BLINDFOLD (17 page)

Milne nodded. `Go ahead.'

The painting was in oils and depicted a Spanish fiesta. Horses, dark-haired girls in bright, flounced skirts, and proud young men in wide-brimmed hats and red sashes, all dappled by sunlight filtering through the branches of an avenue of trees. The style was

Impressionist and the effect dynamic. Gideon could almost hear the flamenco guitars and the clopping of horses' hooves on the cobbles, and yet when he looked closely there was no detail at all, merely suggestion.

Milne was watching him for a reaction. `I spent the summer in Andalucia last year,' he said.

`Is it finished?' Gideon asked; the eternal question with which most artists tortured themselves. Would that one more touch of the brush turn the thing into a masterpiece, or take it to irretrievable ruin?

`I'm not sure,' Milne mused, frowning slightly. `What do you think?'

Gideon looked at it again. `I'd say so. It's not a style I've ever been very successful with. I always try to do too much. It takes courage to stand back and leave it alone.'

`D'you like it?'

`It's beautiful,' Gideon said simply. He had come prepared to flatter for the sake of his mission but found he had no need to do so.

`It's well enough,' Milne said with a shrug. `I shan't know until I come back to it whether it's finished or not. I cover them up for a couple of weeks and then look at them again with fresh eyes. Sometimes then you can see properly what has been staring you in the face for days.'

`You're so right,' Gideon said. `Sometimes when I see pictures I've done for people in the past, it's as much as I can do not to say "let me have it back, I can see where I went wrong now".'

He wandered across to the next easel which held a portrait of a small child in a party dress, sitting with her arm round a spaniel. It was beautifully crafted but a little sugary for Gideon's taste.

Milne came up to stand beside him. `We all have to eat,' he stated without apology. `This is the bread and butter that makes the jam possible.'

`Andalucia?'

`Yes. Andalucia. And this year, Normandy.'

`I envy you,' Gideon said honestly.

He looked at several more of the paintings, enjoying both them and the company of their creator a lot more than he had expected to.

After twenty minutes or so, Milne summoned the longsuffering Renson by means of what appeared to be the original household bell system, left over from its Georgian beginnings. When he arrived, he was immediately despatched to fetch coffee and biscuits.

The barely concealed surprise evident as he received this command confirmed Gideon's impression that guests were rarely welcomed to Lyddon Grange. He had a feeling that Renson had been expecting to escort him out rather than fetch refreshments for him. And he was quite sure which task the man would have preferred. Gideon favoured him with a particularly sweet smile as he left the room.

Milne was eager to continue their interrupted discussion on the relative merits of board and canvas, but recalling the reason for his visit, Gideon drifted over to one of the windows. Below him rough-cut lawns and rhododendrons covered the fifty metres or so to the tree-lined boundary, beyond which he could see the Sanctuary's field and the back of the stables.

`You've certainly got a nice position here,' he remarked into a slow spot in the rather one-sided debate. `How far does your land extend?'

Milne was rather taken aback by this sudden change of subject. `Oh, there's fifteen or so acres. I don't go out there much, it's always too damned- cold and there's nothing to paint.'

`It's wonderfully quiet and secluded here. No bother from road noise or neighbours, I should imagine.'

`I must have it quiet. I can't concentrate with noise going on around me.' Milne frowned at the very thought.

,I expect Slade takes care of all that.'

'Slade takes care of everything. I don't know how I'd manage without him,' he said with a surprising degree of warmth.

`Still, you'd hardly know the wildlife sanctuary existed from here, would you?' Gideon probed gently. `I shouldn't think you'd hear anything of them at all.'

Milne's bushy brows were beginning to lower again. `Well, they're only rabbits and things, aren't they? Though why anyone would want to bother with vermin like that is beyond me entirely. Look, I didn't ask you here to admire the view. If you want to do that, I'll get Renson to give you a guided tour of the gardens!'

Gideon turned away from the window. He'd learned little or nothing but had obviously pushed as far as he could without arousing suspicion. `I'm sorry,' he said. `I'm not really into gardens, it just seems such a lovely haven for an artist.'

`That,' Milne explained, much as you would to a backward child, `is precisely why I bought it.'

`How long have you been here?'

`Oh, forty - fifty years, I forget exactly. I bought it after my first London exhibition, soon after the war. It'd been used by the army as an intelligence HQ or somesuch.' He waved a hand at Gideon. `And you, Mr Blake? Where do you live? One of these horrid, modern, two up-two down places, I suppose.'

`Three up-three down, actually. But sixteenth-century, not twentieth.'

Milne grunted. `Yours?'

`No,' Gideon admitted wryly. `I haven't had my first London exhibition yet.'

The older man favoured him with a long, hard look, eyes narrowed. `Are you laughing at me?' he asked abruptly.

`At life.'

Once again the look, then, `Where's that wretched man got to?' and an imperious prod at the bell push.

Coffee and a selection of chocolate biscuits duly arrived, were dispensed and enjoyed, and after another in-depth discussion on technical matters that were, quite frankly, beyond Gideon, Milne decided that the audience was over and Renson was summoned to show the visitor out.

As Gideon left he paused beside a handsome seascape hung on the wall opposite the studio door.

`I like that. One of yours?'

`No, no, of course not! It's a William Templeman. There's another one downstairs. If you come again I'll show you,' Milne offered. `I don't buy a lot; mostly only if there's a danger of something decent being sold abroad. I can't abide the thought of classic British art being hung in foreign galleries. The Americans especially have no real appreciation, they're just acquisitive. You're too young to have heard of Darius Sinclair, I suppose?'

Gideon shook his head. `Actually, no. My mother's the proud owner of two small charcoal sketches by Sinclair.'

`Then you're probably aware that the Americans would have made off with the major part of his life's work if they'd had their way, the thieving magpies! And for what? For status, that's all. Philistines!'

`Some other thieving magpie got that collection, if I remember rightly,' Gideon observed. His mother had kept the newspaper cuttings in a scrapbook. A number of very highly rated oils and watercolours by Darius Sinclair, stolen while in transit to the auction rooms.

`Yes, well, that's as maybe.' Milne pursed his lips. `Anyway, when I can afford to, I buy one or two pieces destined for export, and when I die they'll be gifted to the nation.'

Gideon smiled as he shook the man's gnarled brown hand. Rude and intolerant Milne might be; even so, you couldn't help admiring his dedication.

At the foot of the stairs, closely followed by the sullen Renson, Gideon came face to face with a man he hadn't met before, but needed no introduction to tell him that this must be the infamous Slade.

Of no more than average height and build, he nevertheless filled the gloomy hallway with his presence. Maybe ten years or so older than Gideon, Slade had dark hair flecked with silver, and steel-grey eyes in a strong-featured, deeply tanned face, the whole giving an impression of latent power and determination.

`What the hell are you doing here?' were his opening words, and Gideon was slightly taken aback.

`I was invited,' he replied. `What business is it of yours?' Beside him, Renson drew an audible breath.

`Is that true?' Slade demanded of Gideon's escort, who shrugged unhappily but didn't answer. Slade obviously hadn't expected him to, for he continued with barely a pause, `Well, don't just stand there like an idiot, show him out!'

Whereas Milne snapped and shouted, Slade's voice was low and controlled but with an underlying air of menace that spoke volumes. Gideon was reminded of his sister's description of the man: `Smooth. Like a dangerous snake, beautiful but deadly.'

He felt she was probably right. He was certainly handsome: white teeth, expensive haircut, and clothes that needed no labels to advertise their designer credentials. Also, maybe as a statement of personal toughness, a gold earring in one ear.

Meredith Milne must be a more generous employer than one would imagine, Gideon mused. But then to a man who wanted the world kept from his door, Slade would presumably be worth his weight in gold earrings and designer suits.

He allowed himself to be ushered to the front door where he paused on the threshold. `Nice to meet you, Mr ... er ... ?' 'Slade.'

`Mr Slade, of course. Well, I expect I shall see you again. Meredith said to drop in any time. 'Bye for now.'

Gideon turned his back on Slade with satisfaction. He and Milne had certainly not reached first-name terms but for some reason his presence in the house had put Slade out, and some spark of contrariness made him want to punish the man for his rudeness.

It wasn't until he was aboard the Norton and halfway down the drive that he remembered that Slade hadn't asked `Who the hell are you?' as one might expect, but `What the hell are you doing here?' And yet he'd never met the man before.

Had Slade seen him that day from the helicopter? Whatever the case, it seemed probable that Joey had warned him of Gideon's interest in the Sanctuary. It looked almost as though Slade was the driving force behind the campaign against Tim and Naomi, as Milne appeared to have little interest in his neighbours, either for or against. But what possible reason could Slade have for driving them off their land?

With a sigh, he went to report his lack of progress to Tim and Naomi.

Rachel's new clients had returned from their holiday and telephoned that evening to arrange for her to view the seafront apartment she was to work on. They wanted her to come the next day - Sunday - and Gideon saw her off in the morning with a sense of relief. She was expecting to be out for most of the day.

Since coming back from her ride with Pippa the day before, she'd been strung as tight as a bowstring with suppressed anxiety. Time and again he'd caught her peering out of the gothic arched windows of the Gatehouse from behind the curtains. And every time he'd opened an outside door, even if only to take rubbish out to the bin or let the cat in, she had immediately wanted to know where he was going. By bedtime he was in a state of suppressed tension himself.

Gideon had promised to ride with Pippa the next day, as he often did on a Sunday, and it was with a feeling of release that he set off to walk up to the Priory through a light, mizzling rain.

He rode Blackbird once more, at Pippa's invitation, and apart from trying to mash Gideon's knee on a gatepost at one point, still with an expression of perfect innocence on his handsome black face, the horse behaved immaculately.

Pippa was incensed.

`Last week, when I had somebody here to try him with a view to buying, he refused point-blank to leave the yard!' she complained in exasperation. `And when I led him out for exercise

beside Cassie yesterday, he suddenly put the brakes on after a couple of miles and nearly pulled me off over her tail. If I hadn't let go ... The thing is, there's no rhyme or reason to him. One minute he's fine and the next a sod!'

,He gets bored,' Gideon said, surprising himself but knowing, even as he said it, that it was true.

`Oh?' Pippa said, raising an eyebrow. `He told you so, did he?' `You may scoff!' Gideon retorted, affecting lofty unconcern. `You'd be surprised the things your horses tell me about you.' Pippa laughed. `That would be even funnier if I were a hundred percent sure it was nonsense,' she said. `Oh, and while we're on the subject, I heard from jenny Weatherfield yesterday. She said to tell you she's staying with friends in Somerset and that Willow hasn't growled once since your visit.'

`Oh, that's great news. I thought it might take a lot longer than that but she was very sensible about it. You'd be surprised how many people pay for advice and then ignore it.'

`Yes, she's a lovely person. She used to be a friend of Mummy's,' Pippa said, looking wistful for a moment. `Anyway, you seem to have made quite an impression on her. She couldn't praise you enough. Which is odd,' she continued with a mischievous gleam in her eye, `because I used to think she was quite a good judge of character.'

`Everyone makes mistakes now and then,' Gideon agreed solemnly. `I mean, she's obviously stayed in touch with you, too!' `You beast!' Pippa exclaimed. They were riding along the bottom of one of the Priory's fields, close to the stream, and with no warning she suddenly cried, `See you at the top!' and urged Skylark into a gallop from a standing start, heading away towards the horizon.

Caught unawares, Gideon was nearly ignominiously piled as Blackbird responded to his companion's unheralded departure with a huge, lurching buck and acceleration that would have done justice to a drag racer.

Swearing under his breath, Gideon caught at his mount's flying

mane like a novice to keep himself in the saddle and then, balance restored, leaned forward to help him take the hill.

He caught and passed Pippa and her mount a few yards from the top, as she pulled up, laughing.

`Oh, I hoped he would buck you off?' she declared as he reined in beside her.

`He almost did, thanks to you! But he's got quite a turn of speed on him, hasn't he?'

`He has, damn him! He's everything a horse should be, except reliable.'

`He's just a poor, misunderstood fellow, aren't you, lad?' Gideon said sympathetically, patting the warm, black neck.

Pippa snorted. `Why don't you give him the understanding he craves then? Tell you what, I'll sell him to you. Fifty quid and he's yours.