Evie by Julia Stoneham Read Free Book Online Page A

Roger said, changing gear as he negotiated the narrow bridge from which point the lane rose steeply towards the higher farmhouse.‘Rose’s tea shop needs an outside lavatory – something to do with the new planning regulations. As the building is part of the Post Stone estate the cost of any building work on it is met by the maintenance funds, not personally by me. D’you see what I’m getting at?’
    ‘So Rose gains a new lavatory and you keep your flawless reputation! Very neat!’
    ‘And Evie is safely taken care of, for the time being at any rate.’
    Roger’s next move had been to put the entire situation into the hands of the police. Statements were taken regarding Norman Clark’s conduct since he had almost forcibly removed his wife from the Land Army. Hester and Dave Crocker verified her injuries when they had discovered her hiding in the empty hostel. Annie and Hector had been asked to present themselves at their local police station in order to sign statements regarding Evie’s imprisonment in her mother’s attic in Coventry, where the police already had witnesses to his attack on a man who was yet to be identified as Giorgio.
    Some days later the police arrived at Rose’s door to break the news to Evie that her mother’s body had been found by a Norman Clark, who claimed to be her son-in-law. The cause of death had been confirmed by a coroner as heart failure following double pneumonia. They did not tell Evie that the death had taken place approximately two weeks previously, or that the body was already decomposing in the horribly soiled bed in which it had been discovered.
    On the following day, Evie and Giorgio were brieflyreunited. Alice and Roger drove her to the Lucas farm and watched her approach the door of the cottage where Giorgio was waiting for her.
    ‘Better keep an eye on things,’ Roger said. A light rain was falling, so he and Alice stood in the shelter of the farmhouse porch from which Giorgio’s cottage was visible. Clarissa withdrew into her kitchen and while she brewed a pot of tea and decided whether or not to use her best china, her husband, ignoring the rain, sat on a low wall, and with one eye on the door to Giorgio’s cottage, began to fill his pipe.
    Inside the cottage the lovers embraced, then, holding her at arm’s length, Giorgio reacted to the sight of her bruised face and forearms, cursing himself in his native language for leaving her to face her husband’s violence. Even without translation Evie understood his words.
    ‘But stayin’ would of done no good, Giorgio! He would of killed you! And if the coppers had come they would of jailed you for breaking your parole! You were brave, Giorgio! Brave! And you made me brave! I never would of had the guts to get away from him but for knowing you was ’ere, waiting for me!’
    In the porch Roger and Alice sipped their tea. The rain had stopped and the farm chickens strutted and scratched, a cat stalked silently along a wall. There was no sound from within the cottage. Alice and Roger replaced their cups in the saucers of Clarissa Lucas’s porcelain tea set.
    ‘I wonder what they said to one another,’ Alice murmured, almost to herself, as, having returned Evie to Rose’s care, they drove back to the higher farm.
    Whatever it was that had passed between the lovers during the half-hour they had been alone together, it seemed to have had a positive effect on both of them. Evie, getting into the back seat of Roger’s car, had been calmly composed. She sat, her eyes on Giorgio as he stood at the doorway of his cottage, looking steadily across the yard at her.
    ‘What happens next?’ Alice asked her husband.
    ‘With any luck the police will arrest Corporal Clark and charge him with GBH. That’s grievous bodily—’
    ‘Harm,’ Alice finished for him. ‘Yes, I do know what GBH is, darling!’
    ‘Forgive me,’ Roger said, ‘I’m still not used to living with an educated woman!’
    ‘Poor Roger!’ she teased