The Penningtons by Pamela Oldfield Page B

everything.’ He wrote briefly.
    Dilys gasped, finding the remarks offensive. He seemed to suggest that if you had money you were a legitimate target for those who had none. Abruptly her patience deserted her and she raised her voice. ‘You are not taking this seriously! I can see that quite clearly. I’m going to report you to your superiors! I’m giving you plenty of useful information – vital information – and you are hardly writing anything!’
    He gave her a pitying look. ‘You’re upset, Mrs Maynard. A bit hysterical. You’ve had a bit of a shock, that’s all.’
    ‘A bit of a shock? That’s what you think, is it? That shows a lack of experience, constable! I’m shocked to the core and I don’t know how I shall get through the rest of the night until daylight. Suppose he comes back.’
    ‘He won’t. They never do. Rest easy on that account.’ Unperturbed, he closed the notebook. ‘This will do for now. You go back to bed and get some sleep. I may be back in the morning unless we’ve caught him by then.’ He stood up and held up a hand. ‘I’ll see myself out.’
    Wordlessly she watched him heave himself from the chair. He said, ‘Did we establish how he gained entry?’
    She pointed to the broken window behind him. ‘He must have smashed the window, put his hand in and unlocked it then pushed up the lower half.’
    He nodded. ‘May have cut himself,’ he said hopefully. ‘Serve the blighter right if he has!’
    ‘And the back door was open so . . .’
    ‘So that’s how he left the premises.’ He made a few last jottings in his notebook. ‘We’ll see what we find in the morning. It’ll be light then. Might be lucky and find footprints.’
    When he’d gone Dilys started to laugh, and then she cried. Eventually she went to the telephone to waken Albert and Hettie but had second thoughts. It could wait until the morning when she was more in control. She didn’t want their pity. Hettie might even gloat over her misfortune – she had often derided Dilys’s attempts to help the poor and needy. Dilys could imagine her sister-in-law saying, ‘That’s the thanks you get for your “do-gooding”.’
    Slowly she made her way upstairs, leaving all the lights on behind her. The thought of the broken window made her even more nervous so she had locked the kitchen door which led into the hallway. If he did come back he would be unable to get further than the kitchen.
    Upstairs she walked into her bedroom and stared around her. The man, whoever he was, had been here, watching her sleep. Suppose she had roused from her dreams and surprised him . . . how would he have reacted? Would he have fled downstairs in a panic or . . . or stayed to ‘ hurt ’ her?
    She swallowed hard while her insides trembled. She had never been so near to violence in her life, she reflected; had never been so vulnerable to attack – and the thought terrified her. Unable to stay in the bedroom a moment longer, she pulled the eiderdown from the bed and carried it downstairs. In the sitting room she curled up on the sofa and covered herself with the eiderdown. Too late she thought about a pillow but nothing would induce her to go back upstairs so she reached for a cushion instead and settled herself for the healing sleep which unfortunately did not come. Instead she spent the hours until dawn reliving the whole ghastly experience and wondering how to protect herself from further unlawful visits.
    While Dilys was suffering a traumatic experience, Daisy lay in bed smiling up into the darkness. In the next bedroom she could hear Monty snoring and the occasional creak of the bed springs. She was thinking about Steven Anders at the solicitors’ office and wondering how to arrange another meeting. Either she could go to the office on some pretext (she would have to invent a reason) or she would have to think of a reason for him to make a call at the house. She could ask Monty to invite him to the house to discuss