by Amy Myers
Sean’s response was to release Adam, turn round and seize hold of Emma. ‘She’s mine, you fucker,’ he yelled over his shoulder at Adam. ‘And I’ll get you if you touch her again.’
He dragged her away from Adam, swinging her round as a shield as Bob and Luke tried to get her away. Nick Baker was struggling to hold Adam back from the attack.
‘He’s a murderer, Emma,’ Adam was shouting frenziedly. ‘Ask him whose gun it was.’
In a trice, Sean had flung Emma away, and pushed Adam back against the wall, and this time Georgia could see to her horror that he had a knife in his hand, and that Luke and Bob weren’t going to reach him in time. Adam was using both hands to stave Sean off and blood was already running down his arm. No sooner did Bob or Luke pull him off than he’d break free and come back in again.
‘Take that, you ruddy hooligans!’
A voice from above and the contents of a bucket of water landed on the heads of the fighting cocks, sufficient for them to part briefly, spluttering, and both of them were firmly seized. Alice, Georgia thought thankfully, had her own effective methods of dealing with situations.
Six
‘I don’t like this one little bit, Georgia,’ Peter told her on her arrival at the office the next morning. She had telephoned him after her return from Fernbourne to tell him briefly of the fight outside the pub, but had kept back the rest until working hours. She knew the police had arrested Sean, but it was still too early to expect any more news.
‘Sean and Emma have nothing to do with the Fernbourne case,’ she pointed out.
‘Haven’t they? It seems to me that Fernbourne has been a village ill at ease with itself for many a long year, and the underlying causes are breaking out in the younger generation.’
‘A lofty thesis,’ she retorted, ‘but can you really believe that rancour between the village and the manor decades ago is manifesting itself in a teenage pub fight now?’
‘Yes, I can. Children pick up attitudes and standards from their parents, and only later choose whether to accept or reject them. That’s how feuds keep running.’
She was forced to agree that was possible in Fernbourne.
Peter’s frustration broke out in another direction: ‘And what’s more, look at that.’
It took her a minute or two to realize what ‘that’ was: a blank window on the computer screen. She began to laugh at the descent from serious to trivial.
‘Nothing,’ Peter continued bitterly, ignoring her mirth. ‘Absolutely nothing. I’ve been fighting it since yesterday morning. Everything leads to the Great Wall of China. No outsiders wanted here.’
‘But you still think there’s something on the other side?’
‘I don’t know,’ Peter said irritably, ‘but doubtless the Barbarians, Huns and Tartars didn’t either.’
‘They did,’ Georgia reminded him. ‘There were trade routes which brought back rumours and information on the fabled riches of the East.’
‘We haven’t even got rumours,’ he grumbled. ‘There’s nothing to suggest the Five weren’t as romantic, admirable and tragic as Matthew maintains in his book. It’s not often,’ he continued glumly, ignoring her attempt to interrupt, ‘that I create a file for Suspects Anonymous and fail even to nail down the outlines of a case. Instead we’re circling around getting nowhere.’
Suspects Anonymous alternately delighted and infuriated Peter. When it was good it was very, very good, pointing out inconsistencies or positive matches in a mass of hitherto unconnected facts. When it was bad, however, it sat there as dolefully as they did, waiting for its next gulp of information. As it was doing now.
‘Usually we’d find a chink or weak link,’ Peter continued, ignoring another effort to break into the conversation, ‘but this is holding strong. Nothing but sweet cooperation from the Fernbourne Trust, and hostility from the village which thinks, perhaps quite rightly, that we’re sticking our noses into something that doesn’t need to be disturbed.’
‘There’s another problem.’ Georgia managed at last to divert his attention from the screen. ‘This mysterious project of Molly’s is a biography of Great-Uncle Roy Sandford.’
‘Damn.’ Peter didn’t waste time over spilt milk. ‘The worst scenario.’
‘It’s timely.’
‘Maybe, but it doesn’t explain why she came to Luke as the prospective publisher. Of course –’ he suddenly brightened up – ‘it could be really good news.’
‘How do you make that out?’ she asked, astonished.
‘Look at it this way. The manor opening is going to be a big deal. It could tie in with London exhibitions and so forth, celebs down here for the opening, press swarming around, Birdie’s great day. Agreed?’
‘Yes, but—’
‘The reprints might be neither here nor there, but a biography? Luke doesn’t have the distribution system and selling power of a mass-market publisher, so this could mean that the trust is determined to pre-empt any book of ours. Which – and here’s the good news – must mean there’s some substance to our case.’
‘Could be,’ Georgia replied. It was time to produce her rabbit from the hat. ‘Damien Trent visited Molly.’ That had convinced her that Damien was more deeply involved in the Five’s story than she had initially thought, which made her feel both guilty and relieved at the same time. Now at least she felt she was getting somewhere.
Her father’s eyes gleamed. ‘Tell me all.’
‘Not a lot to tell. Molly reluctantly told me he was asking about Alwyn Field and the Five. No great surprise, but I’m pretty sure she was holding back on me.’
‘Hum,’ was Peter’s contribution to this. ‘If Luke takes this biography on, he’d better beware of shifting sand. It could be an attempt to spike our guns, knowing he wouldn’t take both books. Then she could do the dirty on him at the last moment.’
‘How do we stop that?’
‘By going full-tilt ourselves. Are you still game, Georgia?’
‘Yes, but what do I tilt at?’
Peter growled in exasperation. ‘You sound like a boring Greek chorus. Do something.’
Growl it might be, but it was also a plea, Georgia realized. ‘Alice,’ she said. ‘I’ll try her.’
She decided to drive straight to Fernbourne, making a point of calling in to tell Luke where she was going, as last night’s events had shaken him. ‘Not just a village with a yob problem,’ he had remarked as they had driven home. ‘Deeper than that. There’s something bubbling up in Fernbourne. Georgia, take care, won’t you? Don’t get trapped in whatever’s going on.’
He’d never said that before, and he wasn’t normally one for seeing bears in bushes. Besides, it only echoed her own belief – and Peter’s. Safety was always an issue with Marsh & Daughter, but only as a sideline that she felt able to cope with. This seemed different because the threat was not only silent but its direction uncertain.
The journey was beginning to seem familiar, but even so as she drove through Chartham and over to cross the A2, it still felt like alien territory. Who had stood in tears amid the alien corn? Ruth in Keats’ ‘Ode to a Nightingale’. Along this single-track road high up on the downs there was nothing to be seen but fields of alien corn that had once been golden. Now they were brownish stubble, with the corn bales vanished, and it was a desolate scene of winter to come. Normally she’d have seen it as a positive sign of the harvest, but not today. The nearer she got to Fernbourne, the more she wanted to turn round and drive hell for leather in the opposite direction.
‘Balderdash,’ she told herself briskly. All that could happen would be that she would be frozen out once again by the wall of silence. Nothing more. And yet for once she was conscious of her isolation out here, mindful that, despite every mobile, BlackBerry and iPod in the world, when crunch came to crunch it was just you against the world.
As she turned a corner, she could see the first green trees, which meant that Fernbourne was only a mile or so away, and very shortly the entrance driv
e to the farm shop came into view. Just past it was a lay-by, where she could see a young couple arguing. Arguing intensely, she realized with shock. He was shaking her – no, he had his hands on her neck. Everything seemed to be happening at once. She recognized Emma and the man – boy – who seemed to be half throttling her, half dragging her further away from the road. It was Sean Hunt. What the hell was he doing there? He was supposed to be in police custody.
She slammed on the brakes, turning sharply into the lay-by, and was parked and out of the car in a trice. Emma was half croaking and Sean was yelling abuse as Georgia grappled with him, trying in vain to make him let go of Emma. Thank goodness for self-defence lessons. As he turned his head towards his assailant she used a deft palm heel to jerk his head back and, as his grip loosened, a front kick to follow up. A howl, and to her relief he was on the ground. No time to be lost. She grabbed Emma’s hand, pulling her towards the car, pushing her into the passenger seat, even as Sean came at them again. This time he was an easier target. She floored him, but the sight of his distorted crazed face terrified her as she leapt back into her car, and they were off, leaving Sean doubled up at the roadside.
Emma promptly burst into noisy tears. ‘Thanks,’ was all she could stutter hoarsely.
Georgia swallowed, trying to regain her equilibrium with deep breaths, but she was still shaking. ‘I thought Sean was safely locked up. What on earth happened?’
‘I was going to the farm shop,’ Emma wept, ‘and he jumped me. He blames me for what happened last night.’
‘You?’ Georgia asked incredulously, then saw how shaky Emma was. She was bent over in the seat, wrapping her arms round herself in shock. ‘There’s a sweater on the back seat. Put it on. I can stop if—’
‘No!’
Point taken, irrational though it might be that Sean was chasing them.
‘The boy’s crazed out of his mind,’ Georgia said gently.
‘He’s been charged for the attack on Adam, but he was given bail this morning,’ Emma managed to say. ‘Mr Hunt went to the police station.’
Georgia could hardly believe it. ‘Sean ought to be apologizing to you, not throttling you. What about the gun, for heaven’s sake? If Adam’s right about that, Sean’s even more dangerous, Emma.’
‘He said he never had one. And he had an alibi for Damien’s murder. He was in the Dirty Ducklings—’
‘The what?’
‘It’s a club. He was there with Nick, but Nick said he wasn’t, so Sean blamed me.’
Georgia was even more bewildered. What on earth was Mike Gilroy’s team playing at? ‘Why isn’t he being questioned about the gun and Damien’s murder, if the alibi didn’t stand up?’
‘The manager saw him, kept his eye on him all night, because Sean’s known as a troublemaker. So he couldn’t have killed Damien.’
Time to think that one out later. Her first concern was Emma. ‘You’ll be away from here soon and travelling the world,’ Georgia said comfortingly.
‘But I …’ Emma broke off but it was clear what she’d been going to say: ‘But I love him.’ For all her offhand words earlier, sex was exerting a more powerful hold than perhaps Emma herself had realized. How could she convince Emma that distance and then new faces at university next autumn were going to help? That making mistakes was natural; it was what to do about them that was important. Georgia remembered again how she’d felt about Zac. She’d only been a year or two older than Emma. She remembered her own blindness to any suggestion that something was amiss, even though Zac hadn’t used physical but mental bludgeoning. All done with charm and lies. No, they weren’t really lies because he had believed them. That’s why he was a con man – albeit a bad one. The result had been the same as with Emma and Sean; a blanket had come between herself and the truth. Whatever she said to Emma now, she wouldn’t be able to shift her blanket, so there was only one thing she could do.
‘I’ll take you to your mother, Emma.’
‘She’ll kill me. She hates Sean,’ was the gloomy prediction.
‘No she won’t. She’ll be worried about you, and anyway she’ll be pleased that she’s been proved right.’
‘Yeah, but …’ Emma shrugged. ‘OK. Whatever.’
Georgia regarded her soup and baguette without enthusiasm. Not that they were bad – on the contrary, the soup tasted home-made and the baguette had an interesting filling of avocado and bacon – but she realized that the morning’s encounter had shaken her to the point where her appetite had disappeared. At the moment everything about Fernbourne seemed sinister. Innocent men got murdered, there was a culture of violence amongst its youth, and its elders were probably caught up in some web she couldn’t understand.
If she forced herself to eat, it was possible that some of this distinct lack of cheer would vanish. Instead it became worse, because just as she finished the baguette, with each mouthful becoming more of an effort, Matthew Hunt came sweeping imperiously through the door of the pub. He looked furious, a man with a mission, and instinctively she braced herself. Had Sean reached home and his grandfather been fed some cock and bull story? He only cast her a brief glance, however, before tackling Bob and demanding to see Adam.
‘Why’s that?’ Bob continued to polish glasses. Not much sycophancy there.
‘I’m told he’s been slandering my grandson.’
‘Your grandson, Mr Hunt,’ Bob said, keeping his cool, ‘attacked my son with a knife.’
‘It was self-defence. I’ve witnesses to that.’
‘I’m sure you have. Too frightened to say otherwise.’ Another glass was set carefully in its place.
‘I’ll let that go for the moment. Are you going to let me see him?’ The ice-cold fury in his voice was even more evident.
‘Only if I’m present too.’
‘As you wish.’
They retreated into the private quarters and Doreen came into the bar, glanced at Georgia, but didn’t say a word. Georgia could still hear most of what was going on in the private quarters, as the conversation was being conducted at full pitch. Doreen did a good impression of not hearing a word, but finally gave up and was listening, as appalled as Georgia.
‘What’s this about a gun? No one else has ever seen one,’ Matthew was shouting. ‘Pure malice.’
‘That’s a lie,’ Adam retaliated. ‘He boasted about it. He kept it hidden in one of the manor sheds. We all knew about it.’
‘If this story has any truth in it, it’s clear any of you could have access to it then. My grandson is being slandered. He was stitched up for a drugs offence he didn’t commit by you thugs. He served his sentence and now you’re intent on doing it again. I’ll see you don’t succeed. You’re studying at Canterbury, aren’t you, Adam? First year. Right, I’ll be informing the university that you’ve a bad record. My son has had his house turned upside down as a result of you. There’s no trace of a gun and that’s not because it was the one left lying beside Trent’s body but because it didn’t exist. There’s no registration of one at his or my address, and the police are satisfied with that.’
Of course not, Georgia fumed, when unregistered ones were freely available to those with money – and Sean would have that.
‘He’s being victimized, and that won’t go on.’ The volume increased. ‘You attacked him last night …’
That did it. Georgia could contain herself no longer. With a brief apology to Doreen she pushed behind the bar and through the door marked Private.
‘Sean’s hardly a victim, Mr Hunt. He’s a vicious and dangerous young man.’ She hurled the words at him and he spun round in shock at this unexpected attack.
‘This has nothing to do with you, Miss Marsh. Would you kindly leave us alone?’
‘Wrong. It has everything to do with me,’ she declared. ‘Did you know I found your victimized grandson physically assaulting Emma Baker this morning? He was throttling her and I only got her away by using physical force myself.’
‘You?’ Sheer astonishment halted
his tirade for a brief moment. ‘Nonsense. I drove him home from the police station, and set him down when he saw his girlfriend. He told me he was attacked by some rough types simply because he was kissing her. Were you involved too?’
‘Not too, Mr Hunt. I was the only one. There was no kissing when I arrived. Emma was in serious danger. You’ll find her with her parents and you can ask them whether they’re calling in the police.’ Georgia could see Adam was pale with shock at what he’d heard.
‘Whatever you imagined you saw,’ Matthew retorted coldly, ‘you clearly misjudged the situation and if you maintain that you were the only one who attacked him then you are in a serious position. He was hobbling with pain when he returned home, and I shall be reporting the assault to the police.’
Doubt was written all over Bob Laycock’s face. Georgia wasn’t a small woman but she could see that the idea of a fit nineteen-year-old being laid low by her seemed unlikely to him.
‘I don’t think you’ll find Sean anxious to do that, Mr Hunt,’ Georgia said grimly. ‘At the very least, it wouldn’t help his macho image to be felled by a woman. Moreover he has me to thank for saving him from a far worse charge. I think you’d quickly have the Bakers putting the police right over the true situation. It’s unusual for a kiss to leave bruises all round a girl’s neck.’
‘You’d have the Laycocks speaking out too,’ Bob said sturdily. ‘The boy’s a menace, Mr Hunt. I’d be a witness to his attack on Adam last night. I reckon Adam will go into the witness box too now he knows what Sean did to Emma. Won’t you, Adam?’ A nod was all Adam could manage. Georgia could see he was near to tears.
Matthew’s eyes narrowed. ‘I don’t think I should pursue that line, Bob. It might not be in your best interests.’
Bob flushed. ‘Our lease is secure.’
‘Is it?’ Matthew said scornfully. ‘If it wasn’t for Ted, I’d see it terminated for this.’
So the King’s Head was held under a lease from the manor. Was that why Ted was involved with the trust? Surely not. There must be more to it. She saw Matthew looking at the doorway, and when she turned round, she could see Ted Laycock standing there. He said nothing, and his set expression was impassive.