Stealing the Show Read online

  The fairground was heaving with a mix of locals and regatta-goers, the rides were full, the platforms crowded. Nearly all of them had stopped to look.

  ‘Talking of problems,’ Claudia motioned towards the cluster of living wagons. ‘It looks like we’ve got visitors.’

  Two police cars were pulled up outside Danny and Claudia’s front door. Sam swung from the paratrooper pay-box and shouldered his way through the gaping throng. He spoke to Nell although she noticed that his eyes were on Claudia. ‘Bit of an emergency. There’s a welcome committee in the wagon. Where have you been?’

  ‘I was sitting on the bank watching the river,’ Nell said, not wanting to add that she’d been mentally disposing of Bradleys’ Mammoth Fun Fair and replacing it with the gallopers. ‘Then Claudia came along and –’ Maybe mentioning the photographer wasn’t a good idea either. She couldn’t quite interpret the expression in Sam’s eyes.

  ‘We decided to wander back again,’ Claudia finished with a sickly smile at Sam. ‘So, who’s in trouble now? It can’t be me this time, surely? Or is there some law about not exposing more than a quarter of an inch of flesh at a time?’

  Sam swallowed what sounded like a growl of irritation.

  ‘More to the point, who the hell is minding the stuff?’ Nell felt strangely out of kilter. Had she missed something? Claudia and Sam seemed to be doing a lot of silent communication.

  ‘Mick and Alfie are on the dodgems. Barry’s on the paratrooper. Ted’s on the waltzer with a couple of local casuals, and the Mackenzie kids have got the joints.’ Sam was still looking at Claudia. ‘It’s not that sort of problem.’

  ‘Where the hell is Terry, then?’ Nell felt a jolt of unease. ‘I left him on the dodgems and he promised he wouldn’t move ’

  ‘Terry’s in the living wagon with Danny.’

  Nell felt the warm sandy grass shift beneath her bare feet. So it was that sort of problem. No wonder Sam was looking at Claudia with worried eyes. Danny, incensed by Claudia’s tarty reincarnation, had decided to lay into the beautiful Terry. Good God — this was just the sort of publicity they could do without. Adele would go bananas.

  ‘Has he hurt him much?’

  Sam looked irritated. ‘Nobody’s hurt anyone, Nell. For God’s sake, get a grip on your imagination. Terry’s in the wagon with Danny because the police have just turned up with Karen’s parents.’

  Karen who? Did they know a Karen? Nell’s cogs turned slowly. Oh – dear God! Karen, the scruffy Oakton nymphet who had been living in the Beast Wagon for weeks! Nell started to run towards the living wagons. Sam and Claudia weren’t far behind.

  It was like a rather bad party. Every inch of the William Morris was filled. No one moved. No one spoke. The giddy noise from the fair bounced through the swags and tails and, finding itself unwelcome, seemed to sidle out again.

  ‘About bloody time!’ Danny got to his feet. He appeared to have been sitting on Terry. ‘Tell them –’ he indicated towards the three policemen and one woman and a rather pale and wispy couple, ‘that we don’t know anything about their bloody daughter.’

  The policemen seemed riveted by the sight of Nell’s long legs in the cut-offs and her red-gold hair sliding towards the bikini top. The policewoman stared around the sumptuous living wagon, looking as though she was ticking off a lot of Crimewatch-reported stately-home robberies.

  Nell gave Terry an anguished glance. He looked the picture of sun-tanned, floppy-haired innocence. She couldn’t really blame Claudia for fancying him. ‘I’m not sure. Of course, the fair always attracts followers – if you get my drift.’

  The wispy couple apparently did. They didn’t seem to like the inference.

  Nell staggered on. ‘I mean, we don’t check people out, of course. If the lads have girlfriends, well, it’s up to them. What exactly does your daughter look like?’

  The policewoman thrust a photo forward. Karen on holiday in Benidorm.

  ‘Ah –’ Nell looked at Terry again. ‘She does look a bit familiar. And, um – how old is she?’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  Mother of God! Terry blanched and tried to disappear under a cushion. Nell closed her eyes.

  ‘She was reported missing at Oakton.’ The youngest policeman addressed Nell’s cleavage. ‘No one tied the disappearance in with the fair because she’s left home before and been found twice in London and once in Stow-on-the-Wold.’

  Why, Nell wondered, would anyone want to run away to Stow-on-the-Wold? Very pretty, of course, but surely not the sort of place for wild teenage excitement?

  ‘One of her friends,’ the wispy woman said shakily, ‘told us last week that Karen had telephoned her. Said she was getting married.’

  Terry whimpered. Nell glared at him.

  Karen’s father joined in. ‘She said that she’d met this boy who looked like the dead spit of someone off the telly. She said he was in show business. Karen doesn’t always tell the truth.’

  Karen’s mother nodded at this understatement. ‘We thought then she might have run away with the fair. She was there every night … Kept on about it … We didn’t think at first, you see … We tried London and –’

  ‘Stow-on-the-Wold?’ Nell looked at their tired, lined faces. She tried to think back to Oakton. What had Karen said that night? ‘I’ll have to be in by ten or my dad’ll kill me’? Something like that. He didn’t look capable of killing anyone. He just looked as though he hadn’t slept for nights on end. Neither of them looked as though they deserved Karen as a daughter. She took a deep breath. ‘I think Terry knows where Karen is, don’t you, Terry?’

  Danny, who had been simmering during the whole conversation, exploded. ‘You mean you’ve got that slut here? That she’s been here all the bloody time?’

  No one seemed happy with the word slut. Nell couldn’t blame them.

  Terry stood up. ‘Yeah. She’s in the Beast Wagon. Honest to God, she said she was eighteen. She looks eighteen. I didn’t ask to see her birth certificate.’

  The wispy woman sobbed, whether from relief at having found the errant Karen, or horror at the mental image of her daughter and Terry performing nightly in the Beast Wagon, Nell couldn’t tell.

  The police got neatly to their feet as if choreographed. ‘It would have saved a great deal of time if you’d said that straight away, sir. There may of course be charges, with the young lady being under the age of consent.’

  Young lady didn’t sound too accurate either, Nell thought, as everyone tried to get out of the door together.

  ‘Quite a bevy of beauties you’ve got here, sir.’ The older policeman saw Claudia and looked as though he wanted to take her in for questioning.

  ‘They’re not mine,’ Danny growled, condemning both Nell and Claudia with one glower. ‘I don’t own them.’

  ‘I should think not.’ The policewoman seemed quite affronted by this open display of political incorrectness.

  ‘Now, if we could just have a word with Karen and reunite her with her parents,’ and then she glared at Terry, ‘I think we’ll need to ask you some questions, sir.’

  The police presence had attracted a Cup Final crowd. People jostled for a better view. Claudia was watching the proceedings from Sam’s side, Nell noticed, looking as if she was going to burst into tears at any moment. Was that guilt or distress? There simply wasn’t time to find out as the posse strode forward across the grass. Nell, still barefooted, attempted to keep up.

  The removal of Karen from the confines of the Beast Wagon was carried out amazingly swiftly. Glaring at her parents and the police, she hurled herself down the steps and into Terry’s arms.

  ‘Bloody Octavia Barrett! I knew she’d snitch! I should never have rung her! Tell them, Tel. Tell them we’re getting married.’

  ‘I never said that exactly …’

  ‘You did!’ Karen wailed as the policewoman prised them apart. ‘You promised.’

  ‘And you, sir.’ The policeman who had ogled Nell grabbed Terry by the shoulder. ‘Into t
he car. We’ll have to see what charges you face. No, not you, miss –’ He had to grapple with Karen who was determined to attach herself to Terry again. ‘You go in that one. With your mum and dad.’

  The doors slammed shut. Sam looked at Nell worriedly. ‘Should one of us go as well, do you think? Terry’s our responsibility really. If they charge him he’ll need a solicitor, won’t he?’

  ‘Might help,’ Nell nodded. ‘Although I’m not sure that you should suggest he uses the Bradley family one. Mum and Dad’d never forgive you. And we don’t want this splashed over the front of the tabloids. We get enough bad publicity as it is. Yeah, go and see what you can do.’

  Ross Percival would have a field day over this, Nell knew. And he wouldn’t be hotfooting it to the police station to try and bail out one of his miscreant gaff lads. She sighed. She and Ross, so much alike, so far apart.

  ‘Oh, God. Fifteen! Silly little buggers!’

  She almost sighed. She was in danger of sounding quite sensible. Sensible Nell Bradley – who had just blued her entire personal savings on a set of gallopers. A set of gallopers, she thought with a quiver of excitement, that would be delivered to Fox Hollow tomorrow. Sensible Nell Bradley – who was dithering over whether or not she should marry one of the most eligible bachelors in the country.

  ‘I think they were in love,’ Sam said softly. ‘Or at least, they thought they were. After all, it’s been ages since Oakton – Terry could have dropped her weeks ago. I’ll go down to the station and see what I can do. Take care of Claudia.’

  ‘Claudia? Why? Because of Terry? Christ, Sam – she wasn’t – was she?’

  ‘I don’t know. Actually, I meant because of Danny – he still looks mad enough to lay into her. Persuade her to wash off that make-up and go back to the limp lace and beaded jackets. Not,’ he added quickly, ‘that it matters to me – but I think it just might dampen Danny’s fuse.’

  Nell shrugged. Maybe Sam was right. Oh God, why did life have to be so complicated?

  ‘Where’s Sam going?’ Claudia asked over her shoulder, watching him reverse his Mazda from between the living wagons.

  ‘Police station. To help Terry. Look, Claudia, don’t you think you could cover up a bit? God – now where are you going?’

  ‘With Sam.’ Claudia’s long, booted legs skimmed across the ground and caught up with the sports car as it reached the waltzer. She yanked the passenger door open and tumbled inside. Leaning from the window she shouted above the cacophony, ‘Tell Rio Mackenzie to stay put in the hoopla. And tell Danny what the hell you like! Bye!’

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sam and Claudia hadn’t returned. With Terry also still missing, Danny was tearing out his hair over the staff shortage. Nell, having roped in a dozen or so likely lads from the pubs nearest the river, found that in consequence pull-down was far more good-natured than professional. Several, of the regatta-goers had stayed on to watch, and were lounging on the bank with champagne buckets. A full moon illuminated the water and tinged the grass with silver like a hoar-frost. This would have gladdened Nell’s romantic soul if only she hadn’t been quite so bothered about the absentees, exhausted, and frantic with nerves over the gallopers’ arrival at Fox Hollow.

  ‘They left the police station hours ago!’ Danny yelled as Nell, helped by Nyree-Dawn, Mercedes, and Rio Mackenzie, loaded the paratrooper cars. ‘I’ve phoned three bloody times! Where the hell can they have got to?’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue.’ Nell panted to a halt. She’d replaced the shorts and bra top with jeans and a T-shirt and was regretting it. ‘What about Terry? Have they let him go?’

  ‘How should I know – oh, bugger me!’ Danny dived across the grass swearing violently as one of the Henley locals dropped his end of a waltzer platform. ‘I didn’t ask about him!’

  No, you wouldn’t, Nell thought, as rivers of perspiration trickled down her spine. Maybe Claudia had left the police station with Terry. Maybe Sam had driven up to London to see the family solicitor despite her pleas to the contrary. Maybe Karen’s parents were charging everyone with abduction …

  ‘Christ knows what’s got into Claudia.’ Danny lifted a pile of paratrooper bars on to his shoulder with ease. ‘Belting off like that. Don’t know what she thought she’d achieve. Mind, she’s always had a soft spot for that Terry, whatever she says.’

  ‘So have I.’ Nell pushed her damp hair back into its scrunchie. ‘He’s a nice kid and a good grafter. It doesn’t mean Claudia is having an affair with him, though.’ She glared at her brother, trying not to think about Terry being in their living wagon, or the condoms, or of Claudia and Terry in the dark shadows. ‘To be honest I think she took the easy option. Rushing off to the police station with Sam was probably preferable to staying here with you. You’d have only gone on about her clothes again, wouldn’t you? You’re behaving like a pig, Danny – and you know it.’

  Danny hurled the heavy bars into the back of the lorry as though they were featherdown. ‘She looked like a tart.’

  ‘For God’s sake, she looked gorgeous. She always looks gorgeous. And I know why she dressed as she did today – because you’d had a go at her. Again. Anyway, I wasn’t dressed so very differently. We were displaying about the same amount of body. You didn’t go ballistic about that, did you?’

  ‘Why should I?’ Danny kicked a pile of coiled cables into shape. ‘That’s not my job. That’s up to Ross.’

  ‘Christ! No wonder Claudia is rebelling. Where do you get your ideas from? You sound like a Victorian patriarch.’ Nell shook her head. ‘If you don’t lay off Claudia, Dan, she’ll leave you.’

  ‘Course she won’t. She can’t. She’s my wife.’

  God give me strength, Nell thought, fastening the bolts on the trailer with angry fingers.

  The Henleyites’ laughter and chatter and chink of glasses echoed through the silvered darkness. The remaining gaff lads had worked hard to make up for Sam, Terry, and Claudia; and even the older Mackenzies joined in. By the time everything was loaded, roped, and sheeted, and ready to pull out, Nell was growing more concerned. There was no way on earth that Sam and Claudia would miss an entire pull-down unless something awful had happened to them – she’d tried phoning but both mobiles were switched off – and in an hour’s time they’d all be on the road for their overnight journey to Woodstock.

  She made a quick supper of ham and tomato sandwiches for the subdued Mick, Barry, Ted, and Alfie. There was no time for a fry-up tonight, she told them, missing Terry with his compliments and his teasing. She’d make it up to them tomorrow morning when they’d pulled on to Blenheim Palace’s South Lawn, she promised. She might even go so far as fried bread.

  Speculation was rife. The gaff lads were closely knit, and in an occupation where drifting was the norm, the Bradley workforce had been together longer than most. Terry was like a brother to them. They were tough, hard, unemotional men and Nell found their concern moving.

  ‘We’re going to have to do bloody double runs,’ Danny fumed at two o’clock when still no one had returned and he realised that they were now three drivers short. ‘We’ll take the living wagons first, and then see who can couple up to what. This is a fucking nightmare. I’ll kill bloody Sam. Why haven’t they come back?’

  Nell couldn’t imagine. Sam, being gentle and peace-loving, may well have taken Claudia for a drink after the day’s traumas, but the pubs had shut hours ago. Even the nightclubs would be closed by now.

  Danny was pacing up and down. ‘How many of the Macs’ kids have got licences?’

  ‘The three older girls have passed their tests,’ Nell said, out of breath from coupling her living wagon to the Volvo and trying not to think about the gallopers and Fox Hollow. It wasn’t tomorrow any more. It was today. In twelve hours’ time … ‘None of them could drive the lorries, although I suppose they could take the living wagons. Oh, hang on.’

  A set of halogen headlights were bouncing across the field towards them. Nell willed the lights to belong
to Sam’s Mazda.

  ‘I heard you were having a spot of bother.’ Ross uncurled himself from the depths of the Ferrari. ‘We thought we might be able to help.’

  He was followed by one of the more Neanderthal Percival gaff lads, who looked as though his knees had been touching his nose for the entire journey. Their faces were ghostly in the moonlight. Nell, who had never been so delighted to see anyone in her life, threw herself into Ross’s arms.

  ‘You’re a lifesaver! How on earth did you know?’

  ‘How does anyone in our business ever know anything?’ Ross disentangled himself and dropped a brotherly kiss on the top of her scrunchie. ‘Your gaff lads mentioned it in the pub to Pelhams’ gaff lads who were going to Shiplake, and it took precisely forty-five minutes to get to our gaff lads thirty miles down the road. So, here we are. Obviously we’ve missed the hard work – but we can certainly shift some of the loads to Blenheim for you. Shall I go and have a word with Danny?’

  Nell shrugged. Instructions must be issued by testosterone, she thought crossly, watching him laughing with Danny – and making Danny laugh back. He obviously didn’t see her as much of a lover either if his greeting was anything to go by. God, what did she feel for him? Delighted to see him, of course – but was that really only because he could drive a lorry? Still, between them, he and Danny seemed to have got things under control. Neither of them asked her for any further input so she wandered off towards the quietly lapping river and punched out the number of the police station on her mobile.

  After much yawning and paper-rustling, the disinterested voice on the other end said that Terry had been released. On the understanding that he reported to a local police station every day until such time as they were sure about charges.