The Sea Between (11 page)

‘Where do you want the lamp lit? In the parlour?’ William asked, handing her back the key as he pushed open the door.

‘No. In the kitchen, please,’ she said.

She followed him down the hallway, then waited by the kitchen door while he lit the lamp on the kitchen table.

‘There,’ he said, replacing the glass chimney as the flame on the wick steadied. Turning, he tilted his head to the side, appraising her. ‘How’s your headache?’

‘About the same,’ she replied. ‘A good night’s sleep will get rid of it.’

‘When I was a young boy,’ he said, walking over to her, ‘whenever I had a headache my mother used to do this to make it go away.’ She felt the slight prickle of his moustache against her skin as he gently kissed her forehead.

‘What was that?’ She jerked her head up sharply. A floorboard had creaked in the room above, quite loudly.

‘Just the timbers creaking,’ William said, and leaned forward to kiss her forehead again.

‘It sounded like someone prowling about,’ she whispered and gave a sudden shiver.

‘I’ll go up and take a look around,’ William said. Patting her arm reassuringly, he set off up the stairs, boldly calling, ‘Hello! Hello! Is anyone there?’

Charlotte remained by the kitchen table, listening to the sound of his footsteps as he moved along the landing and went from room to room. A loud thud sounded. He’d knocked something over in the darkness.

‘William!’ she called, walking into the hall. ‘Are you all right?’ The hairs on the back of her neck rose as no answer came from him. She was about to call again when to her relief she heard the sound of his footsteps on the landing, followed by the creak of the stairs as he came back down. He was coming down in quite a hurry. She stepped back, instinct telling her that something was wrong. Her instincts proved right the moment his head came into view. Even in the dim light she could see at a glance that it wasn’t William’s head, it was altogether the wrong shape. She let out a strangled scream and ran back into the kitchen. She was desperately fumbling with the bolt on the back door when the intruder grabbed hold of her, snaring her tightly around the waist, while at the same time muzzling her mouth and nose with his hand.

‘If you co-operate, I won’t hurt you. If you scream, I will,’ he gritted. He jerked her head back painfully, presumably to demonstrate how easily he could hurt her, not that she needed any convincing. She clutched the fabric of her skirt in her hands, resisting the urge to struggle, listening to the air whistling between his fingers as she tried to breathe through her squashed nose, and nodded her head.

The crushing hold on her waist eased a fraction. ‘I don’t want to harm you,’ the male voice hissed in her ear. ‘It’s money I want. Money, jewellery, anything I can carry in my pocket that’s worth a few pounds.’ Sliding his hand up over her breast he ripped off her brooch, tearing the cream fabric of her dress. ‘I’ll have that for a start.
What else is there?’ He lifted his hand from her mouth just enough to allow her to talk.

‘My purse,’ she said. ‘It’s in my bedroom in the chest of drawers.’

‘I’ve already found it,’ he said curtly. ‘What else is there?’

She bit her lip, trying to think. Neither she nor Ann possessed much jewellery and George kept very little money in the house. ‘There’s a box, upstairs, under my brother’s bed. It has a bit of money in it,’ she said in a shaky voice, suddenly remembering the big deed box in which George kept things like title deeds and other legal documents, along with a few pounds for use in emergencies. This was definitely an emergency.

‘Show me.’ Grasping her roughly by the arm, he steered her into the hall then pushed her up the stairs. Her legs were shaking so badly she could hardly climb them. She led the way into George’s bedroom, fully expecting to see William’s prostrate body on the floor, but wherever he was he wasn’t there. She started to panic.

‘Mr Fairfield…w-where is he? Is he all right?’ She bit hard on her bottom lip, trying to stop it from trembling. Oh God, he hadn’t murdered him, had he?

‘Shut up. Get the box.’ He shoved her towards the bed.

She sank to her knees and groped around until her fingers felt the cold metal of the deed box. Grasping the handle on the top of it, she dragged it out and lugged it on to the bed, then struggled to her feet and backed away from him.

‘I…I don’t know where he keeps the key for it,’ she stuttered, as he bent over to open it.

Ignoring her, he reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled something out. She couldn’t see exactly what it was, a tool of some sort. It looked a bit like a mason’s chisel. Bowing his head over the box he set about prising the lid open. The clasp was made of stout
stuff, though, and it wasn’t about to give up without a struggle. Charlotte glanced at the door, wondering whether to make a run for it while she had the chance. He’d said he wouldn’t hurt her if she co-operated, but how much was the word of a man like him worth? For all she knew, he might be intending to slit her throat; he had certainly done some harm to William. She swallowed, took an involuntary step back, and bumped into the wash stand, making the water slop about in the porcelain ewer and spill over into the basin. The ewer…she thought, picturing the big jug in her mind’s eye. A full ewer was very heavy. Praying her shaking fingers wouldn’t let her down, she twisted around and carefully lifted it out of the basin, took a deep breath and brought it down on the back of the thief’s head. There was a splintering crash, and the next instant he was sprawled across the bed, drenched and senseless, leaving Charlotte standing in the middle of the bedroom, still tightly clutching the jug handle, which was all that was left of the jug. Letting it drop on to the carpet to join the other fragments, she ran downstairs as fast as her legs would carry her to summon help.

‘Mr Henderson! Mr Henderson!’ Clenching her fists, she banged frantically on their neighbour’s door, and kept banging and shouting until it eventually swung open.

‘Miss Blake, whatever’s the matter?’ Jack Henderson asked in alarm.

‘A thief. A thief,’ she said breathlessly, pointing back to the house. ‘He’s…he’s done something to Mr Fairfield. He’s still there. He’s in the bedroom.’

Jack Henderson stared at her. Not surprisingly he hadn’t understood very much of her garbled, breathless outburst. ‘A thief, you say,’ he said, seizing on the one word he’d heard clearly.

‘Yes! Yes!’ She glanced anxiously back at the house. She had left the front door open in her haste to get out, and was expecting
to see the thief stumble out through it at any moment. ‘He’s in the house! Hurry! Go and tie him up! If you’re not quick he’ll come to and get away!’

‘Come to?’ Jack asked, frowning.

She nodded, still gasping for breath. ‘He’s on the floor in the bedroom!’

‘Where’s your brother?’ Jack asked.

‘He’s at the Colonists’ Hall,’ she said quickly, wondering why he wanted to know where her brother was.

‘Jack? Who is it? What’s to do?’ Mrs Henderson’s worried voice came from down the hall. A moment later, her plump face appeared over her husband’s shoulder.

‘There’s been some trouble at the Blakes’ house,’ he said, glancing back at her as he took hold of Charlotte’s arm. ‘Come inside, Miss Blake, and sit with my wife while I go and summon some help.’

‘Summon help? What’s going on, Jack?’ Mrs Henderson asked in alarm.

‘There’s a thief next door, it seems,’ he replied. ‘Take Miss Blake into the parlour, Betsy, and give her a cup of strong tea. She’s shaking like a leaf.’

‘What are you going to do, Jack?’ Mrs Henderson was looking more startled by the second.

‘I’ll muster a couple of neighbours, then we’ll go into the house and take a look around.’

‘Oh no, Jack, it could be dangerous. Go for the constable,’ Mrs Henderson said, shaking her head. ‘I don’t want you to risk getting hurt.’

Losing patience ,Charlotte jerked her arm free from Mr Henderson’s hold. ‘Please, will you stop talking and do something!’ she shouted. ‘Mr Fairfield needs help! He’s in one of the bedrooms! I think he may be badly hurt!’

‘In one of the bedrooms?’ Mrs Henderson echoed, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. Spurred into action at last, Mr Henderson turned towards the door.

‘No, wait a minute, Jack! Don’t go empty-handed,’ Mrs Henderson called over her shoulder as she disappeared down the hall. A moment later she emerged from the kitchen carrying a brass-handled poker. ‘Here, take this. It might come in handy,’ she said, thrusting it into her husband’s arms. Jack gave a grunt of agreement, plucked his jacket from the coat-stand, then strode off down the street.

Ignoring Mrs Henderson’s pleas to her to go inside so she could bar the door, Charlotte stood on the doorstep and refused to budge. Faced with the choice of either locking her out or standing on the step with her, Mrs Henderson armed herself with a furled umbrella and timorously chose the step. Eventually a contingent of four men strode up the street, wielding a motley assortment of makeshift weapons. Halting briefly outside George’s gate, they huddled together to discuss tactics, then two of them filed purposefully through the front door while the other two men fanned around the back to guard the rear of the house. One by one the windows in the house filled with light as lamps were lit, and a long ten minutes later Jack Henderson emerged.

‘Oh, here’s Jack coming at last,’ Betsy Henderson said with relief. ‘Now we shall find out how Mr Fairfield is.’

‘Good news. He’s all right,’ Jack said, nodding assurances as he strode towards them. ‘He’s taken a hard blow to the back of his skull, but he’s talking sensibly enough.’

‘What about the thief?’ Mrs Henderson asked anxiously. ‘Did you apprehend him?’

Charlotte wasn’t altogether surprised when Mr Henderson shook his head. She had purposely not hit the thief very hard with the jug for fear she might kill him. Added to which he’d had a good
ten minutes’ grace to regain his senses and make good his escape before Mr Henderson and the other men had finally gone to search the house.

‘Have you sent for the constable, Jack?’ Mrs Henderson asked.

Jack nodded. ‘Bert Grant has sent one of his sons to fetch him. He told him to go to the hall, too, to inform your brother what’s happened,’ he added, turning to Charlotte. ‘He should be here shortly.’

She turned to look down the street, but there was no sign of the constable or George. ‘I’d better go back to the house,’ she murmured. ‘Would you mind walking along the street with me, Mr Henderson?’ It was only twenty yards from the Hendersons’ house to George’s, but she felt very shaken up and didn’t like the thought of walking even that short distance on her own.

‘Of course,’ Jack said, and offered her his arm.

As they reached the gate she could hear the sound of male voices in the parlour, among them William’s. He was telling the others what had happened, by the sound of it. As she walked in, followed by Mr Henderson, the conversation came to a sudden halt, and she noticed Mr Grant glance down at the tear in her bodice then look quickly away again. It wasn’t a large tear, but it was large enough to set the cogs of speculation turning. At the moment, though, she was more concerned about William than her reputation. White as a sheet, he was sitting on the sofa holding a towel to the back of his head, and cradling a big pudding basin in his lap. He hadn’t been sick, but he obviously feared he might be.

‘Are you all right, William?’ she asked. It was a stupid question, when he clearly wasn’t.

‘I’ve felt better,’ he returned, grimacing with pain as he lifted his head to look at her.

‘Come and sit down, Miss Blake,’ Jack Henderson said kindly,
ushering her across to an armchair. ‘You’re still shaking like a leaf, and no wonder.’

‘Can you tell us what happened, Miss Blake?’ enquired Bert Grant. ‘Mr Fairfield remembers hearing a noise and going upstairs to investigate, but that’s about all.’

William looked across at her expectantly as she sat down. Like the rest of them, he had noticed the rip in her dress.

Clasping her hands tightly together in her lap to stop them from shaking, she related what had happened. ‘As Mr Fairfield said, we heard a noise and he went upstairs to look around,’ she said. ‘I waited in the kitchen. I could hear him walking around, then I heard a loud thud. I thought he’d knocked something over in the dark, so I went into the hall and called to him, thinking he might have hurt himself. Then I heard him—someone—walk on to the landing and start to come downstairs. I thought it was Mr Fairfield, but it wasn’t, it was…’ She clasped her hands more tightly and swallowed. ‘It was somebody else.’

‘You didn’t recognize him?’ Bert Grant asked.

She shook her head.

‘What happened after that?’

‘I ran through the kitchen to the back door. I wasn’t quick enough, though, and he caught me before I could unbar it. He said he wanted money, jewellery.’ She reached up to finger the small strip of fabric hanging loose from the tear in her bodice and swallowed again. ‘He ripped my brooch off my dress, then asked me what else there was in the house. All I could think of was George’s deed box that he keeps under the bed. I knew there were a few pounds in it, and I thought if he got that he might be satisfied and go. He made me go upstairs with him and get it for him. It was locked so he started trying to prise it open. While he was bent over it, I picked the water jug up and hit him with it and knocked him out. Then I ran to get Mr Henderson.’

She looked across at William. Like everyone else, he was staring at her in mute astonishment.

Jack Henderson was the first to find his voice. ‘So it was you who broke the jug. Well, things are making a bit more sense now. When we found the smashed pieces we thought the thief had hit Mr Fairfield over the head with it, but we couldn’t work out why he’d dragged him into the other bedroom afterwards. Then we realized that that couldn’t have been the case because Mr Fairfield wasn’t wet.’ He turned to look towards the window as voices and brisk footsteps sounded outside on the street.

Bert Grant stepped over to pull the curtain aside. ‘It’s your brother. I can’t make out who the other man is.’