BLINDFOLD (3 page)

Peering at the lighted dial of his watch he discovered it was

almost three in the morning; hardly the best time to try and hitch a lift on what was never a busy road.

With a heavy sigh, Gideon began his trek, trying to console himself with the fact that he had at least been left with his jacket, but in reality swearing bloody revenge every time his unprotected feet located a sharp stone.

The walk was a very long one.

TWO

THE SUN WAS UP and shining through the gothic arches of his bedroom windows when Gideon eventually surfaced the next morning. He lay motionless for several minutes, enjoying the warmth and hoping that sleep might reclaim him, but the hope was shattered by the trilling of the telephone on the floor beside his bed. With a groan he put out a hand and located the handset.

`Yes?'

`Gideon? It's Pippa. Are you running late or had you forgotten?'

Gideon's brain felt woolly. `If you give me a clue what we're talking about, I'll tell you whether I've forgotten or not,' he offered helpfully. Pippa Barrington-Carr and her brother Giles lived half a mile away at Graylings Priory, and were not only his landlords but also very good friends.

`Riding? This morning? Ten o'clock? You were going to try out the mare,' she prompted with a pardonable touch of asperity. 'Ah,' Gideon responded, vaguely recalling an arrangement made two days before; a lifetime ago. `Is it ten already?'

`Quarter to eleven,' Pippa informed him, not in the least taken

in.

`I'm sorry,' Gideon said, genuinely so. He was properly awake now and sat up, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. His feet, as they made contact with the floor, forcibly reminded him of every single stone and thorn he'd trodden on during his interminable journey home. The thought of pushing them into his boots ...

Boots. Damn!

`Look, Pippa, I had a spot of bother on the way home last night and I'm not really with it this morning. Can I catch you later? I'm sorry about the ride.'

`Are you okay?' She sounded concerned. `You didn't come off your bike, did you?'

`No, nothing like that. Look, I'll be over later. Tell you then. Will Giles be around?'

`As far as I know,' she said. `Come for lunch, why not? See you about one?'

Gideon agreed and hung up, fighting the urge to lie back down again. A full bladder helped win the battle and, wincing with every step, he made his way to the bathroom.

When, some moments later, he turned his attention reluctantly to the mirror over the washbasin, he grimaced. On a normal morning the reflection in the glass showed Gideon a face with strong, regular features; pleasant enough, if not quite film-star material. Now his sun-bleached thatch of long dark-blond hair framed a disaster area.

The edge of the door had left him with an inch-long vertical cut rising from his left eyebrow, surrounded by a spectacular purple bruise. With a cut and swelling below his eye too, he looked like a failed title-fight contender. Blood had run and crusted blackly. With a handful of moistened cotton wool, he set to work.

Half an hour later, bathed and shaved and feeling slightly more

human, Gideon made himself toast and scrambled eggs, which he ate leaning against the Aga for warmth.

Considered in the light of day, the events of the previous night still failed to make a lot of sense. He had eventually reached home just before four in the morning to find that, thankfully, the front door was open. He was mildly surprised that Curly hadn't taken the opportunity to make his life even more difficult, but quite possibly in this age of almost universal Yale locks, he'd taken it for granted that the door would lock itself. The heavy, old-fashioned key lay inside, on the floor near the wall, where it had fallen when Gideon had been attacked.

The stout, oaken door seemed to have survived its rough treatment with no ill-effects and Gideon had closed it behind him and turned the key with something between a sigh of relief and a groan of exhaustion. On the hall table he'd found the tumbler containing the remains of the Cognac the tall man had offered ' him, and had swallowed it gratefully before giving the house a cursory check and heading for his bed.

Now, making coffee after his late breakfast, it was hard to believe what had happened. It was almost as though, for two or three hours last night, he'd swapped lives with someone else. It just wasn't the sort of thing that happened to your average, fairly law-abiding person. His bruised face and shoulder, tender ribs and throbbing feet, though, said different. For the first time in his stay at the Gatehouse, Gideon wished he had some painkillers in the house.

Collapsing into the one comfortable chair in the kitchen, he displaced his Abyssinian cat, who glared at him accusingly.

`I'm sorry, Elsa. But my need is much greater than yours,' he told her.

She refused to be mollified and after licking her beautiful lioncoloured coat, as if to indicate that human contact had dirtied it, sauntered gracefully out of the room.

Gideon shrugged. `Suit yourself.'

He liked the company of the cat; she was quiet and undemanding. No trouble when he was painting and a balm at times when he'd had a difficult day with someone's stressed-out horse or delinquent dog. She suited him.

Shortly before one o'clock, Gideon rode the Norton, helmetless, up the gravel driveway that led from the Gatehouse to the Priory itself. He felt faintly silly as he turned under the stone archway into the stableyard after a journey of only two or three minutes, but it couldn't be helped. His normal preferred modes of transport for the short distance, namely his push bike or his own two feet, required rather too much pressure on his bruised soles for comfort.

Graylings Priory was a sixteenth-century manor house that nestled in the Dorset countryside on the edge of the Cranborne Chase, near Tarrant Grayling. It took its name from a much earlier building that had presumably fallen foul of Henry VIII's reformatory zeal. Giles Barnngton-Carr, an old schoolfriend of Gideon's, had inherited it soon after his thirtieth birthday four years ago, when his parents were killed in a car crash.

Gideon had seen little of Giles since leaving university some ten years before, until a chance meeting at Salisbury- races six months ago had thrown them together again. Gideon had been there discussing a possible future portrait commission with an owner, and on hearing that he was temporarily between lodgings, Giles had offered him the Gatehouse for as long as he needed.

Now, as Gideon stepped off the bike and propped it on its stand, a young woman came out of one of the old, ivy-clad stables, leading a horse. Pippa Barrington-Carr, younger sister of Giles, was tall, well-built, and possessed a pair of fine hazel eyes and a short mop of unruly curls that had originally been light brown but which changed hue with startling frequency as the whim took her. Today they were auburn.

`Hi, Pips.'

`Hi, yourself,' she responded, squinting against the winter sunlight as she crossed the yard towards him. `I hope I didn't get you out of bed this morning.'

`No,' Gideon disclaimed airily. Then more truthfully, `Well, yes, actually. But I didn't get in it until past four this morning, so I think I'm excused.'

`Why, for heavensakes?' Pippa exclaimed. `What happened?' `Tell you over lunch. Is that the mare you wanted me to try?' `Yes.' Pippa stood her up for Gideon to look at. `She'd just suit you, wouldn't you, Cassie?'

`She's not a Cassie!' Gideon protested, regarding the mare's ample proportions. `Cassie's a slim young thing with flowing hair. She's built like a Russian female shot-putter. More of an Olga than a Cassie!'

`Oh, don't listen to him,' Pippa told the horse. `He's just a male chauvinist pig. Big can be beautiful too.'

`Oh, I agree. Some of those shot-putters are real stunners.' Pippa tossed her curls. `It's too late now, the damage is done. Come on, Cassie, let's find you some grass.' She led the mare out ' through the arch, saying over her shoulder that she would only be a minute.

With an infinitely practical mind, a good head for business and a degree in catering, Pippa could easily have been a high flyer in the world of society parties and wedding receptions but chose instead to follow her heart, buying, training and selling potential three-day-eventers for a living.

Gideon sat back against the Norton to await her return, looking up at the golden stone walls and mullioned windows of the house. The sun glinted on the tiny diamonds of the leaded lights, and way up on the roof two fantail doves were basking in its rays. The Priory wore time like an old coat; creased and a little shabby, but _ with an air of comfort and serenity. Gideon loved it.

In a very short time Pippa was back, walking with an energetic mannish stride, the lead rope swinging from one strong brown hand. As always she reminded Gideon sharply of her brother. Three years separated them but they could easily have been twins.

Right, let's go get some lunch,' she said, draping the rope over the nearest open half-door and turning back to Gideon.

`My God! What have you done to your face?'

`I walked into a door,' he said with partial truth.

Pippa wasn't amused. `Don't be silly. Was this something to do with last night?'

`Let's go in,' he suggested. `I'll tell you both together.'

`But it doesn't make sense!' Giles protested for the fourth or fifth time. They had eaten lunch and were sitting round the scrubbed oak table in the Priory's huge kitchen, drinking coffee. `Why would anybody steal a stallion in the middle of the night and use it to cover just one mare? It's such a risk. I mean, stallion fees aren't that huge, are they?'

Pippa shook her head. `Not unless you're talking about a Derby winner or something. But thoroughbreds have to be registered. What's the point of breeding a potential top-class racehorse if you can't race it?'

`They stole Shergar.'

`That was political,' Pippa pointed out. `I don't think they ever intended to use him.'

,I suppose they couldn't forge its papers?' Giles suggested, a frown on his good-natured face.

Pippa shook her head emphatically.

`Not a chance. Thoroughbred breeding is a multi-millionpound business. The official studbook is kept at Weatherbys and they monitor everything. Foals are blood-tested to prove paternity. A stallion can't even break wind without them knowing about it. It's a watertight system. It has to be.'

Gideon nodded. `She's right. But I'm like you, I can't think what on earth they were up to. I mean, they went to a hell of a lot of trouble, didn't they?'

`They certainly did,' Giles agreed, glancing at Gideon's bruised countenance. `They must have heard how much you charge!' `Very funny.' Gideon pushed back his chair and stretched his long legs out, feeling drowsy. The old black range was pumping out heat and, well fed, his lack of sleep was catching up with him.

Black-beamed, with warm ochre walls and an assortment of rugs on the uneven flagstones, the old kitchen was one of the cosiest places he knew. Herbs hung in fragrant bunches from the ceiling, and onions on the back of the door. Opposite the table, three ancient armchairs and a large dog bed completed the furnishings.

`How did they get in, do you know?' Giles' voice brought Gideon back from the brink of nodding off.

`No. No sign of damage. I don't know if you can pick those old locks. Or perhaps they got through the studio window; that catch is very loose. Whatever, I shouldn't think it was the first time they'd done it. The tall one in particular was very slick.'

`So where did they let you go, in the end?'

`Down that track to the gravel pits,' Gideon told him. `Sans boots.'

`Oh, for heavensakes!' Pippa said. `What did the police say?' She scanned his face. `You didn't call them, did you?'

"Well, no,' Gideon admitted, sheepishly. `To tell the truth, I didn't even think of it last night. All I wanted was my bed.' `Don't blame you,' Giles said.

`And this morning it all seemed - well - rather daft. I mean, I'm still here, aren't I? More or less in one piece. What are the police going to do about it?'

`I still think you should report it,' Pippa said. `It's assault, after all.'

`Maybe I will.' He decided against telling them that he had been warned in no uncertain manner to forget the whole affair.

A door opened to admit a dumpy, bustling person with short grey hair and glasses. Formerly Giles' and Pippa's nanny, now their capable housekeeper, Mrs Morecambe was a treasure, and if her rosy cheeks owed more to the occasional drop of spirits than simple blooming health, it was never spoken of.

She came now from the laundry room, which had originally been the scullery, with her sleeves rolled up and an apron over her navy blue tunic dress, and immediately busied herself collecting empty plates and mugs and offering more coffee, which was declined.

She gathered the last of the crockery and turned towards the sink, saying as she did so that one of the terriers had brought a rat into the boot room and if anybody thought she was going to remove it they had better think again.

Giles' brace of terriers, Yip and Yap, were the bane of the household. If they weren't under somebody's feet it was invariably because they were up to no good elsewhere, and they seemed to delight in baiting Mrs Morecambe.

Pippa, whose own black Labrador, Fanny, was presently laid up with two-week-old pups, was strongly of the opinion that Yip and Yap should have been taken firmly in hand long ago. She regularly applied to Gideon, asking - tongue in cheek - if he couldn't have ,a word' with them. However, Giles regarded their antics rather in the manner of an indulgent uncle, saying that they were terriers; one didn't train terriers.

In due course, the three of them wandered out to the stableyard evicting both terriers and rat, en route, and Giles soon returned to the subject of Gideon's abduction.

`Pippa's right, you know. You really ought to go to the police. I mean they could have killed you. The horse could have killed you, for that matter!'

`I don't think they even considered that,' Gideon said. `They seemed to think that all they had to do was get me there and the horse was as good as caught. I mean, I wasn't even told it was a stallion to start with. It was as though they didn't think it was important.'