does. Go on, Mum, get goin,” he added, patting her reassuringly on the arm. “Sooner he’s back here the better.”
Gran got up from the table and, much to his embarrassment, hugged Douglas tight. “Good lad,” she whispered. Josie sniffed, and Lois and Derek went out again into the night without saying another word.
¦
In the now total darkness, Jamie sat in the truck cab, frozen with fear. He daren’t look behind to see if the man was still there. He couldn’t hear any sounds of Mr Abraham, who had vanished. He thought of getting out and running off, running anywhere, so long as it was away from this dreadful place. Then he remembered the staring man. He’d be out of the back of the truck in no time, and could catch him with no trouble.
Walter Abraham was searching in the old barn for stuff to dry out condensation on the spark plugs. He was sure there some somewhere. Bloody truck! Trust it to seize up just when he needed it most! The boy had been quite cheerful, up until the time he claimed there was a man in the back. He could’ve got him home, apologized to his parents, and no more would have been said. He stood back and surveyed the shelves. Not there, then. Perhaps it was in the house, in the back scullery. He probably left it there when he’d last used it.
He came out of the barn, needing no light to see his way. But as he approached the truck, the clouds parted and suddenly, like the moment of Creation, there was light. The moon shone into the yard, casting long shadows, but illuminating clearly the truck and Jamie’s bike in the back. And – Walter peered closer – the hunched figure of a man. He recognized him at once. It was his son, Edward, crouching like a hunted animal waiting to spring.
Jamie, surprised by the blessed moonlight, turned once more to look through the dusty window. He saw the man stand up, and then, horrified, watched him leap out of the back of the truck, straight on to the bent figure of Mr Abraham. Both men went down to the ground, and he heard muffled shouts and groans.
It was too much for Jamie. He opened the truck door, and jumped down, yelling and screaming. He rushed over to the men, and began pummelling them with his fists. “Stop it! Stop it!” he shouted. “Stop it, or I’ll get Miss Abraham!”
Weak with the effort, he stood back, near to tears, and suddenly felt hands on his shoulders. “What the bloody hell’s going on here?” said a deep voice. Jamie whipped round, and saw his mum’s cleaner, Bill.
The attacker rapidly got to his feet, abandoned Walter, who lay motionless on the ground, and began to run. He was very fast, and though Bill chased him halfway up the track, he lost him. In any case, as he said to Lois afterwards, he thought it best to make sure Jamie was OK, and have a look at the old man.
Minutes later, Derek’s van drove into the yard, and Lois ran over to Jamie, hugging him as if she’d never let him go. “Mum, please!” he said. “Is Mr Abraham all right? That man was trying to kill him!”
But Walter had moaned and, with Bill’s help, sat up, rubbing his head. “Ruddy burglar!” they heard him say. “Took me by surprise. Is the lad all right?”
Now Enid came rushing out of the house, and helped get Walter to his feet. When he was sitting safely in his chair by the fire, assuring them he needed no doctor except a glass of whisky, Lois, Derek and Bill stood in a huddle by the door. “Will you be OK with him, Enid?” Lois said. Her tone was not friendly. “I’ll ring the police when I get home.”
“No need,” said Enid, very firmly. “I shall do it, thank you, Mrs Meade. I can give them all the details, and Father can help. We’re grateful to all of you…” Here Walter nodded, and muttered his thanks.
“And as for Jamie, and what has happened here tonight,” said Lois coldly, “I will be in touch tomorrow, Enid. And you’d better have a bloody good explanation for all this.”
Enid stared at her. “But Jamie said you knew he was here…” she said, her confidence collapsing. Surely the boy wouldn’t have lied to her?
“Yeah, well, we’ll see,” said Lois. “But there’s a lot more questions I want answers to. Like why you didn’t answer the phone just now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“I never answer the phone in the evenings…” said Enid dully, unable to explain how much she dreaded hearing her brother’s voice, knowing that whatever he had to say would inevitably involve her in something she did not want to do.
“For God’s sake, why not!” said Lois, but Enid turned away sadly.
Bill went off into the darkness on his bike, now elevated to hero status in the eyes of Jamie, and the three Meades returned to Long Farnden in total silence.
? Weeping on Wednesday ?
Thirty
Next morning, Wednesday, Enid was due to be at the Charringtons’, just up the road from the mill. Rosie looked around at her untidy, grubby kitchen and looked forward to the clean-up miracle Enid could be relied on to work on it. However, at nine o’clock, half an hour later than Enid usually arrived, Rosie looked at her watch and said to Anna, “Where on earth is she? It’s not like her to be late. Perhaps I should give her a ring.”
Anna, whose dislike of Enid had not abated, replied that even Miss Perfect slipped up sometimes. Like last night.
“What
Rosie’s little homily closed the conversation, and it was not until she had gone outside to feed the rabbit – the children could not be trusted – that she remembered Anna’s remark about ‘last night’. When she came in again, she reminded her, and saw Anna hesitate. “Well,” she said. “It was not really about Miss Abraham. I took the puppy for a little walk – to do a pee-pee, as you say – and saw a boy with his bicycle. He said he was Jamie…I think…yes, Jamie Meade, and had got off to fix his light. I asked him where he was going…” She paused.
“And where was he going?” said Rosie. She did wish Anna would not invest every story with high drama.
“To the mill, he said. For a piano lesson with Miss Abraham. Do you not think that curious? What about the mother, the recluse? And the grumpy old father?”
“And the villainous son,” said Rosie grimly. “Well, I’m going to ring Lois Meade and hope that she can send someone else in Enid’s place. I could ask after Jamie, too.”
Lois’s answered immediately. “Morning, Mrs Charrington,” she said. “Nothing wrong, I hope?” She was feeling tired. They had had a long post mortem last night, once they’d got Jamie home and put his bike safely in the shed. Gran had been anxious to get the boy to bed, but Derek had put him through a grilling, wanting to know exactly what had happened at the mill, and whether he had been frightened or hurt. Jamie had been defensive. “They were very nice to me,” he’d said. When he’d described the noise from Enid’s mother’s room, he had played down his fear. He’d been worried that Dad would stop his piano lessons if he thought there’d been any kind of danger. And, anyway, even though he’d been terrified for a while, he was sure none of them would have harmed him. It was just that burglar…And that hadn’t been the Abrahams’ fault. He hoped the police would catch him. Poor old Mr Abraham…
Lois had been sitting at her desk, about to ring Cowgill, when Rosie rang. Although Jamie had been pretty convincing, Lois knew him too well. He’d been frightened by something, she was sure, and was covering up. She knew why, of course, and felt sorry for him. When Derek had finished with him, she’d gone in and tucked him up as if he was still a little lad. “Dad’s been very worried,” she’d said. “We all were. Don’t do a silly thing like that again, will you? Night, love,” she had added, and kissed him lightly. He’d sighed deeply and turned on his side, but it was a good hour before he fell asleep.
For all Jamie’s efforts to make light of the circumstances, Lois had known the minute they got out of the van in the mill yard that something was nastily wrong. It was the so-called burglar. She and Derek had seen nobody on their way down the lane, and Bill had said the intruder had crashed through a gap in the track hedge and disappeared across the field into woods. Would a burglar do that? And wouldn’t he have had a getaway car? No, it all felt very much awry. She would ask Jamie no more questions. He must put it out of his mind. The piano lessons were another matter. It would all depend on what Enid had to say when she came in this morning. Meanwhile, Cowgill should know the details so far.
Rosie was saying something, and Lois tried hard to focus on a long rambling speech about the puppy and
