by Jo Bannister
Mr Turnbull gave a delicate little shudder. He was a slightly stooped middle-aged man with thinning hair slicked back in a way that hadn’t been fashionable when he started doing it ten years before. “Oh no, Mrs Farrell, that’s not at all how we do things. I will convey to the vendor all expressions of interest in his house and any offers for it. He will instruct me whether to accept, or reject, or enter into negotiations. I am his agent. It’s why I’m called an estate agent.”
“Try to understand,” said Brodie with a patience that was starting to grate as it wore thin, like brake-pads. “I am not offering to buy the property. I am not trying to defraud you of your commission. I am trying to contact a man who was once a good friend, and is now so much a stranger that I didn’t know he’d left town until I saw your board at his front door. I want you to tell me where he went. I want an address for him, and a phone-number, and I want them now.”
If Mr Turnbull had fitted a panic-button under his desk he’d have been jabbing it. It was odd. She was clearly a respectable woman. Her request might have been unusual but she had said nothing he could take exception to. Yet he not only felt threatened, he knew he was meant to. As a professional visitor of other people’s homes Mr Turnbull had met dogs like that. They didn’t bark, they didn’t growl, they didn’t show their teeth — but you knew that if you handled the next few minutes wrong you were going to be picking fangs out of your leg.
He withdrew to his last defensible position. “It’s a question of confidentiality …”
Brodie withdrew to hers. It had a big gun on it. “If you’re not happy giving me the information, perhaps you’d entrust it to Detective Superintendent Deacon of Dimmock CID.”
Mr Turnbull gave a plaintive little sigh and opened the file. “One moment …”
She saw him blink as what he read there jogged his memory. “Mrs Farrell, I don’t think I can be much help either to you or Superintendent Deacon. Mr Hood couldn’t give me a forwarding address. He said he was going to be moving around, visiting family. He promised to phone at intervals for a progress report.”
“And has there been any?” asked Brodie.
“Progress? Not yet. Plenty of people have called but none have wanted to view. They’re all put off by the planning restrictions.”
“Good,” said Brodie. “Listen, Mr Turnbull, you might as well understand the situation. Daniel put his home on the market in a fit of pique. When he calms down he’ll take it off again. I realise that’s not what you want to hear, but you probably shouldn’t spend too much time trying to round up a buyer. The sale will never go ahead.”
The estate agent knitted his brows in a thoughtful frown and pursed his lips. “Mrs Farrell — how do I put this? — I understood Mr Hood to be unencumbered. If you’re telling me you have an interest in this property …”
Brodie laughed out loud. “No, I’m not his wife, Mr Turnbull. Or his lover, live-in or otherwise, or his business partner. I’m just a friend. But I know him well enough to know this is a mistake. I’m trying to save you time and effort.”
“And Detective Superintendent Deacon …?”
“ …is my toy-boy,” said Brodie calmly. “Actually, Mr Turnbull, there is one thing you can do for me. When Daniel calls in, tell him to phone me. He knows the number.”
The agent made a note in the file. “And in the meantime, should I show the house or not?”
Brodie shrugged. “I’ve told you what I think, what you do is up to you. But for heaven’s sake stop calling it a house. It’s a shack!”
She waited for the phone to ring. And it rang a lot, but it was never Daniel. She told herself it might take a few days. Longer than that: it could be a few days before he phoned Mr Turnbull, and a few days more while he debated whether to call her. But in the end he would. Whatever his feelings about her right now, Daniel Hood was not a man who fled his demons. All the time she’d known him, Brodie’s abiding concern had been that one day he would stand in front of a charging elephant to prove he wasn’t afraid to.
The phone kept ringing, and it kept being someone else.
After a week she called Turnbull again. He assured her he’d passed on her message, which meant Daniel was deliberately ignoring it. Brodie Farrell didn’t like being ignored. It didn’t happen very often, partly because she made sure it was never a cost-free option.
“So what are you going to do?” asked Deacon.
“Do?” she echoed coldly. “Nothing.”
Deacon nodded. “That’s mature.”
“What do you want me to do? Mount an expedition to look for him? I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“Brodie,” said Deacon patiently, “finding things is what you do for a living.”
“That’s right,” she snapped, “it’s something I get paid for. I don’t see much profit in hunting for someone whose answer to a moral dichotomy is to throw his toys out of the pram! I made the first move. If he doesn’t want to meet me halfway, fine. I wasn’t wrong, Jack, I’m not fawning after him as if I was.”
Deacon had to erase from his mind the image of Brodie fawning after anyone. It was right up there with Pavarotti Sings Shirley Temple in the pantheon of improbabilities. “It’s not about right and wrong any more. It’s about you hurting one another for no better reason than you can’t seem to stop. Find him, Brodie. Tell him you hate what’s happened between you as much as he does. He’ll take it from there.”
She looked at him sidelong over the petit fours. They were back in the same French restaurant. It was Deacon’s favourite; if he wasn’t working they came here every Friday night. He liked it because, however busy it got, they always managed to find him a nice quiet table. He thought they were protecting his privacy. In fact they were protecting the rest of their clients from the arguments that surrounded him the way storm clouds gather round mountains.
“You realise what you’re doing?” said Brodie.
He frowned. “What do you mean?”
“You’re urging me to make up a fight with another man. That’s very Caring And Sharing of you.”
Deacon shrugged like a buffalo dislodging ox-peckers. On a list of New Men he put himself somewhere below Mike Tyson – he didn’t even stroke his cat. He didn’t know what Brodie saw in him, and didn’t ask. If she thought his rough, cynical exterior hid a heart of gold he wasn’t about to disabuse her. “You want to make me jealous, you’ll have to try harder than that. I may not know exactly what it is between you and Daniel but I know what it isn’t.”
“He’s my best friend,” Brodie said simply. Her tone hardened. “At least, he used to be.”
“And I used to be a policeman,” snorted Deacon. “Some things last. Some things last longer than you want them to.”
Her eyes flared at him again. “This wasn’t my idea, Jack. I didn’t send Daniel away because of the choice he made in a frightful situation. He left because I couldn’t give him my whole-hearted approval. I was willing to draw a line under it. He wasn’t.”
“He was the one who was hurting,” murmured Deacon. “He needed your support. You could have lied.”
“To Daniel?” Her voice soared. “You think that would have made things better? Daniel thinks lying is the sin against the Holy Ghost – except of course that he’s an atheist. You can’t make this my fault, Jack. It happened because Daniel’s as stubborn as you are: there’s only one right way and that’s his way, and there’s only one reasonable position for other people to take and that’s lined up behind him. Well, other people’s consciences matter too. I can live with what he did, but I’m sure as hell not going to fete him for it!”
Deacon breathed heavily. “You’d rather lose him? You’d rather have him ride off into the sunset and never know what became of him? And don’t say yes because I know it isn’t true. You want to talk about stubborn, let’s talk about you. We both know you could find him in half a day if you wanted to. You’ve done it before, the only reason you’re not doing it now is you think it’s his turn to make a move. W
ell, maybe it is, but maybe he isn’t able to. You’re stronger than he is. And you haven’t as much on the line.”
Brodie snorted her derision. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Daniel isn’t weak –”
“He’s fragile, and you know it as well as I do. How could he be anything else? He’s lost the life he used to have. He’s been surrounded by death for eight months. He needs your kindness, Brodie. You’re offering to meet him halfway when what he needs is for you to follow him wherever he’s gone, dig him out of whatever hole he’s crawled into and bring him home.”
Brodie was stilled by surprise. It wasn’t that Deacon never expressed his feelings, just that the feelings he expressed were always anger and impatience. She knew there was another side to him, of course, or why was she here? But she was stunned by the unexpected opening of this window to his soul and the human decency it illuminated. She found herself glancing round, in case anyone had noticed. If they had Deacon would have some fences to mend.
But no. The waiters’ strategy was sound. If the other diners realised they were arguing none had thought it interesting enough to let their own meals go cold.
After a moment Brodie reached across the tablecloth and put her hand over Deacon’s. Even now she couldn’t touch him without being aware of the power latent in every part of his body. Casual acquaintances saw a big, heavy middle-aged man of uncertain temper and, apart from keeping out of his way, looked no closer. But those who knew him better acknowledged that while Jack Deacon might have been carved out of a mountain, rock isn’t dead. It’s hard and strong, and it’s thrown up by the boiling heart of the planet.
She said softly, “You’re a good man, Jack. A good and perceptive man. You think I should bring Daniel home?”
“Yes,” said Deacon.
“You don’t think –”
“No,” said Deacon.
She sighed and nodded. “Where do I start looking? I don’t know where he’d go when he left here.”
“Didn’t Turnbull say something about family? Where’s he from?”
“Nottingham. But I didn’t know he had any family left. His grandfather raised him but he died a couple of years ago. That’s when Daniel came to Dimmock.”
Deacon sucked in his cheeks and eyed her levelly. “Nottingham?”
Brodie sighed. “Don’t be so childish. Hood is a perfectly ordinary name.”
“Of course it is,” agreed Deacon. “I expect the Nottingham phone book’s full of them. But if not I’ll try official channels.”
“Official – ?”
“I’ll call the Sheriff’s office.”
Brodie ignored that. “I’ll wait till after the weekend,” she decided. “If he hasn’t got in touch by then I’ll go look for him.”
3
The next day was Saturday.
It was rarely possible for Brodie to shut the office at six o’clock on Friday evening and stay away until nine on Monday morning, but she tried to organise weekends around her daughter. On Sunday mornings Paddy had her riding lesson, and Brodie clung to the fence round the sand school hardly daring to look as the child bounced around on top of an elderly piebald pony, her hands up under her nose, her face wreathed in smiles.
On Saturdays they did different things. Sometimes they went shopping. Sometimes Paddy visited her father and his new wife. And sometimes she kept Brodie company as she trawled antiques fairs and second-hand bookshops or travelled the south coast looking for the various items which people employed her to find. It was a precious time for both of them and Brodie saved tasks a five-year-old might enjoy for these weekend treasure hunts.
She knew Paddy would enjoy meeting Geoffrey Harcourt. She thought Geoffrey Harcourt would enjoy meeting Paddy.
It should have been a pretty cottage, sited as it was in a pretty lane in Cheyne Warren, one of the more picturesque hamlets nestled among the downs behind Dimmock. But the roses round the door were overgrown, the honeysuckle gone to seed, the paintwork peeling. Even Paddy noticed. “Doesn’t Mr Harcourt like his house?”
Brodie squeezed the little girl’s hand. “Mr Harcourt’s not very well. He can’t go outside.”
“Has he got a cold?”
“Not that sort of unwell. More – Well, remember when Daniel was hurt? And after that crowds bothered him and he had to give up teaching? It’s more like that. There’s a big word for it – agoraphobia.”
Paddy considered. “Did someone hurt him too?” She understood more of Daniel’s situation than might be expected of a child – more, perhaps, than her mother would have liked. But Daniel never lied to anyone. When Paddy asked about his scars, quietly and without fuss he told her.
“Not exactly. His wife died, and for a long time he didn’t want to see anyone. Then when he was ready to go out again he found he couldn’t.”
“What does he want to see you for?”
“He’s a collector. He wants me to buy some things for him.”
“What sort of things?”
“Wait and see.”
Geoffrey Harcourt was taken aback when he answered the knock at his front door to a five-year-old girl in pink dungarees. “I hope you don’t mind, Mr Harcourt,” said Brodie, “but I hoped you’d show Paddy your models.”
He looked like a man embarked too soon on middle age. His clothes had the same faded air as the house, and he hunched his shoulders and kept his gaze low. None of this mattered to a five-year-old. Most adults stooped when they talked to Paddy. Except Daniel, who wasn’t very tall to start with.
“Delighted,” said Harcourt solemnly. “Is Miss Farrell interested in machinery?”
“Tractors,” the child said firmly. “Have you got any tractors?”
“I’m afraid not,” admitted the collector. “I’ve got a showman’s engine. Would that do?” He led them through the cottage to a room that opened before Paddy’s eyes like Aladdin’s cave. On tables and shelves at every level were jewel-like models, fashioned in wood and brass and steel, gleaming with oil. The smallest would have fitted in her palm; the largest would not have fitted on her bed. Struts and wheels and belts and gears wove complex patterns like filigree.
“Coo!” she whispered, tip-toeing along the bright rows, longing to touch and yet afraid, partly that she might do some damage, partly that the tiny engines might without warning leap into action and nip her finger. The aura of industry was such that they seemed merely to have paused in their labours and would clatter on, hammering out pixie spades, grinding fairy corn, spinning cotton and wool as fine as gossamer, at any moment.
At the end of the room she turned, face aglow, and raised shining eyes to the man with the stoop. “Did you make them?”
“Some of them. But some were made by engineers two hundred years ago to show how their ideas would work.”
He found what he was looking for, lifted it onto the workbench where she could see. “That’s a showman’s engine. Steam powered, of course. They hauled travelling shows round the country, then when the fair was set up they powered the rides. That’s from about 1890, pretty much the peak of steam engine technology.”
Paddy Farrell liked being talked to as a fellow enthusiast. “Did you make that one?”
He shook his head. “I’m afraid not. Here.” He took her small hand in his and led her down the gallery. “Here’s one I’m working on. Can you guess what it does?”
She studied it intently. There was a wall. On one side was a wheel standing up, on the other a wheel lying down. A channel ran from the wall to a piece of mirror-glass. “Is that a pond?”
“It’s a water-mill,” nodded Harcourt. “The pond holds the water until the miller’s ready to grind corn. Then he opens the sluices” – a thick finger showed her where to look – “the water turns the wheel and the wheel turns the grindstone.” He saw her rapt little face and sighed. “Would you like to see it work?”
Paddy nodded, her pigtail dancing.
He filled a jug from the kitchen tap and placed a plastic bucket to receiv
e the tail race after the water had done its work. The stream poured down the channel, turning the tiny wheel as it went. Gears meshed, the grindstone ground. The water dropped into the bucket, the pond emptied, the wheel stopped.
“Do it again!” demanded Paddy, enthralled.
Dutifully, Geoffrey Harcourt did it again.
“Do it—”
Brodie clamped a deft hand over her child’s mouth. “She means, Thank you very much, Mr Harcourt, that was lovely, and now she’ll sit quietly while the grown-ups talk.”
Brodie knew nothing about engineers’ models, but after seeing his collection she would recognise one now. “I’ve got a digital camera in the car. If I see something you might be interested in I’ll e-mail you a picture. If you want to bid, tell me what I can spend. It’s not quite as good as being there but it’s the next best thing.”
“I’m more than satisfied, Mrs Farrell. Since this” – Harcourt spread a wry hand to indicate his situation — “the models have kept me sane. They occupy my hands and my time and keep my brain in working order. But it’s frustrating. I know the stuff is out there, I know the interest in it is limited. I know that important models are lost because no one seems to want them. Well, I want them. I have the time and skill to restore them. But I can’t get out there and find them!”
“Well, that’s the bit I can do,” said Brodie. “I know nothing about the subject, but doing it this way I don’t have to. I’m just your eyes in the marketplace.”
He looked at her sidelong, chewing his lip. “Can we give it a trial run?”
She felt herself quicken like an unhooded hawk. “You’ve heard of something.”
“A Nasmyth’s steam hammer. In the Woodgreen estate.”
She was pretty sure she didn’t let anything you could call an expression cross her face. “Yes? Fine.”
Geoffrey Harcourt didn’t go out. But lots of people who did go out, who went out all the time with every sign of enjoyment, didn’t go to the Woodgreen estate. It wasn’t just the youth gangs that congregated on street corners, it wasn’t just the drug culture. It wasn’t even the risk of domestic appliances coming at you from upstairs windows. It was the difficulty of finding anywhere to leave a car where it would still have wheels on when you came back.