BLINDFOLD (39 page)

Blackbird shifted nervously, head up and eyes rolling, and the hair on Gideon's neck stood up.

`Very good advice,' a voice commented in approving tones from behind him. `But about five minutes too late. Ain't that a shame?'

Gideon turned and looked back some three feet past Blackbird's flank to where Rachel's ex-husband stood grinning in a thoroughly unpleasant fashion. He was wearing jeans and an army jacket but had removed the eyebrow stud, presumably to lend credence to the tale he'd told Mrs Morecambe. In his right hand he held a throwing knife with a four-inch blade, and from his left dangled a length of heavy, rusty chain. No gun then.

`Anyone moves and this knife ends up in the redhead!' Duke promised. `Pippa, isn't it?'

'He can do it!' Rachel said on a rising note of panic. `Do what he says!'

`Oh, yes, I can do it,' Duke agreed. `And don't think I won't.' `Why don't you leave Rachel alone?' Gideon asked, trying to divert Duke's attention. `Go and bother someone else.'

`Why don't you fuck off?F

'You told me not to move,' Gideon pointed out. `Make up your mind.'

`Oh, funny guy, huh?' Duke said, moving closer. `Laugh a fuckin' minute! I hoped I'd settled you when I trashed your bike the other night!'

`I bounced.'

`You'll do more than bloody bounce when I've finished with you!'

'Ah, you're just sore because I've laid your woman,' Gideon taunted.

'Gideon, don't!' Rachel pleaded. `It's not true, Duncan.'

`Shut up, you little whore! You slept with all my friends when I was away, didn't you? But you were too busy with your precious career to give me the son I wanted!'

`That's not true!' she protested, perilously close to losing control. Pippa put a steadying hand on her arm.

On the other side of the wall beside them, one of the donkeys, disturbed by their voices, noisily began to gather its breath in preparation for braying, and Blackbird's ears snapped forward in astonishment.

Out of the corner of his eye Gideon could see Pippa trying to edge Rachel backwards. Duke saw it too. His knife hand lifted. `I said, stand still!' he hissed.

The donkey completed its build-up and began to trumpet in a wonderfully raucous voice. The glory of it passed Blackbird by completely. He was horrified. It was quite possible he'd never come across a donkey before and certainly nobody had ever explained that it was a close relation. He went into a high-speed reversing manoeuvre, almost pinning Duke against the wall of the milking parlour.

`Hey! Keep that fuckin' animal still!' Duke jumped sideways, ending up alongside the panicking horse.

`I'm doing my best!' Gideon lied through gritted teeth. With his back momentarily to Duke he looked straight at Rachel, mouthed, `Run!' and then, hating to do it, turned and slapped Blackbird hard across the nose with his free hand.

The startled horse whirled away from him, cannoning into Duke with his shoulder, and would have run if Gideon hadn't held determinedly on to the end of his reins. Blackbird was an advantage he was loath to relinquish.

A humed glance over his shoulder served to reassure him that the girls hadn't wasted the opportunity he'd given them and he returned his attention to Duke.

Blackbird had reverted to his reversing strategy, his head high and open mouth spattering gobs of grassy foam as he tried to get away from the human being who had suddenly and inexplicably turned on him.

Behind him, scrabbling on all fours, Duke was desperately trying to get out of range of his trampling, steel-shod hooves and, as he finally made it to his feet, Gideon could see that somewhere along the line he'd lost his grip on the deadly little knife. He sent a prayer of thanks winging upward.

Having evened the odds a little it seemed that the gods were prepared to sit back and watch the fun because Duke took one stride forward and, with a satisfied smirk, retrieved the length of rusty chain from the mud at his feet.

At this point, Blackbird proved to be something of a doubleedged sword. With one full swing of his arm, Duke brought the chain round to strike the black horse hard across the rump. He exploded forward with a grunt of fear and pain, catching Gideon with his shoulder and spinning him into the wall of the barn as he made his escape. The reins were ripped from Gideon's grasp and clods of muddy earth rained down on him and Duke. Fleetingly he hoped that the girls had had time to get well out of Blackbird's way.

He peeled himself painfully off the brickwork to find Duke Shelley regarding him from about half the chain's length away. The expression on his face was not encouraging. Gideon's plan to divert the man's anger from Rachel to himself had succeeded beyond his wildest expectations.

It seemed to be no part of Duke's plan to let Gideon get his breath back. He had barely straightened up when the chain wrapped itself around his shoulders with brutal force, the end flicking up to catch him on the jaw. Instinct made him bring his arms up to try and shield his face, and by the time his brain sent an override it was too late. Although he grabbed at it, the chain was already back out of reach.

`Too slow!' Duke jeered, beginning to swing the chain in a circular motion at his right side. `You big bastards are all the same! Slow and clumsy!' He caught his lower lip in his teeth and swung the chain faster until it hummed through the air.

Gideon eyed it warily.

This time when it came he was ready for it, flinging his left arm upwards to grab it close to Duke's grasp. He wasn't, however, ready for the numbing shock of it catching the bone of his elbow, with the result that, once again, the end lashed round his shoulders with wicked force and then pulled tantalisingly through his nerveless fingers and out of reach.

Duke apparently found the whole thing highly amusing but Gideon found his own sense of humour had taken a sabbatical. His shoulders, even covered as they were with a thick jumper and his stockman's coat, felt extremely sore, and his left arm hung uselessly from the elbow, filled with pins and needles.

Duke began to swing the chain again, an almost demonic grin on his face, and it occurred to Gideon that he was almost certainly high on something. There was a light in his eyes that had little to do with sanity, and his movements were jerky and tense. The realisation was no comfort at all.

`Not so fuckin' cocky now, are you?' Duke observed. `What's the matter? Cat gotcha tongue?'

Somewhere to Gideon's right, probably upset by the fracas, another of the donkeys began to trumpet, joined after a moment by a second and a third, and behind him, over the humming of the chain and his own heavy breathing, Gideon became aware of hoof beats once more. Presumably Blackbird had found no way out and was returning. The sound gave him renewed hope but Duke seemed not to have noticed, so intent was he on his own sadistic satisfaction.

`I did karate at university,' Gideon informed his opponent, in an attempt to keep his attention.

`Ooh, tough guy! Bruce fuckin' Lee!' he sneered. `I'm shakin'.' The chain whirled faster, lifting to cut through the air above Duke like a lasso. A swift vision of the havoc it would wreak if, as obviously intended, it wrapped itself about his head, prompted Gideon to make his move.

`I preferred rugby,' he added conversationally, and had the satisfaction of seeing Duke's right arm falter as the apparent irrelevance of the comment threw him for just a fraction of a second.

Gideon launched himself under the whirling length of rusty metal in a desperate, diving tackle. He caught Duke round the waist and bore him backward and down into the wet grass against the parlour wall. The chain landed with diminished force across Gideon's legs as the breath left his opponent's lungs with a rush.

With thundering hooves and flattened ears, Blackbird swept past them, leaping high into the air to avoid their legs and showering them with mud once again as he galloped on.

Duke shrank back involuntarily and Gideon took advantage of the moment to locate the end of the chain and wrench it from his grasp. He flung it away and reached for a handful of Duke's combat jacket, bracing himself for violent resistance, but Shelley's attention was fixed on something over Gideon's shoulder.

He would have resisted the urge to follow his gaze, had not a sound like a distant roll of thunder intruded on his consciousness. He had to look.

An incredible sight met his eyes. What could best be described as a tidal wave of donkeys was approaching at breakneck speed, jostling one another for space in the narrow passageway.

Duke used Gideon's momentary distraction to pull out of his grasp and scramble out from under him, scampering on all fours for a moment like a chimpanzee before he gained his footing. With a horrified look over his shoulder, he took to his heels.

Gideon decided it was too late to run. He swiftly turned his back upon the approaching stampede and curled himself tightly into a foetal position close to the wall, instinctively protecting his face and stomach like a fallen jockey. There was no time for fear. The donkeys were upon him in an instant, flowing round and over him in a tide of long ears, wide eyes and tiny, stiletto hooves.

The noise was deafening but, incredibly, all but a couple of the little hooves missed him entirely, and those that did hit him caught him only glancing blows. Gideon uncurled in time to see a crowd of furry rumps squeezing round the corner by the pigsties, and then they were gone. He wondered how far Shelley had managed to get.

'Gideon! Are you all right?' Pippa was running towards him in the wake of the donkeys, with Rachel close on her heels, eyes huge in a white face.

`Fine.' He climbed stiffly to his feet. `You'd better wait here, though. I don't know where Duke is.' He began to jog back towards the yard, fervently hoping that Rachel's ex didn't spring out at him. He'd had about enough of fisticuffs for one afternoon.

Rounding the pigsties cautiously, he heard a slithering noise on the tiles above him and saw Duke drop to the ground some ten feet away.

He landed on his feet and swung his head to look at Gideon but was apparently unwilling to take him on without the advantage of a weapon, for he immediately turned and sprinted away across the yard.

Without much expectation of catching him, Gideon ran on, wondering whether the police were on their way, and also where Blackbird and the donkeys would end up if they found their way down the drive to the village.

Ahead of him, Duke had reached the corner of the granary and glanced back over his shoulder to see where Gideon was. As he did so, Giles appeared running from the direction of the farmhouse and launched himself at Duke's legs in a tackle that would have instantly won him a place with the British Lions. He followed it up, however, with a move that would just as quickly have lost him that place.

Gideon jogged up with a wide grin on his face. `Foul!' he declared.

Giles was by now sitting firmly upon his captive, breathing heavily and leaning on one hand which was, in turn, pushing Duke's face uncompromisingly into the mud of the farm track.

Gideon tilted his head on one side, looking down at his erstwhile opponent.

`You know, I'm not sure he can breathe,' he announced after a moment or two.

`How sad,' Giles said lightly, but he relaxed the pressure a little. Duke spat mud and curses, and wriggled violently.

`There's gratitude,' Giles observed, leaning hard once more. `Would this be useful?' Pippa came up behind Gideon, holding out the lead rope from a head collar. Rachel stood some distance away, apparently not yet convinced that Duke was sufficiently contained.

Gideon took the rope, and with Giles' assistance, bound Duke's wrists to his ankles with ruthless efficiency and great enjoyment. They stood back and surveyed their handiwork with satisfaction.

Duke was not nearly so content. He spat some more mud and then let loose an incredible string of verbal abuse, his extensive vocabulary presumably acquired during his army days.

`Oh, for heavensakes!' Pippa exclaimed. She pulled a cotton scarf from around her neck, and kneeling behind him, wrapped it around his face, pulling it into his protesting mouth and knotting it at the back of his head.

Gideon was impressed. `Where did you learn to do that? At catering college?'

`No. At the cinema,' she countered. `You see what you're missing?'

`Obviously.' Gideon turned to give Rachel a reassuring grin. `Come on, we've got him now. Or rather, Giles did.'

`He can't get free again?'

`No.' Giles went towards her and put his arm round her shoulders. `He's trussed up like the proverbial chicken and the police are on their way. They'll have him locked away in no time, I should think.'

`Did he hurt you?' she asked, frowning as she noticed the bruise on his forehead.

`No, I'm fine,' he assured her.

Gideon raised his eyebrows significantly at Pippa. `Who's the

hero now?' he murmured. `By the way, how did the donkeys escape? Did Blackbird crash the gate?'

`No, I let them go. They were milling around in a semi-panic, and I thought if I let them out they might stampede and cause a diversion.'

`They did,' Gideon said heavily. `Unfortunately it was me that was diverted! I'd just got hold of our friend at that point.'

Pippa bit back a giggle. `Oh, I'm sorry! Only I saw Blackbird had deserted you and I thought you might need some help.'

`O, ye of little faith. Was that another of your tricks learned from the films?'

`Well, it always worked for John Wayne,' she told him.

SIXTEEN

IT WAS A GOOD HOUR and a half after the police arrived to relieve them of Duke Shelley that Gideon, Giles, Pippa and Rachel finally arrived back at the Priory in Giles' four-wheeldrive Mercedes.

The police, two officers Gideon had not met before, dealt with the situation with brisk efficiency, releasing Shelley from his makeshift rope bonds and securing him with handcuffs before taking statements from his four weary captors. They were very gentle with Rachel, who looked, and probably was, on the verge of mental exhaustion.

Duncan Shelley was also wanted, one of the policemen told them, on suspicion of involvement in a drugs-related stabbing the night before. Gideon mentioned the knife and a short search turned it up at the scene of the confrontation.