Bia's War (20 page)

“‘We’re going back to the shop
now, Bia,’ Sam said. ‘I want to go and get Jenny and Alice and
leave them with Annie before we go out again. I don’t want them in
the house on their own tonight. We can have something hot to drink
to warm us up before we go out searching again. We can’t carry on
until we’ve thawed out a bit.’”

“Every nerve in my body was
screaming ‘No! No! No!’ to this. I couldn’t stop searching until
I’d found Simon, but I knew that Sam was right about us getting
something hot inside us. We wouldn’t be able to search if we were
frozen to the bone. I could also understand that he was worried
about his two girls, but the fact that he wanted them to leave
their home and join Annie and Hannah in Queen Street, told me more
than he had put into words.”

“‘You think that butcher
Dennison is behind Simon’s disappearance, don’t you?’ I asked him,
although I already knew the answer. ‘That pig butcher has got my
baby and he’s going to hurt him!’”

“‘Don’t panic, lass. It won’t
help us if you lose your head now.’ Sam replied. ‘I don’t know if
Dennison has got William and Simon, but I’m damned sure that he’s
involved somehow and I want my girls safe before we go out and
track him down. I wouldn’t put it past him to try and use my girls
in some way, so I want to stop that happening.’”

“‘You’re right, Sam.’ I agreed.
‘I’m sure he’s involved in this somehow and it isn’t safe for your
girls to be on their own. Let’s go quickly. The faster we get to
the shop, the quicker we can be out searching again.’”

“We walked as quickly as we
could along King Street and back to the shop where Annie acted as
instructed and wouldn’t unlock the door until she was sure that it
was Sammy who was on the outside of it. She ushered us inside and
pushed me down into the chair next to the range.”

“‘Get us hot drinks, will you
please Annie?’ Sam asked, while he wrapped his coat tighter around
his body. ‘Make sure Bia and Peter get warmed through while I go
and get Jenny and Alice and bring them back here. I don’t trust
that pig butcher. I’m sure he’s got something to do with this and I
want my girls safe before we go out searching again. I’ll have
something hot when I come back with the girls.’”

“‘I’ve got hot soup on the
stove.’ Annie answered. ‘I thought you’d need something to warm you
through after you’d been out in this weather. Bring the lasses back
here and I’ll look after them until you find Simon.’”

“‘Good lass,’ was all Sam said,
but he wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her to him in
a bear hug, saying all he needed to without words. He then put his
hand on my shoulder and squeezed me, putting such reassurance into
it that I felt strangely comforted. Then he put his head outside
the door.

“‘The snow has stopped and the
wind’s dropping even more. It’ll be easier going when we go back
out.’”

“He slammed the door behind him
as he disappeared into the dark and Annie locked it once again. She
moved across to me and helped me to unwrap the layers of my shawl
before she pressed a mug of hot soup into my hands. I wasn’t
hungry, but common sense told me I needed the soup to thaw my
insides and to sustain me when we started our search again, so I
forced myself to drink it, even though it was a struggle to
swallow. The panic inside me seemed to block my throat, it was so
tangible.”

“Annie had moved across to Peter
and helped him out of his winter wrappings before passing him a mug
of the soup. He was incredibly eager for it and drank it greedily,
holding his mug out for more when he had drained it. As she bustled
about refilling it, Annie looked over at me with such compassion in
her face I wanted to cry.”

“‘We’ll find them, honey,’ she
murmured. ‘Sammy won’t rest until he’s got Simon back safe for you.
Don’t you worry about that.’”

“‘I know he won’t Annie.’ I
replied. ‘But I’ve got such a fear on me tonight. Something really
bad has already happened, I can feel it and it’s sucking the life
out of me. If something bad has happened to Simon, I won’t be able
to carry on without him. He’s my world, my life, my reason for
living and I know something’s wrong.’”

“My voice had risen as I spoke,
as the panic inside me started to leach out of me and Peter was
watching me with worried eyes and a frown on his forehead,
struggling to properly understand what was happening. Annie hurried
over to me and sat on the arm of my chair, holding on to me and
rocking me as though I was a child.”

“‘Nothing will have happened to
him, Bia,’ she said as she tried to soothe me. ‘They’ll have met
someone and likely taken shelter in their house while the weather
was so bad. Now that it’s stopped snowing they’ll come home. Just
you wait and see.’”

“I leant against her and took
what comfort I could from the shelter of her arms but I knew, deep
down, that the damage had already been done. Inside me my heart
told me that Simon was dead and I would only get his body back. I
would never again hold him as he laughed, or stroke his soft hair
when he was settled in his bed for the night. My heart was as
frozen as the ground outside with the pain and the fear of what had
happened.”

“Sammy wasn’t long before he was
back with Jenny and Alice and he got them safely ensconced next to
the fire before he would have some of Annie’s hot soup. I had risen
from the chair as soon as the girls came in and I was wrapped in
layers of outer clothing ready to set out again, before Sam had
started on his soup. Peter followed my lead and he, too, was well
wrapped up against the bitter cold.”

“Sam drank his hot soup so
quickly that it brought tears to his eyes, but he brushed them
aside and bundled himself back into layers of clothing.”

“‘The snow has stopped
completely now and the wind’s dropped too,’ he said, before we took
our leave of Annie and the girls. ‘The sky is clearing and it’ll be
easier to see because it’s a full moon out there now.’”

“For some unknown reason, these
words of Sammy’s twanged the same nerves in my body that thoughts
of Simon twanged, although I couldn’t understand then why they did
so. I just nodded my agreement and turned and hugged Annie before
we set out again into the night. The air was even colder than
before, if such a thing was possible, but at least we could walk
upright and not have to fight to make any headway against the wind.
We re-traced our steps to the end of King Street and turned right,
heading for Lorne Terrace and the market place.”

As Nana paused to draw breath,
Victoria heard her mother shouting her name from downstairs and she
didn’t sound as though she was in one of her more placid moods.

“I’ll have to go Nana. Mam’s
shouting for me and I daren’t make her wait otherwise she’ll stop
me coming back this afternoon,” she said.

“Before you come back this
afternoon, please go to Mr Vine’s office and ask him to come and
see me tomorrow. Don’t forget, he’s got to come during the day when
the shop’s open and he has to come to the side door where you will
let him in. That way, we can get it all sorted out before your
mother finds out. Good girl.”

Victoria promised that she would
go to make the appointment as soon as she had had her lunch and Bia
was busy in the shop. She very much doubted that Mr Vine would drop
everything to call on her grandmother but she would do her best to
explain and just hope that he could come soon. It was the only time
her grandmother had been agitated about anything recently and
Victoria didn’t want to upset her any more. With a final promise to
go to the solicitors’ office that afternoon and to make sure that
her mother wouldn’t see her go out, she ran downstairs to help her
mother make the lunch. If she was biddable over lunchtime, Mam
might agree to her spending the rest of the day with her
grandmother.

Chapter Ten

Victoria was as biddable as she
knew how to be that lunchtime, offering to do the washing up before
they had sat down to eat and explaining how much revision she had
got done while Nana Lymer slept. It was difficult, eating a meal
with her fingers crossed, but she managed to do it and was rewarded
by being given permission to sit in Nana’s room all that afternoon.
Having offered to do the washing up, she did have to do it in
actuality, so it was after 2pm before she could go back into Nana’s
room, to let her know that Mam was in the shop and she (Victoria)
was going to let herself out of the side door and head towards
South Terrace, before making for Station Road. That way, she
avoided going past the shop and so her mother wouldn’t see her
through the shop windows and want to know where she was going.

Victoria made her way to Station
Road and went half way down it before she reached the solicitor’s
office. It was a place she had never been in before and she was
overawed by the large studded door and the brass plate fastened to
the wall. She hesitated on the doorstep, not sure if she should
knock on the door or whether she should open it and walk straight
in. Then she realised that she looked as though she was loitering
by hanging around outside, so she turned the brass door handle and
stepped through into a reception office. There was a lady sitting
behind the reception desk who looked up as Victoria entered. She
had a long, thin face, almost horsey in appearance and a pair of
horn-rimmed spectacles perched on the end of her nose. Her hair was
pulled back from her face into a tight bun on the back of her head
and what little of the hair showed was all a steel-grey colour. She
wore a dark cardigan over a white blouse, both buttoned up to the
neck and unrelieved by any brooch or adornment of any sort. She
looked up as Victoria entered and seemed to measure her against a
standard, her tight mouth proving that she obviously deemed that
Victoria fell way short of the expected level.

“Yes. Can I help you?” The
receptionist’s voice was sharp, as though she was ready and able to
send Victoria away with a flea in her ear. Victoria quailed
internally, but the thought of having to return home and confess
that she had been too scared of the receptionist to ask for Mr Vine
to visit, stiffened her backbone and prompted her to step up to the
desk.

“My grandmother would like Mr
Vine to visit her at home tomorrow.” Victoria said, more loudly
than she had intended because she was nervous of the reaction of
the receptionist and was doing her best to hide it.

“Mr Vine does not conduct
business in private houses, nor can he drop everything to answer a
summons from all and sundry.” The receptionist was definitely
looking down her nose at Victoria now and evidently considered the
conversation to be over, as she rose from her desk and started
rifling through the filing cabinet which was against the far wall.
Her cursory treatment made Victoria’s blood boil and she forgot
about being timid as her need to carry out her grandmother’s
request surfaced.

“My grandmother would like Mr
Vine to visit her,” she repeated, stepping closer to the desk.

“And I reiterate, Mr Vine does
not visit people in their homes, especially not at short notice.”
Once again, the receptionist considered the matter closed and
turned back to the filing cabinet.

“But my grandmother’s
housebound, so she can’t come to this office.” Victoria’s voice was
rising as she panicked at the thought of trying to get past this
brick wall. “Her name is Mrs Lymer and she has been a client for a
long time. Surely Mr Vine can make an exception when his clients
can’t manage to get to his office.”

The filing cabinet drawer was
slammed shut to emphasise that Victoria had now stepped completely
over the unseen line, before the receptionist turned to face her.
She opened her sneering mouth to deliver what would probably have
been a very cutting remark, but stopped when the door leading to
another office was opened and a man popped his head round. He was a
tall, dark-haired young man with a pleasant face and he scrutinised
Victoria with a smile.

“Did I hear Mrs Lymer’s name
mentioned?” he asked, stepping forward towards Victoria. Victoria
heaved a sigh of relief and hastened to answer him before the
receptionist stopped her.

“Mrs Lymer is my grandmother and
she wants Mr Vine to visit her at home.” She was gabbling, she knew
that, but she was desperate to get the request spoken before the
receptionist butted in and stopped her. “She’s housebound now and
she needs to see Mr Vine urgently, so he’ll have to come to the
shop.”

The man held up his hand.

“I’m Mr Vine.” He said. “If Mrs
Lymer wants to see me, then of course I will visit her at home.
She’s back living in Queen Street, then? At the original shop?”

Victoria wasn’t sure what he
meant by ‘the original shop’, but he had said Queen Street so she
nodded her head.

“Nana came to live with us a few
years ago, when she got too frail to continue living on her own.
I’m Victoria, by the way, her granddaughter.”

Mr Vine shook Victoria’s hand
and smiled warmly at her.

“I can remember your Nana when I
was a child. My father used to call in to see her regularly and he
often took me with him as a treat. Your Nana made the best cakes in
the town and she always had time to listen to a small boy’s woes. I
will be honoured to visit her tomorrow. Shall we say about 2pm? Do
you think that would suit her?”

“She’ll be very happy with
that.” Victoria answered, smiling back at him. “Can you come to the
side door though, not through the shop? Nana doesn’t want you to
come through the shop.” She wondered if she should say that her
grandmother didn’t want Victoria’s mother to know that she was
meeting Mr Vine, but refrained from so doing because it could lead
to awkward questions, so she didn’t explain any more, but Mr Vine
was there before her.

“Mrs Lymer doesn’t want your
mother to know that I’m visiting, eh? I can understand that.” He
smiled again. “No problem. I’ll come to the side door at 2pm
tomorrow and no doubt you will let me in. Will you make a note in
my diary Miss Talbot, please? I don’t want to let Mrs Lymer down by
forgetting our appointment. She was a favourite client of my father
and I could fully understand why.” He turned back to face Victoria,
missing the sneer that had spread across Miss Talbot’s face when
she was requested to enter the appointment into his diary. Victoria
didn’t miss it, however and smiled sunnily at the acidic lady.