This simple plan was frustrated, firstly by the distance he had to cover, and secondly by the better physical shape of Beanie, who had obviously read his intention immediately.
Coming at him from an angle, the lad caught hold of the back of Linc's jacket and pulled hard, swinging him round, off balance. He stumbled sideways once more, feeling weak and tired, and without allowing him to recover, Beanie hit him hard across the face with the back of his hand.
Linc went down and what followed was a blur of cobblestones, feet and sky, as the rest of the gang joined in once more. It seemed his manhandling of one of their number had done him no favours, for there was a certain vicious enjoyment in their efforts now, and their faces, when he caught a brief glimpse of them, were not pretty.
When movement eventually stopped, Linc found himself lying face down on tarmac. A strong smell of engine oil caught in his throat and made him cough. The very fact that it was tarmac beneath him meant that, in all, he'd been pushed and kicked almost three-quarters of the way down the hill to where the residents' cars were parked.
Something moved close to his head and he opened his eyes to the unwelcome sight of what looked like a pair of Doc Marten boots not six inches from his face. In spite of himself, he groaned. Even though he'd suffered no single serious injury he felt battered beyond belief, and if Beanie and his gang wanted any more sport, they'd have to look elsewhere. He was all through with getting up.
There came the sound of a scuffle and his focus shifted past the boots to where two figures were struggling with a third.
Josie! He was aware of a sudden overwhelming sense of failure. Whatever they chose to do with her now, there wasn't a damn' thing he could do about it. Coming so soon after what had happened to Abby, how could he ever face her parents?
Suddenly the night air was rent by a horribly strident, electronic whooping noise, and somebody swore. It took Linc several long moments to realise that the racket was the result of a car alarm being activated, and over the din he heard someone shout, 'Leave her! Go on, scarper!'
There came the sound of footsteps running both up and down the hill, and then Beanie bent down and rolled Linc on to his side.
'Compliments of the boss!' he said, stuffing something scratchy down the front of Linc's tee-shirt, and while he was still struggling to make sense of the remark, Beanie too had loped off into the darkness.
SIX
'OH, MY GOD, LINC! Are you all right?'
With the departure of Beanie, Josie had lost no time in running across to Linc.
For his part, he found that 'all right' was a relative term. The car alarm was still enthusiastically doing its thing, and each pulse of sound seemed to touch a nerve deep inside his skull; every bone in his body felt bruised, and he could taste blood. On the other hand, he was ten times better than he'd been just a few moments ago. It was bliss just to lie still and know that the ordeal was over.
'Linc?'
'Give me a minute,' he told Josie. 'I'm working on it.'
Somewhere nearby a door opened, and someone emerged, grumbling, into the street.
'Please?' Josie called, standing up. ' My friend needs help . . .'
'Call him a taxi,' a man's voice replied. 'And stay away from my car.'
The alarm cut off suddenly, mid-whoop, leaving a shocking silence in its place.
'No, you don't understand,' she said, trying again. 'He was attacked. He's hurt and I haven't got my mobile . . .'
'Won't get a signal here anyway.' The man came halfway across the tarmac and stopped, peering at Linc as if bruises were contagious.
'Do you want me to call the police?' he asked then, reluctantly.
'Yes, please. And an amb—'
'Thanks, but no,' Linc cut in.
'Linc!' Josie exclaimed, crouching down again. 'We must report it.'
'Yeah, we will,' he promised, pushing himself up on to one elbow and finding out the hard way that he'd been lying partially under the front bumper of another parked car. 'Just not now, okay? The kids have gone – scattered. I shouldn't think there's a hope in hell of finding them. The last thing I feel like just now is spending hours talking to the police.'
Although he couldn't have heard much of what Linc said, the man from the cottage had evidently heard enough. He backed off a pace or two, patently relieved that his involvement wasn't required. 'All right then, I'll leave you to it,' he said, and seconds later the front door shut on his rapid retreat.
'But, an ambulance?'
'No, honestly,' he said, easing himself into a sitting position and retrieving a crumpled fold of paper from inside his tee-shirt. 'I'll be okay in a minute. If you are?' he added hastily, scanning Josie's face in the poor light. 'They didn't hurt you, did they?'
She shook her head. 'No, I'm fine,' she said, then her eyes filled with a sudden rush of tears. 'Oh, Linc! How can you be so bloody calm? I thought they were going to kill you! How can you be okay?'
'Hey! Shhh!' Linc put one arm round her and drew her towards him. Her hair was silky and fragrant. 'Well, perhaps okay was the wrong word. But it's really just bumps and bruises; like coming off a horse. I'm feeling better all the time.' If he said it often enough, he might even start to believe it himself, he reflected with grim amusement. With his free hand he slipped the paper into his pocket and withdrew a handkerchief, which he silently offered. 'Thanks,' Josie said, gently pulling out of his grasp and blowing her nose. 'I'm sorry. It was just so frightening! I mean, I had my bag snatched once, in London, and you kind of expect that sort of thing there, but here? And what for? Just because you bumped into him.'
'That's just it – I didn't,' he told her. 'He made that up.' He decided against mentioning Beanie's note until he'd had time to read it. If she had any idea the attack had been anything other than random, his chances of persuading her not to call the police would be non-existent.
Josie shook her head again, in disbelief. 'So what now? Can you get up?'
'With a little help from my friends,' Linc suggested.
Actually, he made it first time, and began the climb back up the famous hill with a creditable show of fitness. He sensed Josie relaxing a little, at his side, but it had to be said that by the time they reached the top, having paused for a rest halfway, he was blessing whoever it was who had had the idea of providing a rail for the elderly and infirm.
Any hope he had that the degree of effort had gone unnoticed was banished when they reached the Discovery. Josie stood between him and the driver's door and held out her hand for the keys. Music could be heard on the night air and it was with a shock that Linc realised the band was still playing. Looking at his watch he found that it was not yet eleven o'clock. Incredibly, the whole nightmarish episode had taken only a few minutes from start to finish.
He was quite content to let Josie drive. Somewhere between Gold Hill and the car park the shakes had set in, and he felt weak and decidedly unwell.
'Are you all right? You look a bit green,' she observed as they left the lighted outskirts of Shaftesbury behind. 'I'm still not convinced that I shouldn't be taking you to hospital.'
'I feel a bit green,' Linc admitted, trying not to let his teeth chatter. 'I think perhaps we should stop if you come to a convenient gateway . . .'
'Sorry,' he said, minutes later, sliding back into the passenger seat.
'Don't be daft. I shared a flat with a bulimic for most of last year, so I'm quite used to it. But are you sure you're not concussed? You must have hit your head at least once.'
'No. Actually, I feel much better now.' Then he groaned. 'Oh, God! That was one hell of a first date. I'm so sorry. I wish I could have done something . . .'
Josie had just put the Land-Rover into gear but now she took it back out and turned to face him in the gloom of the interior.
'Well, of all the stupid things to say! You're not serious? There wasn't anything you could have done, nothing anyone could have done, so don't be daft!'
Linc frowned at the dashboard. 'But they wer
e just kids, Josie! Two of them were girls . . .'
'They were thugs!' she stated firmly. 'And there were ten of them. This isn't the movies – it's real life, and if you weren't so caught up in macho pride you'd remember that!'
'I'm sorry,' Linc said, managing a wistful smile. 'I should be comforting you, and here I am feeling sorry for myself.'
'You did comfort me,' Josie said, engaging first gear and steering back on to the road. 'And I'm fine now. We're tough, us Hathaway women! Only, I think perhaps it would be better if we don't mention this to Mum and Dad. It's all over now and they've got enough to worry about.'
Linc agreed, leaning back against the headrest as the Discovery sped through the darkness.
'I don't really see myself as macho, you know,' he commented thoughtfully, after a moment. 'It's just – I suppose I've always thought I could handle most situations . . . It's a bit of a shock, I guess. Like being reminded of one's own mortality.'
'You did handle it,' Josie told him. 'You stood up to them.'
'Mmm. Didn't do me much good. You know, it was lucky that car alarm went off when it did . . . I hate the bloody things but tonight it was the sweetest sound.'
'Lucky?' Josie queried. 'Give me some credit! I bounced on the bonnet.'
'Oh, no! The final blow to my self-esteem!' Linc moaned. 'Rescued by the distressed damsel!'
By the time they reached Farthing St Anne, Linc felt sufficiently recovered to drop Josie off and drive himself home.
The mysterious note had been burning a hole in his pocket all the way back from Shaftesbury and he waited only long enough to see Josie safely into the Vicarage before switching on the Land- Rover's interior light and reading it. It was a torn sheet of newspaper with a number of words highlighted, and its contents confirmed the suspicion Beanie's last words had aroused.
This is the second warning. Three strikes and you're out.
'Linc? Are you all right?'
He struggled up through layers of sleep and blearily focussed first on his father and then on his bedside clock.
Twenty-five-past nine! He'd forgotten to set the alarm, but that didn't explain his father's unexpected arrival in his bedroom.
'I'm sorry. I'm just getting up,' he said, wishing the pile driver inside his skull would take a break.
'I've just had a female by the name of Josie on the telephone,' his father told him. 'Said she'd being trying to reach you.'
'Oh, sorry. My mobile was turned off.' Being a flip-top, it had survived the skirmish unscathed, secure in a zipped inner pocket of his jacket.
'Apparently she was worried that you hadn't turned up to exercise your animal this morning. Said you'd had a spot of bother last night. She would appear to be right,' he added, regarding Linc with a judicial eye.
'Yeah, we did. A street gang looking for kicks.' Literally, he thought with thin humour.
'Where? Bournemouth?'
'No. Shaftesbury.'
'Good Lord! What did the police have to say?'
Linc avoided his gaze.
'Ah, I see. Well, I told the female that I'd get you to ring her back when I found you. It's high time you had an extension put in up here, then I wouldn't have to keep running after you with messages.'
As this was the first time in five months or so that he'd had to this was a little unfair, but Linc knew better than to argue the point. 'I'll get on to it,' he promised, swinging his legs over the side of his bed and gingerly sitting up.
His father stood watching him for a long, frowning moment, then turned away without a word and left the flat.
Linc sighed and shook his head sadly, left with the feeling that even by getting himself roughed up he had somehow earned paternal disapproval.
Moving stiffly, he made his way to the bathroom and had a shower, wishing he had time for a long soak in the bath instead. As he dried himself, the half-length mirror showed him a rather pale face with a grazed cheekbone and a developing bruise over one eye, and a lean, hard-muscled torso decorated with mottled patches of red and purple.
'Oh, lovely,' he told his reflection. No wonder his father had frowned. Linc customarily slept in shorts so his visitor would have been treated to the full display.
He put the radio on, took painkillers and made toast and coffee, thinking that, on the whole, things would have been easier if Josie hadn't rung to check up on him, but nevertheless feeling rather pleased that she had. He was finding that she occupied quite a large part of his thoughts nowadays. Using his mobile, he tried to reach her but the Vicarage telephone was answered by Ruth, who told him that Josie had gone out.
'How did it go last night?' she asked. 'Did you like the band? Josie did.'
Linc returned an affirmative, said they'd had a lovely meal too, and finished by saying that he'd try Josie on her mobile.
'You can try, but you won't have much luck, I'm afraid. It's here on the kitchen table,' Ruth told him.
In his office, when Linc made it down there some twenty minutes later, Mary was coping admirably in his absence; prioritising the reported crises of the day – of which there were invariably several by mid-morning – and fielding his calls. She had sorted his post into urgent, non-urgent, personal and begging, the last of which she had filed in the shredder.
'I don't think there's anything desperately important to tell you,' she said, scanning the notes she had made. 'Geoff is taking care of most things.'
Linc eased himself into the chair behind his desk, and sat looking without enthusiasm at the piles of correspondence.
'You look rough, if I may say so,' Mary observed with the informality of long service. 'Your father said you had some trouble last night. What happened?'
'Oh, just some kids looking for trouble. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
'What did the police say? You did report it . . .' She let the question hang in the air and so did Linc.
'Okay,' she continued evenly. 'Well, can I get you a cup of coffee or something?'
The telephone trilled, its display indicating an internal line, and Mary picked up the receiver.
'It's your father,' she said, after a brief interval. 'He wants to see you in the library.'
Linc groaned and stood up. 'Okay. Tell him I'm on my way.'
Lord Tremayne wasn't alone in the library when Linc let himself in. As he closed the heavy, panelled door behind him, the first person he saw, seated in one of the leather chairs, was DI Rockley.
'Ah,' Linc said, going forward with a certain resignation. 'I take it you're not here to see my father?'
Rockley stood up to shake hands. 'No. Lord Tremayne was worried about you. And I can see why,' he added, looking critically at Linc's face. 'He said you'd been attacked. What's the story?'
Linc hesitated, looking across at his father who was sitting on the edge of his desk.
His father stood up. 'All right. It's your business. I'll leave you to it.'
As the door closed behind him, Linc sighed and sat down, inviting Rockley to do the same.
'So. Tell me that this has nothing to do with your misguided attempts to do my job for me, and you'll take a weight off my mind,' Rockley informed him.
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