At Risk

54

Denzil Parrish arrived back in West Ford knowing that an unpromising evening lay ahead. His mother had warned him well in advance that her new in-laws were not the easiest-going people she’d ever met-“uptight suburban control freaks,” in fact, was the expression she’d used-but she had also warned him that he was expected to put in some “serious quality time” with them, “and not go bunking off to the pub every night.”

So Denzil had agreed to put a brave face on it and do his best. The fact that his stepfather’s parents were digging in for a whole week had only been sprung on him once he himself had agreed to come down from Tyneside as soon as term was ended, and the subterfuge still rankled. His absence today until well after sunset had been part of the punishment he had chosen to inflict. Deep down, however, he understood his mother’s predicament, and was forced to admit that since her remarriage she’d been happier than he could remember her, and since Jessica had been born she’d been almost… well, girlish, he supposed, although it had to be said that this was by no means a desirable attribute in a forty-year-old parent. Whatever, she was smiling again, and for that Denzil was grateful.

Braking the Accord a short distance beyond the gate, he backed into the driveway. Halfway down the incline he braked again, and got out of the car to unlock the garage and remove the kayak from the roof-rack. It had been, in its way, a fantastic day. He’d never thought of himself as the lone operator type, but there was something about Norfolk in winter-the uncompromising solitude, the vast rain-charged skies-which accorded with his mood. On the Methwold Fen Relief Drain he’d seen a marsh harrier, a very rare bird indeed these days. He’d heard the call first-the shrill kwee, kwee damped by the wet wind. A moment later he’d seen the hawk itself, hanging almost casually on a wing before plummeting into the reeds and rising an instant later with a screaming moorhen between its talons. Nature red in tooth and claw. The sort of moment you remembered for ever.

A moment not at odds, in a weird sort of way, with the helicopters that, at intervals, he’d seen hovering and whispering in the northern distance. What had that been about? Some sort of exercise? One of the helicopters had come close enough for him to see its military markings.

Rolling up the garage door, he hauled the kayak inside and shoved it up into the rafters. Then, parking the car and closing the garage door behind him, he returned up the ramp and climbed the balustraded stone steps to the front door. If nothing else, his mother’s remarriage had certainly given the family a leg-up in the world, property-wise. Having pulled off his wet waterproofs and hung them to drip in the front hall, he found his mother in the kitchen, pausing from the preparation of a leg of lamb and the boiling of a kettle to open a jar of prune-based sludge for the baby’s dessert. Jessica herself, meanwhile, temporarily at peace with the world, was lying on her back on a rug on the floor, sucking her toes. With his mother and half-sister stood a uniformed police officer.

The officer was smiling, and Denzil recognised him as Jack Hobhouse. A solid middle-aged man holding a peaked cap bearing the insignia of the Norfolk Constabulary, he had been to the house several times before when Denzil had been at home-most recently to advise on a new alarm system.

“Denzil, love, Sergeant Hobhouse has been warning us about something. Apparently there are a couple of terrorist-type people on the loose. Not near here, but they’re armed, and they’ve apparently…” Reaching down in response to a sudden sharp cry from Jessica, she gathered up the child, arranged her over her left shoulder, and started patting her back.

“Apparently…?” prompted Denzil.

“They’ve killed a couple of people up on the north coast,” she said as Jessica, burping, released a milky posset down the back of her mother’s expensive black cardigan. “There was that whole thing about the man who was found shot in that car park.”

“Fakenham,” said Denzil, regarding his mother’s back with fastidious horror. “I saw something about it in the local paper. They’re looking for a British woman and a Pakistani man, aren’t they?”

“That’s what they think,” said Hobhouse. “Now as your mum said, there’s no reason to suppose they’re anywhere near here, but…”

He was interrupted by the ringing of the wall-mounted phone. Denzil made a move for it but his mother snatched it up, listened for a moment, and then replaced the receiver. At the same moment the baby started to cry.

“Traffic backed up for a mile because of roadblocks,” she announced despairingly over the baby’s wails. “Thinks he’s going to be at least an hour late back. And I’ve got his bloody parents arriving at any minute. Which reminds me, we’re going to need some wine and some more tonic water… My God, Denzil, is that them?”

“I’ll, er… I’ll leave these,” murmured Hobhouse, handing Denzil two photocopied A4 sheets and replacing his cap, “and be on my way. Any worries, don’t hesitate. And obviously, if you spot anyone…”

Denzil took the sheets, gave the officer a distracted thumbs-up, and glanced out of the window. Judging by the five-year-old Jaguar and the intolerant bearing of the couple stepping out of it, it was indeed “them.”

“Mum, you’ve got sick on your back.” He took a deep breath, thought briefly but longingly of the serenity that the afternoon had held, and made the supreme sacrifice. “Give me Jessica. Go upstairs and change. I’ll hold the fort.”