BLINDFOLD (22 page)

`Well, it's an improvement on ostriches, I suppose.'

Giles gave him a withering look. `You've no sense of adventure, that's your problem. Come and have a look at the gear I've bought.' `Okay. But only if I can look sitting down. I got mown down by a startled horse this morning and I'm in dire need of a soft chair to sink into.'

`Not having much luck with horses lately, are you?' Giles observed, selecting two bottles from his store. `Ever occur to you, you might be losing your touch?'

`Frequently.'

Giles' new purchases occupied most of the shelves in what was known as the butler's pantry; a small, windowless room whose white-painted, stone walls were divided into cubicles about two feet square.

Gideon looked around him at the wealth of equipment accumulated. There seemed to be at least a dozen of everything. Ear-handled glass jars, wooden casks, plastic buckets, funnels, a pack of wooden spoons, rolls of white muslin, several large plastic dustbins, yards of tubing, multitudes of squiggly devices that Giles identified as fermentation locks, empty bottles by the boxful and corks by the hundred.

`Wow!' Gideon said, taken aback even though he should have been accustomed by then to Giles' whole-hearted immersion in anything that caught his imagination. `All you need now are some grapes. What's that instrument of torture over there?'

Giles followed his gaze. `It's a fruit crusher.'

`Only one?' Gideon queried, an eyebrow raised. `Besides, I thought you were supposed to trample the grapes.'

`Grapes you can trample - if you want to - apples and pears are not so comfortable.'

`Oh, I see. Branching out already. Well, I'm all for expansion.' `You may scoff now, but just you wait. I might surprise you.' `You might at that.' Gideon looked around again. `Rosetti had

a couple of big metal canisters. You don't seem to have got any of those. Don't tell me you've missed something.'

Giles frowned. `They could have been boilers, I suppose. I can't think what else. You usually steer clear of metal in winemaking, especially for storage. It taints the wine. Ends up tasting metallic. Foul!'

Gideon smiled to himself. Giles was already an authority. Dinner, when it was served, was predictably excellent. The combined talents of Pippa, with her training, and Rachel, with her natural flair, had produced a meal that would have aroused justifiable pride in the breast of any top chef.

`I've always said you were wasted as an equestrienne,' Giles told his sister handsomely. `Women should confine themselves to the kitchen where they so obviously belong. I've said it time and time again.'

Rachel gasped with indignation but Pippa merely smiled sweetly. `I refuse to rise to that kind of male chauvinism. But just for that, you can do the washing-up!'

Giles groaned. `Can't we leave it to mournful Millie?'

`Well, that's hardly fair, is it? Giving her the night off and then letting her come back to a loaded sink! And don't keep calling her that. You'll say it to her face one day!'

Gideon laughed at Giles' expression, enjoying the banter between brother and sister. Enjoying too the ambience of the centuries-old, candlelit dining room, the food, and the all-toorare relaxed happiness evident in Rachel's face. She was laughing now as Giles related the latest chapter in the terriers' ongoing harassment of Mrs Morecambe, her clear skin honey-toned in the soft light and her huge dark eyes sparkling.

Gideon looked from her to Pippa's strong, boyish features, under her mop of wayward curls, and wondered how two people could be so completely different and yet equally attractive.

'Giddy's looking very serious,' Pippa said then. She'd been calling him by Daisy's childish name all evening. `Too much wine? Or not enough, perhaps?'

`He's brooding over his lost powers,' Giles told her. `He got flattened by a horse again this morning.'

`What do you mean, again? I haven't been flattened for months,' Gideon responded indignantly.

`And it wasn't his fault!' Rachel stepped in defensively. `It was the farmer's stupid son, banging on the horsebox.'

`It's not the animals you have to worry about, it's the people,' Pippa agreed, adding solicitously, `Were you very much flattened?'

`Completely,' Gideon said ruefully. `The horse wasn't hurt, I hope?' `The horse was fine.'

Rachel looked from one to the other incredulously. `Why shouldn't the horse be all right? She wasn't the one who got flattened!'

Pippa laughed. `It's a long-standing joke of ours, Rachel. You see a crashing fall point-to-pointing or eventing, and everyone's first concern seems to be for the horse; never mind that the rider's breathing his last a few feet away.'

`Oh, I see,' Rachel said doubtfully. `Still, it was very frightening.'

`Oh, you don't want to worry about Gideon. He bounces.' `No sense, no feeling,' Giles put in heartlessly.

`When you've quite finished . . .' Gideon protested. `If you can't be sympathetic, then kindly keep your thoughts to yourselves. Now, I don't know about you, but I think I should move from this chair before it becomes an integral part of my anatomy!'

The four of them cleared away the dinner things and transferred

them to the kitchen where they discovered that somebody had left the door open, allowing Yip and Yap access to the remains of the first course; access of which the terriers had taken full and unashamed advantage.

The party broke up shortly after midnight, with Pippa complaining that she had to get up early the next morning, even if nobody else had to, and Gideon drove sleepily home, glad he wasn't on a public highway, with Rachel drowsily content at his side.

With deference to his bruises, Gideon spent most of the next couple of days at the Gatehouse working on the portrait. Rachel was also busy preparing plans, drawings and samples for her clients in Bournemouth.

They had heard nothing more from or about her ex-husband, and a shopping trip to Blandford on the third day passed without incident, but on their way back to the Gatehouse, Gideon began to wonder uneasily if it had been a wise idea to leave the place unprotected.

What if Duke had broken in, in their absence? He wouldn't put it past the man to trash the place out of spite. Elsa was too wary of strangers to come to any harm but the portrait was there on its easel; hours of work that could be completely undone with barely any effort at all. Starting from scratch on a project that was all but finished was something that didn't bear thinking about.

Happily, there was no evidence of unwanted visitors either outside or in. Wondering briefly if he was allowing himself to be unduly affected by Rachel's paranoia, Gideon nevertheless made a call to his picture framer and arranged to drop the portrait off after lunch.

Rachel had arranged to go riding with Pippa that afternoon and Gideon accompanied her to the Priory to beg the use of the runabout.

`Why don't you get yourself a sensible vehicle, for heaven

sakes?' Pippa protested. `I should have thought you'd grown out of the motorbike phase at your age.'

`Well, my free bus pass should be coming through any day now,' Gideon told her through the open window of the vehicle. `But seriously, if I had my own car, I wouldn't have any excuse for coming up here to be scolded by you, would I? And you know how gorgeous you are when you're cross!'

He made a prudent getaway at that point, driving the thirty miles or so to Bridport with one eye on his rear-view mirror - which remained empty, as far as he could tell, of any suspicious vehicles - and with his thoughts on the complex turn his life had taken of late.

What with the unresolved affair of his abduction, which seemed even to him oddly remote and dreamlike now; his involvement with the troubles at the Sanctuary; and now the business with Rachel and Duke, he could well believe he'd occasioned some comment amongst the local constabulary. How could someone as laid-back and instinctively solitary as himself become embroiled in so many other peoples' troubles in such a short time? he wondered.

It was a relief to offload Tom's portrait on the framer. Framing and mounting can make or ruin a picture and Gideon had never been tempted to do the job himself. The Bridport man had an unerring eye for style and colour, and the end result always justified the last nought on Gideon's prices.

Having accomplished his mission, he found himself back on the road with a couple of hours to spare. It occurred to him that he hadn't heard from Naomi and Tim for the best part of a week - not, in fact, since he'd rung them to report on his meeting with Milne the previous Saturday - and keyed in their number on his mobile phone.

There was no answer from the Sanctuary office, and as he headed back towards Dorchester, Gideon tried to raise Naomi on her own mobile with equally negative results. Maybe they'd got trouble with one of the animals.

He decided to investigate.

It was by this time getting on for four o'clock and although the sun wouldn't actually set for another hour and a half, the dull skies made it seem like twilight already.

It was more than that, Gideon realised after a few minutes as he turned off the A-road on to the back road that led ultimately to Lyddon Grange and the farm. The low sun was being obscured not only by clouds but also by a haze of smoke emanating from somewhere beyond the trees.

The road dipped between high hedges and for a moment the sky was lost to view but as he emerged from the trees Gideon saw that the volume of smoke had not diminished. It had if anything increased, rolling and eddying as the wind caught it, and the vague hope that it was the product of an oversized bonfire rather than something more serious was reluctantly abandoned.

An uneasy suspicion began to form in Gideon's mind and he stood on the accelerator, at the same time tapping nine, nine, nine into his mobile phone with his left thumb.

The operator listened and then thanked him. `We are aware of that incident, sir, and already responding. An appliance should be with you shortly. Please keep well back and don't block the road.'

Gideon threw the phone on to the seat beside him and concentrated on his driving. The acrid smell of the smoke had begun to filter through the car's ventilation system now, and as he approached the Grange it became obvious that the seat of the fire was beyond it. It had to be the Sanctuary.

Flinging Pippa's hatchback round the last bend and into the farm track, Gideon nearly put it into the hedge as he came face to face with two careering donkeys. The poor creatures skidded to a halt, heads high and jostling one another in fright, but clearly the horror they had fled from was greater, for they made no attempt to retreat up the track.

Gideon got out of the car, cursing under his breath. Desperate as he was to get up to the farm and find out what the situation was there, the donkeys could clearly not be abandoned to their fate.

Left to their own devices they would almost certainly run out on to the road where, even if they escaped being mown down by the approaching fire engine, it was highly likely that they would be involved in some kind of accident.

There was no time for calming techniques or subtle body language. The two creatures were patently terrified. They crowded into the hedge as Gideon approached, their minds muddled by panic and unable to separate real threat from imagined. About five yards beyond them he could see a gate that led into the adjacent field, and edging cautiously past he went to investigate, hoping they wouldn't, in the meantime, try to squeeze past the car which he'd left parked across the track.

The gate, which proved to be one of the few metal ones Gideon had seen at the Sanctuary, was securely locked with a very business-like new padlock; legacy, no doubt, of the trouble they had been having over the past few weeks. He swore and transferred his attention to the hinge end.

- Bingo! How utterly like Tim to bar the front door and leave the back door open, as it were.

Lifting the long farm gate off its rusting post required a lot more effort than his damaged shoulder appreciated, but it couldn't be helped. Way off in the distance he could hear the siren of the approaching fire engine and, as he struggled with the gate, had an awful picture in his mind of it crashing into the stationary car, flattening the hapless donkeys and effectively blocking the lane completely to any further access.

With the gate as wide open as the protesting catch would allow, Gideon slipped back past the two mouse-coloured beasts and advanced upon them once more, waving his arms up and down and slapping his thighs. They regarded him warily but refused to budge, so he ran at them, pulling off his jacket and walloping the nearest animal with it to great effect. They both took to their heels, one giving voice in its terror, and rocketed straight past the gateway.

Gideon could have screamed his frustration. The next moment, however, the two fleeing donkeys were met by another coming equally fast in the opposite direction. They turned back again and the three of them, faced with Gideon once more, diverted into the field and relative safety. Hoping that there were no more donkeys heading his way, Gideon dragged the gate shut but didn't attempt to lift it back on to its hinges. He'd no idea how many donkeys might be running loose around the farm. He'd already seen three more than he'd expected to see.

He sprinted for the car, which he'd left with its door open and the engine running. A quick shunt to and fro straightened it up and with wheel-spinning acceleration he resumed his interrupted journey.

The yard was in chaos.

Gideon left Pippa's car well away from the buildings, where he hoped it would be both safe and out of the way of the emergency vehicles when they arrived.

There was so much smoke it was difficult to see which part of the buildings was actually ablaze. The wind blew it everywhere in choking black clouds, and every now and then a tongue of flame would shoot skywards with a roar and a shower of sparks. As a gust of wind lifted the dark veil momentarily, Gideon saw with a sinking heart that not only the newly renovated farmhouse but also the mobile home and both blocks of stables were well alight.

He could hear someone shouting, possibly Naomi, and pausing only to dunk his cotton neckerchief in the water trough and tie it over his nose and mouth, he headed for the long gravel walkway between the animal quarters.