Blow Down

by JL Merrow

  I briefly considered pulling over into an upcoming lay-by to make the call. Very briefly. That would just be sad. Which was my main consideration, obviously, rather than the way the lay-by itself was shielded from the road by overhanging trees that cast it into gloomy shadow and looked well creepy. Not to mention, an ideal spot for a murder.

  Then my phone rang, and I ended up pulling in anyway. It wasn’t Phil, though.

  It was Vi. “Yeah?” I said cautiously.

  “Um.” Her voice was uncharacteristically hesitant. Uncertain, even. “I owe you an apology. For being so rude the other night. Sorry.”

  Oh. “Uh, that’s okay.” I paused. “Does that mean you want to take back the firing-us thing?” Not that I was making any promises, mind.

  “Um. Well, actually . . . Can you come over?”

  “What? Why?”

  “It’s just . . . We’ve got a leak in one of the pipes, and there’s water all over the floor, and Daddy’s gone out for dinner.”

  “You’re kidding, right? I mean, seriously?” Christ, she had a nerve.

  “Look, I know it’s a cheek, all right? But I’ll pay you. I don’t know any other plumbers—”

  Why did that not surprise me?

  “—and I’m really worried about the floors. They’re going to be ruined. I mean, I’ve tried mopping up, but it just keeps coming.”

  Great. Those antique wood floors had probably thought they were safe now that Thoroughly Modern Amelia had popped her ironically retro clogs. “Have you tried turning the water off?” I thought about jamming the phone between my shoulder and my ear and setting off, but it’d be just my luck to get nicked for driving while using my mobile to talk to Vi bloody Majors.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Have a look under your kitchen sink. There should be a tap there.” Although in an older property like that . . .

  There was a pause, enlivened by a few bumps and some heavy breathing. “There’s loads of taps. Which one should I turn?”

  I closed my eyes briefly, then opened them quick ’cos it was still pretty creepy and deserted in this lay-by. No sense in pushing my luck. “Just give all of ’em a go. Clockwise to close, yeah?”

  There was a shorter pause. More heavy breathing. Some grunting. “It’s really stiff.”

  I resisted the urge to say That’s what he said.

  “I’ll have to put you down,” she carried on.

  More grunts.

  Bang.

  “Oh, bugger.”

  Uh-oh.

  Vi’s voice got louder suddenly. I guessed she’d picked up the phone again. “It came off in my hand.”

  Flippin’ marvellous. “I’ll be there in ten,” I said, adding a bit of a sigh in the hopes she’d appreciate she was messing up my plans for the evening something chronic.

  Okay, so I hadn’t actually had any plans. She didn’t know that, did she?

  “Just got to let Phil know where I’m off to, and I’ll be on my way,” I added, ’cos while I might be a sucker for an antique wood floor in distress, I’m not daft. Not that I really reckoned Vi had done her stepmum in, but there was no harm in letting her know Phil would know where I was and who’d called me over.

  His phone, typically, went to voice mail, so I left a message, then pulled out of the dark lay-by, still miraculously un-murdered, and set off back to St. Leonards.

  Vi looked severely frazzled when she opened the door of the farmhouse to me. “Oh, thank God. Come on in. It’s this way.”

  She led me down the hall to a utility room, housing the boiler, a top-range washer and matching dryer, as well as an old-fashioned butler’s sink for hand-washing. The last of which I wouldn’t mind betting hadn’t seen a lot of use since the demise of the first Mrs. Majors, and maybe not even then.

  I didn’t need my spidey-senses to locate the problem. Mainly because Vi had already found the leak herself and made a sad little attempt at stopping the leak with what had probably once been a very expensive scarf. It was right up by the boiler, on a junction, unsurprisingly.

  She’d also thrown what looked like the entire contents of the family linen closet on the floor in an attempt to soak up the water. I’d have to scale the sodden pile to get at the leak, but first things first. “Right, let’s get that water turned off,” I said briskly.

  The tap she’d broken turned out to control the water supply to the dishwasher. I hoped for the sake of any antique china in the house that she wasn’t as ham-fisted with the washing up as she was with the plumbing. Then again, I did have a spare in the van.

  I was planning to wait and see whether Vi was still apologetic after I’d fixed her pipes before I mentioned it, though.

  First things first. I needed to locate the stop valve—which, to be fair to Vi, wasn’t under the sink at all. Once again, my psychic gift was about as much use as that silk scarf had been at stopping the leak, but I eventually tracked it down near the front door, under a loose floorboard cunningly hidden by the welcome mat. I was just glad I didn’t have to go rooting around for an outside stopcock in the dark. ’Specially seeing as a property like this might not even have one.

  The stop valve turned easily, which was a relief. In a hard-water area, things seize up quick from the limescale and can be a bugger to get loose. It couldn’t have been all that long since the last time they’d had a plumber round.

  I’d expected Vi to go off and put her feet up while I got on with the work, but instead she dogged my footsteps and asked so many questions, you’d have thought she was thinking about a change of profession. (And yeah, all right, I made sure I didn’t turn my back on her any more than I could help, especially with some reasonably hefty tools lying around. Like I said: not daft. Or suicidal, for that matter.)

  Working the leaky junction loose was less effort than I’d have expected, given the age of the plumbing. I saw the problem straight away. “Blimey,” I muttered, more under my breath than to Vi. “Never seen one that bad before.”

  “What is it?” Vi asked, poking her nose up to the pipe.

  “Washer. It’s corroded.”

  “Where? I can’t see.”

  “Yeah, that’s your problem, right there.” The washer had corroded so much it literally wasn’t even there anymore. “Don’t worry—I’ll just go and grab a spare from the van.”

  It was full dark when I got outside. Darker than I expected, I mean. It took a mo for me to twig that the security light hadn’t come on. Houses like this? There’s always a security light. It seemed a bit dodgy it’d chosen tonight of all nights to break down—but then, maybe it’d been down for months and they were just really bad at getting round to fixing it. I shivered and didn’t hang about any longer than I had to, just grabbed the washer and a new tap head from the back of the van.

  I was about to leg it back to the front door when it opened, light hitting me from inside. Vi stood there. “Why isn’t the outside light on?” she asked, frowning.

  “Search me,” I told her. “Come on. Let’s get this sorted.”

  I went back to the utility room, fitted the washer, tightened the join, sorted the tap under the sink, and turned the water back on before checking there were no more leaks.

  By the end of it all, Vi was still frowning. “All right, love?” I asked, half my mind on totting up the bill and adding extra for the emergency call-out, not to mention the nerve.

  Course, that could have been what her mind was on too . . . Nah. She wasn’t the sort to get in a tizzy over a couple of hundred quid.

  “It’s just odd. I’m sure Daddy had a plumber in here only a couple of months ago.”

  “Yeah, thought you might’ve,” I muttered distractedly.

  “Yes, but you see, I’m sure that was a washer too. I wasn’t here, but Daddy was talking about it at lunch on Monday. He thought the plumber he’d called in had ripped him off—that’s why I didn’t call him tonight.”

  I shrugged. “Old systems like this, you’ve got to expect them to need a bit
of care and attention from time to time. And if the washers were the same age, it’s not surprising they went one after the other.”

  “I suppose.” She was silent for a moment. “I didn’t just apologise to you so you’d come round and fix things. I do feel bad about what I said. I don’t think you’re a fraud. Lance has been explaining it to me. About how dowsing works.”

  “Yeah? Get on all right with him, do you?”

  “Oh, you know.”

  Not really, love, but I didn’t tell her that. “Good how him and your stepmum managed to keep working together after the divorce, wasn’t it?”

  “Oh, that was only ever a business thing. Their marriage, I mean.”

  I wondered who’d told her that. And how come she believed it. Seriously, who gets married for business reasons these days, apart from Mafia bosses?

  “Right, love, here’s the damage.” I handed over my scribbled-out invoice.

  She made a face. “I haven’t got that much cash in the house. Do you take credit cards?”

  “Sorry, no, but a cheque’s fine. Or bank transfer.”

  “God, does anybody write cheques anymore? I’ll pay you online.” She peered at the small print at the bottom of the invoice, which is where I give details of my bank account, and fiddled with her phone for a couple of minutes. “Done. I can’t believe you don’t make everyone pay this way.”

  I tried to imagine some of my more elderly customers trying to get their heads around a phone banking app. “Long as I get what I’m owed, I’m not fussy. Right, cheers, love, and call me if you get any more problems, yeah?”

  “I will. And thank you for coming, after . . . Well. You know. Are you all right to see yourself out?” She gazed sadly at the pile of soggy towels. “I need to load the washing machine.”

  “Think I can remember the way,” I told her, and left.

  I dunno why I felt so twitchy, walking back to my van in the dark. Maybe it was just ’cos I wasn’t so used to the dark, what with autumn only just drawing in. I mean, I didn’t hear a thing. Seriously, not a whisper. Certainly not any footsteps coming up behind me. It was dead quiet out there in the sticks, although I could just hear the odd car going down the main road at the end of the drive.

  The only thing that happened was—at least, as I thought at the time—a spiderweb brushed my face. So my hand jerked up to brush it away, in case the spider was still in residence, because with that many legs at their disposal, they can flippin’ well walk instead of hitching a lift on yours truly.

  And then I forgot all about sodding spiders, because my hand was trapped against my face and someone was panting down my neck as they pulled a wire so tight around my throat it burned. My free hand flailed as I struggled. The bones of my tortured right hand dug into one side of my windpipe, a duller pain than the wire on the other side.

  Christ. It was like I was giving a helping hand to my own strangler.

  My face felt too large, my head too full. Some evil flying leprechaun was stabbing tiny knives into my eyes, and my vision went patchy-dark. There was the metallic taste of blood in my mouth. Shit, was this it? I struggled harder, my limbs wild. Christ, if I died now, Phil’d never forgive me. We hadn’t even made it to the altar. I staggered—back, I think?—and tried to hit the bastard behind me who was trying to ruin my wedding.

  I wasn’t sure if I hit ’em or not—or if they hit me, or gave me a god-almighty shove—but all of a sudden, I was falling forward onto my hands and knees, gasping in precious air. God. I thought for a moment I was gonna chuck, but I managed to hold it in somehow.

  Had there been footsteps? The sound of someone running away? I wasn’t sure—but when I staggered to my feet, there was nobody there. Either my attacker had done a runner, or that’d been one bloody big spider. That spun its webs out of tungsten carbide.

  I made this weird sobbing noise that might’ve started out as a laugh, and fumbled my phone out of my pocket. Dropped it. Thought Fuck my life as I got back on my hands and knees and gathered phone, case, and battery and clicked them back together. Staggered to the nearest wall and sat on the ground with my back to it, ’cos if my attacker came back for another go, I wasn’t just dead meat, I’d been shrink-wrapped and put on special offer on the deli counter in Sainsbury’s.

  Finally managed to hit dial on Phil’s number.

  He picked up, thank God. “Tom?”

  “Yeah.” It came out as a whisper. “Need you.”

  “Where are you? Are you still at the Majors’ house?”

  I could hear sounds in the background—he was on his way already. I closed my eyes.

  “Tom!”

  Right. Hadn’t told him where to come yet. “S’ry. Yeah.”

  “Are you in danger?”

  “D’no.”

  Light cast a pathway to my left as the front door of the farmhouse opened. There was a Vi-shaped shadow bang in the middle. “Tom? Are you all— Oh my God!”

  She ran over to me and crouched down to stare, wide-eyed, at my face. “Oh my God, what happened? Tom! Tom, can you talk?”

  “Yeah,” I croaked, and wished I hadn’t.

  “Oh God, oh God . . .” Vi carried on throwing a wobbly, then visibly pulled herself together. “Can you walk? Do you need an ambulance?”

  Great. Just what I needed right now—more questions. I held up a hand, swallowed, and grimaced at the pain.

  Headlights flared and got larger as a car came up the drive. Phil, thank God.

  Except it wasn’t. The figure that got out of the driving seat seemed grotesquely sticklike where I’d been expecting Phil’s comforting bulk.

  “Violet?” a voice called shakily, and I realised this was Alex Majors, home from his meal out.

  He stepped closer and staggered to a halt. I thought for a mo we were going to have a second casualty on our hands. “Violet . . .” This time it sounded despairing.

  Or maybe it was just my imagination, because Vi herself didn’t seem fazed. “Daddy, thank God. Help me get him inside. Something horrible’s happened.”

  Between me and Alex, I wasn’t sure who was helping who back into the farmhouse, but at least Vi’s arm was a sturdy aid, slung around my back. She took me into the kitchen and sat me down at the sturdy oak table, its surface scarred from the knives of cooks long dead.

  Not that I was feeling morbid or anything.

  Alex pulled out a chair with a tooth-grinding scrape on the stone floor and sat down a lot more heavily than I’d have thought he was capable of. He still hadn’t spoken, apart from saying his daughter’s name outside.

  “Daddy, should I call an ambulance?” Vi worried, hovering at my shoulder.

  I held up my hand again. All I wanted was my bloke. I mean, my throat hurt, my hand hurt, and I had a killer headache, but other than that, I was just a bit shaken.

  “Should I call the police?” she went on, either oblivious or simply ignoring me.

  Okay, that one was a little harder to argue with.

  Shit. Someone had tried to kill me.

  Nausea rose, and my vision went patchy for a mo.

  “Tom? Tom!” A hand on my shoulder steadied me. “Oh God, shall I make a cup of tea?”

  Christ. I wished she’d stop asking me all these questions and bloody do something. Then I heard the sweet, sweet sound of hefty fists banging on an antique front door. With a definite hint that if it wasn’t opened soon, the door might not live to regret it.

  Phil. At least, I hoped to God it was.

  Alex had jumped a mile at the first knock.

  Vi didn’t look happy either. “Oh God, who’s that? Daddy, can you go see?”

  Alex took a shaky breath. “No. No, you should go, Violet.”

  She gave him a funny look, but went, leaving me and her dad alone in the kitchen.

  Which was a flippin’ fantastic time for it to occur to me that he’d arrived on the scene suspiciously soon after I’d nearly died. Say, just enough time for someone to leg it down the drive to a car they’d lef
t parked down the road, get in, and motor up to the house like they’d only just got here.

  I stared at Alex. He wouldn’t try anything now, would he? In his own kitchen?

  I mean, he prepared food there.

  Then Phil burst in with Vi trailing after him, looking like he’d battled all the demons of hell to get here. “What the bloody hell’s happened? Tom?”

  He grabbed my shoulders and gave me a searching look. Whatever he saw didn’t seem to reassure him. “Christ, Tom.”

  “’M okay,” I croaked.

  “The fuck you are.” He turned on Alex with an air of quiet menace that threatened to turn extremely loud if he didn’t get an answer he liked. “What the hell happened?”

  “Daddy wasn’t here,” Vi put in, obviously not liking the implications. “Tom came round to fix a pipe, and someone attacked him when he left.”

  “You saw them?”

  “No, but it’s perfectly obvious what happened.” Christ, she wasn’t giving an inch.

  Phil took a deep breath, then let it out. “Come on, we’re getting you to hospital.”

  “What?” I whispered. “’M fine.”

  Which, obviously, I wasn’t, but it was a hell of a lot easier than saying all I wanted was a hot drink and a cuddle, followed swiftly by bed, not to be prodded and poked by a load of strangers. If that was what I was after, I’d have gone on Grindr. And let’s face it, next stop was gonna have to be the police—I didn’t want to drag it all out any longer than I had to.

  “No arguments. I mean it. Don’t fight me on this one.” Phil’s voice and the look he gave me were intense, almost angry.

  I subsided. If he was that bothered, I’d go with it. Still thought it was a waste of time—I mean, what were they gonna do? Send me home with a throat sweet and some painkillers, most likely.

  Phil half lifted me out of my seat and kept his arm around me as we made for the front door. Alex and Vi didn’t get a goodbye, but they did get a “You’ll be hearing from the police.”

  He helped me into the Golf, buckled my seat belt, and generally looked like he wished he had a snuggly blanket and/or a whole load of cotton wool to wrap me up in. Worryingly, I wasn’t sure if I’d have protested right then.