Chapter Ten

It was a long time since I’d been on the back of a motorbike – not since I briefly had a rocker boyfriend when I was about fifteen – and it’s amazing how vulnerable you feel without a helmet. And uncomfortable, too, when you’re wearing a skirt and stockings. The draught…

As we roared around bends and along the narrow country roads, I wanted to wrap my arms around Billy, hold him tightly, bury my head in his shoulder. Instead, I just hung on as lightly and as distantly as I could, sitting upright, rather primly I thought. Think Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday. OK, maybe not.

The roads were getting bumpier now and Billy was driving more slowly, searching through the gloom. ‘Right, I think that’s it.’

We got off. I was already feeling stiff and cold. Billy tucked the bike in a gateway and pointed across the road. ‘I think that’s Littlejohn’s down there.’

A short, steep, muddy track twisted down into a hollow where there was a small farm. Even in the fading light it looked grim. The house had once – long ago – been whitewashed, but was now dirty and mottled, as if it had some nasty disease. The windows were dirty and the curtains drooped. A heap of logs lay scattered across the mud-covered yard along with bits of machinery that seemed abandoned rather than functional. The whole place reeked of neglect and despair.

As we stood silently gazing I suddenly heard a huge cough a few feet away from me. I leapt and gave a little yelp. ‘What’s that? Who’s there?’

Billy was laughing. ‘It’s only a cow,’ he whispered. ‘Haven’t you heard a cow cough before?’

‘You know, I don’t believe I have.’

But Billy was by now wriggling his way through the fence, which wasn’t so much a fence as a few rusty old iron bedsteads roughly pushed into position. ‘Come on. We’ll have a better view from here.’

He took my hand – it was wonderful to feel his hand on mine – and guided me into the field. My feet squelched in something disgusting. ‘Ugh!’ I said, not liking to think what it could have been. Down below we could hear a dog giving a few muttered barks.

‘Look!’ said Billy suddenly.

Below us, tucked into the shelter of one of the barns, was a van, a small grey van. ‘Coincidence?’ said Billy drily.

‘The inspector said small grey vans are ten-a-penny.’

‘Maybe, maybe.’

‘So what do we do now? Should we tell the police?’

If only I had my mobile, I could have rung them. Easy peasy Instead, I was stuck in a field in the dark, with possibly a murderer and a kidnapper down below me, and one foot covered in cow shit. Great.

Something was happening in the house. We saw a movement in front of a window and then a light went on, a soft, dim glow. From an oil lamp, I realised. Someone was carrying it across a room, and for a second I saw two shadows. A very big one and a very small one. The small one had pigtails…

‘Oh God, Billy, that must be Susan. He’s got her there. What shall we do?’ I hissed.

Billy was calm, rational. ‘It could be a perfectly normal farmer and his daughter or granddaughter. We have no reason to think it’s Susan. Only a string of coincidences. On the other hand, if that is Susan, we can’t abandon her. God knows what Littlejohn will do. But we need to get help. There was another farm about half a mile back. They might have a phone. You go there and call the police. Tell them the story. Let them come and see.’

‘Can I take the motorbike? Then if there’s no phone I can get to town quickly.’

Down at the farm, the dog began his muttered barking again.

Billy gave me a quick look. Even in the dark I could see his grin. ‘Can you ride a motorbike?’

‘I think so.’

‘Well be careful, girl. Here.’ He handed me the key and I turned to go back up the slope to the rusty bedstead and the road. As I did, I slipped again and – stupid woman – gave a small yelp. The dog went mad. It was as if he were saying I thought there was someone up there and now I know. I could hear his chain rattling. He was barking so furiously and trying so hard to get to us he was practically choking himself. It was a dreadful sound. I prayed that chain would hold.

Then the door of the farmhouse was pulled open. In the doorway, the light of the oil lamp behind him, stood a man, a giant of a man. In his hands he had a shotgun. He was pointing it up the slope towards us.

‘Who’s there?’ he yelled. ‘Whoever you are, show yerself, before I set the dog on you.’

We stood stock still, not daring to move, not daring to breathe, though my heart was thumping so loudly I was sure the world could hear it.

‘Run!’ hissed Billy at me. ‘Run!’

I turned to go, but with that the farmer came out into the yard and started striding up the slope. For a big man he moved quickly, confidently, easily. And now he could see us clearly.

‘No you don’t,’ he said, his gun up at his shoulder, ready to fire. ‘Don’t you go anywhere. You just stay where you are.’

I turned back down the slope and stood next to Billy. I could smell the damp grass and the cows. And there was another smell I couldn’t identify – possibly my own terror. By now the farmer was just a few feet away from us. He was a huge man. More than six foot tall and nearly as wide, though his clothes hung on him. He wore a big tweed jacket that flapped around him. ‘Get down,’ he said, pointing at us with the gun, ‘get down to the yard.’

Billy held a hand up, warning me to be quiet. We slithered down the slope. The farmer motioned us into the house and stood behind us with the gun. The dog ran towards us, growling deep down in his throat. It was a terrible noise.

We stumbled into the house. It stank. Absolutely stank. We were in the kitchen, but the big range across the far wall was dead and cold. In the dim light of the oil lamps I could see newspapers heaped on a chair, bits of sacking and rusty buckets littered the floor. A bit of machinery lay in pieces on the filthy table. Beside it was a heap of cartridge cases and an almost empty whisky bottle. And in the corner, just where the circle of light faded into black, huddled up on a wooden settle sat a small girl with blonde pigtails, shaking with sobs.

‘Susan?’ I asked. ‘Susan?’

The little girl looked up at me, terrified, and then back again, clutching her knees.

‘Will you shut that bloody row!’ yelled the farmer.

‘She’s frightened,’ said Billy, in a reasonable, noncommittal sort of voice, as if he were commenting on the weather.

‘Well she’s no need. I won’t hurt her.’

‘She’s cold too.’ Billy was taking off his jacket. ‘Can we just put this around her? Just to warm her up a bit? It might stop her crying.’

The farmer grunted. Billy took this as assent and threw the jacket at me. Quickly and not daring to look at the farmer with his gun – I ran over to the settle and wrapped the jacket around Susan. She clung to me and I sat down on the settle next to her. I could feel her trembling. I wrapped my arms around her, partly to comfort her, partly to keep her warm, and partly to stay her sobs so she wouldn’t annoy Littlejohn any more.

Whatever the reason, her sobs quietened. I could still feel her trembling as she huddled right up to me, but the crying had almost stopped. It somehow made it easier for all of us to breathe.

Billy was standing there in his shirtsleeves. He wore braces. He looked relaxed, in control. It was an impressive performance. ‘There, that’s better, isn’t it?’ he said to Littlejohn. ‘She’s only a little girl after all. Why did you bring her here? Why the gun?’

The farmer was still pointing his gun at us. I was scared to move, apart from to stroke Susan’s back through the rough tweed of Billy’s jacket. It was like trying to calm a horse or a frightened dog. I knew I was trying to calm myself as much as the little girl. Littlejohn seemed so angry, so unpredictable.

‘She saw me.’

‘Saw you?’ asked Billy, still in this calm, it-doesn’t-matter-if-you-answer-or-not sort of tone. ‘Saw you? Did that matter?’

‘She watched me coming down the track from the woods. She saw the van. Anyway,’ he suddenly jerked the gun back up again so it was pointing straight at Billy, ‘who are you? What are you doing here?’ He peered more closely at Billy.

‘I know your face. I’ve seen you before. I know! You’re the reporter from The News. You were in the court, weren’t you?’

‘That’s right, Mr Littlejohn, I was. It was a very sad occasion. I was very sorry for your loss.’

‘She was a good girl, you know. A good girl. Ever since her mother died…’

‘Was that a long time ago?’

‘Amy was only nine when Megan went. She tried to look after her, tried to look after me…’

He was still looking towards Billy, still pointing the gun at him, but his eyes and his mind were elsewhere.

Somehow, sometime, a long time ago, someone had tried to make the kitchen homely. The curtains, now drooping, were made of pretty flowered material. The cushion on the settle I was sitting on was filthy and ragged, but it had once been brightly coloured patchwork. Some woman had sat here, maybe by the range when it was polished and warm, sat here in the light of the oil lamp making a cheerful cushion for the family kitchen.

Most of the dresser was given over to bits of machinery and papers, but from the hooks on the top shelf there still hung some jugs and mugs. Among them was a Coronation mug for Queen Elizabeth. Amy must have put that there, years after her mother died, when she was trying to keep the home going.

‘Megan had cancer,’ the farmer said, as if trying to make Billy understand. ‘She was a long time dying, a terrible long time. If she’d been a beast I’d have shot her, put her out of her pain. But I just had to watch and do nothing.’

‘It must have been a terrible time. For you as well as her.’

Littlejohn gave Billy a sharp look. But Billy seemed quite open, honest and straightforward.

‘So then it was just you and Amy?’ asked Billy, his eyes never leaving Littlejohn’s face.

‘Ay, and she did her best. I wasn’t much good, I know that. The girl needed her mother. There was too much to do, and it was hard. She was a young woman, I didn’t realise.’

‘Of course you didn’t,’ said Billy soothingly. ‘They grow up so quickly, don’t they?’

Littlejohn nodded dumbly.

‘And then I looked at her one day. She was bending over, putting coal on the range. And she looked just like my Megan did when she was carrying Amy. I knew then.’

‘That she was expecting a baby?’

Littlejohn nodded.

‘So you were angry with Amy?’

Littlejohn looked astonished.

‘No, not with Amy. Ay, she’d been foolish right enough, but plenty more have been no wiser. No, I wasn’t angry with her. Not with her. But with that stuck-up cowardly lad she’d got involved with, that namby pamby boy with his la-di-dah accent and his college scarf. I was angry with him. And when he said he wanted nothing to do with Amy, nothing to do with his baby. That he didn’t want Mummy and Daddy to know because it would upset them – upset them! – then I was really bloody angry.’

He slammed the table with one hand, and bits of machinery clattered about. Susan whimpered and clung even closer to me.

Despite the current nightmare, I was beginning to feel sorry for Mr Littlejohn. But even more sorry for Amy. She must have been left pretty much to bring herself up. What a bloody tragedy she’d hit on Jeremy Cavendish.

Despite my fear, curiosity overtook me. How on earth did a grubby little girl from this neglected farm get to meet the likes of Jeremy Cavendish? How on earth did their worlds ever collide? I must have asked the question aloud because Littlejohn looked at me and said, ‘The Hirings.’

The Hirings? For a minute I was lost, then I remembered what I’d read in those old newspapers in the bound file room. The Hirings was the old name for the annual fair in the town, famous throughout the country. Everyone went to The Hirings, all ages, all backgrounds, all rubbing shoulders in the dark and the music and the excitement. Easy to see how Amy and Jeremy could have bumped into each other there.

‘So what happened?’ Billy asked in a low, coaxing voice.

‘I wanted that Cavendish to come here and face me like a man, wanted to know what he was going to do for Amy and his child she was carrying. But he wouldn’t come. He laughed at Amy, told her that he would never want anything to do with the likes of her, and she should have known that all along. Told her she must be mad if she thought he’d marry her. He was at the university and he had to get on with his studies. Nothing must interrupt that. His books were more important than my little girl and the baby.

‘I didn’t want his money. But Amy loved him and if she wanted him I wanted her to have him. I’d done so little for her, you see, given her nothing. If I could give her him, then maybe that would make things better…’

He was lost for a moment in his thoughts, gazing blankly at the dismal room. Billy just stood there, pleasantly, sort of caring, not threatening at all. Mr Littlejohn went on.

‘I was going over there after she told me, that night, even though it were nearly midnight, I wanted to go there and see him and his precious Mummy and Daddy and tell them that it was my little girl, my baby that he ruined. But Amy cried and sobbed and made me promise to wait till morning when I was calmer. So I said I would.

‘But next morning she was gone. I looked all over and she was nowhere here. I knew something was wrong, something had happened. And then they came and told me they’d found her in the river…’

Tears were streaming down his unshaven face. Susan and I clung closer together on the settle. But Billy just stood there so calmly. As if it were the most natural thing in the world that this old man should be telling him all this. And the old man just carried on talking.

‘He broke her heart. And I could never forgive him for that. You know he never turned up at court, did he? Didn’t have the decency to do that for the girl he wronged. Just wiped his hands of her like she was a bit of muck and got back to his precious studies.

‘He was useless, a weak and useless excuse for a man. I despised him for what he’d done to Amy and her baby.

‘Then, last night I saw him. I’d been in the Blue Bells at Barton, and as I came through Witton I saw him. Gone midnight it was and he was with some of his hoity-toity college friends, leaving the Lion in Witton, laughing, happy as you like, not a care nor a trouble in the world.

‘Now that’s not right, is it? You can’t go ruining someone’s life and then go laughing. Not when a girl and her baby are drowned in the river. And she looked so like her mother.’

He paused, and still with his hand on his gun, picked up the whisky bottle and took a huge gulp.

‘So I followed him. I knew which way he’d go. I waited till he was alongside the woods, then I drove up and got him. Didn’t even put up a fight. He whimpered like a dog. I shot him, like a dog. The world’s well rid.

‘I was there in the woods, thinking about Megan and Amy and what had happened. Then I realised it was well past dawn. I tried to cover him up, till I realised how late it was. I took the track through the woods. Nobody uses it, but then the little girl saw me. So I picked her up and brought her too. I shouldn’t have done that, I know, but I wasn’t thinking straight.

‘I wasn’t going to hurt her, you know,’ he said, and I believed him. ‘But I didn’t want her telling everyone that she’d seen me. I’m sorry I frightened her, but I was never going to hurt her. There’s too many been hurt already.’

He looked at me. And despite it all, I felt sorry for him again. He was a desperate man driven by despair. He nodded his head at Susan, wrapped in my arms.

‘Why don’t you take the little lass out of here? Take her somewhere warm. It’s too cold here and I’ve no food to give her. She’ll be hungry, poor thing. Take her back to her mother. If she’s got a mother, she’ll be pining for her.’

Billy nodded at me. I took hold of Susan and practically carried her out of the house. I had difficulty opening the big old-fashioned latch on the kitchen door, but finally I was out into the darkness and foulness of the yard. The dog growled, but made no attempt to come near me.

I stood out in the filthy yard, hardly able to breathe. I couldn’t believe I’d got out of there. And got Susan out as well. My legs had turned to jelly. They were shaking. I wasn’t sure they could hold me up. I wanted to know about Billy. I wanted to see him safe out of there too. But Susan was still clinging to my arm. I had to think of her.

What now?

‘Right, Susan,’ I said as brightly and encouragingly as I could. ‘We’re going to walk up this track to the road and then see if we can find the motorbike. Are you all right?’

She sort of nodded, but by now, the tears were streaming down her face, and who could blame her? We trudged up the mucky track, Susan still wearing Billy’s jacket and blowing her nose on the handkerchief she’d found in his pocket. Then I heard the sound of cars coming slowly along the road. As the first one rounded the corner, I snatched the hanky off the bewildered Susan and waved it, so the driver could see us in the dark. The cars stopped. In the light from the headlamps I could just make out the distinctive shapes of police uniforms. I have never in my life been so relieved to see the police.

‘Chief Inspector! Am I pleased to see you.’

‘Rose Harford! Is this Susan Williams? Thank goodness you’re safe. Are you all right?’

Susan nodded, and we bundled her into the car. It smelt of leather and tobacco.

‘Where’s your colleague?’

‘He’s still in there, with Littlejohn. Littlejohn’s confessed to killing Jeremy Cavendish. He’s just let us go. He’s got a gun, but I don’t think he’s dangerous.’

With that a gunshot rang out. The sound shattered the night. It echoed and bounced around the farmhouse in the little dip. The dog barked wildly and ran around the yard, the chain clanking. Susan clung to me, and I gasped, ‘Will!’

Oh please God, not Will, not Billy. He’d got the little girl and me out safely. Please God don’t let him be killed. I started to run back down the muddy slope, but the Chief Inspector grabbed me. ‘Stay there!’ he snapped. ‘Look after the girl!’ And he and the other policemen swarmed down the hill to the farmhouse.

Susan was curled up into herself in the back seat of the car. She was rocking herself back and forth and making small whimpering sounds. It was heartbreaking. But my heart was breaking for Billy too. He had been so calm, so clever, so utterly brilliant. He had to be alive. He had to be.

I leant into the car and stroked Susan’s arm. ‘There, there,’ I crooned. ‘It will be all right, don’t worry. You’re safe now. You’ll soon be home, back with your mum. You’re safe, don’t worry.’ All the time I was trying to look past her, to see down the hill to the farmhouse, trying to calm myself as much as the little girl.

The Chief Inspector was giving orders while his men waited in the shadows. They were facing a man with a gun – a very angry and disturbed man who had already killed someone – and they weren’t armed.

Armed?! They didn’t even have flak jackets or shields. They had nothing, no protection at all. Just their helmets and native wit. It was madness, but they hadn’t seemed to hesitate. How brave they were, I thought. To do what they were doing took huge physical courage.

I carried on trying to soothe Susan, but by now I was so tense, so anxious about Billy that I could hardly breathe, let alone speak. What had happened in that kitchen? Please God let Billy be all right. Please God.

Then the farmhouse door opened. A small gleam of yellow light gradually fanned out in front of it. My hand froze on Susan’s arm as I tried to make out what was happening. I could see a figure in the doorway, illuminated in the lamplight. It was impossible to see who it was. Fear filled my throat. Then the figure moved forward. He was tall and slim, in shirtsleeves…

Billy. It was Billy. Thank you God. Thank you. Billy was walking out of the house. He was safe. Susan saw him too and gasped. I wanted to run back down the hill and fling my arms around Billy, but Susan was clinging to me. We hugged each other, shaking and sobbing from relief.

Down in the yard Billy was surrounded by policemen. I could see him talking to them, pointing back inside the house. They went in while he walked slowly, wearily up the hill and got in the Chief Inspector’s car.

I still had one arm around Susan, but I stretched out with the other towards Billy. I just had to touch him, to know he was really alive. He returned the pressure gently, then over Susan’s head, he put his finger to his lips. Then he bent his head down towards her and said, ‘It’s all right sweetheart. We’re going home now.’

He leant back against the leather upholstery of the seat, closed his eyes, blew a sigh and shook his head as if to clear it of the things he had seen.

More police cars came, their lights bobbing along the narrow road. A policeman took us back, first to The Grange, where Joyce Williams hugged her daughter so hard that she must almost have broken her ribs. She took her into the house, but I don’t think there was much wild rejoicing because, after all, Jeremy Cavendish, her employers’ son, was dead.

Then Billy told me that Littlejohn had shot himself.

‘Didn’t you try to stop him?’ I asked.

‘What? Just so he could hang instead?’ said Billy. ‘It was a kindness to let him do it. It was the only decent thing he could have done. Saved the trouble of a trial and the hangman’s noose.’

I thought of those flowery curtains, the patchwork cushion. Twenty years ago that must have been a happy home. And it had come to that. I started shivering and couldn’t stop. Billy put his arm around me, kindly, compan-ionably, concerned.

He smelt of sweat and mud, a very masculine smell, strange but very comforting. He squeezed my shoulder gently. The place where he had touched me flushed with heat. I grasped his hand. I longed to cling to him, hold him tightly, make sure he was really all right. I wanted to hold his face in my hands and kiss every little hollow of his cheekbones in gratitude that he was here, alive and well.

He smiled at me, and, as his eyes held mine, for a moment I thought I saw my emotions mirrored in his. But then gently, wearily, he eased his hand out of mine, putting a distance between us, and we just sat like that in the back of the police car as they drove us into town.

‘G’night,’ said the policeman as he stopped to let us out in front of The News. ‘I’ll read all about it in the morning.’

‘We’ve got to write it first,’ laughed Billy, taking my hand to help me out of the car. We went into the yard, past the vans and the newspaper hoist and in through the back door, to the shabby back staircase. Billy stopped in the shadows at the foot of the stairs, and put his hands on my shoulders.

‘You were terrific tonight,’ he said. ‘The way you looked after the kid and calmed her down.’

‘You were pretty fantastic yourself,’ I said. ‘My God, he could have shot you! One wrong word and, oh, I don’t want to think about what could have happened.’

‘We must be a great team, then, mustn’t we?’ He smiled down at me and for a moment, just a moment, I thought he was going to lean down, put his head close to mine and… But no.

‘Come on! We’ve got a story to write and we’ll make the last edition if we’re quick.’ And he was bounding up the stairs ahead of me. I trailed behind, my legs suddenly weary from fatigue and disappointment.

Phil was the only person left on the editorial floor. Billy told him what had happened, then swiftly and efficiently wrote up a brief account for the last edition, occasionally asking me about a word, a sentence, making it a joint effort. He took the copy down to the works, then went into the editor’s office, returning to his desk with a bottle of whisky. He poured generous measures for the three of us into the quickly washed teacups. ‘I think we’ve earned this,’ he said.

As we filled in more of the details, Phil knocked back the last of his whisky and said, ‘Two things. One, where’s my motorbike? And two, what’s that stink?’

I looked down. My left leg was still covered in cow shit.