In the back sitting room of the little house in Tebay, Edith Airey sat filled with a silent rage so fierce she thought her head might explode from the sheer intensity of it.
She was at the dining table, her parents on either side of her, picking over a desultory lunch of limp salad with cold baked beans and slices of tinned corned beef that her mother had prepared on her return from church.
Normally, her father spent every Sunday morning washing the car, weather permitting, leaving a scummy layer of suds trailing into the gutter. This morning he’d carted her up to Penrith for her abortive interview with his bad-tempered inspector instead. He’d barely spoken since they got back, apart from a gritted warning to say nothing to her mother. Like I’m going to blab about it to her!
The long afternoon stretched away ahead. Edith’s mother would retreat to the kitchen to wash and iron, leaving her father to slump in front of the TV watching some pointless sport or another. European athletics. No glamour there.
It was the same every week, year in and year out. The banality was slowly driving Edith insane. She flicked a little look under her fringe at her mother’s dull features, placidly shovelling food in and chewing like a mechanical cow. Her father was no better, his eyes on the paper folded next to his plate despite her mother’s half-hearted protests about reading at the dinner table.
She wanted to jump up, to toss the old willow-pattern crockery into the air and scream at the pair of them. Everything’s different now! I’m different! As she surreptitiously spat another lump of corned beef into her milk, it all seemed horrifyingly the same as it had ever been.
“I don’t get a mention,” Airey grumbled, sitting back. “They’ve made that new lad, Weston, out to be a right superhero.” He sniffed. “Ought to be on a disciplinary charge, disobeying orders like that. And that McColl woman.”
“I think she was very brave,” Edith’s mother said. “Going out to help poor Danny. She could have been killed.”
Next time, Edith thought savagely, she will be.
The phone rang unexpectedly enough to make her start, sloshing milk onto the table.
“Oh, Edith,” her mother said automatically. “Don’t just sit there, lovey. Fetch a cloth.”
Her father went out into the hall to answer the phone. Edith shoved her chair back and grabbed a dishcloth from the kitchen, heart thumping. As she hurried back to the sitting room, her eyes flitted over the door leading to the cellar steps, to what lay in her father’s locked hideaway at the bottom.
Jim Airey was back before she’d finished mopping up the spill, making a show of annoyance but secretly buzzing, she could tell.
“That was Carleton Hall,” he said pompously. “They want me in this afternoon.”
“Oh, Jim,” her mother protested. “Haven’t you done enough?”
Her father’s chest swelled. “I’m needed. With this sniper on the loose, it’s all hands to the pumps.”
They must be desperate, Edith thought, and didn’t miss the dark look her father threw in her direction.
“Well, when will you be back? What about your tea?” her mother fretted. “I’ve got sausages defrosting.”
“I’ll grab something from the canteen when I get the chance,” Airey dismissed. “Apparently, some Special Branch bloke’s come up from London to take charge. He’s shaking things up good and proper.”
“Special Branch?” Edith queried, her voice slightly squeaky.
Her father nodded. “Must think there’s some terrorist connection. They’re bringing in the big boys. We’ll get him now, that’s for certain.”
Edith sat in a daze, her mind paralysed, while her father gathered his gear, her mother fluttering round him. The slamming of the front door behind him jolted her out of stasis.
“Well,” her mother said with a tremulous smile, coming back through from the hallway. “Just the two of us, then, lovey.”
Edith jumped up, her legs suddenly unstable. “I gotta go out.”
“Oh, no. Where?”
“The Retreat,” she mumbled, then invented, “Mr Hogg’s got a–a new tenant arriving tomorrow. I forgot. He asked me to go in, special, like.”
“Oh Edith,” her mother moaned. “He can’t ask you to work on a Sunday.”
Patrick, Edith thought desperately. I can’t let them take him. Not when it’s taken me this long to find someone to get me out of here…
As suddenly as it had arrived, Edith’s sense of panic left her. She turned, looked her mother straight in the face. “He’s relying on me,” she said calmly. “I can’t let him down.”
Her mother’s brow smoothed as her face cleared. “Of course not. Well, it’s nice that he trusts you with the responsibility, I suppose. Make sure you’re back in time for your tea, though, won’t you?”
Edith mumbled a noncommittal reply, scrambled into her coat and slipped out through the backyard to the scooter. She rode down to Grayrigg hunched over the handlebars, the throttle twisted open as far as it would go. It still took an agonisingly long time to reach the Retreat.
She flung herself off in the yard at the byre door. When there was no answer to her frantic knocking, she looked around, almost hysterical, saw the main doors to the barn propped open and ran up the yard, arms pumping.
Inside the barn, Patrick Bardwell was sitting on an old oil drum, stripped to the waist, very carefully laying on dark blue paint to the rear panel of the Land Rover. He glanced up sharply as she came flailing into view.
“Patrick!” she cried, and promptly burst into tears.
Bardwell set down his paintbrush across the edge of the open tin and got slowly to his feet. She thought he’d come to her then, but he moved over to the workbench and stood there, wiping his hands on a bit of rag, not taking his eyes off her.
“What’s the matter?” he said at last, when her initial sobs had subsided into noisy sniffs.
“Special Branch,” she managed to get out. She moved over to the oil drum, idly picked up the paintbrush, managed to get paint on her hands and put it down again, flushing, wiping her fingers on the sleeve of her shirt. “Dad says they’ve called in Special Branch—some bloke from London. They think you’re a terrorist! Dad reckons it won’t be long before—”
“You trust your dad more than me and we call this a day right now,” he cut across her quietly, throwing the rag back onto the bench. Edith was fascinated at how the muscles in his chest meshed and slid under his skin. He had the look of a man race fit, carrying weight for purpose not just for show. She swallowed, mouth going bone dry.
“I–I don’t,” she whispered, suddenly embarrassed, looking at her toes.
He came forwards then, close but not touching. Edith risked lifting her gaze a little, was confronted by a hairless male chest only a foot or so away, a small tight nipple. She flushed scarlet at the surge of lust, let her head droop again. His fingers hooked under her chin, tipped her head up, callused thumb smoothing her jaw, mesmeric.
“If they’re from London, your dad doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Bardwell said, matter-of-fact. “Special Branch changed their name a good few years ago to the Counter Terrorism Command, SO15. MI5’s bully boys.”
Edith heard something in his voice. Slowly, her head rose, past the temptation of his bare chest to fix on his face. Often it was hard to tell his expression, what with that beard, but this time there was no doubt. He was smiling.
“You knew,” she choked. “You knew they were coming!”
“Knew? I was counting on it.”