Christmas in Peppercorn Street

by Anna Jacobs

  A man came out of the house and began talking to the girl. Angus didn’t recognise him. It definitely wasn’t the owner of the house.

  He made no attempt to follow the intruder on his own. Well, he’d not have caught up with him, would he? He wasn’t the world’s champion runner because he spent too much time working at his computer. Instead he called out to the man who was now patting Helly. ‘Hey there! I’m Angus Denning, owner of the big house. I was following an intruder and he came to stand outside your place. He ran off when your dog started barking.’

  He moved slowly forward, hands held out sideways in an open, non-threatening position.

  Luke came hurrying out of the house to join them.

  ‘Is this chap Angus Denning, owner of that big house?’ the man asked, his eyes still scanning their surroundings.

  ‘Yes. Angus, this is Eric, who’s helping me with security for a while. What’s wrong?’

  ‘There was a guy trespassing on my land. He was moving up through the gardens trying not to be seen. I was already outside, so my eyes were used to the dark and I could see him clearly. I followed him, wondering what he was up to. People don’t usually take a detour to creep through my gardens.’

  ‘No. Definitely suspicious.’ The man nodded.

  ‘He put on some night glasses as he came up to your house and then stood near the fence as if observing what was going on. When your dog came out, she must have sensed his presence and she started barking furiously. The guy ran away towards my drive.’ He pointed. ‘I heard him start running down towards the Saffron Lane end. You can’t run quietly on gravel.’

  Eric frowned. ‘Why would he come up from the bottom part of your grounds to get to the back of these houses? It’d be quicker to come via the top end of Peppercorn Street.’

  ‘Who knows.’

  In the distance, through the still night air, they heard the sound of a car engine starting up somewhere down the hill.

  ‘I bet that’s him,’ Eric said. ‘I’d guess he parked there to make sure his car wasn’t seen on a CCTV camera.’

  Angus smiled. ‘Well, he’s made a mistake there. I have CCTV down at the lower end to guard the Saffron Lane workshops and café, and there’s even a camera in the middle of the grove of trees. You’d have to know where it is to spot it. I can get the recording for you tomorrow, if you like.’

  ‘You couldn’t get it straight away, could you?’ Luke asked. ‘If it’s Claire’s ex, it means he knows where she is and we’d want as much notice as we can get of that.’

  Angus looked at them in puzzlement. ‘Her ex?’

  ‘He’s stalking her, set fire to her car recently.’

  ‘Ah. Well, if we get any good views of him, I’ll be interested too. If he’s going to come across my land to annoy people, I’m involved in this, whether I’m his prime target or not. We have valuable artefacts inside Dennings and the formal gardens are heritage listed, so I don’t want anyone creeping round them and trampling over the plants. Why don’t you come with me and look at the recording now? I can also forward it to you afterwards.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll do that, Mr Denning, if you don’t mind,’ Eric said. ‘I know what Martin Douglas looks like and can give you a photo of him for future reference.’

  ‘I’ll come too, if you don’t mind,’ Luke said.

  ‘I’d be glad of the company going back, actually. I think the intruder was alone, but you never know. A macho hero I’m not!’

  The men enjoyed a brief discussion in low voices about the changing technology of CCTV cameras as they walked down the slight slope of the drive.

  At one stage, Eric stumbled on some loose gravel and called, ‘Stop!’ He played his torch over the ground to the right-hand side of the track. ‘Look at this mess. I’d guess someone fell over here recently and scattered the looser gravel at the edge.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that this afternoon or Nell would have noticed and mentioned it, because she was tidying the borders out here. My wife is the gardener in our house. I just do as she tells me.’

  ‘Then it was probably Martin who did this. He was running in the dark over terrain he doesn’t know, and you don’t seem to have street lights along your drive. I’ll come back tomorrow once it’s properly light and see if I can spot anything of interest where he fell.’

  ‘Perhaps we should walk to the bottom before we go inside and check that there’s nothing else to be found?’ Luke suggested.

  ‘Good idea.’

  They continued as far as the small grove of trees between the lower entrance and Saffron Lane. Here Angus pointed out where he’d positioned the various cameras, including one in a tree that was well camouflaged and looked like a piece of wood.

  Eric played his torch over the ground beneath the trees. ‘I doubt the intruder checked for them there. The earth is soft after the recent rain and there are no footprints. He may be good with technical stuff but he’s not good at the details of burglary, is he?’

  Luke joined in. ‘He’s a nasty type, even set a surveillance camera up to observe Claire’s reaction when she first saw her car after he’d set fire to it. But that one was quite easy to spot. He’s been stalking her and their daughter for a while. This is their third move to try to get away from him.’

  Angus whistled. ‘Bad man, eh?’

  ‘Yes. How someone like that could father a delightful child like Gabby, I don’t know. Perhaps she’s a throwback to a more pleasant ancestor.’

  They had reached the street just outside Angus’s grounds by now. ‘Let’s see if we can find anything to indicate where Douglas parked the car.’

  But there were only rows of ordinary-looking semi-detached houses, with a paved footpath along one side of the road. There were still lights on in several of the houses and a couple of cars parked on the street, but most cars were in the drives of the houses.

  They walked up and down, but although the street was quite well lit, they found nothing to show where the intruder’s car might have been parked.

  As they stood looking back down the street from the far end, Angus pointed to the electricity sub-station. ‘I think there’s surveillance equipment at this end belonging to the council, because there are underground tunnels from World War II starting underneath their building. They lead to a small museum in Saffron Lane where the main entrance is. He’d have to drive past here to get to the main road, so the car might show up on their recording.’

  ‘Will they share the information with us?’

  ‘I can get in touch with a guy I know in the council’s IT department tomorrow and say I had an intruder. He and I get on OK. I’m sure he’ll let me see what they’ve got.’

  ‘That’d be a big help.’

  Eric started moving again. ‘Nothing more we can do here tonight. Let’s go back to your place now, Angus, and see if your camera picked up anything to identify the intruder by.’

  They went into the big house and viewed the footage, but unfortunately it only showed a figure wearing a hoodie and dressed in dark clothing running down the drive. The camera didn’t cover enough of the street outside to see what sort of car he had, either.

  ‘He looks to be quite tall, if we measure him against the end of the gateway, but I don’t think we’ll find out anything else about him, however much we enlarge it,’ Angus said regretfully.

  The two others stood up to leave.

  ‘All right if I check that spot on the drive tomorrow?’ Eric asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’ll have to hope there’s something on the council recording,’ Luke said. ‘Thanks for your help, Angus. Much appreciated.’

  The two men went back to Number 4 and brought the others up to date on how little they’d found.

  Luke looked at Claire, sorry to see how pale and anxious she was. ‘I must say, I didn’t expect your ex to get here so quickly. His friends must have followed us and got Luke’s car registration at the shopping centre.’

  ‘What do you want me to do now?’ E
ric asked.

  ‘You’re the expert. I’ll go by what you suggest.’

  Eric looked at Caitlin, who gestured to him to continue. He was happy to do that but wasn’t going to ram his ideas down their throats. People usually felt better if they were given the chance to make an input.

  ‘Well, I suggest we assume it was Martin tonight. Who else could it be? In the morning, as soon as it’s light, I’ll go and search the area where he fell over, see if he left any traces. It isn’t likely, but miracles do happen. I’ll also report what happened to the police and discuss this incident with them. If they decide to get involved they’ll want to take charge, but they have much wider resources than we do, so that’d be a bonus.’

  Caitlin joined in. ‘And looking at our own situation, from now on Dee shouldn’t go outside on her own, even with the dog. I know she’s sixteen, but the two of them shouldn’t even be on their own inside the house if Gabby’s father is likely to turn up suddenly. It’s probably a good thing we have Helly. She sensed his presence tonight and may give us warning in future.’

  ‘She never liked him,’ Claire said.

  Eric bent down to pat the dog, who seemed to have taken a fancy to him. ‘I wasn’t sure how good a watchdog she’d be, she’s so friendly, but she did an excellent job this evening warning us. Her being here is going to make it difficult for him to get to the house without being noticed. We’ve got to ensure she doesn’t eat anything someone else offers her, or stuff thrown into the yard, though.’

  ‘I’ve already taught her that.’ Claire looked at Luke. ‘The only time she’s broken the rule that I know of is when she took something from you.’

  Gabby, who’d been sitting holding her mother’s hand, said suddenly, ‘That’s because she likes Luke and he likes her. My father couldn’t stand Helly and he tried to get rid of her. I saw him open the gate once and push her out, but she stayed nearby. Other dogs don’t like him and I don’t like him, either. I wish he wasn’t my father.’

  Eric saw Claire look at her daughter, open her mouth, then shake her head and close her mouth again, as if she’d changed her mind about what she’d been going to say. What was that about?

  He saw that Luke was watching her and had also noticed her reaction, but gave another small shake of the head to warn Luke not to pursue this at the moment. It was better for people to give sensitive information when they felt it right, he always felt, and Claire’s reaction had been in response to the way Gabby had spoken about her father, not to tonight’s incident – or at least that’s how it seemed to him. It might be something private that had occurred to her.

  There was an uncomfortable silence as they all tried not to show that they’d heard the desperate unhappiness behind the child’s angry words.

  ‘Well,’ Eric said eventually, ‘you all look tired. You should get some sleep now. Caitlin and I will take it in turns to keep watch. I promise you no one will get past us during the night.’

  ‘And Helly always sleeps next to our beds,’ Gabby said. ‘She makes me feel safer too.’

  When the others had gone, Eric looked at Caitlin. ‘I hate to see a child harassed and worried like that.’

  ‘So do I. Let’s hope we can catch her father.’

  Once he’d driven away from the street where he’d parked his car, Martin shoved the hoodie back from his head, muttering, ‘Damned dog! I should have killed it when it was living in my garden.’ He’d thought about it many a time, kicked it when it got in his way, but had realised how much killing it would upset his daughter, who was too tender-hearted, thanks to the way her mother had brought her up.

  He’d been very careful not to do anything which would set Gabby irrevocably against him. She was his daughter and even Claire had always respected his fatherhood claim and never mentioned the special circumstances. It was one of the few things he gave his ex credit for, that and her excellent physical care of the child.

  She certainly hadn’t raised Gabby as he’d ordered when it came to the social and moral side of things, though, and had dared quarrel with him about that sort of thing several times. In the end, he’d tried to thump a bit of sense into her. Only it hadn’t had the expected effect. The guys he drank with sometimes were wrong. It was after that beating that she’d run away.

  And to make matters worse, he hadn’t even enjoyed doing it as the other guys had said he would.

  Who could understand women? He was quite sure they weren’t as intelligent as men on average, but of course you didn’t dare say that these days.

  Well, that was all water under the bridge. What mattered was that once again he had found out where she was living. Brains would win through every time. He now needed to work out how to snatch the child and where to take her.

  He needed more money for his everyday expenses, though. He didn’t want to dip into his special savings.

  The antique silver pieces at his parents’ house came to mind again. He’d accept his mother’s invitation to pop round any time for a cup of coffee and make sure it was at a time when his father was out. He’d be able to find out easily whether they had installed a security system, like most other people did in their part of town.

  They’d always been rather lax about that sort of thing, saying they had nothing worth stealing except their money, which was kept safely in the bank.

  Well, don’t be too sure of that, you lame-brained idiots!

  His mother would believe anything he told her. He’d been fooling her ever since he was a child. His father was less gullible but he could still handle the old fellow. He just needed to take more care with him and not push him too hard.

  He’d always thought that whatever he did to them served them right, for not creating him with a fully functional body.

  Though he’d forgiven them somewhat when he realised how superior the mind was that they’d passed on to him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  At first light Eric went into Angus’s grounds and followed as best he could the path the two of them had taken last night. He easily spotted the place where he’d stumbled. The intruder must have fallen heavily to have scattered so much loose gravel from the edge of the drive.

  He was careful not to step onto that disturbed patch as he walked round it, studying it carefully. Was it possible – could that dark stain on a group of stones to one side be dried blood? It certainly looked like it. They weren’t smooth pebbles but sharp-edged fragments.

  After picturing how someone would have fallen when running, he decided it might have come from the side of someone’s face or an outflung hand. Following a hunch that it had, he pulled out his phone and rang his former mates at the police station, explaining the situation, ending, ‘I know you’d not usually come out for this, but I was told you’re collecting evidence about this guy for other purposes. I’m pretty sure it’s his blood.’

  ‘Hold on. I’ll just check whether there’s anyone free.’

  A couple of minutes later, he came back. ‘You’re in luck. Sam’s in charge of the night shift. It was very quiet so they’re just marking time till the end of their watch. And he has a real thing about druggies.’

  ‘Druggies! You think this guy is into drugs?’

  ‘Don’t say I told you. It’s quite certain he is, though not as a dealer, but a customer of someone we’re extremely keen to snabble. We want to use your fellow to trap the dealer. Unfortunately he doesn’t seem to buy supplies all that often and we haven’t managed to catch him at it in such a way as to show evidence that’ll hold up in court. Hang on again.’

  Eric held his phone away from his ear as some Christmas music began to play. He hated the stuff. No, he wasn’t dreaming of a white Christmas, thank you very much. And he didn’t want any bells jingling in his ears. As for snow pitter-pattering, he could do without that altogether. It was a damned nuisance, snow was, if you asked him.

  He glanced at his watch. This was taking longer than he’d expected but he hung on.

  ‘Still there, Eric?’

&n
bsp; ‘Yes, of course I am.’

  ‘We’re sending a couple of forensic officers out to check that it is blood and hopefully that’ll help identify your intruder. It’s a long shot, but you wouldn’t have called us unless you’re pretty certain about it. If it hadn’t been a quiet night, we’d not have had anyone free for a minor offence, but as it is, we might as well look into it. Can you guard the site till then?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Be about half an hour.’

  Eric ended the call, muttering, ‘Should have brought a fur coat with me.’ Then he phoned Caitlin and told her what he was doing. She said she’d hold the fort at the house, no worries.

  He hoped the splatter of dark stuff would prove to be blood. Hell, yes. And then there was the council CCTV to check out.

  While he was at it, he couldn’t help hoping for the sake of that delightful child that a kindly fate was on duty in the universe at the moment, ready to send some bad luck to Martin Douglas.

  On that thought, he looked up at the sky, mocking himself but still doing it and sending out his plea to fate, or whatever you called the force that was out there pulling the world’s strings. Please help them get free of him!

  ‘Go on!’ he finished up in a coaxing voice. ‘Give us good guys a break. Call it my Christmas present and I’ll love Christmas from now on. I want Martin Douglas behind bars, and for more than stalking.’ He too hated druggies.

  He was glad no one could see what he was doing. Silly of him to act like that. Only, it didn’t hurt to send out the right vibes, did it? He knew a few people who did that when something was important. If nothing else, it focused your mind on a problem.

  It was a relief when his old mate Danny came out with the forensic officers to have a look round. By the time they’d parked their cars, Angus had joined them to find out what was going on in his grounds.