I could feel the warmth of his body against my back and I could only marvel at the fact that he had found me so soon. I murmured something sleepily and his arm tightened. Eleanor. His voice was a whisper in my ear. Eleanor … Eleanor …
Ellie.
“No!” I cried and suddenly the noise in my ears was only the deafening roar of tyres on wet road.
I sat bolt upright and stared about me in a bewildered panic. Two horses were peering down at me with steady interest as they swayed to the jolting movement of the lorry and I blinked stupidly up at them through the fog of drugged and fearful mindlessness.
Oblivious, Beechnut blew gently down her nose in greeting and only then, with a sudden painful rush of nauseating relief, did I realise that no one was holding me at all. She seemed surprisingly unconcerned as she chewed steadily on a mouthful of hay but a telltale crust of dried sweat had dulled her coat and I tried to get up to see what they might have done to her to get my lovely horse to load into the lorry. I very nearly made it.
With a sickening jolt, the lorry rocked over a pothole and my legs gave way beneath me so that I sat back down again with a crash. Then, just as abruptly, all thoughts of her were put out of my head. My body reacted violently to the poisonous effects of the chloroform and for a horribly memorable stretch of minutes, I was left incapable of saying or thinking or doing anything else at all.
It was an extraordinarily unpleasant interlude but at last, gasping and coughing for breath, I managed to get my unhappy stomach back under something like control. Slowly, gingerly, I propped myself up to lean against the wall of the box. I was freezing cold and shocked and utterly weary, and as I fought to suppress the vicious trembling that wracked my body, I discovered that I knew some very choice words with which to describe my feelings towards my former friend. It seemed to be a long while before I recovered enough to be able to lift my head and attempt a second look at my surroundings.
The gloomy interior of the lorry was as impressive now as it had appeared when I had last seen it; the wood-lined box was well built and looked very robust, and if I could have found any fault it was in that the little jockey door could not be opened from the inside. The ramp, of course, was equally impossible.
The new partition between the horses was impeccably designed – thick and sturdy with a metal breast bar that would hold the horses safely in place if there was a sudden stop – and each horse looked remarkably comfortable as it stood rocking gently within its individual compartment. I had been laid in the small space in front of the bar where their hay bags were slung and I could feel where occasional wisps had escaped from a steadily chewing mouth to drift down and tangle in my hair.
Beechnut looked perfectly relaxed, particularly when she stole a mouthful as it dangled from the stallion’s mouth, and I wondered whether they had drugged her too to get her into the box. Perhaps she had been blindfolded; I certainly doubted that even her new gentleman friend would have been enough of an incentive to set aside her usual hatred of all things man-related. At that thought, my mind vividly replayed John’s last instructions to Simon Turford and I suddenly struck the wall with the heel of my hand. It was a burst of fury of the like I have rarely experienced; the sensation was intense, extraordinarily heating and regardless of the impossibility of escape, I absolutely refused to just sit in helpless submission while others plotted away her life. And mine. And, with a gasp of pain, Matthew’s.
Slowly, grudgingly, my brain got to work. It was inconceivable that John had orchestrated this entire nightmare purely for the purposes of damning Matthew and marrying me. And, lovely as he was, surely it could not be possible that the horse was so valuable as to be worth all this risk. No, even the original Union Star would have been worth only a tiny portion of the rolls of paper we had discovered and as my poor befuddled brain struggled back into some semblance of life, I became certain that the unlucky horse’s imminent emigration had to be a convenient cover for the real ambition. It seemed perverse that what had been meant as a casual criticism should in the end prove to be the key to the whole thing, but if John was right and a person would have to be a fool to try and sell looted artworks in his own county, the thought finally occurred to me that perhaps it could be presumed that this rule stretched to countries, too.
With sudden vigour that denied the weakness of my drugged limbs, I set about exploring the turbulent and swaying space of the moving lorry. The horses’ stalls, the Luton space above the cab and even the hay bags were all examined in great detail but after I did it for the second time I had to accept it. There was a big fat nothing.
But I couldn’t be wrong. Surely?
Think Eleanor. Think!
I found myself sitting on the hay-strewn floor leaning against the wall once more, with my hands pressed tightly to my eyes. My enfeebled mind was complaining bitterly at this final assault on its weakened powers and, staring defeat in the face, I lifted my head to look up at Beechnut in the hope of finding some glimmer of cheer to save me from the fast approaching grip of bleak and unanswerable despair. She flicked her ears at me before vigorously scratching an itch under her mane on the edge of the partition.
“Beechnut!” I cried, making her jump in surprise. “You clever girl!”
She didn’t quite know what she had done to deserve this praise but nevertheless accepted it with good grace. It was so obvious when I thought about it, this sudden urgency of refurbishing the lorry when he was constantly reminding me of his financial difficulties. Why so urgent unless it would be carrying a priceless cargo?
With a sudden burst of wild enthusiasm I began examining the smooth wooden surface of the upright that secured the new central partition and held the breast-bar. My fingers ran down its length in search of any loose trimmings that might conceal a void in which to secrete the papers. Then I stopped and did it again. There, definitely there, just above the fixing for the bar, something moved.
I tugged at it and pushed and pulled, and I believe at one point even kicked, but the odious bit of wood would not budge. With a cry of rage I threw my weight against it – and immediately had to stop with a curse and say “Ow!”
A splinter had caught in my hand. However the sudden shock of pain steadied me in my rising hysteria and as I sucked the tiny bead of blood away, I was able to examine the strip of wood more calmly. It had been tacked on with long nails and no amount of cursing at it would draw them out; I needed some leverage. There was even a gap of almost a finger’s width behind it where a knot had broken off and if I could just find something to jam in there I suspected it would not take much to pull it away.
I searched about determinedly. There was nothing in the Luton other than an old blanket which smelled of horse and the rest of the box contained only me, the horses and the hay. That was it; nothing – nothing that would be strong enough to part the nails. I felt my pockets, my clothes and about my body, and then, abruptly, all thoughts of the search were forgotten. My heart stilled and suddenly, completely, nothing else mattered.
My necklace was gone.
It was ludicrous that such a small object should have been the thing that finally broke my fragile resolve but suddenly the fight went out of me and I sat down and cried and cried until my eyes hurt. Somehow the necklace had come to symbolise everything about my newfound hope for a future and the loss of the necklace made me suddenly realise the loss of the man. If he should fall into John’s trap while I was stuck here in this awful prison of a horsebox, if he should die and I was not there …
I stopped that thought very sharply. I wasn’t prepared to give up on him just yet. Tremblingly, I forced my brain to focus and as I began to feel about myself once more and my searching fingers found my waist, I suddenly discovered my much needed inspiration.
The belt was perfect and its long metal buckle seemed almost designed for the task as it slipped easily into the gap. I pushed with all my might against that strip of wood and by some miracle the buckle proved stronger than the nails. Then, with a great tearing sound, the nails ripped free and with tidy efficiency as if mocking my former despair, the wood pulled away, and fell neatly into my hand.
I was right, the partition was hollow and there was space enough inside for all the papers. There was just one problem; they were not there.
I looked and peered from every angle, but nothing made any difference. The papers truly were not hidden here.
“Dammit!” I threw the strip of wood to the floor in useless fury. Then, cursing again and with more venom at my own stupidity, I had to scrabble about under the stallion’s legs to retrieve it – the protruding nails would be a terrible danger if he were to step on them.
I placed the piece up into the Luton above the cab so that it was safely out of their way before attempting to reawaken my eagerness for my foolish little mission. I was beginning to suspect that I had latched upon this task purely to keep myself from collapsing into a sobbing hysteria but as I stood winding the belt about my waist once more, I felt my brain tentatively give another little nudge.
The floor was covered in hessian matting to soak up any urine and to provide grip for their feet, and in the little space that I occupied, it was possible to convince myself that in the corner where the Luton met the jockey door, perhaps, just perhaps, the matting was not tacked down quite so securely.
Now an expert at prising things free, I bent down and tugged at the hessian with all my might. For a while it seemed like it might not give but then, with a wonderful fraying of threads, it finally surrendered and suddenly the whole portion ripped away from its pins in a great satisfying lump. I almost laughed as I looked down at the bare floor of the lorry. There, set into the plain wood panelled flooring, was a small hatch complete with little brass handles that had been laid flush with its surface. Their hinges squeaked as I lifted the cold metal loops.
Defying tradition, the hatch lifted smoothly clear without even so much as a murmur of resistance and there, below me, in a recess in the floor with the road roaring past underneath, lay my papers.