Chapter Twenty-Three
Jim felt worse and worse, dizzy when he stood up and though he rubbed his forehead it did nothing to help rid him of a thumping headache. But he knew he had to get out of the shed for the day, just had to, or the owners might find out he’d been trespassing on their property and report it to the police.
He was terrified of being shut away, had always suffered from claustrophobia, and even in winter he hadn’t been able to sleep without an open window nearby bringing in fresh air.
He knew logically that he could breathe even with the window shut, but couldn’t carry that through into how his mind and body reacted to the lack of fresh air. Gracie had understood and held his hand for comfort in difficult situations. Not many other people had even made an attempt to understand his problem and some of them had been scornful and told him to snap out of it or get help, so he’d hidden it as much as possible – till his world had been torn apart.
He stopped first to take a long drink of the lovely clear water from the stream that trickled down from a spring at the higher end of the land along the hedge. Water like this always seemed so much nicer than the chemically doctored stuff that came out of taps.
He staggered away step by feeble step, using a fallen branch he’d found as an awkwardly held extra walking stick as well as his actual stick, the one Gracie had given him. As he began moving down the rough track, he felt so weak and dizzy he had to stop and lean on both his supports a couple of times, before managing to continue slowly down near the hedge.
After only a short distance, however, he felt too weak to continue even with the help of the sticks, just couldn’t do it and fell to his knees. So he crawled under some convenient bushes, whose lush foliage would ensure that he’d be mostly out of sight if anyone walked casually past as he rested. Thank goodness he was wearing dark clothing, which wouldn’t stand out against the shadows the bushes cast.
He didn’t remember much after that and must have fallen asleep, because he suddenly sneezed and jerked awake. It took him a moment or two to remember where he was then he clapped one hand to his mouth, terrified of sneezing again as he looked round and listened intently. Had anyone been close enough to hear his sneeze and come to investigate?
But there were no sounds, either of footsteps or voices, and no one pulled aside the leafy branches of the shrubs to look for what had caused the noise. He closed his eyes again with a long, trailing sigh of relief.
One good thing about feeling unwell was that you didn’t get hungry, so he had no need to go into the nearby village to buy food. And anyway, there was an old saying: feed a cold and starve a chill, and this felt to be far worse than an ordinary cold. It must be a chill, surely? So that meant he was doing the right thing to help his body get better.
He dozed intermittently, shivering and huddling down, using the spare clothes he had with him as extra coverings in a vain attempt to get warm. The rest of his spare clothes were in the bag of oddments which he’d stupidly left in the shed. It was another fine summer’s day and he shouldn’t have felt cold but he did.
As the day waned and the sun sank lower in the sky, he realised it was teatime and he hadn’t eaten anything all day, or drunk much either, not for several hours. He forced himself to eat the last of his biscuits, a few broken pieces in a crumpled plastic bag, even though his mouth was dry and it was slow going.
After that he moved along near the bushes, crawling to stay out of sight as he made his way to the little stream. He couldn’t stand up and anyway he’d have to get down on his hands and knees again to reach the water, which wasn’t far away, so why bother to try?
He drank as much as he could force down and then crawled back even more slowly, feeling utterly weary. Well, he had nothing to hurry for, did he, and this was as good a hiding place as any. He’d move on and get further away from those two women in an hour or so, after another nice little rest.
He didn’t wake until the middle of the night, judging by the position of the half moon in the sky. He didn’t have the strength to sit up, so lay there feeling shocked that he was still in more or less the same place he’d been the previous morning. He’d meant to continue his journey and get right away from here to somewhere near shops to buy food and aspirin, and perhaps even to stay in a cheap bed and breakfast for a night or two till he was feeling better.
He wasn’t short of money, had set off walking because he wanted to avoid people who knew him and because he wanted to find somewhere new to settle. He tried to sit up but was shocked that he still felt too weak to manage that.
He could quite easily have gone back to sleep but forced himself to crawl back to the stream and take a few more big mouthfuls. He knew better than to go without drinking, even if he didn’t feel particularly thirsty.
When he looked down at his wrist and then the scrawny ankle that was showing under one rucked-up trouser leg, he was shocked. He’d started this long journey sturdily built but must have gradually lost weight. He’d told himself at first that it’d be good for him to do that at his age, but he hadn’t been feeling well lately and had lost even more weight, enough to worry him now.
His mouth felt a bit better now he’d had a drink, so he looked across to the shed he’d slept in last night and where he’d left his bundle of spare clothing and the oddments in the plastic bin liner, which included some scraps of food. He couldn’t resist going across to it again because it was a far better place to sleep than the damp ground. With more covers he’d surely get warmer and that’d make him start feeling better. Yes, that was the way to go.
He managed to pull himself up after a while with the help of a bent, twisty little tree, but staggered and nearly fell as he began to move along. Thank goodness for the sticks. He didn’t dare try to go faster and had to hope no one would be out for a walk and spot him before he could hide again. He knew he couldn’t manage to run away, not till he was feeling a lot less dizzy. He was too old to risk a bad fall.
He let out a little groan of relief when he got to the shed. Its door was closed but not locked. And thank goodness his bag was still where he’d left it, so those women couldn’t have noticed it. He looked round carefully and there was enough moonlight shining through the doorway for him to see a warm, fluffy though rather ragged old blanket folded up neatly at the far end of the top shelf.
He hesitated, tempted to borrow it. The blanket didn’t look grubby, just rather worn. He could lie on that far more comfortably. He pulled it down and put it round his shoulders and oh, how wonderful it felt! There was another blanket crumpled at the back of the shelf behind it, more ragged but still fairly fluffy. He could lie on half and cover himself with the other half then perhaps he wouldn’t shiver as much. This was a bad dose of the flu, the worst he could ever remember having.
It wasn’t till he woke up again that he realised he’d left his knapsack under the bushes. Tears came into his eyes. How stupid could you get? He’d better go and retrieve it before someone came along and took it away.
Only then did he notice something else rather important: it was fully daylight now. He didn’t even dare leave the shed so couldn’t retrieve the knapsack, because he didn’t want to be seen by those women. They might think he was a peeping Tom creeping around to spy on them. And what if they called the police? He shuddered at the mere thought.
In the end, after letting himself lie down ‘just for a minute or two’ to gather his strength, he fell asleep again without intending to and it was a while before he woke again, or half-woke. He couldn’t remember ever feeling so weak and unwell. He’d have to give himself a few more minutes before trying to move on again.
After sorting out the various documents and letters for what suddenly seemed to have been a long time, Miranda stepped away from the table, stretching and moving her body about. ‘My back’s getting a crick from bending over looking at these papers and other parts of my body are sending out warning signals and threatening to sue me for abuse.’
The others chuckled and straightened up too.
‘I think I’ll find something else to do for a while to give my poor body a bit of a change,’ she went on, ‘something that involves movement, preferably. And you guys ought to do the same, engrossing as these are.’ She gestured to the documents.
‘You’re right.’ Ryan stepped away as well and started waving his arms about and rolling his shoulders in a similar way.
Miranda stopped wriggling. ‘That’s better. Um, I’ve been wondering about something. Do you think there’s anything interesting hidden in the attic? We only gave it a cursory glance when we first went for a look round the house, because we were mainly checking for people hiding there. There were no people-sized surprises, but I’ve been wondering whether there’s anything else of interest.’
‘It wouldn’t hurt to go and have a more thorough look at what’s stored there, would it? That’d also get us moving around for a while,’ Ryan said.
They nodded.
‘I don’t suppose there’s anything valuable left after all these years of the house being occupied by that old woman and her housekeeper, though if I remember correctly, we had to edge round piles of stuff and it looked as if people had simply thrown things down anywhere there happened to be a space or else piled them on top of similar items and been doing that for a good many years.’
Ryan looked thoughtful. ‘We can also check what can be seen from the dormer windows while we’re up there. We can put CCTV cameras up there to keep watch for anyone approaching or hovering nearby.’
Col nodded. ‘Ryan’s right. You’re so isolated here, it would definitely be worth sorting out a proper security system. You should also have a camera and mic just outside the front door so that you can see who it is before you open it.’
That suggestion was greeted with more nods of approval from the others but although Miranda agreed with Ryan, it also made her feel a bit under siege to think of doing that. Did owning property always bring you a series of worries, or was this a deliberate part of her great-aunt’s legacy?
‘I could nip into the nearest town or wherever there’s a big hardware store selling security equipment and buy a whole system then install it for you when you’re ready for that. I’m pretty good with setting up protective systems, if I say so myself,’ Ryan offered.
She pulled herself together. ‘Good idea. As long as you let me pay you for doing it. It’s a big house and I’m not short of money now.’
They stared at one another as if each was trying to outstare the other, then he shrugged. ‘There really isn’t a need. I probably don’t have as much money as you now do, but I’ve been rather successful with one or two apps a friend and I worked on, so I’m not short of it either. What matters to me most is to get you and your house properly protected. I don’t want you to get hurt.’
He stared at her and added in a low voice, ‘I’d like to get to know you better once we’ve sorted this mess out.’
‘Oh.’ Then she told herself not to act like a coward and said quietly, ‘I’d like that too.’
‘Good.’ He turned to the others, waiting to see if someone else had anything to contribute and Col said, ‘Well, if you’ve got experience in setting up security systems, Ryan, I’ll stay down here and keep an eye on the front while you three go and check round more thoroughly upstairs and start working out roughly how many devices and sensors will be needed.’
‘Right. Yell if someone turns up and I’ll come down to join you.’
‘I will. But just to put in my twopence worth, I reckon the first thing that should be installed is a camera to give the person answering the front door a clear view of anyone outside it before they even think of letting a stranger in. And it should make a recording of the incident, too. You don’t want anyone sneaking up on you, not now or in the future, do you? This is quite a big house. The situation won’t always be so chancy but at the moment, with the Parnhams still nearby, you should be super-careful.’
‘That sounds good advice,’ Libby said at once.
Miranda shuddered. ‘I think so too. I definitely don’t want intruders pushing their way in. That horrible Selma creature and her brother would have managed it if I’d been on my own. It’s going to be difficult keeping a good watch on the house in the early days of settling in, because it’s big and we don’t know it or the surrounding grounds very well yet, either. I won’t feel safe till there’s a proper security system installed, so I’ll be really grateful for your help, Ryan.’
Libby nodded vigorously. ‘Also, until we’ve been here for a while and we’re used to what are normal and what are unusual sounds, we’ll be unsure whether some noises indicate intruders, won’t we? Especially at night, when we won’t be able to see what’s going on.’
‘You’re right to be wary.’ Col hesitated then asked, ‘Look, how about Ryan and I stay here at night for the time being? You’ll be rather vulnerable here at the moment. When you have a system installed, you can re-evaluate how you feel. I really don’t like the thought of you two being here on your own in such a big house after dark with no neighbours near enough to call on for help.’
Miranda stared at him, relief running through her. ‘Are you sure about that? Ryan’s got his own cottage to look after.’
He took over, smiling at her. ‘I don’t have anything valuable to tempt burglars, especially in the bedrooms, and I already have a system fitted in the living area which would make a lot of noise and take photos of intruders, storing them online.’
‘You were quick off the mark with that.’
‘I already had an old system I could adapt.’
‘You’re sure you wouldn’t mind staying here?’
‘Certain.’
As she still hesitated, Col said, ‘Think about it: even though Ryan might live nearby, he’s not really within shouting distance once he’s back in his own home, is he? And it’ll take time for him to get across to you physically, even if you do have some way of calling him for help.’
‘I’d been thinking the same thing,’ she admitted, ‘and wondering whether it would be cowardly or sensible to accept your help.’
Ryan glanced from one woman to the other. ‘Please don’t turn the offers down. We all need help sometimes and taking sensible precautions in an unusual situation could save you a lot of bother in the long run.’
Miranda smiled at him. ‘OK. You’ve made your case and I won’t turn your kind offer down. This situation had taken me by surprise, even though I was half-prepared for my great-aunt setting up something unpleasant to greet me. And I confess that I’d started to wonder whether you two might agree to spend the next few nights here if you’re going to be staying in the area. Only I was going to wait a little longer to ask you till I felt sure it was the right thing to do.’
‘It is. I’m glad you’re showing some good sense about the situation.’
‘I’m a liberated modern woman mentally, I hope, but I don’t think I’m a fool. I know my own physical limitations and when it comes to emergencies like fighting off one attacker let alone two, as I’ve nearly had to do already, there are limits to how much is possible for a smaller woman not used to fighting of any sort. So thank you very much and we both accept your offer of help with gratitude.’
She looked at her friend, who nodded vigorously in agreement.
Miranda was relieved that they were going to help. And she’d known Libby would agree with what she was doing. Her friend was only a bit taller than her and their two male companions both looked fit and strong.