Time to Pay (43 page)

‘Are you out of your mind? Is that what you really think?'

‘Oh, don't play the innocent with me! I could see it from the start and it made fucking her oh so sweet!'

Quite suddenly, Gideon was seething, and it must have shown in his face, because Lloyd took a step back and put his hands forward as if to fend him off.

‘Oh, no! You don't want to fight me. Sure, you're a big guy and you'd probably beat me, but what would Pippa think of that? You touch me and you'll never get her; let me go, and forget all this nonsense about diaries, and maybe . . . just maybe . . .' Lloyd had been edging sideways as he spoke, and was now level with the door to the hall. He paused, producing a false expression of sympathy. ‘. . . if you're very lucky, she'll come back to you when I've finished with her.'

As Gideon started forward, Lloyd lifted the latch, pushed the heavy hall door open and slipped through.

It only took Gideon a moment to realise what he was up to. From the far end of the hall a door accessed the garden room with its French windows onto the patio, from where the guests had watched the fireworks on the night of the launch party. He knew, as Lloyd obviously did, that the key to the windows was kept in a pot on the mantelpiece. He also knew that the hall door could be bolted from the inside, and he put his shoulder to it before Lloyd could do so.

There was a yelp of pain, and he pushed it wide to find Lloyd backing away, rubbing one hand in the other.

‘For God's sake, Gideon! I don't want to fight. Leave me alone!'

‘Nobody's asking you to fight. Just stand still and give me some answers. It was you, the night of the Sparkler launch, wasn't it? It has to have been. You didn't find the diary when you searched the farmhouse, and you knew we'd found the list amongst Nero's things, so you thought you'd look and see what else there was to find. Not the diary itself, perhaps, but a reference to where it was, am I right? But what I don't understand is why you didn't just search during the day. I mean you're in the yard quite a lot. Surely you could have found a moment when no-one was around. Why the hurry?'

‘It was that bloody policeman, Rockley,' Lloyd said suddenly, bitterly, as if the words burst from him of their own volition. ‘He was snooping round all the time, asking questions, poking his nose into everyone's business.'

‘Well, he's a detective,' Gideon observed, amused
in spite of the situation, and secretly triumphant; Lloyd had started to talk.

‘So you thought you'd sneak out while everyone was watching the fireworks and have a good look round, uninterrupted. Only you weren't uninterrupted, were you? Because I went out to check on Nero.'

‘I wish I'd hit you harder!'

Lloyd was still backing slowly away but Gideon was following at the same pace, keeping the gap between them a constant six or seven feet.

‘Yeah, I bet you do. But it explains how the door was opened: Pippa didn't forget to lock it, you just borrowed the key, as you did, I imagine, when you searched the Gatehouse the night I was at the gallery with Eve. But Nero's file was in the Land Rover and it wasn't there that evening, was it? So you came back in the middle of the night to have another look, but by that time I'd taken it in, so you drew another blank. I should've listened to Eve and set the dog on you!'

‘He wouldn't hurt me, he likes me.'

‘Yeah, and I caught him rolling on a dead bird the other day, so I guess we can't rely on
his
good taste,' Gideon responded.

‘I was in the Gatehouse again, the morning you were up here doing your mumbo-jumbo stuff with Nero,' Lloyd declared, ignoring his taunt. ‘You didn't know that did you, Hercule fucking Poirot? And you'd left your little notepad out for me to see.'

Gideon remembered. That had been the day after he'd visited Bentley and Stephenson. He'd been trying to make sense of things when Tilly
had rung about Nero, and he'd left the notepad on the kitchen table.

‘You realised I was on your trail, so that's when you set up that business with your two pals and the fencer, was it?'

Lloyd grinned. He'd backed right across the hall now, skirting the table and benches in the centre, and was near the door to the garden room.

‘Begging for mercy, the lads said you were. Jesus! What wouldn't I have given to see it?'

Gideon didn't waste his breath denying it.

‘And Reuben? Was that you or one of your bullyboys? You thought he'd be a pushover, didn't you? But he wouldn't tell you where the diary was, so you beat him up. If there's any justice, that alone should see you put away for a good few years.'

‘But you can't
prove
it – any of it!' Lloyd spoke to him as if trying to explain something to a small and not very bright child. ‘All this supposition – it's pointless. If you've got some idea that I'll hold my hands up and confess everything, you'd better think again. I'll do whatever it takes to keep my name clear, believe me; anything at all. That's the mistake Damien made.'

Somewhere deep inside Gideon, something froze.

‘So . . . Why do you think Adam Tetley shot Damien?' he asked, striving to keep his voice calm. ‘On the face of it, he didn't appear to have much to lose, even if the truth
had
come out.'

‘He and Damien had history,' Lloyd answered, without hesitation. ‘Damien used to train a horse for him and they fell out, big-time. Damien
dumped him in it with the company he worked for and he lost his job.'

‘Oh, so you knew about that, did you?'

‘Of course. I've known the family for years.'

‘So if you were looking for a scapegoat, Adam Tetley would be the obvious choice . . .'

Lloyd became very still.

‘What are you talking about? I was miles away when Damien was killed. Out hunting, with dozens of witnesses; it's a cast-iron alibi.'

‘Except that you weren't all that far away, as the crow flies, were you? And at the end of the first line, your horse was lame and you had to walk it back to the lorry and get a fresh one.'

‘So what are you saying? That I tied Lady to a tree and sprinted three or four miles to shoot Damien, then sprinted back? I'm flattered you think I'm that fit, but get
real
!'

He laughed, but Gideon thought he detected a thread of unease mingled with the scorn.

‘No, I don't think you did that,' he said. ‘But I found out something interesting the other day. I found out that your ex-wife lives just down the road from where Damien was shot.'

Now he was sure he was onto something. Everything about Lloyd's body language became guarded, and the muscles in his face tightened.

‘What's that got to do with anything? She's my
ex
-wife. We're hardly on speaking terms. I wouldn't see her at all if it wasn't for my kids.'

Lloyd moved a few steps away from the garden-room door, towards the end of the hall.

‘So it wasn't Harriet that Eve saw you kissing,
this morning? She was surprised; said you looked pretty wrapped up in one another . . .'

‘She's a lying bitch!'

Gideon's eyes narrowed.

‘Well, one of you's lying, that's for sure, and I know where I'd put
my
money. I'm saying maybe you rode your “
lame
” horse to your old home and then borrowed a car. How does that sound? I think you'd have had plenty of time to ride back afterwards and then walk the last bit on foot. The police were looking for a red hatchback at one point – does Harriet have a red hatchback tucked away in her garage somewhere, I wonder?'

Lloyd began to sweat.

‘You're crazy! The police have found the gun, remember? It was in Tetley's locker and he had the key. Tetley shot Damien, not me.'

He was moving with purpose now, across to the far wall, and Gideon began to follow, unsure what he was planning.

He found out all too soon.

A huge oak carver chair stood against the golden stone, tapestry-hung wall, and Lloyd jumped onto this, reaching high above his head to where a pair of swords was displayed. Standing on tiptoe, he managed to lift one off the brackets that held it.

Still on the chair, he hefted the sword in his left hand, raising it and squinting down the thirty-inch blade. He looked disturbingly at home with the weapon, and Gideon slowed and stopped where he was, halfway across the hall.

‘British naval cutlass, late eighteenth century. Beautifully balanced,' Lloyd said appreciatively.

The blade was slim, subtly curved near the point, and the hilt handsome, with a finely chased knucklebow, but just at that moment Gideon couldn't share his enthusiasm. He watched, heart thumping, while Lloyd reached the second one down.

‘That's not bad, either. Try it,' he invited, and the next moment the sword came flying in a deadly silver arc, straight towards Gideon.

GIDEON DODGED.

Duellists in films might catch swords deftly by the hilt but he certainly wasn't about to try, and, even had he done so, he would only have been able to hack and chop with a complete absence of skill.

The weapon landed on the worn carpet behind him, vibration making the blade ring.

Lloyd laughed out loud, his eyes glittering.

‘It won't bite you! Pick it up. Let's see what you're made of.'

Flesh and bone, Gideon thought mordantly, neither of which stood much chance of resisting the finely crafted steel blade of the cutlass.

Why hadn't he kept his mouth shut?
So much better to have let Lloyd go, not suspecting that Gideon had guessed the truth, and then laid his theory in front of Logan or Rockley. If he'd had more time to think that was undoubtedly what he would have done, but the revelation had come in a flash and he couldn't resist trying
for a reaction. Now he was faced with a man who not only loathed him with a passion, but who also felt he had little to lose by killing him.

‘I'm not going to make it self-defence,' Gideon said, backing away from the fallen sword.

‘Oh,
go on
,' Lloyd urged, dropping down from the carver. He smiled in a manner that did nothing to reassure. ‘It's ages since I used one of these. I might have forgotten how – you never know.'

Passing the sword from one hand to the other, he shed his jacket and tossed it aside.

Modern Pentathlon, Gideon remembered with uncomfortable clarity, consisted of shooting, running, swimming, riding and fencing. Any hope that Lloyd's knowledge of swordplay was superficial vanished like a drop of water on a hotplate.

Lloyd advanced, bringing the point of his cutlass altogether too close for Gideon's comfort. He took another step or two backward.

‘You didn't really think I came on my own, unprepared?' he asked, trying to keep his voice and breathing steady. He pointed towards his chest, where the transmitter nestled comfortingly in his pocket. ‘I'm wired. The police have heard every word we've said. I should think they'll be here any moment now, wouldn't you?' Remembering Tilly's last, panic-stricken call, he fervently hoped it was true.

‘Nice try,' Lloyd said. ‘Almost believable.' He stepped forward and brandished the cutlass, its point describing a neat figure of eight in the air just inches in front of Gideon, who moved back smartly, almost falling as one of the benches for the refectory table caught him behind the knees.
It tipped over with a bang, and Gideon stumbled sideways. Now it was
his
turn to sweat.

Lloyd seemed to find it highly amusing.

‘Not quite so keen to fight now, are we?'

‘Give it up, Lloyd. I'm telling the truth. You'll never get away with this. Too many people knew I was coming here.' Gideon looked around for inspiration and found it over the fireplace on the opposite side of the hall, where were displayed two crossed pikes and a shield. The pikes combined a spearhead and an ugly-looking elongated axe, mounted on a wooden staff of some six feet in length. They were polished to gleaming perfection, and had probably not been wielded in anger for the best part of five hundred years, but to Gideon, at that moment, they represented possible salvation.

‘What if I don't care?' Lloyd said, the sword still in dazzling motion. ‘I'll say you were determined to fight. I had to defend myself. I'll put the sword in your hand. What'll I get for self-defence? Five or six years, halved for good behaviour – what if I thought it was worth it, to get you out of my life?'

The sword sliced through the ether, so close that Gideon felt the wind of its passing. A look at Lloyd's face revealed that he was deadly serious; his hatred of Gideon was greater than his fear of the consequences.

Gideon turned and sprinted for the fireplace, hoping against hope that the weapons were merely resting in their brackets as the cutlasses had been.

They were. Within moments he had his hands on one of them, lifted it and pulled, bringing the
other clattering down with it as it came free. Gripping the wooden shaft, he whirled to meet his opponent.

He was only just in time. Lloyd had followed him and, even as he turned, he saw the cutlass lancing towards him. The pikestaff swept across, knocking the blade aside, and Gideon leapt sideways and ran towards the table in the centre of the room.

His counter-attack had unbalanced Lloyd and with his burst of speed, Gideon managed to get into a position where the table was between them, in which situation he felt marginally happier. He tried reason again.

‘Look Lloyd . . .' he said, his heart thumping heavily. ‘If you injure me, you'll just make things ten times worse for yourself . . . Why don't you give it up?'

‘And what? Turn myself in? Let you play the hero? Wired? What do you fucking take me for?'

A murderer
, Gideon thought, but he didn't say it; he didn't think it would help.