The Power of One (10 page)

The man had begun to rise as Tim leapt from the last steps. He seized the only weapon that came to hand; the little table that had once supported the phone. Tim grabbed it by the legs and as the man began to rise, Tim swung it with full force at his head. As the man went down for a second time they heard a shout from the back of the house.

Tim swore, grabbed the suitcase and followed Rina who had retrieved the holdall and was now storming through the door.

Pressing the key fob, Tim unlocked the car and Rina bundled the holdall inside, throwing herself after it and down on to the back seat. Tim threw the case into the car and then himself, locked the doors and shoved the key into the ignition. He swung the car about in a swirl of gravel, praying that the men in the house had no means of closing the gates before he could reach them.

‘Are you all right?'

‘Will be if you keep your foot down,' Rina urged from the back seat.

‘Shit! Keep your head low, Rina.' Tim, glancing in the mirror, could see the gun aimed directly at his rear screen. He swerved wildly, jinking as well as it is possible to jink in an ageing estate car, heard the shot but not the expected shattering of glass. Clipping the wing mirror as he practically threw the vehicle through the gate he turned sharp right, away from the house. Away from Frantham.

He was laughing by the time Rina sat up, straightened herself out and sedately fastened her seatbelt.

‘Funny is it?'

‘Oh, don't mind me. Just a hissy fit. I'm getting used to facing down men with guns. It seems to have happened quite a bit this year. And me, the only member of my blessed family that refused to go in the army!'

‘Where are we going?' Rina asked.

‘I thought I'd take a bit of a detour. Get back on to the Honiton Road as fast as I can and take the back way back home. I'm hoping they didn't get too good a look at our license plate.'

‘Did you get a good look at
them
?'

Tim shuddered. ‘At the gun, yes. At the man holding it, I'm not too sure. I'll be in need of Matthew's tender ministrations I think before I can get it clear in my head.' He sobered, the full realisation of the situation coming home to him as the adrenaline receded. ‘This is serious, Rina,' Tim said. ‘Much more than we can handle on our own.'

B
y the time they reached Frantham, Tim had called in reinforcements. It would take their friend, Fitch, a few hours to get to them from Manchester, but he sounded happy to be summoned. Tim said they'd brief him properly when he arrived.

‘Good to have willing friends,' he said. The Duggans had sent their love, and Joy announced her intention to visit once the crisis was over, which had cheered Tim up no end. Joy Duggan, now just turned twenty years old, had come into their lives rather precipitously earlier that year when her brother had been murdered and she had been kidnapped. Tim, while horribly aware that she was twelve years his junior, really had quite a thing for her, as Bethany would have said, and, from what Rina had seen, the feelings were reciprocated. And, after all, Rina thought as she watched Tim's expression soften at the thought of Joy, the one thing stopping them from taking things further was easily fixed by waiting a year or two.

Fitch, originally an employee of Joy's father, was, as a result of what had happened that Spring, now more a member of the family and Rina knew the Duggans felt they owed herself and Tim a great debt. She was profoundly glad to be able to call on that now.

‘We shouldn't tell Lydia and Edward,' Rina said. ‘That we've been shot at, I mean.'

‘Lucky he missed then,' Tim said. ‘But Rina, as soon as our guests are safe, we have to tell Mac what happened at the house. Someone else might get in their way and not be so lucky. As it is, I think you'll be the one waving the white flag this time. And I think you should have those flowers and chocolates ready in reserve.'

An hour later and with basic equipment quickly gathered, the de Freitas's were ready to leave. Rina had revised her earlier plans and they would now be taken to the old farm she had thought of, just until Fitch could get to them. He would collect them from there and take them North, the Duggans having far more resources of the security kind at their disposal than Rina could possible muster. And, Rina figured, given the late Jimmy Duggan's various criminal contacts and connections – many of which, Rina admitted, she'd still rather not know about – it was likely that they might be able to get a handle on what was going on.

‘Can't we just stay here?' Lydia had asked, nervous of moving from a place of safety.

Rina exchanged a glance with Tim. ‘We think someone was watching when we left the house,' she said, resorting to a half-truth. ‘Just in case they trace the car, I'd like to get you away from here.'

Lydia stared at her, then nodded. ‘I'm scared, Rina. I thought I could handle just about anything. I've always been the strong one, the organised one. Kept things anchored while Edward did his thing, you know? But I can't handle this.'

‘You can,' Rina told her. ‘You are. Our friend will come and get you and take you somewhere safe and we'll sort things out at this end.'

‘But what if they come after you? Rina, I just can't believe I've been so thoughtless as to involve you and the rest of them. What if …'

Rina patted her arm. ‘We'll be fine,' she said. ‘Let's just get you away, shall we?'

They took the de Freitas's out the back way, into a narrow street where Tim regularly parked the car. It was a dead end, used mainly by local residents, so strange cars stood out as did anyone hanging about. Matthew did a quick reconnaissance, walking round the block and coming back in the front door, while Steven watched from the upstairs window. Their bags already in the vehicle, it remained only for Lydia and Edward to join them. A last check and Tim hustled them inside. They ducked down in the back, plaid blankets Tim kept in the car pulled over their heads.

‘I'll have to go straight on to work,' Tim told Rina. ‘I'll give you a call about eight thirty, after my first set. Meantime, you get on to Mac, OK?'

Rina nodded. ‘Now go, and Tim, take care.'

R
ina waited half an hour before she called Mac. Half an hour of pacing and fretting and looking anxiously out of the window for cars that might suddenly have moved or strangers that showed too much interest in Peverill Lodge.

Mac wasn't there, and Sergeant Baker, curious as to what the redoubtable Mrs Martin wanted, didn't know when he'd be back.

‘No, thank you,' Rina told him. ‘I don't think you can help. Will you just ask him to give me a ring?'

She stood in the hall, undecided. Then tried Mac's mobile only to be diverted on to his voicemail.

‘Oh, for goodness sake.' She gave up and instead marched into the kitchen and, for want of anything else to do, filled the kettle and set it on the range.

‘You won't help anything by storming around like some unhappy rhino, Rina dear,' Bethany told her from the doorway. ‘Not that you are anything like a rhino, of course, you're far too slim and elegant for that.'

‘But they do talk about a crash of rhino, don't they?' Eliza attempted to come to her sister's rescue. ‘And you are crashing rather.'

Rina turned, exasperated, harsh words rising to her lips. She swallowed them down; the sight of the Peters sisters, pretty, still artfully blonde, still, Rina thought, children despite their now advancing years, doused her anger.

‘I've always thought of Rina more as a secretary bird,' Matthew said, wandering in. ‘All elegance and jaunty feathers and long neck but with a sharp beak at the ready to impale her prey.'

Rina, who in turn had always thought of Matthew as a man-sized saluki, couldn't help but laugh. ‘I'm not sure I like your version of me any better,' she said. ‘But you're right, this really won't help anyone. Better to be doing.'

She patted Matthew affectionately on the arm and sailed out of the kitchen, thinking about the photocopy Mac had given her. That was a puzzle to solve and, hopefully, something to take her mind off the worry. She knew Tim had been as shaken as she had by the gunshot and was as concerned as Rina that the gunman would have found out who and where they were. He'd be alert and careful.

Perhaps she should have confided in Sergeant Baker.

Shaking her head and forcibly pushing her anxiety aside, Rina went into her little room and closed the door.

‘What is this place?' Lydia asked as they got out of the car in front of the old farmhouse. The drive was even more overgrown than Tim remembered it, nettles and brambles reaching out across the gap, hawthorn scraping the sides of the car. The privet hedge that surrounded the farmyard itself was a good foot higher, twined through with bindweed and belladonna. Birds sang, but beyond that there was utter silence.

Two of the farmhouse windows had been boarded up since Tim had last been there and the front door had gained a padlock; Tim supposed the police had affixed that when the house was still considered a crime scene.

‘Who owns this place?'

‘I actually have no idea,' Tim said. ‘But no one's lived here in years. You won't be here for long and you saw how long the drive was. We can't be seen from the road.'

‘It still looks … I don't know. Creepy. How did you know about this place?'

Tim was rummaging in the boot of the car, sorting through his tool kit, trying to find something to break the padlock off the door. He wondered what to tell Lydia in response to her question. He'd been puzzling about this since they left Peverill Lodge and now decided something close to the truth would have to do. A large screwdriver found to attack the door, he emerged from behind the car. ‘Just before you came to live in Frantham, there was a kidnapping, just a few miles away. Two little girls. They were held here for a while. Our friend Fitch helped to find them.'

‘Oh, my God,' Lydia said. ‘I read about that in the newspaper. Wasn't there a siege or something?'

Tim nodded. He slid the blade of the screwdriver behind the door and pulled, wrenching the screws out of the door frame with a splintering crack.

He held the door open. ‘Shall we? Don't worry, it's only for a few hours. Fitch has somewhere far more comfortable in mind.'

Reluctantly, they followed Tim in. ‘Kitchen on the left, living room on the right. There's a toilet through the back there and I can soon get the water back on.' He stood, uncertain, at the foot of the stairs, ‘Look. I know it's kind of, well, primitive …'

‘Do we have to stay here?'

Edward took his wife's hand. ‘Think of it as camping out,' he said. ‘We've not done that since before we got married.'

Looking at him, Tim was surprised to find that Edward actually looked better than he had since he'd arrived at Peverill Lodge. Some of the colour had returned to his cheeks and he had a look of purposefulness in his eyes.

‘Camping out?' Lydia stared at him in disbelief, then to Tim's relief she laughed out loud. ‘Oh, lord; you are such an idiot sometimes.' She kissed him gently on the cheek and Tim retreated to fetch their gear from the car. Something about that little kiss was so tender and so intimate he could not have felt more like a voyeur if he'd surprised them making love. He took his time taking the suitcases and the supplies from the car. As Edward came out to help, Tim's phone rang. It was Fitch, with an ETA. Tim handed the phone to Edward so that he could speak with their incipient rescuer and by the time he gave the mobile back to Tim, he was looking happier and more confident.

‘I'm going to have to be off soon,' Tim said as they carried bags and supplies back into the house. ‘I've got to get to work and I want to take the long way round.'

‘We'll be fine,' Lydia told him. ‘Don't worry. And we really are grateful, you know.' She smiled, wryly. ‘It's all a bit surreal, isn't it? Paul would have used this as a scenario for a game.'

She glanced anxiously at her husband, suddenly aware that she might have said the wrong thing. Edward slipped an arm around her shoulder.

‘Well,' he said softly. ‘I think we shall have to do it for him, won't we?'

Rina was trying to work out where the clipping might have come from. Not having the actual article was a nuisance;
The Frantham Gazette
, a little pamphlet of a thing imparting parish news had quite a distinctive pinkish look and the
Echo
, the local free paper, purveyor of coastal news and advertising for local business had a buff hue, like most of the bigger locals, for whom that was a little offshoot.

She dragged out various examples from the recycling bin, collecting a mug of tea on the way through the kitchen and then began the task of comparing typefaces. Her worry was this advert came from one of the national papers and therefore might be much more difficult to place but a quick flick through of the personal ads, and more precisely the funeral announcements, convinced her that she was looking at a torn up bit of the
Echo
. Same typeface, same typical layout, so far as she could tell, the real giveaway being the double black line that surrounded all funerary announcements.

Returning to the kitchen with her discards and helping herself to more tea, Rina rummaged in the recycling for any other copies of the
Echo
; came up with three.

‘Births, marriages and deaths,' she said as she passed a mystified Steven in the hall.

She was familiar with the layout of these columns in the
Echo
, but she had only ever scanned them before, not analysed the layout in any depth. Death announcements, as was usual, were in the later columns, with funeral information always on the right hand page and in the column closest to the edge. They all had this double black line, though they varied in size and some had other emblems of death and mourning. Ivy leaves and funeral urns seemed popular, she noted. She wondered, in a spirit of mischief, if she could arrange to have dancing skeletons on hers and then abandoned the idea on the grounds that she wouldn't be there to share the joke.