Friendship's Bond by Meg Hutchinson Page B

be done.
    He could not take her to Chapel House; the woman cleaning there would not yet have left and it was too light to risk leaving a body among the bushes bordering the building where anyone passing along the street might spot it.
    Panic was beginning to race in a new flood along his veins when his eye had rested on a cupboard set in an alcove near the door. It was used only to store bucket and mop, utensils which would not be needed for several days to come. It had proved an adequate hiding place. He had left the body there, locked the chapel on the last parishioner then taken the short walk to Foster Street. Enoch Phillips had worked as a wheelwright and in his younger days had built himself a small trap which along with the horse kept in his back yard he would generously lend for chapel business, namely that of the ‘minister’ paying visits to sick members living on the outskirts of the town.
    ‘ O’ course y’ can ’ave the borryin’ o’ it, gie me a minute an’ I’ll ’ave the ’oss in the shafts .’
    It had all been so easy; the old man falling over himself in eagerness to facilitate ‘ the goodness o’ you Mr Thorpe, a goin’ of seein’ folk after a long day a workin’ in that there foundry an’ then more hours along o’ the chapel, y’be a fair blessin’ to folk an’ no coddin’.’
    If only the old man had known the ‘coddin’’ he spoke of had been his own in believing the reason for loaning his horse and trap. But he had not known and neither had anyone else.
    The remembered fear of a moment before melted in the warm glow of self-praise as Thorpe gazed expansively about the small room, its only ornament the metal cross.
    He had driven back to the chapel where it had been the work of minutes to transfer the body to the trap, relock the building and drive away again. He had seen no person in the adjoining street yet tension at the possibility had not eased until he turned the vehicle on to the Holyhead Road, where a trap would be unremarked on a highway busy with carts and trams.
    He had chosen well.
    Halfway along the rise of Holloway Bank it had been necessary to bridge narrow but fast-flowing water in order for traffic to continue on into West Bromwich; no one would notice a traveller leaving his vehicle to answer the call of nature beneath the shelter of its arch.
    During a lull in the traffic, blessed by the dark of a moonless night, he had lifted the body from the trap to hurry with it down the embankment.
    It had felt almost weightless in his arms, so light the rush of water might carry it away. But the wound to the head must be made to look like an accident should the girl be found here. Again the bridge had solved his problem. Hitting her head against the buttress would give rise to the theory she had fallen from the parapet, striking her head in the process.
    Yes, he had chosen well.
    As he had hoped the body had been carried along, finally being caught in weeds further along the valley where the Tame doubled back on itself, and of course the verdict had been accidental death.
    Deborah Marshall had denied him but the loss of that pleasure had soon been recompensed.
    Taking the hymn book back into his hands Thomas Thorpe smiled at the young girl entering behind an older woman.
    Yes! He stepped from the pulpit.
    He was most definitely being recompensed.

Chapter 11
    ‘It be only just beginnin’!’
    With a frown Leah met the worried glance of the girl seated beside the bed.
    ‘Alec,’ Ann’s reply trembled, ‘I think he has a fever?’
    Leah shook her head. ‘Fever, Lord, wench, whatever give you that idea, fever don’t come from no fall, it be tiredness ’as you imaginin’ things . . . now y’be goin’ to do as told an’ get y’self to your bed an’ no more worryin’.’
    ‘Please Leah, I know it sounds strange, but this is what followed once before, he became hot and feverish with nothing to account for it other than a fall.’
    Leah’s protest was arrested