Darkness Beyond by Marjorie Eccles

Author:Marjorie Eccles [Eccles, Marjorie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2021-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

ELEVEN

The most appealing part of Folbury – if you discounted its lack of modern amenities – was the maze of small lanes and alleys around the steeply sloping Stonegate. The picturesque scene formed by the quaintly crooked houses and twisting lanes attracted visitors and was mainly why the area had escaped demolition when part of the high street had been pulled down to make way for the new Odeon.

Connie Randall lived in one of the ancient cottages, in a narrow lane which ran off Stonegate at a right angle, paralleling the main road into Birmingham in the valley below, where the adjacent railway lines and the River Fol ran alongside. The houses here were a pretty mixed bag, the earliest ones being timber-framed, centuries-old dwellings with overhanging upper storeys, and the newest a terrace of four small, pretty, Victorian workmen’s cottages in red brick, with several decades of styles in between.

A nameplate was screwed to the bulging plaster wall of one of the older black and white houses: Nurse Randall, District Nurse, it read, above a bell which callers were instructed to ring. Gilmour did so, hunching his shoulders against the wind whipping nastily around the corner. It was four o’clock on the day following his visit to the Murfitts. The afternoon was drawing in, not quite lighting-up time yet in the streets outside, and the weather showed no signs of any improvement on the previous day, or indeed much of the last weeks.

Light spilled out on to the pavement as the door was answered by Connie Randall herself, a comfortably built woman with a ready smile, looking younger than the age she must be. She was still in her dark blue nurse’s uniform dress, but she’d removed her apron, and her outdoor coat, cap and Gladstone bag could be seen tossed on to a chair in the passageway behind her.

She recognized one of her visitors immediately. ‘Well, Joe Gilmour! Sergeant, I should say, I suppose, shouldn’t I? Nothing’s wrong with your little girl, I hope?’

‘No, no, Ellie’s lively as a cricket.’

‘Glad to hear that. Keeps you on your toes, I expect, Sergeant?’

‘You could say that.’ Gilmour’s face lit up with the proud, besotted grin any mention of his daughter brought to his face. ‘And Joe will still do nicely, Nurse.’ Remembering he was here in an official capacity he hastily introduced Reardon and gave the reason for their call.

‘Oh. Oh, yes,’ she said, her face falling into grave lines. ‘Well, don’t stand out there in the cold, then. Come away in.’

‘Er – you might want to lift your bike inside, Nurse, the wind’s getting up,’ Gilmour suggested. He waved towards the yellow-painted sit-up-and-beg bicycle with a basket on the front, a familiar sight around Folbury, now propped up against the outside wall.

‘I suppose I’d better, in that case. I left it there because I may have to go out again any time soon.’

Gilmour lifted the bicycle in and propped it in the place against the wall she indicated. It

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