Cut Throat (24 page)

Leo had staggered back to the far wall with one hand clasped to the side of his head. When he saw Ross approaching he abandoned self-pity and, glancing round, snatched up a shovel.

Ross halted abruptly, a little over six feet from Leo, painfully aware of the inadequacy of his own weapon.

‘Not a man to rub up the wrong way,' McKinnon had warned. Ross guessed he could count Leo well and truly ‘rubbed'. Somehow the thought failed to amuse him. Fights he had had before, and plenty, but never to his knowledge had he faced anyone so intent on doing him serious physical harm.

To try and even out his disadvantage in terms of weaponry, Ross took the initiative. Swinging wildly at Leo's head once more, he let go of the headcollar and tried to grab the shovel instead.

It was a good plan as far as it went but unfortunately it didn't work. Leo dodged the headcollar and swung the shovel at Ross' head.

Because his wild lunge had closed the gap, Ross took most of the force of the blow on his shoulder before it glanced off and grazed his cheekbone. Undeterred, he reached for the shovel.

And missed.

Leo evaded his outstretched arm and hammered the back of the implement, with sickening force, into Ross' bad knee. With no further encouragement it gave way beneath him and he found himself with a worm's-eye view of the Victorian brick floor.

A blurred white object, coming to a halt not four inches from his nose, proved to be one of Leo's trainers, and with an undimmed instinct for survival, Ross rolled away and got to his feet.

At least, that was his intention. In reality he got no further than a half-crouch before collapsing again. He grasped his leg above the injured knee as if by pressure alone he could dim the searing pain.

Leo chuckled and, exhibiting a promising talent for sadism, put his foot none too gently on the ankle of the damaged leg.

Ross swore and made a grab for him, but he skipped lightly back out of reach, still laughing.

Ross was powerless. He couldn't stand and he knew any efforts he made to crawl or scramble would be given short shrift. He watched as Leo selected another pitchfork from the tools hanging in tidy rows at the back of the store. Slowly he came round in front of Ross, away from the wall, his back to the open corridor. He laughed again, enjoying the moment.

Ross watched him come, wondering with a strange detachment if Leo actually meant to kill him. The situation seemed unreal. It was midday, for goodness' sake!
Anybody
could come.

Ross swallowed, his gaze steady on Leo's dark face.

Slowly the malicious grin faded.

‘Aren't you scared, Yank?' Leo hissed. ‘Don't you think I'd do it?' The pitchfork jabbed at the air, inches from his face.

Christ! Ross thought. I believe you, you evil bastard! I only wish I didn't.

He was lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, and he could feel the sweat running down his back under his tee-shirt. His fascinated gaze didn't waver from the lethal, shiny tines of the fork.

‘This time your effing dog isn't here to save you,' Leo sneered. ‘I locked him in the office. It's just you and me, Yank, and soon it'll be just me.' He peered at the American, wanting a reaction. The pitchfork was almost touching Ross' face now. ‘Aren't you going to beg? Try an' talk me out of it?'

If Ross had thought it would do any good, he would gladly have tried. As it was, he didn't bother. At least that way he kept his pride intact.

‘Fuck you, Yank!' Leo snarled, and suddenly the threatening tines faltered and dropped. Ross' heart jumped heavily, painfully, acceptance making way for hope. Apparently Leo wasn't beyond thought. Much as he might have liked to murder Ross, it must have been obvious to him that he couldn't hope to get away with it.

Leo turned away and as he did so, Ross caught sight of a familiar, cream-suited figure in the corridor beyond. Leo saw him and raised the fork again just as Ross opened his mouth to shout a warning.

Any warning would have been aeons too late.

From his lowly position, Ross couldn't clearly see what followed. Leo stepped forward, brandishing the pitchfork menacingly, and then appeared to trip, his legs shooting from under him, and landed unceremoniously on the brickwork just feet from Ross. His head connected with the floor with an audible crack and he took no further interest in the proceedings.

Ross looked across to where he lay, eyes peacefully closed, and thought he had never looked better. With a sigh he transferred his gaze to Roland who stood holding the pitchfork in his immaculately manicured hands, wearing a slightly comical expression of surprise on his face.

‘Well, I don't know how you did that, but – thanks,' Ross said gratefully.

‘This old brickwork is treacherous,' Roland observed. ‘I always said someone would do themselves an injury on it one day.'

‘Yeah,' Ross said dryly. ‘Well, thanks anyway.'

Roland propped the fork up against the wall and regarded Ross with interest. ‘I say, are you all right?'

‘Oh, sure, I like it down here,' Ross said, pain and exasperation lending sharpness to his tone. Why the hell couldn't the man drop the charade once in a while?

‘Well, I should get up if I were you,' Roland advised. ‘You'll get frightfully dirty.'

Ross was afraid that if he got up he'd almost certainly fall straight back down again and he didn't think he could handle that. Eyebrows raised, he held up a hand.

Roland's grip was firm, and he hauled Ross to his feet virtually effortlessly. Ross caught at his cream-suited arm with his free hand while he hopped and got his balance.

Roland watched his face.

‘Is it your knee?' he asked.

Ross nodded. ‘The bastard went for it on purpose,' he said through gritted teeth.

Roland grunted. ‘No sense of fair play, the lower classes.'

Ross let go of Roland's arm and put his left foot experimentally to the floor. Pain lanced through his knee, up to his hip and down to his ankle. He paused, biting his lip, and then tried a little weight on it.

It was pretty sore but it didn't give way, which was encouraging. It meant that probably the damage was limited. No bones broken.

He looked up, catching for an instant an unreadable expression on Roland's usually bland face. Then the mask returned.

‘What are we going to do with . . .?' Ross gestured at Leo's prostrate form.

‘Oh, I expect he'll be all right,' Roland said airily. ‘He'll probably have a nasty headache, though. What did you do to upset him?'

‘I hit him.' Ross told him briefly what had happened in the run-up to the confrontation. ‘He was intent on making trouble. I don't know whether he was drunk or something . . .'

‘Shouldn't be surprised,' Roland said. ‘But the thing is, what do you want to do about it? Do you want to press charges? Attempted arson? Assault? Carrying a dangerous weapon? Do you want to call the police? Take it to court?'

Ross shook his head wearily. In a way it could be said that he had started it by hitting Leo. ‘I just want to see the back of him,' he said with feeling. ‘As soon as possible.'

Roland nodded. ‘Then I suggest we get him back on his feet and send him on his way,' he said. ‘I'll see to that. If I were you I'd go and put some ice on that knee. And on your face, for that matter.'

Surprised, Ross put an exploratory hand up to his face. His cheekbone felt bruised and tender and his fingers came away sticky with blood. He sighed.

Roland grimaced. ‘Nasty business, fighting. Barbaric!' he said with a theatrical shudder. ‘Bruised knuckles and bloody noses. So messy!'

Ross regarded the enigmatic Englishman for a moment, finding him apparently in earnest, and then, shaking his head, limped heavily out into the corridor, pausing briefly to look back at Roland, who waved him on.

Glad to leave Leo in his deceptively competent hands, Ross carried on. Encouragingly, the further he went, the less he felt his leg was in imminent danger of collapse, though he couldn't say it became any more comfortable.

In the doorway to the yard he met both Bill Scott and the dog.

‘You haven't fed the horses,' the stable manager said accusingly, then noticed Ross' face. ‘What the . . . ?'

‘I cut myself shaving,' Ross said facetiously.

Bill looked bewildered.

‘Leo,' Ross told him, ‘has outstayed his welcome.'

Bill frowned at the American. ‘
He
did that? Well, I'm not surprised. You always were determined to pick a quarrel with him, weren't you?'

This gross unfairness hit Ross like a punch under the ribs. He looked bleakly at Bill. ‘Yeah, can't think why it took me so long,' he said.

Three-quarters of an hour, two ice packs, a bandage and a handful of painkillers later, Ross emerged from the cottage to see Leo strapping his possessions on to his motorbike.

Aside from his customary thunderous scowl, his saturnine features also sported a rapidly purpling bruise, courtesy of his contact with the toolstore floor. His hair and clothing looked suspiciously damp and it required little imagination to work out how Roland had restored him to consciousness.

At that moment, Leo looked up and caught sight of Ross. He let loose a string of adjectives, which fell a long way short of being complimentary, but made no move towards the American.

Ross regarded him calmly, feeling no real animosity, rather a sort of bewilderment.

What on earth made some men so needlessly aggressive? He compared Leo's unbridled violence with Roland's controlled force. Something prodded his memory back to the night of the prowler's visit. His assailant then had dispensed physical power with the same brand of cool efficiency the Colonel's son had just displayed with Leo. It seemed unbelievable that his upper-class-twit act could conceal a decisive mind and lightning reflexes, but then, Ross had long suspected that it concealed something – Lindsay had hinted as much – and the man
had
been in the army.

Whose side was he on now? Ross wondered. If it
had
been him that night, why hadn't he come forward when Ross challenged him? He must have recognised Ross by his accent. What legitimate reason could he possibly have had for sneaking round the stables after dark?

As Leo strapped the last of his belongings into place, Roland and Bill came out of the tackroom and across the yard towards Ross. Without further ado, Leo stood astride the bike and kicked it into life.

Ross moved a little closer to the cottage wall. He had no illusions concerning Leo's apparent capitulation. It would be very much his style to try and run Ross down on his way out, and in his current state, Ross felt he would probably succeed.

Leo swung the bike round in a sweeping curve and paused beside the American just as Bill and Roland reached him. His head was bare, his helmet looped over his wrist, and if looks could kill, Ross would have been cremated on the spot.

Leo transferred his attention to Bill Scott. He had a triumphant gleam in his eye that afforded the American a sudden stab of unease. He guessed then that Leo had engineered the whole series of events – up to the point where Roland had joined the game – even if he hadn't intended the violence to escalate in quite the way it had. Nevertheless, he had expected, and wanted, to be summarily dismissed. His suspicions were confirmed with Leo's first words.

‘I was going to leave anyway,' he stated, his sneer even more marked than usual. ‘I don't want your stinking job any more! I've had enough of working with a cripple whose nerves are shot! Nobody can make it big when he hits the bottle like your American wonder-boy here.'

Bill was staring intently at Leo.

He's taking it all in, damn him! Ross thought. The Colonel will get it all, word for word.

Leo hadn't finished. His voice rose to a shout to combat the noise of his motorbike as he revved it up.

‘Didn't you wonder why he never went out? He didn't need to. He's got his own cache of whisky in his room. Some nights he's so far gone he can't even find his way to the bathroom! I wouldn't let him ride a fucking rocking horse!'

Having delivered his parting shot, he released the clutch and with a spurt of gravel, roared out of the yard and away up the lane. As the noise of the engine died away, the three remaining men stood in uncomfortable silence.

‘Well?' Bill demanded. ‘Is that true?'

Ross stared bleakly at the middle button on Bill's shirt, searching desperately for a way to make the truth sound convincing; but he knew it would sound like a feeble excuse to a man who was more than halfway to condemning him already. How to say that the whisky was purely medicinal? It sounded as lame as hell.

‘You're going to take his word for it?' he asked bitterly. ‘You've never seen me drunk, have you?'

‘Perhaps I should have looked closer,' Bill retorted.

‘I get the feeling it won't make any difference what I say,' Ross suggested softly.

Bill snorted in disgust. ‘I knew it! I knew this would happen! I told the Colonel as much when he first mentioned you. You can't come back from something like that. It never works.' With a final scathing look at Ross, he turned and stomped away.

Ross watched him go and sighed gustily.

Roland slapped him on his bruised shoulder.

‘Never mind, old boy. Life goes on,' he observed brightly.

Ross regarded him wearily, considering this fatuous, even by Roland's idiotic standards. He began to wonder if his earlier assumptions about the man's hidden depths weren't perhaps mistaken.