Threat
Page 23
‘What happened?’ the man asks.
‘It’s stopped.’
‘You sure?’
‘As soon as I give Her Ladyship those last two photographs.’
‘Her Ladyship eh?’
I nod.
‘You went to the top then.’
I nod towards the clock on the mantlepiece. ‘I need those pictures I left with you.’
He smiles. ‘I ain’t stupid.’
He leans his shotgun against the wall by the door, walks to the corner of the room and takes a hunting knife out of his belt. He kneels down, prises up a short floorboard, takes out the photographs, replaces the board, and treads it into place. He turns and looks me hard in the eye.
‘You sure it’s done?’
‘Yes.’
He’s gone very still, his cold grey eyes are boring into me, and the firelight’s glinting on the knife in his hand. Just as I’m wondering whether I can get to the shotgun before he can, his face breaks into a smile.
‘You done good.’
He sheaths his knife, joins me by the fire and puts the photographs in my hand. He nods his head, goes to the door and opens it. As I go past him he says, ‘I knew you was all right when I seen you first.’
• • •
As I near the stables I see horses being led out into the field and some coming back across the yard and round the side of the house. I weave my way round them, and in through the back door. The kitchen is busy, and there’s a lovely smell of bacon wafting into the corridor. People are coming and going with trays and I’m amazed at the number of servants I pass as I make my way up to Lady Northrup’s room. I knock on the door.
‘Enter.’
I go in and she’s standing by the drinks cabinet in a black jacket, a white shirt, riding breeches and shiny black boots. She’s holding a top hat and a riding crop in one hand and a drink in the other.
‘Good. You’re here,’ she says.
I take the photographs out of my back pocket and hand them to her. She looks at each of them, gives a snort, smacks her boot with the riding crop, and puts them in a drawer of the cabinet.
‘I think that concludes our business?’
‘I think it does.’
‘May I offer you a car to take you somewhere?’
‘No thanks, I’ve got one nearby.’
‘In that case, I shall bid you goodbye.’
She puts her top hat on her head, strides to the door and opens it for me. I nod to her and walk fast along the corridor towards the back of the house. A couple of gents in riding clothes walk past me. I look over my shoulder as Lady Northrup comes out of her room, greets them, and walks with them towards the main staircase. As I turn into the next corridor I look out of the window and see a big crowd of huntsmen and women on horseback gathered in front of the house. They’re chatting away to each other and there are footmen in uniform and maids moving among them with drinks on silver trays, and there’s a pack of dogs milling about on the lawn. The Marquess is there on a beautiful white horse talking to a rider in a bright red jacket with a hunting horn in his hand. Symmonds is standing nearby with a tray. I see Her Ladyship come out of the front door and mount up. She takes a glass and greets a woman with red hair who says something that makes her laugh.
On the way down the stairs, I wonder if I should try and find Mary to make sure she’s all right, but I decide that the sooner I’m away from here the better and make for the back door. The courtyard’s empty, apart from a young lad sweeping up, and I head off towards the road to the back gate. As I come out from behind the stables I hear the sound of hunting horns and dogs barking, and all at once the whole hunt comes round the corner of the brick building and rumbles past really close in front of me. I step back behind the corner and watch the mass of horses, boots and top hats trundle by. I can feel how exciting it must be to be part of it, as long as you don’t happen to be a fox.
The last of the hunters go past and I’m just about to come out from behind the building when a group of girls on ponies come round the corner, following the hunt. I step back again, and I nearly fall over when I recognise Annabelle at the back of the group, and next to her, on a dappled grey pony is Georgie.
I watch her trotting away after the hunt and turning to talk to Annabelle as she goes. I’m just hoping she doesn’t fall off, and I’m glad to see that when the hunters turn off to the right, along a track into the woods, the pony group slow down to a walk and keep straight on along the side of a field of grass. I wait until they’re out of sight then I cross the yard and walk through the trees alongside the road to the back gate. As I walk I’m wondering if Annabelle is the Viscount’s daughter. I can look it up in that book Lizzie’s got that has all the toffs’ names in when I get back. If she is his daughter, I hope she never finds out what her grandfather got up to of a night.
The Anglia’s where I left it in the wood and I get in, put the wires together and fire it up. I back it up onto the road, point the front end at London and put my foot down. The sun’s shining, Georgie’s enjoying herself, and there’ll be no more dead girls underneath the old cars.
I turn on the radio and twiddle the dial until I get Elvis giving me a bit of Jailhouse Rock.
• • •
It feels good to be back in the city as I muscle through the stroppy West London traffic. I dump the Anglia in a side street off Uxbridge Road, wipe it clean of prints and get a cab to Maida Vale. I tell him to drop me at the lights on Edgware Road. I find a call box and dial Tony Farina’s number. I tell him that Heinz is gone and arrange to go and collect my wages. I walk the rest of the way to the flats, checking for any lurkers with ginger hair. All looks clear, so I go into the foyer. Dennis looks up from behind the desk.
‘Morning miss,’ he says, as he crosses to the lift. I can see he wants to ask me why I look as if I’ve been dragged through a hedge backwards, and I’m glad he thinks better of it.
‘How are you Dennis?’ I ask, as he presses the lift button.
‘Right as rain now, thank you miss.’
The lift arrives, he opens the gate and I put a ten bob note in his hand to end the conversation, and step into the lift.
‘Thanks very much miss,’ he says, as he closes the gate behind me.
I get off at my floor, step onto the carpet, and feel glad to be home. I stop at Lizzie’s door and knock softly. A moment later the door opens and she’s there, beautiful as ever, in her silk dressing gown.
Her face lights up in a smile, she looks me up and down, pulls me to her and folds me in her arms. Without a word, she takes me to the bathroom, turns on the hot tap, stands me by the bath and slowly takes my clothes off, kissing me all over as she does so. By the time I’m undressed, and she’s slipped off her dressing gown and her bra and pants, the bath’s full. She turns the taps off, helps me into the water, and disappears out of door. Moments later she comes back with two glasses of whisky, hands one to me, and slips into the bath.
After the whisky and the warm water have soaked away the miles and the bruises, I tell her everything that went on at Ringwood. By the time I’ve finished the story the water’s nearly cold, the whisky’s finished, and her eyes are wide.
‘Those people, eh?’
‘I know,’ I say.
‘Do you think Georgie’s all right down there?’
‘Lady Northrup can’t know she’s connected with me, and I reckon she’s straight up anyway.’
‘Sounds like she is, the way she got Nick banged up in two minutes flat.’
‘Right.’
‘What about that old butler?’
‘He just does what he’s told.’
We get out of the bath and dry each other with big soft towels. The phone rings and Lizzie goes into the hall and answers it. She gives her number and then I hear her say, ‘I’ll be free in a couple of hours.’ After a pause, she says, ‘Ok, I’ll expect you then.’
I hear the click as she puts the phone down. I drop my towel on a chair, go into the hal
l and follow her into the bedroom. We slide between the sheets, I melt into her dreamy softness and we make love.
• • •
A week later, I’m sitting with Lizzie in Derry and Toms roof garden in Kensington High Street, having a bit of lunch and a glass of wine after a shopping spree with the money I’ve been paid by Tony Farina. It’s a lovely day and London’s looking handsome in the sunshine.
I look round for the waitress to order some more wine and catch sight of the headline on a Daily Telegraph that’s lying on the next table – ‘Russian spy defects to Moscow.’
I pick it up, and read:
“A senior MI6 officer who was under arrest, awaiting trial for high treason, has escaped from Wormwood Scrubs Prison and is believed to have travelled to Moscow, where he is under the protection of the KGB. Sources have revealed that the British-born officer had been working as a double agent for some years prior to his recent arrest. A government enquiry has been launched to ascertain how he was able to betray his country for so long.”
It then goes on about George Blake, the spy who got done last May and given forty-two years. I pass the paper over to Lizzie and she reads a bit and dumps it on the table.
‘They’ve sprung him, haven’t they?’
‘You reckon?’
‘There’s no other way he could have got out of the Scrubs so quick.’
‘It’s because he would have taken too many down with him.’
‘That’s it.’
‘So they get rid of him.’
‘Easy as that.’
• • •
Lizzie’s got a customer when we get back, so I go into my flat, dump the bags in the hall and put the kettle on. A letter I got from Georgie the other day is lying on the kitchen table. I pick it up and read again about how she’s getting on much better at the school now. She tells me what a nice weekend she’d had at Annabelle’s big house in the country, and how she’d been taught how to ride a pony, and that she and Annabelle and some other girls had followed the hunt when it set off, and then gone off for a hack. I feel relieved that she’s settled in at the school, that she’s got a good friend, and that she knows nothing about what went on that weekend.
I put down the letter and fill the teapot. I pick up the bags from the hall, go through to the bedroom and start to unpack the clothes that I’ve bought. The Daily Telegraph is in one of the Harrods bags. I throw it on the bed but it slips off onto the floor and falls open. I see something familiar, pick it up, and I’m looking at a picture of Ringwood. Underneath, it reads:
“A catastrophic fire has destroyed the motor museum at Ringwood Hall in Berkshire. The museum was housed in a building adjacent to the Hall and was home to a fine collection of classic cars and motorcycles belonging to the Marquess of Denby. The fire is said to have razed the building to the ground but left the Hall and other buildings undamaged. The cause of the fire remains unknown.”
I chuck the paper on the bed and take a slinky black Dior dress out of its bag. I hold it up in front of me, smooth it into the curves of my body and look in the mirror.
The End
Hugh Fraser is best known for playing Captain Hastings in Agatha Christie’s ‘Poirot’ and the Duke of Wellington in ‘Sharpe’. His films include Patriot Games, 101 Dalmatians, The Draughtsman’s Contract and Clint Eastwood’s Firefox. In the theatre he has appeared in Teeth’n’Smiles at the Royal Court and Wyndhams and in several roles with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
He has also narrated many of Agatha Christie’s novels as audio books. Harm is his first novel.
You can follow Hugh on Twitter @realhughfraser
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Table of Contents
Cover
Half-title Page
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28