by Fay Sampson
Nick’s certainty was flooding out of him, leaving only embarrassment. But at the mention of Millie he checked. Could this be a coded warning? In spite of all his protestations of innocence could this portly Baptist minister really be the man behind whatever gang was operating in Hugh Street? It seemed impossible to imagine, but it would be a great disguise.
But he looked around the modest semi-detached house, the clutter of toys in the hall, the untidy garden, the harassed look of Redfern’s wife. There was no evidence here of the proceeds of crime.
He felt himself colouring. ‘I’m sorry. I think I must have made a mistake. I’d had this threatening phone call. I think it’s about something I reported to the police. And then I saw your car . . .’
‘And you thought I was following you because we’d had the same idea of visiting Belldale Mill.’
‘And then I saw you at the hospital.’
‘Yes. Mrs Beasley. One of my flock. Fortunately not as near death’s door as she thought she was.’ He looked keenly at Nick with what might be professional sympathy. ‘Nothing wrong, I hope.’
‘My great-uncle. Martin Fewings. He had a stroke two days ago. We went to visit him, but he’s taken a turn for the worse.’
‘Martin? I’m very sorry to hear that. Stoneyham Methodist. We’ve worked together on a few committees, Martin and I. A grand old-stager. I must look in next time I do my hospital rounds.’
‘Harry!’ Mrs Redfern’s voice was low but scolding.
‘Sorry, love.’ He turned to Nick. ‘Excuse me if I don’t invite you in. I’ve got someone else with me.’ He smiled wearily at his wife. ‘I’ll get rid of him as soon as I can, but the lad needs to talk.’
‘And you need a rest day.’
Harry Redfern shrugged. He went back into the sitting room. In the doorway he turned his head. ‘I hope you’ve reported those phone calls to the police. I’ve had my share of them. They can give you a nasty turn, even the ones that are just talk.’
‘Yes, I’ve told them,’ Nick said dully. ‘They weren’t taking it as seriously as I’d like.’
‘So you thought you’d take matters into your own hands. Go carefully.’
Nick glimpsed Dominic, the minister’s other, younger visitor. He was on his feet and glaring at this intruder before he reclaimed Harry Redfern’s attention.
Nick walked down the steeply sloping drive with the consciousness that he had made a fool of himself. The Reverend Harry Redfern had been courteous and even sympathetic. But Nick was appalled that he had let his obsession with those phone calls lead him into such paranoia. Mrs Redfern might not have been playing the role of the smiling minister’s wife, but her indignation had been justified.
A figure shot past him. A small boy on a scooter who checked himself with a spinning turn on the pavement outside the gate.
‘Ben!’ his mother’s exasperated cry came from behind them.
Nick grinned at the boy as he reached the gate. ‘She’s right, you know. You never know what might come speeding along the road.’
‘I can handle it,’ said the boy loftily.
Nick climbed into the driver’s seat. Suzie turned to him with a belligerent air.
‘Well?’
‘You were right,’ he sighed. ‘He’s a Baptist minister. Harry Redfern. He’s a mate of Uncle Martin’s. Yes, he was following us to Belldale Mill, but only because he was taking his kids there. You remember that family that were with us when the guide was explaining about the fulling mill?’
‘All those piss pots.’ Millie added.
‘Apparently it’s his day off. I suppose he works all Sunday.’
‘And it’s half term,’ Suzie said. ‘A perfectly normal thing for a family to do. Like us.’
‘He had a call to the hospital. That’s why he was there. One of his congregation. I told him about Uncle Martin. He’s going to look in and see him.’
‘So. A man of God. A pillar of the community. And you go and accuse him of being a criminal mastermind.’
‘But why?’ Millie asked. ‘Why did you think someone was following you? Is it because you went to the police?’
Nick exchanged glances with Suzie. ‘Something like that. Sorry, kid. I seem to be getting paranoid.’
‘You’ve been watching too many cop shows on the telly, Dad.’
He eased the car out on to the road and found a place to turn. Once more he had let the opportunity slip by to explain to Millie just what reason he had to fear for her.
ELEVEN
Nick drove back towards town. He hardly noticed where he was going. His thoughts were filled with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. He sensed from the way Suzie was looking at him that she thought he had made a fool of himself. The worst thing was that he knew he had. He felt the heat creep up his neck as he realized he had stormed up the garden path of a perfectly innocent Baptist minister on his day off. He had accused him of making abusive phone calls, then tailing the Fewings down the dale with his whole family in tow.
He tried to argue back that someone had made those calls. Someone had threatened Nick and his family. The police seemed to have lost interest, or to have downgraded the threat. Surely it was left to Nick now to safeguard Millie and Suzie? He had tried to do that. It was not his fault that it had gone so humiliatingly wrong.
Suddenly he thumped the steering wheel.
‘Of course!’
He turned the wheel sharply and shot left into a side street.
‘What now?’ Suzie snapped.
‘Look at the clock! It was just about the same time yesterday that we met that woman. She was collecting her child from nursery school. What do you bet she’s doing the same today?’
‘So?’
‘If anyone can tell us what’s going on in Hugh Street, it’s her. Why didn’t I think of it?’
‘You don’t think that the same idea might just have occurred to the police?’
‘But they’ve never met her. They might go up and ask that group of mums, but they wouldn’t be able to tell the woman we met from Madonna.’
‘I rather think her clothes might give them a clue.’
‘We’re the only ones who’ve seen her face to face.’
He was threading the unfamiliar side streets, hoping against hope that his sense of direction was right and they were heading for Canal Street.
‘Dad!’ Millie groaned from the back seat. ‘You said we could find a café.’
‘All in good time. This shouldn’t take long.’
‘Leave it,’ Suzie said. ‘We’ve poked in our noses enough. It didn’t help her last time, did it?’
‘Something very wrong is going on there. I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think Inspector Heap is right. I shan’t rest easy until I get to the bottom of it.’
At the end of the street he could see heavier traffic passing up and down the hill. He paused at the corner. His eyes swept up the road towards the school and down to the bridge.
‘There!’ It was Suzie who spotted her first. She was walking up the pavement towards them.
Despite his show of confidence, Nick might not have recognized her on his own. Today she wore a navy-blue coat, with a blue-and-white scarf draped over her hair. But as he peered through his window he was almost sure Suzie was right.
He slammed the car into reverse and backed away from the corner to park in the side street. He pulled on the brake and leaped out.
Suzie was still unfastening her seat belt. ‘Nick! Wait for me!’ she called.
But he was off for the main road, determined not to miss their only witness.
He strode down the pavement towards the approaching woman. Her head was down, her shoulders hunched, but the height and build were familiar.
He had suddenly no idea what he could say to her. For a troubled moment, he wondered whether he should have waited for Suzie. He glanced back. She was not yet in sight.
His momentum had carried him on down the hill. He almost cannoned into the woman. She stoppe
d in sudden alarm.
‘Please! Don’t be frightened. We met you yesterday.’
‘No! I don’t know you. Get away from me!’ She backed against the wall. He met her large terrified eyes.
‘You’re the only one who can help us. Just what is it that’s going on in Hugh Street?’
‘I don’t know anything.’
She tried to slip away from him. Nick grabbed her coat.
‘Someone’s been threatening me because . . .’
A roar of anger made him turn sharply. A man was charging up the pavement towards him. Nick took one look at him and knew he was never going to be able to explain the situation. His grip loosened on the woman and she fled up the hill.
Nick lingered only a moment longer. He thought of apologizing, then saw the rage in the man’s face. He sped for the side street where he had parked the car.
At every stride he expected to see Suzie coming towards him. But he had turned the corner before he saw her. She was standing beside the car talking into her mobile.
Hands grabbed him from behind. He was spun round. A second man was facing him, fists raised. Nick struggled against his captor as the blow connected with his chin.
He was knocked sideways. The man behind him let him fall. He hit the kerb bruisingly and rolled into the gutter. He threw up his hands to shield his face. A kick landed in his ribs.
Somewhere at the back of his mind he had heard Suzie cry out. He curled up, helpless to avoid a second kick. But none came. He dared to look up through the fingers protecting his eyes. There was no one near him. Suzie and Millie were running towards him. The two men had gone.
He scrambled to his feet and gasped at the pain in his side. A wave of dizziness made him lean against the wall.
‘Are you all right?’ Suzie had reached him. ‘What did you do?’
‘What did I do? You saw those thugs. They punched me and then kicked me when I was down.’
‘The police are on their way. I was already on the phone to them to tell them we’d seen the woman. You should have waited.’
‘Oh, so it’s my fault now?’ Nick fingered the corner of his jaw tenderly.
‘What happened down there? Did you stop her?’
‘She didn’t want to talk. She’s still frightened.’
‘And?’
‘Well . . .’ The foolishness of what he had done came over him. ‘She was trying to get away. I guess I did catch hold of the coat-thing she was wearing.’
Nick! And you wonder why two Muslim men come haring after you to teach you a lesson.’
‘Is that all the sympathy I get?’
She cupped his head in her hands and leaned forward to kiss his bruised face.
‘Idiot!’ she said softly.
‘Mum! The police are coming.’
The two of them spun round. Two tall uniformed constables were turning the corner of the road. They made straight for Nick and Suzie.
‘Are you the lady who put in the call?’ one asked.
‘That’s right. This is my husband. Two men saw him in Canal Street, talking to the woman I was telling your switchboard about. They chased him here.’
‘Can you give me a description, sir?’
‘They’re not the important thing. It’s the woman you need to go after. She’s wearing a navy-blue coat and trousers and a blue-and-white scarf. She was heading up the hill towards the nursery.’
‘And why would we want to talk to her?’
Beside Nick, Suzie sighed with frustration. ‘Didn’t they tell you that when they put the call out? I was trying to explain to your operator. You must have heard there’s something going in Hugh Street. Inspector Heap said they’ve got police watching the place. Well, this is the woman we saw trying to get in there yesterday, only the man sent her away. She’s a key witness.’
Nick saw the two police constables look at each other and shake their heads. He could almost see their eyes roll.
‘All we heard was a fight going on in Tennyson Street. Two black guys beating up a white one.’
‘That’s not how I put it. And that happened when I was in the middle of phoning. It wasn’t the reason I made the call.’
The two policemen looked at each other again.
‘Stay here,’ one said. ‘We’ll want a statement.’
All the same, Nick was glad to see the speed with which they bounded back to the corner. They disappeared from view.
Millie looked from one parent to another. ‘Is this really all because someone’s moved into a boarded-up house?’
Nick moved carefully away from the wall. He held his breath, waiting for the sharp pain that would tell him he had a broken rib. But when he put his hand to his side, he could only feel bruising.
‘I was just trying to do my citizen’s duty. It’s bound to be something illegal. And that woman we met knows what.’
The warning messages were reeling through his brain. Had those two men really only been protecting the woman from his advances, or had they more to do with Hugh Street?
The two policemen were coming back.
‘Sorry. By the time we got there, the mums and kids had gone. Nobody else has seen a woman matching your description. Or if they have, they’re not admitting to it.’
‘Now, sir,’ said the other, taking out his notebook. ‘If you wouldn’t mind giving me a full statement of what happened, I’ll get you to sign it. If you want to press charges against those two gentlemen, I’ll need you to come down to the station.’
Nick felt a deep weariness. ‘I didn’t get a proper look at them. I only know that woman’s a vital witness. It’s her you’ve got to find. What happened to me was . . . incidental.’
He hoped that was true. That the two men were not more deeply involved.
He saw the look that passed between the policemen.
TWELVE
Millie gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Dad! Look at the time. We’re hardly going to have any time in town. Do you have to play Superman and solve all the world’s crimes single-handed?’
‘Sorry, kid. I guess you think I should leave it to the police. I know that’s what your mother thinks.’
He eased himself into the driving seat. ‘Still time for that latte.’
They were halfway down the hill to the bridge. The phone in his pocket rang.
It was not the illegality of talking on his mobile while driving that stopped him from reaching for it. He felt a huge reluctance to answer his phone now. Why had he not switched it off?
He told himself it could be a double-glazing salesman, or Tom to talk about meeting them tomorrow, or Thelma with more news about Uncle Martin. He was convinced it was not.
‘Do you want me to see who it is?’ Suzie asked.
She held out her hand.
‘Leave it,’ he muttered. ‘It’s probably nothing important.’
If only.
When he parked the car in town, Millie leaped out of the car before Suzie, with an alacrity she had not shown before.
‘Honestly! We could have been here an hour ago.’
Nick waited until Suzie got out. ‘You girls go and find a café. I’ll catch up with you in a minute.’
He had not fooled Suzie. She gave him a troubled stare. ‘There’s no hurry. We can wait.’
‘Just go on, will you?’ he snapped.
She gave him a long look, then reached back into the glove compartment. She drew out what looked like a map of the town.
Nick envied her. She had been troubled by yesterday’s threatening call, but it did not seem to obsess her in the way it did him. Perhaps she shared the inspector’s view that it needn’t be taken too seriously. And, of course, he hadn’t told her about the sinister text message after they’d been to the police.
He watched Suzie and Millie’s retreating backs as he took the phone from the inside pocket of his leather jacket. There was no reason to suppose that the caller had left a message. Probably it would just tell him he had missed a call.
But the screen
showed him there was one message on his voicemail. He punched the key more viciously than he needed to.
The voice was harsher than the first time. Angrier.
‘What game do you think you’re playing at?’
That was all. The anonymous caller had snapped off.
Nick stared down at the little screen. It was odd. He realized his mood had changed subtly. He had no idea what his tormentor was talking about, but he sensed a shift in their power play. Yesterday and this morning, the caller had seemed totally in control of things. He knew who Nick was, what he had done. He made it sound as if he was planning sinister consequences which would flow from those actions.
Now something had made him angry. Not in that cold, menacing way of the first call. Nick had done something the man had not expected. There was not just viciousness but surprise in this latest voice message.
He shook his head in puzzlement. The man already knew that he had been to the police. All Nick had done since then was to foul things up by haring up to a housing estate and accusing the wrong person.
It couldn’t really be the Baptist minister, could it? A complicated disguise, involving his wife and children? Nick tried to remember the voice of Harry Redfern. Yes, it had been deep. The sort of voice that would resonate well from his chapel pulpit. But harsh, angry, like that question he had just heard? No. He resisted the urge to play the message again and try to compare them.
Suzie and Millie were disappearing through a gap between rose beds that led into the shopping precinct. On a sudden decision, he switched his phone off, put it back in his pocket and strode after them.
The pedestrianized street was an incongruous mixture. There were two boutiques, one displaying elegant clothes, the other expensive jewellery. At the far end rose two tall department stores. But for the most part, there were the little chain-store shops that you could see in any high street. Most bore printed stickers or crudely lettered placards proclaiming massive discounts. A significant number of shops were boarded up.
