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Authors: Jo Bannister

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BOOK: Requiem for a Dealer
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When the van stopped, instantly Daniel was awake. He wasn't sure what it meant but he knew it meant something. The engine stopped and he heard the sound of the cab door. Then nothing. He waited, the nerves drawing tighter under his skin and in his belly. He heard the breath snatching in his throat and tried to steady it. He tried to ready himself for whatever was coming.
The groom's door in the side of the van opened and the man stood framed in it, darkness behind him, his face lit by the interior lamp. He had a walking stick in his hand. Daniel's heart gave a little hopeful flutter. He was no kind of an athlete, never had been, was always the last child left sitting on the bench in PE, but there was a chance – he put it no higher than that – that even he could outrun a lame man.
Then he looked again at the stick and understood. It had a brass handle in the shape of a horse's head. A heavy brass handle. It wasn't an aid, it was a weapon.
In his other hand he had a length of rope. ‘Turn round.'
Daniel shook his head. ‘No.' His voice was shaking too.
The man sighed. ‘Understand one thing,' he said. ‘All my working life I have handled horses. They weigh perhaps 600 kilos each, and much of the time they don't want to do what I need them to. They're strong and they're fast and when they're frightened they'll fight, with their teeth and their hooves. Any one of them is capable of killing a man. But in the end, they all do what I want them to.' He didn't wave the stick in a menacing
fashion. He didn't have to. The menace was implicit.
Daniel bit his lip. Then he turned around.
‘I don't want to hurt you,' said the man with the accent. ‘It's late, I've had a long drive, I just want to get some answers and then go to bed. Yes?'
Mostly for the sake of his self-esteem, Daniel made himself consider before answering. ‘Yes. Probably.'
The man nodded amiably. He wasn't a big man – bigger than Daniel, but still not big in the way Jack Deacon was big. He was, however, formidably functional: compact and hard-muscled. It never occurred to Daniel that he could win a fight with anybody; it occurred to him to wonder if he could survive a fight with this man. He might find out. But it would be better to keep any sparring on an intellectual level. Daniel had always been better at thinking than doing.
‘Good,' said the man. ‘Now. This pony belongs to you?'
‘Yes,' agreed Daniel. As far as he understood it that was in fact the legal position.
‘It was bought for you in Germany by Mrs Brodie Farrell.' He said it carefully, as if he'd learned the name by rote.
There was no point denying what he plainly knew. ‘Acting as my agent,' said Daniel. ‘That's what she does – she finds things.'
‘But the pony was for you not for her.'
‘It's my name on the bill of sale.'
‘Yes.' The man gave a little sigh which Daniel didn't understand. ‘So why did you want this pony? It's a very ordinary pony.'
‘It's carrying an embryo transplant.' He was proud of himself for remembering that. ‘From a bloodline we thought was lost.'
‘So I was told,' nodded the man. ‘What bloodline?'
Panic flicked Daniel's gut from the inside. He tried desperately to wing it. ‘The stallion,' he said with a confidence he didn't feel. ‘It was a very important stallion in its day. But we thought the bloodline had died out. Then Mrs Farrell heard of a last daughter still alive in Germany. I bought an embryo transplant, and this pony is carrying it.' He looked at the man unblinking for so long that his eyes began to burn.
‘Please,' asked the man firmly, ‘what is the name of this
stallion?'
It was no good: Daniel didn't know. He'd been told, but he'd never thought it would matter and he couldn't remember.
Again the little sigh, half sad, half disappointed. ‘Of what breed was this stallion, then, that it was so important to preserve his bloodline?'
It was there, just at the back of his mind. He nearly got it. ‘Ox-bow?'
The man was nodding gently. ‘This isn't your business, is it, Mr Hood? You know as much about ponies as I know about nuclear physics.'
‘Funnily enough,' said Daniel, ‘I know more about nuclear physics. But you're right, I don't know much about ponies. I still own this one.'
For a few moments the man just watched him. Then he said, ‘If you know nothing about ponies, Mr Hood, I wonder what you know about mules.'
It may have been word association, but something seemed to kick him in the belly. He caught his breath. ‘Also nothing. Except that one of their parents is a donkey …'
‘No,' said the man carefully, ‘I think you know more than that. I think that the reason you're interested in this pony is the same reason I'm interested in it. I think you know very well that what it's carrying is not an embryo transplant.'
Daniel despised lying, but even if he hadn't he'd have been monumentally bad at it. His face registered every thought that passed through his head. He could have denied this, but he couldn't have denied it convincingly. He said nothing.
‘So,' said the man. ‘You worked it out. Now I need to know who else knows.'
‘The police,' Daniel said. ‘The police know'
The man chuckled. ‘Well, maybe they do and maybe they don't. Either way, it suits you for me to think so. But why should I believe you?'
Daniel shrugged. It was a little more lopsided than usual because his hands were lashed to the breast-bar behind his back. They were still in the horse-box, the pony an interested observer. ‘You said it: I know nothing about horses. I only got involved
because Dimmock police were trying to work out how the drugs were coming in and …'
He saw too late where he was going with this, tried to keep Brodie out of it. ‘Someone thought of a way to test what was being done and who was doing it. All they needed was a name for the paperwork. It seemed simple enough. The general feeling was that even I could manage that.'
The man nodded. ‘Mrs Farrell.'
‘It's a CID operation,' said Daniel stubbornly.
‘Mrs Farrell came up with the story and booked the transport.'
‘Detective Superintendent Jack Deacon is in charge,' insisted Daniel. ‘Don't think you can scare her off without taking him on'.
‘I'm not interested in scaring anyone off,' said the man negligently. ‘Tell me how much they know, and how much they just think they know.'
Daniel saw no reason not to. The time for discretion had gone. ‘They thought they knew it all. But they needed the pony to prove it. They expected to have it by now. If you've still got it, I imagine they're surer than ever that you're doing what they thought you were doing but they've lost the evidence.'
The man considered. ‘So if we say nothing and do nothing they can prove nothing.'
‘I suppose.' There was something bizarre about talking this candidly with a man that far on the wrong side of the law. It shouldn't be this polite. But events had progressed beyond the point where either man stood to gain anything by subterfuge. Laying their cards on the table was the only sensible alternative. Nothing that Daniel could either learn, guard or impart now would significantly impact on the outcome. That was good, because it meant Windham's friend with the brass-headed walking-stick had no reason to see him as a threat. But it was also strange. He felt at a gut level that he should be fighting this man, intellectually if not with his fists. He was involved in a vile trade and Daniel had nothing but contempt for him. All his instincts said they shouldn't have been chatting amiably about how Deacon's case was coming together.
Perhaps similar thoughts were passing through the other man's mind as he watched Daniel with sombre eyes. Or perhaps not. ‘There is of course the question of what to do about you.'
Daniel was quite proud of his casual little shrug. Though he didn't believe he was in any real danger, there was an anxious knot in the pit of his stomach that couldn't help wondering. ‘They know by now that I'm missing. They'll have guessed why. Someone will have seen this van parked outside my house. You won't get it out of the country. The best thing you can do now is leave it here – wherever
here
is – with me and the pony inside. By the time we're found, you could be halfway home.'
The man was nodding slowly, seemed more than half convinced. ‘The problem with that is you can identify me. I needed to talk to you – but now I have, I need you to stay silent.' An odd, almost playful expression stole across his face. ‘Mr Hood, can I trust you to stay silent?'
Ethics or not, Daniel would have lied like a trooper if he thought he'd be believed. But it was a trap. ‘No. But what can I tell the police that would help them find you? You're an average-looking man with a foreign accent. That's going to be a real help to the guys watching the Channel ports.'
The man chuckled. ‘This is true. But if I
am
caught, you can identify me.'
‘If you're caught, I'll be the least of your problems. If you're caught it's because they've already worked out who you are and circulated a picture of you. Nothing I can tell them will make any difference.'
He believed that. He believed that, logically, there was no more reason for this man to harm him than there had been for him to take a beating rather than answer his questions. Logically, there was no reason he shouldn't walk away from this. But at the back of his mind was what the world had taught him: that not everyone thinks logically.
This was the vet. He hadn't said as much, but he'd talked about handling big excitable horses and anyway it made sense. Deacon reckoned Windham had one partner and one only, and he had to be the one who had access to the German tranquillizer. If Windham had needed help to evade the authorities on his
journey back from Essen, where else would he seek it? And the good thing about
that
was that vets are scientists, and scientists have the inside track when it comes to thinking logically.
Daniel tried to appeal to that pragmatic side of him. ‘Look, you've only got two options, yes? — to kill me or leave me alive. If the police have your picture, killing me won't make you safe. It'll get you another ten years.'
‘It is true,' admitted the man, ‘murder always ups the ante. Is that the expression?' he asked. ‘Ups the ante?'
Daniel nodded.
The man did the regretful little sigh again. ‘But only the first murder. All subsequent ones come for free.'
 
It was gone nine o'clock before Brodie thought of Daniel. She knew he'd be waiting to hear from her. She thought he'd be starting to worry and that she ought to call him, tell him what had happened. But he didn't answer, and when she glanced outside she saw the stars that were the reason why.
Half an hour later she tried again. This time, after a long delay, someone picked up. But it wasn't Daniel, it was Alison Barker.
At first Brodie could get no sense out of her. She sounded both vague and distressed. ‘Put Daniel on,' Brodie said, a couple of times. ‘Let me talk to Daniel.'
‘I can't find him,' whined the girl.
‘Try the gallery. He'll be out with the telescope.'
‘He isn't there. I looked.'
The cats of unease were walking up and down Brodie's spine with their claws out. ‘Alison, are you all right? You sound … Are you all right?'
‘Yes. It's just, I can't …think. I took … My head's all woolly.'
The cats were right. ‘Alison, listen to me. This is important. What did you take?'
‘Pills,' mumbled the girl, faintly annoyed. ‘I don't know what they're called. Listen. I can't find Daniel. Do you know where he is?'
‘Are you sure he isn't outside? Look again.'
It was a couple of minutes before the girl came back. ‘There's
no one there. Only the telescope.'
Now the alarm bells were ringing carillons in Brodie's head. That telescope was a valuable piece of equipment; more than that, it was Daniel's baby. He might have gone for a walk, he might have gone to the shop, but he wouldn't have done either leaving his telescope unprotected outside. ‘Stay where you are, Ally, I'm coming over. Don't go to sleep.'
When Brodie reached the shore Daniel's front door was still unlocked, the telescope still pointing skyward on the gallery, and Alison had – despite her instructions – lapsed once again into unconsciousness, curled up on the living room sofa. Brodie shook her vigorously, at first without response.
‘Ally! Ally, wake up. You have to wake up and tell me what it is you've taken.'
She was on the point of calling an ambulance when her efforts finally bore fruit. Alison Barker opened a bleary eye that slid over Brodie a couple of times before connecting. ‘Hello.' She sounded like a punch-drunk boxer.
‘What did you take? Ally!' she shouted as the girl went to nod off again. ‘You have to concentrate. Tell me what you took.'
Alison waved a vacant hand at the stairs. ‘Pills. Sleeping pills. I couldn't sleep so I took …'
It would be quicker to go and look than wait for her to explain. Brodie found the bottle on the bedside table in the spare room. It was almost full, and the label was for a prescription medicine. She hadn't been out cruising for drugs, she'd just taken a sleeping pill and not had time to sleep it off. Brodie returned upstairs, reassured on that score at least.
Alison was drowsing again. Brodie shook her shoulder firmly. ‘Will you get your head together? I need you to tell me about Daniel. When did you see him last? How long has he been gone? Ally! Something's happened to him, and God help us but you're the only one who might know what!'
 
Rather than hang around Battle Alley scowling at people who'd done him no harm, Deacon went home. He scowled at the cat instead, and the cat scowled back.
A little after ten the phone rang. It was Brodie, and she was
worried. ‘Jack, something's happened to Daniel.'
The last thing on Deacon's mind right now was Daniel Hood. He stared at the phone stupidly for a moment before answering. ‘What sort of something?'
‘I don't know. Alison took a sleeping pill and went to bed soon after seven. At that point he had pupils with him. I tried to phone him about nine but there was no reply. Half an hour later I got Alison, still groggy from the sleeping pill and scared because she was alone. Jack, he'd left the door unlocked and his telescope outside.'
BOOK: Requiem for a Dealer
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