When Darkness Falls

Chapter 6

Foyle's head throbbed. He could hear his own blood being pumped – whoosh, whoosh, whoosh – in his ears. It was rhythmic and strong so he knew for certain, if nothing else, he was alive. With a mammoth effort he opened his eyes, ignoring the pain-filled warning from his brain imploring him to do no such thing. The light was low and the air around him smelt stale and dusty. He inhaled anyway.

Debris covered his body. Bits of broken furniture tumbled to the floor as he rolled and when the flap of his coat hit the floor, it caused a great cloud of dust to rise. Propping himself up onto his elbow, he scanned the length of his body for damage. Both arms functioned as instructed, thankfully and, although his back ached, especially between his shoulders, he had full movement. He winced as first one leg, then the other obeyed his wish. As his left knee creaked and clicked, a memory flashed before him. Knees ….difficulty bending...Sam!

He rubbed at his eyes, using the heel of his left hand to massage his vision into clarity, or to at least get it to a point where he could make out what, or more importantly who, was around him. Pushing his body up off the floor, performing a kind of side-ways push up, he looked around, blinking.

In the far corner, beyond the splintered remains of tables and chairs, he saw a pair of stocking covered legs, one of them, it seemed, was at an odd angle. The khaki skirt was lifted, showing quite a portion of thigh, and a large body, bending at the middle loomed from above. As the rich brown beard got closer and closer, Foyle's pulse rate rose.

Despite the strain that his lungs were already under, their efforts barely enough to keep him from passing out, he called her name.

"Sam!"

In stead of what he hoped would be a reassuring tone to his driver and an authoritative warning to her assailant, what came out sounded more like a football losing air from a slow leak.

"There you are, Miss" he heard the young man say, his voice gentle as he slowly turned Sam's head to the side. "That should make it a little easier to breathe." Foyle watched as a large hand wiped a damp cloth over Sam's face, clearing her airways of dust and dirt. "Now..." he continued, speaking confidently, "we'll see if we can do something for that leg."

The barman rose and stepped over what remained of the pub's interior. Ceiling beams criss-crossed the floor, piles of broken bricks littered the area and shattered glass made a crunching sound under his feet. He picked up a piece of wood, its varnished finish pointing to the fact that it was once part of the bar, and placed it beside Sam's leg. With a folded knife that he fished out of his pocket, he sliced widths of fabric from the bottom of Rosalind's old coat. The hastily fashioned ties fastened the splint to Sam's leg and what remained of the coat was laid carefully on her chest.

By now, Foyle's lungs had recovered, at least to a functional level, and he pushed himself up to stand. Walking slowly, and choosing his foot holds with care, he made his way over to where Sam was lying.

"Is she….alright?" Foyle asked as he arrived.

The young man looked over and gave a nod.

"She's alive...but unconscious" he reported and adjusted the remains of the coat to cover her arms. "She has a broken leg and a pretty nasty gash to her head."

Foyle crouched and touched the split in her scalp with his thumb, parting her hair as he did so. His folded handkerchief made do as a dressing as he gently put pressure on the wound. He frowned. Oh Sam...

The barman stood and walked back to where the bar once was.

"Your tie is just over that beam, if you were looking for it" the young man said, pointing to a long piece of timber that was propped up at an unusual angle, the red silk dangling off the end. While he searched the area, lifting damaged furniture and brushing away broken glass, he added "I took it off when I first found you. You weren't breathing very well."

"Thank you" Foyle croaked as his fingers touched his throat, the missing tie and two open buttons exposing the top of his chest.

"My name's Foyle" he said, his voice getting stronger by the minute. "Christopher Foyle."

"Daniel Grimshaw….friends call me Danny" he said as a piece of glass skittled across the floor. As he returned he brought with him a still intact bottle of lemonade and one enamel mug. "Here," he said handing the mug to Foyle. "Drink some of this. The sugar will do you good."

"Thank you."

"It's only the three of us, I'm afraid" Grimshaw said, nodding back over his shoulder. "Old man Carseldine didn't make it. His body's under what's left of the bar."

"Ahhh. I'm sorry to hear that" Foyle remarked after swallowing a small amount of the sweet drink.

"I'm not."

Foyle poured out more of the lemonade, his shaking hands making the neck of the bottle clink against the rim of the mug. He passed it to Grimshaw, resting his weight on one knee as he reached across Sam's body.

"Thanks" Grimshaw said and threw down the portion in one quick gulp. Once he'd finished he pummelled the stopper back into the neck of the bottle. "We'll save the rest for Miss Stewart…...for when she wakes up."

Foyle nodded and put a hand on Sam's shoulder. He gave her collar bone a quick rub with his thumb.

"We shouldn't have long to wait" Foyle offered, nodding towards the door, the top of it still visible above the mess. "I should think the warden will be along soon."

Grimshaw began to chuckle. "You'll be lucky" he said, looking around at the chaos. "Carseldine sent him home yesterday to sleep off a bender." He climbed up the rubble, reaching for a window frame. "Normally takes him a few days to come good."

"There's nobody else?" Foyle asked, his breath catching as he twisted to watch Grimshaw's activity

"No." He hummed his disappointment when, despite his vigorous shaking, the window wouldn't open. "The Colonel might do something….."

"Colonel?" Foyle asked, shaking off his coat. "Colonel who?"

"Boswick" Grimsahw replied. "Homeguard…..he's my Commanding Officer."

"You're in the Home Guard?" Foyle asked, gently placing his coat over Sam's limp body.

"It's the best I can do, Mr Foyle. The army didn't want me….flat feet."

"Aaahhhh."

Grimshaw jumped down from his perch and sat down beside Sam.

"We'd better hope it doesn't rain" he said, looking around at the devastation caused by a fifty pound bomb on a two-storey building, "or we're in for a cold, wet night." He shrugged his shoulders in resignation. "We can't even light a fire without giving Gerry a bird's eye view of us from above. We'll just have to sit it out."

"Looks that way" Foyle said, nodding in agreement.

Just as the sun began to set, Grimshaw stood and began sifting through the rubble. When he came to what remained of the linen cupboard he reached in and pulled out two table cloths, one a little longer than the other, and a kitchen towel.

"It's hardly the Hilton" Grimshaw said, a resignation in his voice, "but it will do for the night." He walked back and tossed one of the table cloths to Foyle and draped the other over the back of a broken chair to his left. Carefully he folded the towel, making it into a small pillow. Bending down he slipped a hand slowly under Sam's head.

"It's alright, love.." he whispered, despite the fact that she was obviously unconscious, and slowly lifted her head.

Foyle raised an eyebrow, uneasy with the familiarity that this man was showing his driver….and his son's best girl.

Grimshaw slipped the home made pillow under her head and carefully lowered her back down.

"You, uh, didn't seem very upset that Mr Carseldine was killed" Foyle remarked, stretching each shoulder in turn.

"No" Grimshaw replied, his answer a definite one and with not a hint of remorse.

"You didn't get along?"

"He was a thug…..and a thief, Mr Foyle."

Foyle's eyes widened and he pouted his lips.

"He was either owed money by….or was in debt to ….. every ne'er-do-well in the village. He even kept a ledger" Grimshaw told him.

"The grey book he was holding?"

Grimshaw nodded. "It was like his bible. Never let it out of his sight." He leaned back against a table top that he'd tipped onto it's edge. "Between him and his sister-in-law….some nights I left here feeling very…..solied, Mr Foyle."

"His sister-in-law?" Foyle asked. "Who would that be?"

"Doris Carseldine" he replied and Foyle felt his jaw drop. "A nasty piece of work that one."

"Why do you say that?" Foyle asked and carefully tucked Sam's hand under the edge of his coat.

"She's as ruthless as old man Carseldine. Was married to his brother...although that was before my time. The two of them were working on something big, Mr Foyle" Grimshaw said, giving the table cloth a shake before draping it over his legs.

"What would that be?"

"No idea, to be honest….and that's the way I like it. But the money that passed through their hands, ….well, they could have bought the crown jewels three times over."

"It have anything to do with that outhouse behind?" Foyle asked, folding the cloth and using it as a cushion. He fed the rather thin cotton cloth in behind his shoulders and rolled a few times before finding a more comfortable position.

"I truly don't know but….Doris Carseldine was here most evenings, and the bulk of that was spent out there." He relaxed against the table, his fingers linking together behind his head. "Well, that is when she wasn't leading married men down the sordid path of adultery."

"Yes….I know about her affair with…."

"….the Colonel, mmmm" Grimshaw cut in, finishing the sentence for him. "I think everybody but Mrs Boswick knows about it."

Foyle frowned as he let this new information roll around in his head. She's having an affair with two men!? He wondered if each of them knew about the other. They're both married so it's unlikely that they would be volunteering the information, so perhaps not. Neither of the men are young, nor are they rich, so what benefit does Doris Carseldine gain by sustaining these affairs?

Foyle stole a glance over to the young man as he laid back against the table top. His broad shoulders and barrel chest were almost as wide as the table and his long legs stretched out so far that his feet had to rest against a pile of bricks, forcing him to bend them uncomfortably. He was such a big man but in that moment Foyle saw the lost and lonely young boy, desperately trying hold onto the values of his childhood while being forced to swim in a murky sea of sordidness.

"Listen, you try and get some rest" Foyle quietly suggested. "I'll stay up with Miss Stewart."

"You sure?"

"Positive."