Time to Pay

by Lyndon Stacey

  After a final push on the staff, Lloyd got to his feet, mercifully lifting his weight off Gideon, but his attempt to sit up was foiled by the discovery that the point of the naval cutlass was floating menacingly around his upper chest region, and he lay back, breathing hard.

  Where the hell was Logan? If no-one was listening, then his carefully crafted trap had come to nothing, and his predicament was dire.

  ‘So what now?’ Lloyd mocked, looking down the blade of the sword. ‘What’s the next part of your oh-so-clever plan?’

  With no way of knowing if help was indeed on the way, Gideon rapidly came to the conclusion that his best and only resource was the age-old favourite of the out-gunned: flight. Somehow, he had to try and stave off Lloyd’s attack long enough to reach one of the doors or windows.

  ‘Well?’

  Suddenly the sword point flicked towards Gideon’s face and away, but although he flinched, instinctively, it was several moments before a burning pain told him that the steel had actually scored his skin.

  ‘What d’you want me to say?’ he said, feeling blood trickle over his cheek to his right ear. Deep inside he could feel tremors of tension, and prayed that it didn’t show.

  Lloyd rolled his eyes towards the ceiling, as if in preface to some declaration or action, and in that moment Gideon moved, bringing the blunt end of the pikestaff upward to thud into Lloyd’s groin with all the force he could muster.

  With a cry of agony Lloyd crumpled, face screwed up like a baby with colic, one hand clasping the source of his distress. He still held the sword, but for the moment it posed no threat, and Gideon lost no time in rolling away and regaining his feet.

  ‘That’s from Pippa!’ Gideon told him. ‘And this . . .’ he swung the pike again, ‘. . . is from me!’

  Lloyd grunted and dropped to his knees as the wooden shaft landed across his shoulders and neck with some considerable force. Unfortunately he retained his hold on the cutlass and Gideon was reluctant to waste time in what might be a fruitless tussle to wrest it from him, so, resisting the almost overwhelming temptation to land another, more final blow, he sprinted for the door they’d come in by.

  He should have made sure of his man.

  Gideon only just had time to reach the entrance hall and pull the heavy door shut behind him before Lloyd, having arrived at the other side, was throwing all his weight into pulling it open again. With his crushed fingers still stiff and painful, Gideon felt his grip on the knurled metal ring slipping fast and glanced up and down the hall in desperation.

  For the first time he regretted having removed the key from the kitchen door. Even if his hand had been in perfect working order, the chances of his being able to fend off the cutlass while he fished in his trouser pocket for the key and then used it, were somewhere between extremely unlikely and non-existent. As it was . . .

  Abruptly relinquishing his hold on the door, Gideon hefted the pike and ran for the staircase. Halfway up the first flight he turned, fighting for balance, and faced the hall, the pike, with its lethal steel tip, held awkwardly in his left hand and pointing defensively down the stairs. Sure enough, Lloyd was close behind him, but was forced to halt two or three steps up, the naval sword held before him and fury in his eyes.

  Hatred seemed to have overridden reason in Lloyd’s mind, because he didn’t let the disadvantage of lower ground and shorter reach put him off. The cutlass snaked round the wavering point and hit the staff with a juddering blow, almost jarring it from Gideon’s grasp. A chip of wood flew off and the point swung sideways to hit the wall.

  Barely had Gideon got it back on track, when again the blade clove into the staff, and he realised that his only hope was to attack. Bringing his semi-useless right hand into play, he grasped the staff and stabbed downward at Lloyd, trying to force him off balance and back down the stairs.

  As a plan it was spectacularly unsuccessful.

  With the grace and dexterity that had almost won him a place on the Olympic team all those years before, Lloyd swayed to one side, grasped the pikestaff close behind its deadly chopping blade, and pulled Gideon off balance instead.

  Gideon let go of the weapon and grabbed at the banister to try and save himself, but to no avail. He felt himself falling and, in an effort to salvage something from the pathetic ruins of his intentions, launched a flying leap at Lloyd.

  With a bone-jarring crash, they hit the stone floor at the foot of the stairs in a mess of arms, legs, wood and steel, Gideon’s landing made marginally softer by his being partly on top of Lloyd.

  At close quarters the weapons were rendered useless and fell by the wayside as the two of them rolled and scrambled across the floor, locked together in a vicious, heavy-breathing struggle.

  Gideon had temporarily gained the ascendancy, pinning one of Lloyd’s wrists to the floor with his left hand and battling to secure the other, when the dogs started barking.

  Someone was coming.

  He instinctively glanced across at the kitchen door and, as he looked back, was stunned by a brutal headbutt that knocked him back and away, leaving Lloyd to scramble to his feet unchallenged and deliver a few hefty kicks for good measure.

  Consciousness drifted and returned, and Gideon found himself lying on his back on a cold stone floor that seemed to be rolling under him in a nauseous manner.

  The dogs were still kicking up a fuss, and someone somewhere was shouting his name with a fair degree of urgency.

  ‘In here!’ he croaked, rolling over and getting to all fours.

  ‘Gideon! Is that you? Open the door!’ a male voice shouted. Not Logan, Gideon thought, as the floor began to settle down and come into focus. There were a couple of dark spots on it and as he watched, head hung low, another appeared. Blood, he realised with a woolly detachment.

  ‘Gideon?’ Tilly’s voice. ‘Are you all right? Where’s Lloyd?’

  A good question. Where indeed?

  ‘Gideon!’ The male voice once more, and followed by a crashing bang against the heavy wooden panels of the door. ‘Open the door!’

  ‘Coming,’ he muttered. Raising his head muzzily to scan the entrance hall, Gideon found it empty, and the door to the great hall standing open.

  ‘Gideon!’

  ‘Coming!’ In spite of his relief, Gideon’s tone was tetchy. He was doing his best. He decided it would be safest to make his way across to the door on his hands and knees and, once there, used the wall to steady himself as he got to his feet and felt in his pocket for the key.

  Where was Lloyd? Had he got right away? Gideon wasn’t sure if he’d lost consciousness for several minutes or just a few seconds. His fingers located the key and he withdrew it, swearing under his breath as the fabric tightened on his swollen fist. Transferring the key to his left hand, he fitted it into the lock and turned it, grasping the doorpost to save falling through the opening as the door was yanked away from him.

  A huge man filled the opening. Definitely not Logan.

  ‘Where is the bastard?’ he demanded, and Gideon recognised Hamish Daniels, Tilly’s father. He waved a hand in the general direction of the main hall and Hamish brushed past him and disappeared.

  ‘Gideon, are you all right? Oh, God! What happened?’ Tilly, this time, putting a hand on his arm and peering anxiously into his face.

  ‘Where’s Logan?’ Gideon asked, ignoring her questions. ‘Did he hear everything?’

  ‘He went to find another way in. Round the front. Are you OK?’

  ‘Did he hear? Was the bug working? I wasn’t sure . . .’

  ‘Yes, he heard. We all heard. Dad too.’

  ‘How come he’s here?’

  ‘I’m sorry. He heard me trying to get hold of Logan,’ she cried. ‘Gideon, we have to stop him! He says he’s going to kill him!’

  ‘Oh, shit!’ Gideon groaned and, cautiously leaving the support of the doorpost, he went after Tilly’s father.

  When he entered the hall, with Tilly close on his heels, it was to see Hamish, with the se
cond of the pikes held threateningly in front of him, advancing towards Lloyd who waited at the far end with his back to the wall, for all the world like some defenceless animal hunted to exhaustion.

  ‘Dad, no!’ Tilly screamed, and Gideon broke into a stumbling run with no thought of how, in his feeble state, he was going to prevent the burly farmer from exacting rough justice on the man who’d killed both his sons.

  ‘Think what you’re doing, man!’ Gideon urged, reaching Hamish and grabbing his arm. ‘Think of your family!’

  ‘I’m not letting the bastard get away with it. Let go!’ He jabbed backward with the end of the pikestaff, catching Gideon in the chest and sending him reeling back, gasping.

  ‘Dad, please! Don’t!’

  Tilly had come closer, and Hamish hesitated, not ten feet from Lloyd.

  ‘Stay out of it, girl!’ he commanded, his gaze fixed on the man in front of him.

  With no clear plan, Gideon began to move out to one side, desperately hoping that if it came to it, he could find some way to prevent Hamish from carrying out his intention.

  Tilly’s father stepped forward once more, coldly determined, his knuckles white on the pikestaff, and Lloyd waited, breathing deeply.

  Gideon moved further out and his eyes narrowed as his new angle of sight revealed a gleam of metal between Lloyd’s trouser leg and the wall.

  ‘Hamish, look out!’

  Even as realisation dawned, Gideon was moving. Two paces took him close to the outside wall, where he grasped the lower edge of one of the Priory’s antique tapestries and yanked it downward as hard as he could. The age-rotted stitching gave way noiselessly and Gideon gathered the yards of musty fabric in his arms, racing to reach Lloyd before Hamish did.

  Lloyd kept the sword hidden until Tilly’s father was almost upon him, then swept it out from behind his leg and brought it round in a slashing attack aimed at Hamish’s upper body.

  Catching the blade in the copious folds of the priceless tapestry, Gideon flung all his weight onto Lloyd’s sword arm and bore it down, hoping that Hamish wouldn’t take advantage of the situation to deliver his own coup de grâce.

  As Gideon pulled him down Lloyd twisted violently, spitting furious curses at him, and he felt his hold rapidly loosening, but suddenly, mercifully, Logan was there. He hauled Lloyd off Gideon and, in one efficient move, fielded his free arm, twisting it expertly up behind his back and forcing him face down onto the floor.

  With a sigh, Gideon relaxed in the sudden stillness, rolling off the crumpled fabric to lie on his back for a moment, staring up at the magnificence of the hall’s beamed ceiling and trying to get his breath back.

  ‘Thanks. I could have done with you twenty minutes ago,’ he told the policeman wearily. He sat up. ‘I must get you to teach me that move. Might come in handy.’

  ‘Should’a let me have him,’ Hamish said bitterly, shaking his head. He still held the pike but his other arm was around Tilly’s shoulders, squeezing tight, and his heightened colour and glittering eyes showed the depth of his emotion.

  ‘Oh, no. We don’t want you banged up, too,’ Logan said prosaically. ‘Prisons are too full as it is.’

  ‘Prison’s too bloody good for that worm; he should be hanged!’

  With handcuffs fitted, Lloyd was hauled to his feet, protesting his innocence.

  ‘Look, you’ve got it all wrong! There’s absolutely no proof. Blake attacked me with no warning. What was I supposed to do? I had to protect myself.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. Tell it to the judge,’ Logan advised. ‘And as for proof – there’s the little matter of a tape recording I think the jury might be interested to hear.’

  That took the wind out of his sails. Logan used the ensuing silence to read Lloyd his rights and then handed him over to a pair of uniformed officers who had appeared, right on cue, and stood looking in understandable bewilderment at the weaponry on show.

  As Lloyd was led away, he twisted round and looked back at Gideon.

  ‘I should have shot you right at the start – when I had the chance!’ he hissed. ‘I had you in my sights.’

  ‘That’s enough, sir. Come on,’ one of the officers said.

  Gideon bowed his head. It was a sobering thought, even so long after the event, to know that he’d been that close to joining Damien. He looked up at Logan.

  ‘If you needed any more proof . . .’

  ‘It all helps,’ Logan said, offering him a hand to get to his feet. ‘Sorry. I had to call it in this time, and I’ve got a feeling DI Rockley might want a word or two with you.’

  The words Rockley chose to open his dialogue with Gideon were not, he suspected, to be found in any official police handbook or code of practice. The DI had had, perforce, to wait until the paramedics had dealt with Gideon’s sundry cuts and bruises, and the waiting hadn’t improved his mood.

  It had been previously agreed that, to prevent Logan’s superiors coming down on him like a ton of bricks, Gideon and Tilly should say the policeman had been recruited at the last minute to man the receiver, knowing little of what he was to hear, but Gideon suspected the inspector wasn’t deceived.

  On the subject of his own part in the proceedings, Gideon was on the receiving end of a lengthy diatribe, peppered with such words as foolhardy, ill considered and bloody stupid, and such phrases as interfering with an official investigation and withholding vital information.

  Gideon listened with half an ear, aware that Rockley was well within his rights to tear a strip off him and, moreover, that he had earned it, but wondering, at the same time, how Pippa was going to take this complete upheaval of her personal life.

  When Rockley had said his piece, taken Gideon’s statement and departed, presumably to follow Lloyd and his escort back to the station, Gideon sat on one of the benches in the deserted great hall, feeling depressed, sore, and unutterably weary.

  Police officers had bagged and labelled the swords and pikes, carrying them away as evidence, and now only the tumbled bench and the untidy heap of faded fabric by the far wall remained to tell of the drama that had been played out. Even to Gideon, the events of the afternoon had assumed a strangely distant and dreamlike quality.

  After a couple of minutes, he heard the scrape of a shoe on the stone floor and looked up to see Eve approaching, still wearing the long brown velvet skirt and old-gold linen jacket she’d worn to the restaurant.

  ‘Hey, you,’ she said softly.

  ‘Hiyah. Sorry I ran out on you at the restaurant.’

  ‘We wondered where the hell you’d gone.’

  ‘Yeah, sorry about that. I’ve seen Giles but I haven’t seen Pippa. How’s she taking all this? Does she know the full story?’

  ‘Tilly told her.’ Eve came round in front of him and put out a gentle hand to tilt his chin up, with a soft hiss of indrawn breath. ‘She took it pretty well, all things considered, but then I never believed theirs was a grand passion in the first place.’

  ‘She’ll hate me . . .’

  Eve shook her head.

  ‘For a while, maybe, she’ll find it hard to forgive you for being right about him, but she’ll come round. But what about you? Are you OK?’

  ‘OK in the way that someone who’s been run over by a bus is OK,’ he said with resurfacing humour. ‘How do I look?’

  She put her head on one side.

  ‘I wish I could say romantically scarred, but one eye is almost shut and you’ve got what looks like a train track running up your cheek. What happened to your hand?’

  ‘Oh, it’s nothing much. They don’t think there’s anything broken.’ Gideon flexed the fingers of his swollen hand experimentally. Because he’d refused to go to hospital the paramedic had carried out in situ repairs to the sword cut on his face, but he would have to go to casualty to get his hand checked out properly.

  ‘Was Rockley very rough with you?’ She put a hand on his shoulder and bent to kiss him.

  ‘No more than I deserved, probably.’

  ‘I w
ish you’d told me what you were going to do.’

  ‘You would have tried to stop me,’ he pointed out.

  ‘And that would have been a bad thing?’

  Gideon shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t see any other way to get to the truth; Lloyd had covered his tracks too well. I couldn’t just stand by and let him get away with it.’

  Eve stroked his hair.

  ‘You know, for a quiet bloke, you’re surprisingly bloody-minded! I thought life with you was going to be peaceful and undemanding. How wrong can a person be?’

  ‘That from a newly hatched biker chick,’ he teased. ‘Oh, come on – you know peaceful and undemanding would bore you stiff! But anyway, it’s all over now. We’ll probably dwindle into old age in perfect tranquillity.’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said, and Gideon was struck by an uncharacteristic note of reserve in her voice. ‘Anyway, I came to tell you that Mrs Morecambe’s back and making cups of tea in the kitchen.’

  ‘Perfect.’ Gideon climbed stiffly to his feet. ‘Life is back to normal.’

  In the kitchen they found Pippa, Giles, Tilly and Hamish sitting round the table drinking tea, and Mrs Morecambe making sandwiches with doorstep slices of bread and cheese.

  It was the first time either Pippa or Mrs Morecambe had seen Gideon’s battered face, and their reactions couldn’t have been more different.

  The housekeeper hurried forward, full of concern, fussing over him until he was safely seated with a mug of tea in his hand. Pippa glanced up when he first came in, then her gaze dropped to the mug in front of her, her expression strained and unhappy.

  Clearly envious, Giles was inclined to view the revelations as a drama from which he’d been unfairly excluded, and was eager to hear the mechanics of the confrontation.

  ‘You do realise you’ve got me into trouble,’ he said. ‘It’s quite possible I could be charged for the improper storage and display of weapons.’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry about that, but I must admit, it wasn’t a consideration at the time.’

  ‘So whose idea was it to grab the swords and halberds?’