Chapter 11
The Lure of the Sea
For the next two weeks, Gideon kept his head down and out of Hetty’s way.
He glimpsed her twice. Once, out riding with her sister, and once in the town, again her and her sister, on their way to The Mermaid for ices, he suspected.
On both occasions they had nodded politely to each other, courteous, but no more.
Weren’t they supposed to be friends now?
He had wondered half a dozen times since if he’d have done better to stop and speak to her or even gone to call upon her at the Hall.
Because now…now it was awkward. There was an undercurrent, a buzz of some strange tension thrumming between them which was hard to ignore.
He wondered if it was only him who felt it, but then he remembered the way she had thrown her arms about his neck and held on tight as he had pulled her in for a kiss.
“Concentrate, you bloody halfwit,” he cursed, shaking his head and turning his attention back to the drawings he was adjusting.
A heavy knock pounded on the door of the site hut, and Gideon looked up with a start.
“Come in.”
Mr Ludlow strode in, his ruddy face flushed with anger.
“Ludlow? What is it?” Gideon asked in alarm, pushing to his feet and rounding the desk.
“Are you taking the piss? I know the quantity of scaffolding planks was much higher than you’d hoped for, but providing green wood? Do you want us all to break our bloody necks?”
“Green wood?” Gideon repeated, wondering what the hell the man was on about. “Of course I didn’t buy green wood.”
Frowning, he went to his desk, searching through his neatly arranged lists for the last load of materials he’d ordered. He picked up the copy of the order he’d made and showed it to Mr Ludlow.
“Seasoned oak for the upper floors, as you demanded. I’d have preferred seasoned pine, but I took your point about the men’s safety seriously,” he said, showing the order to Ludlow, who snatched it from him.
The man let out a breath and shook his head, thrusting the paper back at Gideon. “It may well be what you ordered, Mr Bramwell, but it ain’t what got delivered. I weren’t here, or I’d have refused it. But Ridley told my men to stop bellyaching and get on with their work.”
“Show me,” Gideon demanded, following Ludlow out of the hut, their boots crunching on the gravel they’d laid to keep the mud to a minimum.
The weight of responsibility settled heavier on Gideon’s shoulders.
Ridley ought to have known better than to have accepted unseasoned wood for scaffolding.
He was an accountant, true, not a builder, but he knew what had been ordered.
Gideon had been very specific, and if the items had not matched the order, the least the man could have done was check with him.
They crossed the yard towards the east wing where the next storey of scaffolding was going up. The air was thick with dust, and the tang of fresh cut timber.
Ludlow pointed up at the timber used to make a new section of scaffolding. “There, look at that, green as bloody grass, it is. You can see the sap bleeding out.”
Gideon glanced up, and then went to the large stack of wood, neatly piled, ready for use, and put his hand on the uppermost plank.
It was damp, the grain loose and uneven.
He turned his head, surveying the supplier’s mark, which was not the one he’d specified.
A surge of anger tensed his muscles, and he gritted his jaw.
“I told Mr Ridley it weren’t safe,” said one of the younger men, a sturdy fellow by the name of Toby. He took his cap off respectfully as Gideon turned to face him. “He said I was being fussy, but my Da works with wood and—”
“Ah, Toby. You’re such a bleedin’ milksop, always running telling tales to Mr Bramwell.”
“Shut your mouth, Mark!” Toby shot back furiously, though Gideon had to acknowledge that Mark’s claim was not entirely without foundation. Toby was a fusspot—usually.
Gideon held up his hand, daring anyone else to cause trouble, and they subsided, stuffing their hands in their pockets and glaring.
“Mind your step, Frank!” someone called up to the highest range of scaffolding. “We’re taking it down.”
Frank, a heavyset, tall man, looked down, his boots thudding on the boards as he carried on walking.
“What’s that?”
Suddenly there was a sharp crack—a sound that seemed to slice through Gideon’s heart, making his nerves leap.
It echoed around the site as everyone froze.
The plank beneath Frank’s feet snapped, and he dropped like a stone.
Gideon’s breath caught as he saw the man plummet, but his fall was saved by the scaffolding on the level below.
That, thank God, had been made with the correct wood and was strong.
Still, poor Frank bellowed, clutching his arm.
“Bloody hell!” Ludlow barked, his hands going to his hair as if he would tear it out.
Gideon was moving before conscious thought kicked in, finding himself beside Frank a bare second before Ludlow reached him.
“Frank?” he said, breathless from the climb as he inspected the man whose arm was bleeding.
“I’m right enough,” the fellow said, though he was white as alabaster. “Bloody splinter stabbed me good, though.”
Gideon winced as he saw the great splinter of wood from the broken plank as it protruded through the skin of his right arm. “Chin up, Frank. We’ll get you patched up good as new.”
He turned to Ludlow, “Get some men to help him down, and get this pile of shit off my bloody site.”
“Yes, sir, Mr Bramwell,” Ludlow said with a nod. “With pleasure.”
Gideon climbed down to give the men room to move and stood brooding over the pile of wood as the men helped carry Frank down. Ludlow came to stand beside him and Gideon looked around.
“This isn’t what I paid for. Someone’s been cheating us, Ludlow. I promise you, I’ll get to the bottom of it. I’ll not have the men risking their necks to save a few coins on my site.”
Ludlow nodded, drawing Gideon aside. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Mr Bramwell, but the thing is, there’s more.
” The man hesitated, and Gideon knew what it cost him to speak up.
The men trusted their manager, who was the bridge between them and Gideon, and he might be dropping one of them into trouble.
But today’s accident had been too close.
It might have taken a man’s life if they’d not been lucky.
If that wound got infected, it still might.
“Tell me,” Gideon said darkly, resigned to the worst now.
Ludlow sighed, taking his hat off and rubbing an angry hand through his closely shaven hair before slapping his hat back on.
“I don’t know. P’rhaps it’s something and nothing.
But there’s little things. Stuff goes walkabout.
An order is a bit short. A pay-packet is a penny or two light. On their own, it don’t amount to much.”
“But when viewed as a whole.”
“Aye,” Ludlow’s tone was grim.
Anger, cold and hard, settled in the pit of Gideon’s stomach. “Do me a favour. Say nothing of this to the men. The delivery was a mistake, the order got messed up. No one’s fault. Got it?”
Ludlow’s expression darkened. “I ain’t about to hush it up, if that’s what you’re driving at.”
“Neither am I, Mr Ludlow, but if I’m to find the villain who did this, and prove it, I need more than suspicion and surmise. I need evidence.”
Relieved, the man nodded his understanding. “In that case, aye. I’ll keep mum. For now, but don’t hang about. I’ll not have the men working under such conditions.”
“Understood,” Gideon replied, holding out his hand to the man. Ludlow looked at it, a little surprised at the gesture, but took Gideon’s hand in an iron grip.
It seemed as if disaster had been averted.
The knowledge that this had been a near thing, that someone was cheating him, struck hard.
He did everything he could to be fair to the men, to give them the best working environment, to help them do their best work.
Leading such a project was always tricky, for the man in charge could never be a friend those beneath him, but he’d thought he was on excellent terms with everyone. It appeared not.
And now, Gideon had a thief to catch.
“Deon!”
Gideon cursed as he heard his brother’s voice.
He was hot and dirty and the accident on site had put him in a foul mood.
The day had become sultry, making everyone sweaty and short-tempered.
That he’d been forced to share an office with a man he suspected might be a crook had done nothing to ease his mind.
Ridley had been full of apologies, apparently confounded by the mistake in the delivery and blaming the supplier.
How it had gone to the wrong supplier was something he could not answer to Gideon’s satisfaction.
“Deon, hold up!”
“What?” he demanded tersely, stopping in the middle of the street as Damian hailed him.
“Christ, what did I do now?” Damian asked, stopping a few feet away and regarding his stony expression curiously.
Gideon sighed, rubbing a wear hand over his face. “Nothing. At least not that I know of,” he qualified, wondering what the man wanted. “Just a bad day.”
“Oh. Well, if that’s all. Come with me.” Damian grinned at him. It was his winning, confiding smile, the one that had led Gideon into trouble far too often to trust in.
“Come where?” Gideon asked warily.
“Damn me, but you are suspicious.” Damian groused, folding his arms. “I’ve got some beers and some food. I’ve found a secluded spot on the beach. I thought we could swim. Like we used to do as lads.”
Gideon glanced at the beach sceptically. Lines of bathing machines lined the water’s edge, and the sand teemed, people paddling at the edges as children busied themselves with sandcastles.
“How secluded?”
Damian laughed, knowing he’d got him. “Very. Are you coming?”
Gideon had to admit, the idea of a swim, of washing away the dust and grime and easing his tense muscles in the sea, was more than a little appealing. “How much beer?”
“Enough to drown you if you so choose,” Damian replied with a shrug.