by Rebecca King
“Who is in?”
“Ronan.”
“What do we do?” Annalisa whispered.
“Nothing. We stay here and let him get on with it. He will go away eventually. If he returns, the same thing will happen. He will have to get the message eventually. No means no, and that is the end of it.”
“For now, let’s focus on the investigation, shall we?” Roger growled.
“What’s wrong?” Joshua asked.
Without even thinking about what he was doing, Joshua smiled at Annalisa again. This time, Roger noticed, and shook his head in disbelief. When he looked at Annalisa, it was to find her gazing adoringly at the Star Elite operative in a way that left nobody who saw them in any doubt that the emotion was mutual.
“Right, we need to plan what we are going to do to lure this cretin out,” Roger warned Joshua in a desperate attempt to draw his attention away from his romantic interest.
Joshua reluctantly took seat opposite his boss and tried to focus on the papers only to find his gaze drawn back to Annalisa again. Roger knew then that he was wasting his time.
“Vicar?” Roger prompted.
“Gone.”
As if to punctuate that statement, the sound of shattering glass broke the silence. Joshua, Hamish and Roger all snapped to attention.
“It’s not in here,” Hamish bit out.
“It’s got to be next door,” Roger growled already halfway to the door.
“Smoke! Look there is smoke coming from the house,” Yvette cried. She threw her sewing onto the floor and raced for the door.
“Wait!” Joshua called but it was already too late.
Yvette had slammed the bolt back, pushed the door open, and was racing across the lawn toward her house, which was rapidly filling with a thick cloying bank of black smoke which billowed upwards before disappearing into the sky.
“Annalisa,” Joshua called only to realise that she had already gone as well.
Annalisa ran through the house, out of the back door, and across the garden. She reached home at the same time as her aunt. Together, they burst through the door and ran in the direction of the smoke. They arrived in parlour in time to watch Ronan beat the flames that were licking furiously away at the rug in the middle of the sitting room.
“Annalisa, go get some water,” Yvette gasped.
“I am going. Get outside,” Annalisa cried already on her way to the kitchen. She returned moments later and upended the contents of the water pail over the flames.
“More. Get more,” Ronan ordered as he returned to beating the flames.
With some of the fire extinguished, the room was rapidly filling with even thicker smoke, making breathing impossible.
“I can’t see a damned thing,” Ronan snarled.
Annalisa whirled around to fetch more water only to slam bodily into Joshua. He snatched the bucket off her and threw it at Roger, who caught it deftly before racing outside. Together with Luke and Daniel, the men set to work putting out the fire.
Annalisa and Yvette were left to helplessly watch as the men fought to save their house.
“Why? Why is he targeting us?” Yvette cried. “We haven’t done anything to anybody.”
“We don’t have to,” Annalisa soothed her. “The people who have been targeted thus far haven’t done anything to this fiend either but they had to lose their lives anyway.”
“It isn’t right,” Yvette cried. “Why are they trying to burn us out of our home? What is going on?”
“I don’t know,” Annalisa soothed while trying desperately not to cry. “It is difficult to make sense of anything that has happened of late. This village was always rather boring. Now, nothing is the same anymore. Do you know something? I don’t think it will ever recover from this. There is too much suspicion. Too much fear. Too much doubt, and too many people getting hurt.”
“This has to stop,” Yvette persisted.
“It will.”
“Did you see who did it?” Roger demanded of Ronan when the fire had been extinguished and the windows had been finally allowed to open.
Ronan nodded but, before he got the opportunity to answer, several local men appeared at the side of the house, all laden with buckets and ladders.
“I’ll go and tell them it is all under control,” Joshua muttered. “Stay out of sight.”
With that, he disappeared outside to thank the locals and send them on their way. The concern on everyone’s faces was striking, but what struck Joshua more than anything was that nobody seemed surprised. Nobody asked any questions. Nobody wanted to know if the homeowners were alive. When they learnt that the fire had been extinguished, they all hurried home as if eager to return to their own loved ones.
“At least they came out to help,” Roger murmured.
“They are all terrified,” Joshua sighed.
They both turned to Ronan.
“It’s not Billy’s lot,” Ronan informed them briskly. “The man I caught a glimpse of running away was too well dressed to be Billy’s mob.”
“They have gone already,” Roger murmured.
“Billy has gone?” Annalisa gasped.
Joshua turned to squint at her. “Did he not tell you?”
Annalisa looked a bit shaken for a moment. A wild surge of jealousy slammed into Joshua that suddenly made him incredibly angry, and possessively determined to find out just what her association was with the gypsy. Was it a mutual case of impossible love? Did Annalisa care about Billy in return? From the stunned look in her eye, the news of Billy’s departure was not a welcome bit of news.
“No, he didn’t,” she whispered.
“It is earlier than they usually move on.”
“I expect they have gone because of everything that is happening,” Annalisa continued.
Joshua wanted answers but knew that now was not the time nor the place to demand Annalisa tell him the truth. Right now, he had to focus on whoever had tried to destroy her house.
“What is the purpose?” Roger asked as he studied the mess.
“We can only assume that the arsonist knew Annalisa was at home and decided to try to burn her out,” Ronan offered. He threw an apologetic look at Yvette when she gasped and stumbled backward until her bottom slammed into a chair.
Joshua contemplated that. “Why would he want to flush Annalisa out?”
“Maybe he thinks she saw him,” Ronan offered. “Maybe he thought she would go running for help. He kills people. He would have no qualms about snatching a young woman off the street if he thought she could identify him.”
“What about me?” Yvette asked.
She fell quiet when the men didn’t answer. She knew then that her fate would have been the same as every other homeowner who had been unfortunate to be in their property when the thief had broken in.
“They won’t get you,” Joshua growled at Annalisa. “I won’t let him get you.”
“They. You keep saying ‘they’. You think it is Billy, don’t you?”
“It cannot be Billy if he has moved on.”
“Do you want me to go and see if I can find him?” Daniel offered.
Roger shook his head. “We need everyone here. Besides, the group might be travelling now, but it doesn’t mean everyone is with them. Any one of them could stay in the area long enough to torch a house.”
“As a parting shot,” Joshua finished for him.
“But why? Why would he do something like this? He has been coming to this village for years and has never done anything except steal tools from people’s gardens, and bits of food from the shops. He has never been a really hardened criminal before. There have certainly never been any murders when his group have appeared. It doesn’t make sense that he would start now,” Annalisa cried.
“I hate to admit it but I don’t think it is Billy either,” Yvette murmured. “They are thieves, tinkers, but not murderers.”
Joshua sighed and told Annalisa about the man who had attacked her. “It was one of Billy’s men. If they
are prepared to get one of them to break in, and they are feral enough to attack you in your own home, it is a small step for them to take to murder someone.”
“I know,” Annalisa whispered. “I just don’t understand why they have chosen to do this now.”
“Anything could have triggered it. Maybe they did burgle someone’s house and got caught, and in the resultant scuffle the homeowner got stabbed? Maybe they have moved on to protect the group from one bad egg? Maybe they have left the cretin behind? These are people who live by brutality, who think nothing of beating the living daylights out of each other to give ‘lessons’. It stands to reason that they would quite easily sink deeper and begin to take lives.”
“No. No. Billy wouldn’t do such a thing. Most of his helpers are children. They are far too young. They are thieves, pickpockets, not killers,” Annalisa protested.
Yvette nodded. “I think we have to look at one of the locals. I am sorry. It is horrible to think that one of them would want to hurt anybody who lives here. We have always been a friendly village. But someone is killing, and it has to be local.”
While Joshua wanted to believe it was Billy, not least because he wanted to put the man behind bars and in a position where he could never bother Annalisa again, he had to concede that both women had a point. It did indeed look as if the culprit was a villager. But which one?
No matter who it is, Annalisa is not going to feel safe in this house for a long while once this investigation is over.
Joshua contemplated what he would do if he had to go to London when this investigation was finished. Could he rest easily knowing what had happened to Annalisa? Could he just sit comfortably in London, going about his investigations, not knowing if she was all right? He certainly couldn’t be sure that another villager wouldn’t turn to a life of crime and target her again. Nobody could.
What would I do if anything happened to her? Can I just shrug and carry on as normal?
Joshua knew he had gone far beyond that point. Annalisa had become an integral part of his life now. Her safety and wellbeing were as important as his own. Unfortunately, that meant change was inevitable. Going back to London when this investigation was over was impossible because not even a village like Bamtree was a safe place to live. Anything could happen to her. Like Hamish said, people survive because they battle the elements as well as crime.
“Joshua?”
Joshua turned to look at Roger. “The cretin is targeting Annalisa. After today, we cannot doubt that. I think we have to use her to lure this blackguard out of the woodwork.”
“How?” Roger’s voice was sharp in the silence of the room. “You know this is against what we do. We are to protect people and keep them safe, not deliberately place them in the path of danger. This killer is rather too determined for us to take the risk.”
“But I have no life while this blackguard is out there,” Annalisa interrupted.
“Annalisa, think about what you are doing,” Yvette snapped. “Think about what will happen if this blackguard succeeds in catching you. You don’t know if something is going to go wrong. This is a killer we are challenging here. You don’t know if he has any colleagues, associates, whatever you call them. He might not work alone. What then? You cannot be prepared to put your life in danger to catch this blackguard. What if he succeeds in taking it?”
When Yvette began to turn tearful, Annalisa sighed but still didn’t relent.
“He won’t. He can’t. If he was watching me then he knows I have been staying next door. I am no safer over there now as I have ever been in here. I cannot just put my life on hold while these men try to catch a killer. I have to do something to help, if only so we can both have our lives back.”
“I am going to make sure that you have a life worth living,” Joshua promised her gently. “We aren’t going to allow him to keep stealing people’s lives like this. A killer is a killer and must face justice. A burglar is a thief who steals people’s property and he has to face justice. There is no intelligence in crime, just extreme arrogance, and a callous contempt for life. It is just the criminal who thinks they are the exception to the rule. The rule is that nobody is the exception, end of. Any criminal who commits a crime for whatever reason must face justice for it. It can never be one rule for one person and another rule for someone else. If you steal a person’s life, property, possessions, you must face justice no matter who you think you are. Nobody should feel in a position where they are above the law, and able to do what they want whenever they want to whomever they please just because they feel like it. We must flush this cretin out of the woodwork and make sure that he cannot disappear on the way to gaol. The crimes he has already committed are going to make sure he stays behind bars for a really, really, long time.”
“Good. I hope so,” Annalisa whispered fervently. “He has to go to gaol and stay there for the rest of his life.”
There was a cold certainty in her voice that warned Joshua she meant every word and would indeed put her life on the line to get the criminal put behind bars where he belonged, together with whoever was helping him.
“Good. Make sure you do what you are told when you are told. We have enough armed men around to keep you alive and out of the man’s clutches. We must assume that he does indeed know you are living in Mr Richardson’s house. What is also likely is that he has no knowledge of your assault by one of Billy’s men.”
“But why attack us?” Yvette cried. “What have we done?”
“He may be trying to get you out of the house so he can rob it rather than having to kill you to get his hands on your valuables. If the house is empty he can come and go whenever he wants, and nobody is around to notice,” Joshua warned.
Roger sighed. “Well, we have a man in here now. We have to carry on as we are and hope that the would-be thief doesn’t leave it too long before he tries to steal whatever it is he is after.”
“But what could it be? I mean, we don’t have all that much,” Yvette cried.
“Do you have a pouch of coins?”
“Well, yes, but there isn’t much in there,” Yvette countered.
“I suggest that you go and gather up everything that is of any value, and we will take it next door. I don’t care what it is, pictures, vases, money. Make sure it comes next door with you. It can go into your bed chambers with you. We are going to make sure that if the thief does get in here, he doesn’t find what he is after whether that is people or goods.”
While the ladies hurried off to fetch the family jewels, Joshua turned to Roger.
“I want to talk to you just as soon as it is safe,” Joshua muttered.
Roger nodded. “Let’s get this house secured and we will talk later.”
With that, the men set to work while the ladies gathered their belongings and prepared for a more permanent move to the hero’s house next door.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By the time Joshua caught up with his boss later that night he knew for certain that what he was about to do was the right thing. The house was quiet. The only people up and about were the men who were on patrol. For now, there was just him and Roger, and it was a perfect time to talk.
“All right?” Roger asked when Joshua sat at the table he was working at.
“I think so.”
“Think?”
Joshua looked at him.
Roger lay his quill down on the desk. “Have you thought any more about my suggestion that you move here permanently?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I have,” Joshua replied.
“And?” Roger prompted when Joshua appeared to have gotten lost in his thoughts.
“And I think it might be a good idea.” Joshua looked a little sheepish. “This place tends to grow on a person. I suspected that if I did leave, I would be unable to scrape it off.”
Roger grinned. “One thing you have to remember is that no matter where you work, life with the Star Elite will always be unpredictable. The criminals out here are no different to the ones in
the city. It is just harder to find them because out here there are more places to hide, and less witnesses. It isn’t any easier, so don’t misunderstand that life in the country is going to be simpler for you. Any woman who enters your life will have to accept a somewhat unconventional husband, but at least you will be able to go home more often than most of the London crew. You will be able to make sure that any future wife is well looked after yourself.”
“Why haven’t you ever married?” Joshua asked curiously. “I mean, if matrimony is a lot easier in the countryside, why are only two of the team married?”
“Because most of the team have only just started working in Leicestershire. Daniel and Hamish have been with the larger group in Nottinghamshire but have moved here to be closer to their families. No, before you ask, neither of them have ever married, but for their own reasons. It is up to them to tell you what those are. Each man to their own and all that,” Roger replied.
Joshua nodded because he could fully appreciate Roger’s sentiments. It was one that echoed around each of the men. They all had their own life stories, and different influences that had drawn them to join the Star Elite.
“Nothing is conventional,” Joshua whispered.
“But the woman is?” Roger sighed. “Convention can be a little mundane.”
“But it is what women expect.”
“Is it? It strikes me that neither Yvette nor Annalisa were hysterical because of what happened. Annalisa seemed to handle the unexpected with relative ease. They still are. They are scared but are still doing their best to get on with their lives. That can only be a good thing, can’t it? It is good to be calm in a crisis, isn’t it?”
“Well, yes.”
“You don’t expect Annalisa to get involved in the investigation, do you?”
“Most definitely not,” Joshua snorted.
“There is no reason why your marriage should be that unconventional then, is there? What you do with the Star Elite is, but even that isn’t unconventional when you come to think about it. We put criminals behind bars. Someone must do it. It is necessary to ensure that we thwart criminals. You should know from having witnessed your colleagues’ situations in London that happy marriages are possible, as long as the wives don’t expect a husband that is going to be home at a certain time every day.”