The Soldier's Daughter by AnneMarie Brear

Author:AnneMarie Brear [Brear, AnneMarie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Boldwood Books
Published: 2022-09-07T18:30:00+00:00

Evie waited for a gentleman to hold the door open for her as he exited the Bingley police station, and she went in. The stark reception area held a few chairs and a high partition, behind which a policeman sat. An old woman leaned against the far wall, hunched over and muttering to herself. Evie had never been in a police station before and wasn’t sure what to expect. Obviously, she hadn’t thought it would be a homely type of place, but nor had she thought it would be a cold, stone-walled dungeon of bleakness.

The policeman glanced at her as she approached. ‘May I help you, miss?’

‘Yes. I wish to speak to someone about a man who is harassing me and my staff.’

‘Wait there, miss.’ He climbed down from his position, which seemed to be built on a higher floor than that out the front. Behind him were several doors and he disappeared through one.

Evie moved to one side as the front door opened and a man was roughly ushered in by a policeman. The pair argued their way to a far door near the old woman. A scuffle broke out with the old woman lashing out at the policeman and the man he held.

Darting further away, Evie thought to leave and come back another time, but on the other side of the room, an officer came out and beckoned her to him. She gladly fled the warring threesome.

‘Good morning, Miss…?’ The officer waved her to a seat in a small box room with a narrow window high in the wall.

‘Davenport. Miss Evie Davenport.’

‘I’m Sergeant Coleridge. How may I help you?’

‘There is a man, Hal Humphry. He is the son of my cook and recently freed from prison. He has been causing trouble for his mother and has been stalking around my home. I was hoping the police could see him on his way?’

‘Miss Davenport, has the man broken the law?’

‘He beats his mother. He accosted me while I was out riding.’

‘Why hasn’t his mother laid charges against him? Or you for that matter?’

‘His mother didn’t want to cause a fuss. She is frightened of him. I did not report his assault because my father is ill. I was hoping one of your men could speak with him, tell him to move on and that would be an end to it?’ This was one of the times she wished she was a man so she could take care of such issues herself. If she’d been a man, she’d have squared up to Hal and given him a good thrashing!

The sergeant shook his head. ‘Unless the man has broken the law, Miss Davenport, there is nothing we can do. What did he do to you?’

‘He grabbed my leg and demanded money.’

Coleridge took a notebook out of his pocket and started writing. ‘Did he have a weapon?’

‘No, not that I am aware of.’

‘And his beating of Mrs Humphry. Were there witnesses?’

‘No… He has come to my home and threatened me and his mother.

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