Ann Purser - Threats At Three

“Ten o’clockish,” Douglas said. “Check-in time is eleven, and the plane leaves about one. Should be there soon after three. I’ll ring you from the hotel.” He worked at an American company’s office in Tresham, and was off to Italy for a jolly bonding meeting in Venice. It was a bit of a waste of time, in his opinion, but he meant to enjoy himself and make the most of it.

“Think of me,” said Susie, “talking to this small person here and only ever getting a beaming smile and a load of rubbish in reply!”

“Mum said she’d call in later, to make sure you’re all right,” Douglas said, and Susie bridled. “Of course I’ll be all right,” she said. “What on earth could go wrong? And there’s always my mum and dad up on the estate.”

Susie’s dysfunctional parents lived on a run-down estate in the suburbs of Tresham, and were not much good in the way of support for their daughter. Still, she had managed to maintain reasonable relations with them, and they would be better than nothing in an emergency, she hoped.

What emergency, though? She dismissed the thought. “You’ll be back on Friday, won’t you?”

“Friday evening,” Douglas said. He was writing now on the back of an envelope.

“What’s that?” Susie asked.

“Just working something out. Nearly finished.” He wrote down a number with a flourish, and handed the envelope to her.

“So?” she said. “Maths for idiots? I can’t make any sense of it.”

“It’s just to show you I learned something from our visit to the National Space Centre,” he said with mock superiority. “You know it’s Mum’s birthday next week? Well, if she lived on Pluto, where a year is 246 earth years, she would be around two months old, and so not due for a Pluto first birthday for another ten months.”

“Wow! That’s worth knowing! Come in very handy, that will.” She made a face at him and said she was giving up on Harry’s porridge. “Time we got going,” she said.

IN THE BIG GENERAL OFFICE OF WORLDWIDE SOLUTIONS, GAVIN Adstone headed for the gents, or comfort station as some of his colleagues called it. As he stood washing his hands, a pimply youth came in. “Hi,” he said. “Settling in?”

Gavin recognized a very junior employee, and considered his question as overfamiliar. The lad seemed to think long service with Worldwide Solutions-a whole year-entitled him to take a definitely patronising air.

“Of course,” Gavin replied. “Nothing difficult about this job.”

“Worked in this kind of business before, then?”

“Yes. Back to work then,” he snapped, and headed for the door.

“Just wondered if you’d met Doug Meade,” the youth said, looking sly. “Higher up the ladder than us, o’ course, but a nice chap. No side, if you know what I mean.”

“No, why should I have met him?” Gavin was furious at being bracketed with this spotty youth in front of him. But he hesitated. Meade? That was a familiar name, certainly.

“His mum lives in Long Farnden. Your village, ain’t it?”

Ah, of course, Gavin said to himself. Derek Meade, chair of SOS. So his son was Douglas Meade, fast-tracked up the ladder at Worldwide, and highly regarded. A useful bit of information from the spotty youth. He forced a smile, and said he’d look out for Douglas and introduce himself. The smile vanished quickly, and he barked out that he had work to do and left.

When lunchtime came round, he approached his manager and said he needed urgently to collect a parcel from the depot on the other side of town. “Nobody at home to receive it when the courier called. The usual thing. One knock, and if the door isn’t opened in seconds, they clear off and leave a card through the letter box. Shouldn’t be too long, but if I’m a few minutes late back, is that okay?”

That was the trouble with these out of town business parks, he reckoned, as he set off in his car. Miles from bloody anywhere. Still, he put his foot down and sped out of town, but nowhere near the direction of the courier depot.

The Silent Man, a pub in the village of Broughton, had been rechristened with its ridiculous new name after it had been bought by a chain and redesigned in a way to attract thrusting young business people from the new park. It was formerly the Greyhound, a sleepy farmers’ inn, which had been there on the drovers’ route to the market town of Tresham for hundreds of years, and had a Scots pine tree in the garden to prove it. It was Gavin’s destination, and he parked the car round the back of the pub, out of sight, and went in quickly through the rear door.

Inside it was fashionably murky. Small lamps shed pools of light at each shiny new table, and Gavin stood still, looking round. His eye was caught by a figure waving a hand at him from the darkest corner, and he headed over and sat down.

“Morning, young man,” said the heavily built man, smiling at him from the shadows.

“Mr. Froot,” said Gavin, with a knowing grin, “a very good morning to you, too.”

AT TWO O’CLOCK EXACTLY, LOIS WALKED DOWN THE PATH TO Paula Hickson’s front door and rang the bell. She had a slight shiver of unpleasant memory as she heard footsteps approaching from inside. It was not so long ago that she had been dragged into this house and held captive in order to deliver a baby from an illegal immigrant woman who’d worked for the evil trafficker in human lives.

The door opened, and Lois caught sight of little Frankie crawling towards her with a broad smile that warmed her heart. Paula asked her to come in, and Lois instinctively bent down and picked up the warm little body, kissing him on his cherry red cheek. He smelled of Johnson’s baby shampoo and freshly washed clothes. A good start, Lois thought, and handed him over to a nervous-looking Paula.

“Come in here, Mrs. Meade,” she said, leading the way into the sitting room. Clean and tidy, Lois noted, and a bunch of daisies on a table by the window. A toy box in the corner occupied Frankie, and, refusing tea or coffee, Lois began the interview.

She asked Paula about her life in Tresham when she still had a husband living with her, and heard a tale of sadness and brutality. “Mind you,” Paula said with a half smile, “as you can see from my four boys, we got on really well for thirteen years. Unlucky thirteen, it turned out to be. Jack lost his job, and that’s when the trouble started.

It was a familiar story of the sort Lois read every week in the Tresham Advertiser . Man out of work, spends his dole money on booze and gambling, goes home full of guilt and beats up his wife. Paula was anxious to stress that he had never touched the children. Just her, she said, and bared her arm. A scar about four inches long ran down to her wrist.

“Looks like you were lucky, after all, not to get that cut across the vein,” Lois said coolly. “I can see why you had to leave. Anyway,” she continued, “that’s enough of all that. It’s your private business, and I shall see that nobody else discusses it on the team. Now, what hours can you work? Didn’t you say the playgroup in the village hall could take Frankie? Would that be on a regular basis?”

Paula said that two whole days had been agreed, and they had been very accommodating about payment. “I am very reliable, Mrs. Meade,” she said. “Except, of course, if any of the children got sick, and I suppose that’s bound to happen sooner or later.” Her face fell as she realised this was a problem she had not really thought through.

“Could happen to any of my cleaners who have children,” Lois said. “We are well organised to cope. Mostly with me filling in!” she said, and smiled reassuringly.

In fact, she liked to relieve the girls occasionally, keeping her hand in and giving her a chance to check on clients firsthand. And in certain cases, this had given her useful opportunites for what Derek insisted on calling ferretin’. It was amazing how careless people were with their cleaners. Like servants in the old days, the daily help was in some ways invisible. Private papers were left out on tables, telephone conversations held at tops of voices, and rows between husbands and wives carried on, all without a thought for an observant member of New Brooms’ team.