by Anna Jacobs
How could he be dead?
She panicked then and stood whimpering, unable to think straight.
‘I’ll break this door down if I have to!’ Francis yelled from outside.
She jerked in shock at the sound of his voice, checked Spencer’s pulse again and still found nothing. Indeed, the more she studied him, the more dead he looked.
She went to the door and rapped on it to get Francis’s attention, before calling, ‘Spencer’s dead.’
Silence greeted this, then, ‘What have you done to him, you bitch?’
‘I’ve done nothing. I thought he was asleep so I kept quiet, but when you knocked on the door, I tried to wake him. Only he can’t wake up because he’s dead.’
‘Open the door and let me see. He’s probably just unconscious.’
‘He’s not breathing. There’s no pulse. His skin is cold.’
‘Well, open the bloody door, for heaven’s sake.’
‘He’s got the key. I don’t know where it is.’
‘If he had it last night, it’s in the room with you. And if he really is dead, he’s not going to hand it to you, so you’ll need to look for it.’
‘Yes. I suppose so. Give me a minute.’
She found the key quite quickly, under the pillow as she’d expected, but couldn’t bring herself to open the door and let Francis in. As she stood dithering, it occurred to her that it would be safer to stay behind a locked door. And do what she could to delay things.
She looked round for somewhere to hide the key in case he broke the door down and grew angry with her. In the end put it under the seat pad of a stiff upright chair near the window. She could claim she hadn’t had it. Stepping back she looked at the chair seat and the key didn’t show.
The door rattled again. ‘Hurry up!’
‘I can’t find it.’
‘Of course you can. It has to be in the bed with him.’
She tried to play him along. ‘I don’t want to touch a dead man.’ As quietly as she could she got another of the stiff wooden chairs and wedged it under the door handle, then looked round. Could she move the chest of drawers behind the door as well? She tried to push it but it was much too heavy so she had to leave it.
The door shook and rattled, and when she didn’t answer Francis began thumping on it. ‘Stop playing the fool. I can break the door down, you know. And I don’t believe Spencer is dead. You’ve overcome him and tied him up, so I need to rescue him.’ He bellowed for someone called Dibble to come and help him.
She didn’t answer. Let him break down the door. While he was doing it, she was going to stick her head out of the window and scream for help. In fact, why wait? She’d delayed Francis for as long as she could.
She slid the bottom of the window up and leant out, yelling for help at the top of her voice.
Then she sat on the window sill, feet hanging out. If Francis got into the room, she’d have to let herself drop to the ground and risk breaking a limb. She wasn’t going to stand there tamely and let him manhandle her – or worse.
The watcher saw her come to the window and as she looked all right, he followed instructions and didn’t reveal his presence.
But when she came to the window a short time later and started yelling for help, he decided he’d have to do something. She still looked unhurt, though, and there was no one with her, so again he hesitated.
In the back of the butcher’s shop nearby, Mr Tully stopped cutting up a lamb carcase to listen. ‘What on earth’s that?’
His apprentice stood still and they both listened.
‘Someone’s yelling for help,’ Percy said. ‘A woman.’
He was out of the back door in a trice and the butcher after him.
‘Your hearing’s better than mine. Where exactly is it coming from?’ Mr Tully asked.
‘That house behind us.’ The lad pointed. ‘Look! She’s sitting on the window sill, still screaming for help.’
‘Ah. That’s where that nasty sod Filmore lives. I’d as soon have nothing to do with him. You run and fetch the police.’
‘But she’s still yelling for help, Mr Tully. And she looks ready to jump. We can’t just leave her. He may hurt her. I saw him kick a dog the other day. It wasn’t doing anything, just sleeping in the sun and he up and kicked it.’
The lad was fair dancing up and down now. ‘What if he kills her before the police can get there?’
Mr Tully raised his face to the sky and asked, ‘Why me?’ feeling aggrieved. Why should he be the one to hear the cries? He wasn’t cut out to rescue damsels in distress. You never saw a stout, older man acting as the hero at the cinema, did you? For obvious reasons.
‘We can’t just leave her.’ Percy didn’t wait for permission but ran off and yanked open the rear gate of the house. He flung it back so hard one of its hinges broke and it hung half-open. But that didn’t stop him. He kicked it fully open and vanished into the tangle of bushes.
‘Young fool,’ Mr Tully muttered, but she was still screaming so he followed his apprentice across the back garden. Someone had to see if the woman really did need rescuing. And if she did, he could guess what from. That fellow had been seen to take home ladies before – well, not ladies, women of a certain sort.
‘What’s wrong, missus?’ the lad was yelling up to the young woman sitting on the window sill.
‘I’ve been kidnapped and I’ve locked myself in this bedroom only he’s breaking down the door. I’m afraid he’s going to kill me.’ She looked over her shoulder as she spoke and the two men outside could clearly hear the crash and the splintering of wood. ‘He’s coming in.’ She started to move closer to the edge of the window sill.
‘Don’t you jump, missus!’ Mr Tully called. ‘You’ll break your neck. We’ll come into the house and get you.’
She hesitated. ‘Hurry.’ She began to scream again.
Then someone dragged her inside and her screams cut off abruptly.
Mr Tully’s ire was now roused. He could recognise terror when he saw it. It was he who pushed open the back door of the house, which wasn’t locked, thank goodness, and rushed inside.
The housekeeper was standing in the hall just outside the kitchen listening to what was going on upstairs. She turned as the back door opened and screeched in shock at the sight of them.
‘Another damned, screaming woman,’ Tully muttered to himself. He pushed past her and charged into the hall and up the stairs, followed a short time later by his apprentice, who had paused to pick up the poker and brandish it experimentally.
The housekeeper collapsed into a chair and had hysterics, but by that time she was alone again so it was a waste of effort and her shrieks soon faded away. After a few moments she followed the two men out into the hall to see what was happening, muttering, ‘I’m giving my notice. I am. I’m not standing for this. He’s gone too far this time.’
By the time Mr Tully reached the broken pieces of bedroom door, Francis had ripped Georgie’s blouse open in the struggle and was shaking her good and hard, yelling, ‘Shut up! Shut up, damn you!’
She was making a spirited attempt to scratch his eyes out, still yelling at the top of her voice.
When he clouted her hard and knocked her to the floor, Mr Tully saw red. ‘Stop that at once!’ he roared in a voice that was noted for its power but more often used for starting Sunday School races than for confronting villains.
Francis swung round and saw a bald middle-aged man, with a jutting belly. The man was red in the face and wouldn’t normally have frightened anyone, but what stopped Francis in his tracks was the big cleaver his unwanted visitor was waving threateningly.
When a lad came into the room brandishing a poker, Francis retreated to the far side of the bed.
‘Go and fetch the police, Percy. Run for your life,’ Mr Tully said.
He turned back to Francis and waved the cleaver again. ‘If you move, I’ll knock you into the middle of next week, and probably slice off your ear while I’m a-doing of it. I just
sharpened this.’ Swish went the cleaver again.
By that time, however, the watcher lurking in the garden had gone for the police and Percy met the two constables before he’d run fifty yards.
He skidded to a halt. ‘He’s kidnapped a woman and got her locked in his house. Mr Tully’s keeping him away from her.’
‘So it was true,’ one of the constables said.
They exchanged startled glances and unhooked their truncheons from their belts.
‘Show us,’ the other said.
Percy looked beyond them to the stranger. ‘Who’s he?’
‘Someone sent to keep an eye on her,’ the man said. ‘I’m coming in with you.’
At the house, however, they found Mr Tully sitting on the top stair, rubbing his head, with Georgie in attendance.
‘Where’s Filmore?’ Percy asked.
‘Gone. He threw the bedside table at Mr Tully and then hit him over the head with an ornament, before running out of the room. I didn’t dare chase after him, and anyway, Mr Tully needed help. Didn’t you see Filmore?’
‘No. We came in the front way, so he must have gone out of the back.’
Percy rushed across to the window and peered out. ‘I can’t see him at the back.’ Without being told, he ran into the nearest front bedroom and yelled, ‘He’s gone round the front and he’s running down the street now.’
The constables ran back down the stairs, but the stranger had already raced off ahead of them and was considerably more nimble than they were, so began gaining on the panting, wheezing fugitive.
The two cars got to Malmesbury just before lunch after driving faster than Tez considered safe, though he didn’t like to say so. Well, if poor Georgie had been in Francis’s hands since yesterday, who knew what he’d have done to her? So he managed to keep up with Mr Cotterell’s car.
If Francis had raped her, Tez would beat him to a pulp. He couldn’t bear men doing that to women and he’d had to reprimand some of the men under him in the army when they talked longingly of doing it to German women. That hadn’t made him popular with some of the rougher sorts.
This time he’d have to leave retribution to Georgie’s father, who would be best placed to do whatever it took to sort this situation out. Mr Cotterell would be more capable of meting out salutary justice than anyone else, Tez was sure.
The car purred along but as it approached the house where Filmore lived, the passengers saw a man rush out from the side and another man erupt from the front door to chase after him.
Cotterell’s car accelerated and caught up with the running men, just as Filmore turned down an alley at the far end that had bollards across it. The two guards were out of the car in a flash and chasing after him.
Mr Cotterell got out and stood watching them, arms folded, so Tez and Isabella joined him.
Tez cheered loudly as the leading pursuer did a flying rugby tackle that brought Filmore down and the man behind him helped drag Filmore to his feet and hold him against the wall that lined the alley.
‘Good,’ was all Mr Cotterell said. He wasted no time, but led the way back to Filmore’s house.
Georgie persuaded Mr Tully to go down to the kitchen on the promise of a cup of tea and Percy clattered down the stairs in front of them. There they found the housekeeper wringing her hands and alternately sobbing or demanding to know who was going to pay her wages now.
Percy needed no urging to fill the big kettle and put it on to the gas burner.
At that point the housekeeper took over. ‘Never let it be said that I can’t still make a cup of tea!’ she declared, spoiling this by adding, ‘And I’m sure I need a cup as much as anyone else does, not to mention a dash of brandy in it for the shock.’
‘Good idea!’ said Mr Tully enthusiastically.
Georgie went to sit huddled on a chair, feeling suddenly weak and shaky.
When someone came into the house, they all swung round.
‘Who’s that?’ the housekeeper quavered.
Gerald Cotterell followed the sound of voices and stood in the doorway of the kitchen, taking in the scene. His eyes kept going back to his daughter. He would make her feel like his daughter now, show her how he loved her – if that was possible.
He stepped forward. ‘Are you all right, Georgie?’
She sighed in relief. ‘Yes, Father.’
‘Filmore didn’t touch you?’
‘No. Spencer saved me.’
‘I’m glad to hear that he’s not completely bad.’ Sadness at the thought of his sickly son welled up in him, as it usually did. And his daughter looked so white and upset that for a moment he couldn’t speak and had to breathe deeply a couple of times before he could continue.
‘Shall we all go into the parlour and you can tell me exactly what happened, Georgie? You don’t mind me calling you Georgie? It was my wife who insisted on using your full name always.’
‘I prefer it.’
‘Good.’ He turned to the housekeeper, ‘Madam, if you could supply us with tea and something to eat we’d be very grateful. This is for your trouble.’ He put a half-crown down on the table in front of her.
The coin quickly vanished. ‘I’m happy to help,’ the housekeeper said in a calmer voice.
He turned back to Georgie. ‘Where’s your brother hiding?’
‘Spencer’s in the bedroom, but I think – no, I’m sure he’s dead.’
There was utter silence for a moment, then he asked grimly, ‘Did Filmore kill him? If so, I’ll see him hanged.’
‘No. Spencer died in his sleep. He made me share his bedroom so that Francis couldn’t hurt me. I didn’t hear anything, but when I woke Spencer wasn’t moving. I thought he was still asleep, but then Francis tried to get in so I went to wake Spencer, and—and found he was dead.’ She shuddered violently.
After a moment’s hesitation, he went across and put his arm round his daughter’s shoulders. ‘Spencer was never in good health, never destined to make old bones. The doctors didn’t expect him to live this long. You’re safe now, Georgie. I won’t let anyone hurt you again. You can come back to London with me, if you like. It’s a big house. Not if you don’t want to, of course.’
She stared up at him in surprise and he gave her a little hug. It felt so right to have his arm round her without worrying about what Adeline might do in retribution.
‘I’d like to come to you. I don’t ever want to go back to Westcott.’
‘Westcott will change. My wife will be moving out.’
‘She won’t go. She loves the place.’
‘Adeline loves the status it gives her,’ he corrected. ‘And I doubt I’ll have much trouble with her from now on. She cared deeply about Spencer, I’ll give her that. If he’s dead, she’ll fall to pieces.’
There was silence for a moment or two, then he risked giving her another gentle hug and stepped back, feeling as if he’d crossed an important boundary. ‘I’d better go and check on Spencer. Mrs Tesworth, could you please take my daughter into the parlour and look after her?’
Isabella turned to Georgie. ‘Come on, dear. You’re quite safe now.’
‘Could you find my daughter something warm to wear, Tez? Maybe there’s a coat on the hallstand.’
‘Yes, of course.’ As Mr Cotterell started up the stairs, Tez exchanged a quick, surprised look with his wife and whispered, ‘Never seen him so human.’
‘Perhaps he’s never dared show it before.’
When they got into the parlour and Isabella would have taken her arm away, Georgie clutched her. ‘Please. Can I just … hold on to you for a moment? I can’t seem to stop shivering.’
‘Of course you can. Let’s sit together on the sofa.’
Tez came back shortly afterwards and put a man’s overcoat round Georgie’s shoulders, but though she nodded her thanks, she still clutched Isabella’s hand.
‘My father seemed … different today. More like a father.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. Very
good. I’ve felt so alone in the world.’
‘You’ll have a little niece or nephew too in a few months. I’ve been trying to keep it quiet, but now your brother and Filmore have been caught, I can tell the world.’
Georgie beamed at her. ‘That means something of Philip will continue. And Tez will make a wonderful stepfather.’
‘I’m so glad you’re happy.’
‘I shall absolutely love having a niece or nephew. And a sister-in-law even if you never actually married my brother.’
The two women hugged one another.
When Mr Cotterell rejoined them, he said quietly, ‘You were right, Georgie. Your brother is dead.’
‘What did he die of?’
‘Natural causes, I should think. He was born with various physical weaknesses, including a heart problem. I can’t say at this stage which one killed him, but the doctors will no doubt find out. He looked peaceful, at least.’
‘Why are Philip and I so different from him? We weren’t sickly.’
He hesitated.
‘We can leave you alone with your daughter, if you wish to explain privately, sir,’ Tez said quietly.
‘No. I’m only going to tell this tale once and you two also have a right to hear it since you’ll be raising Philip’s child, my grandchild.’
He pulled a chair closer to his daughter, speaking to her mainly. ‘Spencer was only your half-brother, Georgie. I’m your father but your real mother was … someone else. My wife’s family carried a fault they’d hidden from the world, one which caused some children to be born with … problems. I shall not go into details.’
‘I see.’
‘I didn’t get on with my wife, not at all. And then I met your mother and fell deeply in love for the first time in my life. When I found I’d fathered another child, I was glad. Only it turned out to be twins and she died birthing you.’