But the oil lamp, still alight, had rolled off the bench and was heading for the pool of petrol near Greengrass’s car. Almost too late, Nick saw it and kicked it aside, towards some old newspapers bundled in a corner.

  ‘Help!’ Baz was screaming now. Nick took off his greatcoat and tried to smother the flames which were threatening to envelop the drug-dealer. It made little difference. He threw the screaming man to the floor, avoiding the petrol, and rolled him in the greatcoat, shouting at Baz to stay calm as he tried to extinguish the flames. But as fast as one was put out, another burst into life, and then the heap of papers began to burn. Thick smoke gathered in the garage, enveloping the pink Cadillac.

  ‘Out, we need to get out!’ Nick yelled at his prisoner. ‘Out, Baz, out … this way …’

  But Baz was screaming in agony and terror as his hair burned; Nick bundled him forward, patting out the flames with his bare hands, and finally threw his weight against the doors. They opened suddenly - and Bellamy was outside.

  ‘What the …’

  ‘Get the fire brigade and ambulance, Phil. Quick …’ And Bellamy ran back to his police car to call the emergency services.

  In the hospital, Phil Bellamy was guarding Baz who was receiving treatment for his burns, while Nick waited to have his hands examined. They were heavily bandaged. A staff nurse called to him and directed him along a corridor. As he went towards a small ward, he saw Kate walking in his direction.

  ‘Nick!’ she cried. ‘Why are you here? Oh, my God, what’s happened to your hands?’

  ‘I tried to put a fire out,’ he grinned.

  ‘Are they really bad?’ There was concern in her voice.

  ‘Not as bad as the chap I had to drag out of the flames,’ he said. ‘I’ll be fine. Why are you here?’

  ‘To collect Alex. He’s going home now.’

  ‘Good. Fully recovered, is he?’

  ‘I think so. He had a bad knock, but his skull’s made of tough stuff. It wasn’t broken, fortunately; he was just badly bruised and suffering from concussion and shock.’

  ‘That’s a relief. Well, we’ve got the villains who did it and they’ll get their punishment before the courts. So if you can wait a few minutes longer, you can take me home as well!’

  And so that day, Kate Rowan took home the two men in her life, one a partner in Aidensfield’s doctors’ practice, and the other her husband, the village constable of Aidensfield. Thus she found herself with a dual nursing role, as well as her usual doctor’s duties …

  From that day, however, Alexander Ferrenby was never quite the same. In the weeks that followed, he seemed to be slower in his movements, prone to dizziness and slightly forgetful; Kate watched him with some concern, thinking not only of Alex but also of his patients. In his present state, he might do something unexpected; he could present a problem if he was dealing with a particularly difficult condition in one of his patients. She had a dreadful feeling it was only a matter of time.

  ‘I’m so worried about him, Nick,’ Kate said one evening as they were preparing for bed. ‘He’s not the same man,

  not since that knock on the head. It really does seem to have affected him.’

  ‘He’s made of strong stuff, he’ll recover.’

  ‘I suggested he take a long weekend off,’ Kate said. ‘He’s got a brother in Hampshire, he’s going to stay with him for a few days. He leaves tomorrow, he’s going by train to avoid the long drive. I think the break and the change of scenery will do him good.’

  ‘He does get a bit tired nowadays,’ mused Nick. ‘If you want my opinion, I think he should retire and leave the practice. He is getting on a bit, you know, he’s reached the official retiring age. He can’t go on for ever. It’s time he handed the practice over to you. You could cope with it, either alone or with a new partner.’

  ‘Yes, I could, and I’d love to have this practice for myself. But I don’t think the problem is just old age, Nick. I think that attack has affected him very badly. I’m going to keep a close eye on him when he gets back, and I’ll look after him very carefully. He does need my care and attention.’

  ‘He’s not the only one!’ chuckled Nick, holding out his hands, some fingers of which were still bandaged. She kissed him as he tried to cuddle her.

  ‘I’m pleased your hands are bandaged,’ she laughed. ‘It means you have to keep them to yourself!’

  ‘Just you wait till I’m better!’ he said. ‘I’ve not forgotten what these hands are for!’

  ‘I’m your doctor,’ she reminded him. ‘And I say when those bandages can come off!’

  I might have to arrest you for cruelty to a captive constable!’ he retorted.

  ‘And I might have to give you something to calm you down!’ She grinned, kissing him. ‘Come along, bed time.’

  ‘I need help to get undressed,’ and he held out his bandaged hands with a sorrowful expression on his face.

  ‘You can always call a doctor,’ she smiled.

  page 17

  CHAPTER TWO

  ‘Anything to report, Rowan?’

  Sergeant Blaketon looked at the dripping figure of PC Nick Rowan as he stood in the cluttered office of Ashfordly Police Station. The snow on his uniform was melting and forming neat puddles on the highly polished floor.

  ‘Rowan, you’re dripping filthy water on to my clean floor. Get rid of that wet gear, hang it up somewhere to dry and before you do anything else, find a mop and clean up that mess. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, entering a tidy office in that shocking condition.’

  Nick was tight-lipped. ‘Yes, Sergeant. I’ll mop it up. But you do know it’s blowing a blizzard out there? There’s five-foot-deep snow drifts on those moors, I had a right struggle to get in here. There’s two farms cut off already on the moors above Aidensfield and I’ve ridden most of the way with my feet down to stop myself falling off. Like skiing, it was.’ He glared mutinously. ‘Fancy ordering me to come into the office on my bloody motorcycle … I’m freezing and soaked to the skin with melted snow. My hands hurt … they’re still sore after that fire …’

  ‘Stop grumbling, Rowan. Wimps grumble, not country constables on important missions. I wouldn’t have asked you to ride in unless it was important. You could always walk, you know. Walking never did anybody any harm.’

  ‘So what is it, Sergeant? What’s so important it couldn’t be dealt with over the telephone?’ Nick had removed his outer motorcycling clothes and was hanging them in the passage.

  ‘Stevie Walsh.’ There was a note of triumph in Blaketon’s voice. ‘The armed robber.’

  ‘He got ten years, didn’t he?’ chipped in Alf Ventress. ‘But we never did recover the money. That’s the fellow, isn’t it, Sergeant?’

  ‘That’s the one, Ventress. Your local knowledge is as sound as ever. Now listen, all of you, Walsh is being released from prison today. This is confidential information, straight from the Regional Crime Squad. They want to keep tabs on him.’

  ‘Does it affect us, Sarge?’ Nick was holding his hands close to the radiator in an effort to get his circulation moving.

  ‘Affect us? Of course it affects us, Rowan! He’s from your bloody village and there’s every reason for thinking he hid the money on your patch. His wife still lives there, Farm Cottage on the outskirts of Aidensfield, along the road to Elsinby. Remote sort of spot, hellish at this time of year but beautiful in summer. Every time there’s a snowstorm, that road is cut off by drifts. God knows why they chose to live out there. Anyway, her name’s Ellen.

  She was a decent woman but was daft enough to get herself tangled up with him.’

  ‘Love’s a strange thing, Sergeant,’ smiled Nick.

  ‘I want none of your romantic theorising, Rowan. She married a villain and that’s it; it’s her own fault, a sign of stupidity, not love. Now, the word is that he’ll return to Aidensfield soon, probably to have it out with his wife …’

  ‘Have it out with her?’ asked Nick.

  ‘She never went to see him while he was inside. She gave him up as a bad job, I think, then she met another man as these abandoned ladies sometimes do. That’s love, Rowan, or lust. So if he gets his hands on her, I hate to think what might happen. I wouldn’t like to be in her shoes. You might have another case of GBH or worse to deal with. And, Rowan, if the proceeds of his last crime are hidden on your patch, he’ll be coming back for that as well, won’t he?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’

  ‘And we want to recover the money first, don’t we? Twenty-five thousand pounds, in used notes. Hidden somewhere and just waiting for him. Now, we need to prevent him getting it, wherever it is; we need to make sure he never gets his thieving hands on it and that it is returned to its lawful owner.’

  ‘After all this time, Sarge? Won’t the insurers have paid out?’

  ‘That is no concern of mine, Rowan. If the proceeds of a serious crime are concealed in Ashfordly Section, I want them found and restored to their lawful owner.’

  ‘Won’t the Regional Crime Squad be conducting their own observations, Sergeant?’

  ‘They will, but they’re stretched like us, not enough officers to do everything that needs to be done. But if that money is stashed on our patch, Rowan, then we should be the ones to find it, shouldn’t we? It matters not that the insurers might have paid out. If we keep an eye on Walsh, he might lead us right to the money. What happens to it after we have delivered it to the rightful owners is no concern of mine, Constable. It is not a constabulary matter, it is a matter for the civil courts.’

  ‘Very good, Sergeant. You want me to go out, in all this snow, to look for Walsh?’

  ‘Being a constable is not only a fair-weather job, Rowan. If it snows, it snows, the job must go on. Right, well, that’s it. Walsh’s mug shot is in our beat report, have a look at it so that you know him when you see him.’

  ‘He’ll have changed a bit in ten years, Sergeant.’

  ‘Leopards never change their spots, Rowan. Now, anything else of importance to report?’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant. An item of lost property.’

  ‘Lost property? What is it?’

  ‘Greengrass’s dog, Sergeant. A lurcher, colour, grey, has the appearance of a very old floorcloth and answers to the name of Alfred.’

  ‘You’re not serious, Rowan?’

  ‘I am. Poor old Claude struggled through the snow to report it missing. He’s frantic, he’s out there now in these blizzards, looking everywhere for Alfred, walking miles shouting the dog’s name. And he blamed me for letting

  that fire destroy his car, so I want to help if I can. At first I told him I thought his car had a few paint blisters but it was burnt to a shell …”

  ‘You’ll get a few blisters if you worry me about Greengrass’s dog, Rowan! I’ve more things to think about than a wandering poacher’s hound. I’ll bet he hasn’t got a licence for it anyway. Now, on the subject of Greengrass’s car, that awful pink boat-type of thing, was it really his? Are we liable for its loss?’

  ‘He was in possession of it legitimately, Sergeant; he’d paid a deposit and had got it insured. He had it on approval for a few days, until he came into some money.’

  ‘Money? You’re not saying Greengrass is going to actually come into some real money, are you, Rowan?’

  ‘He maintains he is.’ Nick nodded.

  ‘I can’t bear the thought of that!’ Blaketon growled. ‘Greengrass without money is a menace, the thorn in my flesh, the burden I must carry throughout my service, but Greengrass with money - it doesn’t bear thinking about. There’s no justice in life, Rowan, no justice at all. A man like that should not be allowed to have money. People like me should have money, people who work and take responsibility.’

  ‘Policing is a vocation, Sergeant, not a means of making money.’

  ‘Vocation? Is it my vocation to look after people like Greengrass, people with more money than me? If that man is coming into money, can we assume that that terrible gawdy automobile was evidence of his new status in the world?’

  ‘It was going to be. He reckons it had style. He saw it offered for sale; it was something he’d set his heart on, apparently, and so he’d got it on appro. I checked with the owner, an American at Fylingdales, and it was true enough. He trusted Greengrass to look after it for a day or two.’

  Blaketon snorted contemptuously. ‘The man must have been an idiot, Rowan. Nobody should trust Greengrass, not even for a few seconds, let alone a few days. He must have learned that lesson by now, his car’s a heap of scrap metal. So, is that all?’

  ‘For the moment, Sergeant.’

  ‘Right, well, wipe up that floor again - you’ve dripped some more - then get on your bike.’

  ‘But it’s blowing a blizzard out there, Sergeant.’

  ‘A bit of snow is nothing to us country folk! Townies can’t cope with snow, we know that. But you are a townie no more, so go, Rowan, go. You are a rural beat constable in North Yorkshire and you are on motorcycle patrol duty.’

  ‘Yes, Sergeant.’

  The moment Stevie Walsh had waited for had finally arrived. Standing outside the prison gates with his meagre belongings, he drew in a long, deep breath of cool air. The scent of prison was no more. Gone was the stench of hundreds of incarcerated men, the stale scents of the cells, the awful reek of boiled cabbage, floor polish and disinfectant, the crash of cell doors and the jangle of the screws’ keys. Instead, there was fresh air,

  even if it was laced with a few snowflakes.

  This was freedom and it smelled good. And somewhere out there, the money - twenty-five thousand pounds of it - was waiting. Ten years’ imprisonment, reduced to a shade under seven for good behaviour, had been the cost of that money. He could now head for home and a life of wealth and happiness - and Ellen. He had often thought about her while he was inside but why hadn’t she visited him?

  She had not written either, not a word. And yet, there had been no divorce and he knew she was still at Farm Cottage; his friends inside had kept him informed. The lads had a wonderful network of information from the outside through friends and relations. And now he was free and able to pay her a visit. A surprise visit in fact. He’d made sure no one knew of his intended destination, he’d told the screws he was heading for Manchester to stay a week or two with an aged aunt - he knew the Crime Squad would be watching and waiting at Aunt Ethel’s. They’d wait a long time, he grinned to himself.

  He took another deep breath, licked his lips and began to walk towards the railway station. But first, he had a telephone call to make.

  Some twenty minutes later, he entered a telephone kiosk and rang the familiar Aidensfield number. It rang for quite a time before Ellen picked up the handset, saying, ‘Hello?’

  He recognised the voice but said nothing.

  ‘Hello? Who is it?’

  Again, he made no reply.

  After she had repeated the words several more times, he replaced the receiver and continued along his way. So she was still there, still at the cottage, their cottage. He had often imagined his homecoming.

  He’d imagined a blazing log fire in the grate with a kettle singing on the hob, a lovely table with a delicate lace cloth covered with nice crockery, home-made cakes and sandwiches. Tea in a large teapot, milk straight from the farm, the scent of home-made bread. Slippers in the hearth. Home. And a loving wife. A faithful wife. But if what he had heard was true, then Ellen had not been faithful or true to him; a man had been seen around the cottage, doing odd jobs, decorating, chopping sticks, cleaning his own car outside her door, leaving her house regularly on a morning.

  Perhaps it was just a friend, a local man who had taken pity on her?

  Maybe it was wrong to think otherwise, maybe she did need help when she was alone. But she had not come to see him, there’d been no word from her. Not even a birthday card or a Christmas card. Nothing. Perhaps he shouldn’t have been so hard on her, so violent … he’d given her some beatings, it was true. Poor bitch. He’d been sorry afterwards, though, and had said so. And yet she was still in the same cottage. It was finished between them, he knew. But he had to go home. He had to see her.

  He reached the railway station, shivering in the intense cold of the day, and checked train times. He had a wait of half an hour and so he went for a coffee and a biscuit, proud at being able to pay out of his own pocket. They’d given him some cash to get him home. He handed over the money with a smile, savouring the smell of the coffee, then settled in a corner to enjoy his snack. Outside, the snow appeared to be heavier and it was settling. If it was laying here in the south of England, then what was it like on the North York Moors?

  He could remember some winters when villages on the moors around Aidensfield had been cut off by drifts for weeks; bread and other provisions had had to be carried in by helicopter. Sheep had been buried on the moors for days, cars had been abandoned, electricity cables had come down in the snow and cut off lights and power. But in spite of that, he loved the area. After all, it was home.

  Even a criminal had to have a home to come back to. He never thought of himself as a criminal, not really, but he’d needed to be independent, and to be independent you needed money, and lots of it. And so he’d robbed a delivery of cash to a bank. It was as simple as that. His plan had been to live a real life in his cottage with a loving wife and even a family; he’d run a small business, quite legitimately. All he needed was enough cash to get started. Once he’d got enough to keep him going a while, he could relax, he needn’t blow his top any more. He could be like other people who had money. But things had not quite worked out. He’d been caught and the judge had sent him to prison for ten years, saying it would have been a reduced penalty if the money had been found.