BLINDFOLD (9 page)

`Well? What do they want?' the man addressed his doorman again.

Gideon had had enough of being discussed as if he wasn't there. He mounted the steps once more and advanced with hand outstretched.

`Gideon Blake,' he said by way of introduction. `I'm sorry if we disturbed you but my young friend here lost his dog and we came to ask if it had been seen.'

The elderly man looked suspiciously at Gideon's hand, as if hand-shaking was a custom he was not familiar with, and then looked past him to where Jez stood clutching Tyke.

`You would appear to have found the animal,' he observed, returning his gaze to Gideon. `Do you have any other business here to detain you?'

Gideon's eyes narrowed at this display of bad manners, and behind the old man, Tattoos smirked annoyingly.

`I appreciate your right to privacy,' he said quietly, `and I can tolerate rudeness, but this man viciously kicked a puppy, and that I won't tolerate. I suggest you have a serious word with him or you'll have others to answer to besides me!'

He was the recipient of another simian frown. `Gideon Blake, you say? Not the Gideon Blake who paints horses?'

`Amongst other things, yes,' he agreed, amused by this change of subject. He'd placed the man now: Meredith Milne, an eccentric but highly successful artist; he'd seen a photograph of him in a Sunday supplement alongside a review of an exhibition of his paintings. He was held to be something of a recluse, seldom emerging from the privacy of his home and then travelling, whenever possible, in his own helicopter.

`I've seen some of your work. There's a lot to like about it,' the old man conceded. Then, as if coming to a decision, finally held out his hand. `Meredith Milne,' he announced.

Gideon affected not to notice the hand. `I know,' he said calmly. `But my warning stands. Your man was out of line and the very least I expect is an apology to the kid.'

`Yes, yes. Whatever.' Milne was patently tired of the subject. `Benson, Renson - whatever your name is - give the boy some pocket money and then get out of my sight. I've had enough of you. Where's Slade anyway?'

`In his flat. He's got somebody with him.' Renson's mood was not noticeably improving. He dug in his pocket and withdrew a note that he held out to Jez, muttering something under his breath. Then he went back into the house, favouring Gideon with a look of pure venom as he passed. Jez pocketed the note with alacrity, raising two fingers to Renson's departing back.

`Well, and that's that,' Milne said, dismissing the affair. `Children and animals ... always trouble. Always.'

If Gideon thought this generalisation a little unfair, he let it go. Arguing the toss with Milne would quite obviously be fruitless. The man was a quite brilliant artist, known the world over, and his work an obsession with him. People like that were often, in Gideon's experience, a little naive in matters not pertaining to their ruling passion. He prepared to take his leave, wondering as he did so just what he was going to do with Jez.

The problem was taken out of his hands. Footsteps scrunched on the gravel drive to the side of the house and a voice said in surprise, `Jez, you little bugger! What've you been up to? I told you to stay in the van.'

Gideon stiffened. At the top of the steps and out of sight for the moment, he didn't need the evidence of his eyes to tell him who the newcomer was. Those soft, lilting tones were stamped into his

memory for a lifetime. What crazy coincidence had thrown them together again so soon?

His mind raced as the steps crunched closer. How should he react? Should he show that he recognised his abductor of five nights ago? Would he be believed if he didn't?

Jez apparently had no reservations. `Joey!' he cried. `I lost Tyke and a man kicked him. He's bleeding, look!' He held the puppy out for inspection.

Gideon made a snap decision. As far as he could see, he had nothing to gain by showing that he recognised the man, and possibly much to lose, here at this remote spot, outnumbered and with only a child for a witness. And hardly an impartial witness at that. With an odd feeling that fate was playing games with him, Gideon turned towards the newcomer, schooling his features to give no sign of recognition.

Joey had had no such warning. `He'll be okay, Sis, he's a tough little bugger,' he said, looking the pup over and handing it back to the child. `But if you'd done as you were told in the first place . . .' He broke off, eyes widening with shock as he caught sight of Gideon on the steps.

`He helped me. His name's Gideon and he helped me find Tyke,' Jez declared looking anxiously up at Joey. Then to Gideon, `I told you my brother was bigger than you.'

Her brother? So this obviously wasn't Slade, who lived in the flat. `So you did,' Gideon acknowledged, still mentally adjusting to the revelation that Jez was a girl.

' Gideon? That's a name you don't often hear,' Joey remarked casually, watching him.

`No, you don't,' he admitted blandly. `Look, the guy next door is a vet. He's a friend of mine. How about I take Jez and the puppy round to get that cut looked at? It won't take a minute.'

Joey wasn't entirely happy with that. He opened his mouth to decline but Jez forestalled him.

`Oh, please, Joey. It's still bleedin'. He might bleed to death!' `He'll be all right.'

`Well, it might need stitching,' Gideon prompted, enjoying his reluctance. It seemed Joey wasn't quite sure whether he'd been recognised or not, and was anxious that Gideon should have no opportunity to question Jez. Gideon held out his hand to the girl. `Come on. I was going there anyway. Let's get Tyke sorted out, shall we?'

Jez went to him, looking back at Joey in mute entreaty. At this point, Milne, who had been temporarily forgotten, decided to take a hand.

`I don't personally care where any of you go, just so long as you go somewhere,' he observed impatiently. `All I want is some peace and quiet, so clear off, the lot of you!' He made a shooing motion, much as one might to a stray dog or cat, and then turned back into the darkness of his hallway, pausing on the threshold to say to Gideon, `You! You can come back one day and see my studio. I wouldn't mind talking to you, and you might learn something.'

' With this gracious invitation he disappeared, slamming the door behind him.

`It seems we've been dismissed,' Gideon said into the silence that greeted this display of arrogance. `Well, Jez, are you coming? Your brother can come too, if he wants,' he added, slanting a quizzical look at Joey.

Jez gave him another pleading look and Joey gave in.

`All right. But don't be long. I'll meet you outside in ten minutes. And don't go chattering on about things, okay?'

`I won't, Joey. I promise.'

Naomi answered the bell in reception, and if she was surprised to see Gideon, complete with a small scruffy child and an even smaller and scruffier dog, she gave no sign of it.

`Oh, poor little mite!' she exclaimed immediately, holding out her arms towards the puppy. `What happened?'

Jez regarded her warily and held Tyke even more tightly. `This is Jez. Her puppy met with a slight accident,' Gideon explained briefly.

`Let's go through and find Tim, shall we? He's a vet,' Naomi said to the girl, who nodded and went obediently through the door she held open. Over her shoulder Naomi murmured, `Another of your strays, Brother?'

`I'll explain later,' Gideon promised.

It was some three-quarters of an hour before Gideon finally restored Jez to her brother, and he was gratified to find Joey tapping his fingers impatiently, sitting on the bonnet of the blue van that was now parked at the end of the Sanctuary's driveway.

`It won't take a minute, eh, pal?'Joey remarked sourly as they approached. `Did you lose your way or somethin'?'

`Tim showed me round and I saw all the animals,' Jez told her brother, her eyes alight with remembered joy.

Joey wasn't impressed. `Yeah, well, I've got a business to run, so hop in quick and let's be going, shall we?'

With one last unloving look at Gideon, he got into the van himself and within moments they were gone.

`Don't mention it,' Gideon murmured, but he was smiling faintly as he turned back to the farm. Jez had held true to her promise, telling him nothing other than her surname, Fletcher. But Joey wouldn't be human if he didn't have some doubts. Now it was his turn to wait and wonder.

`So, what brings you out here this time?' Naomi asked, licking chicken fat off her fingers as she rolled up the remains of her takeaway lunch in the paper in which it had arrived. Having eaten, the three of them were relaxing in the warmth of the Sanctuary's office. `Two visits in one week. It must be a family record!'

`I don't know, really,' he admitted. `It was just something about your phone call this morning ... I got the impression something was wrong. Tell me to mind my own business if you like, but there it is.'

`You didn't tell me you'd phoned Gideon,' Tim said, looking

at Naomi in surprise. `You said the note didn't worry you. Why didn't you talk to me?'

She flushed unhappily. `I wasn't really worried. I don't know why I called Gideon. I didn't tell him about it even then.'

Tim still looked a little hurt.

`I'm sorry,' Naomi said, putting her hand on his. `I thought you'd got enough to worry about without me adding to it.'

`At the risk of seeming abominably nosy, just what was it that everybody was worried about and Sis rang up specifically not to tell me?' Gideon asked. `Or is it still a deep dark secret?'

Tim shook his head. `It's really no big deal,' he said. `Somebody with a sick sense of humour pinned a note to the surgery door in the night. By far the best thing to do is to treat it with the contempt it deserves and forget it.'

`What did it say? Can I see it?'

`I binned it,' Tim said dismissively.

`And I took it out again,' Naomi said, reaching behind her to open a drawer in a nearby desk. `Well, if anything did happen, the police would be bound to ask to see it, wouldn't they?' she added defensively, passing a sheet of paper to Gideon.

`Nothing is going to happen,' Tim said, soothingly.

`You can't know that!' Naomi protested. `It's not as if we haven't had our problems already.'

Gideon didn't miss the `we' and the `our'. It appeared their relationship had quite solid foundations. He turned his attention to the note. `Dear Dr Doolittle,' it read. `You can't have a hospital without any patients. Why don't you go back to wherever you came from? You're not wanted here.' It was unsigned but bore the postscript, `Ever had rabbit stew? It's really very good.'

He looked up. `Have you any idea who sent it?' Tim shrugged. `Suspicions but no proof.'

`What does this last bit mean? About the rabbit stew?' Tim shrugged again.

Naomi wasn't having that. `You know perfectly well what it means!' she exclaimed in exasperation. `Someone brought us a litter of baby rabbits two weeks ago, their dog had killed the parents or something. But anyway, three days ago I went to feed them in the morning and the cage was open. They'd all gone, of course, and I was mad at myself because I thought I hadn't shut the door properly. Now we know better!'

`Not for sure,' Tim protested.

`Well, how else could they have known about it, if it wasn't them?'

Tim didn't have an answer for that. He subsided into thoughtful silence.

`And other things have happened?' Gideon prompted. `Several things,' Naomi said unhappily, looking at Tim. He didn't speak.

`Tim's dog was poisoned. Rat poison, we discovered. At the time we thought it was an accident, that he'd picked something up at the farm down the road. He was always getting out - we haven't had time to do the fences yet - but he never went on the road, always across the fields, so we weren't too worried. It was awful,' she said, sadness in her eyes as she remembered. `We found him in the barn. He'd just managed to make it home but he'd bled to death. Haemorrhaged. Now we're wondering if it wasn't those bastards next door!'

`You are,' Tim put in, somewhat half-heartedly.

`And you are! You know you are! You just won't admit it,' Naomi declared passionately.

`The people at the Grange?' Gideon asked, trying to sift the facts from the emotional detritus. `Why?'

'Milne tried to buy Tim out soon after he got here, apparently. Don't ask me why he wants the place, he doesn't do anything with the land he has, as far as I can see. And they've got their solicitors working to try and dispute the boundaries. Everything they can do to make things difficult for Tim, they do. And still he tries to see the good in them.'

Tim looked uncomfortable. `I admit, their solicitors have been a pain in the backside but the chap who came round that time was very obliging. It's not his fault, anyway. He doesn't own the place, he just works for the guy.'

Naomi was undeterred. `I didn't trust him. He said all the right things but he didn't mean any of it. And it was after he came round that the trouble started.'

Gideon couldn't imagine any of the players in his recent drama being described as obliging, even on a good day. `We're not talking about a guy called Renson, I take it?'

`No,' Tim said. `This man's name was Slade. Dark, slightly Latin-looking chap, dressed all in black. Expensive-looking clothes, too. Said he was Milne's administrator, whatever that means.'

`He gave me the creeps,' Naomi put in, wrinkling her nose at the memory. `He was so smooth. Like a dangerous snake, beautiful but deadly.'

`He did make an impression, didn't he, Sis?' Gideon was ' surprised. Accustomed to the rich, diverse mix of humanity that made up the acting fraternity, his sister was not given to snap decisions based on outward appearances. This Slade had obviously touched something much deeper.

`All right,' Tim said, acknowledging defeat. `The thing is, given that I admit I didn't like the man myself, and given that he's quite possibly a lying, unscrupulous bastard, what can I do about it? I mean, I've no proof that he's done anything. He hasn't even been unpleasant to my face.'

`No, it's a problem,' Gideon agreed.

`There's a path that goes from the gate by the stables, across the field towards the Grange,' Naomi said. `Somebody had obviously used it regularly before Tim came. There's a gate into Milne's property at the other end.'