by Penny Grubb
Her stare glued to the glinting metal in the woman’s hand, knowing that any second the space between them might explode into a wall of fire.
Brittany, her focus on Annie, her eyes bright with triumph, let out a sudden ‘Uhh.’ Annie saw her face crumple in pain and surprise as the attack came from behind. The pen jabbed hard into her abdomen.
It was the fraction of a second Annie needed. She had Brittany’s wrist in an iron grip, twisting her arm, crushing her fingers, seeing the lighter fall.
It spun in the air, Annie’s heart doing back-flips with it, as it traced an arc and flew towards the ground. One spark was all it would take. It clattered on the cobbles and lay still.
Annie’s teeth clenched involuntarily and, as she gasped in a breath, she became aware of the backdrop of shouting and alarm. Awareness had spread through the premises in a chaotic wave of panic.
Both Brittany’s wrists were in her hands, as she forced the woman’s arms up her back, pushing her to keep her off balance, to stop any fight back. She shoved and hustled her away across the yard, ignoring the screams and curses.
She shouted out to anyone who would listen, ‘Get Eliza out of there. Get her out. Now! Hurry!’
Other voices joined hers.
Tina’s authoritative tone roared, ‘Keep those ponies back!’
‘Get Eliza out,’ she screamed again, never losing focus on the woman she held, who tried to writhe her way out of her grasp.
It wasn’t until she was far enough away to prevent Brittany hurling anything back into the petrol-soaked yard, that she allowed herself to stop. She pushed the madwoman hard against a wall, keeping her arms locked behind her and looked round for help.
Four people ran towards her. ‘We’ll hold the bitch,’ one of them shouted. ‘The police are on their way.’
Annie allowed strong hands to take Brittany from her grasp.
‘Eliza,’ she panted. ‘I have to make sure she’s OK.’
‘You go on. We’ll look after her.’
‘We’ll lock the bitch in an empty stable till the police get here.’
Annie started to run back towards the stable block, then stopped and turned, cursing under her breath. She sprinted back towards the group, her chest now burning, ‘Don’t you lay a finger on her,’ she yelled.
‘Are you kidding? She could have burnt your mother to death back there!’
Annie felt a rage of her own well up. It burst from her in a string of curses that had even Brittany’s eyes widen. Then she jabbed her index finger towards them. ‘That’s why we’re here, for God’s sake!’ she screamed. ‘People taking the law into their own hands. That’s what’s caused all this. I mean it. One step out of line and I’ll see you all in court!’
By the time she found Eliza, some order had been restored. Ponies and people were threading their way to safety round the perimeter of the fields, everyone quieter now, watching, waiting for the one stray spark that would send it all sky high. Annie strained to hear the wail of approaching sirens, distant but audible under the gentle breeze.
Eliza had been put in a plastic chair at the edge of the gravelled yard and shot her a resentful glare.
‘It’s too much at my time of life.’
‘I know. I’m sorry. I had no idea she’d do something like this. I thought she’d accepted that Yates was wrong. Are you warm enough? Can I get you anything?’
‘Haven’t you done enough?’ Eliza spat out. ‘I don’t want anything from you. One of the girls has gone to get me a brandy from the house.’
They had to pause. Eliza’s words were drowned in the sudden swell of a fire engine screaming its way over the rise that brought it into view. Soon the yard would bustle with officialdom.
Annie leant close. ‘I was coming back with the proof about what happened to Digby, but I don’t need to, do I?’
‘You’ll have a job turning me in. I’m a sweet old lady now who wouldn’t hurt a fly, and there isn’t a scrap of evidence left.’
‘I’ve no intention of turning you in. I don’t think there’s much about you that’s sweet, but I don’t think you’re a danger to anyone after all this time. So it all went to plan, did it? Just as May wanted.’
Eliza gave an incredulous shake of her head. ‘Of course not. We rehearsed and we enjoyed pretending, but we’d never have done it.’
‘So what happened?’
Eliza looked up as the noise and shouting increased in volume. Annie looked round, too. ‘They’ll be wanting to move us further away. It might still go up.’
‘Then listen and I’ll tell you, because I’m not having you back again. I don’t ever want you back.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m leaving the area.’
‘It was the rehearsing that was our downfall. And Digby’s. One day, he started on about taking the new girl, Charlotte, on a trip. May’s face was like thunder. Digby had the arrogance to think she was jealous and he laughed at her. Then he said, “Now for the books”. Just like that.
‘You saw it yourself in the plan. That was his opening line. Now for the books. Then he was to trip as he turned.’
‘And did he?’
Eliza nodded. ‘Oh, but don’t get the idea he followed his script. He didn’t. Truly he didn’t.’ She shuddered. ‘But he did just enough. He said the words and then he fell. I’ve never been sure if he really tripped, just like the script said, or if someone put their foot out.’
Annie remembered the words she’d read in Eliza’s neat handwriting. ‘Then May was to say, “Your turn”. That was to you, wasn’t it?’
Eliza gave a half-shrug. ‘We’d rehearsed it so often, we just carried on. It was the first deliberate blow, you see. Once we’d landed it, there was no going back. Imagine the trouble we’d have been in if he’d got up to tell the tale after that.’
‘And yours was the first deliberate blow?’
‘Unless someone really tripped him, yes. I was to jab my pen hard under his ribs, where it really hurts. Whoever tripped him, if they did, it might have been an accident, but there was no mistake about that pen. I did it fast and sharp like May taught me. I wanted to show them I was as brave as they were, for all I was the smallest.’
‘And then?’
‘Then we all knew we’d to go through with it. But it was so hard. The fight he put up. It was nothing like we’d imagined. Nothing. Hacking him down, bit by bit. And the mess. Blood everywhere. The state we were in afterwards. There was that much blood it was like we’d drained the last drops out of all our bodies.’
Eliza pulled in a deep breath. ‘But we were young and resilient and we faced worse in the next few years.’ She screwed up her eyes to peer across the yard. ‘These bits of ponies,’ she said. ‘They’re nothing. You should have seen the big dray horses they had in Hull back then at the brewery. Poor things. Not an ounce of malice in them. They found their bodies right up on top of the woolsheds. Blown there by a bomb. The brewery was too near the docks. Not that they stuck to the docks with their bombs. The whole town was flattened. Oh yes, the sights we saw, me and May, when she was on the ambulances. What was Digby, just another bloody body in amongst dozens? I was the smallest, you know, but May always said I was the pluckiest for all that. She taught me how to dig it in to the side, just below the ribs, where it really hurts. I’ve no strength in me now, but it still works.’
‘It gave me just enough time to get to her. I’m glad you remembered.’
Eliza fixed her with a glare. ‘Of course I remembered. Do you think anyone forgets something like that?’ Her vehemence betrayed the earlier lie that Digby’s murder had come to mean nothing.
Suddenly, her tone softened; her face took on a benevolent smile. ‘Why, thank you, dear. So kind.’
Annie turned to the young girl who passed Eliza a large brandy glass with golden liquid sloshing around inside it.
‘I don’t drink usually,’ Eliza said, in that same soft tone. ‘But I’ve had such a nasty shock. Now do you think you could find me a cigar? H
ow about that big chap over there? He’s a smoker if ever I saw one.’
The young girl’s eyes opened wide. ‘You won’t be allowed to smoke anywhere in the yard. Tina forbids it anyway, even without all this.’
‘Then let’s find someone with a car who’ll drive me out on to the road. I’ve had a nasty shock, you know.’
Annie knew there was no point in offering to help. Eliza had dismissed her from her mind and her life. She glanced back just once as she wandered over to where she’d parked the car. Eliza was in good hands. Brittany would soon be under lock and key.
As she prepared to drive away, three ponies and riders crossed her path. Rosie, Mathilda and Moonbeam, still dressed as Vleth, Ytraa and Goddess Fire, not that Annie had any idea if she’d heard those names right. They meant nothing to her. But thank heavens for the way they’d materialized behind her, creatures from another dimension, to distort Brittany’s twisted reality just too far for the woman to cope.
Chapter 37
Annie sat in the office on the morning of her last day. There was little for her to do, but she checked again through the leads she’d left for Pat to pick up. Silly, she thought, to have expected anything different because it was her last day. The sisters sat and sniped at each other and talked openly about the replacement labour they would buy in.
‘We’ll do it on a temp basis, just when we need.’
‘That’s all very well, Babs, but we’ll need experience now and then. We might need to think about training someone up.’
‘Too much bother. We can go to Vince if we need help.’
Annie winced but held her tongue.
The worst of it was that they weren’t going to take full advantage of the case she’d wrapped up for them with her clandestinely copied document. Pat had left Barbara in charge of it and Barbara couldn’t see a golden opportunity if it bit her on the ankle. Annie let out a sigh. It was no longer her problem. She was heading for a partnership with Pieternel that promised job satisfaction and financial security. She’d made the first moves in asking her aunt for help. It was a massive step; a way back to her family; building up a business and using that as the bridge between her and the past. A part of her longed to stay put, to avoid all the unknowns of a new life. But another part relished the thought of the challenges ahead.
‘What train are you on tomorrow?’ Pat asked.
As she answered, she was surprised to see Barbara, too, looking interested in the answer. She had no real regrets for her time with them both. It had been a necessary apprenticeship without which she would never have been able to take the next step.
Somehow over the years she’d clawed her way up. She’d left school in a complete mess, left her aunt’s custody as soon as she could to the mutual benefit of both and she’d climbed out of the disaster she’d made of her early life, largely with Pat, the unlikeliest of allies. And now she would complete the process with Pieternel who had the gumption and vision both the sisters lacked. In a few years she would arrive on her father’s doorstep as a success, a daughter to be proud of. Her debt to her aunt would diminish quickly and Annie would be in a position to help out with some financial backing the other way round. This venture would work. This venture had to work.
‘We’ll drive you to the station tomorrow,’ Pat said.
Annie looked up, surprised both at the offer and that it included Barbara.
It was a squeeze in the car because Pat hadn’t thought to empty the boot, so Annie had to sit in the back with her rucksack and holdall clutched awkwardly whilst the sisters crammed themselves in the front.
‘We decided we should give you a send-off,’ Pat told her. ‘It’s been a lively few years having you around.’
Annie felt herself smile and unexpectedly a tear pricked the back of her eye. It had been a lively few years in a lot of ways.
‘Go in a proper parking spot,’ Barbara said, as they pulled up outside the station. ‘We’ll walk her to the platform.’
They walked together into the chilly and echoing station concourse and up to the departure boards.
‘London King’s Cross,’ said Barbara, her finger pointing at the screen. ‘Platform 7. We’ll leave you here.’ She turned to Pat. ‘How about a bite of breakfast in St Stephens?’
Pat nodded her approval and Annie realized the sticky confectionary in St Stephens, the place she’d first met Nicole Perks, was their real payback for driving her in.
‘Well, well,’ Pat’s eyes opened wide in surprise. ‘We’re not the only ones who decided to see you off.’
Annie turned to see Scott and Kate walking towards them. The holdall was at her feet; the rucksack an awkward weight on her back. She hoped her last moments in Hull wouldn’t be taken up with a shouting match.
‘Hi,’ Scott didn’t quite meet her eye. ‘Kate thought we should say goodbye.’
Annie’s gaze shot to Kate.
‘Had to be sure you were really going,’ Kate said.
Scott looked alarmed, but Annie heard the effort Kate made to put a laugh behind her words. She smiled and spoke quickly, before Scott could wade in with something hopelessly inappropriate.
‘Thanks. I appreciate the thought.’ Yes, she and Kate could have been proper friends if it hadn’t been for other baggage.
‘Jen said to say goodbye. She couldn’t make the time to get down.’
‘No problem.’ Annie had said her goodbyes to Jennifer last night on the phone. ‘Well … goodbye. Good luck with the wedding. I hope it all goes OK. I’m sure it will.’ She felt the awkwardness of trying to articulate what might be a final farewell to people she had let into her life in a way she’d never intended.
Kate, the newcomer amongst them, took charge and stepped forward. ‘I hope the new job works out.’ They exchanged a brief, formal handshake. Then Kate looked at Scott.
He stepped forward as though to do the same but then impulsively pulled her close. ‘Bye Annie. Good luck.’
Annie hoped he wouldn’t be in trouble for that. Probably not now she was leaving. She and the sisters watched Scott and Kate walk away.
‘Right, then.’ Pat rubbed her hands together and Annie could see that breakfast was uppermost in her mind.
‘Thanks for the lift. I’ll get myself to the platform. Be sure and call in if you’re ever up in London.’
Pat laughed. ‘Good luck with it all,’ she said.
‘Yeah, best of luck, kid,’ echoed Barbara.
No word about keeping in touch. No suggestion that their final goodbye should be any more than this light raising of hands, but both sisters seemed to mean what they said. She smiled at them, raised her hand in farewell, hoisted her holdall to her shoulder and strode towards platform 7.
Ten minutes later, as the train flew along the banks of the Humber, Annie looked out across the wide stretch of water, its surface dappled with small waves. It reminded her of her arrival in Hull just a few years ago. As she watched, pensive, wondering if she would ever return, her phone rang. With a struggle she extracted it from her bag.
‘Hello. Annie Raymond.’
‘Hi, Annie.’
At the sound of Pieternel’s voice, the past fell away. No regrets. No looking back. She felt her mouth curve to a grin as her new chapter began.
The end
Book three: The Doll Makers
Life looks good for Annie Raymond, now an experienced investigator specialising in insurance fraud. Or rather that’s how she spins it. The truth is not so rosy. As she returns to her native Argyll she has no clue how she will tell her father the real story; she only knows she must.
It’s later when every door seems set to slam in her face that a new case pops up. And it looks like it’s the miracle she’d given up on.
Or is it?
Because suddenly it’s not about insurance any more; it’s much closer to home.
The Doll Makers – What the critics say
“Altogether an excellent read and worthy winner of the Crime Writers Association Dagger.”
“Holds the reader’s interest from the start and keeps a tight grip on it to the last word.”
“Penny has a way of getting inside the heads and hearts of her characters to bring them to life.”
“The story is gripping and fast moving, with touches of comedy as well as edge of the seat suspense.”
“If you enjoy your crime spiced with a mixture of gritty realism, humour, human failings and intelligence, this is definitely a book for you.”
THE
DOLL
MAKERS
Chapter 1
The words changed on the long drive north. Annie’s determination did not.
In the Ladies at Leicester Forest East, where she stopped to top up – coffee for her, water for the car – she pulled a comb through her hair and practiced what she would say. Dad. I have bad news. It was the antithesis of the old coming-home fantasy, where her short-cropped hair would be a little longer, her five feet two inches would be clad in a smart business suit, and she’d smile as her father said, ‘I always knew you had it in you, Annie’. She’d failed his every expectation since she was eight years old, and now at twenty-eight she was about to turn his life upside down.
The early morning sun made a mobile oven of the car, and the journey became hotter and stuffier. The blower gave her tepid air and hot engine smells, before beginning a clatter like a death rattle. She clicked it off.
By the time she reached the M6, the traffic eased, allowing more space to rehearse the scenes in her head. From Lockerbie to the outskirts of Glasgow she listened to the ghosts of future conversations.
It’s not me, Dad. It’s Aunt Marian.
Your aunt? What’s she to do with it?
Incredible that her mother and aunt had been sisters. Annie sometimes studied her own reflection for whole minutes at a time, trying to cut away her father’s features and see her mother, but there was nothing she could home in on. Her mother must have been small and slight like her aunt – yet not like her at all, or her father could never have loved her. And her father wasn’t over tall himself; only just made the height requirement when he joined up. But he was stolid and had a stockiness Annie could see in herself.