Cut Throat

by Lyndon Stacey

  The wind had dropped substantially now but not enough, Ross hoped, for Leo to hear the swishing of his body snaking through the grass. In a vain attempt at a bluff, he moved in a commando-style slither, away from the shadow of the hawthorn and out into the open grass.

  He forced himself to keep moving when, after twenty feet or so, he was sure that Leo must soon turn and see him.

  He kept his head low, resisting the temptation of looking behind to see where Leo was, and when he was perhaps fifty feet from the hedge, turned and collapsed with gasping, heart-thudding relief into the wet grass.

  He felt horribly vulnerable. The grass had not been grazed for several weeks, the Colonel hoping to get a second crop of hay off it, but because of the hot spell it was barely eight inches long and by no means thick. Ross could only hope that if Leo shone the torch his way, he would, head on as he was, pass for one of the several molehills in the vicinity.

  Leo had moved to the near side of the gate now, and was searching the area where Ross had until recently lain. Surely when he failed to find him close by, he would abandon the search and leave before McKinnon’s men arrived.

  Indeed, it seemed that was what he was going to do. From his lowly position, Ross saw him make his way back to the gate and pause, swinging the torch once more in a wide arc. It passed over Ross about three feet above his head, went on, stopped and came back. Almost instantaneously, Ross heard a swishing in the grass behind him.

  Darcy! he thought with a sick sense of failure.

  Somehow, while he was concentrating on Leo, Darcy must have got round behind him. Just how he had managed it in the time, Ross didn’t have leisure to consider. He tensed himself to try and turn and come to his feet in one movement, aware as he did so that he still held the knife in his hand. This time he knew that he would use it if he had to. His situation was desperate and the survival instinct was strong.

  Just as he began his move he felt something brush his back and warm breath huffed in his ear.

  Definitely not Darcy!

  Telamon, who had wandered over curiously to see why his master was full-length in the grass, threw up his head in alarm as Ross surged up suddenly, right under his nose.

  His situation already betrayed, Ross grabbed at the lead rope, which had come unknotted, and flung himself, for the second time that day, at the horse’s back.

  The stallion, understandably unnerved by the violence of Ross’ actions, plunged forward, and his arm was nearly pulled out of its socket as he clutched a handful of chestnut mane and hung on, landing sprawled across the horse’s loins.

  Something buzzed past his left ear as he struggled to pull himself to a more secure position and he realised with desperation that Leo was shooting at him again.

  Telamon was galloping blindly towards the gun, probably heading for the gate, and Ross was completely powerless to stop him. He couldn’t remember how many times Leo had fired and even if he could, he thought numbly, this wasn’t a western; modern guns almost certainly held more than six shots at a time.

  He felt the horse flinch momentarily as the crack of a second shot sounded. The gap between Leo and the horse was only a matter of feet when he stopped aiming at Ross and aimed at the horse.

  Sick with fear for both of them, Ross dug his heels into the stallion’s chestnut flanks and rode him hard at the man ahead.

  With any other horse in the stables, Ross knew it wouldn’t have worked. Horses almost invariably avoid hitting human beings if it is within their power to do so. Racehorses twist desperately to keep from trampling fallen jockeys.

  Telamon was bold. He perhaps sensed by his stance that Leo was aggressive, and he had in a comparatively short time developed an uncommon bond with Ross. Without hesitation, the horse galloped the last few strides towards Leo and half-leapt as he reached him, his knees and chest cannoning into the man’s upper body and flinging him to the ground. Ross caught a glimpse of Leo below him, arms upflung, eyes wide in terror, and then he fell away behind as the stallion plunged on.

  Just as they reached the gate, three or four strides later, both Ross and the stallion were blinded by the glare of a car’s headlights as it turned into the field gateway.

  Ross involuntarily threw up an arm to shield his eyes, and Telamon, having no such resource, shied abruptly away, dumping him without ceremony on to the grass. He tucked and rolled like a jockey, fetching up by the far gatepost, which he used to pull himself painfully to his feet. From there, partially in the shadow of the hedge, he squinted to try and see beyond the light.

  His one comfort was that if it was Darcy, then at least he was unarmed, though in his own present state of mental and physical exhaustion, Ross doubted if he could put up much of a fight. He was just at the stage of wondering why, if it was Darcy, he didn’t just turn the car round and go, when a metallic click sounded close to his left ear and something cold touched his temple. He froze.

  ‘Hold very still,’ a voice warned. ‘You are just a millimetre away from the final mystery.’

  23

  Ross practically stopped breathing.

  Roland! Who’d been listening in the hall; who was never, it seemed, far behind when there was trouble. Now where exactly did he fit into all this?

  A torch was flashed in Ross’ face and the familiar, well-bred voice exclaimed: ‘Good God, it’s our American friend! Sorry, old boy. You should have said something.’

  The gun barrel dropped and Ross almost fainted with relief. He managed a shaky grin.

  ‘For a moment, I couldn’t seem to think of anything appropriate,’ he said.

  ‘You could have asked if I had a licence for this,’ Roland said seriously, holding up the gun. ‘Awfully important to have a licence.’

  ‘Why didn’t I think of that?’ Ross remarked dryly. ‘Dreadfully bad form to get shot by an unlicensed gun.’

  Somehow after all that had gone before, this ridiculous conversation with Roland had a strangely calming effect. How and why he came to be there and what business he had carrying a gun seemed for the moment largely unimportant, although Ross was beginning to suspect that he knew.

  ‘Where’s Leo?’ Roland asked.

  ‘Somewhere back there.’ Ross waved a hand. ‘Telamon knocked him down. I don’t know how badly he’s hurt.’

  Another two vehicles drew up in the lane and disgorged their loads of passengers, and suddenly the night was full of noise and bustle.

  Roland opened the gate to let Ross back through and then followed his torchlight across to where Leo lay. Ross didn’t look, resolutely keeping his back turned.

  ‘Ross!’ Franklin hurried forward, deeply concerned. ‘Are you all right? We could hear bits of what was going on but we just couldn’t get to you. There are trees down all over the place. We were praying we wouldn’t be too late.’

  ‘Not half as much as I was,’ Ross assured him. ‘Yes, apart from having aged ten years, I’m fine. You knew where I was then? I wasn’t sure if you did.’

  Somebody switched on a spotlight on top of one of the newly arrived vehicles and it blazed out, illuminating the scene.

  McKinnon approached. He was smaller than Ross had remembered him; such was the authority of the man, subconsciously Ross had allowed his increasing respect for him to influence his memory of the physical person.

  ‘I incorporated a tracking device in that wire you’re wearing,’ he said in answer to Ross’ remark. ‘It’s a good job I did, though I can’t claim to have foreseen having to chase you half across the county.’

  Ross grinned. ‘I didn’t foresee it myself but I couldn’t face seeing him get away when we had him – confession and all.’ Belatedly, he remembered Franklin’s presence. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, awkwardly. ‘I was hoping we’d be proved wrong, right up to the moment he admitted it.’

  Franklin shook his head, the forthright courage that had sustained him for so long not deserting him now.

  ‘No. I knew you must be right as soon as McKinnon put it to me. Looking back
, I can see there have been pointers I should have spotted. I think I was wilfully blind.’

  ‘It’s understandable,’ McKinnon observed. ‘No one likes to think that their friends, let alone their family, could be criminally inclined, but the sad fact is that all too often crimes are committed by someone the victim knows. The difficulty in this case was to recognise the motive.’

  ‘Where’s Darcy now?’ Ross asked, looking round.

  ‘Wearing a pair of particularly attractive matching bracelets,’ Roland said, coming back from the field to join the others in the lane. Then, like Ross, he remembered whom he was addressing. ‘Sorry, Franklin.’

  The businessman shook his head. ‘No, you forget, I heard the things he said. I feel little for him except pity. Like Ross said, he had every chance but he threw it back in my face.’

  Ross was slightly taken aback. After telling Darcy about the wire, he had more or less forgotten it himself. He wondered what else he might have said.

  McKinnon glanced at Roland and raised his eyebrows.

  He shook his head significantly.

  With a shock, Ross remembered Leo. ‘Is Leo . . . ?’ he began and then tailed off as he read the answer in Roland’s face.

  ‘He’s dead,’ he said, matter-of-factly. ‘Broken neck, I should think, and it couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke. You’ve done the world a favour, old chap.’

  Ross turned and stared blindly at the figure lying beyond the gate, now respectfully shrouded in a coat, presumably Roland’s. Heaven knew he had no reason to regret the man’s passing, but to have been the direct cause of it . . . That was something else.

  McKinnon stepped up behind him. ‘We heard the shots, Ross. You had no choice. Don’t let him spoil your life even after he’s dead. He’s not worth it.’

  Ross shook his head. ‘I know. It just takes a bit of getting used to, that’s all.’

  McKinnon patted him on the shoulder, comforting by his presence; not wasting words.

  Ross forced his thoughts in another direction. ‘Roland works for you, doesn’t he? Did you recruit him like you did me?’

  McKinnon smiled. ‘Good gracious, no. He came to us straight from the army, five or six years ago now. He was looking for an interesting career without all the restrictions of army life, and an army contact put us in touch. We suited him and he suited us. Very well, as a matter of fact.’ He shook Ross’ shoulder gently. ‘Come on. We should be getting back to the house. The Colonel will be wondering what the hell has happened. He thinks a lot of you, you know. Don’t worry about this. My men will clear up here. One of them will phone the police when they’re ready. A shocked passer-by, you know the sort of thing.’

  Ross glanced at him. ‘What about . . . ?’ He inclined his head towards the field. ‘Won’t there be trouble?’

  McKinnon tutted. ‘Nasty accident. Trying to catch a loose horse that’s been frightened by the wind. Always a risky business . . .’

  With a shock, Ross remembered Telamon. ‘You’d better tell your men to keep that gate shut, there’s several thousand pounds’ worth of showjumper somewhere in this field. And, while I think of it, I dropped Darcy’s knife. Over there somewhere, about forty or fifty feet out.’

  ‘Right.’ McKinnon gave instructions to his men. ‘We’ll find the knife, and we’ll catch the horse, if we can. Now, let’s get going. You’re wet through.’

  Ross felt his clothing, surprised to find that he was indeed wet through. He hadn’t even noticed. It had stopped raining somewhere along the line but crawling through the grass hadn’t helped.

  In due course Darcy, nursing a sore head courtesy of the bull-bars on Leo’s vehicle, McKinnon and one of his men travelled back to the Manor in one vehicle, while Franklin, Roland and Ross took another.

  Franklin, who was understandably subdued, sat in the back to allow Ross to sit in the front where he could stretch out his leg. His antics on and finally off Telamon had just about finished it. It would still just bear his weight, if painfully, but it would not bend at all. Sighing, he contemplated the tiresome round of consultations and operations and therapy that would now become unavoidable.

  To take his mind off that dismal prospect he thought instead about Roland. What he’d learned that evening explained a lot that had been puzzling him but there was still much that didn’t mesh.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it, that night in the yard?’ he said finally, looking across at the Colonel’s son, who was driving with what, for him, was remarkable restraint. ‘You did some sort of judo on me, dumped me on the ground and lit out! Why didn’t you tell me you were one of the good guys? You knew who I was.’

  ‘I was under orders,’ Roland said smugly. ‘And I always do as I am told. There was an intruder that night, though. Darcy, I suppose. I think your dog chased him off.’

  ‘But why shouldn’t I have been told?’ Ross asked. ‘I wasted a lot of time wondering what you were up to.’

  ‘Because, old boy, to be blunt, we didn’t know you. We only had Lindsay’s word for a character reference; that and what we could find out by asking around, and to be frank, some of your references weren’t exactly glowing. Under stress you might have given us both away for all we knew. Edward felt it was an unnecessary risk.’

  Ross had to allow that that made sense but it was ironic that on the night he was picked up for drink-driving he had worked so hard to lose Roland. If he had only known . . . He said as much.

  Roland laughed and shrugged. ‘I’ve followed you all over the place these last few weeks. I was supposed to be watching your back. McKinnon felt you were attracting rather a lot of attention from our friend. Sod’s law you had to spot me that night. By the way, what were you in such a hurry to tell Franklin that night?’

  Ross was half-embarrassed. ‘I’m not sure exactly. It was something your father said that set me thinking. He warned me that Darcy was pretty ticked off with me because of the way Peter was behaving, and the more I thought about it, the more I wondered about their relationship.

  ‘God knows how I would have put it to you, Franklin!’ he added, over his shoulder. ‘I was dreading it! So you see, I can’t claim any brilliant deduction. I had nothing to tie Darcy in to the blackmail. It just seemed to be a loose end and I thought I should speak to you before McKinnon. Give you a chance to shout me down.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have shouted,’ Franklin said soberly. ‘You know, there have been times when I’ve wondered, seeing how Darcy is with Peter, but my comfort comes from the boy himself. He’s a far stronger character than Darcy or my brother ever were. I think that’s good enough for me.’

  ‘I said as much to Darcy,’ Ross agreed. ‘He wasn’t too impressed.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ Roland said. ‘Oh, and by the way, I think you’ll find your drink-driving charge will be dropped. I persuaded our boys in blue to take a look at the bottle after all, and I think they’ll be contacting you shortly to examine your fingertips, so to speak. If you’re sure you didn’t touch that bottle, you should be in the clear.’

  ‘You phoned them on the way back,’ Ross said, remembering. ‘I wish I’d known. You let me suffer!’

  ‘Suffering is good for the soul,’ Roland said lightly. ‘Besides, I didn’t want you falling on me in gratitude. Ruins a decent suit, being fallen upon.’

  Within fifteen minutes, having circumnavigated the Oakley Manor estate to avoid various fallen trees, both parties, minus Darcy, were ensconced in the Colonel’s study.

  The gathering was lit by paraffin lamps as the electricity supply had been an early casualty of the storm. The gale largely seemed to have blown itself out now and the comparative quiet was a relief. The Colonel, his son, Franklin, McKinnon and Ross all sat or sprawled on the leather chairs and gratefully accepted mugs of Irish coffee from Masters.

  Peter and Danny were, they were informed, at the Scotts’ cottage, consuming a large supper under Maggie’s indulgent eye, and Darcy was securely locked in an upstairs room, handcuffs still in place. Bill
had been sent to recover Telamon, well primed to lend credence to the loose horse story.

  The atmosphere in the study was strange, half-triumphant and half-subdued. Nobody, least of all Franklin, could be sorry that it was all over but neither could anyone be completely satisfied with the outcome. The personal involvement saw to that.

  Ross lounged in one of the armchairs, his leg propped up on a footstool, regarding the gathering drowsily over the rim of his mug. Unable to hide his disability any longer, he had been forced to admit that he needed help. A temporary lay-off was obviously on the cards but the disappointment was tempered by the assurances of the three owners present that their horses would be saved for him. They would be kept fit but their competitive careers placed on hold. It was more than Ross had dared hope for.

  ‘Leo Jackson, or rather Lewis Roach, was a nasty piece of work,’ McKinnon said presently into the thoughtful silence. ‘Quite apart from the suspicion of assault in Ireland, we finally traced him back to London, where he’s wanted by the Metropolitan Police for GBH. Apparently he worked for a building contractor until his foreman caught him stealing. The poor man got in the way of a fork-lift truck that Lewis happened to be driving and never worked again.’

  ‘Stealing? That’s not like Leo,’ Ross observed with ironic surprise. ‘But seriously, if it hadn’t been for that crazy stallion of Roland’s, I’d probably never have worked again, either!’

  ‘I told you he was a battle charger,’ Roland put in smugly.

  McKinnon laughed.

  ‘And what about Darcy?’ the Colonel asked, carefully avoiding Franklin’s eyes. ‘I suppose he’ll have to go to prison?’

  ‘Well . . .’ McKinnon hesitated. ‘Franklin and I discussed that this afternoon while we were waiting for things to get underway, and we agreed that it would be better for all concerned if we can keep this business out of the courts. The injured parties are all in this room – with the exception of Peter, that is – and it isn’t pleasant to have one’s personal affairs dragged out under the public gaze. Of course, the decision rests partly with Ross, but if he agrees not to press charges at this point, Darcy will be asked to sign a detailed statement of his activities, witnessed by those present, and the family solicitor with whom it will then be lodged. In return for which, Darcy will go free, on the understanding that he returns all the proceeds of his crime and leaves the country on a one-way ticket – the further away, the better. I think for the boy’s sake he will do so.’