The Overlooker (15 page)

Nick warmed to the sudden enthusiasm in Millie's face. He shared a grin with her. ‘I'd always thought of this part of my family as straightforward working class. Toiling in the mills. Doing what other people told them. Making the best of what little they had. I didn't know there was a more radical streak to them.'

‘Now I know where it comes from,' Suzie said. ‘That propensity for lawlessness. Breaking and entering someone else's property.'

Nick looked up, startled. There was a momentary pause before he had a picture of a broken grille over the window of a derelict mill. Climbing in.

Thelma looked confused.

‘Come on, Suzie,' he defended himself. We didn't do any harm. I was just curious.'

‘Anyway,' Millie said. ‘I'm with Esther.'

‘You would be. As far as I remember, breaking and entering was your idea.'

Nick lifted the rest of the letters out. He thumbed through the mementos beneath.

‘My head's reeling. There's so much stuff here. Photographs, obituaries, letters. I can't take it all in.' He put down the letters and closed the suitcase. ‘That's as much as I can handle for tonight. We'll do some more tomorrow.'

Thelma had gone back to recounting stories of her girlhood. Nick had childhood memories of hearing them before.

‘I used to love taking that bike out. It only took us fifteen minutes to get to the foot of Skygill Hill. Then we'd leave our bikes at the café and set out to climb it on foot. Will you be going up it while you're here? You ought to show Suzie and Millie.'

‘Oh?' Nick shook himself back to the present. ‘We certainly will. I'm saving that for Saturday, when Tom's here.'

‘What about tomorrow, then?'

‘We've arranged to meet Tom at the hospital in the afternoon. We haven't made plans for the morning.'

‘I have,' Millie said eagerly. ‘More shopping. You promised.'

‘Or we could drive out to Briershaw. Look for this chapel Jephthah writes about.'

‘Dad!'

‘You can go shopping any time. And even after half an hour, you seemed to come home with half the shopping mall this afternoon. You don't have to waste the rest of the holiday on it.'

He could not decide whether her pout was pretended or real.

It had been a fascinating evening. His whole perception of his family had shifted. It was not until he was climbing the stairs some time later that the cloud of apprehension descended again.

Suzie was already in the bedroom. Nick hung his leather jacket in the wardrobe. He was about to shut the door when he hesitated.

Suzie's voice came from behind him. ‘Go on, then. Get it over with. You've got to switch it back on sometime.'

‘I didn't know you'd been reading my thoughts.'

‘You've been like a cat on hot bricks. Every time I think you've got carried away with family history, you'd go suddenly quiet. I could feel you twitching.'

‘It was all that talk about the Baptist chapel. Then I'd remember Harry Redfern. The Baptist Rev. It may not have been him following us, but somebody must be.'

‘Switch it on, for goodness' sake. Then we can both get a good night's sleep.'

He reached into the wardrobe for the mobile in his jacket pocket. For a moment he stood staring down at it. Then, with sudden resolution, he snapped it on.

There was one new text message.

‘VENGEANCE IS MINE. I WILL REPAY.'

In silence, he passed it to Suzie.

She frowned. ‘It's a pity he's forgotten the last bit.'

‘What?'

‘It's in the Bible.
Vengeance is mine. I will repay, says the Lord.
We're not supposed to take matters into our own hands.'

‘Do you think that by vengeance he means us? Or is he talking about the punishing the world in general?'

‘Are you going to tell Inspector Heap now?'

Nick shrugged. ‘What's the point? She's already decided this isn't big-time crime. Just somebody who's annoyed we've shopped him and has decided to harass us to get his own back. And now Inspector Harland's warned me off . . . But that still doesn't explain the first call. How did he know so much about me?'

Suzie sat down on the bed. ‘There's something else bugging me. That quote. Where have I heard something like that before?'

Nick went to the bathroom. When he came back, Suzie had changed into her nightdress. But she still sat up on the bed with her knees hunched before her.

Suddenly her head shot up. Her face was alive with discovery. ‘I know what that biblical stuff reminds me of! Millie spotted it first with those old family names.'

‘Yes?'

‘Geoffrey Banks. The cousin from next door. He keeps coming out with sayings like that. What was it this evening?
He weakened my strength in the way; he shortened my days.
'

Nick stared at her uneasily. ‘Geoffrey? You're not serious! I can't believe he has anything to do with those women in Hugh Street.'

‘He may not be a crime boss, but he has a supersize chip on his shoulder. I mean, I know it's tough being thrown out of work at his age, but to hear him talk, you'd think it was part of some apocalyptic endgame. God will get his own back on a sinful world.'

She wriggled down under the bedclothes. As Nick got in beside her she said, ‘There's something else. He's in and out of this house all the time. He must know more about our movements than anyone else in this town. What if the phone calls have nothing to do with Hugh Street? What if it's just because you're a soft southerner with an architect's practice and a nice car?'

She snapped off the light. Nick lay in the darkness staring up at the faint glimmer of the ceiling. Could she be right? Had he allowed himself to be obsessed with anxiety for nothing?

Then he rolled over and said quietly against her back, ‘You're forgetting something. That first phone call told us not to go to the police. Why would Geoffrey do that?'

N
ick stretched and yawned. He was standing at the window in his pyjamas. Sunlight was already gilding the crags above him. He had a feeling that there was something special about today. He struggled to remember what it was.

Tom! At last. This was the day when they would meet up with their eighteen-year-old son. It was a month since they had waved him off to university on the train. Nick had offered to drive him, but Tom had insisted that he didn't want to be taken there in his parent's car. Even as he gave him a last hug, Nick had known that his son was putting down a marker. He was leaving home.

But today he could push that thought behind him. Tom would catch a local train after his last lecture of the week. He would meet the rest of the family in the hospital foyer. They would have the weekend together, while Nick took pride in showing the next generation to carry the Fewings name what he had discovered about his family.

The pleasure lasted only a few moments before reality caught up with his sleepy brain.

Someone was threatening to harm his family.

He turned to see Suzie's sleep-softened face just coming round into wakefulness. Already he could feel the tightening in his throat. If the threat
was
real, and not just phone-bullying, how could he keep them safe?

As Suzie opened her eyes, he thought about her theory that it might have been nothing to do with Hugh Street. That the caller was Geoffrey Banks, bitter against a world that had thrown him on the scrapheap, and wanting to get his own back on a successful architect from the south. But even if she was right, Geoffrey wouldn't really hurt the Fewings, would he?

He shivered a little, and made for the bathroom to shower. Whatever was going on, he would keep a close eye on his family.

‘We're taking you out to supper tonight,' Nick told Thelma at breakfast. ‘And you needn't bother rushing home to get lunch for us. I don't know what we're doing this morning yet, but we'll get our own.'

‘It's no trouble. I've been coming home to cook something for Dad ever since he retired. I wouldn't know what to do with myself if I stayed in town.'

‘Go shopping?' said Millie hopefully. ‘That's what
I
want to do this morning.'

Suzie sighed. ‘Love, we've got the same sort of shops back home. We don't want to waste a whole morning on that, when we've got this once-only chance to find out as much about Dad's ancestors as we can.
Your
ancestors,' she corrected herself.

‘It may surprise you to know that there are some
people in this world who are not nuts about genealogy.'

‘You were interested in Millie Bootle, scavenging under the machines. And Esther Fewings, shoving the bailiff's writ down his collar. And anyway, we shan't be able to stay all afternoon with Uncle Martin. Why don't we go down into town after that?'

‘I suppose so,' Millie muttered reluctantly.

‘Right!' Nick exclaimed with a show of brightness, as he and Suzie readied themselves for the day. ‘Briershaw Chapel. Where all those Fewings brothers with biblical names lived, before the family moved into town.'

‘And Esther,' Suzie reminded him. ‘The firebrand who had a run-in with the bailiffs.'

‘Whatever Millie may say, I think she's taken to Esther as a role model.'

‘How far is it?'

‘Not too far. About ten miles at a guess. We'll be back in time for lunch.'

‘I know it seems a lot of work for Thelma to come home and cook it, but, honestly, I think she needs it. Someone to look after, I mean. She's missing her father more than she lets on.'

‘Right, then. After you.'

Suzie went ahead of him down the stairs. She walked out on to the gravelled drive.

Geoffrey Banks was bending over as if to inspect the Fewings' car.

Nick's first instinct of shock was overtaken by Suzie's reaction. He was startled by the speed with which she hurled herself across the drive to confront him. Yesterday, she had been embarrassed by his verbal onslaught on the Reverend Redfern. She had no such inhibitions now.

‘What do you think you're doing? Get away from our car!'

The scrawny chemist with the dirty yellowish hair backed away in alarm.

Suzie's flow of rage went on. ‘Isn't it enough that you've been harassing Nick with phone messages practically ever since we've been here? Were you trying to sabotage our car as well? I'm very sorry you're out of work, but it's not our fault!'

Nick was out on the drive behind her now. Geoffrey's watery blue eyes were darting from one to the other.

‘Suzie!' Nick said, trying to keep his voice reasonable. Despite the suspicions that chased each other round his mind, he could not believe that this rather pitiful figure had anything to do with it.

Geoffrey had recovered from his initial shock. His eyes narrowed. He almost spat the words at Suzie.

‘He that trusteth in his riches shall fall, but the righteous shall flourish as a branch.'

‘Hang on,' Nick protested. ‘It's just a Mazda Six. It's a nice car, but it's not exactly the coronation coach.'

Even as he spoke, his eyes went along the drive. For the first time he realized. There was no car parked outside Geoffrey's house. Not even a battered old runabout. Was that something he had had to give up when the redundancy money ran out? Nick felt an uneasy squirm of conscience. His own car was not ostentatious, but it was almost new. Was that enough to explain the look of near hatred in those pale blue eyes?

He moved protectively beside the car. Suzie couldn't be right, could she? Could Geoffrey have been trying to tamper with the car in full of view of Thelma's house?

The man turned on him now.
‘The wicked in his pride doth persecute the poor; let them be taken in the devices that they have imagined.'

‘We haven't imagined any
devices
,' Suzie countered. ‘But you have.'

Through the open door behind her, Thelma came hurrying out. She was dressed for work in a lime green suit. Her kindly face creased now with anxiety.

‘What's up with you lot? I could hear voices from inside. Was that you, Suzie? Shouting at Geoffrey? And what's got
you
all steamed up?' she said to her older cousin.

‘It's nothing,' Nick put in hurriedly. ‘Geoffrey was having a look at our car. It was just a misunderstanding.'

Someone else had appeared on the doorstep behind Thelma. Millie's small face looked mystified and, more than that, alarmed.

‘Would someone mind telling me just what's going on?'

Her eyes went accusingly from Nick to Suzie and back.

Nick felt a sense of betrayal. Perhaps they should have told her more. But he could not explain it all now, especially in front of Thelma.

‘We're going to Briershaw,' he told his cousin. ‘We'll be back for lunch. And then we'll introduce the kids to Uncle Martin.'

With Suzie and Millie on board, he put the car into neutral. He found he was oddly nervous. He had been quick to dismiss the idea that Geoffrey Banks could have done something to the car. But the man had been an industrial chemist. He probably understood more about the workings of a car than Nick did. He saw again the hatred in the watery blue eyes.

He might even . . . There was a sudden catch in Nick's breath. But it was too late now. He had turned the key. The ignition fired. His mouth opened to yell at Suzie and Millie to get out.

The engine settled to a steady purr. Nick relaxed somewhat. He had nearly made a fool of himself again. It was ridiculous to think of Geoffrey Banks, the disappointed chemist, making a car bomb in his garden shed. He was just a rather sad man whose life had been taken away from him.

All the same, he drove rather more carefully than usual to the end of the drive. He negotiated an unexpected pedestrian on the corner and turned up the steep hill out of town.