Provender Gleed (11 page)

'Over here, ma'am,' said Carver, pointing. 'This patch of grass. There are signs of trampling.'

'So what?' She was doing her best to be haughty. Somehow that made it easier for her, gave her something to hide behind. 'Nothing suspicious about that. Obviously some guests came out this way.'

'Maybe, ma'am. But if I might draw your attention to...' Carver pointed again, this time with precise emphasis.

Cynthia looked.

On the ground, to the edge of the trampled area of grass, lay a short length of wood.

A stick.

Not a tree branch - a lathed utensil.

Cynthia tried to recall where she had seen it before. Sometime during the past few hours.

In Provender's hand.

The earth seemed to give a lurch. There was a dull hum in her ears. Carver was talking to her, saying something to the effect that this wasn't necessarily as sinister as it appeared, no one should jump to any conclusions, there might be a perfectly innocent explanation... Cynthia barely heard him. She stared at the stick, nestled there among those overlapping footprints, dropped, lost.

It seemed to point to something.

No, to nothing.

A headless arrow.

Provender...

14

Some time ago his captors had transferred him to a bathroom. He knew it was a bathroom by the cold tiles underneath him, the faint scents of soap and mildew, and the short shuffling echo that attended every sound. They had removed his cape and bound his wrists and ankles with lengths of plastic-coated cord - electrical flex? Then they had left him there, lying on his side on the floor, still blindfolded, with only his dread for company.

Nobody had told him he wasn't allowed to move. Nonetheless there was a kind of talismanic allure about staying still. Frightened animals did this, froze, hoping it would somehow render them invisible to carnivores prowling near. To be static was to invite harm to pass you by. So Provender had lain in the same fixed position, until eventually a severe case of cramp made it impossible to continue to do so. Slowly, with the utmost reluctance, he stretched out his arms and straightened his legs. Having completed this manoeuvre without inviting unpleasant consequences, he dared to ease his wrists and ankles around inside their bonds. His hands and feet tingled painfully as the blood flowed into them again.

By this stage, the effects of whatever drug his captors had injected him with had almost completely worn off. He still felt a little floaty, in a way that reminded him of when he was a child and had spent too long swimming in the sea - the up-and-down of the waves continued to wash within his body for some time after. His mind, however, had regained clarity. His thoughts weren't foggy and fuddled any more, although he might perhaps have preferred it if they were. He comprehended, now, exactly the predicament he was in, and wished he didn't.

He heard the bathroom door open. A pull-cord switch clicked and an extractor fan wheezed into life. No doubt a light must have come on too, but behind the tight-tied blindfold Provender remained in darkness.

He cringed as hands touched him, but he sensed almost immediately that the hands didn't belong to the man, the Harlequin. They were Is's.

'Sit up,' she said.

He did, with her assistance, resting his back against the side of the bath.

'I'm just going to roll up your sleeve. OK?'

His body language must have conveyed why he didn't much like this idea.

'I'm not going to give you another injection. I'm taking your blood pressure, that's all.'

The cuff of a sphygmomanometer was placed around his upper arm, secured with its Velcro fastenings, and inflated. Is then pressed the business end of a stethoscope into the crook of his elbow and let the air out of the cuff.

'One twenty-five over seventy,' she said. 'That's not bad, given how your heart rate's elevated. I'll check again later, but I'm sure you're going to be fine.'

As she unfastened the cuff, she added, 'You can speak, you know. You don't have to sit there like a statue.'

'I can?'

'Just don't try yelling for help.'

'Oh. No. Never crossed my mind.'

'Because there's no point. That's why you're in the bathroom. No windows, no outside walls. Pretty good soundproofing. We'd hear you. No one else would.'

'I understand.' He gave an uncomfortable little cough. The back of his throat was feeling achey and constricted.

'Don't try removing the blindfold, either. We'll be able to tell if you have.'

'What don't you want me to see? Your face? I already have.'

'There are other reasons. Look, I realise you must be scared, Provender. All I can say is, if everything goes the way it should, there's no need to be.'

He forced himself to ask, 'And if everything
doesn't
go the way it should?'

There was the minutest of pauses. 'To be honest, how all this pans out isn't up to us. It's up to your Family. Their response determines
our
response.'

'We have money,' Provender said quickly. 'Lots of money. You know that. Name your price. Any amount. I'm sure my fath--'

'We'll discuss it later,' said Is. There was a soft clatter as she gathered up her medical equipment. 'I'll be back in an hour to do your BP again and give you some breakfast. Till then - please try not to worry, Provender. And get some sleep if you can.'

The extractor fan rattled and whirred for a few minutes after she was gone, then lapsed into silence.

Try not to worry. Get some sleep if you can
.

Provender would have laughed, if he hadn't felt so much like weeping.

15

In the open-plan vastness of the second largest of Dashlands House's six main drawing rooms, Prosper Gleed, Cynthia Gleed, Gratitude Gleed and Extravagance Gleed all sat, none of them saying a word. In front of them, on various tables, lay trays of victuals. Clusters of untouched cups encircled cafetières of undrunk coffee and pots of cooled, stewed tea. Croissants and bread rolls, brought hot from the oven, were stacked stone-cold beside melting curls of butter. It was 9 a.m. Sunlight gleamed behind blinds that no one had thought to furl. Around the room several table lamps shed their own muted illumination. Each lamp took the form of a classical figurine, cast in spelter, either holding aloft or cavorting alongside a crackle-glass orb that served to shade the bulb. It was as though, in miniature, gods and nymphs were playing with planets.

On one sofa, Extravagance lay with her head resting in her mother's lap. Cynthia, in turn, was stroking her daughter's hair, just as she might have done when Extravagance was eight or nine. The action, performed mindlessly, soothed them both. Gratitude, meanwhile, had a faraway stare, and Prosper was absorbed in dark inward contemplation. The faces of all four showed, to a greater or lesser degree, a grey-tinged tautness - exhaustion compounded by shock, shock amplified by exhaustion. They had all changed out of their ball costumes into day wear. The party seemed to have happened a long time ago, and its pleasures and excesses had been consigned to memory along with the masks and the wigs and the makeup. The mood now was as sombre as it had been, for the duration of the night, frivolous.

Gratitude was the one who at last broke the long silence. 'This better not be some stupid stunt he's pulling, that's all I can say. Some practical joke.'

'He wouldn't, 'Tudey,' said her mother. 'He wouldn't dare. He knows I'd kill him.'

'He's got such a strange brain, though. It might be his idea of fun. "I'll go missing for a while. Pretend I've been kidnapped. Give everyone a scare." He's probably feeling unappreciated and this is his way of getting everyone to notice him and take him seriously again.'

'I was mean to him,' Extravagance said. 'At the ball. The last time we spoke we were sort of having an argument and I was sarcastic to him and --'

'Don't,' said Cynthia, patting her. 'Don't even think that way. This has nothing to do with anything you said to him, I'm quite certain of that.'

'But I wish we hadn't been arguing.'

'You two are always arguing,' said Gratitude, meaning it as comfort.

'But if I'd known something like
this
was going to happen...'

'But you didn't, 'Strav.'

Extravagance settled her head in her mother's lap once more, disconsolately. 'I promise I'm going to be nicer to him from now on. Every chance I get.'

Implicit in this statement was the belief that Provender would be coming back to Dashlands sometime in the future, alive and well. Nobody thought to suggest to Extravagance that she was wrong to think that way. Nobody wanted to say such a thing aloud.

'If he has been kidnapped,' Gratitude said, slowly, 'if that
is
what this is, then won't we be hearing from the kidnappers soon? You know, a message with their demands, or whatever.'

'Let's hope so,' said her mother. 'And let's pray that all they're after is money.'

'What would it be if it wasn't money?'

'They might' - Cynthia chose her words carefully - 'try to make political capital out of holding Provender. They might try and blackmail us into making ... compromises that would injure us as a Family. Force us to sacrifice certain rights and assets.'

'Such as?'

'Our controlling stakes in major corporations, for one thing.'

'Why?'

'To humiliate us, of course. Remember that Japanese Family a few years back, the Omarus? No, you wouldn't, either of you. You were both very small when it happened. Some radical activists, members of some kind of religious brainwashing cult, I forget what they called themselves, stole the youngest son of the main branch of the Family. He was barely a week old. He had been born premature, and they took him from the hospital, incubator unit and all, right under the noses of a dozen security guards. They just dressed up in white coats, pretended they were doctors, and wheeled the poor little thing out to a waiting car.'

'I sort of have heard this story, I think. How horrid!'

'And then they went on TV and ordered Kenji Omaru --'

'Kenji was the baby's father?'

'Correct, and the head of the Omarus back then. They ordered him to sell off all Family stocks in the main Japanese
zaibatsus
and then read out a speech on primetime television, which they'd written for him, basically saying he was corrupt, Families were evil, no one should have that much money, the wealth belonged to the people, it should be shared out more evenly, et cetera, et cetera. It was about twenty pages long, that speech, and Kenji was supposed to deliver it to camera with the whole world watching, and you know how the Japanese are about pride and honour. It was intended to break him. It was tantamount to a death sentence. Also, these people - the Cult of the Orange Shrine, something like that - they just hadn't thought the financial side of it through. If the Omarus tried to sell off that much stock all at once, there'd be a huge drop in share values across the board. The stock market would crash. The whole regional economy would collapse. Perhaps they wanted that as well. Social and economic chaos. Who knows how these people's minds work. Anyway...'

'What happened?'

The bitterness of Cynthia's tone gave way to wariness. 'No, well, come to think of it, it's not such a relevant story after all.'

'Mother, what happened?'

She shook her head. 'I wish I hadn't brought it up now. The circumstances aren't similar to ours, not at all.'

'
Mother
...'

'Kenji refused. Point-blank. Refused to do as they asked. He wasn't going to destroy himself and his whole Family, and heap financial ruin on so many others as well.'

'He refused. So what about the baby? His son?'

'He ... he thought it better to let the boy... It was his youngest son. He had three others.'

'Oh my God.'

'They... Police found the body a month later in marshland outside Kobe. They had a tip-off and apprehended the cultists too. There was a trial. Death sentences were passed.'

'But he let the baby...'

'He had to. Had no choice. Too much else was at stake. He felt it was the right decision. He said Family is about more than parents and offspring and relatives.'

'What a bloody wonderful little tale,' said Extravagance from Cynthia's lap. 'Thanks for sharing that with us, Mum. I feel a whole lot better now.'

'I know, I'm sorry, it was just to illustrate what some people might be prepared to ask from us, how far they'd be willing to go. I really don't believe it's the same here with --'

'"Some people",' said Prosper. He, of all of them, was the one who had said the least since they assembled in the drawing room. His brooding had been deeper and more intense than anyone else's. Now that he had piped up, it was clear that he had come to some conclusions and wished to air them.

'Yes, dear?' Cynthia said.

Prosper looked at his wife and daughters, steely-eyed. 'I don't think this was "some people". I don't think this is about ransom either.'

'What is it about, then?'

His voice dropped so low, it was almost a growl. 'I think we're under attack.'

'What?'

'I think this is the opening salvo. Someone's gunning for us.'

'Really?'

'Really.'

'Where's the evidence? What makes you say this?'

'Instinct. Gut.'

'Who, Dad?' said Gratitude. 'Who's gunning for us?'

'Who do you think?'

'Another Family?'

'Not just any other Family. One particular Family.'

It didn't take much hard thinking to work out who he was referring to.

'No,' said Gratitude.

'They wouldn't,' said Cynthia.

'Why not?' said Prosper.

'They - they wouldn't go this far,' Cynthia said. 'It's always been strictly business between us and them. Buyouts, takeovers, forced mergers. Yes, we fight them, but only in boardrooms, only in industry and commerce. We compete. We don't... It doesn't come to this. Not actually attacking Family members. I don't believe for one second they'd stoop that low.'