Serious Intent

by Margaret Yorke

  Table of Contents

  Copyright & Information

  About the Author

  Quotes

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  'Dr. Patrick Grant' Titles

  Other Margaret Yorke Novels

  Synopses of Titles

  Copyright & Information

  Serious Intent

  First published in 1995

  © Margaret Yorke; House of Stratus 1995-2012

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  The right of Margaret Yorke to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted.

  This edition published in 2012 by House of Stratus, an imprint of

  Stratus Books Ltd., Lisandra House, Fore Street, Looe,

  Cornwall, PL13 1AD, UK.

  Typeset by House of Stratus.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library and the Library of Congress.

  EAN ISBN Edition

  0755130596 9780755130597 Print

  0755134753 9780755134755 Kindle

  0755134869 9780755134861 Epub

  This is a fictional work and all characters are drawn from the author's imagination.

  Any resemblance or similarities to persons either living or dead are entirely coincidental.

  www.houseofstratus.com

  About the Author

  Born in Surrey, England, to John and Alison Larminie in 1924, Margaret Yorke (Margaret Beda Nicholson) grew up in Dublin before moving back to England in 1937, where the family settled in Hampshire, although she then lived in a small village in Buckinghamshire.

  During World War II she saw service in the Women's Royal Naval Service as a driver. In 1945, she married, but it was only to last some ten years, although there were two children; a son and daughter. Her childhood interest in literature was re-enforced by five years living close to Stratford-upon-Avon and she also worked variously as a bookseller and as a librarian in two Oxford Colleges, being the first woman ever to work in that of Christ Church.

  She was widely travelled and had a particular interest in both Greece and Russia.

  Margaret Yorke's first novel was published in 1957, but it was not until 1970 that she turned her hand to crime writing. There followed a series of five novels featuring Dr. Patrick Grant, an Oxford don and amateur sleuth, who shared her own love of Shakespeare. More crime and mystery was to follow, and she wrote some forty three books in all, but the Grant novels were limited to five as, in her own words, 'authors using a series detective are trapped by their series. It stops some of them from expanding as writers'.

  She was proud of the fact that many of her novels are essentially about ordinary people who find themselves in extraordinary situations which may threatening, or simply horrific. It is this facet of her writing that ensures a loyal following amongst readers who inevitably identify with some of the characters and recognise conflicts that may occur in everyday life. Indeed, she stated that characters are far more important to her than intricate plots and that when writing 'I don't manipulate the characters, they manipulate me'.

  Critics have noted that Margaret Yorke has a 'marvellous use of language' and she was frequently cited as an equal to P.D. James and Ruth Rendell. She was a past chairman of the Crime Writers' Association and in 1999 was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger, having already been honoured with the Martin Beck Award from the Swedish Academy of Detection.

  Margaret Yorke died in 2012.

  Quotes

  No man is responsible for his father. That is entirely his mother’s affair.

  Margaret Turnbull, Alabaster Lamps

  The night my father got me His mind was not on me.

  A.E. Housman

  Your fathers, where are they?

  Zachariah. 1:5

  1

  Steve had always stolen from old Tom, though Mark didn’t realise it until he had been going to the house for several weeks.

  ‘We give him our time, don’t we?’ Steve had said, when at last Mark, understanding, had protested. ‘That’s worth money.’

  Steve’s stepmother, Ivy, cleaned for Tom, and the boys – just Steve at first, but later Mark as well – often went round after school because she was anxious about the old man.

  Steve overcharged Tom for shopping done, rendering falsified accounts scribbled on scraps of paper, never challenged, and accepted a pound, sometimes more, for his trouble.

  So Steve was doing it on purpose, not making genuine mistakes. As the two boys walked back to Ivy’s house together, Mark accepted some crisps, bought with Tom’s money, and quite soon he got used to what was going on.

  He liked visiting Tom’s house, and sometimes he went there alone.

  Tom couldn’t walk far. His shuffling gait would carry him from room to room, and he managed the stairs very slowly, clinging to the handrail specially installed, making just one trip each way every day. Steve often helped him go upstairs to bed, patting him gently, urging him on with encouraging words. At fourteen, Steve was a big boy, bigger than Tom, who had shrunk down almost to Mark’s level.

  Mark didn’t like watching Tom edge himself along: not when he remembered that Tom had been a pilot in the war and had won medals. Mark had seen them. It seemed all wrong that he could barely move unaided. But Steve was always gentle with him; there was no bullying, though Steve was tough when they were playing with other boys in the park, and he wasn’t always kind. Mark had seen him elbow an elderly woman with a laden shopping basket off the pavement in front of oncoming traffic, and he had done other things Mark knew were bad. He’d pushed a boy who annoyed him from his bike, then ridden off, laughing, on the bike, which he’d later abandoned, leaving it with a buckled wheel and a lacerated tyre. He’d smashed a car’s windscreen because he said the driver had shown no respect at a crossroads: that time, he watched the driver park, lock his car and leave it, before carrying out his action.

  ‘He’s got to be punished,’ Steve had said.

  Mark didn’t like it when Steve was in one of his angry, vengeful moods, and he thought charging old Tom more for shopping than the real price was disrespectful, but he did not want to lose his role as Steve’s assistant, so he kept quiet. Steve ran through people, Mark knew. Boys formerly his friends gave him up when he flew into a rage or ‘borrowed’ their possessions once too often.

  Tom said that without the two boys’ help he might not be able to go on living at The Willows, and Ivy thought Tom was good for Steve. She worried about him. He wasn’t doing well at school, and often she had no idea how he spent his time. At least she knew where he was when he went to Tom’s.

  Tom’s money seemed to flow in regularly. Steve didn’t know how it came. Perhaps the bank sent it by post. Steve had offered to collect Tom’s pension from the Post Office.

  ‘Wouldn’t it help?’ he’d suggested. ‘My mum gets loads for other people,’ he invented. He always called Ivy his mum; it saved explaining that after his mother died, Ivy and his dad had got married, a
nd then they had a daughter, Kylie, who was now seven. Ivy already had a daughter of her own, called Sharon. Eighteen months ago, Steve’s dad was killed in an accident. That was sad, and Steve did not like to think about it. Kylie had been in a terrible way at the time, and so had Ivy, but they were all right now, and so was he.

  Tom hadn’t accepted Steve’s offer. He’d said it was all under control and the pension money went straight to the bank.

  He’d got stocks and shares, too, Steve knew. Once, when Tom was dozing, he’d looked through some drawers in his desk, but he couldn’t pry when Mark was around; the kid had too many scruples.

  ‘Maybe he’ll leave all his stuff to us, we’re so good to him,’ Steve had said one day when the boys had collected a video to watch with the old man.

  Tom’s tastes and Steve’s didn’t coincide and much of what they watched was too tame for Steve, though it appealed to Mark. They’d had some comic films like Crocodile Dundee and A Fish Called Wanda, and they’d all laughed at those, even Steve, as they ate fish and chips bought from the van which parked in the market square three times a week.

  It was nice, Mark thought, sitting in front of the television with the plates of food – Tom wouldn’t let them eat it from the wrappings even though it meant they had to wash up later. Steve did well on those nights because Ivy gave him the money for his and Mark’s meal when she did not feed them at home, and Steve also claimed it from Tom.

  In the soft light from the gas fire – one which looked like coal – the flickering television screen, and a standard lamp switched on in the corner, the room was peaceful, the atmosphere easy. Mark would imagine that Tom was his grandfather. He liked the old man’s pink face and fine white hair, and his crooked smile. Mark would pretend that he lived here all the time, and his mother too, so that it didn’t matter that she was out so much. She had to work hard to keep them both and to pay Ivy for looking after him out of school hours – it came to a lot in the holidays. If his mother had to be away all night, which happened when there were conferences and big functions at the hotel where she worked, he spent the night at Ivy’s, but soon he would be old enough to stay at home by himself and save money. He planned to suggest it next time his mother seemed depressed when doing her accounts.

  Ivy had looked after him for a long time, even before Steve’s father died. Mark had liked Joe, who had played football with the boys and promised that they’d all go camping when Mark and Kylie were older. Mark missed Joe a lot, but he didn’t like to say so in case it made Ivy sad. She’d cheered up when Sharon had her baby, Adam, who was four months old now. The baby, like Mark, had no dad, but nor had Steve now, and Mark didn’t know what had happened to Sharon’s. Perhaps he was dead, too. It was all right not to have a dad; lots of people hadn’t, or shared someone else’s, but Mark would have liked one.

  His mother had told him that she had wanted him so much that although she wasn’t married, she had decided to bring him up on her own. He wasn’t quite sure what the alternative was, and at the time was not curious about his father, but he was now, only she wouldn’t answer questions about him.

  ‘I wanted you. You’re mine and I love you,’ she would say, and she did, he knew. She gave him lovely hugs and she bought him toys. He had a computer and a Scalextric car layout, and at weekends, if she wasn’t at work, they were happy together, but he wished he had more of a family. Steve had a gran, though she lived in Wales and he didn’t see her much; Kylie and Sharon had cousins who visited and with whom they sometimes stayed; but Mark had no one except his mother.

  Mark liked going round to Ivy’s after school, even though at ten, he was old enough, now, to go straight home. After his next birthday his mum would let him; he could cook things in the microwave and put on the telly. He could still visit Tom, too, as long as he was back before mum. But he’d miss Ivy’s meals. At weekends their food was brilliant; she made shepherd’s pies and tasty stews, and sticky brown gingerbread which Mark loved. Mark didn’t mind the small children she sometimes looked after, as she had him when he was young, but Steve found them a pain. Mark quite liked Sharon’s baby, which did little more than sleep and cry at present, or hang like a limpet on Sharon’s large, pale breast, a sight which fascinated Mark and yet embarrassed him.

  ‘Such huge tits she’s got now,’ Steve would say, and laugh. He liked staring at her, and Sharon would get cross and tell him to piss off, and then Ivy would ask her to watch her language.

  She was really quite strict: much stricter than Mark’s mother.

  The boys knew they must watch what they said in front of Tom. It wasn’t too hard; there was no need for strong words at The Willows. Tom always had time to hear what they had to say and he never failed to ask if they had done their homework. Sometimes they brought it with them. Mark didn’t have very much at the moment, and Steve skimped his so that they could settle down to playing cards or watching telly. Tom had recorded a number of old films which they put on when there was no programme that appealed. One of the old man’s favourites was The Dam Busters, and Mark liked The Great Escape. Tom had been a bomber pilot in the war, and he was shot down over Hamburg. He had spent the rest of the war as a prisoner, but he hadn’t managed to escape, though he’d tried several times before giving up and settling down to study for some exams, which had been a wise thing to do, he told them both. It meant he had done well in later life.

  He must have, to have bought a big house like The Willows. Ivy said it was worth a tidy penny, and if Tom had to go into a home, selling the house would pay for years of care.

  She and Sharon thought it was ever so sad that Tom had no family, and so did Mark. But there must have been someone once: a boy. There was that room upstairs with the posters of aeroplanes, and all the children’s books, which Tom encouraged the two boys to borrow. Steve wasn’t interested, but Mark was.

  Perhaps the boy was dead. Mark didn’t like to ask.

  Tom suspected that Steve was stealing from him, but the amounts were not large and he could stand the loss. However, he felt that Steve should not be allowed to succeed with his pilfering; getting away with small thefts might lead him on to larger ones and he could end up in serious trouble.

  He ought to tackle the boy, bring the stealing to a halt. There was Mark, too; Tom hoped Mark was not a party to the deceit. He was so young, his cheeks round and smooth, his brown eyes trusting. Tom knew that Mark loved coming to the house. He had discovered the books upstairs and, if he did not like what was on the television, or if Tom and Steve were playing poker – which they sometimes did, for matches, and Tom usually won – he would sit curled up in a big armchair, rapt in the adventures of Biggies or William, or even the Famous Five. Tom played chess with Mark. Steve would leave them together while he went to fetch the fish and chips, and occasionally he would slip out without saying where he was going. Tom tried not to wonder what he was up to then; he hoped the boy wasn’t turning his talents elsewhere, looking for more scams. Wordsworth Road was so quiet; there were other secluded houses, which might not be securely locked up, within a few hundred yards.

  If he challenged Steve, the results might be costly. He would lose his errand-boy and Mark wouldn’t be allowed to come on his own to visit. Or would he? Children were independent at an early age now and he was a capable lad.

  Tom compromised. He began to check the money handed out and the change received, and told Steve he’d need receipts in future.

  ‘But why? Don’t you trust me?’ Steve asked, his thin, fair skin flushing over his cheekbones, the pupils enlarging in his pale blue eyes.

  ‘I need to work out my budget,’ Tom replied. ‘My funds are limited.’

  It was close enough to the truth.

  ‘I’ll shop around a bit. Get marked down stuff,’ Steve volunteered, and for a week or two he brought back receipts from various tills, though he still filched from Tom’s purse.

  Tom couldn’t maintain strict vigilance. He was too frail and it was too much of a strain. He’d rather
have the boys happy and dishonest than lose them altogether.

  Then the man came.

  He called on a Saturday afternoon. Steve and Mark had been watching Grandstand on television. They had given Tom his lunch, and he had dozed off, as he often did after eating, when the doorbell rang.

  Steve answered it, and saw a stocky man with grey hair, dressed in jeans and a fawn anorak, carrying a holdall.

  ‘Who are you?’ the man asked him, stepping forward so that his nose was a few inches from Steve’s. He smelled of beer.

  ‘Who’s asking?’ Steve responded, standing firmly in the doorway. He wished he’d put the chain up, but the only people who’d ever called were the do-gooders, like the vicar and the health visitor, and once some Jehovah’s Witnesses. There’d been no one showing disrespect before.

  The man pushed past Steve, one hand thrusting him against the doorpost as he strode by. Steve, who was tall for his age and well-built, was not used to being defied and he was startled when the man marched on into the sitting-room, where Mark had abandoned the ice hockey match on the screen and was reading.

  ‘What’s happening here?’ the man demanded. ‘Are you running a kid’s home now?’ He spoke in an angry voice, and as he moved across to Tom’s chair and stood over him, for a moment Mark thought he was going to hit the old man while he slept. Then Tom opened his eyes.

  ‘Eh? Eh? What—who—?’ he muttered, blinking, trying to focus on the newcomer.

  ‘Wake up,’ said the man. ‘It’s me, Alan, come to see his dad.’

  Tom gaped at him, his head tilted back. He’d gone a funny colour, sort of bluey-white and blotchy. Mark stared at them both. The man had brought fear with him into the house.