A Web of Lives

By David Medlycott

In rural Northumberland, England's northern-most county, John Tobin has created a near idyllic lifestyle, quiet, gentle, a bit like himself in fact. Then one day his great friend and mentor, Alan Harper turns it all upside down. The sudden and unexplained death of Alan's wife, Rosemary, and the appearance of a threatening stranger will change the course of Tobin's quiet existence. In trying to sort out his friend's tangled life Tobin and Alan's petulant stepdaughter find themselves on a continental journey of discovery and danger; a race across the French countryside that threatens their own lives while trying to protect Alan's. A Web of Lives, a gentle 'why dunnit?', is the first in an occasional series about John Tobin and his life in Northumberland,

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Medlycott
• Release date: Nov 26, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301930562

David Medlycott

David, who was born in East Sussex, spent all his working life in the entertainment industry. However, now is the time to try something he has always wanted to do, hence A Web of Lives. He now lives in the North East of England with his wife and pet Airedale Terrier. He has one son and one new grandson. A Web of Lives is his first book and is the first in an occasional series of gentle 'why dunnits?' featuring John Tobin.

Book preview

A Web of Lives

David Medlycott

© Copyright 2013 David Medlycott

Smashwords Edition

A Web of Lives is a work of fiction.

Any similarity to persons or events, past or present, is co-incidental.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

ISBN 9781301930562.

------------------1-----------------

The receptionist, Linda McInnes, pushed her chair back a bit; she did not like the way the tall, heavily built Londoner was leaning over her desk in the front office of the ‘Mid-Northumberland Reporter’. She had begun by going out of her way, being polite, not wanting to appear unhelpful. She was not able to give private details to the public, but he was determined to not listen. She had tried the ‘jobsworth’ angle and that she didn’t make the rules, but the more she tried the more aggressive he became. Phoning the editor Miss Hickman had not helped, she had just said to repeat the company policy, which merely made matters worse. She had hung up when Linda had asked her to come down and speak to the man herself.

He was waving around a copy of their monthly colour magazine, open at a photograph which showed, among others, the organizer of a rugby club charity function. They looked rather alike this, aggressive man and the man in the photo. She had no further time to consider this, he was pointing at the figure again, ‘Listen, luv! Where do I find him?’ He was beginning to get rather loud; his rough voice harsh and hoarse, and spit was beginning to fly. Linda began to feel frightened.

‘I’ve told you, you’ve got the wrong name.’ She repeated. His face began to colour up and his breathing was becoming erratic, a fine spray of spittle came from his lips as he repeated, with great menace, ‘I’ll not ask again. I know who he is, luv; where is he? I’ll find him, you mark my words!’

The bell on the front door clanged loudly on its spring as someone entered. He stepped quickly back from the desk and stood upright, staring threateningly at her.

‘You could try the reporter who wrote that piece, his name’s there,’ she pointed at the magazine, ‘and you can phone him here. He’s not in yet, though, I’m afraid.’ She swallowed hard, but her throat was dry. Two women with a pushchair entered the office and the burly intruder turned away from them, hiding his face, and forced his way out past them.

‘Are you all right, pet?’ asked the older of the two women, ‘You look a bit pale, has he been giving you trouble?’

The harassed receptionist pulled out a tissue and dabbed at her damp face as she tried to swallow again.

The bulky figure crashed out of the front door of the newspaper office, paused to glance up and down the street, turned to his right and strode away. Two minutes brisk walk brought him to the door of the Northumberland Arms. The sound of a vacuum cleaner could be heard inside and the clash of empty bottles being thrown into a skip. He thought for a moment, ducked through the low door and made for the bar. The young barman, crouched behind the bar cleaning, heard nothing till the big fist thumped the bar loudly. He jumped up in fright, ‘we’re not open, yet.’

‘Phone book?’

‘Sorry?’

‘Give me the phone book.’ The voice was harsh, the order urgent.

The barman reached along beneath the counter. His wrist was suddenly clamped to the bar edge by a strong hand. He looked up in fright at the pale eyes beneath the close cropped white hair. The face showed a long hard life, the pallid complexion surrounding the sunken, grey eye sockets gave it a cold, hard, almost cadaverous, appearance. He might have looked an old man but the grip on the barman’s wrist was vice-like and showed no sign of easing. It was hurting.

The man looked over the bar to see what the barman was reaching for. He released the grip and snatched the Yellow Pages from the shelf below. He carried it to a seat by the light of the window and furtively put on a pair of reading glasses. The barman looked on massaging his bruised wrist as he listened to the pages being flipped through. The vacuum cleaner droned on in the back bar undisturbed. Having found the entry he was looking for the man tore out the whole page, threw the book back on to the counter and left.

--------------------2-------------------

For a Monday it was not a bad day for John Tobin. First, he had had a lie-in, second it was a nice early summer day and thirdly he had banked some money before coming to the café for a late brunch. Tempted as he often was by the café directly over the road from his flat he did, usually, cook for himself. But, today he felt like a treat. He had bought a broadsheet newspaper rather than reading the café’s free copy of the local paper and sipped his coffee while sorting the rest of his post, waiting for his food to arrive. The post was fairly full, but consisted mostly of brochures and circulars, with a couple of pieces of research information he had sent for. He didn’t open these; he recognised his own stamped, addressed envelopes. There were also the opened envelopes that had contained the cheques he had just banked and a pile of circulars and cards. The remaining two items were a picture postcard from Cornwall and a plain envelope addressed in a familiar handwriting. Just then Mrs Harton brought his all-day breakfast. She waited impatiently as he scooped the sorted piles of post back into one heap to clear the table. Hungrily he began to eat, reading both newspapers as he did.

The sun also shone on the queue of cars waiting to board the cross channel ferry from Southampton. Alan Harper returned to his car, placed his coffee cup on the roof and juggled with his keys and the clothes in his arms while attending to the mobile phone tucked under his chin. He tutted at the phone, opened the estate door and threw the clothes in on top of everything else in the overloaded car. The rest of the queue were starting their engines and revving as he switched off the phone. He did likewise; he had arrived early and was only a few cars back in the queue. He felt the rear suspension bottom as the heavily laden estate bounced up the ramp and disappeared into the dark interior. He locked the car and headed for one of the restaurants for an early lunch. It had been a long day already and he needed nourishment. He was a tall rangy man around sixty years old, but looking younger, fit, tanned and in good shape, something he was very particular about. He had changed into jeans and a casual white shirt and trainers while waiting and was now ready to relax. He would feel even better when the ship cast off and he was sailing out into the channel.

Rebecca Shaw had also tried to call Tobin, twice, and now tried again, this time the phone was engaged. She couldn’t hang on though as she too was in a queue; for the Shuttle. She did not know that her step-father was crossing to France at the same time and he was quite unaware of her trip. She had a quick glance at herself in the vanity mirror behind her sun visor, plumped her thick mass of dark curls into place, it actually made no difference, but she felt better for the attempt. She wore no makeup these days, just a little lip colour and was happy to display her freckles. Having escaped the clutches of her mother less than a year ago she had frantically caught up with other girls her age, mid-twenties, and learnt to look as natural as possible, saving a lot of money along the way and avoiding looking like her mother. Although her hair was a mystery, she had her mother’s features, but where the hair came from she did not know. Her mother had suggested it was a ’throw-back’ in her genes. Whatever, she didn’t mind, left to its own devices it was an attribute to her looks she had discovered, turning heads in the street when she wore it down, as it was now. She threw the mobile phone on the passenger seat and drove onto the Shuttle.

John Tobin was drinking a fresh cup of coffee and making a list of tasks for the week in his notebook. So far, it looked as if it was going to be a fairly quiet week workwise, but there was always his writing, if all else failed and he could find no more excuses to avoid it; there was the family history research he had taken on, unfortunately none of them now looked as interesting as they had at first; he had a voice-over job on Thursday in an advert for a local carpet company and there was a film and a TV series being made in the region for which he hoped he would get some bit part work, again. He had some photographs to get off to a calendar company on a speculative basis, they had expressed interest in the past, and he just needed to trawl through all the pictures on his computer. But, most important, he suddenly remembered, was the country show report to write for ‘The Mid-Northumberland Reporter’, the local paper, that he had promised for the following morning. He gathered up all his post and papers, paid for his meal and crossed the road to his flat.

He eventually got to check his phone messages when he returned from shopping two hours later. There was a barely subtle reminder of his report deadline for the morning from Sandra Hickman, the editor; a gushing enquiry from Mrs Davies, whose house history he had quite forgotten he had promised to do, the aging femme fatal had buttonholed him in the pub a fortnight ago and he had agreed just to get away. Then there was the message with the strange sounds, a bit like someone breathing or sighing and car doors slamming, in the background he thought he could hear engines starting. He played it through twice more, but made no more of what he could hear and gave up, puzzled. The new shopping provided the makings for a hearty sandwich and fresh coffee for the cafetiere, with which he sat at the computer and bashed out his report and sorted some photos to accompany it.

Rebecca Shaw was soon through the tunnel and driving south. It wasn’t till she was half way through that she had begun to think about what she was doing. She had never driven on the continent before and was quite unprepared. She had received a phone call from a girlfriend who was staying in her parent’s house in South West France with her boyfriend; the girlfriend had said why didn’t Rebecca come over some time? She hadn’t thought twice about it and immediately invited herself over, she now realised that maybe it was a bit tactless, but she would just stay a couple of days and then go exploring. She was now terrified on the wrong side of the road, she had drifted onto the ‘right’ side of the road a couple of times only to meet and narrowly miss on-coming traffic. She had arrived at a toll station on the motorway and not known what to do; the only saving grace had been her excellent French she had learnt from her stepfather. She pulled into a rest area to stretch her legs and use the facilities; she was exhausted and still had several hundred miles to go. She couldn’t even be bothered to pick up the phone.

‘Tell Sandra I’ve emailed her the copy for the weekend, it’s not much, but there wasn’t much to report really, and there’s a few photo’s, as well.’ Tobin was on the phone to Linda McInnes at the Reporter.

‘There was an awful man in here looking for your friend Alan this morning. He was really horrible, and, you know what, he looked just like him, but much older. He was waving around last month’s County News with that picture of Mr Harper in it. But, he didn’t call him that,’ she thought for a moment, ‘he called him Jimmy. I told Sandra, but she wouldn’t help, it really upset me.’

‘Well, he obviously had the wrong man, didn’t he? I shouldn’t worry about it, has he been back?’

‘No.’

‘Well there you are then.’

‘I’m not happy! Why should I have to put up with that?’

‘I’m sorry, Linda. What can I say?’

‘Well. Anyway, Sandra left you a message. Can you do the ‘What’s on’ this week, please? Well, I added the please.’

‘Why?’

‘Nicola’s poorly. Or something.’

‘OK. Why do I always give in? The time it takes for the money she pays. Anyway, tell her OK.’ He hung up the phone and returned to his beer and crisps.

He picked up his notebook and studied the list he had made earlier; there was Mrs Davies’ house history that he should make a start on, and there was the voice-over job coming up for the carpet company. The sheet of paper, laughingly called ‘the script’, was on the table, he had already learnt his line. He browsed his bookshelves for local history while repeating his line. ‘Cover your floors with Alec Cameron, all carpets slashed!’ Someone was going to have to rewrite that; someone got paid for it and probably a lot more than he got paid. He tried it again in several different ways. A change of tone, a change of pitch, a change of emphasis, but nothing could make that sound exciting. He pulled some books on the history of the region and began to consult their indexes. He had used these books when he had written a piece on the history of the town a few years before.

Longalnbury had grown up around a market place at a junction on the major Northwest – Southeast route across the county of Northumberland centuries before. The salt traders heading West from the coast had joined the old road here, and, as often happened, an inn had quickly appeared. A small community developed around the inn and the junction and trade had prospered. The original route had grown to become a major road between Newcastle upon Tyne and Scotland and the old salter’s road was now one of the many minor roads heading east to the coast. Crossing the major road here was also a ‘B’ road that meandered its way up from Hexham, in the south, and continued north-eastwards, through the very similar market town of Rothbury, to the old, walled, castle-town of Alnwick.

The steady growth of the little hamlet, first into a village and then into a small town, could be seen in the architecture and in the layout of the narrow lanes of the original settlement as they radiated out into the wider thoroughfares of the more prosperous village. These in turn widened into the roads of the Victorian township. However, the Victorian townsfolk could never have anticipated the needs of modern travel and the narrowing of the main road as it entered either side of the town had been the source of continuing argument for decades. It had also generated many column inches in the papers over the years.

Tobin’s first, unpaid, job on the local paper had been to report on a meeting held to discuss another suggested solution to the problem and his write-up had been praised, locally. Which was more a measure of the poor standard of the paper then than of his writing talents, he maintained. However, five years on, there was no comparison with today’s ‘Mid-Northumberland Reporter’. He was now paid reasonably, and reasonably regularly, and he and the permanent staff of two reporters worked hard to maintain the improvement.

He worked on making notes until he fell asleep.

Rebecca Shaw bought some snacks from a vending machine, took the lift to her room in the budget hotel, collapsed on the bed and fell fast asleep, with half of her journey still to go.

----------------------------3-------------------------

‘Sunburn Danger say Met Men’, read the placard outside the newsagents. Another week had drifted by and it was Monday morning again. But this week he had delivered his copy to the office, a nice little piece on the cancelled school fair; budget cuts and industrial unrest were rearing their heads in this idyllic country community. The busy weekend, busy by his standards, and the return of summer, gave him a contented, self-satisfied feeling, as he wandered along with his shopping.

The town was transformed in the sunshine. The town had emerged gleaming from the previous weeks washing by heavy rain, the flowers in their baskets and tubs had revived and lifted their heads to the sun, their cheerful colours and green foliage fresh and bright with the evaporating morning dew. The streets were once again full of townspeople and tourists either hurrying or ambling about their business.

From the position he took, sitting on the sill of his open front room window, Tobin could closely inspect two hanging baskets on the lamppost outside, so close that they were nearly window boxes. The town was renowned for its floral displays with many awards to its credit. He was dreamily studying the flowers when a dustcart went by. He smiled at the memory of the letter that had been anonymously circulated round the office during the week; the sender’s name had been tactfully removed from the photocopy. The writer suggested, apparently quite seriously, that all the buses and municipal vehicles should be decked out in flower boxes and baskets to promote the town; particularly those vehicles that were going further afield, to places such as Alnwick and Newcastle! The book was still open as to which local worthy had written it. Needless to say the letter had not been published.

He sat on the broad sill of the open window, with his foot resting against the opposite side and his chin on his knee. His side of the street was still in shade, the sun would be another hour in climbing round to shine in his window and he felt himself winding down already, and it wasn’t even ten-o-clock. He dragged his mind back to the present. Part of his self-satisfaction was due to another article that he had nearly completed; it was sitting on the desk awaiting its final revision. He resolved to work for another two hours and then find something to do out of doors. Looking at Mrs Davies’ house and taking some photos seemed a good idea. He went to his desk, made a note to phone her and switched on the computer.

His keyboard was balanced on top of his accounts book and its associated papers, receipts and statements, and rocked annoyingly. He had spent a large part of the previous week sorting and getting them up to date and he did not want to disarrange them now. There was nowhere left to put them, all his filing stacks were full to falling over, so he levelled the little piles on the desk a bit to stop the worst of the wobbling, raised his seat slightly and carried on working.

He was happily tapping away on his article about climate change, his weather encyclopaedia wedged between his knee and the underside of the desk and the first draft of his article on the ‘Weather, a bonus or a bane?’ clipped to the side of his monitor.

The phone rang.

‘Yes?’ He said, impatiently into the mouthpiece.

‘If you spent more time in this office I wouldn’t have to waste time looking for you!’ snapped an angry female voice.

‘Good morning, Sandra.’ He said, with exaggerated tolerance; she wasn’t going to ruin his day. ‘You know that I work far better in the peace and quiet of my own home. And, I’m only a phonecall away.’

‘Well, you’re a phone call further away from whatever is happening at your friend Alan Harper’s. Ian Henderson’s on his way; there’s police and an ambulance there, so it must be something. Are you going to call Harper’s office, or shall I set Nicola on to it?’

‘No! No, it’s OK. I’ll see to it now!’ He hung up. Damn the woman! He hadn’t seen the Harper’s for some time, maybe even a month, he thought as he gathered his notebook and digital recorder together, and that was most unusual. In the space of one week he would normally bump into Alan two or three times and see Rosemary shopping at least once, maybe more often, if he was near the off license. Now that Rosemary’s daughter, Alan’s stepdaughter, Rebecca, had her own flat twenty-odd miles away in Newcastle he seemed to see them all less than he used to.

Rebecca did phone ‘Uncle John’ occasionally; he had, in fact, just managed to break her of the ‘Uncle’ habit. She had grown into a fine looking woman and he found himself caught between loyalty to a friend and lust for his friend’s stepdaughter.

His car was parked in its usual place at the top of the back lane. He unlocked it, opened the door and stood back to let out the heat and the damp smell. He didn’t use it enough and doing nothing to maintain it didn’t help, either. Consequently he wasn’t surprised when all he got when he turned the key in the ignition was a dull ‘click, click’, another flat battery. This was why the car was where it was, parked at the top of a slope. He released the handbrake and as the car rolled forward he slipped it into gear. He let the clutch in sharply as the car gained speed and arrived at the junction with the main road in a cloud of brown smoke, with the engine racing. The road was clear both ways and he was able to pull straight out without attracting too much attention. So often in the past, particularly when the weather was cold and damp or there had been a lot of traffic causing him to sit too long, he had pulled out into the road only to have the car cough, stall and strand him there for all to see.

As he drove he tried to remember precisely when he had last seen Alan to talk to.

They had been at the rugby club charity ‘do’, which Alan had organised. It had been quite a prestigious affair, by the standards of Longalnbury, and Alan had raised a lot of money from it. Tobin had been there in two capacities, first as a guest and secondly as a reporter. He had gone grudgingly in both guises. Sandra Hickman, the boss, had wheedled her way round him, as usual, when she discovered he had been invited and saved herself some money. He hated formal events and made a point of avoiding them whenever he could and had tried to make excuses, but this time to no avail. He had saved her even more money by taking his own camera, which had got him into some unwanted trouble with his friend. All in all, it had not been an enjoyable evening.

One of the few occasions when he had really fallen out with Alan, his friend and mentor, was when one of the photos Tobin had taken had been published. It showed Alan and some of his friends giving a toast to an unseen third party.

Alan had complained to Sandra and Sandra had hauled Tobin in and given him a particularly hard time. He had always known that Alan was camera shy, but had put it down, literally, to shyness and thought he was doing everyone a favour after all these years by highlighting Alan’s contribution to the event, together with the band of loyal supporters. He had obviously misunderstood.

One of the reasons, the main reason, Tobin was a grudging guest and never very comfortable at that sort of event was that he had been too many different things to too many different people in Longalnbury. Driver, handyman, gardener, had all been regular odd jobs in his early days and his former employers could not seem to forget it. Although he was able to mix and converse quite happily with any of them, their discomfort was obvious; status was all important and they had difficulty accepting him as an equal