No Holds Barred (5 page)

At around eleven o'clock, with a muzzy headache and feeling slightly sick from the creosote fumes, he made himself a cup of coffee and took it into the front garden to get some fresh air.

Taz, who had been sitting for the most part in the open back of the car, fawned round him and begged for a biscuit from a packet Daniel had bought in the village shop.

Sitting on a bench seat next to the porch, Daniel leaned against the brickwork and half closed his eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun, which, near its zenith, found its way through the trees along the path forged by the road.

His relaxed state was rudely interrupted by Taz who suddenly scrambled to his feet and set up a furious barking, his hackles rising in a tide over his shoulders and along his back. His attention was fixed firmly on the woods on the other side of the lane.

Daniel sat up, putting a hand in Taz's collar to keep him close, and stared intently at the tree line.

Nothing. No movement and nothing that appeared out of place. A word quietened the dog to a low, continuous growl, but his gaze remained focused on the woodland and he strained against his collar. Daniel wondered if Taz could see or hear something that his own limited senses failed to, and considered letting him go to investigate.

He decided against it. After all, he had no real reason to believe that whoever was there was up to no good, and to be cornered by a large German shepherd was a terrifying experience.

The woodland was a mixture of deciduous and conifer trees, and there were probably large quantities of deer, foxes and badgers in its depths, but Daniel discounted these. He knew Taz, and the dog wouldn't have reacted in that way just for wildlife.

Putting his mug down on the doorstep, and still with a firm hold on Taz's collar, he walked down the garden path, through the open picket gateway and across the narrow tarmac lane to the edge of the wood. Here, a brief search turned up nothing to see, but Taz was quite clearly excited by what he could smell, concentrating his interest on the area beside a large oak, where closer inspection found a slight indentation in the leaf mould and a dark stain where dry leaves had been disturbed to reveal the damper layer beneath.

So someone
had
been there, but they were doubtless well on their way now. Had it been the vandals from yesterday, returning to see whether they had achieved their object?

If so, they would have been disappointed, Daniel reflected with grim satisfaction.

‘Good lad,' he said, ruffling the dog's fur. He'd never have found the place without Taz. He took a soft furry toy from his pocket and tossed it to the shepherd. The squeak had long gone, but Taz enjoyed the sensation of mouthing it and it was his reward for a job well done.

Ripping out the floor in the old cottage took far longer than Daniel had anticipated, and by the time he'd piled all the contaminated floorboards and chipboard outside, along with the smashed furniture, the afternoon was well advanced.

Although it was tempting simply to put a match to the whole pile where it sat, the dry conditions and the proximity of the woodland made that course of action nothing short of stupid. The creosote-soaked material was highly flammable and he lit only a small fire, painstakingly adding a little at a time and keeping a close eye on it until he'd burned it all.

By the end of the afternoon, he was bone-weary and his eyes were smarting and red-rimmed from a combination of fumes and smoke. However, the cottage was clean, and as long as he left the windows open for a few days, he felt it was safe to move in. There was hot water aplenty, courtesy of a fairly modern boiler, and Daniel ran a bath and sank into it with the intention of soaking for half an hour or so.

This pleasant plan was foiled after a scant ten minutes when the sound of a vehicle pulling to a halt outside heralded the arrival of Jenny's Land Rover, pulling a trailer piled high with an assortment of items which included, amongst other things, a small leather armchair, a mattress and a coffee table. Daniel greeted her from an upstairs window with a towel wrapped round his waist, the irritation at having his bath interrupted instantly banished by gratitude.

Dressing hastily in a clean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, he helped her unload the trailer, but she turned down his offer of coffee or tea, saying she was due at the hospital again.

‘Come over for supper again?' she suggested.

‘But I've got food in now.'

‘You can't feel much like cooking after doing all this,' she said, looking round at the lounge with its one chair sitting incongruously on the newly exposed flagstones. ‘You must be exhausted.'

Daniel couldn't deny that he was tired. He merely shrugged and pursed his lips.

‘Well, anyway. The offer's there. It's only shepherd's pie, but there's plenty of it, and I thought you might like to look round the stables afterwards. Come and meet the horses.'

Daniel smiled.

‘I would. Shall I come about seven?'

‘Fine.' Jenny went back out to the Land Rover. Settling in the driving seat, she looked at him through the open window. ‘Are you going to be all right here? I mean, it's awfully isolated. I'd hate it on my own.'

‘I'm not on my own, I've got Taz,' he pointed out. ‘But it wouldn't bother me, anyway. I'm used to it.'

‘Don't you have any family? Brothers and sisters, I mean. And what about your parents? Where do they live?'

‘Two brothers and a sister. Simon and Mark work in London. Penny lives just down the road from Mum in Dorset, and I haven't seen my father since I was eight.'

‘Sorry. Am I being nosy?'

‘It's all right.'

‘No, it isn't. I'm dreadful. I'll see you later. Bye.' She turned the Land Rover and trailer in front of the cottage with the ease of long practice and, with a wave to Daniel, disappeared down the lane on her way to visit her husband.

FOUR

A
t a quarter past four the following afternoon, Daniel switched off the engine of the Iveco truck he'd been driving since eight o'clock that morning and leaned back wearily in his seat. It was not that the job differed so very greatly from the one he had been doing in Devon, but the area and the customers were unfamiliar and, in spite of the lorry's satnav, there had been one or two drops that had given him problems. Even so, he had finished his allotted schedule ahead of time, which had to be a good thing.

None of the other five drivers was back as yet and, unsure of the protocol at Summer Haulage, Daniel set about finding a hose and washing his truck down. As the weather had been dry for some days, it wasn't strictly necessary, but in Fred Bowden's depot the lorries were always kept spotless and it had become habit with Daniel, too.

This done, he checked his paperwork, posted it through the office door and let himself into the converted cowshed that now did duty as the drivers' base, with lockers, a shower room and toilet, and a sitting area known as the lounge, with microwave and facilities to make hot drinks.

There he found the television broadcasting to an empty room, presumably left on by someone who had come back at lunchtime. Daniel switched it off and, in the absence of anything else to do, made himself a cup of coffee and settled down to read the local free advertiser, the front page of which featured pictures of a protest rally against a proposed wind farm, followed on page two with a plea for information about a spate of disappearances of family pets in the area and an article bewailing the closure of yet another rural post office.

Shortly after five, he heard footsteps and voices outside, and the door opened to admit two of his fellow drivers. From the introductions earlier that day, he knew that the younger of the two, who was of medium height and build with a shaved head and tattoos on his forearms, was Derek Edwards, known to all and sundry as Dek. He led the way into the room, a half-spent cigarette drooping from his lower lip, and stopped just inside, putting a hand up to halt the man behind, who would have passed him.

‘Well, well, if it isn't the new boy,' he observed. ‘Putting us all to shame with his early finish and his squeaky clean truck. What do you think, Macca? D'you think he's after some brownie points with the boss?'

His companion grunted and pushed past on his way to the kitchen area. Even in the limited time he'd been around the guy, Daniel had gained the impression that Terry ‘Macca' MacAlister was a man of few words. Mind you, he had no need for tough words to bolster his image. Only around five feet eight inches tall, he had a powerful physique, unnaturally bronzed skin and a short fuzz of blonde hair on his scalp. His flattened nose and one cauliflower ear bore witness to an earlier career in boxing, and now, in his early forties, he spent much of his spare time coaching the local youth, according to Jenny.

Edwards sauntered closer to Daniel.

‘You're wasting your time if you're trying to impress Taylor,' he warned, in a voice that carried an indeterminate northern accent. ‘Or perhaps it's the little lady you're trying to win over, is that it?'

Daniel, who had returned his attention to the newspaper after seeing who had come in, continued to ignore him.

‘Is it?' Edwards repeated loudly, and his aggressive stance brought Taz out from under the coffee table, grumbling under his breath.

‘I'm sorry, were you talking to me?' Daniel asked pleasantly.

The other man bristled, looking to his companion for support, but Macca was helping himself to a cup of tea and plainly not interested, so Edwards contented himself with making a short, derisive hissing noise and switching the television on once again on his way to the lockers.

Full of hot air, Daniel thought to himself, but a troublemaker nonetheless.

The next five minutes brought Taylor Boyd himself, closely followed by the youngest member of the team – an unprepossessing twenty-one-year-old who had yet to grow into his six-foot frame. His light brown hair was also shaved short, perhaps in an attempt to conform with the tougher element of the Summer Haulage crew, but, with a thin, bony face and rather weak blue eyes, all it did was emphasize his youth. Dean Stevens, who Edwards invariably referred to as Deano, was a deeply insecure and unhappy young man, desperate to fit in with his older colleagues. In Daniel's opinion, he would do far better to forge a path of his own, but it would be pointless to tell him that.

‘You didn't give the new boy enough work to do,' Edwards remarked, taking up a position on the opposite sofa to Daniel. ‘He was sitting here taking it easy when we got back.'

‘No sense giving him too much for the first couple of days,' Boyd observed. ‘Got to find his way around. Everything OK?' he added to Daniel. ‘Paperwork done?'

‘It's in the office.'

‘Good. I wish bloody Reg was as on the ball. Where the hell's the old duffer got to?'

‘Traffic, maybe,' Daniel suggested. On first meeting, Reg had seemed a likeable enough sort, and he remembered Jenny's conviction that Boyd wanted rid of him.

‘I gave him an easy round, too,' Boyd grumbled on. ‘I'll have a tea, Deano – when you've finished faffing about with that kettle.'

After Daniel's tour of the livery yard the previous evening, Jenny had taken him to see her pride and joy, a purebred American Quarter Horse mare with a foal at foot.

‘Quarter Horse?' It was a new breed to Daniel.

‘They were originally bred as stock horses to work cattle, and the cowboys would race them on their days off, up and down the main street of their local town. Because of the work they did, they were well muscled and very fast over short distances – specifically a quarter of a mile, hence the name – and eventually what started as a type of horse was developed into a breed. The Quarter Horse is actually faster over its own distance than a thoroughbred.'

‘I can see what you mean by well muscled,' Daniel said. ‘Even the foal looks like a bodybuilder! And the other one, is he a Quarter Horse, too?'

The mare and foal were wandering over now, followed by a smallish dark-chestnut gelding with a kindly eye.

‘Yes, that's Piper. He and I go way back. It was him that got me started on Quarter Horses. He's fifteen now and getting a bit fat and lazy because I don't get time to ride him at the moment. Sue takes him out for me occasionally, but she's got her own horse to exercise.'

‘I could take him out for you,' Daniel suggested, stroking Piper's velvety muzzle over the fence. ‘I'd love to if you thought I could manage him. I used to ride a fair bit as a kid, and I imagine he's well up to my weight.'

‘Lord, yes! He's as strong as an ox.' Jenny turned to look at Daniel. ‘Do you mean it? And I'd have no worries about you managing him – he's pretty easy. Actually, that'd be brilliant. Take him out after work sometime and see how you get on.'

With this invitation in mind and the prospect of a lovely warm evening ahead of him, Daniel waited until his fellow drivers had gone home and then made his way through the farmyard and on down to the stables. Jenny had promised that Piper would be in one of the spare stables waiting for him if he decided to ride, and, sure enough, he was, contentedly munching sweet-smelling hay from a haynet.

Perched on the half-door of the adjacent empty stable was a large American stock saddle, familiar to Daniel from the endless Westerns of his youth, and his mouth curved into a slow smile. He'd always fancied trying Western riding.

‘Want any help?' a voice enquired, and he turned to see a wiry, tanned, blonde-haired woman who looked to be in her late thirties, dressed in navy jodhpurs and a pale pink T-shirt. ‘Hi, I'm Sue. Jenny told me you might drop by to try Piper.'

‘Hi. Yes, I might need a hand. I've never put a cowboy saddle on before and the bridle looks different.'

‘That's a bosal – a kind of bitless bridle. It just slips over his nose.' Sue lifted the collection of rope and leather off its hook and went into the stable, pushing Piper backwards with one lean brown hand on his chest. ‘The saddle is easy enough; saddle pad, blanket and then saddle on top. The cinch does up a little like a necktie. I'll show you.'