¦
Cowgill was already there at the meeting place. Lois was about ten minutes late, and he looked at his watch. “For God’s sake!” she snapped. “I’ve got a business to run, and you’re damned lucky I’ve come at all! Miles out of my way, and washing and ironing to do at home!”
He said nothing, but smiled gently. “Gran not still with you?” he said mildly.
“Is there anything you don’t bloody well know?” she retorted. “Strikes me you could do without my penn’orth perfectly well. And anyway, what’s all this about Hazel?”
“Calm down, Lois,” he said in a firmer voice. “What I have to tell you is serious, and extremely confidential. If I didn’t value your help very highly I certainly wouldn’t be giving you this information. So just listen carefully, please…and don’t smoulder!” he added, touching her shoulder lightly.
“OK, OK, I’m sorry,” said Lois. “I’ve had a rotten day so far. Go on, then, cheer me up. What about Hazel?”
He began by telling her more or less the same stuff that Josie had described in the middle of the night. The school drugs scene, the young kids drawn into experimenting by those already hooked, the one or two tragedies. Then he surprised her. “Hazel Reading was a near disaster too,” he said. “First came to our notice when we picked her up out cold on the pavement outside that club in Tresham. All her so-called friends had vanished, just left her there, and she was in a bad way.”
“But Bridie never said…” Lois had gone very pale. If Hazel…and then Prue…who next? It was her turn to look at her watch. She must be back for the school bus.
“No, well, she wouldn’t, would she,” said Cowgill. “You were already prepared to wade in and rescue Bridie from her husband, and both Bridie and Hazel were anxious to avoid any more ructions from that quarter. No, Hazel recovered and nothing was said. Except that one day Hazel turned up at the police station, asking for me. Said she’d learned her lesson and wanted to get her own back on the pushers and dealers.”
“But did she know…?”
“Not then. She only knew kids who could get more or less anything…at a price. But she wanted to find out more and said she could do it, being part of the scene. I was very doubtful. It’s a dangerous world, as you’ve discovered,” he added, watching Lois’s colour come back. “I told her to take no action – and that was an order – but to keep her ear to the ground and let us know if she heard anything of interest.”
“So, ever since then she’s been working for you?” said Lois incredulously. “My God, she’s good at keeping it quiet. I never thought for a minute…”
“As you know,” Cowgill continued, “the theatre in Tresham is a hot spot. Joanne Murphy and the Gorilla – I like that! – are heavily into it, but as I said, they’re not the level we’re after. Hazel’s given us some good stuff, wormed her way backstage with offers of help, and is useful there.”
“And Gary Needham?” said Lois sharply.
“What about him?” said Cowgill. Lois knew by now when the shutters came down, and they’d just clattered into place. She was not going to learn anything about Gary, not now.
“And does Hazel know about me?” she said.
“No,” said Cowgill, “and that’s the way we’ll keep it at the moment. She’s fond of you, you know, and I don’t want her rushing to your defence when it’s not needed. Might spoil things.”
“Well, thanks,” said Lois bitterly. “I’ll just keep quiet if the Gorilla has another go at me with Hazel in earshot. I wouldn’t want to spoil things.”
And then she took a deep breath, decided he’d probably had a bad morning too, and told him about the Betts’s. He nodded, and said ‘Good’ several times. “He’s in with that theatre lot, isn’t he?” said Lois.
Cowgill nodded again. “Not sure how deep, if at all,” he said, “but it will be very useful having you in touch there. And you know how to get hold of me. I doubt if Mrs Murphy and the Gorilla will try anything on with you. They’ll be off on another tack.”
As she got into her car and drove back towards Long Farnden, Cowgill’s last words echoed in her head. What other tack would they try? Where was she most vulnerable? The answer to that was so obvious that she shivered. Her kids. Josie, Douglas and Jamie. It never occurred to her to add Derek to the list.
? Terror on Tuesday ?
Twenty-Seven
Sheila Stratford rinsed out the sink and took off her apron. She turned to her husband. “New job this afternoon, Sam,” she said.
“I know,” he said, from behind the pages of the
“Oh, you,” she said, cuffing him lightly round the ear. “D’you think I need police protection?”
Sam Stratford put down his paper and looked at her with a frown. “Wha’d’you mean?” he said. Sam was a farm worker, and expert at handling the enormous tractors, trailers and other fearsome pieces of equipment that had replaced men and horses. He was not so good at handling women. His mother had been a bossy woman, and he had married another. Usually he kept his head down, and said very little around the house, reserving conversation for his mates at the pub, where he went regular as clockwork at nine o’clock every night except Sunday. Now he was surprised into attention at what his wife was saying.
“I mean,” she said with emphasis, “it was all round the village that old Betts had made poor old Mrs Whatsit have a stroke…frightened her nearly to death with shouting and threatening her.
“Gossip,” said Sam. “Only ever seen him once in the pub, and he was as mild as milk. Blimey, is that the time?” He folded up the paper and vanished.
As Sheila heard the gate slam shut, she sighed. Sometimes she wished she was small and slim and delicate. Perhaps that would bring out the protector in Sam. Then she laughed, as she caught sight of her ample figure in the hall mirror. Her broad red face laughed back at her, and she smoothed down her mop of wiry hair. No, he wouldn’t have married her if she’d been a waif. Needed a good, strong woman, and that’s what he’d got.
She arrived at the schoolhouse five minutes early, just as the children were crowding into school after the afternoon bell. She knocked, and the door opened at once.
“Morning, Mrs Stratford!” said Mrs Betts warmly. “I had no idea you worked for New Brooms, until Mrs Meade called. I suppose I could have come to you direct?”
Sheila walked through to the kitchen, and decided to make the situation quite clear. “No,” she said, “I don’t do jobs on my own account. Just clients of New Brooms. Then I get the protection of the company if anything goes wrong,” she said firmly.
Mrs Betts stiffened. “I’m sure nothing will go wrong here,” she said. “Now, I’ll just show you round the house, and then leave you to get on. You know your job better than I do!” she added with an attempt at a smile. “We miss poor old Mrs Whatsit, but she was getting a bit past it,” she continued. “And then that nasty stroke. My husband tried his best to rally her, but we had to call the ambulance in the end.”
“Yes, I heard,” said Sheila baldly. “Now, we’d better get on. I have another job to go to later on.”
The house was neat and tidy, with a chintzy sitting room, a study for Mr Betts where the dining room would once have been, and a modern kitchen. Sheila peered out of the window and saw a path leading from the back door to a gate in the school fence. Teacher’s Way, the kids called it. Sheila had been a pupil in the school once, and now had grandchildren there. She knew a great deal more about its past and present than Mrs Betts.
Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a bathroom. “Master bedroom,” said Mrs Betts grandly. And then: “Here’s the guest room and Prue’s bedroom. But I’ve promised her she can clean that herself. You know what these young people are like, and she’s very private. Locks it when she goes out, but when she goes to college I plan to give it a good turn out.”
That’ll be a mistake, thought Sheila, but said nothing.
The afternoon went quickly, with a tea break at exactly three o’clock. At half past, Sheila washed out her dusters and hung them on the line in the garden. It was lovely sunny day, and the children were in the playground greeting waiting mothers and fathers. She waved to her granddaughter and went back into the house. “That’s it, then,” she said to Mrs Betts. “Mrs Meade will be calling before next week to make sure my work’s satisfactory and
