A Place of Hope (28 page)

‘I can guess,’ Chad said grimly. ‘Emily’s nephew George is stirring up trouble everywhere and has someone in the area reporting on what his aunt is doing.’

‘We’d better go back to the pub,’ Oliver said.

But when they went outside, there had been an accident in the lane, a load of animal feed coming off a trailer that had lost one of its wheels. The lane was completely blocked.

Oliver reversed back into his drive. ‘We could be waiting ages for them to clear that. I think we’d better walk back to the pub. As I said before, there’s a short cut across the fields.’

George looked at the group of women with a smug smile. It was clear he felt things were working to his advantage, Emily thought.

‘A word with you in private, Auntie dear.’

‘I’ve nothing to say to you, George. Except that you are
not
selling my home or getting your hands on my money.’

‘We really do need a quiet word.’ He moved across, took her arm and dragged her away from the others. When Rachel would have gone to her help, he snapped, ‘Don’t even think of interfering in family matters.
You
have done enough harm already.’

Emily tried in vain to tug her arm away. ‘Let go! You’re hurting me.’

Liz whimpered, one hand splayed across her chest. ‘Oh George, don’t be so rough.’

He stopped to speak to his mother in a kindly voice. ‘Sometimes you have to be firm with a person, in their own best interests, Mother. Trust me. I need to talk to my aunt privately.’

Marcia moved to bend down and take her mother-in-law’s hand. ‘It’ll be all right. George knows what he’s doing.’

‘It’s not—’ Liz caught her son’s eye and didn’t finish her sentence. But she shook Marcia’s hand off and moved along the sofa to sit closer to Rachel, trembling so visibly that Rachel put her arm round the older woman.

George took a deep breath. ‘I’ll explain it all to you later, Mother. You’ll understand then that I’m doing this for the best.’

She shook her head. ‘You’re bullying her, George. And what Emily does is none of your business.’

‘Rubbish.’

He turned to his wife. ‘See that Mrs Nosey Parker doesn’t follow me or poison my mother’s mind against me.’ He walked out, forcing Emily to move with him.

As they left the flat, she tried to sag to the ground to prevent him from dragging her, but she was so light in comparison to him that he just picked her up and slung her over his shoulder.

Ignoring her kicking and shouting, he took her into the rear bar. ‘This will do as well as anywhere.’

She started to shout for help, in case Chad and Oliver were close enough to hear.

He shook her hard and set her on her feet again. ‘Shut up! I’m not going to hurt you.’

‘You’ve already hurt me.’ She held out a bruised wrist.

‘A tiny bruise! You did it to yourself.’

She frowned. He sounded as if he believed that. Surely he didn’t really think he was helping her? No. He was just keeping up the pretence to support what he wanted: control of the money.

‘Now. I think you’ll agree that my mother’s health is fragile and she doesn’t cope easily with stress. If you don’t help her, she could be in trouble.’

‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

‘My mother needs someone to live with her and look after her, and who better than her sister?’

‘I’ve no intention of spending my retirement as a carer. Not even for my sister. And in that tiny house, too. No, thank you. She and I are too different in our ways. Anyway, Liz doesn’t need coddling. She needs to get a life, make friends and go out more. She could do that if you let her control her own money. You keep her so short financially.’

‘Times are precarious and she’s not good with money. I’m making sure there’s enough left to care for her as long as necessary.’

‘Then
you
live with her and look after her.’

‘She needs her sister, not her son, someone of her own generation.’ He held up one hand. ‘Let me finish.’

Emily folded her arms, wondering how he could possibly think he’d persuade her to give in.

‘I already have a contract to sell this dump, signed by you before you ran away from the geriatric unit. There’s a witness to your signature who is prepared to come forward: the sister from the unit. Your memory
is
faulty, and I can prove it.’

‘I knew Pauline was involved in your scam. How much were you paying her to keep me doped and in that place, anyway?’

He ignored that and went on, still in the same arrogant tone. ‘I even have evidence of you acting irrationally before you fell down the stairs at the hotel, driving so badly you ran right off the road.’

She frowned, not remembering any incident that could be twisted to seem like that. ‘What did you arrange?’

He laughed. ‘I had no need to arrange anything. The incident happened just before you stopped for the night at the hotel. One of the staff told me about it. You’d mentioned it to them.’

‘Stop trying to fool me, George. I’m not as gullible as your mother.’

He shrugged. ‘OK. Then let’s talk frankly. Bit of luck for me, that coma. Should have made it all quite easy to arrange, once you’d been shown that you needed a quiet life from now on. But no, you had to escape and mess up the plans I’d made to look after you. And I would have looked after you, you know. I’m not heartless. Well, I know a way to make sure you won’t do that again.’

‘I don’t understand.’

He leaned closer than she liked, almost touching her. ‘Unless you do what I ask, my mother will be the one to suffer.’

She gaped at him. ‘What the hell do you mean?’

‘It’d be really easy to persuade people that my mother can’t look after herself any longer, especially after her recent fall. I could easily persuade her that her mind is failing. She is . . . an extremely persuadable woman. If
you
aren’t going to look after her, I shall have to put her into a care home. And it might not be a nice one, unless you co-operate with me.’

Emily stared at him in horror, then shook her head. She had discovered as a child that you must never give in to bullies, even when they were bigger or more powerful than you. She wasn’t going to start giving in to her nephew now. ‘I’m not letting you have my money, whatever you threaten.’

‘What’s so bad about living comfortably with my mother, anyway? At your age, a quiet life is best, much safer, especially if there turn out to be any other mental consequences of the coma. You’ve always been a quiet person. That’s probably why you never married. It’ll make very little difference to your life, really.’

He waited but she shook her head.

‘And just to sugar the pill, I’ll let you both live in your house. It’s bigger than my mother’s cottage, so there will be plenty of room for two. I can rent her house out. She won’t mind where she lives as long as it’s with you.’

Emily could only repeat slowly and clearly, ‘No, George. I won’t do it.’

‘I think you will. For my mother’s sake. You’ll see.’

She was afraid of what he might do to her sister, more afraid, though, of letting pity for Liz ruin the rest of her life, most afraid of all of being totally in George’s power. She shook her head obstinately. ‘No.’

He smiled again. Was he even listening to what she was saying?

Toby arrived at The Drover’s Hope
out of breath from running, but stopped abruptly, ducking behind a dry stone wall, when he saw another car parked outside.

Who was here? Had they sent someone to take him away? Well, he wasn’t going back. He would go into the hiding place. He could stay there for days. Even if he didn’t have anything to eat.

He peered through a barred wooden gate, which was always left half open, and when they weren’t looking, he slipped into the house through one of the rear doors. Miss Penelope had hidden the key. She’d told him not to tell anyone, and he hadn’t. He locked the door carefully behind him and put the key in his pocket. He’d put it back in the outside hiding place later. You always had to put it back.

He was making his way towards the flat when he heard a man’s voice, loud and harsh. He stopped to listen, frightened by the voice, and then he heard Emily crying out. She sounded hurt.

He didn’t know what to do.

Emily began shouting for help, so Toby moved forward quietly till he got into the rear bar and could see through into the front.

A big man with a red face was holding Emily and shouting at her, shaking her, hurting her. She was trying to get away and yelling.

Toby wanted to help her – he did, he did! – but he didn’t dare. The man looked nasty. Mrs Corrish got the same look on her face sometimes. She liked hurting people. This man was much bigger. Toby was frightened of him.

He shivered as he listened and watched, not understanding what the threats meant, only understanding that the man was upsetting Emily, that she had been shouting for help, was still trying to pull away.

What should he do? He couldn’t help her. Couldn’t fight.

Should he fetch Chad and Oliver? Could they stop the man hurting Emily? They might get hurt too. Toby didn’t like people getting hurt.

He remembered another of the things Miss Penelope had taught him in case she fell or got ill. Dial 999 and ask for help.

Johnny at the group home had dialled 999 once. He wanted to see what happened. He’d got into big trouble. Mrs Corrish had hit him.

Toby didn’t want to get into trouble. Then he remembered the special phone number from when Emily was teaching it to Chad and Oliver.

He was good at remembering numbers. Even when he didn’t understand them. Should he phone that one?

Emily cried out again and he knew he had to do something.

There was a phone in the pub kitchen. He could go there. What if the horrible man saw him, though? He looked round. He could bend down. They wouldn’t see him. Not behind the bar.

But would the people on Emily’s phone number get angry? Not if he told them the man was hurting her.

He swayed to and fro. Should he try to help Emily? She’d been kind to him.

Or should he hide in the secret place? It was safe there.

What should he
do
?

George heard a car draw up outside the pub and dragged Emily back into the flat.

‘Who’s that?’ he asked.

Marcia was already at the window. ‘Someone from Barton & Halling, according to the logo on the car.’

‘Damnation. I told them not to come till later. Go and tell them I’m not free yet. Ask them to come back at the agreed time.’ He grabbed his aunt as she tried to slip past him. ‘Oh, no, you don’t.’

He turned to Rachel and his mother. ‘And if you two know what’s good for you, you’ll stay quietly on the couch and not make any noise.’

After a terrified glance at her son, Liz kept hold of Rachel’s arm.

As Marcia left the room, Emily could only stand beside George, her senses alert for an opportunity. If she’d thought there was any chance of the people outside hearing her, she’d have been screaming already, but the walls were thick and the two people were some distance away.

Besides, that woman lawyer seemed to be on George’s side, not hers.

All Emily could hope was that Chad and Oliver would return soon and save the situation.

George couldn’t force her to do anything if she held firm against him. And she would, whatever he did to his mother.

Why was he so confident of succeeding?

That worried her. A lot.

Chad and Oliver were approaching The Drover’s Hope on foot just as a large four-wheel drive pulled into the car park. There was already a strange car parked near the old pub. They stopped to check things out.

‘Not that lot from Barton & Halling back stirring up trouble again,’ Oliver grumbled at the sight of the logo on the doors and bonnet of the new vehicle. ‘And who does the other car belong to? I’m not staying here doing nothing if the women are in danger.’

He walked across to intercept the man and woman who got out of the company vehicle. One of them was the lawyer. ‘I thought we’d agreed that you people would only come here by appointment, Ms Ryling.’

‘We do have an appointment,’ she said with a snooty look. ‘Not with you, though. We had a message from the man handling the contract exchanges to meet him here.’

‘May I remind you that as Ms Mattison’s lawyer,
I
am the one handling any business to do with my client and this house.’

‘Actually, you’re not. She’s been giving you the wrong information. Perfectly understandable in the aftermath of a coma. We do understand that she’s still confused and we’ll treat her gently.’

‘She is
not
confused.’

Ms Ryling gave him a cynical smile. ‘I think her nephew would know about that better than a stranger. And, just to set the record straight, our CEO has had a handwriting expert check Miss Mattison’s signature and he says it’s definitely hers.’

‘It can’t be. She didn’t sign it.’

‘Her nephew has assured us that she won’t deny it today, because she’s starting to remember things a little more accurately now he’s taking care of her properly. Comas can do strange things to people.’

What the hell had Pilby been up to now? Oliver wondered. How could the fellow hope to persuade Emily to agree to selling?

‘Let’s go and check that with Emily,’ Chad put in quietly.

‘What authority do you have to interfere in this?’

‘I’m her fiancé.’

Oliver hoped he’d hidden his surprise.

There was a pregnant silence, with Ms Ryling looking suspiciously at Chad, then glancing at her watch. ‘We’re not going inside yet. We’re a little early but as we were in the district, we decided we could walk round the outside of the buildings again, check a few things out. We don’t want to disturb Miss Mattison till she’s ready to see us. You go inside and sort this out with Pilby. You’ll see that I’m right. Then you can leave us to complete our transaction.’

The front door opened and Marcia came out. She stopped dead when she saw Oliver and Chad, who were standing to one side, out of sight of the living room window. Then she walked across to the two people from Barton & Halling, ignoring the others.

The three of them moved apart and held a low-voiced conversation.