Twenty-five
Except Helen didn’t answer. She was at work. Not wanting to frighten her, Ivy didn’t leave a message, but shrugged on her coat, clipped Jez to his lead and went to help Trish.
With Christmas only days away, Brambleton had filled with tourists, and to Ivy it seemed like most of them had chosen to spend the morning in Prosecco Fred for his friendship.
She sighed; and for what might have been, but for that row.
There. She’d admitted what it was: not a conversation, not a heated discussion, but a full-blown row.
She grimaced recalling Fred’s spiteful words accusing Ivy of being selfish, about using Omar as a solution to her own loneliness.
‘At least he’s safe,’ Trish added.
Both were safe. That should be enough.
‘Drink at the pub tonight?’ suggested Trish.
Ivy conjured up her evening plans – Jez and food shopping – and somewhere beneath the ache, something small and stubborn started to glow. She smiled. ‘Why not. Meet you at seven? I need to do some shopping first.’
By 6 o’clock Ivy was staring at a display of Christmas puddings, their glossy packaging reflecting under the supermarket’s harsh fluorescent lights.
Overhead, a tinny version of ‘Jingle Bells’ competed with the constant beep of self-checkout machines and the squeal of trolley wheels on polished linoleum.
She did some quick mental arithmetic. Trish would expect a pudding.
If she bought one, she could still afford a wedge of stilton, but why were cheese biscuits so expensive?
She would have to bake some instead. What could she do about a starter?
She tried to summon some enthusiasm for menu planning.
It was challenging when it involved dried-out turkey instead of succulent lamb, but it diverted her from thinking of the Christmas table missing half its company.
Fred uninvited because she couldn’t face trying to maintain a polite conversation with him, while a fourth chair – Omar’s empty chair – evidenced Fred’s heartless act.
‘Looks like we had the same idea about shopping.’
Ivy’s hand jerked, knocking a pudding off the shelf.
Helen caught it smoothly. The Christmas music playing overhead suddenly seemed too loud, too cheerful.
‘I had a missed call from you this morning. I think I know what you wanted to talk about.’ Helen said, glancing around before pulling a folded piece of paper from her coat pocket.
‘I got one too.’ The same cheap copy paper, the same precise typeface.
The same stark warning. ‘It was waiting for me when I got home from work.’
Ivy’s shopping basket grew heavy on her arm. ‘Do you think we should stop?’
‘Stop?’ Helen’s laugh was sharp enough to draw looks from a passing shopper. ‘Ivy, this is textbook intimidation. I used to get dozens of these sometimes when I was investigating certain stories. It means we’re close.’
‘Close to what? Getting ourselves hurt? Getting—’ Ivy lowered her voice, conscious of their public setting. ‘Getting Omar hurt, wherever he is? Fred might think he’s taken him somewhere safe, but Fred was a teacher, he wasn’t in the SAS.’
‘If they were going to hurt Omar, they wouldn’t have bothered warning us.
’ Helen replaced the Christmas pudding on the shelf with deliberate care.
‘Think about it. They must have hacked into my computer, and they know we’re onto them.
These letters, Omar suddenly disappearing but they don’t know where he’s gone .
.. they’re scared, Ivy. We’ve found something.
The last thing we should be doing is giving up. ’
‘I’m not trained for this sort of thing.’
‘But you won’t sit by and watch people get exploited.’ Helen’s voice was gentle, but her eyes were hard. ‘Not Ivy, the woman who took on the diocese about someone fiddling their expenses.’
A display of Christmas crackers toppled as Ivy backed away, their wrapping crinkling underfoot. Who had told Helen? It could only be Fred. ‘That was different. That was—’
‘That was you, the real you’
Ivy’s fingers curled around the basket’s wire handle, her knuckles white, not from fear, but determination. Helen was right – she shouldn’t back down. Not now. Not ever.She wouldn’t be bullied into silence.
She set down her basket and stooped to gather the scattered crackers. Helen squatted to help. Their hands met over a silver one. Ivy noticed Helen’s were shaking slightly, too. It wasn’t wrong to feel frightened – but she must feel the fear and act anyway.
‘I ...’ Ivy straightened up, clutching crackers to her chest. The words tumbled out. ‘Would you like to come for Christmas dinner? It’s just me and Trish and ...’ she remembered who she was, a woman who could be counted on to do the decent thing, and added, ‘hopefully Fred too.’
Helen’s eyes softened. ‘Trying to protect me by keeping me close?’
‘Maybe protecting myself.’ Ivy attempted a smile. ‘Strength in numbers?’
‘I’d like that.’ Helen took the crackers from Ivy, arranging them back on the display with meticulous care. ‘I miss him too, you know.’
Ivy’s eyebrows arched. ‘Omar?’
‘Yes.’
A weary-looking woman pushed past with a trolley full of reduced vegetables while somewhere behind her a child’s voice whined about wanting chocolate coins, such familiar Christmas sights and sounds.
It wouldn’t be the same without Fred at the table, how could she leave him eating Christmas dinner alone in his cottage next door – what had she been thinking?
‘Fred always carves the turkey,’ she said. ‘Hasn’t missed a Christmas in twenty years.’
‘How nice to have traditions,’ Helen said mildly. ‘I’m looking forward to it already.’
‘And he’s always so secretive about the presents he squirrels away,’ Ivy added with a knowing look. Fred would have bought her present well before their row. Thinking of her tiny cottage, she hoped this year’s offering was slightly smaller than last year’s.
‘I’m meeting Trish for a drink in the pub tonight – why not join us?’ Suggested Ivy.
‘I’d like that. I’m nearly done here, I’ll dump this lot at home, and we can walk there together.’
Ivy suggested the shortcut to the pub through the churchyard.
The December darkness clamped them in its vice.
Each footfall muffled by the carpet of frost-brittle leaves.
Ivy shivered as the wind slithered between ancient tombstones, some leaning at precarious angles, tilting like drunken witnesses to centuries of silent decay.
A putrid smell drifted through the air, a blend of wet earth, decaying leaves and something else. Something older. A mustiness that spoke of damp stone crypts and long-abandoned bones, of secrets buried deeper than the roots of the gnarled yew tree that stretched its gaunt branches overhead.
‘Hope you don’t mind taking this route,’ Ivy said, her voice sounding unnaturally loud, ‘but I said we’d meet Trish at seven and it’s already five past.’
Helen shook her head. In front of them, the old stone church vibrated with the extraordinary voices of the choir practising ‘O Holy Night’. Pure, clear notes seemed to float above the cold ground, momentarily transforming the sombre space into something ethereal.
‘Oh, listen to that, Ivy!’ exclaimed Helen. ‘The choir sounds wonderful. Shall we pop in for a moment?’
Ivy shook her head. ‘It will be locked from the inside. Mabel will have seen to that.’
‘Locked? But why?’
‘Five years ago, some youngsters started creeping in wearing masks, catcalling from the back. I was fairly certain I knew who they were, but it was simpler just to lock up during practice. No more disruptions.’
‘That’s a shame. You’d think Christmas would bring out the best in people.’