gun cupboard was upstairs in what had been his dressing room. Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, and that a loaded shotgun would provide a lot more effective protection than Bill Connelly, Loxley’s elderly farm manager, Tish had retrieved the key from its usual hiding place in the airing cupboard and armed herself for confrontation. When she reached the dressing room her heart was in her mouth. The squatters had evidently been here before her. Deep scratches on the thick oak closet doors documented their multiple, frustrated attempts to break it open. Tish shuddered to think what might have happened had they succeeded, high out of their minds and with poor dear Mrs Drummond in the house.
‘We’re guests here, you mad fucking cow,’ the man snarled, stepping out from behind the Knole sofa. ‘Your brother invited us to stay for as long as we liked.’ His fear seemed to be receding and his aggression returning. His patchwork trousers and CND shirt suggested a peaceful, hippyish, eco-campaigner type, but the bullying look in his eyes said otherwise. You’re a thug, thought Tish. I’ve seen your type in Romania countless times: pathetic little local government Hitlers trying to intimidate the weak and helpless. You don’t scare me.
‘Yes, well, unfortunately for you my brother isn’t here, is he? I am. And I’m telling you to get out.’
‘Fuck you. You’re not gonna shoot me.’ The man took two steps towards Tish, a look of cold hatred on his drug-ravaged face. For a moment, Tish experienced a stab of panic. Mrs Drummond was right. He was menacing. They all were. Sensing a shift in the room’s power dynamics, his previously comatose friends began to rally themselves, lining up behind him like backing singers in some sinister, junkie band.
‘Get her, Dan,’ one of them shouted.
‘Fucking posh bitch,’ hissed another.
In a couple of seconds the ringleader would have reached her. Twice her size, he would easily be able to overpower her and grab the gun. There was no time to think. Switching aim from his groin to his foot, Tish fired.
For a split second there was silence. Then came the screams. ‘Dan’ collapsed in a heap on the floor, clutching his leg. Blood poured from his foot, seeping through his soft moccasin shoes onto the carpet. The noise coming out of him was blood curdling. His friends rushed to his aid.
‘Fuck!’ said the smaller, rat-faced one. ‘We need to get him to hospital.’
‘That’s GBH, you cunt. You’re looking at ten years for that.’ Another of the men bared his yellowing teeth at Tish. ‘I’m calling the fucking police.’
‘Be my guest,’ said Tish, passing him the phone with a nonchalance she was far from feeling. ‘When you’re finished, I’ll fill them in on your thefts of my family property. I might ask them to bring over a few sniffer dogs while they’re at it. Although I doubt they’ll need them. They can just follow the trail of needles.’
Dan looked up, his face white as a sheet. ‘Leave it,’ he whispered, through gritted teeth. The pain was clearly excruciating. ‘Just get me to A and E. Get the others and let’s get the fuck out of here before she kills someone.’
Tish watched as his friends scooped him up off the floor, staggering under his weight as they carried him out of the room. Once they’d gone, she bolted the drawing-room door behind them and waited, Henry’s shotgun still in her hand. There were muffled noises of a commotion upstairs. After about ten minutes, Tish heard the last door slam. Looking out of the window, she saw a straggling group of eight men and women climb into their dilapidated camper van and drive off, spraying gravel noisily behind them in their eagerness to get away. It was only once they’d gone and the rumble of the van’s engine had faded into silence that Tish realized her hands were shaking violently.
Forcing herself to calm down, she unlocked the door and walked upstairs, checking each room to make sure that no one was left hiding or passed out on one of the beds. If it were possible, the squalor upstairs was even worse than it was in the rooms below. Drug-related detritus littered the beds and floors, along with filthy clothes and sheets, and plates covered in rotting food. Bastards. Only once she was convinced they had all gone did Tish carefully replace her father’s gun in the closet, lock it, and go back downstairs to check on Abel.
She found him in the kitchen, along with a visibly shaken Mrs D. And three policemen.
‘There she is!’ cried Mrs Drummond. ‘Oh, Letitia, thank goodness you’re safe! What happened? We heard the shots.’
‘Is everything all right, Miss Crewe?’ The senior policeman stepped forward. ‘Was anybody injured?’
‘Everything’s fine, officer,’ said Tish calmly, scooping Abel up into her arms and kissing him. ‘I’m sorry to have troubled you. There was an accident I’m afraid. One of our unwanted visitors managed to break into my father’s gun closet. I arrived in the drawing room to find him fiddling about with one of the shotguns. Damned fool. Before you knew it the thing went off and he’d managed to shoot himself in the foot. He’s on his way to A and E now. His friends took him in their camper van. I have a sneaking feeling they won’t be back.’
The policeman raised an eyebrow. He was no fool. ‘I see. And that’s the same story he’s going to be telling us, is it? The injured gentleman?’
‘Well, of course,’ said Tish, flashing him her best, butter-wouldn’t-melt smile. ‘Although I’m not sure gentleman’s the word I’d use.’
‘And where is the weapon now, miss?’
‘The gun? Oh, I put it back in the cupboard, officer, safely locked away. I didn’t want to leave it lying around for my son to find.’ Sensing this was his time to shine, Abel fluttered his eyelashes at the policeman and clung tightly to his mother, the picture of innocence.
‘Would you like to see it?’
The policeman sighed. He’d had a long day. Unless the squatter actually reported a crime, there was no official need for him to inspect the weapon.
‘Not for the moment, miss,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch if there’s anything else we need.’
Later that night, once Abel and Mrs Drummond were both in bed, Tish sank down into the Chesterfield chair in her father’s old office and poured herself a much-needed glass of single malt.
What a day.
Despite Mrs D’s flat-spin panic about the shooting, Tish had not been worried that Dan and his friends would spill the beans to hospital staff, or the police. They had too much to lose. If there was one thing wasters like them valued above all others, it was an easy life. As of today, Loxley Hall had become more trouble than it was worth to them. They wouldn’t be back.
The bad news was that the quid pro quo for their silence about her trigger-happy antics would be that Tish could not now report them for criminal damage. She would have to find the money to make the necessary repairs and replacements herself. But, after a cursory glance at the estate’s latest accounts, it was hard to see how that was going to happen. As a going concern, Loxley was losing money hand over fist. Most stately homes did. That was why you needed tenants, and/or a professional company to manage them. Had Tish’s mother Vivianna done what was expected of her and put such arrangements in place, instead of handing the place to Jago on a silver platter, they wouldn’t be in this mess.
It wasn’t just the practical and financial recklessness of her mother’s decision that had upset Tish. It also stung that Vivianna had deliberately cut her out of any possible inheritance. Secretly, Tish had hoped she might take over at Loxley one day, once her work in Romania was done. The estate meant far more to her than it ever had to Jago.
‘But darling,’ Vivianna told her at Henry’s funeral, ‘you’ve been so occupied with those waifs and strays of yours. I didn’t think you’d be interested. Besides, the house would always have passed to Jago if he and your father hadn’t fallen out. It’s not right that Henry should be able to spite the boy from beyond the grave.’
But it’s OK for you to spite me from this