The Overlooker (10 page)

The line went dead.

Nick was left with a feeling of anticlimax. He stared out of the window, past the potted plant on the sill.

Was he being over-melodramatic? Would that menacing BAD MOVE have been sent, whether or not he had been to the police station this morning? Was he imagining that the blue Honda had deliberately followed them to Belldale Mill?

He was beginning to feel the comforting temptation to let it all slip from his shoulders. To stop looking around for someone watching them. To accept that the goings-on at Hugh Street did not warrant such a life-threatening reaction. Just let the police get on with it, and turn his attention to the purpose of his visit. And Uncle Martin.

He felt a sharp pang of guilt. He had been so caught up in his own anxieties that he had hardly given a thought to the ninety-three year old lying in hospital.

He checked his watch. No panic. There was still an hour before they needed to leave for the hospital.

And tomorrow they would be meeting Tom. Nick's spirits rose. He suddenly realized how much he was looking forward to seeing his tall, good-looking son again for the first time since he started at university.

He felt a glow of warmth. The whole family together again. And united with the last of that older generation he thought he had lost when his grandmother died.

If nothing went wrong. If Uncle Martin, already debilitated by the stroke, made it until tomorrow afternoon.

When Nick returned to the back room, Thelma was already bustling around, collecting her handbag and car keys, ready to go back to work.

‘I'll have to love you and leave you. Leave the washing up. I'll do it when I get back.'

‘Don't be silly,' Suzie told her. ‘We'll do it, won't we, Millie? We've got plenty of time.'

Millie murmured a non-committal reply. She looked drawn in on herself.

Nick felt a spasm of irritation. She had seemed to be getting on so well with Thelma yesterday. She must be still sulking about the hospital visit this afternoon. But it was no good; she would have to come. He could not imagine himself explaining to Uncle Martin that his great-great-niece had simply not wanted to come and see him.

With the three of them helping, the lunch things were quickly cleared away. Nick checked his watch again.

‘Be down here at two o'clock,' he told Millie. ‘We need to allow time to find a parking space at the hospital.'

‘Whatever,' muttered Millie. She went upstairs to the bedroom she was sharing with Thelma.

‘Thelma's putting Tom in Uncle Martin's room tomorrow,' Suzie said when she had gone. ‘I think he was going to have to sleep on the sofa otherwise. But it's unlikely Uncle Martin will be out of hospital by then.'

‘Tom wouldn't have minded. It will be great to see him again. I hadn't realized how much I'd been missing him.'

Suzie looked at him shrewdly. ‘That phone call? It wasn't anything serious, was it?'

‘No! No, it was Inspector Heap. She said her team have come to the conclusion our first guess was right. It's probably an illegal sweatshop. It's plausible, isn't it? There's a blight on that area at present, with the downturn in the economy. No one's in a hurry to finish the demolition and build anything new. If we hadn't happened along, they could have carried on undisturbed for who knows how long. The police are not going in, even now. They'd like to catch the brains behind it, if they can. But the downside is that I'm afraid our inspector has lost interest. I gather vice rings and crimes against women are what she's after. Breaking employment laws and health-and-safety regulations doesn't quite cut it for her. She's handed it over to someone else.'

‘But these women are still being exploited, even if not as prostitutes! It's a modern form of slavery.'

‘I know, I know. But the long and the short of it is, she's downgraded that threatening phone call. Doesn't think the fines for running a sweatshop warrant a death threat – or not carrying it out, at least. She says it's just harassment.'

He knew there was a glaring gap in what he was telling her. He still hadn't shared that frightening text message. BAD MOVE. It still chilled him to think about it. He would rather Suzie and Millie didn't know.

But then . . . perhaps Inspector Heap had been right. Perhaps whoever sent that message really didn't know they'd been to the police. It could have been just a carry-over from yesterday and their unwelcome appearance in Hugh Street.

He thought of the tearful woman arriving late to work and being turned away. His conscience troubled him. The Fewings' arrival had cost her a shift's pay, pitiful though that probably was. It might be worse than that. In a town with soaring unemployment rates, what else could she do if she lost her job?

‘I'm going upstairs to get ready,' Suzie said, interrupting his thoughts.

He followed her.

N
ick was aware of a sense of gladness when he saw Millie coming down the stairs. She still looked unhappy about the prospect of hospital visiting, but at least she was there.

Her thin shoulders were hunched inside her green wool jacket.

‘Do I have to?'

‘Cheer up,' Suzie told her. ‘You visited Tamara when she was in hospital this summer.'

‘That was different. Tamara's my best friend.'

‘Try thinking about Uncle Martin,' Nick told her. ‘From what Thelma's told us, he's been looking forward to seeing all of us. You especially. He's never met you. You're the youngest of the Fewings now. The next generation.'

Millie twirled the brass button on her jacket. ‘Did you say he actually knew that other Millie? The one who worked in the cotton mill when she was eight?'

‘The daughter of the herbalist,' Suzie said. ‘That's right. Millicent Bootle would have been in her sixties when Great-uncle Martin was born, but apparently he remembers her. She was a bit of a character, apparently.'

‘All right, then,' Millie said grudgingly. ‘If I must.'

Perhaps it will be better than she thinks, Nick thought, walking out to the car. The old millworker of ninety-three, the fourteen-year-old schoolgirl. Uncle Martin had no grandchildren of his own, and never would now. Nick could imagine the old man's eyes lighting up at the sight of the slender blonde teenager who was the latest to carry the family name. He prayed that Millie would get over her sulks. She could be delightful when she chose.

The hospital car park looked different in the sunshine of a bright autumn afternoon. Trees had been planted among the rows of cars and their leaves glowed russet and gold.

Nick led the way. There was no need to stop at the reception desk in the foyer. He knew the way. He followed the signs to Crompton Ward.

He paused in the doorway, letting other visitors sidle past him. His eyes moved down the line of beds. Uncle Martin had been on the left side of the ward, hadn't he? About six beds down.

His gaze scanned along the row of patients, most of them elderly. Some already had visitors. A few rested on their pillows, eyes closed. Most of them were connected to electronic monitors. None of them looked the way he had remembered Uncle Martin on Tuesday evening, sunk in sleep, with that grey cadaverous face.

A cold hand closed round his heart. Was it possible that since Thelma had phoned the hospital this morning the old man had died? He tried to tell himself that there were no closed curtains in that part of the ward. No empty bed. Could they really have shuffled him off to the mortuary and filled his bed already? And surely there would have been a phone call to Thelma?

‘Can I help you?' a passing nurse asked.

‘Martin Fewings. My great-uncle. We've come to visit him. But I can't seem to see his bed.'

She hurried across to the nurses' station and consulted the papers.

She came back smiling, ‘Sorry, we've moved him. We like to keep them in here for twenty-four hours after a stroke. That's the most critical time. But there are always new arrivals wanting the beds. You'll find him on Haworth today. Down the corridor and turn left.'

He thanked her. In the corridor he shrugged at Suzie and Millie. ‘Sorry, I've led you astray. It's round the corner.'

As Millie fell behind, he whispered to Suzie, ‘Just for a moment, when I couldn't find him where he was before, I thought he'd croaked. Imagine having to explain that to Millie.'

Haworth Ward had a livelier feel. Most of the patients were sitting up, either chatting to their visitors or waiting expectantly. This time Nick went straight to the nurses' station to ask.

‘Where will I find Martin Fewings? I gather they've moved him here from Crompton.'

A plump young nurse scanned the names before her. ‘This way.'

Another nurse put out her hand to stay her. She whispered in her ear.

The nurse's round face turned up to Nick and Suzie, apologetically. ‘I'm sorry. He's had . . . a bit of a setback. The doctor's with him now.'

Nick's eyes flew along the ward. Only one bed had curtains drawn around it.

‘Is he . . . Is it serious?'

‘I'm sorry. I'm not allowed to say. You'd have to ask the doctor. Are you a relative?'

‘His great-nephew. We've come all the way from the south-west to visit him.'

‘I'm sorry. But there's nothing I can do. Sister's with the doctor. She may be able to tell you more when they've finished with him. Would you like to wait? The canteen's on the next floor. You could go and have a cup of tea and come back in half an hour.'

‘Is he going to die?' Millie's voice came unexpectedly from behind them.

The nurse looked flustered. ‘I hope not, love. We're doing everything we can for him. Still, he's an old man. We've all got to go one day, haven't we?'

Millie turned and almost ran out of the ward. Suzie hastened after her.

‘Sorry!' Nick said hurriedly to the nurse.

‘Was it me? Did I put my foot in it?'

‘She's just a bit sensitive about hospitals. It's her age.'

He strode after them. Suzie had caught up Millie at the head of the stairs.

‘It's all right, love. These things happen, especially at his age. That's why he's in hospital. So that the doctors can see to him straight away if anything goes wrong. They're looking after him now.'

‘You don't know that!' Millie rounded on her. ‘They drew the curtains round his bed, didn't they? For all you know, he could be lying there dead. And you made me come here!'

‘It's OK.' Nick put his arm around her shoulders. He could feel her trembling. ‘It's probably like the nurse said. A bit of a setback. We can come again tomorrow. I expect he'll be sitting up in bed, right as rain. How about that cup of tea? Or a latte? I don't know what the hospital canteen runs to.'

Millie shrugged him off. ‘Don't patronize me. And I'm not going into any hospital canteen. It would make me puke.'

‘All right, then. City centre? A nice café? Possibly a cream doughnut? And a bit of window shopping?'

She managed a shaky grin. ‘Now you're talking.'

Light drifts of clouds had blown across the sky in the short time they had been inside. The bright afternoon sun had been obscured. The red leaves on the trees between the cars looked darker.

Nick felt the oppression on his own spirits. He had so looked forward to this. Rediscovering the land of his grandparents, bringing awake the fragmentary memories of childhood visits. A sense of rootedness that he had never quite managed in the rural south-west. That was Suzie's country. Centuries of her ancestors, from farm labourers to lords of the manor. His own heritage was different. Industrial, non-conformist. Ingrained in his forebears like the grime in the millstone grit of the local houses.

Instead, he had stumbled upon a different darkness. The yet-unfathomed crime that must be going on in Hugh Street. The venom in that voice on his phone, which made him constantly look over his shoulder. Great-uncle Martin, whom he had so much wanted to meet again. A treasure house of information about the past,
his
past, which he had never thought to ask about until now. And instead, a stroke-ridden old man in a hospital bed with the curtains drawn. There was a very real possibility that he had come too late.

A little wind was kicking up the leaves on the car park as they hurried to their car. Nick was uneasy. There had been no further messages since that ominous text at lunchtime. But he could not shake off the feeling that they were being watched. Despite Inspector Heap's reassurance, he felt a conviction that the words BAD MOVE were the result of his visit to the police station.

It was too late to change that now. He had done what he thought was right. Suzie had backed him. They would have to live with the consequences.

He only wished he knew what they were.

With heightened caution he looked all around him as he snapped the car locks open. The large car park was full. Hundreds of friends and relatives hospital visiting. He was about to open the door when his heart constricted. A small blue car was backing out of a bay two rows away.

‘Look!' he cried, hearing his voice rise an octave. ‘It's that blue Honda again.'

Suzie paused on the other side of the car. ‘Are you sure it's the same one? Did you get the number plate?'

‘No, but it's not going to be a coincidence. It was following us all the way down to Belldale. It was parked outside the mill, but not in the visitors' car park where we would have seen it. And I'm almost sure I got a glimpse of it once behind us on the way back.'

‘So? It's half term. Belldale's a visitor attraction. We can't be the only ones who would want to go and see it for perfectly innocent reasons.'

Millie put her head out from the back seat. ‘What's up with you two? Are we going to find this café or not?'

Suzie shot a warning look at Nick. ‘Sorry, love. We're coming.'