Wanted (Flick Carter Book 1) (16 page)

She finished serving the drinks. When she turned, she saw that the vicar had taken a stool at the bar, and placed his hat on the counter top. She returned to the bar, wiping her hands on her apron.

‘We don’t often see you in here, Reverend, what’ll it be?’ Flick asked, smiling.

‘Er, oh, yes,’ he stammered, ‘a small ale if you would be so kind.’

‘Coming right up,’ Flick said.

She found a half-pint glass from behind the bar and pulled the beer.

‘There you go,’ she said, setting the beer onto the bar top, ‘that’ll be a quid fifty.’

The vicar rummaged in his pockets and handed over the coins. Flick took the money and rang up the till. Then she grabbed a cloth and started mopping up the bar counter.

‘Most unfortunate what happened in here the other day,’ the vicar said, staring straight at her.

Flick swallowed. She hadn’t expected the vicar even to know about it, but word must have got around. She thought for a moment about what she would say.

‘Yeah,’ she said finally, ‘it’s not like the mayor to get rough on an inspection. Don’t know what got into him. Trade was down for a few days and we had to give some of the guests free board, but we’re bouncing back.’

That seemed to satisfy the vicar, who nodded and sipped at his beer.

‘Glad to hear it,’ he said after a moment. Then he put his glass down and lowered his voice, ‘Forgive me if I am wrong, but I am given to understand that you may be looking for a certain young gentleman?’

What? How in hell did he know? Was he a lackey of Griffin’s?
 

Flick wanted to run into the kitchen and hide, but she held her face steady and continued wiping the bar without missing a beat.

‘I’m not that sort of girl, I’m sure,’ she replied, the merest hint of a tremble in her voice.

‘No, no, you misunderstand me,’ said the vicar, ‘there is a certain young gentleman of your acquaintance, and also, as it happens, of my acquaintance, that is, how shall we say,
not
looking to be found?’

She had crept out the night before and gone to the derelict house on Church Street, hoping to find Shea, but although there were signs that someone had been there recently, it was empty. She had presumed that Shea had moved on. Sneaking back home, she’d been careful to stick to the shadows and watch out for anyone following her, but the road went past the vicarage, so he could easily have spotted her from a window without her knowing.

‘Go on,’ she said, warily.

‘Well, this certain young gentleman has asked me to apologise to you for not being where he was expected to be. He felt that under the circumstances you would understand his reluctance to come here himself.’

Flick said nothing, but continued to wipe. The bar was going to be very clean, in this one spot at least.

The reverend continued. ‘And he’s asked me to act as a go-between, and set up a meeting.’

Here it comes
…

‘One last thing,’ said the vicar, seemingly changing the subject, ‘did he threaten you at all? The mayor, I mean?’ He looked her straight in the eye. ‘Think carefully before you answer.’

‘No,’ said Flick, a little too quickly. She met the vicar’s eyes and emphasised her words. ‘He did not threaten me, and he did not threaten my sister.’

The vicar studied her for a long moment.

‘I see,’ he said.

‘Come on darlin’, get us some drinks, we’re dying of thirst down here!’ The call came from the other end of the bar where three heavy-set strangers were waving their money at her. Flick shrugged at the vicar and moved off to serve them.

‘We thought you’d got religion or something,’ the second man said.

‘Well, something anyway,’ leered the third. He made as if to reach for his glass, but instead grabbed Flick by the arm. His leer turned to a sneer. ‘Now just tell us what you were talking about, and maybe we can keep this civil,’ he growled.

Flick pulled her arm back. ‘Don’t you threaten me,’ she said in a voice loud enough to carry over the background noise in the bar. Immediately the room went quiet. ‘The vicar was just enquiring how we were holding up after the mayor’s inspection and I told him fine thank you very much.’
 

She looked over towards the vicar at the other end of the bar and he raised his glass at them and smiled.

‘Now I suggest you finish your drink and leave. My friend Fred here will show you to the door.’

The men slowly turned around to see Fred, Bill, Stanley and Alf, standing behind them, still in their Watch uniforms and with big grins on their faces.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ she said, turning back to the vicar. ‘Some people these days, well they’ve got no manners…’
 

But he’d gone.

As she tidied up his empty glass, she spotted a small folded piece of paper wedged under it. She picked it up and looked at it. It appeared to be a message. She read the words out carefully, it said:

Meet me in the library.

Tomorrow

Ten O’Clock

S.

Flick folded the paper and shoved it into the pocket of her apron. There was a loud crash as the main door slammed, making her jump.
 

Stanley looked apologetic. ‘Oops, sorry!’ he called. ‘They was a bit reluctant to leave. Still, good riddance to bad rubbish, as me mum would say.’ Then all of a sudden he was standing at the bar.

‘Another round please, love.’ He slapped the coins down on the bar and grinned.

FLICK SPENT A restless night, tossing and turning. Her dreams were filled with images of Shea running through the countryside being chased by a troop of horses, each ridden by Mayor Griffin, or of Shea hiding in the library with hordes of knife-wielding thugs closing in, and her standing there with them, holding her own knife and powerless to stop. Or Shea on the scaffold with a rope around his neck, and the person pulling the handle to the trapdoor was not the mayor, it was her.

 
She woke with a start. It was still dark, but not so dark that she couldn’t make out the contents of her room, and so she decided to get up; it was either that or go back to the horrid dreams.
 

She lit a candle and took it over to the night stand, where she splashed cold water on her face from the bowl. The dreams had left her sweaty and sticky, and there was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. As she dried off, she studied her face in the mirror.

What had she got herself into?

Who did she trust?

Why did Shea trust her?

It was obvious no matter what, that she couldn’t let Shea be captured. If he were caught, she was certain he would be killed, and it would be her fault. She made up her mind. She couldn’t tell the mayor anything. Immediately she felt better, and almost risked a smile. Now she could see Shea and warn him that Griffin was after him; tell him to get out of town.

She dropped into the kitchen on her way out. Maggs was cooking eggs and bacon on the stove.

‘Mmm… that smells good,’ Flick said.

‘Want some?’

‘Nah I have to run some errands. Swig of tea and some bread and cheese will do me; I’ll eat on the hoof.’

Maggs poured out some tea while Flick raided the pantry and made up some sandwiches.

The early brightness didn’t last long, and a low overcast developed, grey and ominous, threatening bad weather to come. A steady cold wind blew from the north-east, so Flick wrapped up warm.

The library was a smart, two storey building in Gloucester Street, close to the school. Gloucester Street was mostly residential, and quite narrow. The houses butted directly onto the pavement, with no front gardens, but some had alleyways leading down the side, giving access to the rear. Fred and Maggs lived in that street, and one of the alleys ran down the side of their house. Maggs was already at work in the Crown, but Fred? Well the Watch hours were often described as “easy”, so there was a good chance that he might be there. She didn’t want to involve him, but at least if he saw her, he wouldn’t give her away, or so she hoped.

The alley turned out to be sheltered from the wind, and the overcast meant that there she cast no shadow, two things that were definitely in her favour. She settled in to wait.

Several people walked past her hiding place, heading into town on their way to work. They didn’t notice her. Then there were the young kids walking to school. When Flick spotted Rosie, she ducked further back into the alley, beyond where it turned a corner and waited for her to go past. Eventually there was no one, and so she pulled out her sandwiches and started eating. The street stayed clear. From her viewpoint, she could see the library across the street and a good distance up and down each way. The entrance to the library was in the side street that led to the school, and she couldn’t see that. But that street just led to the school playing fields and the grounds at the back of the mayor’s mansion.

In the distance, she heard the town clock strike ten. There had been nobody walking along the street for a good half hour, no vehicles either. Surely that meant that Shea wasn’t going to show up. She decided to take one quick look down the side street at the library entrance just to make sure. The street was empty, but she turned down it anyway. Just as she reached the library door, it opened a crack.

‘Pssst!’

Flick looked. There was someone in the shadows beckoning. She went over… yes, it was Shea! He was
inside
the library. Had he been there all along? All that time hiding outside in the cold, when she could have been in the warm?

‘What…’ was all she managed to say.

‘Shh. Inside, quickly,’ Shea hissed, pulling her through the door.

He bolted the door behind them and ushered her into the main room.

‘Were you followed?’ he asked.

Flick shook her head. ‘No, I was careful.’

‘Listen,’ said Shea urgently, ‘there isn’t much time. It’s not safe for me here, and I have to get as far away as I can, very soon. But first there are some very important things I have to tell you.’

‘But…’ Flick started.

‘No,’ said Shea. ‘Just listen.’

‘Go on.’

‘Firstly, Mayor Griffin. He’s a really nasty man. I want you to stay away from him, as far away as possible.’

‘Yeah, I know,’ said Flick. ‘After I saw you the other night, he pulled an early morning inspection on the inn. Turned up with a load of thugs and searched the place good and proper. I think he was looking for you. Put the wind up a lot of people though, me included, I can tell you.’ She didn’t mention the promise that he’d forced her to make. But she wanted to mention the device she’d found.

‘I think he found your… radio.’

Shea looked confused. ‘How do you know about that?”

‘That’s what the mayor called it. I found it the day I found you, but then I forgot about it. Anyway, it was in my room, then it wasn’t, and Griffin had it.’ She didn’t mention that it was Adam who had taken it.

‘My radio,’ Shea said. ‘I thought that had been lost. If only you’d said something sooner, I… we… could have called in the rescue squad, and been away from here.’

‘Sorry,’ Flick said.

‘That’s not the half of it,’ Shea said.

‘So it’s all very well you telling us to stay away from the mayor and his thugs, but we still have to live here. I’m sure he’s got people in the Watch, although there’s still some that I trust, and if you try to go against him you just end up dead, or hanged in the street. He forces everyone to watch too.’

‘I heard. Now, the next thing. It’s about your brother…’

‘Adam? What about him?’
Does he know?
She wondered.

Just then the door rattled as if someone was trying to open it. Then the sound of fists pounding on it.
 

‘Open up in there!’ a voice shouted.

Flick and Shea looked at each other in astonishment. He grabbed her hand.
 

‘What…?’

Then there was another voice, ‘Felicity, my dear, we only want to talk.’ It was the mayor. ‘Look, we promised you that no harm would come to him. Or you…’

A look of horror came over Flick’s face. ‘No!’ she gasped. How had he found her?

Shea’s expression darkened, and he let go of her hand. ‘What have you done?’

‘Nothing!’ Flick wailed. ‘Look, he threatened me, in the Inn, and Rosie too. Made me promise to tell him where you were, but I said I didn’t know. I didn’t tell him anything, honest. Look, I really don’t know how he found us here.’

Shea shook his head, sadly. The banging and shouting continued. Then there was the sound of breaking glass as a half-brick flew through the window and thudded onto the floor.

‘Shit! We’ve got to get out of here. The back door, quickly!’

They scrambled up and headed for the back of the building. The door opened onto a tiny courtyard with a wooden fence beyond. There was nobody here. Griffin and his thugs were concentrated at the front and the main entrance; they obviously hadn’t expected much resistance, or perhaps they hadn’t wanted to scare the school kids. No, on reflection that seemed unlikely; they were probably just too smug. At least Flick hoped so.

‘Over the fence–the school playground…’

She held a finger up to her mouth and pursed her lips, indicating they should keep quiet. Shea nodded, and they both scrambled over the fence, and ran as fast as they could across the field towards the nearest trees. Behind them they heard a crash as the thugs broke the door down, followed by more shouting, but they had reached the woods before anyone had thought to look over the fence in their direction.

‘Keep running,’ Shea panted as they pushed further through the trees.
 

When they came to an old brick wall hidden among the trees, Flick stopped dead. ‘That’s the mayor’s estate. We really don’t want to get caught on his land.’

‘This way,’ Shea said, leading her along a narrow track that ran parallel to the wall. They were heading in the direction that would take them back to the town. When they passed a dense pile of undergrowth, he started pulling at it and pretty soon he’d uncovered a large backpack, stuffed with tools and provisions.