A Fairly Dangerous Thing Read online

  ‘Aye,’ said Cess dully. ‘I know it.’

  Shaken, Joe left the house, and all the way home he tried to rearrange the words to mean something different. But in the end he had to settle for the suspicion, dark almost to the point of certainty, that he had been instrumental in repairing a union which neither God nor the law would have wept to see permanently sundered.

  The second woman was his mother.

  ‘Mam, this is Maggie. Maggie Cohen.’

  ‘Cohen? Cohen? You any relation to Arne Cohen who keeps the betting shops up in Ilford?’

  ‘He’s a cousin of my father’s, I think, Mrs Askern.’

  ‘Is he now? Well, he’s a lovely kind of man, I can tell you that. Why didn’t you tell me she was a relative to Allie Cohen, Joe? I don’t know what you can see in him, Maggie, I’m sure I don’t. He’s been a bother to me since the day he was born. Such a weak, puling child I’ve never seen! You just got to look at the pictures to see … Joe, don’t just stand there. Fetch the pictures!’

  ‘Yes, Joe. Why don’t you fetch the pictures?’ said Maggie.

  Sergeant Prince fetched the pictures a couple of weeks before the end of term.

  ‘Wedding present,’ he said in answer to Joe’s raised eyebrows.

  ‘But you’ve given us those towels already,’ protested Joe, opening the large envelope and pulling out the contents.

  ‘Bonus,’ said Prince. ‘Bit chilly today, isn’t it? Maggie coming round? I’d light a little fire. See you on the tee next Sunday!’

  He left. Joe didn’t see him go.

  He was too busy checking that all the prints of himself and Cynthia playing all the variations on a familiar theme had the negatives attached.

  ‘Been burning something?’ sniffed Maggie when she arrived.

  ‘Only bridges. And candles at both ends,’ said Joe.

  ‘Oh. Riddles, is it? I picked this up in the hall on my way in.’

  She passed over a book-sized packet. Joe opened it and was unsurprised to find it contained a book. Until he looked at the book.

  It was a leather-bound copy of Godwin’s Political Justice.

  There was a note with it in an almost illegible semi-literate scrawl.

  Found this in yr tales and cant sell so thort you will like it as weding gif.

  from

  yrs truly

  Jim

  PS Sumone scribled on sum pages but I managed to rub most out with ink ruber and its hardly to be seen now.

  ‘What’s the matter, Joe?’ asked Maggie. ‘Why are you laughing like that?’

  It was nearly the end of term. Another few days and he’d be married.

  The afternoon had drifted by pleasantly in the school TV room, where in the company of 4S he had been watching Lord Trevigore introducing various aspects of Averingerett in the Our Heritage series. There had been a great deal of public sympathy lately for the noble lord when his son, the Hon. Julian, after being convicted on a drugs charge, had made a statement to the press condemning the hidebound, repressed, reactionary attitudes of everyone older than himself, and left for a hippy commune in Morocco.

  Lord Trevigore was finishing off.

  ‘Recently,’ he said, ‘persons unknown attempted to steal some of the lovely things I have shown you. That was wicked. Very wicked. But just as wicked are these persons, some of them not unknown, who will try to steal from all of us our old ways of life, whatever these may be. Averingerett and places like it belong to us all. The things which happened there in the past have helped to make us all what we are in the present. Never forget that. I love to come up to the old house for a bit of spiritual refreshment when I feel jaded by my duties in the House of Lords. I hope all of you who are watching will also find time to come and share what all our ancestors have left in trust for us there.’

  The magnificent face faded away and mixed to the even more magnificent western façade of the house as the credit titles rolled.

  Joe drew the curtains and let the sun stream in. The children yawned as if roused from sleep. In many cases they probably had been.

  ‘Is he right when he says it’s all ours?’ asked Joe.

  ‘No!’ said fat Alf Certes. ‘It’s all his, isn’t it? Lord Teevee-gore’s.’

  It was a nice name. Joe smiled to himself.

  ‘Please, sir, what do you think?’ asked little Molly Jarvis, whose love for him had survived even the shock of his engagement to Maggie.

  ‘I think it belongs to us,’ he said gently.

  ‘Why do we have to pay to get in then?’ snarled Mickey Carter.

  ‘Everything has to be paid for, Carter. Though some things have been paid for a long long time ago by people quite different from us.’

  ‘Don’t you ever get sick of it, sir?’ asked Maisie Uppadine, whose curves had seemed to grow fuller day by day during this long, hot summer.

  ‘Sick of what?’ inquired Joe.

  ‘Averingerett. You’re there such a lot, aren’t you?’

  ‘Well, Maisie,’ said Joe thoughtfully. ‘There was a time quite recently when I did feel a bit sick of it. I didn’t know if I’d ever bother to go there again. But I’ve got over that I think. Watching the programme this afternoon helped. Listening to Lord Trevigore convinced me. I think I ought to go there again. Yes. I really do.’

  The children were giggling. He turned to find Maggie smiling at him through the glass panel of the door.

  His heart gave a little leap at the sight. Another fortnight and they’d be married.

  She deserved the very best of life.

  Possibly Lord Jim felt that the girls at the escort agency deserved the best money could buy too.

  And doubtless even Cess felt that Cyn had some claim on life’s goodies.

  There was another PTA meeting later in the week.

  Perhaps it was time he had a serious talk with Mrs Carter.

  About the Author

  Reginald Charles Hill FRSL was an English crime writer and the winner of the 1995 Crime Writers’ Association Cartier Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1972 by the Estate of Reginald Hill

  Cover design by Ian Koviak

  ISBN: 978-1-5040-5782-0

  This 2019 edition published by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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  REGINALD HILL

  FROM MYSTERIOUSPRESS.COM AND OPEN ROAD MEDIA

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