Lies and Misdemeanours

by Rebecca King

  In that moment, Charlie had never hated anybody as much as he hated the rotund little man before him. He reminded him of a bullfrog, with huge bulging eyes and grotesque jowls that wobbled when he talked. His high-pitched, almost piping voice was the most irritating thing Charlie had ever heard, and it was deeply satisfying to be able to knock the man very firmly off his perch.

  “We will go through everything you have been involved with Meldrew,” Hugo assured him.

  Charlie nodded. “If you are found to have sentenced any other innocent men to death without a fair and proper hearing then you will be tried for their murders too. It shouldn’t take too long. Now that your tyranny is over, people will undoubtedly sing like nightingales, just to ensure that you face the full force of the justice you so eagerly inflicted upon others.”

  He took a deep breath, and inwardly froze at the callous mirth hidden in the depths of the dark soulless voids that were the man’s eyes.

  Something was wrong, Charlie just knew it. He shifted his feet and looked at Hugo, who seemed to also realise that Meldrew had another ace up his sleeve.

  Charlie worries immediately turned toward Hetty, but he immediately dismissed the possibility that she was in any danger. She was perfectly safe, under guard, and well protected. Nothing could happen to her.

  Unfortunately, the instincts that had kept him alive throughout his operations with the Star Elite, refused to be ignored. Something was seriously wrong, and Charlie knew that he wasn’t going to like the way the next few moments unfolded.

  “You work for the War Office, you say?” Meldrew challenged. He leaned back casually in his chair, and folded his podgy arms behind his head. “Prove it.”

  “Really?” Hugo drawled.

  He smirked in satisfaction as he withdrew a highly decorated roll of parchment from his pocket. He broke the War Office seal, and turned the unrolled parchment around for Meldrew to read the arrest warrant that had been penned, and signed, by the Lord Chief Justice himself.

  Meldrew’s face fell. A dark frown settled over his brow. He glanced at Hugo, then back at the parchment.

  Charlie wondered if Meldrew was going to just shoot himself and be done with it. The reality of his future seemed to land on him with the full force of hammer blows. He didn’t move, speak or even blink. He just continued to sit and stare blankly at the parchment, as though he wasn’t sure where it had come from.

  “The War Office, you say?” Meldrew repeated dully.

  Hugo nodded. “We are the Star Elite.”

  Meldrew sucked in a quick breath. His gaze flew to Charlie, who nodded slowly and stared dispassionately back at his nemesis.

  “I see that you have heard of us,” Hugo sighed.

  Meldrew nodded slowly. His mind was clearly racing; trying desperately to ignore the facts as they had been presented to him.

  “You had better come clean, Meldrew, and do it quickly, because you are going to jail. We have work to do, and are not going to spend all night talking to you,” Charlie warned.

  Meldrew merely looked at him before he reached forward and dipped a quill into the pot of ink at his elbow. He picked up a piece of parchment from beside him and began to write.

  “If you sign this statement declaring that I won’t face death by hanging, I will tell you where she is,” Meldrew sighed as he pushed the parchment across the desk toward Charlie and Hugo.

  Hugo and Charlie shared a look before Hugo picked up the parchment and read it.

  “Who?” Hugo challenged. He handed the parchment to Charlie to read without taking his eyes off Meldrew.

  “The woman.”

  Charlie froze. His gaze lifted slowly and met Meldrew’s. In spite of his situation, the former magistrate had the audacity to smirk at Charlie, then lean back in his chair while he waited for Hugo and Charlie to sign his pardon.

  “If my wife dies, I promise you that I will make sure that your death at the hangman’s noose is as painful as possible. There shall be no mercy.” Charlie’s words dripped lethal menace.

  Meldrew looked blandly at him before he turned his attention to Hugo, who slowly tore up the pardon.

  “We know where she is,” Hugo growled with a smirk. He stood back, and nodded to Barnaby. “Take him to Derby jail, but arrest Gembleby while you are there. Send word to the War Office. We need reinforcements to look after the jail while a new, more trustworthy magistrate can be found. Actually, go to Tattington and get General McArthur to send some red coats to take over the running of the jail. They will suffice until we can get this mess sorted out.”

  As he spoke, Meldrew slowly sat forward in his chair. Disbelief clouded his eyes as he looked from Hugo to Charlie. He turned, somewhat panic stricken, to Barnaby, who unceremoniously hauled him to his feet and began to drag him toward the door.

  “You are coming with us.”

  “She is safe and well,” Hugo assured Meldrew as he was dragged past. “My men are with her now.”

  In the doorway, Meldrew looked back. “She can’t be. She is dead, I tell you. We know she helped them escape, and has paid for it.”

  “If you have -” Charlie stepped forward only to be held back by Hugo.

  Barnaby hurried the man through the door before anyone could say anything else to antagonise an already dire situation, and left Hugo to console Charlie.

  “Do you think he really has her?” Charlie demanded.

  He didn’t wait for Hugo to answer though, and barged past his colleagues as he raced through the darkness toward his horse.

  “It may be bluster,” Hugo warned as he followed. “Don’t get angry until we know for definite that he isn’t just tormenting you.”

  “We should interrogate him until he gives us answers,” Charlie snapped, and quickly mounted his horse. He glanced back at Meldrew, who was protesting vociferously about being made to ride on horseback.

  “Anyone as arrogant as he is will only play with us. He will enjoy being in a position of knowing something we don’t. I am not going to spend the night bartering with the bastard. We have to look for Hetty. The first place we are going to look is Afferley,” Hugo ground out. “If she is there, we will come back and deal with Meldrew.”

  Charlie nodded. He didn’t ask what they were going to do if she wasn’t there.

  Hetty would merely be an innocent pawn in a very dangerous game.

  Charlie galloped through the countryside toward the safe house. Although it was dark, he knew instinctively that he was heading in the right direction.

  As long as his horse didn’t give out beneath him there was nothing going to stop him from getting to her. The thought of anything happening to Hetty brought his world to a halt. The entire focus of his being would be destroyed forever more.

  He realised then just how much she had come to mean to him. He couldn’t live without her. Life would never be the same if he couldn’t have her by his side.

  It took far too long to get to the safe house. His horse hadn’t even stopped running before he dismounted, and raced toward the door.

  He burst into the kitchen, and glared at Wally, Simon and Joshua, who were all seated around the table playing cards.

  “Where’s Hetty?” He demanded as he stalked through the kitchen toward the hallway.

  “What? Why?” Simon asked, but Charlie didn’t wait around to explain.

  “Hetty!” Charlie shouted as he ran through the house, bursting into each of the downstairs rooms as he went. “Hetty? Where are you? Hetty!”

  Nothing but silence greeted him.

  He tore up the stairs, and slammed into their bedroom. The sight of the empty bed, neatly made, brought forth a blistering curse that had him racing back downstairs.

  Hugo was stalking down the corridor toward him by the time he got to the bottom of the stairs.

  “When they last spoke to her, she was going out to the rose garden for some air. They thought she had gone back upstairs like she did earlier.”

  “When?”

  Hugo lo
oked at him.

  “When?” Charlie demanded.

  “Three hours ago.”

  Charlie swore, and stalked toward the kitchen door.

  “I thought she was back, Charlie,” Joshua snapped. “I heard the damned back door squeak. She said that she was going outside for ten minutes. I saw her in the rose garden, and kept an eye on the time. Ten minutes later, I heard the back door slam and just assumed it was her.”

  “You didn’t speak to her?” Charlie growled. He physically trembled with rage at the thought that she had been taken. She must have been terrified.

  Joshua scowled. “She looked as though she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. I just thought she needed some time to herself.”

  “Meldrew has her,” Charlie bit out. He glared at Wally and Simon who both swore loudly and followed him to the door.

  “Where?” Simon growled.

  “We don’t know,” Hugo sighed. “Search the grounds.”

  His order was meant for Joshua, but Simon and Wally nodded as well, and followed everyone outside.

  Everyone searched the grounds, but came up empty. They soon congregated in the yard, where Simon was saddling up two more horses.

  “There is no sign of her,” Joshua growled as he strode toward them. “God, I am sorry Charlie.”

  “Where is he likely to have taken her?” Wally growled.

  “Besides to Derby jail to await hanging?” Simon sighed and shook his head. “God knows.”

  Charlie stared off into the distance. His face was hard and calculating; his mind was racing. He suddenly frowned, and speared Simon with a dark look.

  “You said that Meldrew had demanded you pay him protection money,” he drawled.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Meldrew demanded protection money from Blagmire, and killed him so he could take over the business himself,” Charlie said as he shared a look with Hugo.

  He watched a frown darken his boss’ face, and knew that Hugo understood.

  “Why would Meldrew want the mill?” Hugo asked with a frown.

  “He asked for a lot of money. We just couldn’t afford to pay,” Simon replied darkly. “We could have made the first payment, but to pay the man on a regular basis would have rendered us bankrupt.”

  “So he was trying to drive you out of business too? Why?”

  “So he could take over it himself most probably,” Wally said dourly. “That’s what he did with Blagmire’s tavern. He killed Blagmire as a warning to businessmen in the area that he could bankrupt them if he chose to.”

  Hugo cursed. “He frightened Mrs Blagmire into leaving the tavern so that he could put his own people in there to run the place.”

  “He could be profiting from the business himself,” Charlie reasoned.

  “He was building himself a little empire that he couldn’t afford on his magistrate’s earnings,” Hugo mused.

  “The mill is a profitable business. We have been there for generations,” Wally declared proudly. “Everyone knows us.”

  “How many more mills are there like yours in the area?”

  “One more in Derby, but that is on the Nottinghamshire border and doesn’t affect our business,” Simon replied. “Why?”

  “He would own the only profitable mill for miles around,” Hugo replied.

  “He could charge people what he wanted, and they would have to pay if they wanted their grain turning,” Charlie shook his head in disgust at not having thought about it before.

  Suddenly he knew, deep in his gut, where she was. He felt as though she was calling out to him.

  His suspicious began to flourish into unshakeable certainty. He didn’t know how he knew, but he was positive that he was right.

  “I know where she is,” he whispered. “I know where Hetty is.” He said once more as he ran for his horse.

  Wally and Simon stared at him, but he didn’t bother to wait around to explain.

  “Where are you going?” Hugo asked as he raced to follow.

  “The mill,” Charlie shouted as he spun his horse around.

  He galloped into the darkness without a backward look.

  He didn’t look back to see if they were going to follow. Nothing was going to stop him from getting to Hetty. He had no doubt that Meldrew had done something that had put her precious life at risk.

  If only Charlie could get to her before her life was stolen from her – from them both, then he had some chance of a happy future.

  Hetty swallowed, and struggled to keep her panic at bay. Her breaths came in short pants. She struggled not to scream in terror. The last time she had taken a deep breath, she had sunk three inches at least, and the rope around her neck had bitten cruelly into the soft skin just under her chin. She didn’t know how long she had left; how long the rope was; but knew that if she moved, at all, even breathed too deeply, her life would be over.

  It was as simple, and as terrifying, as that.

  She hoped that she was some time away from actually being hung, but that didn’t help her given that nobody knew where she was. Nobody even knew that she had been dragged from the safe house rose garden without being given the chance to even murmur a token protest.

  Her thoughts immediately turned to Charlie. Tears gathered on her lashes. There was so much she wanted to say to him that she felt robbed of the opportunity to tell him how much she loved him.

  She wished she could have just a few moments with him so she could say the things she desperately needed him to know.

  She understood now a little of what he had been through on the morning of his own hanging now. Thankfully, she didn’t have a crowd of baying people waiting to watch her slow death.

  Her stomach roiled alarmingly at the thought of what might befall her any moment now, but she had to ignore it.

  She wanted to scream, but couldn’t.

  She glanced around her without moving her head, but it was too dark within the grain barn to see much at all.

  Desperate to keep the panic at bay, she closed her eyes so that the mental image of Charlie would come forward again. It was as though he was her guiding light, warning her to stay calm and remain in control of herself, if not the situation around her. Just thinking about him helped her remain in control as much as she was able to.

  Unfortunately, with her hands tied behind her back, balanced precariously on tip-toe, with a noose around her neck, there was little she could do but wait – pray – and hope that salvation wouldn’t be too far away.

  Charlie raced into the courtyard of the mill and scoured the buildings for any sign of life. His heart pounded heavily in his chest.

  His first shout was muffled by the sound of the other horses tearing into the yard behind him. He waited only long enough for them to come to a stop before he called again.

  “Hetty?” He watched Wally and Simon race for the house before he turned his attention to the outbuildings.

  The stable block and hay barn were both completely empty. The door to the mill itself was locked.

  “I’ll get them to bring the key,” Hugo growled as he stalked across the yard.

  Charlie tried to look through the narrow windows, but couldn’t see anything except shadows. Frustration clawed at him at the thought that this might be yet another wild goose chase.

  “Hetty? Can you hear me?” he called in a voice that was as loud as he could manage.

  A muffled shout suddenly broke the silence.

  Everyone froze.

  Charlie frowned and stared at the empty courtyard. “Did you hear that?” he whispered to nobody in particular.

  Another muffled noise sounded from the far corner of the yard. Charlie turned, and saw Simon hurry through the darkness clutching a large circle of keys.

  “It’s the grain store,” Wally called.

  Another muffle shout confirmed that.

  Everyone waited impatiently for Simon to unlock the huge wooden door, but nobody was prepared for the sight that greeted them.

 
At first they couldn’t see anything because there was no light within the large stone building. Precious moments were lost while they tried to find enough candles to light the area but, when they did, they stared in horror at Hetty’s predicament.

  The sight of her, balancing on tip-toes, with wild panic in her eyes as the grain shifted and slid beneath her feet, was something that would remain with everyone for the rest of their lives.

  It was going to be damned impossible to get to her without risking hanging her.

  “How in the hell did they get her there?” Hugo growled as he studied the distance from where Hetty stood to the narrow planks that ran around the walls.

  “Planks,” Hetty gasped quietly. “They slid planks across. The grain has shifted since then.”

  “Stay still,” Charlie urged her. “Stay perfectly still.”

  “I can’t move. If I do, the grain shifts and the rope gets tighter. I am going to hang myself if I move. There isn’t any more give in the rope, so don’t move me,” Hetty murmured quietly. “Please, Charlie. Don’t move me.”

  While she spoke, Simon and Wally gathered the planks they usually used to cross the grain pit but, when they slid them across, it quickly became evident that Meldrew’s men had cut them in half, and they didn’t cover the distance needed.

  “Do we climb across the beam, and haul her up that way?” Marcus asked as he studied the heavy oak beams that held the roof up.

  “Those beams are over a hundred years old. They won’t hold our weight,” Wally warned.

  “We need bigger planks,” Simon growled.

  “We don’t have any now. The bastards cut the only ones we have.” Wally stomped out of the barn and studied the courtyard.

  “Charlie!” Simon called moments later.

  “What?”

  “Come and help me.”

  “What are we doing?” Charlie asked as he followed Simon across the courtyard.

  “The barn doors should just about do it. I will loosen the hinges. You get the horses out of the way so they don’t get hit when this thing falls. We need to break the wooden planks off. They should be long enough. We need help.”

  Before he could say anything else, several of the men appeared and began to lead the horses away.