In Search of Hope (13 page)

‘It’s you I was worried about, not the bloody car.’ It surprised him how upset he’d felt.

‘I’m really sorry to have worried you. I don’t know what I was thinking to walk off like that.’

‘I was afraid your husband might have turned up.’

‘You think he could snatch us off the street without me screaming my head off?’

‘Could happen. Do you think he’d try that?’

She bent her head, then looked up and nodded. ‘Yes, after the way he beat me, I do think he would. It was probably stupid of me to go for a walk in such a quiet area. And I was out of earshot, so you couldn’t have helped me.’

‘Not your wisest move … Don’t do it again, or you’ll turn my hair white.’

‘If I manage to last the six months and get the money, I should probably move on, change my name and never, ever let him know where we are. Only he’ll go for access, I know he will.’

‘We have the photos of what he did to Ned.’

‘Will a judge consider that enough to separate him permanently from his son?’

‘Not necessarily. Even if it’s supervised access, they usually try to keep parents and children connected.’ Joss sighed. Everyone involved in family law did their best, but sometimes a bad ’un got through the safety nets, and then innocent people suffered.

Libby echoed his sigh. ‘I wonder if it’ll ever end, if I’ll ever be really free.’

He wondered that, too. He knew of a case where an abusive husband had tracked down and killed an ex-wife years after she’d left him, but he didn’t say that. He was still trying to come to terms with the realisation that he cared enough about Libby to get upset as quickly as he had a few moments ago at the thought she might be in danger.

She put her hand on his arm, tentatively, as if afraid he might shake her off. ‘I won’t do it again. I’m sorry to have worried you.’

He took her hand in his. ‘Don’t keep apologising. I’m not angry with
you
; I’m angry with the situation. You shouldn’t have to hide and worry like this. No one should have to do that.’

When they got home, she thanked him for his help and went to put her purchases away. It gave her great pleasure to unpack her new clothes. She held them in front of her as she stood before the full-length mirror. She’d also bought a couple of pairs of new jeans from the market.

As she went downstairs again to prepare tea, she realised that the house was beginning to feel like home. It really was.

That evening she phoned Allie and invited her round one evening for a drink and a natter.

‘Not tomorrow, but the day after!’ Allie said at once. ‘Pete’s going out for a drink with the lads tomorrow. His Sunday treat.’

A voice called out from a distance. ‘He said to say hi. He may never have met you, but he’s heard about you.’

‘Say hi back to him. I’ll see you on Monday. About seven-thirty all right?’

‘Great. I’ll walk up so we can have a drink or two.’

‘But you’ll have to walk back on your own after dark.’

‘I never feel afraid up here. Anyway, once I get to the end of your little lane, I’m never out of screaming distance of someone, if I need help.’

Libby couldn’t have done that, walked back in the dark. Not with Steven on the loose.

It made her angry that she felt that way; that she was so afraid of him.

On Sunday, Joss worked on clearing things out of his attic. He caught glimpses of Libby and Ned, but didn’t go out to chat with them.

By evening, he’d had enough of housework and decided to take Pete up on his standing invitation to join a few of the lads for drinks. He’d gone out with them a few times before, but wasn’t a regular.

He had an ulterior motive: he wanted to find other guys who’d be ready to help Libby if her ex turned up.

But that wasn’t his only reason for going out. He was feeling more sociable these days, didn’t know why he’d been so determined to live a solitary life. The Crown was a nice little pub, genuinely old, needing no fake beams or pretend inglenook fireplaces to make you feel at home there. And Pete’s friends were a pleasant lot, men of all ages from the village and neighbouring farms.

He might even get a game of darts. It had been ages since he’d played.

On the Monday, various tradesmen turned up to see Joss, the first at eight o’clock. Libby couldn’t resist peeping out of the front-room window each time. Their vans said they were bathroom specialists, plumbers, electricians. She was intrigued. Was he planning some major renovations?

She’d made a good start clearing out the front room yesterday, but wanted to finish it today so that she and Allie could sit there in comfort for their girls’ evening.

The main problem now was Grandma Rose’s ornaments. There were dozens of them, none of which Libby liked. They were not only lined up along the mantelpiece and window sills, but jostled one another in an old-fashioned display cabinet. She wasn’t into fussy décor and these were the kind of pieces her grandmother’s generation had liked – no, her great-grandmother’s generation or even earlier. Some of them looked really old.

Picking them up one by one, she studied the marks underneath. She’d watched enough antique shows on television to recognise some of the makers and had to wonder if any of the ornaments were valuable enough to sell. She might not have the right to do that, though, not if she had to run away to escape from Steven before the six months’ condition of her inheritance was fulfilled.

Should she go and ask Joss about the ornaments?

No, she couldn’t keep pestering him.

But who else was there to ask? And he
was
a trustee.

Oh, don’t be such a coward
, she told herself.
It’ll only take a couple of minutes to nip next door and ask.
She checked that there were no vans outside Joss’s house, then called for Ned to come with her.

He came running, an eager look on his face. ‘Are we going to see Joss?’

‘Yes. Let’s look at your hands. Ooh, I think we’d better wash those before we go.’

When her neighbour opened the door, he looked happy and relaxed. For a moment, the breath caught in her throat at how attractive he was in an understated way. Well,
she
found him attractive. Very.

How long was it since she’d even looked at a man in that way, let alone reacted to one? She wasn’t free, though, shouldn’t be doing this. Pulling herself together, she asked as calmly as she could, ‘Have you got a minute, Joss? I need to ask you something about the trust.’

‘Of course I’ve got a minute. Two, even. Come in. Would you like a coffee?’

‘I didn’t mean to disturb you. You’ve been so busy all morning.’

He beamed at her. ‘I’m putting in an en-suite bathroom on the top floor and making that the master bedroom. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages and I suddenly decided the time had come.’

He led the way into the kitchen, which seemed a lot more cheerful by daylight than it had the night she arrived.

‘Milk for Ned?’ he asked.

‘Just a glass of water, if you don’t mind.’

‘I’ve got fruit juice.’

‘No, water will be fine. I don’t want to encourage a taste for sugary drinks.’ Nor did she want to spend money on expensive drinks when tap water was free.

‘Do sit down. Remind me how you like your coffee.’

‘Milk, no sugar.’ She sat down at the end of the table and looked round. Joss must have been making a drink for himself because the jar of coffee was already out, and a mug stood next to the kettle with a spoon handle showing and steam rising from it.

The coffee smelled good. Steven sneered at the mere idea of instant coffee and had bought himself an elaborate coffee-making gadget, which she hadn’t been allowed to touch. She didn’t think it was worth all the fuss, but of course she hadn’t said that.

Her ex would have scorned all sorts of things about her new life, but she was enjoying the peace she’d found here, even if it was only temporary.

Just as Joss was putting a mug down in front of her, the phone rang. He got up to look at the caller ID. ‘Ah. Would you mind me taking this call? It could be important.’

He took her agreement for granted and walked out into the front room, closing the door behind him.

She looked round, seeing a room that was untidy but not dirty, filled with the paraphernalia of daily life. There was a pile of brochures on the table and she leaned over to look at them. Renovations and bathrooms. She would have loved to do what he was doing. Perhaps one day.

That made her smile. A few days ago, she’d run away on borrowed money, unsure of whether she’d have a roof over her head that night. Now she was getting grandiose ideas about modernising her grandmother’s old house.
Get real, Libby!

The door to the front room opened and Joss came back into the kitchen. ‘Sorry to leave you like that. It was about my new job. How can I help you?’

He hadn’t told her any details about the job, so she didn’t like to ask him. ‘Um, I’m trying to clear out the front room and I wondered what I’m supposed to do with Grandma Rose’s ornaments. There are an awful lot of them and they’re not at all to my taste. Some of them seem quite old, though, and I’ve watched enough antiques shows to know they might be valuable, so I don’t want to just give them to a charity shop.’

She hesitated, then finished in a rush, ‘Only, if I’m living here, I’d rather not be surrounded by little statuettes and ornate vases. Especially with a child of Ned’s age running round. If I sell them, do I give the money to the trust?’

Joss stared at her in such a strange way that she tried to think what she might have said to upset him. ‘What?’ she asked.

‘When coincidence smacks you in the eye, you have to wonder if someone up there –’ he glanced towards the ceiling – ‘is pulling your strings.’

She still couldn’t work out what he was on about.

‘Sorry. It’s just that I’ve been planning to visit a new antiques centre on the edge of the moors. I really enjoy looking at antiques. That place buys things as well as selling them.’

He hesitated, wishing he could tell her more but knew he mustn’t. The centre was going to be one of a chain of temporary refuges for the people Leon’s unit sometimes had to protect at short notice. Joss’s brief at the moment was to make himself familiar with the place without betraying who he was, in case he ever had to take someone there.

Libby’s antiques would give him an ideal excuse for going there. He had planned to buy something small, pretending it was for a present, but asking for a valuation of Rose’s antiques would be much better.

His new colleagues seemed absolutely paranoid about anyone suspecting that their unit even existed, and about keeping the various refuges secret. Maybe that was why they had such a good track record for dealing with particularly sensitive problems, as Joss had found out when he worked with them before he left the police force.

He realised she was still waiting for his answer. ‘I could take you with me, if you like, and we could get the ornaments valued, but not till later in the week if you want to enjoy looking round as well as selling, because it’s a new place and isn’t open yet. There’s a grand opening on Wednesday.’

Libby frowned. ‘Are you being kind to me again? You don’t have to drive me around.’

‘I’m not being kind in that way. I really was going to visit the centre. I’m not a collector of anything, but I’ve always wanted a piece of cranberry glass, a decanter with a silver top. I love the colour.’

‘Then I accept. I’ll have to see if Allie has any spare boxes from the shop to pack the ornaments in. She’s coming round for a drink and gossip tonight and I want to get the front room cleared up a bit and aired. That’s when I decided the ornaments must go, even if they’re only banished up to the third floor. Um … so what do I do with the money?’

‘I’ll ask Henry.’

She drained her coffee. ‘Right. Come on, Ned. We have to go now. Say thank you for your drink.’

‘Just a minute.’ Joss went to get the list from the mantelpiece. ‘These guys will come and help you if your ex turns up when I’m away.’

She stared at it in surprise.

He thrust it into her hand. ‘Pete is your friend Allie’s husband, and Max has a little farm nearby. Tom comes and goes because he has a smallholding and also contracts himself and his van to a freight service. One of them is bound to be home and they’ll come running. We’ll get you a mobile phone and put their numbers in on fast dial.’

‘Thank you.’

‘We’re all neighbours here. We look out for one another.’

She nodded, her eyes bright with tears.

Joss watched her go, then rang his contact at the unit to explain what he was setting up as an excuse for visiting the antiques centre.

‘Good idea.’

‘Will the people at the centre know who I am?’

‘No. We just want
you
to know your way there at this stage.’

‘Is it going to be one of your major staging posts?’

‘Not sure yet. We’ll see how things pan out. No other worries?’

‘No. I’m just looking forward to some action.’

The contact laughed. ‘It’ll happen out of the blue; it always does. You’ll get called into play soon enough.’

Emily’s former neighbour Rachel came back from a trip down south, where she’d been making arrangements for renting out her former home. It had seemed silly to keep the house standing there empty when she had now moved in permanently with Oliver in the hamlet of Minkybridge, just down the hill from the antiques centre. She was determined to go and visit her son and his family in Australia and she needed more money for that.

Oliver had offered to pay her fare, but she didn’t intend to let him, even though as a retired lawyer he was very comfortable financially. She might allow him to join her if things continued to go well, though, because she didn’t intend to spend a whole month living with her son. Apart from the fact that it was an imposition to stay with anyone for so long, and guaranteed to cause tension after a few days, if she was going all the way to Australia she wanted to see something of the country.

Emily and Rachel sat down with mugs of coffee to catch up on the latest news. Things were happening every day now that the centre was so near to opening. They were as close as sisters, probably closer than Emily was to her half-sister Liz, who had said she’d move to live nearer to Emily, but hadn’t yet done anything about it.