by Anna Jacobs
‘Who knows? Anything can happen with him.’
Spencer made his escape and drove off quickly to Francis’s house. To his surprise there was no dinner waiting for him, only a nervous friend ready to set off for Honeyfield as soon as he arrived.
‘Thank goodness you’re here. I was starting to think you weren’t coming.’
‘Well, I am here.’
‘We can go straight away. It’ll be dark by the time we get there.’
‘But I haven’t eaten.’
Francis grabbed an apple from the meagre fruit bowl on his sideboard and tossed it to him. ‘This’ll hold you.’
‘So we’re actually doing it, then – invading someone’s house and grabbing Georgina?’
Francis grinned. ‘We are. Quite exciting, what? Our own little war games.’
And Spencer found himself getting excited too. He didn’t bother with the apple, wasn’t hungry now that something was happening. Was this how men felt before going into battle? He’d never know, but it was good to feel excitement coursing through his veins instead of boredom, good to feel alert, instead of lying around with a headache, feeling listless.
When he saw Mrs Farquhar stroll along by the village green and call in at her friend’s house, Norman took advantage of Mrs Nosey Parker’s absence from Pear Tree Lane to go for a stroll of his own.
One man nodded a greeting as he passed and he forced himself to smile back. It was useful having an aunt still living here in Honeyfield. He’d been able to visit her for a few days without anyone being suspicious as they would have been of a stranger. And he’d slipped his aunt a pound for his keep, far more than his food would cost her, saying he’d pay more if he stayed longer. She was always glad of extra money.
He’d seen the new couple from Pear Tree Cottage drive off earlier and had chatted to old Dan, who seemed to have been watching them from the churchyard. Dan was angry at them for some reason, muttering about immorality. Silly old fool! He should stick to cleaning the church and leave other people to manage their own lives.
Dan seemed to think the Tesworths had gone off to the fleshpots of London. Fleshpots! Norman spat at a nearby bush at the mere thought of that. London was just a big city and if you didn’t have a lot of money, you didn’t get much chance to have fun there, especially in wartime.
It was hard to earn enough to survive on, let alone go out drinking and having fun. He knew that from experience. Even a visit to the cinema cost more in London, though the pianists accompanying the films were no better than those in the provinces.
All he’d got while in London was a white feather from some ugly young woman. That was rich. He’d laughed in her face. As if he bloody well cared about a feather! He’d gone to a lot of trouble to stay out of the army, thank you very much, and wasn’t at all ashamed of pretending to have a weakness in the arm that had been badly scarred when he fell into the fire as a child.
Glad not to have Mrs Farquhar peeping out of her front window, Norman still took the precaution of slipping into the garden of the empty house and making his way from there over the low garden wall into the rear garden of Pear Tree Cottage. He had a vague memory of there being a gate in the back wall and if so, it might lead out through the orchards to the back of Honeyfield House. Mr Filmore would surely pay him extra for finding a sure way to get into the big house without alerting anyone by going down the drive.
He walked round the garden but couldn’t see a gate. His memory wasn’t usually faulty, not about places he’d been to. He decided to have a sit in the summer house for a while and go over it all in his mind. It was too crowded at his aunt’s house to think straight and he was having to sleep on the sofa, and ruddy uncomfortable it was, too.
And then he noticed the door at the back of the summer house and the memories clicked into place. He and another friend had crept round the gardens one night and – yes, of course! You got to the gate in the wall through the summer house. Silly arrangement, but there you were. You could be as silly as you pleased if you had the money.
He opened the summer house door and smiled broadly, but his smile faded when he tried the gate behind it and found it locked. There was no key in it, either. He’d rather not break it open. Perhaps the owner had hidden a key nearby? People did that sometimes; honest folk were such fools.
He hunted under flowerpots and under the ivy on the wall and was just about to give up when he heard a faint clink as he ran his fingers over the bricks. He pulled more of the ivy back at that spot and found a key. The mortar had been scraped away between two bricks and the key only just fitted into the gap. It was so rusty, he didn’t suppose it’d been used for years, but when he tried it in the lock of the gate, it turned with only a small effort. Someone must have been oiling the lock.
Now what should he do? Mr Filmore wouldn’t be getting to Honeyfield till about ten o’clock, but it’d be dark by then so not easy to reconnoitre. Norman glanced up at the sky, which was overcast. Coming up to autumn now. He didn’t like winter.
What if he nipped out into the orchard and had a quick look over the back wall of Honeyfield House? He’d take care no one saw him. It was always good to be prepared. He didn’t want the police brought into this, so if he knew the lie of the land, he might be able to help Mr Filmore snatch the woman with less fuss.
It was daft, kidnapping a woman, and he wouldn’t have got involved if he hadn’t needed the money. And if he hadn’t seen that there might be an opportunity of thumping that bloody Cole senseless as they did it. He’d hated that goody-goody sod since they were lads together, and they’d fought one another a few times.
Decision taken, Norman opened the gate and slipped through it, pausing for several minutes to listen. But there was no sound of anyone from the farm working nearby, so he walked along by the wall, finding two places where he could stand on something and peer over.
The third time he did that, he managed to haul himself into the branch of a big tree that hung over the wall. He sat there for a few minutes and was rewarded by the sight of a woman who looked just as Mr Filmore had described coming towards him. It had to be Miss Cotterell. Unfortunately she was with another female.
The more he studied her, the more sure he was that she was the one Mr Filmore was after: tall, thin and ladylike with long curly hair. Then her companion called her ‘Georgie’ and that confirmed who she was.
If he could get rid of the companion, damned if he wouldn’t be able to snatch the woman now. He could gag her and tie her up, then hide her in the tumbledown old house till Mr Filmore arrived.
Next minute fate gave him a helping hand and the other woman suddenly exclaimed, ‘Oops! I forgot to take that apple pie out of the oven. I’ll be back in two minutes. Wait for me here.’
Grinning, Norman edged on to another big branch that drooped down the other side of the wall. He dropped down on to the soft earth beneath it and crept up behind the woman.
At the last minute she seemed to sense his presence, but it was too late by then. He grabbed her and clapped his hand over her mouth.
She fought hard, he admired that, but he was stronger by far than any woman and in the end he had her on the ground, gagged and trussed up. He’d always found it useful to keep bits of rope and string in his pockets. You never knew when they’d come in useful. And she had a thin, dangly scarf thing round her neck, so he also used that.
Slinging her over his shoulder, he went back up the tree, glad she wasn’t any heavier because it took a huge effort to get her up into the branches. She kept wriggling, so he whispered, ‘If you don’t stay still, I’ll have to knock you out.’
That stopped her struggling but she glared at him, her eyes full of hatred. As if he cared about how she felt! He moved carefully, not wanting to damage her because Mr Filmore was apparently going to marry her. It seemed a strange way to get a wife. Who wanted one, anyway? Not him!
Norman had nothing against her. It was just a job. So he was glad he didn’t have to knock her out. Still moving
quietly he took her back to the gate, locked it after them and edged carefully through the rear gardens of the houses, panting now.
The tumbledown house was perfect for his purpose, so he set her down and fastened her to the old pipes in the laundry wall next to the sink. He made sure she was tied securely then stood back and studied her. No, she’d not get away.
‘You’re not going to be hurt,’ he told her because behind her efforts to get free he could tell she was terrified. ‘There’s a gentleman as wants you, and he doesn’t want you hurt.’
He would wait on the road that led out of the village for Mr Filmore’s car to arrive and guide him to the deserted house.
It was, he thought smugly again, his lucky day.
When the man had gone Georgie tried to get free but soon gave up struggling because she hadn’t had any effect on the thin ropes binding her and biting into her wrists and ankles. She couldn’t believe she was lying here helpless. It had all happened so quickly.
As time passed she grew more and more uncomfortable. Her only hope was that the people she was living with would come looking for her. And with the dog’s help, surely they’d find where she’d been taken.
It was Francis who’d arranged this kidnapping, obviously, from what her kidnapper had said. But if she hadn’t insisted on going out for a breath of fresh air, he wouldn’t have caught her. She’d been stupid. But you got so fed up of being shut indoors all the time.
Darkness crept slowly over everything and she couldn’t hold back tears. They trickled down her cheeks, drying in cold trails on her skin.
Where were her friends?
Why hadn’t someone come to rescue her?
And what was Francis going to do with her? Her kidnapper said she wouldn’t be hurt, but that wasn’t true. Francis would hurt her if he had to. He’d think he could force her to marry him.
She wouldn’t do it. But she wasn’t looking forward to proving that to him.
Gerald Cotterell was just about to finish work early and let his chauffeur drive him down to Honeyfield when his secretary came back from an errand. As she was the best secretary he’d ever had, he always paid attention when she came in to tell him something. She often passed titbits of information that came in useful.
‘You’ll never guess who I saw just now at the archbishop’s palace, Mr Cotterell.’
He waited, one eyebrow raised. She didn’t gossip for no reason, so it must have been something unexpected and of possible interest to him. She knew he collected information like a magpie collected glittering stones. To his mind, jewels were overprized, while information could turn keys in many locks, especially during a war, as enough of the military bigwigs understood, thank goodness.
‘I saw your son Philip’s friend Mr Tesworth with a young lady. What surprised me was that she was the young lady who was engaged to your son. She looks just like the photo you showed me.’
He nodded, frowning. ‘A pleasant enough young woman, I gather. I have no objection to her marrying Tesworth now Philip’s dead.’
‘Well, sir, the reason I thought you ought to know about it is that she’s expecting.’ She cupped one hand at her stomach suggestively. ‘Must be five or six months along.’
It wasn’t hard to do the sums in his head. ‘Ah. Now that could be interesting. Did you happen to find out what they were doing there?’
‘Yes, sir. They were with Mrs Tesworth, arranging to get married.’
‘Hmm. Please tell my chauffeur I shall not be going to Gloucestershire till later but I shall need him shortly for another purpose.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Could you find me Mrs Tesworth’s address, please?’
‘Of course. It’ll be in our files.’
She was back with it in a couple of minutes.
‘Tell my chauffeur to come round now.’
Gerald sat in the back of the car, his mind working furiously. He had kept out of the way of his children, partly because he wasn’t paternal but mainly to keep them safe and respectable in his wife’s household.
When Philip had been killed, he’d been more upset than at any time since the only woman he’d ever loved had died.
He doubted he was mistaken in his analysis of the situation: that unborn child must surely be his son’s.
His eldest child, Spencer, had been no use to him as a son, born with serious faults to his masculinity that had horrified Gerald and made him loathe the infant. He’d looked into his wife’s family background and found out that Spencer wasn’t the only one to be afflicted that way in her family. He didn’t think she knew nearly as much about that as he did, given the way her family concealed the problem.
He hadn’t attempted to get any other children with her after that, however. He didn’t want faulty offspring.
‘We’ve arrived, sir.’
‘Sorry. I was lost in thought.’
‘Shall I go and see if Mrs Tesworth is at home, sir?’
‘No, thank you. I’ll do this myself. Wait for me here, please.’
When he knocked on the door Gerald felt diffident about what he had to ask as well as what he might find out. Such a feeling was unusual in him. He was not an emotional person, never had been.
But this was something he needed to know, and if it was Philip’s child, that needed to be taken into account in his future arrangements.
Mrs Tesworth hesitated when a card was brought in and the butler told her the gentleman had said it was very important indeed that he see her at once. The visitor wasn’t a friend of hers, though she knew him socially.
‘Something wrong, Mother?’
‘Gerald Cotterell has just turned up and wants to see me on a matter of importance.’
‘Ah.’
Isabella looked from one to the other. ‘Is that Philip’s father?’
‘Yes. Have you ever met him?’
‘No. He wasn’t at the engagement party and Philip seemed relieved at that. I was surprised when Mr Cotterell didn’t turn up to his own son’s memorial service, though.’
The door opened and a man stepped into the room. ‘Please excuse me for pushing my way in, Mrs Tesworth, but this is extremely important and I must see you—’ He stared round and added, ‘All of you.’
She nodded dismissal to her butler. ‘Do come in, then, Mr Cotterell.’
‘Thank you.’ He took the seat she’d indicated, but it was Isabella he was studying. ‘Forgive me, but I have to ask if the child you’re carrying is my son’s, Miss Jones.’
Tez took her hand. ‘Isabella is engaged to marry me, so I—’
But she squeezed his hand and said quietly, ‘I think we owe Mr Cotterell the truth. It needn’t make any difference to our getting married.’ She turned back to the visitor, studying his face with interest. The resemblance to Philip was strong, but the warmth that had characterised his son was lacking completely. She laid one hand on her stomach as she told him, ‘Yes, this is Philip’s child, but I don’t care how many lawyers you and your wife produce, I’m not giving the child up to you.’
He looked at her in astonishment. ‘Lawyers? Giving up the child? Who asked you to?’
‘Your wife.’
‘What the hell has that stupid fool of a woman been doing now?’
Norman made his way back to the green, staying out of sight, heading out of the village now.
There was no way he could carry her away from here without someone seeing him. They’d need to bring the car and take her away in that.
He was pleased when Mr Filmore turned up earlier than he’d expected.
When he lowered the window, Norman bent down to tell the men in the car what he’d done.
It was good to see the shock on their faces.
‘I hope you’ll see fit to pay me extra for that, sir? I’ve saved you a lot of trouble tonight.’
‘Definitely! Well done. Let’s go and get her.’
Norman crammed into the car with them and gave the driver instructions for getting through the village. When
they stopped, he suggested the two gentlemen pretend to knock on the door of Pear Tree Cottage. ‘There’s no one in but it’ll give you an excuse for being here if Mrs Nosey Parker across the street looks out, which she usually does.’
While they were doing that, he suggested he and the sturdy-looking man they’d brought with them go and fetch the woman. Pair of weaklings, the two gentlemen were, just playing at being tough.
He led the way quickly through the garden and into the house.
That’s when he heard a dog baying from the orchard. ‘Oh, hell, someone’s come after her. Hurry up.’
They ran out with their burden and he shoved her into the car on the gentlemen’s laps, saying, ‘I’ll ride on the running board. It’ll be better if you drop me off at my aunt’s so that no one can find anything unusual if they come round knocking on doors. I’d appreciate being paid.’
When they got near his auntie’s, he rapped on the roof. As the car slowed down, he jumped off the running board and ran inside, hearing them drive away quickly but not turning round to watch them.
He told his relatives to say he’d been there all evening if anyone asked. ‘I’ll make it worth your while,’ he promised.
‘What’ve you been doing?’ one of his cousins asked.
‘Never you mind.’
His aunt said sharply, ‘You heard our Norman. Do what he says. We don’t want any of our family in trouble with the police.’
Once they’d left the village and turned on to the London road, Georgie heard Spencer say, ‘Take the gag off her. She seems distressed. We don’t want to harm her.’
‘It won’t hurt her to suffer a little,’ Francis protested. ‘It’ll make her more amenable later.’
‘No. I’m going to take it off.’ Spencer did so, then he and she stared at one another in the dimness.
‘Fine brother you are!’ she exclaimed.
‘I’ve never liked you. You need a strong husband if you’re not to disgrace the family.’