by Anna Jacobs
‘Right. Good idea.’ Deemer started the car and set off, driving slowly down towards Rivenshaw.
‘Why should this Nick let me stay?’ Tess asked. ‘No one else in the valley would.’
‘He’s a kind man and I feel quite sure he’ll let us both stay there. Don’t forget I’m homeless too, now.’
‘Mrs T would take you back if you were on your own.’
‘But I wouldn’t go back because I’d not feel comfortable with her, knowing how heartless she is. Besides, I’m not on my own. I’m going to be looking after you from now on, if you’re agreeable.’
Tess sniffed back tears. ‘I don’t understand why you’re doing this when you hardly know me but I’m very grateful and – I promise I’ll try not to be a bother.’
‘I’m doing it because you’re the closest relative I’ve got and because you’re still a child. You need me … and I need you as well. I’d like to have a family again, you see, even a family of only the two of us. I’ve never counted my stepmother as family. I can’t stand the woman.’
Silence, then Deemer said, ‘You’re a lucky girl, Tess.’
‘Then you’d better know the whole truth before I start feeling too hopeful.’
Jo stared sideways at her in the moonlit darkness of the car’s interior. ‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not a child – well, not exactly. I’m sixteen. My mother had me when she was working in London, and she didn’t come back here till I was ten, only she told everyone I was seven. I’ve kept pretending to be younger than my real age ever since, especially lately.’
‘Why lately?’ Deemer asked.
‘To stop that horrible Rathley man coming after me. He likes to, um – he likes young girls. It’s a good thing I’ve always been small for my age, isn’t it? But I’ve grown a lot in the past few months, so we knew that couldn’t go on.’
Deemer made a sound of deep disgust in his throat as he heard the name Rathley. ‘We’ve heard that about him and young girls before but we’ve never been able to get anyone to complain or give evidence. He’s been very careful to pick on people who daren’t betray him. We’ll catch him out one day, though. I’ve been keeping my eyes open for a while and asking others to do the same. I can’t abide nasty devils like that.’
They all fell silent, contemplating Rathley and his unnatural behaviour with the same instinctive disgust.
A minute or two later, Deemer said, ‘So you’re sixteen, eh? Well, I’ll be blowed. I’d never have guessed you to be that old. What were you going to do when you couldn’t pretend any longer?’
‘Mam’s been saving her money for years and we were planning to run away quite soon and start a new life. She was going to get her lawyer to sell the house after we left.’
‘She had a lawyer?’ He sounded surprised.
‘Yes. He took her on for my sake.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘Yes. But I’ll tell you that later. When things are more settled. When I’m more sure of what’s going to happen.’
Jo didn’t press her. ‘I can’t stand Rathley, either. He came after me the one night I stayed at his house. He thought I was a poor relative, you see, and because my stepmother disapproved of me and said unkind things, he must have thought I had loose morals as well. I left their house the very next morning. Edna will probably go on saying bad things about me, though.’
‘You should threaten to sue her for slander if she does,’ Deemer said.
‘I may do if she doesn’t stop. If Tess and I stay here, that is.’
The girl slipped her hand into her cousin’s. ‘You understand what it can be like, then. Rathley offered Mam fifty pounds for me, more than the other men offered by far.’
‘Other men?’ Jo asked in surprise.
‘There have been others, but Rathley offered most. Mam kept putting him off but she took his little bribes to keep me safe. She never could resist money. I wouldn’t go to him for fifty thousand pounds. She told me to climb out of the kitchen window whenever any of those men came to see her and she taught Donny to lock the window after me. I always hid in that little park just up the hill. There isn’t usually anyone around so late. After whoever it was had gone, she would send Donny out the back way to fetch me. That’s why your constable found me there tonight, sergeant. I was waiting for it to be safe.’ She pressed one hand to her mouth, struggling against tears.
‘It’s a good thing you did slip out tonight or you might have been killed, too. Well, well. That explains a lot. I wonder if—’ But the sergeant broke off and didn’t finish the sentence.
Just before they entered Rivenshaw he slowed down and stopped by the roadside. ‘You seem sure Nick will help us, Jo.’
‘I am. He and I – well, we seem to understand one another, even the first time we met.’
‘Hmm. I don’t know him well enough yet to guess how he’ll react, because he left Rivenshaw years ago and has only just come back, but I know Todd and Charlie, who work with him, and they’ll both be happy to help a lass in trouble, I’m sure, whoever she is. You’re wrong to say no one in the valley would help you, Tess. There are some very decent folk living here.’
Jo glanced at the girl, sitting beside her on the back seat, looking desperately anxious. ‘Is that all right with you, love, hiding there, right in the centre of town? I don’t think they’ll expect to find you still around, you see, and I can tell anyone who asks that I sent you away to a friend’s for safety.’
‘I don’t care where I go as long as I’m with you.’
‘Is there any way we can get to the car sales place without being seen?’ Jo asked the sergeant. ‘I can live there openly because I work for Nick, and Tess can hide upstairs till we figure out what to do next. I know it’ll be boring, Tess, and you’ll have to be very careful not to be seen at the window, but you’ll be safe there and we’ll be together.’
‘I’ll be happy to be bored as long as I’m safe.’
Deemer joined in. ‘If anyone tries to start up a hunt for you, I’ll only tell them I know where you are and that you’re safe.’
Tess and Jo let out a deep sigh of relief at the same time, then gave one another faint, sad smiles.
Deemer put the car into gear and set off again. ‘Why don’t we go round to the rear of the house? There’s a back laneway for coal deliveries and such, and I’ll switch off the car’s lights before I drive along it? If anyone looks out to see who’s driving around in the middle of the night, they’ll recognise my car and not think anything of it because I sometimes do keep an eye on my town at night. If they ask me what I was doing, I’ll say I was just checking that everything was quiet.’
‘You’re being so kind,’ Tess said suddenly. ‘I didn’t expect that.’
‘It’s my duty to keep you safe, lass, and to find your mother’s murderer. You can be sure I won’t stop looking for him till I’ve succeeded.’
‘Good for you, sergeant,’ Jo said.
‘Right then. That’s what we’ll do. There’s enough moonlight for me to see where I am. The fewer people who notice us going into the house with Tess, the better.’
As they drove past the front of the car sales yard, they could see that the building was dark, with no lights showing apart from a blurred reflection in one window of a street lamp.
Deemer drove as quietly as he could round to the back alley then switched off his car lights. It was dark there and as far as they could tell, no one was awake in any of the houses that were homes as well as shops.
When he stopped at the rear of the car sales place, he looked back but no lights had come on in the houses they’d passed. ‘Go on, lass. Ask Nick if you two can stay there.’
Jo got out and went to the back gate, grunting in annoyance when she found it locked. She didn’t have a key to it, either.
‘Oh, to heck with it!’ she muttered, hitched up her skirt and climbed up the gate, using the handle as a step. She’d been a real tomboy as a child and her skill at climbing trees sto
od her in good stead now. And if the sergeant saw more of her legs than was decent, too bad.
She sat for a minute astride the top of the gate studying the other side, then waved to Deemer, swung her second leg over and clambered down into the backyard.
Deemer chuckled. ‘She’s a lively one, isn’t she? You’re lucky you’ve got her, lass. Don’t let her down.’
‘I won’t. I’m used to being careful what I do.’ Tess leaned forward as she thought of something. ‘You’ll look after Donny, won’t you? He can’t look after himself, but if you give him simple tasks he’s a hard worker.’
‘Yes. I’ll see he’s all right. Maybe find a farmer that’ll take him.’
‘Don’t tell him where I am, though. He blurts out anything he thinks of, regardless of who can hear him.’
‘No. I’ll not even be telling my constable that. The fewer people who know your hiding place, the better.’
Inside the house, Nick was awake because he’d heard a car slow down and stop for a few moments outside at the front. Who would be driving around at this hour of the night? The town centre was usually quiet after midnight. He decided to check, but by the time he’d got up and looked out of the window, the car had driven off.
He was about to get back into bed when he heard the sound of an engine from the rear of the house. It had to be the same car. He ran to look out and realised that someone was driving along the back lane without lights.
Well, if they thought they were going to break in and steal something, they’d find they were making a bad mistake.
He grabbed his dressing gown and ran down the stairs, picking up a chunky walking stick from the hall stand. It was the work of a minute to leave the house by the scullery door instead of the main back door and he let out his breath in a soft, ‘Aah!’ as he saw a figure sitting on top of the back gate.
He couldn’t make out the person’s details because the gate was in deep shadow, but as he saw the figure jump down, he crept across the backyard and pounced on the intruder.
To his surprise he found he’d got hold of a woman. He dragged her out of the shadows into the moonlight, recognising the face instantly. ‘Jo!’
‘Nick. Oh good. That saves me waking you up. We need help. Can we come in?’
‘We?’
‘Let’s get everyone inside, then we’ll explain. Sergeant Deemer is in the car with Tess. There’s been trouble, really bad trouble.’
‘If I can help, you have only to ask.’
She smiled at him. ‘I know.’
He gave her a quick smile back and slid back the bolts holding the gate, finding a key for the padlock. As soon as he’d opened the gate, the car door opened and Deemer got out, followed by the girl who’d been in the back seat of the vehicle.
Jo pushed past him and put her arm round the stranger, leading the way into the house.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Nick asked the sergeant in an undertone.
‘There’s been a murder. Tess’s mother.’
The shock of that took Nick’s voice away and he followed the other man into the rear of the house in silence, reaching out automatically for the light switch.
Deemer grabbed his hand. ‘Don’t put the lights on.’
‘Can we sit down and get the fire blazing up a bit?’ Jo asked. ‘Tess is very upset.’ She took off her coat and wrapped it round the girl’s shoulders.
Nick went to get a coat for Jo from the hall stand then joined them at the kitchen table, listening in amazement to the tale of the night’s doings. When it was finished, he didn’t wait to be asked, because it was obvious why they’d come. ‘You and Tess are welcome to stay here, Jo, but we’ve not got any spare beds, only a couple of rolled-up flock mattresses, and thin old things they are, too.’
‘Thank you. I knew you’d help us. And we can put the mattresses on the floor, make do with them. If I’m staying here openly, we can buy me a bed, and Tess and I can share it.’
‘Will it be possible to keep Tess’s presence a complete secret?’ Deemer asked.
‘If she’s careful not to go near the windows, yes. But Todd and Silas will have to know, of course, because they might see something or even bump into her. And I think Todd will want to tell Charlie Willcox, who’s his business partner.’
‘We won’t be able to keep my presence here a secret,’ Jo said. ‘Nor should we try.’
Nick looked at her anxiously. ‘What will people think? An unmarried woman staying here alone with a man? It’ll ruin your reputation.’
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Jo said, then added brightly, ‘We could pretend we’re engaged.’
‘You’ll still get a bad name.’
She looked at him, shrugging, ‘I’ll just have to put up with it. Tess’s life may depend upon us keeping her safe.’
‘There is one thing we could do.’
‘Oh, what?’
He took her hand, ignoring the others, rushing in he knew, but he felt so certain she was right for him. ‘This is a terrible time to ask you to marry me, but I think I’d have got round to it quite soon anyway. Will you do that, Jo, marry me? I wasn’t going to ask you so soon, though it didn’t take me long to be sure of my feelings for you.’
She wanted to say yes, wanted to very much. Because she’d fallen in love with him just as quickly. But she didn’t just have herself to think of. ‘Can we just pretend and see how things go? I have a feeling none of this is going to be easy and I don’t want to tie you down. If the sergeant can’t catch the murderer, I may have to take Tess back to Australia to save her life and – and then I can’t just think of myself. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m sorry, too. I don’t want you to go away. And I meant it. I do want to marry you. And if that includes Tess, it’s all right by me.’
As they stared at one another, their expressions betraying their love, Tess moved forward. ‘I can’t let you sacrifice your happiness for me, Jo. I’m not worth it.’
Jo turned to her young cousin. ‘It’s too early to talk about sacrifices. Let’s see how we go, eh? We can start off pretending, then if things go all right, we can … all of us think about it for real.’
She turned back to Nick. ‘You’re just starting up in business, something you’ve been dreaming about for a while. I hope me staying here won’t spoil it all for you.’
‘I don’t think you would spoil anything, Jo. You are important to me.’
‘Maybe if things work out, we can get married. But I’m not rushing into anything, so it’s just a pretend engagement.’
His voice was firm. ‘For now. Till it’s safe for me to ask you again. I am going to marry you, whatever it takes.’
Behind her Tess gave a sentimental sigh.
Jo wanted to sigh like that, too. His words made her feel loved, as did the way he looked at her, but she had Tess to think of now as well as herself. She couldn’t abandon the girl if it was too dangerous for her to stay in Rivenshaw. And she didn’t want to put Nick in danger.
But oh, she did wish the engagement were real. She’d never met anyone she felt so right with.
How could you know so quickly? She hadn’t expected that.
When the first signs of dawn turned everything in the kitchen grey, Wilf felt relieved that he could get up and do something useful, tired as he was after a night sleeping rough in his own kitchen.
He found some live embers where he’d banked up the fire at the back of the grate and watched the cautious little flames creep out of the gaps and snatch at the lumps of coal. They grew slowly bigger, just as his dreams had.
He heard sounds from their bedroom and turned to watch the door but Enid didn’t come down to join him and share a pot of tea. He usually ate his breakfast earlier than her and the kids, enjoying a quiet chat with her in the peace of early morning.
Eh, it wasn’t like her to keep a quarrel going.
Half an hour passed and his anger at her rose steadily as he sat there alone, waiting, glancing at the clock far too often. In the end h
e made himself a thick jam butty and ate it in angry, snapping bites, then picked up his tool bags and left the house in the new van.
He wasn’t going to beg for her forgiveness, because he had done nothing wrong. And he definitely wasn’t giving back the van – or abandoning his dreams.
How long would it take Enid to simmer down, though?
Surely she wouldn’t stay angry for more than a day or two?
Wilf spent most of the morning working, finishing off some small jobs, then drove to the older part of Birch End and stopped outside a tall, elegant terrace. It always looked to him as if someone had started building decent houses here and then stopped suddenly. The change hadn’t been a good one, because they’d thrown up some rows of much smaller houses, so that as many as possible could be crammed in on the piece of ground.
He usually stopped to study the outside of the houses when he passed by because these were the sort of homes he would like to live in.
He knew Mrs Morton at the end house was living on a pittance these days, thanks to her son’s stupidity with the money she’d lent him. Garrard Morton had killed himself out of shame, which had made the situation even worse for his poor mother.
Wilf had recently noticed a couple of problems with the windows, which would become serious if left as they were, so he knocked on the door and offered to mend them for her.
‘I’m afraid I can’t afford it, Wilf.’
‘I can spare an hour or two. You helped me by giving me odd jobs when things were bad, so I’m happy to help you in return now. Come winter you’ll get leaks if those problems aren’t fixed.’
She inclined her head. ‘Oh. Well, I’ll be very grateful for your help, then. If I can ever do anything for you in return, don’t hesitate to come to me. I may be growing older but I’m still able to get about. Mona and I manage very well considering.’
‘I’m sure you do. Have you heard from your daughter-in-law lately?’
‘No. She’s remarried and wants nothing further to do with me. I can’t work out why she blames me for my son killing himself.’ She paused to control her trembling lips. ‘Anyway, I’d be grateful for your help, Wilf.’