideon turned and sprinted for the fireplace, hoping against hope that the weapons were merely resting in their brackets as the cutlasses had been.

  They were. Within moments he had his hands on one of them, lifted it and pulled, bringing the other clattering down with it as it came free. Gripping the wooden shaft, he whirled to meet his opponent.

  He was only just in time. Lloyd had followed him and, even as he turned, he saw the cutlass lancing towards him. The pikestaff swept across, knocking the bla
de aside, and Gideon leapt sideways and ran towards the table in the centre of the room.

  His counter-attack had unbalanced Lloyd and with his burst of speed, Gideon managed to get into a position where the table was between them, in which situation he felt marginally happier. He tried reason again.

  ‘Look Lloyd . . .’ he said, his heart thumping heavily. ‘If you injure me, you’ll just make things ten times worse for yourself . . . Why don’t you give it up?’

  ‘And what? Turn myself in? Let you play the hero? Wired? What do you fucking take me for?’

  A murderer, Gideon thought, but he didn’t say it; he didn’t think it would help.

  Lloyd seemed to feel compelled to fill the silence.

  ‘All right. If you’re telling the truth – where are they? I don’t see them. Wouldn’t you think they’d be here by now?’

  He had a point. Where indeed? Was anyone even listening?

  ‘You know what I think?’ Lloyd went on without waiting for an answer. ‘I think you’re a fucking liar! You’re shit-scared and you’re lying to buy time. Well, the way I see it, we’ve got at least another hour before the others finish their meal, maybe two before they make it back here. Do you think you can last that long?’ He swung the cutlass horizontally so that it whipped through the space between them, cleaving the air with a hissing sound, and Gideon swayed back out of reach, bringing the staff up way too late.

  Before he could recover fully, Lloyd had stepped up onto the bench and table and launched himself from the top in a flying leap. In desperation, Gideon threw up both hands with the pikestaff spanning the gap, overbalancing and falling back with most of Lloyd’s descending weight on top of him.

  The stone floor hit Gideon gruntingly hard between the shoulder blades and his head followed through to connect with a crack that left him momentarily disoriented. Pain stabbed through his right hand and through the blotchy daze of semi-consciousness, he became aware of a hard ridge of pressure across his chest. As his head cleared he realised that he’d fallen with the pikestaff across him and Lloyd was now leaning on it, crushing Gideon’s hand between the end of the wooden staff and the stone floor. He grinned unpleasantly, no doubt enjoying the grimace that Gideon couldn’t prevent.