Be Not Afraid Page 14

  “Ah,” Walton said. “Yes, indeed. I entirely understand.”

  “I can obtain it from him, of course,” Berkeley said. “But I was under the impression that the most recently dated will obtains, no matter who may have possession of any previous instruments.”

  “That is correct, sir. But it does sometimes lead to complications and appeals and that sort of thing. I think it would be best that I inform Mr Horsfall that you have made a new will, and invite him either to destroy the original or forward it to me.”

  “As you think best. I agree that there may well be objections when my new will is probated.”

  “Always something to be avoided. But you are talking as if, well . . .”

  “Yes,” Berkeley said. “It could happen at any moment.”

  “Good heavens! An illness?” Walton looked at Druce, as if enquiring why his junior had not discovered it.

  “An assassination, Mr Walton,” Berkeley said. “If you recall, Mr Bullord’s cross-examination elicited the fact that although the Karlovys certainly came to kill me, they did not come of their own accord.”

  “Well, yes, but I thought that was purely to provide a defence.”

  “Unfortunately, it happened to be the truth. I do not wish to involve either of you in my personal problems but in the course of my career I have managed to antagonise a powerful and ruthless organisation, and they are out for my blood. That they employed the Karlovys, who also had a reason but not the means, to kill me, is merely an example of that ruthlessness. Therefore, I must assume, the Karlovys having failed, they will try again.

  “Even round-the-clock protection will not keep these people out and, as our police are not armed, we would very probably be looking at the death of at least one officer. This I do not propose to contemplate. It is a matter we will have to take care of on our own.”

  “We?” Druce asked.

  “Anna and Martina Savos are both entirely aware of the situation and both completely capable of taking care of themselves. And me.”

  “But, sir . . . a twenty-year-old girl?”

  “Who next year will be a twenty-one-year-old woman, Druce. Anna comes from a long line of guerilla fighters, men and women.”

  “Well, sir . . .”

  “If you wish to withdraw your suit, you are free to do so. I will explain the situation to Anna.”

  “I would not dream of withdrawing my suit, sir. I would protect Anna with my life.”

  “Well, let’s hope it won’t come to that. Now, as I said, the existing will leaves the bulk of my estate to Lucy, with due provision for each of my children, and names her as my executor. When it was drawn up I had no doubt that in administering the estate she would receive all the help and support necessary from her father.

  “That situation no longer obtains and my eldest child, Anna, will, as I have said, be twenty-one next June and therefore legally of age to manage her own and the family’s affairs. However, she knows absolutely nothing about financial matters. I would therefore like to name you, Walton, and you, Druce as my executors, together with Mrs Martina Savos.”

  Both the solicitors looked somewhat anxious at this.

  “Mrs Savos and I intend to get married in the very near future,” Berkeley explained. “At which time she will, as Mrs Townsend, be fully entitled to that position. This will is merely to tide us over until then. My pension will of course cease with my life, but my investments should be sufficient to keep things going, certainly in the short term.”

  “Do the children know of this arrangement?” Walton asked, still doubtful.

  “I intend to acquaint Anna with it immediately. I know she will be content, as she and Martina are the best of friends. I will tell the other children when they are home for their holidays, which will be in a couple of weeks. Now, Druce, when you marry Anna – if you have not changed your mind – you will share the responsibility of handling the family’s affairs with Martina. Should Martina wish to marry again, she will forfeit her position and share in the estate and you will be sole administrator; I hope this will not happen and it is unlikely that it would, or could, happen before Anna’s twenty-first birthday. I wish all of this incorporated in the will.”

  “I shall have it drawn up immediately,” Walton said. “Druce will bring it out tomorrow for you to study. It would be better, however, if you came into the office to sign it. Obviously any witnesses you may obtain at the farm will be interested parties. Including Druce.”

  Berkeley nodded. “That makes sense. I’ll look forward to seeing you tomorrow, Druce.”

  *

  “Come back in, Harry,” Walton said, when the young man had shown his prospective father-in-law out of the office. “And close the door.”

  Druce did so.

  “Sit,” Walton said. “What do you think?”

  “He’s a remarkable man. In every possible way.”

  “He’s also something of a fool.”

  “Sir?”

  “This business of the Savos woman. For God’s sake, she’s little more than a tart.”

  “She appears devoted to Colonel Townsend.”

  “Appears is the operative word. She knows which side her bread is buttered all right. But if something were to happen to him . . .”

  “It would be up to me, acting on Anna’s behalf, to make sure the estate was administered properly.”

  “Yes,” Walton said thoughtfully. “You’ve had no second thoughts?”

  “None. I think I love her more and more with every day.”

  Walton did not comment on that in words, although his expression did. “What do your parents think of her?”

  “They have never met her.”

  Walton raised his eyebrows. “But if you are to marry, and soon . . .”

  “I had not realised it was going to be that soon,” Druce said. “When I first proposed, Colonel Townsend spoke of waiting a year. I have not actually mentioned anything to my parents yet.”

  “Bless my soul,” Walton commented. He knew the older Druces quite well; they were not the most liberal couple he had ever met. “Well, my boy, I think you need to do so, very urgently.”

  Druce nodded. “I realise that now. Would you give me your support?”

  Walton scratched his nose. “I assume you have asked that because you suspect they may not approve.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I really do not feel I can, or should, interfere between a son and his parents, Harry. I can, if asked, give an opinion on the Townsends, in which case I will say that the Colonel is a valued client and an honourable man, and his daughter is both beautiful and charming, and I would say intelligent. That she has recovered so well from her horrifying ordeal is entirely to her credit, and I personally would be very happy to have her as the wife of one of my partners.”

  “I do not think I could ask for anything more, sir,” Druce said.

  *

  Berkeley drove home in a more relaxed frame of mind than for a long time. He felt he had put his affairs in order and taken care of the immediate future. He felt quite sure of Martina’s loyalty, not because of any love she might feel for him – which was purely physical – but because she had nowhere to go, nor could she possibly improve her position, save by marrying again, and he had taken care of that. And Anna and Druce would hopefully find the happiness he so desperately wanted for the girl.

  He even found himself whistling as he turned down the lane, the house clearly visible in the valley beneath him, bathed in autumnal colours. Now he could go ahead with plans for both weddings. They would be held next summer, while Johnnie and Alicia were home. Why, it could be that joint wedding Martina had suggested.

  He braked as someone waved at him from the hedge beside the road; it was a middle-aged woman wearing the uniform and bonnet of the Salvation Army.

  “Lost?” he asked, stopping beside her and rolling down his window.

  “I’ve been waiting,” she said. “You are Colonel Berkeley Townsend?”

  �
�Yes, I am. And you’re the woman who came to the house a few days ago.”

  “That’s right.”

  Berkeley considered her. He had been as suspicious as Anna and Martina when he had first heard of her, but quite apart from the uniform and the large prayer book lying in the basket on her handlebars, he had never seen such an ineffective-looking woman.

  “Well, follow me down and have a cup of coffee.”

  “I don’t think I need to do that,” the woman said, pulling his door open and in virtually the same movement flipping open the prayer book to reveal, in its cut-out interior, an automatic pistol, which she now aimed and fired.

  The Wound

  Anna stood at the front window and watched her father’s car come over the top of the low hill.

  “Papa’s home,” she called down to Martina.

  “Just in time for lunch,” Martina called back.

  Anna turned away from the window and then checked, looking back at the lane. The car had stopped. Because of the trees and bushes which lined the lane, she couldn’t tell why, but it had definitely stopped, and hadn’t started moving again.

  She ran down the stairs.

  “I think Papa has had a puncture,” she told Martina, who emerged from the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel.

  “That’ll annoy him.”

  “I’ll go up and see if he needs a hand.”

  “We’re not supposed to leave the house,” Martina reminded her.

  “I’m only going a quarter of a mile. And it’s almost all on our property.”

  “That doesn’t make it any safer. If you must go, take your gun.”

  Anna ran upstairs again and took her revolver from the drawer. She was wearing a dress but it had a pocket, and she put the gun in there.

  “I’ll be watching you,” Martina said. She kept her gun handy in the kitchen, and now stood at the window with it in her hand.

  “Just don’t shoot me by mistake.” Anna giggled. She hurried out of the yard and up the gentle slope. For a few minutes she was out of sight of the car but then it came into view, stopped in the middle of the road, the engine still running but the handbrake obviously on . . . and one of her father’s legs hanging half out of the driver’s door.

  “Papa!” she screamed, running up the last of the hill. Berkeley was still behind the wheel, but turned away from it and the open door as if he had realised what was about to happen and had tried to avoid the bullet. There was blood everywhere – on his back and down his legs, inside the car and on the ground beneath it. Instinctively she looked left and right, but there was no one to be seen.

  She leaned over her father, realised he was breathing. But still bleeding. He had been shot at least once, but there was so much blood it was difficult to tell where.

  “Martina!” she screamed, and then realised that inside the house Martina would probably not hear her. She stood up, drew her revolver, and fired six shots into the air.

  Then she knelt beside Berkeley again. “Oh, Papa,” she said. “Don’t die. Please, Papa, don’t die.”

  “God,” he muttered. “How stupid can you get.”

  “You’re alive!” Tears were rolling down her face. “Oh, Papa . . .” With an enormous effort she turned him over and got him upright.

  Feet pounded on the lane; Martina had heard the shots. “Oh, Jesus,” she said. “Berkeley . . .”

  “He’s alive,” Anna panted. “But all this blood . . .”

  “We must stop it. Was it a bullet?”

  “Yes,” Berkeley groaned. “At point blank range. Fired by that Salvationist.”

  “All right. I will find it. Anna, go down and telephone Dr Cheam. Tell him it is very urgent. Then telephone Inspector Watt.”

  Anna straightened; the front of her dress was a mass of blood. “Is he . . .”

  “Get on with it,” Martina commanded.

  Anna ran down the hill.

  Martina gently pulled Berkeley forward so that he lay half across her knees. She lifted his jacket, pulled his shirt out of his trousers and gasped.

  “Am I done?” Berkeley asked.

  “You should be. But the bullet hit your wallet. It is a good thing you keep a lot of cash on you.” Tongue between her teeth, she extracted the leather from his hip pocket; the bullet had gone right through it and was somewhere in his pelvic region.

  “She fired twice,” Berkeley said.

  Martina tore strips from her dress to place over the wound.

  “I can’t move you. You must lie as still as you can. Dr Cheam is on his way and he will have an ambulance.”

  Berkeley nodded, teeth gritted.

  “Is it very painful?”

  “Yes.”

  “Try to keep still. I am not going to let you die, my darling.”

  “I’m glad of that. That woman . . .”

  “I will deal with her,” Martina said. “Now let us find this other wound.”

  *

  “Good heavens,” said Peter Watt. “Shot, you say? I’ll be right out. Have you called the doctor?”

  “Yes,” Anna said. “Please hurry, Mr Watt.”

  “I’m on my way,” Watt assured her.

  Anna replaced the receiver. Her mind was spinning. Papa shot! Of course he had been wounded before, at least three times. That man Karlovy had shot him in the chest, and he had survived. But he had been younger then. Oh, Papa! Tears flooded down her cheeks.

  She picked up the receiver again, and gave the number of Walton’s chambers. A tremendous desire to kill the Salvationist and whoever had sent her was mingled with an equally overwhelming desire to be held in her lover’s arms and comforted.

  “Walton, Harrison and Druce.”

  “Please let me speak to Mr Druce,” Anna said.

  “I’m afraid Mr Druce is in a meeting. If you’d leave your name and telephone number—”

  “I must speak to him, now. Tell him it’s Anna.”

  “Oh, Miss Townsend. Why didn’t you say? I’ll get him right away.”

  Druce was on the phone a few moments later. “Anna? What’s the matter?”

  “Papa! He’s been shot.”

  “Good God! Is he . . .”

  “I don’t know. God, I don’t know. The doctor’s coming, and the police. Harry . . .”

  “I’m on my way. Hold on, my dearest girl. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  Anna replaced the phone, remained sitting on the floor for several minutes. I’m the head of the family, she thought. If Papa is dead. But he couldn’t be dead, surely. You’ll never grow old, she had said, so often and so confidently. There was so much to be done. But nothing could be done until she knew whether Papa was going to live or die.

  She pushed herself up again and went outside. It was a beautiful day, blue skies and warm sunshine . . . but Papa could be dying.

  She climbed the hill. Martina heard her coming. “Anna!” she shouted. “Berkeley is in so much pain. Fetch a sedative.”

  “What?”

  “God, I don’t know. At least some aspirin.”

  Anna looked past her at her father. His face was pale, and she thought he was still bleeding; Martina had torn her entire skirt into strips and bandaged up his chest as best she could, as well as one leg which was folded at a very awkward angle. He had been hit twice!

  Anna stumbled back down the hill into the house, tore open cupboards and boxes, found various boxes of pills . . . and then thought of Martina’s habit. Cocaine might ease the pain or at least make him less aware of it. She ran into Martina’s room, again tore open drawers, and found a packet of the white powder. She dropped it into her pocket beside the gun, and ran out of the house and back up the hill. But now she heard the reassuring roar of car engines, and by the time she reached the top both Dr Cheam and the ambulance were there.

  “He’s fainted. He was in such pain,” Martina was saying. “And he’s lost so much blood.”

  Cheam, a heavy-set man who normally had a most reassuring bedside manner and who had been the
Townsends’ GP for more than twenty years, was looking distinctly agitated. “We’ll get him to hospital and a transfusion,” he said.

  “You must stop the bleeding,” Martina said. “I tried, but I don’t think I have.”

  Cheam nodded. “Put him inside,” he told the ambulance men, who were hovering with their stretcher. “Carefully now.”

  “Is he going to live?” Anna asked.

  Cheam seemed to realise who she was for the first time.

  “My dear child! You’re covered in blood.”

  “Daddy’s blood. Doctor . . .”

  He looked from woman to woman as Berkeley was laid on the stretcher and carefully conveyed into the ambulance. “Are you all right? Would you like a sedative?”

  It wasn’t clear which of them he was addressing.

  “We have everything we need,” Martina said.

  “Very good.” He was remembering her as well. “You are the widow of the old gentleman who died a few months ago.”

  “I am Colonel Townsend’s fiancée,” Martina said, proudly.

  Cheam looked at Anna.

  “Martina is my dearest friend,” Anna said.

  “I will telephone this evening. I really should go.”

  The ambulance, after some shunting to and fro across the narrow lane, had already moved off. Dr Cheam hadn’t quite completed turning his car to follow the ambulance when there was a blast on a horn and a police car came down the lane. The two cars stopped beside each other and the occupants exchanged words, then the doctor drove away, and the police car stopped behind Berkeley’s vehicle. Chief Inspector Watt got out, followed by two constables; the third remained behind the wheel.

  “Oh, Miss Anna, I am so very sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Anna said. She had regained her composure, her fear and distress covered, as had been necessary so often in the past, by ice-cold anger.

  “Did you see what happened?”

  “I saw Papa’s car stop and thought he’d had a puncture.”

  “That woman must have waved him down,” Martina said.

  “Woman?”

  “She was dressed as a member of the Salvation Army,” Anna explained.

  “You saw her.”

  “No. Papa said before he passed out. But I have seen her. She once came to the house, looking for Papa, only he wasn’t in.”