BLINDFOLD (4 page)

'Gideon Blake, witchdoctor and animal tamer extraordinaire!' Pippa teased him. `Your reputation precedes you.'

`I wonder if anyone's reported a stallion missing,' Gideon said, ignoring her. `Perhaps I will contact the police, after all.'

`But surely the stallion could have come from anywhere? It may not have been local.'

Gideon shook his head. `If it was stolen - and that's the only reason I can think of for all the deadly secrecy and the strong-arm tactics - then they wouldn't want it on their hands for very long, especially a half-wild creature like that one. No, they were in pretty much of a hurry. Why else would they take the risk of abducting me? I mean, given time the stallion would have calmed down of its own accord and they could've caught it with a bucketful of food.'

`You said the boss chap kept saying they'd been there too long, as well,' Giles pointed out. `So you can bet they didn't own the place. It must've been an empty barn or something. Maybe up for sale.'

Pippa shivered. `If that horse had attacked you, I bet they'd just have left you there. You might not've been found for weeks.'

`Thanks for that,' Gideon retorted. He'd skipped some of the details concerning the capture of the horse, for his own comfort, but it would be a long time before the deep bruising in his shoulder would let him forget.

' `Well, I just think you should tell the police and let them deal with it. It's their job, after all.'

`I wonder why they wouldn't let you take the blindfold off after you got there,' Giles pondered. `I mean, it's not likely you'd recognise the inside of a barn, is it?'

They had reached the yard and were sitting variously on the stone mounting block and the hitching rail, enjoying the last of the sun.

`Maybe they thought he'd recognise one of the people. Or the horse,' Pippa suggested, drawn into the mystery again despite herself.

Gideon shook his head. `I'm pretty sure I didn't know the horse,' he stated. `I don't think it's one I've worked with.' Pippa squinted at him against the sunlight. `How can you be sure with a blindfold on?'

`I don't know,' Gideon said. `I can't explain it. It's just a feeling.'

`The people, then.'

Gideon shrugged. `Who knows? I've certainly never met Curly

and his pal before.' He paused reflectively. `I wouldn't mind meeting them again though, in the right circumstances.'

`If you go looking, give me a call,' Giles said, a martial light in his eye.

Pippa groaned, rolling her eyes heavenwards. `Oh, God, give me strength! This isn't a game, you know. These people are criminals. Leave it to the police.'

`Okay, Pips,' Gideon said fondly, sliding off the hitching rail. `Well, I'd better be on my way if I'm going to tell my sad tale to Her Majesty's Finest.'

`And get that cut stitched,' Pippa advised as they walked towards his motorbike. `Have you had an anti-tet?'

`Yes, Mother,' Gideon said gravely. `And I've washed behind my ears, too.'

`Well, you men, you need looking after! You're like overgrown school kids.'

`Ouch, she's got a sharp tongue, that one! You want to get her married off before she turns into a harridan or else you'll be stuck with her,' he warned Giles.

The gathering broke up in a welter of insults and Gideon was still chuckling as he rode home.

The following day, with no urgent business to pursue, no appointments, and no particular desire to paint for painting's sake, Gideon found himself on the Norton, bound approximately north and west.

It wasn't really a conscious decision. He'd felt like taking the bike out, having a vague notion that he might buy some replacement boots, and somewhere along the line the idea of discovering the whereabouts of the infamous barn had suggested itself.

Recalling the direction and the first few turnings the van had taken, he knew roughly which way to start out, and an estimate of speed and the duration of the journey combined to give him an idea of the probable radius. It was worth a try, he thought.

When he'd called the local police in Blandford the previous evening, they had asked Gideon to go in to the station to give a statement and reluctantly he'd obliged.

Once there, it had been several minutes before he could convince the duty officer that his complaint had nothing to do with a brawl between two motorcycle gangs which had apparently shattered the peace in Blandford the night before. He supposed it was understandable, especially with his battered face, but no less annoying for all that. So many people took one look at his longish blond hair, jeans and motorbike gear, and labelled him Trouble. He'd even been refused service in pubs before now. He knew he'd cause less consternation if he had his hair cut but something inside him rebelled at the idea of giving in to the pressure of unfair pigeonholing.

The officers to whom he had eventually related his experiences were polite but a little sceptical, and Gideon was left with the feeling that they suspected him of knowing more than he was saying.

He wished he did.

His grievance duly recorded, he was told that somebody would be out to inspect the scene of the kidnap within the next day or two, depending on when they could be spared. There was apparently a shortage of manpower due to policing a band of protesters at a bypass construction site.

He had called in at the local surgery to have the cut over his eye seen to and ridden home wondering if anything would actually be done about his report or whether he would be filed away in some dark corner and forgotten about.

Now though, with Giles' suggestion in mind, he decided to begin his search by checking estate agents' offices in the towns which fell close to the radial line he had drawn on his map of Wessex. The three most likely seemed to be Shaftesbury, Sherborne and Chilminster, and for no particular reason other than that he liked Chilminster, he headed there first.

The town was host to a veritable rash of estate agents, each of which seemed to have several dysfunctional farms on its books, due partly, he was told, to the collapse of the market for British beef. One or two of these were duplicated and not all were completely untenanted. Gideon narrowed his search down to five, and just three he considered remote enough to be possible candidates.

In the last estate agent's it occurred to him to ask whether they'd had any other people asking for the same specifications that he had. He was told politely that there was a good deal of interest in all of their agricultural properties - which Gideon doubted, given the reason for their sale in the first place - but that naturally they could not divulge any details about prospective clients.

`Naturally,' he agreed, and departed the office with a handful of paperwork on the three short-listed farms. He had gone less than twenty paces when he heard the tap-tapping of rapidly approaching stilettos and a breathless voice just behind him said `Hey, Mister!'

He turned. A small, titian-haired female stood beside him, the top of her carefully tousled head barely reaching his shoulder. He vaguely recalled seeing her at a comer desk in the estate agent's he had just left.

`I heard you asking about the farms and if anyone else wanted to know about them,' she announced, looking up at him with more than a hint of flirtatious admiration in her eyes. `There was a man, last week. Mr Wilkins was with him for ages. He said he had ready money and was in a hurry to buy. Mr Wilkins was all over him like a rash! You could see the pound signs in his eyes, the silly bugger! That bloke wasn't any more interested in buying than you are. Any idiot could see that!'

`How could you tell, Miss ... er ... ?' 'Debbie.'

`Debbie. What made you think that?'

`Women's intuition,' she said archly, then as Gideon showed his scepticism, `Nah, just kiddin' you. I was brought up on a farm - you wouldn't think it, would you?'

Gideon shook his head obligingly, showing the requisite surprise.

`Well, I was, and this bloke asked all the wrong questions. I mean, he didn't ask anything about acreage, milk quotas or crop yields to start with. All he really wanted to know was how close the nearest houses were and whether it had a barn and outbuildings. I ask you, it was obvious what he wanted it for, wasn't it?'

`Was it?' Genuine surprise this time.

`Yeah. Where've you been hiding? He wanted to put on a rave, didn't he?' Debbie nodded knowingly. `You know: music, drink, drugs, the works. I told the boss that's what he was up to and he just told me to mind my own business. Treats me like shit, he does!'

Gideon made a sympathetic face. `Can you remember what this man looked like, Debbie? It'd be a great help.'

She put her head on one side. `Are you a cop?' she asked curiously.

`Not exactly.'

`A private investigator!' she said eagerly.

Gideon began to see that a white lie or two might be in his best interests.

`Sort of. But I'd rather you didn't tell anyone . . .'

An emphatic shake of the head. `On my honour,' she promised. Gideon was uncharitably glad he didn't have to rely on that. `What happened to your face? Did someone beat you up to warn you off?' Debbie asked, her eyes shining with bloodthirsty relish.

`No. I walked into a door,' he said dampeningly. `Now, what can you tell me?'

Debbie thought it would be a good idea if they went somewhere quiet to talk, in the best detective tradition, and Gideon found himself buying her lunch in one of the town's smarter pubs. She made the most of the opportunity, displaying a hearty appetite and expensive tastes.

Afterwards, having failed to entrap him into taking her out that night, Debbie returned to the tyrannical Mr Wilkins, leaving Gideon to a bitter-shandy and his thoughts.

Debbie's memory of the other interested party had in the event been rather vague, and much of that recalled only under fairly extensive prompting from Gideon. The result was a description that could really have been applied to any number of people at present in the pub.

The man had apparently been of medium height and fairly stocky build. She had said at first that he was quite old, but when pressed said maybe about forty, which in view of his own age, Gideon found rather sobering. He had had dark, greying hair, no particular accent that she could remember, and had been wearing jeans, a waxed jacket and a flat cap. Standard country issue.

Gideon gazed contemplatively at the subsiding froth on his shandy. The description might be of some use if he had any idea where to start looking for the man. It was not, of course, certain that the person looking for a remote farm with a large barn was the same one who'd ordered Gideon's kidnap, but it was a sizeable coincidence, if not.

Back on the Norton, some ten minutes later, Gideon found himself debating the wisdom of taking his fledgling detective work any further.

On a purely emotional level he was furious that he should have been manipulated entirely against his will by a bunch of complete strangers and then told to forget it ever happened. Common sense, on the other hand, dictated firmly that he should swallow his wounded pride, be glad he had come out of it relatively unscathed, and let well enough alone.

In the end he convinced himself that just taking a look at the three farms was unlikely to land him in any further trouble. The bad guys were almost certainly long gone, and the most he would find would be evidence of their passing, in the shape of a few hoofpnnts and maybe a tyre-track or two if the frozen ground had yielded any.

In the event, there were no tyre-tracks. At the second farm he tried, he found the door to the barn at the end of the yard had

been forced and the trodden earth floor inside bore evidence of recent disturbance.

It was strange, seeing the interior of the barn for real. Unconsciously he had built up an impression of what it was like, and what instantly struck him was the size of the place. Even though he'd been told its approximate dimensions, he'd imagined the barn so much bigger. The area the stallion had been running in was bounded on three sides by wooden walls sitting on a metre or so of brickwork, and on the other by the rails of three, square livestock pens.

Gideon wandered into the centre of the open area and crouched to inspect the hoofprints.

The imprints were fairly small for a seventeen-hand horse, indicating that it was probably a well-bred animal, but they had no other distinguishing features except for the absence of shoes. A young horse, perhaps, not yet broken to ride?

Here and there he could make out his own boot prints. He could see where he had stood and allowed the horse to come to him. Custer's last stand, he thought wryly. And it could so easily have been just that.

In spite of the very real fear though, the episode had given him a kind of buzz. He found himself able to relate to most horses on one level or another, mainly by way of mutual interpretation of body language, but just occasionally he came across one that was exceptional. He had described it to Pippa once as like tuning in a radio. Sometimes, no matter how you turn the dial, no matter which way the aerial is pointing, reception is poor, a series of crackles and half-heard words that you have to guess at. Then, another time, feeling your way through the frequencies, you hit it right and the signal comes through sharp and crystal clear. It was rare in Gideon's experience but this was such a horse, and the memory stirred excitement in his veins.

He wondered if the blindfold had played any part in clearing a path to the animal's consciousness. Perhaps, like blinkers on a racehorse, it had ruled out distractions and allowed him to concentrate his mind fully on the stallion.

He realised he was still crouching, making patterns in the dirt with his finger, and straightened up to turn his attention to the railed pens.

One of these bore evidence of recent occupancy in the shape of more hoofpnnts and two or three scattered and trampled piles of dung. Frowning, Gideon bent once more to inspect the prints. These presumably belonged to the mare that the Guv'nor and his pals had brought along to receive the services of the stallion. Her hooves too were unshod - not unusual in a broodmare that isn't being ridden at all - but what was surprising was the size. They were far bigger than the stallion's and much rounder.