Embroidering Shrouds (2 page)

She stood up and stumbled across the room, using her stick for support, as the physiotherapist had showed her. But even with the aid her progress was slow, and someone was knocking at her door.

Lydia normally felt safe behind drawn curtains and closed doors and didn't bother with locks and bolts. But tonight something was making her restless; maybe it was the wind, howling outside. And it wasn't just her, the soft clucking in the corner was louder than usual. She crossed the room to stand over the basket. ‘Quiet, you two. Nothing's happening. It's just a storm.' But the hens failed to respond to the soothing tone in her voice and clawed at the straw in their basket.

Lydia Patterson picked up the larger of the two hens, a fat, black and white pencilled bird. ‘What is it?' she asked. ‘Is there a fox outside?'

The hen gave a noisy cluck.

Lydia placed the hen back in the basket and returned to the window, pulling back the curtain to stare outside. The wind was gaining strength, noisily tearing through the night. There
was
something restless in the air; she wasn't imagining it. She pulled the front door open and stood at the top of the steps, peering around the yard.
Was
something slinking along the hedge or was it her imagination?

She took the gun from its cabinet and slotted two cartridges into the barrel.

Joanna wasn't clattering the plates on purpose, they just
seemed
to be making a louder noise than usual. Matthew glared at her, frowning.

She wasn't
trying
to listen either, but she couldn't help it. Matthew's voice was very clear. And when he spoke to either Jane or Eloise he had a habit of speaking even more slowly, more deliberately and more clearly than usual. Add to that the fact that Eloise's voice was high-pitched and shrill, particularly when she was trying to coax something out of her father.

Even in the kitchen, scrubbing the green Le Creuset saucepans that she had learned not to ruin in the dishwasher, she could hear Matthew's replies to Eloise. But she could not make out her words, only the tone. She's laying down the law, Joanna decided. What was it now, a half-term treat? A weekend somewhere? Money? She picked up the wine glasses, wondering whether to risk putting them in with the dishes. There was still half a bottle of wine left. They wouldn't be drinking it now. Correction, she thought sourly, they would drink it, they just wouldn't enjoy it. In a sudden fury she slammed the dishwasher door shut, ignoring the protesting clatter from the crockery and switched it on, her mind working overtime. How many evenings did she and Matthew have together? With his work and her irregular hours, few. Too few. So how did his daughter sense when it was their turn for an evening at home when he wasn't on call? How did she
know?

Sunday, of course, the traditional
family
day.

Sulkily Joanna listened to Matthew's apologies to the ex-wife now. ‘I'm sorry, Jane. I do realize.' A pause before a patient, ‘Yes, I do understand. It's fine. No, no, I'll be glad to see her.' Another long stop while Jane Levin continued the tirade. ‘Joanna will love to have her, I promise.' Said more firmly. Joanna froze in the doorway. Matthew shot her a swift, anxious, apologetic grin, meant to be reassuring, a
we can manage it together
sort of grin, at the same time as he was speaking into the telephone. ‘I'm sorry, Jane, but I shall have to go now.' And, surprisingly, without waiting for her lengthy sentences to end he put the phone down, stood motionless for a moment then finally turned towards Joanna. He held out an arm in pacification and typically didn't wait to drop his bombshell. Matthew always broke bad news quickly.

‘I've promised to have Eloise for half-term. OK?'

7 a.m. Monday, October 26th

Lydia was out of bed and already writing.

Dora nestled over the brown egg, feeling the comforting shape of it beneath her feathered rump. She eyed the other hens with a certain air of smugness. None of them could have produced such perfection.

Lydia stopped writing and stared through the window, her thoughts years away. How different all their lives could have been if ...

She tutted to herself; no use dwelling in the land of If. She must accept what was and be practical. So instead of searching through dreams she forced herself to see what
was
through the window: a yard, muddy and strewn with branches and twigs blasted from the trees by the storm, a corrugated tin roof lurching at a drunken angle over the hen house. Damage had been done and now there was work to do.

Joanna's contentment temporarily returned as she wheeled her bike round to the front of the house and took a long glance back at their home. Waterfall Cottage never failed to delight her. Built in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, it had originally been a farmworker's cottage in the attractively but misleadingly named village: there was no waterfall. There were stocks and a pinfold, an ancient parish church, and a school which had been closed for twenty years but still served as a village hall. Waterfall Cottage stood opposite the triangular village green, a small, pretty stone cottage that backed on to the churchyard. She and Matthew had gutted the entire house, preserving what they could and at the same time improving it with a damp course, central heating, a kitchen which masqueraded as traditional yet held every available modern labour-saving device: a microwave, a dishwasher, a fridge-freezer. They had decorated throughout in modern, bright colours, chosen every stick of furniture together: an antique pine dining table and eight chairs, a feather-stuffed sofa, a cabinet which she had filled with her only inherited heirlooms, a collection of Victorian Staffordshire figures, bequeathed by an aunt.

She negotiated the blue brick path, mounting her bike at the front gate and carefully manoeuvring around Matthew's maroon BMW which still stood outside. He would leave in half an hour.

It was a perfect day for cycling, blustery and cool, fresh and damp, the moors today bathed in a sunshine too golden for any season but a fine English autumn day. The only hazard left by last night's rain were slippery leaves that lay rotting on the lanes and a few branches strewn across the road like objects in an obstacle course. Joanna wheeled around them carefully; she didn't want another broken wrist.

She sped down the hill, quickly crossing the flat patch of moorland that lay between her and Leek. But as the town came into distant view she felt a sudden reluctance to abandon the countryside with its fields bordered by dry-stone walls, the grass speckled with grey stone cottages and isolated farms. As she flicked her feet around the pedals she scolded herself, Leek was really a peaceful town, she was usually glad to see it slide into view. It was as she changed gear to climb the hill that she finally acknowledged the reason for her alien emotion, a spate of burglaries that had begun early in the spring had escalated to robbery with violence. What had started as petty pilfering from empty houses had progressed to a spree where the burglars didn't care whether the owners were in or out. Twice the crimes had been committed while the owners had been obliviously watching television. And then a few months ago, through a wet summer, the crimes had altered again. In July the burglars had pushed past an old lady, causing her to fall down some stairs and break her hip. In August another of Leek's elderly widows had reported that masked men had broken in to her home and robbed her of £300 which she had kept with her tea bags ready to pay the gas bill.

While the town was still nervous from those pointless acts, the crimes had taken on an even more threatening turn. Two weeks after the last robbery the thieves had seemed to
wait
for an elderly widow to be in for their attack. Cecily Marlowe had been out shopping all afternoon, ample opportunity for burglars to break, enter, steal and get away. But they had made themselves a cup of tea, turned the television on and awaited her return, then slashed her across the face with a Stanley knife and stolen a few trifles, including her pension book. And the police still hadn't caught the gang.

Finding her rhythm now Joanna pedalled along the Ashbourne Road, the Peak District National Park rising to her right, the small farming valley to the left. A few sheep were dotted around on pale grass, a tractor climbed towards the ridge, its engine spluttering noisily. The town loomed ahead, its landmarks already discernible, the spire of St Mary's, the green dome of the Nicholson Institute, tall square mills. She returned to her thoughts. Fear of the crimes had spread throughout the small town, the flames fanned by the front page of the local paper which had been devoted to the pathetic picture of Cecily Marlowe, aged seventy-five, scarred by a Stanley knife. The paper had spared none of the details, its description was graphic enough without the picture that took up half of page one. It had been clear enough to pick out every one of the twenty-five sutures which had criss-crossed her right cheek. Worse still when she had tried to save herself, putting her hands up to protect her face, one of her fingers had been slashed to the bone and almost severed. The headlines had reported nothing but facts, and they were enough to spread panic through the elderly population of the quiet, moorlands town.

The article had had its inevitable spin-offs. Police investigations had been hampered by a disproportionate increase in reported incidents by elderly citizens where there had been no crime, just another old person who
thought
they had seen or heard something suspicious. The call-out rate had more than quadrupled. Fear had crept, like a draught, under every door where people felt vulnerable. And as the police constantly admitted, they could offer no solution, only repeated advice not to let strangers through doors.

A bare ten days after the Stanley knife assault – and before the newspaper had finished commenting on the crime – another old lady had been threatened and the panic had spread further. Locksmiths and burglar alarm suppliers had had a field day fitting out homes like fortresses. But however many precautions they took the elderly folk of Leek no longer felt safe in their own homes.

For the police it had been a nightmare. Each reported incident had to be followed up by an investigating team, lest one of the elderly victims who cried wolf should be a real target. But every moment Joanna and Mike spent chasing up ‘incidents' was time lost from the real investigation. Frustratingly, they were getting nowhere. Neighbouring police forces had been of little help either, having few reported incidents of attacks on elderly women in their own homes that had not been solved. And this led the police to deduce that this gang had only struck here in Leek.

Joanna had almost reached the town. As she approached the outskirts she breathed a silent prayer, that peace would reign again both in the town she thought of so affectionately and in her own home. Miss Eloise Levin she shoved roughly to the back of her mind.

She turned right into the station car park, locked her bike against the railings and stood for a moment, her mind still wrestling with the problem. Gangs who robbed old people had their own modus operandi, they didn't
wait
for old ladies to return but took advantage of an empty house. They stole videos, cash, jewellery: small, valuable objects. Joanna tramped towards the glass doors. Not a pair of brass candlesticks of no great value and a pension book which was too risky to use. Joanna felt a prickling of apprehension. The violence was roller-coasting; they would attack one frail old lady too many.

Soon there would be a death.

Bill Tylman liked to think of himself as a traditional milkman, friendly, whistling, jolly and helpful; the man in the adverts; a sort of community service to solitary households, the lonely, the elderly, the vulnerable. And there were plenty of those. He knew all his orders from one end of the town to the other, who supplemented their milk order with orange juice, cream, eggs or pop, because he didn't just sell milk. He turned into the tufted lane that led to the two houses, the decaying, grand mansion and the concrete box that stood in front. Nan Lawrence restricted her order to one pint of milk a day, two on Saturdays because he didn't deliver on Sundays. Her order never varied – no eggs, no cream, no pop – just the one pint of milk a day. As he drove towards the ugly, concrete house Bill had a vision of her emptying the last drop of the pint into her early morning cup of tea before rinsing the bottle and setting it outside the front door for him, just so she could stick to her rigid, regular routine. This never varied either: two empties on Mondays, one to pick up every other day of the week.

Most mornings Bill would rattle the milk cage and whistle extra loud, then see Nan eyeing him balefully from the window as though if she didn't watch him he would leave sour milk on the doorstep. He would smile and wave, still playing the part of the milkman of the year, which he had been declared only a month ago. It was his ambition to win the title again next year. Tylman grimaced. It would not be through Nan's nomination; she certainly didn't appreciate him, never even waved back, and she didn't smile either. Instead she would stare right through him, her eyes fixed on the milk bottles. Gave him a nasty feeling that, but he'd chuck her a cheery grin anyway. At least she always paid her bills – in cash. No ‘I'll give you double next week, Bill'. Just handed the money over on Fridays with her frosty stare. But he didn't mind, he'd got used to her now.

He glanced at the window, his smile in his pocket ready to stick on his face but the curtains were drawn. Strange, she always sat in this room, bent over her sewing, and she wasn't one to leave her curtains drawn either. When he put the bottle down on the front doorstep another puzzle was waiting, only one rinsed bottle was there. Tylman eyed it superstitiously. It was Monday, wasn't it? Yeah, of course it was. Tylman scratched his head. This was most unusual, no doubt about it. He picked up the solitary empty, his eyes fixed on the closed curtains, half expecting them to be flung back and for Nan Lawrence's sharp features to appear. But they didn't and the curtains stayed firmly shut.