The Price Of Horses

Chapter 4

4

Luke crossed the paddock, vaulted a post-and-rail fence, then found himself in the large back garden of the old three-storey brick-built manor house. From experience he guessed the building's date at around 1700-1710. He could see in the moonlight that the property stood in extensive grounds, with lawns, ranges of outbuildings and borders filled with low-maintenance shrubs. Wide gravel paths led around to the front of the house. As he drew closer, he could see that the place had a double-pitched roof.

Following Tam's advice, he moved away from the back of the house where there were supposed to be surveillance cameras, although he was unable for the life of him to spot any. He supposed he must be too far back to see them, but he began to wonder if the Scotsman had been economical with the truth. Looking at the layout of the property, the logical place for cameras was on the northwest and southwest corners of the house, covering the back, front and western gable end wall. The eastern end of the house was attached to a range of outbuildings and was too exposed to be approached. He was wary of cameras. They were the one and only cause of his unfortunate police reputation.

He came closer, crouching among the bushes and studying the gable end wall in the moonlight. The wall itself was in shadow, a problem only for gorgios with no night vision. But it was obvious now that there were no motion-sensitive lights and no cameras fixed to the house walls. How the hell was the property protected? He cursed Tam under his breath. What else had the slippery Scot lied about? He began to have serious misgivings about the entire business, but the lure of large profit kept him focused. When he was paid for the heist, he would spend a few days exploring the potential of that hill farm.

First he had to decide if the climb was possible. After five minutes' examination, he decided there was only one route, and even that might prove too difficult. Damn that greedy oat-brained Scot! He had every right to back out, telling Tam the wall was unclimbable.

But, as so often before, a part of him refused to give in. It wasn't that he had a reputation to uphold, because very few people actually knew he was involved in this line of work—it was all supposition—and the few who did know kept the knowledge to themselves, not wanting to lose a man with such skills to punters with deeper pockets.

It was a personal thing. He was proud that he could achieve climbs that had defeated the best cat burglars. Occasionally he'd had to resort to rock-climbers' gear, but mostly his free-climbing skills relied solely on speed, strength and agility.

This was going to be one of those climbs. Tightening the rucksack waistband, he began to work his way up the wall via drainpipes and window architecture. He found a few good finger holds where loose mortar had come adrift and scratched out a couple more with the small screwdriver hooked to his jacket collar. He could have saved himself the forty-foot climb by breaking what he assumed was a small bathroom window on the first floor, but he resisted the temptation. The window would almost certainly be wired.

He could have used a grappling hook. But he had learned from past experience that the higher you climbed the more unreliable the brickwork became on a property of this age. If it gave way, all you could do was go down. He had only fallen three times in the last ten years, but each time he had managed, parkour-style, to roll through the fall upon landing, saving himself broken limbs and a terminated career.

As he reached the gully between the double-pitches of the roof, he lost his grip on a loose, unmortared coping stone and had to hang by one hand for a half minute while he shifted his weight so he could grab a rainwater hopper to save himself. He'd had these moments before, and his pulse hardly registered the danger. Then he was into the gully, getting his breath back and refocusing.

His distrust of grappling hooks was confirmed. The brickwork at the western end of the gully was seriously frost-damaged and would have given way under his weight. He opened his rucksack, removed the rope and left it neatly coiled in the gully, ready for his escape. He would loop it behind the bracket that secured the hopper and pull it through when he reached the ground.

He knew there would be some means of access from the house to the gully, and sure enough, there was a wood-and-felt dormer-type trapdoor at the far end. He inserted a flat-bladed knife between the door and its surrounding framework, relieved to find there were no locks. With firm downward movements, he freed the two wooden catches that held the woodwork in place, and the trapdoor swung inwards on its hinges with no more than a brief squeak. He put on his leather gloves and balaclava, then vanished through the door into the house.

He was in a large attic, set out like a workshop for repairing damaged furniture. The room reeked of lacquers, varnishes and glue. Obviously the rich ex-con liked to indulge in practical activities. He crossed to the next attic room and peered out of a window. The front garden lay below: a wide moonlit terrace with urns leading to a lawn and a shrubbery. He left the room and descended a flight of stairs to the first-floor landing. Moonlight streamed in through a large uncurtained window. The doors from the landing were all open except one. He listened at the closed door… Silence.

A ground-floor rear reception room was his target. He found the room shuttered, the air stale and lifeless. It was merely a place for the owner to gloat over his illegally acquired possessions. He located two large cabinets: one contained figurines and seal stones from Iraqi museums; the other held the T'ang figurines.

With his torch between his teeth and wearing the surgical gloves, he quickly picked the cabinet's lock. He removed soft cloths from his rucksack, took the four horse figurines Tam had described to him, wrapped them in the cloths and packed them carefully in the straw inside the rucksack.

As he moved to the door, he spotted an infrared security light winking in a recess. He froze, shocked.

"Damn you, Tam, you lying Scots fishbrain!" he cursed the dealer under his breath.

Then he tightened the waistband on his rucksack and hurried from the room.

He stepped warily into the moonlit hallway. Before he could reach the stairs to the first floor, he felt the cold steel of a double-barrelled shotgun pressed to the back of his neck.

The infrared had done for him. He stood absolutely still, every faculty stretched to its limit. He heard the distinctive rhyming slang of an East End voice behind him. The voice seemed filled with amusement.

"A greasy little tea leaf! D'you think you can take my bread and honey? Help yourself, just like that, to my stuff? Your kind don't deserve quality goods. You're too stupid to appreciate them. But you're in my world now. I'm the only law that exists here. I can tell you I'm a believer in capital punishment. And I've a special hell for lawbreakers like you." The voice grew harsher, more authoritative. "Put down the bag, tea leaf. Put it down and take two steps away from it."

Luke obeyed. There was nothing to be gained from heroics. "You can have it, mate. I'm on my way. Don't want no trouble."

"But I do! I enjoy a bit of Barney Rubble. Especially other people's. It's punishment time, tea leaf. Hands on your head! Do it now!"

Luke obeyed. He caught a glimpse of a figure behind him dressed in a burgundy satin robe and fancy leather moccasins. The figure prodded him with the shotgun.

"See that door, tea leaf? Go through it and keep walking."

All Luke could do was play for time and watch for any lapse of attention on the part of whom he assumed must be the rich ex-con.

"Look, mate, just forget it, okay?"

"Too late, me old China plate! Too late! Through the f*****g door! Now!"

Luke obeyed. He found himself in a corridor. More prodding from the shotgun propelled him to the far end.

"Turn the key, open the door and go outside. Hands back on your crust of bread! Do it now!"

Luke found himself in a rear courtyard. In the moonlight he could make out stables and other outbuildings surrounding a central paved area. Now he was outside he felt his chances of escape might increase.

"I made a mistake, mate, okay? You got your stuff back. Why can't you leave it at that and let me go?"

But his captor was not going to succumb to the distraction of dialogue, continuing to drive him forward with savage stabs of the shotgun barrels and rasping commands: "Move! Move!"

Luke realized the man was doing something with a mobile phone. He heard the lock click open in the door of an outbuilding ahead of him. His captor's voice came again:

"Open the door in front of you." He laughed. "We're off for some tea and cakes!"

Obediently Luke opened the door of the outbuilding.

"Light switch on the left at shoulder height. Switch it on."

Luke entered the building and put on the light. He found himself in a large vivarium occupied by at least a dozen sleeping snakes that were coiled on the sinewy branches of what looked like real trees and on the sand of the floor. The temperature had risen by at least twenty degrees Celsius.

His captor laughed again. "This is the punishment block, tea leaf!"

"Jesus!" Luke exclaimed involuntarily.

"Welcome to hell!" His captor cackled in huge amusement. "In ten minutes' time you'll be brown bread, me old China!"

Luke recalled Tam's words: By common consent he's a bit of a psycho. How did Tam know? Did he have insider contacts in the London mob?

Disturbed by the light, the snakes began to uncurl and writhe towards Luke.

"It's a long time since I took their venom," his captor commented airily. "Any one of them could kill you in a most unpleasant way." He prodded Luke in the back with the shotgun. "I'll leave you to savour your last moments in this life and contemplate your complete stupidity!"

Luke had to make a move before he found himself locked in. He bent down suddenly and blew on the head of the nearest snake. It was an introductory technique he used when approaching a horse for the first time, his breath conveying the mystery of his life energy—but he had no idea if it would work with snakes! Then he reached fast and picked the creature up. He turned to face his captor, a lean, balding fellow of fifty with grey designer stubble, saw his look of astonishment and fear as he flung the animal at his head.

"The last moments are all yours me old China!" Luke yelled.

The rich ex-con fell backwards with a startled cry. The shotgun went off, blowing a hole in the roof. The shock of the deafening report sent the snakes crazy; they began writhing purposefully towards the two men. Luke ran, slamming the outbuilding door as he reached the paved yard. He heard his ex-captor's cries of terror coming from within the vivarium…

He ran back into the house, grabbed his rucksack, swung it onto his back and snapped the waistband firmly closed. He unbolted the front door and sprinted from the building as an alarm bleeped somewhere in the house. He was out, but where the hell was Tam?

He reached the field lane and was just in time to see the Volvo pulling out slowly from the trees. He caught up with the vehicle and hammered on the roof, forcing Tam to brake to a halt. Then he whipped off his rucksack and pushed it ahead of him onto the back seat. He ducked down as the Scotsman drove away fast.

"What went wrong back there?" Tam asked as he headed for the M1.

"You're a liar!" Luke roared from the darkness at the back of the Volvo. "That's what went wrong! I'm never gonna work with you again. And to prove it, I'm gonna kill you!"