A Child In Need

CHAPTER THREE

AND after that it was over-sort of. Police officers surged into the building and emerged with one dazed sixteen-year-old who looked half asleep and as if he didn’t know what was happening.

‘Please look after him,’ Shanni said softly as he emerged, handcuffed and secured. ‘He’s just a scared kid.’

But the police were taking no chances. He was taken away, sirens screaming, while Nick and Shanni blinked in the unaccustomed daylight and Harry stirred in Nick’s arms and started to sob.

A woman-in her late twenties, dishevelled and fearful-emerged from the crowd and tried to take him from Nick’s arms. ‘Harry. Oh, baby, we’ve been so worried. Come to Wendy.’

This, then, must be the woman in charge of Harry’s home within the orphanage, but Harry was unimpressed. He clung desperately to Nick, and as she tried to take him he screamed.

But Nick had had enough. There was nothing more he could do. He unfastened the desperate fingers and placed the weeping bundle of baby into the woman’s outstretched arms.

‘He’s all yours.’

‘No! I want to stay. I want to stay with my Nick.’ Harry was screaming with desperation, and Shanni reached forward to hug him.

‘Harry, don’t worry. Nick’s staying here for two years. Maybe we can visit…’

He had no intention of travelling down that road. No way!

‘We can visit you, Nick?’ Shanni asked, and something snapped.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Why ever not?’ She sounded astounded.

This was blackmail, he thought desperately. He had to get out of here-fast! And it was kinder to be blunt.

‘See that mountain up there?’ He’d had more than he needed of this emotional heart-pull. What a way to start a new life! ‘Harry, look at the mountain,’ he told him. He raised his voice. ‘Now!’

He could still get through to him. Harry stopped sobbing for long enough to stare up to where Mount Borrowah towered over the town.

‘That’s where I live,’ Nick said flatly-definitely. ‘I’m sorry, mate, but visiting me’s impossible.’ He softened then, just a little. ‘But it was great to meet you. You be good for Wendy, now.’

And he turned away before he could see the child’s face crumple into despair.

Then followed the police debriefing. Hours of it, with question after question. What had happened? What threats had been made? Nick and Shanni were interviewed together and separately, and by the time they were finished Nick conceded that the local police force knew their stuff. They’d get a solid conviction.

It was a major crime, he thought ruefully. Damn. There’d now been one major crime in Bay Beach but he couldn’t be involved as magistrate because he was a witness. The committal proceedings would be heard somewhere else.

Which left him still with fishing licences and farm disputes to look forward to. Terrific!

Finally, with interviews complete and after knocking back offers of counselling and psychological help, he emerged to find the police inspector waiting to greet him in his new capacity as magistrate.

‘Mr Daniels.’ His hand was gripped in a massive paw. ‘Welcome to Bay Beach. I’m sorry your arrival turned into such a mess. This place isn’t always so exciting.’

Great. He made himself say something polite and noncommittal while behind him, Shanni emerged from her own interview room. There were a dozen or so people waiting. They’d been silent as Nick had talked to the inspector but now they surged forward, engulfing Shanni in a sea of hugs and laughter and relief. When they finally released her, Nick was introduced to what must have been almost the entire population of the town.

Shanni looked exhausted. Since Nick’s mention of the mountain to Harry, she’d been decidedly cool, but she was still in control enough to stay polite.

‘Nick, these are my parents. This is my brother, Rob-he’s a senior constable here. Mary’s my sister and she’s your clerk of courts. Here’s Sam, Hatty, Will and Louise-they’re all my younger brothers and sisters. Grandma, Grandpa, Aunt Merle…Uncle Simon-he’s the one with the car yard. Uncle Simon, I want you to write a letter for me. Everybody, this is Nick Daniels, the town’s new magistrate. He lives up on Borrowah Mountain. I don’t think!’

They didn’t understand that, but Nick was surged on, regardless, and his hand was wrung until it felt as if it would drop off.

‘We’re so grateful you were here to take care of our Shanni,’ Shanni’s grandmother quavered and, to Nick’s astonishment, Shanni’s brothers and sisters hooted with laughter. He must have looked stunned, because Guy McDonald, Shanni’s father, noticed.

‘Don’t look like that, Nick.’ The elderly farmer clapped Nick on the shoulder. ‘I’m sure you did well, boy, but we know Shanni isn’t a shrinking violet. All last night, when the rest of the town were worrying themselves sick about their kindergarten teacher, Shanni’s mother and I were wondering whether the kid would get out of there alive.’

‘I was never going to shoot him,’ Shanni said, affronted.

‘No, dear, but you could have talked him into shooting himself,’ her mother said comfortably. ‘And when Rob rang and asked what Louise took for night-time hay fever…’

‘You mean…you don’t get hay fever?’ Nick demanded, staggered.

‘Louise does,’ Shanni said blithely. ‘Didn’t I sneeze well? When Louise has hay fever she blows us away, and the medicine she takes at night knocks her out so hard she snores the roof off.’

‘I do not!’ Louise glared.

‘Do, too.’ There was general laughter, and then the police station door burst open. A large young man came striding in, looking deeply anxious. He seemed every inch a farmer-open, weathered face with eyes creased by the sun, moleskins, flannelette shirt, wide-brimmed hat… It only needed a straw sticking out of the side of his mouth to complete the picture.

The man was in no mood for interruptions-or introductions. He was looking for his woman.

‘Shanni!’ He walked straight to Shanni, gathered her into his arms and he held her as if there was no tomorrow. And she submitted to his embrace as if she belonged there.

Which made Nick feel…weird? But there was nothing he could do but watch and listen.

‘Shanni, love,’ the stranger was saying, ‘I took cattle over to the sales at Warrbook and I’ve only just got back to hear this. Hell! Love, are you okay? I’ll kill the…’

‘Hush.’ She was being raised right off her feet as she was hugged. As she smiled down into the stranger’s eyes, Nick was aware of a sharp stab of something that might have been jealousy.

No. Ridiculous thought. There was nothing to be jealous of here, for heaven’s sake.

‘I’m fine,’ Shanni was saying, struggling to find her feet. She motioned to Nick. ‘Nick, this is John Blainey. John, Nick’s our new magistrate. He was taken hostage, too.’

‘And you looked after my girl.’ Nick’s hand was seized and wrung again until his wrist felt broken. ‘You got her out of there. I owe you…’

‘I think you’ll find Shanni got herself out of there,’ Nick said wryly. ‘I just babysat.’

The man stared-and then he grinned. ‘You can still joke. That’s fantastic.’ He turned and held Shanni tight again. ‘That does it, sweetheart. We’ll get married. I know I don’t have the house built yet, but if you think I’m going to let you run yourself into danger again…’

‘By teaching kindergarten?’

‘By doing anything without me,’ John said stolidly. ‘I know how to protect my own, and I’ll protect you.’

He needed to get out of here, Nick decided. As, obviously, did the rest of Shanni’s family. They were all watching the happy couple with expressions ranging from resigned to nauseous.

‘I’m off to collect my car,’ Nick said, and Rob stepped forward with an expression that said he’d be glad to help-in fact he’d be glad to get out of there as fast as Nick wanted.

‘I’ll give you a lift.’

But Shanni was breaking away, turning within John’s hold.

‘Nick, thank you.’

‘For running you into danger? For scaring Len into the kindergarten?’

‘Oh, I’ve forgiven you for that,’ she said blithely, and grinned at his pained expression. ‘I know it wasn’t your fault. I said it because I like to see lawyers wriggle, so I’m not even going to sue. But thank you anyway.’

‘It’s me who should be thanking you.’

‘Yep,’ she said happily and grinned. ‘And Louise. It was her tablets did the trick. But for Harry…’

‘I didn’t do anything.’

‘You did,’ she said urgently. ‘He hugged you. And you still can do something. You still can help. I know you said that stupid thing about the mountain but you were stressed. If we can keep that connection up…’

‘I’m not prepared to do that,’ he said flatly, and she stared.

‘Why ever not?’

‘I told you. I don’t like kids.’

‘You don’t like Harry?’

‘Shanni, I have a new job here that’s going to take all my time,’ he said desperately, and she smiled.

‘Right. Magistrate at Bay Beach. Full-time job.’

‘Don’t badger the man, Shanni,’ her mother said mildly. ‘He’s only just walked into the town. Give him at least a few days before you start involving him in any of your save the world missions.’

Shanni wrinkled her pert nose and her eyes twinkled. ‘A few days?’

‘At least,’ her mother said.

Silence.

Then… ‘Okay, Nick Daniels,’ she said at last. ‘You have a few days’ grace and then we’ll see what we can do to puncture that cool, calm exterior. Oh, and Nick…?’

‘Yes?’

‘Grandma here’s a great seamstress.’

‘Pardon?’ He was totally at sea.

‘You’ll want to get those ties widened.’ Her smile was gently teasing. ‘Magistrates in this town command a bit of respect; they wear ties, and that’s not a tie. That’s a shoelace. Grandma, do you call that a tie?’

Her grandmother obediently inspected the slip of expensive Italian silk which was now tugged loose around Nick’s open collar. ‘Hmm,’ she said, disapproving, and Shanni nodded.

‘Hmm is right, Grandma. It’ll have to be widened. Nick’s yet to learn that the only impression designer labels give around here is that he doesn’t belong.’

Shanni followed her mother’s orders. Nick didn’t see her for five days.

In those days life settled into the pattern he’d expected-and more so. He was given an apartment above the courthouse, which suited him fine-no garden to look after and the windows looked out over the sea almost all the way to Tasmania. He even had a balcony he could use to appreciate the view-which he didn’t. He kept the door closed.

The courthouse was old and majestic and sleepy, as was everything about this town. Mary, Shanni’s eldest sister, was his clerk of courts. Comfortably married to the local newsagent, with two little boys at school, she knew everything and everybody in Bay Beach, and Nick found himself thinking it would be easier for everyone concerned if Mary took over the running of the whole courthouse. She practically did anyway.

‘This is Red Barring. Red’s up for abalone fishing without a licence,’ she told him on his second case. ‘He’ll plead that he only caught them for a family celebration, but he used that excuse the last time and the time before. Everyone knows he sells them on the black market.’

‘You’re not supposed to tell me this,’ Nick said faintly, and Mary grinned.

‘So you didn’t hear me saying it. But it’d be a pity if you were taken in by Red’s baby-blue eyes. He’s a thief and a bully, and he’s poaching abalone that fishermen have paid big money for the licences to fish. And when Sam Netherfield’s boat ran aground last month and he realised his insurance had lapsed, Red didn’t put in a cent to the appeal. Not one cent! Even though Sam was a character witness for Red at his last trial.’

It was all totally improper-but when Red stood before the bench and faltered in a whiny voice that he’d just caught the few abalone for his wife’s birthday and a tough fine would send him to the wall, it was sort of hard-if not impossible-for Nick to refrain from giving the police authority to look at the man’s finances and report back to the court in a week.

And, at the ludicrous look of dismay on the man’s face, he knew it would be stupid to ignore Mary entirely.

But her interference went beyond work.

‘What are you interested in?’ she demanded on his third day at work.

‘Interested in?’

‘Mmm.’ She beamed. ‘What are your hobbies? You must have some. All work and no play doesn’t make for a nice, well-balanced magistrate.’

‘Did you know you’re as bossy and interfering as your sister?’

‘I try,’ she said smugly. ‘Actually I’m older than Shanni so I think I’m better at it. I’ve had more practice. Now, I’m in the local repertory and we need new members. Can you sing?’

‘No!’

It didn’t faze her. ‘No matter. There’s spots as extras. Or we need painters backstage.’

‘No!’

‘Okay.’ She took the rebuff unabashed. ‘There’s a sailing school on Saturdays, there’s chess clubs, there’s canoeing, there’s angling, there’s…’

‘Mary, I am not interested in joining clubs.’

‘Why ever not?’ She was astonished.

‘I have plenty to do to keep me employed.’

‘Like what?’ She fixed him with a look that was remarkably like her sister’s. It was totally disconcerting. ‘Your work here is hardly Go, Go, Go. What else do you intend to do in this town?’

What else indeed? Nick took the case file he’d come out to retrieve, retreated to his office and glowered.

What?

In the city his work had been eighty hours a week plus. That was the way he liked it. He thrived on work. And his spare time? He filled it with restaurants, plays, films and art shows, all with different women…

There was a dearth of restaurants, plays, films and art shows around here, he thought desperately. And beautiful women.

‘Nick…’ There was yet another knock on the door and he sighed.

‘I’m busy,’ he called.

‘Nonsense.’ The door opened and Mary walked right in. Followed by Shanni…and followed by Harry, and his heart kicked at the sight of the pair of them.

Shanni was just as he remembered though not as dishevelled as after a night of being held hostage. She was now wearing a soft pink print dress which was bare around her shoulders and suited her perfectly. Her curls were tied back with a pale pink and blue ribbon. She looked happy, young and carefree, and her smile enfolded everyone in the room. It was Mary’s smile and then some. A knockout smile!

‘Hi,’ she said. ‘Mary said you weren’t busy.’

‘Mary said…’ Something would have to be done about Mary. Soon!

‘She also said your lunch-hour is between one and two, but today you have no more court cases until three. So Harry and I came to take you out to lunch.’

By her side, Harry said absolutely nothing. He was dressed in simple shorts and T-shirt as he’d been wearing the last time Nick saw him, and the cast on his leg looked absurdly heavy for such a little one. And he was silent. Waiting.

For what? Nick knew. Harry held onto Shanni’s hand and he looked at Nick with eyes that said he was waiting to be struck. Or…he was waiting for Nick to say no.

Same thing.

‘I don’t think I can…’ Nick tried to prevaricate but it sounded weak, even to him. For heaven’s sake, he did not want to get involved here. But he didn’t want to hurt the child…

‘We aren’t looking for anything formal, are we, Harry?’ Shanni told him, choosing to ignore his hesitation. ‘But Thursday is my half-day off, Harry wanted to see you and Mary tells us that you’re free.’

‘I’m busy.’

‘Don’t be silly. There’s nothing I can’t handle here,’ Mary said blithely, beaming at her sister in friendly conspiracy. ‘Off you go and enjoy yourself. It’ll do you good to get out into the fresh air.’

‘I don’t need fresh air.’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake.’ Mary assumed her severest look, facing him with an expression that said, No nonsense or you’ll stay in after school and do two hundred lines. She used Shanni’s school-marm tone. ‘You sound like this town will bite, Nick Daniels. There’s nothing out there to be afraid of, and Shanni will take good care of you.’

Then Mary and Shanni both beamed.

What was a man to do? ‘I’m being railroaded,’ he said weakly.

‘Of course,’ Mary agreed. ‘It’s what the McDonald girls are good at. We’ve been trained from birth by a very railroading mama. And grandma. And great-grandma come to that. Shanni, make him take his tie off.’

‘Take your tie off,’ Shanni said. ‘You can’t eat fish and chips on the beach when you’re wearing a designer shoelace.’

‘I’m not…’ He rose and backed off.

‘Yes, you are,’ Mary said, and she put her hands behind him and shoved him toward the door. ‘Know when you’re beaten, Your Worship. Out you go and don’t come back before three. That’s an order.’

He stood on the pavement and couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Shanni was grinning like a Cheshire cat and, beside her, Harry was simply looking. And looking and looking, as if he couldn’t get enough of him.

‘Shanni…’ He was starting to sound inane. He was starting to feel inane!

‘I’ve ordered fish and chips,’ she said, ignoring him. ‘We’re collecting them down at the wharf in five minutes.’

‘What if I don’t want to come?’ He sounded pathetic!

‘Of course you want to come,’ she said kindly. ‘You just don’t think you do. Harry and I are here to change your mind. Shall we take your car-or walk?’

‘I don’t…’

‘Don’t want to drive? Okay.’ She beamed. ‘It’s not far. Harry doesn’t like cars and he’s been practising with the new heel on his cast like anything. And please, take your tie off.’

‘No.’

‘You look silly with it on.’ She twinkled up at him in the sunlight. ‘But it’s the same one you were wearing when we first saw you. Don’t you have a change of clothes?’

‘I just brought the one suit. I’m heading back to Melbourne at the weekend.’ He’d go nuts if he couldn’t.

‘Now that’s a waste of a weekend if ever I heard one,’ she said. ‘Spending it in the city changing designer ties!’

And she smiled straight at him-and, despite himself, he was forced to smile right back. Unbelievable! And then he found himself walking at her side down toward the harbour. Harry clumped on bravely on her other side, clutching her hand and occasionally venturing a peep at him around the soft folds of her dress.

‘Do you never go to Melbourne?’ Nick asked, trying to think of something to say to stop him sounding even more pathetic. As a lawyer and magistrate he was used to facing the world on his terms. It wasn’t often the world had him as off balance as this.

‘I did my training there,’ she told him. ‘But I hated it. I came back here every weekend to get my fix of sea air and laid-back country lifestyle.’

‘So you admit you need your fix of sea air. Well, I need my fix of city. We’re equally addicted, Miss McDonald.’

‘We are indeed,’ she agreed equably. ‘Equally nuts, but if we’re comparing the sea to the city I know which I’d rather. What do you think, Harry?’ She tugged the little boy forward, scooped him up and placed him so he was between the two of them. ‘Do you think we’re nuts?’

Harry considered. ‘No,’ he said at last, seriously, and Shanni chuckled her delight. She really did have the loveliest chuckle.

‘You’re wonderful, Harry,’ she told him. Then she looked down at him. He was walking bravely but the cast must be a pain. ‘Do you want Nick to carry you?’

‘No.’

That was definite enough, Shanni considered. ‘Okay. What about playing One, Two, Three, Jump?’

Harry didn’t know what she meant. His small face stared up at his kindergarten teacher in mute enquiry.

‘We need to teach him,’ she told Nick, but Nick shook his head, as in the dark as Harry.

‘Sorry.’

‘Sorry, what?’ She stared at him.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

That stopped her dead. She whirled to face them, staring from Nick down to Harry and back to Nick again. ‘You mean…you both don’t know One, Two, Three, Jump?’

‘Enlighten our ignorance,’ Nick said dryly, knowing she was about to do just that.

But she gave him a strange look-reassessing. It was an odd sideways look, and it left Nick feeling disturbed. As if she was probing where he didn’t want to be probed.

‘It’s very simple,’ she said at last, falling in again beside them, but still with that disturbed look on her face. They’d left the single line of shops in the main street behind and were walking down the hill to where the boats were tied up in the harbour below. ‘One, Two, Three, Jump requires two adults and one child. We have all the prerequisites right here. Nick, take Harry’s hand.’

‘But…’

‘You quibble, we can’t play,’ she said direfully. ‘No quibbling. Take Harry’s hand.’

There was nothing for it. Nick put his hand down and took Harry’s fingers in his. Harry looked high up into his face, and then stared intently at their linking-his tiny hand in Nick’s large one. Then, very slowly, Harry smiled. He turned and headed on down the hill between his two anchors, stumping gamely on his cast, heading into the wind. As if he’d just had a win of gargantuan proportions.

‘Now we’re ready,’ Shanni announced, and if Nick thought he saw a glimmer of a tear on her eyelashes then surely he was imagining it. She swung Harry’s arm. ‘One…two…three…!’ And before he realised what he was doing, Nick was swinging Harry’s little body out before him.

‘Jump!’

The tiny boy flew high, held safely between them and, when Harry landed, the look on his face of absolute incredulity that anything like this could be happening to him made Nick falter.

Damn, he might be sure there were tears on Shanni’s eyelashes, but what the heck was the lump doing in his throat?

There was nothing for it now but to do it all over again. They One, Two, Three, Jumped all the way to the fish shop, and then Nick held the fish-and-chip parcel in one hand and Shanni carried the drinks in another so they could keep on One, Two, Three, Jumping all the way to the beach.

And finally Nick found himself sitting on the sand by the sea, fish and chips spread out before him, and he had absolutely no idea in the world how he’d come to be there.