The Judge's Daughter (32 page)

He needed to find another chauffeur-cum-handyman, someone biddable, grateful and good-tempered. The nose continued to throb – even Denis Makepeace’s patience did not last forever.
The assaults would have to be ignored – Zachary knew he was in no position to have his assailants arrested. Helen had ensured their freedom from prosecution. She was a clever woman, had
probably been a clever child – he should have noticed her. Clever women were a commodity much resented by him – they were unnecessary. But, had he kept her on his side, she might have
turned into an asset rather than an adversary.

In the bathroom, he bathed his face, flinching when applying ointment to marks bequeathed by Mrs Agnes Makepeace. His hand stopped in mid-air. She was his daughter; she was carrying his
grandchild. Louisa’s chances of giving birth to a healthy son were not looking good. That wife of Denis’s was a fine specimen – nothing like her downtrodden mother.

‘Bloody hell,’ he mumbled. ‘Fine pickle, this is.’ He felt his nose, assumed that it was not broken, went to bed. He lay there for half the night, his mind on one single
track – he tried to imagine what was in the Turnbull letter. Helen had judged the contents to be enough to send him to jail – but no, that could not be right. No one had seen. He
remained absolutely sure that there had been no witnesses to . . . It was better not to think about that particular event. Nothing could be proved, anyway. Yet he wanted to see both letters, needed
to know the lies contained in those pages.

When he slept, he groaned and moaned his way through a dream that was new to him. A long staircase, noises, dragging. What was that? Had he heard the closing of a door? Had the sedatives failed?
No, he was imagining the sound. The staircase grew longer. The nearer he got to the bottom, the more stairs it collected. He had to get there soon – had to move the evidence. That door again.
No, no, they were fast asleep.

Morning found him in physical pain from yesterday’s attacks. His mind, too, was disturbed by the troubled night. Women. This was all the fault of the female of the species, the mothers,
wives, sisters and daughters inflicted by God as a punishment on mankind. It wasn’t fair. And he had lost Denis.

October was passing. With enormous reluctance, Helen, Agnes and Louisa packed. Denis, who had visited most weekends, carried the baggage out to the car. It was time to go
home.

Louisa, leaning for moral support on her stepdaughter, was returning to a man she had not seen since the day Helen had routed him. He had telephoned, had asked about the well-being of his wife
and child, but he had not dared to come again to Morecambe. Louisa, in better health, had finally begun to bloom, but she showed signs of wilting when they left the house for the last time.

‘Stay with us,’ Agnes begged. ‘We’ve got a spare room and you’re welcome to it.’

‘I can’t.’

‘I’ll look after her,’ said Helen. ‘She will live with me in my apartment. There’s nothing he can do, you see. I’d have fleeced him of all his money by now if
I’d chosen to blackmail him. But I want him exactly where he is while I work out what to do with him.’

Agnes shivered. The weather was cold, but not as icy as the tone of Helen Spencer’s voice. ‘Don’t do anything daft, Helen,’ she begged.

‘I won’t.’

Agnes did not believe that. Helen seemed to have achieved a state in which she was calm to the point of madness – if such a thing were possible. The woman had a goal in life, and that goal
was probably the destruction of Zachary Spencer. Agnes’s own anger remained, but that was a healthy reaction, she believed, since she had only recently found out the name of the person who
had impregnated and abandoned her own mother. Perhaps anger cooled over a period of months or years; perhaps she, too, would arrive at a place in which she wanted revenge. But she doubted that. The
facts had to be accepted and dealt with – the rewriting of history was an impossibility.

‘Agnes?’

She looked at her sister. ‘What?’

‘Don’t worry.’

‘I’ll try.’

Helen climbed into the front passenger seat while Denis took the wheel. She was calm. But her main goal in life for now was to get past the two births – it was suddenly important that the
expected children should be delivered in safety. Louisa, who had become a dear friend, must be guarded at all times; Agnes, Helen’s new-found sister, should also be made secure. The babies
were the priority for the time being. After the births, open season could begin.

Denis started the car. ‘Are we set?’ he asked.

‘In stone,’ replied Helen.

Louisa was weeping softly in the back of the car.

‘Don’t cry,’ begged Agnes. ‘Helen will look after you. Once she’s made her mind up about something, there’s no budging her. He’s never hit you, has
he?’

‘His blows don’t show on the surface.’ Helen settled back in her seat. ‘He’s careful like that.’ But so was she. Helen was, after all, her father’s
daughter.

The judge was away. Helen and Louisa settled into the apartment. Their prepared story was to be that Louisa needed a female at hand, because certain symptoms had begun to
appear, and a man would not understand. He would fall for that, or so Helen believed. She could not imagine her father wanting to discuss the complicated arrangements of a woman’s
reproductive system.

Oscar had returned from his holiday with Fred and Denis, who had taken turns to mind him. The dog, who was twice the size he had been a month ago, yapped joyfully when he greeted them. Slightly
older and wiser, he knew what he had to do. He had to be here; these women needed him.

They had been back for three days when Kate Moores knocked at their door. ‘There’s a young fellow to see you,’ she told Helen. ‘Wants to see you on your own. I’ll
sit with the missus while you go.’

Helen descended the back staircase slowly. Where was Father? And which young man had he sent to perpetrate some kind of revenge? No, no, he would not dare . . . Would he?

The young man stood in Kate’s kitchen, flat cap squashed in nervous hands, a slight slick of sweat glistening on a handsome face. ‘Miss Helen Spencer?’ he asked timidly.

‘For my sins, yes. But you have the advantage of me, because I don’t know you at all. Or do I?’

‘Harry Timpson, Miss Spencer. My mam asked you to help me and you did.’ He moved forward, words tumbling from his lips. ‘You’ve turned my life round. I couldn’t
have done prison again. It would have killed my mam. Your dad gave me probation – I expected a good three years. But I never blew the safe – I just took the jewellery to sell. Anyway,
the long and short is this – I’m not the same person, honest. I have to behave now.’

‘Please, it was nothing—’

‘It was everything. I mean, I’ve no job and no money, but I can walk about and meet my mates – as long as I don’t break the law. Which is why—’ He stopped
abruptly.

Helen set the kettle to boil. ‘Milk and sugar?’ she asked.

He nodded, but remained silent.

She placed the pot on the table, asked him to sit, poured the tea. ‘What’s bothering you, Harry? May I call you Harry?’

‘Aye, it’s my name.’

‘Well, Harry?’

He took a mouthful of tea. ‘I’d be better off with whisky,’ he managed.

‘Shall I get some?’

‘No.’ Harry inhaled deeply. ‘I’m in a bit of a pickle, as my mother would put it.’

‘Oh?’

‘Aye.’ He drank more of the scalding tea, wiped his mouth on the back of a hand. ‘There’s this man,’ he began lamely.

She decided to allow him to proceed at his own pace.

‘He’s asked me to do summat. It’s a break-in at a lawyer’s.’

Helen nodded. He scarcely needed to utter another syllable, but she let him continue.

‘I’m to look for files under two names.’ Harry bowed his head. ‘I’m on probation. If I get caught, my feet won’t touch the floor, because nobody would believe
the name of the man who told me to do this. He’s promised me a job, a proper job, if I do the robbery. He’s high up, you see. I’d get years inside and he’d get away with
it.’

‘The names?’ she asked.

He shook his head slowly.

‘Do they begin with S and T?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then I know who has asked you to do that dreadful deed.’ She stood up and paced about for a few minutes. ‘The man who broke the safe in Manchester – do you know
him?’

Harry nodded.

‘I’ll pay him to do this job in your place. Don’t tell me his name – I have no need of it. I shall give him one thousand pounds.’

Harry swallowed. ‘Eh?’

‘One thousand. But wait until next Friday. Tell my— Tell your employer that it will be next Friday.’ She needed time, needed to plant something in those offices – the
safe-breaker should not leave empty-handed.

Harry’s eyes were bright with a mixture of tears and adoration. She had saved him once and she was about to save him a second time. ‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ he
mumbled.

The boot was on a different foot, mused Helen after her grateful visitor had left. Her father was wasting his time by getting the offices raided, because both documents were sealed in an
impenetrable vault below the pavement at a Bolton bank. There would be something to be found, though. She intended to hand another sealed letter to Lucy Henshaw. The contents could be quite amusing
– she might write
Fooled you, Daddy
– no, she would not do that, because Harry Timpson needed to be in the clear.

A little note reminding George to confirm that her letters were in the bank would suffice. She had already received confirmation, but she could pretend that the letter had gone astray in the
post. Life was interesting, she reminded herself as she returned to her rooms. Revenge was sweet, but it needed to be served cold. There would be something for the burglar to find and, if he were
arrested, no one would believe that a judge’s daughter had initiated the crime. ‘It works both ways, Father,’ whispered Helen into the quiet of the hall. ‘I can play the
game, too.’

‘What did he want?’ Louisa asked when Helen returned.

‘My father is thinking of giving him a job,’ she said.

Kate was not pleased. ‘I felt safer when Denis was here,’ she grumbled.

‘We all did.’ Louisa went to lie on a sofa. Her back ached, her feet were swollen – and she had another five months to endure.

‘That’s right, you have a sleep,’ advised Kate. ‘I’ll go and get on with me baking.’

Helen gazed into the flames. It seemed that Father had played right into her hands by asking for Harry Timpson’s help. Harry was Helen’s man. He was grateful to her and only to her.
Harry would be an asset – she would make sure of that.

‘What are you cooking up now?’ asked a sleepy Louisa.

‘Nothing of any consequence. Go to sleep. We’ll need our wits about us when Father gets home. If he comes home.’ Perhaps he was afraid. Perhaps he would move into his club for
good.

‘He’ll come home,’ sighed Louisa.

Helen made no effort to reply. Her father had no home, though his place in hell was booked and waiting. Nothing mattered now, because Helen held the biggest weapon available – she knew his
darkest secrets. Let him come, let him go – she had the upper hand and would hold on tightly to the bitterest of ends.

The thousand pounds, filtered through several minor representatives of the Lancashire bad boys, would never be traced back to Helen. When the story of the crime broke, it was
given suitable prominence in local newspapers, but the reason for the burglary remained unclear. Several items of no particular import were stolen, and the job was generally believed to be the work
of drunken amateurs.

Almost two weeks after the break-in, Judge Zachary Spencer returned to his own domain. He accepted the explanation for his wife’s disappearance into Helen’s part of the house; then,
after a few days had passed, he sent Kate to fetch his daughter. Stalemate had been reached and he needed to clarify matters as quickly as possible.

She sat in a chair opposite his, noticed that his nose advertised his continued dependence on alcohol, thanked God that she had nipped her own problem in the bud. ‘Here I am,’ she
said unnecessarily. ‘What can I do for you, Father?’

He closed his eyes for a weary second. ‘Look. I don’t know what Mabel Turnbull wrote about me, but, whether it’s right or wrong, it could do harm to this family.’

Helen nodded her head in agreement. ‘It’s my insurance policy,’ she told him. ‘To be used only in the direst of circumstances.’

‘Quite. Thus far, we think alike.’

‘Yes. Thus far and no further.’

She was more than a match for him now. He studied the set of her mouth, the erect shoulders, the quiet confidence in her face. ‘Does anyone else know?’ he asked.

‘Agnes knows she is my sister – you were there at the time. I’m so glad the scars on your face healed, by the way. Beyond that, I have kept my counsel. There is no point in
showing my hand before all betting has ceased. We are the only two players – you will have to take my word for that, since you have no other option. Even her grandfather does not know that
you are the reason for Agnes’s existence. Thus it will remain unless or until circumstances alter.’

‘Good.’

‘So now, we negotiate, Father. First, we want Denis back. Harry Timpson is a good worker – thank you for giving him that chance – but we are all used to Denis. I suggest you
crawl on your belly and beg Denis to return – even on a part time basis if necessary.’

He blinked rapidly. ‘He hit me.’

‘Yes, he did.’

‘But yours was the weight behind the blow.’

‘Yes, it was.’

A short silence ensued. ‘I shall give them the deeds to their house – the landlord will sell to me if I offer the right price. The grandfather, too, must be
compensated—’

‘No. Mr Grimshaw will be kept in the dark about Agnes’s situation. He’s had one stroke – a second could kill him. He is secure now, thanks to his second wife and his
business.’

‘I see. Any more conditions?’

‘Leave Louisa with me until her confinement – as I told you already, there are complications best dealt with by the females of the species. After the child is born, she will make her
own choices and decisions. Father, you have ruled for too long – I think it’s time for another Regency period. You and I can be courteous in company, at least. As long as we understand
each other, we’ll cope. My documents will remain in a bank vault.’