The Overlooker (16 page)

There was another moment when he tensed. As they crested the hill the road dropped down the dale in front of them. It wouldn't need anything as dramatic as a car bomb. Just a severed brake cable. Too late now to test it. They were already heading down the long slope.

He tried the brakes, cautiously. To his relief they responded. Suzie looked at him oddly as the car slowed.

‘Something wrong?'

‘No,' he said, with what he found was a genuine cheerfulness. ‘Everything's OK.'

For the first time his eyes took in the broad sweep of the country in front of him. The massive hills, moulded over aeons into flat-topped fells with steep valleys cut by sparkling becks. Out here, too, the houses were solid stone, blackened by mill chimneys that had gone cold long ago. This was a tough country that bred tough folk. Not like the softer cob-and-thatch cottages of Suzie's native south-west. He felt a slightly ridiculous surge of pride. He had, after all, never lived here.

Millie's accusing voice came from the back seat.

‘And just when are you two planning to tell me why you're behaving like an over-the-top episode of
Coronation Street
, with everybody screaming at everyone else?'

Nick and Suzie glanced at each other in alarm. Suzie recovered first. She turned round to Millie. He could hear the reassuring smile in her voice.

‘Sorry, love. I expect we're just a bit edgy because of Great-uncle Martin. And then there was that funny business in Hugh Street, and having to go to the police. Dad's been a bit worried that someone might try to get back at us because of that.'

‘Like how?'

‘Oh, I don't mean they
are.
The police told us there was nothing for us to be alarmed about.'

‘So Dad goes and bawls out some Baptist minister and practically assaults some Asian woman and you were shouting your head off at that man next door. And you want me to think you're not worried?'

Nick cut into the conversation. ‘Look. I'm sorry if we've been over-cautious. Yes, I know I made a fool of myself with Mr Redfern yesterday. But let's put it all behind us, shall we? It's a glorious day. Fantastic scenery. And we're taking you to see where Esther Fewings used to live. You know, the teenager who told the bailiffs what they could do with their summons.'

‘Oh, her. She was great.'

‘And this afternoon, we're all meeting up with Tom.'

In the rear-view mirror he glimpsed Millie throwing herself back against the seat. ‘Oh, yeah. Tom. Like the sun hasn't shone since
he
left home.'

‘Millie!' Suzie protested. ‘There's no need to be like that. We shall miss you just as much when you leave home.'

‘Sez you.'

She subsided into an offended silence.

Teenagers, was Nick's first exasperated thought. But it had diverted Millie's attention from more difficult questions.

He drove on. Sometimes, when the steep hillsides closed round them, shadows encased the dale. Nick's satnav directed them off the main road into narrower lanes. Sheep grazed the fields on the other side of substantial stone walls.

‘You need to watch your steering here,' he said, after he and another car had eased past each other with inches to spare. ‘In Devon you'd just scrape the hedge. But here it's solid stone.'

The country road was rising. They came round a bend and Briershaw Chapel rose in front of them. There was no mistaking it. There was no village here. Just a scatter of grey farms and houses among the sheep-dotted fields. But the tall gritstone building dominated the lane.

Suzie jumped out as soon as Nick stopped the car.

‘Look at those big windows on the top floor. I bet there's a gallery up there. And, look, there's a date over the door –' she went closer – ‘1760.'

But Nick's eyes were fixed on the two cars already parked outside the chapel.

One was a blue Honda. He had last seen a car like that parked outside the Reverend Redfern's house.

‘S
tay where you are,' Nick ordered, as Millie started to open her door.

He eased the car quietly along the road and parked further along in a splay under an elm tree. The car would not be hidden from the chapel, but it would be less obvious. In the first second, he had wondered about calling Suzie back and driving away. But she had opened the gate into the little graveyard and was wandering through the grass reading the headstones.

The Reverend Harry Redfern was almost certainly inside.

‘Dad! What's wrong with parking in front of the church? What's got into you?'

‘There's more shade here.' He gave her what he hoped was an unconcerned smile.

His mind was hammering.
Why here? And how could he get here before we did?
The blue car certainly hadn't followed them today.

Millie went through the cemetery gate ahead of him.

‘Hey! There are two sheep in here. They need to repair their wall.'

Suzie looked up from the inscription she was reading. ‘I've an idea they're meant to be here. They're cheaper than a lawnmower and greener.'

The turf was certainly cropped short around the graves.

‘Not much good putting an expensive bunch of flowers on your mother's grave, is it?' Millie was heading for the nearest sheep, which skipped away from her with surprising agility.

Suzie looked at Nick's face, worry in her hazel eyes.

‘You don't have to tell me. You think it's the same car, don't you?'

‘I'm fairly sure. The number plate was something like that.'

‘But then we know who owns it. And he can't possibly have anything to do with Hugh Street.'

Then why is he
here
? And how did he know we were coming? How can he know so much about us?'

She sighed. ‘He's a Baptist minister and this is a Baptist church. You don't think he might have a legitimate reason?'

‘OK. So you think I'm getting paranoid. But how about the way you flew off the handle with Geoffrey Banks?'

She flushed. ‘I know. That was stupid. But he gets on my nerves. And then he was spouting that biblical stuff. And the last message on your mobile . . . Is it switched on?'

He nodded. ‘Nothing since then.'

‘What are we going to do? I guess your Harry Redfern must be inside.'

‘I'd rather not meet him, after last time.' He strode away from her and stopped. ‘I feel so
helpless
. As though somebody's playing with me.'

‘I think the inspector's right. Nothing's really going to happen. Just words. It's been two days now. What
could
he do?'

‘I wish I knew. All I'm sure of is that we need to stick together. That's probably the reason nothing's happened. Because he hasn't been able to get one of us on our own.'

They heard the sound of the door opening at the front of the church. Nick grabbed Suzie and pulled her to the back of the building, out of sight.

Voices came suddenly loud on the clear air. A man's and a woman's.

‘I'll see you on Sunday, then. Thanks for your help. God bless.'

‘It's we who should be thanking you. It's been difficult arranging communion services without a minister of our own.'

Nick struggled with his aural memory. Was that Harry Redfern's voice? He regretted now the impulse of panic that had made him hide. With a start he realized that Millie was still standing in the graveyard in full view.

‘I have to see,' he hissed at Suzie.

Cautiously he stole round the corner. He was just in time to see the rear view of a man getting into the Honda. Certainly on the large side. But he needed to see the man's face to be sure.

Too late. The engine sprang to life. The little car turned in the splay outside the chapel and sped off down the road. Now he would never be sure. Unless . . . The woman had not appeared. Had she gone back inside the chapel?

Nick was just starting towards the front entrance, which was still hidden from him, when Millie's voice hailed him from across the graves.

‘Dad! Come and look at this!'

He paused, torn between two demands. Then he started across the cropped turf towards Millie.

Her face was beaming with pride. ‘It's them, isn't it?'

He looked at the gravestone she was pointing to.

In loving memory of

ENOCH FEWINGS

of Briershaw Lane

who died March 6th 1861

aged 57 years

also of HANNAH his wife who died

at High Bank

Feb 7th 1887 aged 77 years

‘It's them, isn't it?' Millie cried. ‘That family who wrote the letters in the suitcase. And that's Jephthah over there.'

‘High Bank.' Suzie had joined them. ‘That's where Thelma lives! So when Hannah was a widow, she moved into town where some of her sons had already gone. And the Fewings have been there ever since.'

Suzie's voice had the warmth of enthusiasm. But Nick felt the chill sadness of those words. Before much longer, Great-uncle Martin would die. Even if he recovered from this stroke, his time was running out. Thelma would be left alone. The last of the Fewings at High Bank, childless.

There was only his own family to carry the name on.

Tom.

From across the graveyard they heard the sound of the heavy door shutting. Suzie turned and started towards the sound. But already they heard the second car starting. They were just in time to see it heading away.

‘
Bother
!' said Suzie. ‘I was hoping she'd let us see inside the church.'

‘I thought they usually left churches open,' Millie said. ‘In daylight, anyway.'

‘Parish churches, yes. But nonconformist ones are generally locked.'

They hurried across to the front of Briershaw Chapel. It had two heavy doors, symmetrically placed. There was an iron ring on each of them.

Suzie tried them. She had been right. Both doors resisted her efforts to open them.

‘It's your fault,' she scolded Nick. ‘Playing hide and seek like that. And if you'd warned me we were coming to Briershaw, I could have looked it up on the internet, to see who keeps the key.'

Nick fought down the instinct to argue in front of Millie. Yes, he had jumped to the conclusion that the blue Honda must be Harry Redfern's. It had brought all his first suspicions flooding back: that the round-faced Baptist minister was not as innocent as he appeared; that in some inexplicable way he must be linked to what was going on in Hugh Street. And it was surely too much of a coincidence that another Baptist minister would be out here at Briershaw in the same type of car.

But he had to admit that it made no kind of sense. Might Harry Redfern really have come just to arrange a service on Sunday?

There were too many question marks. That chill feeling of someone looking over his shoulder would not go away.

Suzie was peering through the small-paned windows, shading her eyes against the reflected light. Nick joined her.

‘It hardly looks as though it's changed since 1760. Look at all those box pews.'

The interior of the chapel was filled with wooden enclosures like cattle pens, panelled in brown and white. Similar panelling surrounded the gallery, which ran round the building at first-floor level.

‘I bet the musicians played from that gallery,' Suzie exclaimed. ‘Don't you remember? When they first built Briershaw, they used to carry their instruments over the fells from villages ten miles away. That must have been quite a sight.'

Nick felt a burst of anger. This was what he had come to Lancashire to find. Yet he was being cheated of it. He felt as if he was looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope. It was too small and faraway to be of real interest. There were other concerns filling his mind.

He was acutely conscious of the mobile in his pocket. Today, he had deliberately left it switched on. He was not going to run away from whoever was sending those messages. He would track him down and confront him. All he needed was for the caller to make one mistake and leave him a clue.

But the phone had stayed ominously silent. Had the anonymous caller given up?

All the same . . . He took a deep breath of clean air. What work was it that Jephthah and his brothers had done? Calico printing? He looked round at the pastures surrounding the handful of farms. There was not a sign of Briershaw's industrial past.

And there in the distance rose Skygill Hill. In spite of himself, his spirits rose. Tom was meeting them this afternoon. Tomorrow, all four of them would climb it.

All he had to do was keep his family together and they should be safe.

They were driving back down the winding lane when Nick saw the cyclist in front of him. He was hunched awkwardly over the handlebars. The hood of his grey sweatshirt was pulled up over his head. He was pedalling furiously, as if to outstrip the car.

Twice Nick tried to overtake him. Both times, the cyclist beat him to a bend. Nick held back, in growing irritation. The road was straightening out a little. This time he should get past. He swung out. The cyclist wobbled in his attempt to stay ahead. Nick touched his brakes fractionally, then put his foot on the accelerator and swung past.

The next bend was racing towards him faster than he expected. He had lost precious seconds in overtaking the bike. He was already swinging back to the left-hand side of the road, when round the bend came another car, too fast.

He heard Suzie cry out.

The wheel jerked in Nick's hands. Desperately he fought to find the slender gap between the stone wall and the oncoming car.

He almost made it. He felt the impact, heard the smash of metal against stone. Too late, he braked hard.

The other car shot past without stopping.

Nick sat, heart pounding, too shocked to take in the damage yet.

The hooded cyclist overtook him. As he pedalled past, he turned round to stare at the Fewings' car from shadowed eyes.