All is Fair Read online

  Leaving her empty mug on the trestle table, she weaved her way through to where she had last seen Dicky lurking. She looked around and deduced that as he hadn’t passed her, there was only one other way for him to have gone and that was around the back of the huddle of vans. In the seconds since she had last seen him, he couldn’t have gone far, so if she hurried, she could catch up with him and follow at a discreet distance. She spun on her heel and headed off.

  A huge cloud suddenly drifted across the moon, plunging her into near pitch darkness save for the odd shaft of light shining through gaps in the curtained windows of the living vans. She wished she had a torch with her, but then when she had come out this evening she’d thought she’d be dancing the night away rather than playing detective.

  She had sneaked her way past several vans before she caught sight of Dicky’s shadowy figure, still acting furtively. She waited until he had disappeared behind the van in front of her before she crept along the side of it and peeped around the corner. A few feet away from her was an old two-berth van used by her father to provide gaff lads or labourers with living accommodation. It was empty at the moment, as it was in the process of having a hole in the floor fixed, its two occupants meantime bunking in with others. Dicky was opening its door and was about to go inside when another figure appeared to join him. Despite the lack of light, Jenny could tell it was a woman, and was near enough to hear Dicky say none too politely, ‘Quick, get inside before anyone sees us.’

  The newcomer giggled, leaned up and kissed his cheek before responding, ‘You just hope it ain’t my husband, as he’ll cut off your whatsits and fry them up for his breakfast.’

  Jenny recognised the woman’s voice. It was Averil Hunter. Her husband was one of the labourers, a bull of a man, the sort you were wise not to mess with. She was an attractive woman in her mid-twenties; community gossip had it that she was the flirty sort, and this confirmed to Jenny that she certainly was. They were both inside the van now, and Jenny stood staring over at it in dismay. For Julie’s sake she had sincerely hoped she had been wrong about Dicky cheating on her, but it appeared she wasn’t, and now she had the dilemma of whether to tell her friend what was going on. She would need to think very deeply about this.

  Suddenly she froze as she heard a sound behind her. It was the soft tread of footsteps. Someone was creeping up on her. Panic flooding her being, she spun around to see who it was.

  * * *

  A short while earlier, Tom was doing his best to stifle a yawn. He had enjoyed himself much more than he thought he would tonight, making some new friends amongst the fair folk and even persuaded by a couple of the women to have a dance with them, but he was mindful that he had to be up ready for a full day’s work at the crack of dawn so had been trying to take his leave for a while now. Each time, though, either someone had come up and engaged him in conversation, or Roger, not wanting to be left on his own, had persuaded him to stay just a little bit longer, and now it was nearly one o’clock. Tom didn’t want to lose his job through lapses of concentration caused by lack of sleep from partying too late, and as Roger was at the moment in conversation with another gaff lad, he thought this a good time to finally make his escape.

  Getting up, he put his hand on his van mate’s shoulder. ‘I’m turning in now. I’ll see you in the morning.’ Before Roger could again persuade him to stay, he hurried off.

  Light from the moon was aiding his way through the huddle of vans, and in his anxiety to get to bed, his pace was brisk. He was only a short distance away from his own van when he suddenly found himself plunged into darkness as a large cloud obscured the moon. He slowed his pace so as not to fall over any discarded items other community members had left outside, and had just groped his way around a van when he suddenly stopped short.

  A few feet in front of him he could see the outline of a figure. They appeared to be peering around the side of a van, observing the van beyond it. Apart from those still enjoying themselves at the party, the rest of the community would be in bed by now, so whoever this was must be an intruder from outside. Were they sizing up the van with a view to robbing it? It was the only thing Tom could think of to explain their behaviour. The robber wasn’t a clever one, though, as the area he had chosen to line his pockets was where all the gaff lads and labourers lived, and poorly paid as they were, none of them owned anything worth taking. Regardless, he wasn’t about to turn his back on a potential thief and leave them at liberty to roam around the rest of the vans, helping themselves to whatever they wanted.

  He realised that the figure had obviously sensed his presence, as they were turning around. He had no idea whether they were armed or not, but he wasn’t going to wait to find out. Taking a deep breath, he launched himself forward, rugby-tackling the figure to the ground and straddling them to keep them pinned down, his intention then to grab their wrists to fully restrain them before he yelled for help.

  Jenny had just been in the process of turning around to see who or what was approaching when she found herself on the ground. Fearing what her attacker was about to attempt to do to her, her survival instincts flooded in. If he thought her easy prey, then he had another think coming. She raised her knees and brought them up as hard as she could, at the same time flailing her arms wildly to stop him grabbing her wrists, then balling both fists and punching him in the side of his head and then his face. Her efforts did the trick, and he yelped and toppled off her.

  As soon as she was free, she made to scramble up and run off whilst shouting for help, but Tom managed to gather himself together enough to grab her ankle, pulling her over. As she hit the ground again, she cried out, though it was in shock more than pain, as thankfully the thick couch grass the vans were parked on provided a cushion.

  At her exclamation, Tom sat bolt upright and stared down at her in astonishment. ‘You’re a woman!’

  Jenny struggled to get up, rubbing her elbow where it had struck the ground, glaring at the dark outline of her attacker a couple of feet away from her. ‘Do men wear skirts and have long hair?’ she snapped angrily.

  He stuttered. ‘Well… it’s… it’s just that usually burglars are men.’

  ‘Burglars!’

  He retorted accusingly, ‘Well that’s what you are, isn’t it? What else could you be up to, sneaking around the vans at this time of night?’

  She snorted in indignation. ‘If I was a robber, I hope I’d have more sense than to be sizing up an empty van to steal from. And anyway, thieves don’t rob their own.’

  He gawped at her for a moment before her words registered. ‘Oh! You work here? Oh… well. I’m sorry, but obviously it’s dark, and from the way you were acting I assumed…’ He added defensively, ‘I’m sure if the roles had been reversed you would have assumed the same thing. It seems I was wrong to judge you as I did. Please accept my apologies.’

  Although she now appreciated how he had come to mistake her for a robber, she wasn’t sure if she had forgiven him enough yet to accept his apology. Then it suddenly struck her just who he was. It was his voice that gave him away. Ren had told her his name was Tom.

  ‘You’re the new man that started here a few days ago, aren’t you?’ she said.

  He answered warily. ‘Yes, I am. We haven’t met before, have we, so how do you know that?’

  To Jenny, Tom spoke with the same cultured tones of the privileged as the consultant at the hospital who had dealt with her adopted mother, but whereas the consultant’s voice had had a superior clip to it, this man’s was far softer, with no hint of superiority at all. She wanted to tell him that she found his accent fascinating and could listen to him speaking forever, but she was far too angry to say anything complimentary. Instead she snapped, ‘I heard you spoke like you have a broom stuck up your backside, and it was a good description because you do.’

  To her shock, he burst out laughing. ‘Well I shall have to try and be more un-bristle-like then, won’t I?’

  She found herself laughing too. Then she sudde
nly stopped as a memory of earlier struck and she said tartly, ‘Seems you have a habit of upsetting women. I’m the second to my knowledge tonight.’

  He frowned quizzically. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  She snorted. ‘Well whatever you said to Dulcie Pickering upset her enough to make her slap your face.’

  He sighed. ‘I have the right to decide who I would like to dance with, and Dulcie didn’t take kindly to my polite refusal of her offer and reacted rather violently.’

  Jenny’s lips clamped tight. She knew Dulcie well enough to be aware that the girl wouldn’t be at all happy to have her advances rebutted. It seemed she had misjudged this man.

  Just then a light came on in the van beside them, the window was thrust open and a dishevelled head shot out. ‘What’s going on ’ere? We’re trying to sleep, goddammit. Go and have your bit of hanky-panky somewhere else.’ The head disappeared and the window slammed shut.

  They both sat in silence for a moment in embarrassment that the man in the van believed he’d caught them in a compromising situation. Jenny prayed that he hadn’t recognised her; the last thing she wanted was rumours going around the fairground that the boss’s daughter was a trollop.

  Eventually Tom scrambled up, then extended a gentlemanly hand down to her, saying, ‘Again I apologise for jumping to the wrong conclusion. I hope I didn’t cause you any damage when I tackled you.’

  She opened her mouth to tell him that she was going to suffer a sore elbow at least for a couple of days thanks to him, but then he really did seem genuinely sorry that he had misread the situation. And after all, hadn’t she herself misread the situation she had witnessed him in earlier that evening? Instead she said curtly, ‘I’m made of strong stuff, so I’ll live.’

  Tom, though, hadn’t come off as lightly from their tussle as she had. Now that she was standing before him, she could make out that he had a bloodied nose and lip. She was sorry for the damage she had caused him, but then she was only trying to protect herself. She lightly quipped, ‘I didn’t realise I had such a good left hook. I should think about taking up boxing in the booths.’ Then her tone of voice became serious. ‘You really need those cuts seeing to.’ She was about to ask him if he had antiseptic and plasters in his van, then thought better of it. Although gaff lads were always cutting and bruising themselves during the course of carrying out their jobs, they would generally seek out an obliging female member of the community to administer to their injuries. ‘If you come back to my van, I’ll clean them up for you,’ she said.

  She saw him hesitate and assumed that was because he would sooner risk his cuts turning septic than spend any longer in her company. To her surprise, she realised she felt hurt by that. But having caused his injuries, if they did fester from lack of attention then she didn’t want to be responsible. ‘Come on, I won’t bite,’ she said as she brushed down her skirt and turned to head off back through the huddle of caravans to where her own was parked.

  In fact, Tom’s hesitation had been because he had been searching for the right way to accept her invitation back to her van without appearing too eager. For some reason he couldn’t at all fathom, given that his introduction to this woman hadn’t been in the best of circumstances, he was finding himself intrigued by her and definitely wanted to find out more. He was surprised he hadn’t noticed her before now, as he’d gone about his work around the fairground, as she was certainly very attractive, but then all his attention had been concentrated on learning his job and making sure he kept it. As it was, she didn’t give him the opportunity to respond to her invitation before she'd set off, expecting him to follow. So he did, before she became lost to him amongst the huddle of vans.

  * * *

  ‘Oh goodness, that smarts!’ Tom exclaimed a short time later.

  Jenny chuckled. ‘Is that a posh way of saying “Ouch”? I did warn you it would sting.’ She screwed the top back on a bottle of witch hazel, then cut a length of plaster, put a smear of Germolene on it and placed it over the cut on his nose, firmly pressing down the sticky ends. She stood back and admired her handiwork. ‘Maybe I should have been a nurse. I’ve made a good job of that.’

  Tom hid a smile. It was the least she could do considering she had been the one to cause his injuries in the first place. ‘Thank you. I shall be eternally grateful to you for saving my life.’

  Jenny smiled at his quip.

  He was sitting at her small pine kitchen table, and as she put the medical supplies back in a wall cupboard, he said, ‘I’ll leave you so you can get to bed.’ He stood up and pushed his chair back under the table, taking a quick glance around. ‘It’s a nice place you have.’

  Jenny knew it must seem like a palace compared to the van he would be sharing with the other gaff lads. She didn’t feel she owed him an explanation, but found herself telling him, ‘It’s not mine, it belongs to my uncle.’ She wasn’t about to divulge Sonny’s criminal history to an employee, so she just said the first thing that came into her head. ‘He’s emigrated to Australia to work on a sheep farm.’

  Tom looked surprised. ‘A little different to fair work. Is he enjoying the life?’

  ‘Err… well he’s not come back, so I assume he is. Not a great communicator, my Uncle Sonny.’ She looked at him enquiringly. ‘You grew up on a lord’s estate, so rumour has it. What was that like, having all that space to run around and play cowboys and Indians in?’

  Tom would have given anything when a boy to be allowed to play such games. He said shortly, ‘Fun. Yes, lots of fun.’ He shot her a smile. ‘Well, thank you for patching me up.’ He made to turn, then a thought struck and he asked her, ‘Just as a matter of interest, what were you actually doing when I mistook you for a burglar?’

  She looked at him blankly. To tell him the truth would mean having to divulge Julie’s personal business, which she wasn’t even sure she was going to tell Julie herself about yet.

  ‘I’d had a couple of drinks too many at the party and was walking it off before I went to bed. I was just resting by that van when you saw me.’

  ‘Well, next time I see someone lurking by a van late at night, I’ll not be so quick to assume the worst of them but make sure of my facts first.’ He stood looking at her for a moment, as though there was something he wanted to say, but then he seemed to change his mind and flashed her a smile. ‘Thank you again for your nursing services. I hope you sleep well.’

  * * *

  As Jenny readied herself for bed, her thoughts were all on the man who had just left. She had never met a man of her own age before who was so polite and well-mannered, and although not handsome in a film-star way, his face was a very pleasant one. For a gaff lad, young men who weren’t known for their strict attention to hygiene, he was very clean, as were his clothes, and when she had leaned in close to attend to the injuries she had caused to his face, she had smelt expensive aftershave.

  She liked a man who took care of himself. And he was a protective, conscientious sort of man too, who when he believed he’d stumbled across a potential burglar hadn’t turned his back and walked away but had tried to prevent that burglar from doing his worst. He was definitely of interest to her. She sighed despondently. But then he hadn’t shown the slightest hint that he found her attractive in return, so she was wasting her time thinking about him as a possible boyfriend.

  Forcing all thoughts of Tom from her mind, she turned over and tried to get to sleep.

  * * *

  In his own van, attempting to get comfortable on the thin, lumpy mattress on his narrow bed, Tom couldn’t seem to get the woman he had unwittingly attacked tonight out of his head. Why hadn’t he asked her name? She had a pretty face, and was sparky too. It was obvious that she was quick-witted, with an intelligent mind, and she could certainly look after herself. He’d like the chance to find out what other qualities she possessed. Perhaps she’d agree to go for a walk with him one evening, or sit and talk over a drink or suchlike… Abruptly he stopped his thoughts from running away
with him. With her looks and personality, she more than likely already had a boyfriend. He’d been an idiot to consider asking the likes of her out; thank goodness he had come to his senses in time and saved himself the humiliation of her refusal.

  Forcing all thoughts of Jenny from his mind, he turned over and tried to get to sleep.

  Chapter Nine

  Councillor Ernest Dunster, leader of Huddersfield council, buttoned up his trousers, tucked in his shirt, straightened his tie and put his jacket back on, never for one moment taking his piggy eyes off the shapely blonde dressing herself close by. It was only a few minutes ago that he had virtually ripped her clothes off her before they had had rampant sex on the thick carpet before the large marble fireplace over which hung a picture of the young Queen Elizabeth II.

  Ernest looked at the clock on his desk, part of an expensive jade and silver art deco writing set he had treated himself to when he had first been elected three years ago. His eyes almost bulged out of their sockets when he saw the time.

  ‘Hurry up and sort yourself out, Lena. I’ve a meeting with Booth from Planning in his office at eleven, and it’s five minutes to.’

  Lena’s skirt was pulled up around her shapely thighs and she was snapping a popper on her suspender belt. Pulling the skirt down, she began to do up the buttons on her white blouse. ‘Five minutes to talk to you then, lover boy,’ she said casually.