by Kim M Watt
“Can’t shut up, can you? You never could!”
“Stop that,” Lily got to her feet. “You leave her alone, Derrick.”
“Derrick?” Alice said, unable to stop herself. “Dear me, you’re not very inspired in your name choices, are you?”
“I told you to shut up,” Harvey/Derrick snapped, and fished the syringe out of his pocket. He’d put the cap back on once he’d tied her up, and now he shook the thing at her. “I should just stick you with this and be done.”
“Put that down,” Lily snapped. “What does she mean, induce a heart attack? And what are we doing here, Derrick? What do you think you’re going to do?”
There was a very long moment of silence, then Harvey said, “What I should have done when I left.”
“You hated me that much?” Alice asked. She was surprised that could hurt. She thought she’d got over being hurt a long time ago, maybe even before he’d actually vanished.
“You never believed in me, ever. Neither did Dierdre. Both of you just so full of yourselves and sure of yourselves.”
“You cleared out her bank accounts,” Alice said. “She told me that, when I contacted her.”
“She had investments. She was fine.”
“No,” Alice said quietly. “She wasn’t. Neither was I. The police thought I murdered you. Still do, I imagine.”
“I’m sure you got out of it easy as you like. RAF hero and all.”
“I managed,” Alice said. “But it didn’t stop how angry I was at myself. How stupid I felt at being taken in by you. How helpless to do anything while police officers tore my home apart. It still leaves marks, Harvey.” There was a tight spot in her chest, but she kept her voice level.
“You did that?” Lily asked. “And to Dierdre as well? Just vanished? Let them think you were dead?”
“Aw, honey,” he said, turning to her and flashing an unnaturally straight, white smile. “They made my life a misery! I’d never do that to you.”
Lily just looked at him, not smiling, her chin lifted. “I bet they didn’t think you’d do it to them, either.”
Harvey lifted his hands in the air in mock surrender. “Okay, okay. I was young and misguided. I couldn’t face letting them down.”
Alice wrinkled her nose. “Eleven years ago made you fifty, if I remember right. Not so young.”
“What did she mean about the heart attacks, Harvey? You said you were just greasing the wheels when I joined the council for you. You didn’t say anything about hurting people or kidnapping your ex-wife.”
Alice wondered how exactly one would put that into conversation, although she approved of the way Lily’s thinking was going.
“Lily, honey—”
“Tell me.”
“She’s obviously gone a bit old and dotty—”
“Derrick,” Lily said.
Alice gave a hmph of disapproval. “Says the man wearing white trousers and tasselled loafers in a Yorkshire farmhouse.”
“You shut up. I didn’t expect to be spending much time in bloody Yorkshire.”
“I live here!” Lily exclaimed, putting her hands on her hips, and Harvey pressed a fist to his forehead.
“Look,” he began, and at that moment there was a knock at the front door. They looked at each other, startled, and Alice considered shouting. Then she looked at the syringe still clutched in Harvey’s hand and decided there was no point. He wouldn’t risk being found out. Lily was her best hope, not getting someone else caught up in this mess.
The knock came again, heavier, then the creak of the door being pushed open, and someone shouted, “Hello? Anyone home?”
There was something vaguely familiar about the voice, and Alice frowned at the ceiling, rubbing her fingers together to try and get some feeling into them.
“You didn’t lock the door,” Harvey hissed at Lily.
“You went back to the car for your phone,” she spat back.
Harvey put a finger to his lips and stepped across to Alice, taking the cap off the syringe and holding it warningly in front of her.
They waited.
Alice rolled her shoulders as if to ease stiffness, but it was more to put pressure on the chair. It creaked softly, and she put her weight against one arm, then the other. It wasn’t one of the heavy old dining chairs from downstairs, but one of those small chairs with spindled backs that always seem to exist in guest rooms and bathrooms. They were never really made for sitting in, and always seemed to become homes for embroidered cushions that didn’t belong anywhere, and discarded clothes. She pressed her feet into the floor and rocked back and forth minutely.
“Stop it,” Harvey hissed.
“Hello?” the voice called from downstairs again. “Anyone home?” The familiarity of it annoyed Alice. She kept shifting gently in her seat, arm to arm and foot to foot, the chair protesting gently. Harvey scowled at her and waggled the syringe, but she didn’t entirely believe him. If he jabbed her she had nothing to lose from screaming the place down.
There were footsteps in the hall as the intruder wandered a little further into the house, then silence. Alice could almost see him, gazing around at the silent rooms, stripped of paintings and trinkets and toys and life, but with the furniture still crouching, dusty and abandoned, against the walls. The footsteps started up again, heading back to the front of the house, and a moment later they heard the door close.
“Call the boys and tell them to let the dogs off,” Harvey said to Lily. “That’ll get him moving.”
Lily looked at Alice, and Alice tried to read her expression. Doubt? Guilt? Resignation? She couldn’t tell. “Fine,” Lily said. “But what if they’re police? They’ll just come back.”
Harvey waved dismissively. “They’d have said if they were police. Besides, we’ll be gone by the time they get back.”
Lily didn’t answer, just took one last look at Alice then slipped out the door. Alice heard the stairs creak as the other woman padded down them, and she kept up the steady pattern of testing her arms and shifting her legs.
“What the hell are you wriggling around for?” Harvey demanded.
“I should like to use the facilities,” Alice replied.
“Well, that’s just too bloody bad then, isn’t it?”
“What are you planning, Harvey? What are you doing with these farms? Even if you got permission from the council, the public outcry over building some sort of complex in the national park will slow you up for years, if not shut you down completely.”
He grinned. Between the teeth and the hair and those clothes, if he was going for the ageing Ken doll look he was succeeding rather well. “Ever heard of that guy who sold London Bridge to some American?”
“Ah. I see.” Alice tested her weight on her legs. The pins and needles were almost gone. “It’s just another scam. Like your bakery that burned down a week after you upped the insurance on it. Or the boat in Greece that sank within the month.” By the time she’d known about those, the whole sham had been all but over. Yet she’d not done anything. She still couldn’t understand why. He’d been charming all the way through, of course. Flimsy, but charming. Had it been that simple?
Harvey shrugged. “Was I ever found to be at fault? No. An unfortunate accident with wiring. Some less than scrupulous Greek business partners. I just had such terrible bad luck.” He put the cap back on the syringe and pocketed it, wandering across to the window. “And all such small stuff, anyway. Practice runs. This”—he waved at the window—“this is the real deal. Three farms, sold to four international businessmen who believe they’re going to own their own slice of the Yorkshire Dales with full development potential.”
“But why even bother buying them if it’s just a scam?” Alice asked. “Why force the farmers off or bother with bribing the council and all the rest?”
“Because certain things need to happen to give it an air of legitimacy, and for the money to keep coming in.” He posed, one hand on his chin and the other miming a phone. “Yes, sir, of co
urse you can come and visit the site. Yes, I will arrange a meeting with the councillors. Of course, they’re not all in favour, but perhaps if I could grease the wheels a little more …” He shrugged. “You can’t fake all that. It doesn’t end well.” He rubbed his chin, and she wondered how many scams, how many new faces and identities he’d been through since she came home and found him gone. Everything had still been there, even his shoes still lined up in the hall, but he’d been gone anyway. She’d known straight away, and it had seemed so inevitable that all she could feel was anger at herself for not being the one that left.
And she’d put up with it all, with the police and the questions and the accusations and the cold hard walls of the interview rooms, and she’d said nothing. And she still wasn’t sure why. Looking at him now, she couldn’t imagine why. Although she had a niggling feeling that it had to do with not wanting to admit how well he’d deceived her. Which felt like a rather sorry excuse, now she was here.
“I had hoped to run with this for another six months,” Harvey said. “Get the money in from the investors, cash the machines in, then get out. But it’s just my luck to run across you, isn’t it?”
“The luck’s all mine,” Alice said, and he snorted.
“You never could just listen and not be smart, could you? Always so smart.” He sneered the word, starting to turn back to her, then stopped. “What the hell?” He leaned closer to the window. “What’s going on out there?”
It was the best chance Alice was likely to get. She gripped the chair spindles she was lashed to, surged to her feet, and spun, smashing the rickety chair into the wall. The shock jarred up her arms, and her back made a most alarming crunching sound, but she felt the chair collapse into the impact.
“Hey!” Harvey bellowed, turning back to her and holding a hand up like a policeman shouting stop. “Don’t be stupid!”
Alice gave up on the wall and charged Harvey with the wreckage of the chair still clinging to her back. He scrabbled in his pocket for the syringe but she was too close, dropping her shoulder and driving it into his midriff. He yelped as they slammed into the wall together, then shoved her off. Alice staggered back, struggling to keep her balance, then stepped forward and pivoted hard, slamming the chair into him just as she had into the wall. He was spitting curses at her, and this time when he threw her off she felt the chair come apart. She sprawled to the floor on her belly, pulling her arms free and rolling onto her back to see him standing over her with the capped syringe in one hand and one of the chair legs raised in the other. She stopped.
“You just couldn’t leave it, could you?” he snarled. There was blood on his chin, Alice noted with a small curl of satisfaction. “I gave you a warning. An offer, even. I mean, I knew you wouldn’t take it, not you. Always poking, poking, being oh so smart. But I thought maybe, if your friend was threatened. But you don’t care, do you? You don’t care about anyone. No, you just care about being smart. You figured out it was me, and you’ve ruined this whole operation.”
Alice pushed herself onto her elbows. “Is that what Thomas did? Charles? Figured out it was a scam?”
Harvey shrugged. “Thomas was talking to the farmers and was going to file a suit against BelleVue on their behalf. Gavin Peabody wanted more money. And Charles was going to go to the press about the bribes.” He waved the syringe at her, a nasty little smile that she’d never seen before curling the edges of his lips. “I’m going to drop you in some back street in Leeds. Let everyone think you were out having some dirty fun when it all got too much for your poor old heart.”
Alice licked her lips. “Did you know I was here, then? Did you set this up?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. How the hell would I know you’d moved to this crappy sheepfold of a place?” He was trying to pull the cap off the syringe with his teeth, but it seemed to be stuck.
“So just bad luck, then?” He was still doing battle with the syringe. If she was going to do anything, she needed it to be now.
“You brought it on yourself, Alice. Poking your nose in and being so smart. Dammit.” He dropped the chair leg so he could use both hands on the syringe. “Hold still.”
She spared a moment to wonder if anyone actually did hold still in a situation like that. Then she rolled onto her belly, grabbed his ankle with both hands and heaved, bringing her knees under her at the same time and turning the pull into a lift. Harvey yelped, staggering, and as his weight hit his back foot she flung his leg up and away, sending him crashing into the window with the sound of shattering glass. She snatched up the chair leg he’d dropped and started to scramble to her feet, but her bad hip betrayed her, and she spilled to her knees with a little cry.
Harvey charged back from the window and aimed a kick at her stomach, and she flung herself sideways, landing hard and setting her hip complaining again. Harvey grabbed the back of her jacket, hauling her half upright, and she let herself be pulled up. She still had the chair leg and she jabbed for his belly, but the angle was all wrong, and he gave an oof of pain but didn’t let go. She dropped the chair leg and grabbed his free arm instead as he stabbed the syringe toward her neck, giving a little mewl of alarm as he forced her back. He let go of her jacket, using both arms to drive the syringe down. Her knees gave way, and now he had height as well as weight, the needle coming closer and closer.
“Brought it on yourself, Alice,” he hissed, and a horrible coldness clawed its way up her spine as she realised she couldn’t stop him. She pushed harder against him, but it was no good. He was heavier and younger than she was, and the needle was too close to escape. And no one knew she was here.
Then there was movement in the corner of her eye, and a yellowing plastic kettle bounced off the side of Harvey’s head with a hollow clang, more startling than painful. He yelped, turning to see who it was, and Alice drove her head straight forward into his belly. Well, lower belly, since she was kneeling. He howled, dropping the syringe and clutching his injured parts, and Alice scrambled to her feet, retrieving the chair leg on her way up. She smacked Harvey on the side of the head with it, and he pitched into the wall, bounced off and went to his knees. She hit him again, and he went to the floor, still holding his injured dignity, his howls becoming wails, and Lily picked up the kettle and hit him again. He whimpered into the carpet, and Lily hit him a third time, splitting the kettle down the side. She discarded it, took Alice’s chair leg, and gave the gasping Harvey a final whack that silenced him entirely.
She looked at him for a moment, then at Alice. “That felt good,” she said.
Alice rubbed her complaining hip and examined the kettle. “Well. No tea, then.”
“No,” Lily agreed, and walked to her handbag, lying on the dresser. She drew a quarter bottle of whisky out. “I was feeling more in the mood for this, anyway.”
Alice nodded, and nudged Harvey with the toe of her hiking boot. “You want to give him to the police?”
“Do you?” Lily asked.
Alice smiled. “I have a better idea, as it happens.”
Lily smiled back. “Do tell.”
24
Miriam
Miriam pulled herself forward a little further, trying to avoid the sheep droppings, and put her hand in a thistle. “Ow!”
“Gloves,” Rose said, crawling past her. “You really should be better prepared.”
Miriam made a face at Rose’s retreating form and fended off Angelus, who had decided that any talk meant he was invited to lick the speaker enthusiastically and generously. They had almost reached the farmyard. One more fence to scale, one more field to cross, then there’d be only one wall left between them and open ground. There hadn’t been any sign of movement yet, but it was still far too light out here for her liking. If Alice’s kidnappers looked out the window, there’d be no hiding, she thought. Although, she also rather thought they were unlikely to strike fear into the heart of hardened criminals, unless they were particularly alarmed by women of a certain age.
“Car!” The hiss
came from Jasmine, who grabbed Primrose and clamped a hand over the dog’s mouth to stop her yapping. It was quite the improvement.
Miriam flattened herself to the ground, damp seeping into her trousers. Her knees hurt and her shoulders ached from all the crawling about the place. She wasn’t built for this. And given that they had been about to drive up to the house before the van got stuck, she wasn’t entirely sure why they were trying to be stealthy now. Rob just kept talking about the element of surprise and throwing sheep droppings at anyone who tried to walk about normally. Well, he had been until Carlotta threw some back and high-fived Rosemary when she got him in the mouth. Rainbow and Harriet were crawling about in combat jackets with bandanas on their heads, and Barry and Jemima still hadn’t come back. Miriam imagined they were doing rather less crawling through thistles and sheep droppings, and felt vaguely jealous.
The car came to a stop somewhere on the lane, and after a moment someone shouted, “Hello? Anyone about?”
Priya had scuttled over to the wall that bordered the lane, and now she peeked over the top, then sat down again. “He can’t get past the van,” she whispered.
“What’s that?” Teresa asked, a little too loudly, and Pearl shushed her.
“Hello?” the man called again, and a car door slammed.
Priya took another peek. “He’s walking this way!”
“Sit down!” Rob hissed, waving at her wildly. “Everyone quiet! He could be a pig!”
Miriam thought he’d be better being quiet himself, rather than carrying on about pigs, but the women stayed silent, clustered near the walls and flattened against the ground. The walls to the lane were high, so unless the man came right up and peered over, he wouldn’t see them. Rose and Gert were both holding Angelus still, and Miriam could see the dog shivering with excitement.
Boots crunched on the gravel drive, heading for the farmyard, and when Miriam sat up she saw the man’s head bobbing toward the house.