Free True Witness by Jo Bannister Page B

waited so he did. “Aerobics?”
    â€œIn a manner of speaking,” she nodded. “Specifically, I was stopping three young thugs from beating the living daylights out of a friend of mine. Since they seem to be pupils of yours, I’m here to warn you that if I see hide or hair of them again I’ll have them down at the police station, and then I’ll have you.”
    People who had known Brodie Farrell as a girl, and then as a young wife, were always startled to meet her again since the divorce. They remembered her as a quiet, modest person, almost demure, not someone to go round threatening six-foot athletes. But demure was of limited value to a woman who, at the age of thirty, suddenly found herself without a husband, a home or the means to make a living but with a three-year-old child to raise. She learned what her strengths were and how to use them, and because it was urgent she learned quickly.
    She found she was much tougher than she’d ever guessed. From rock-bottom at the time of the divorce, her confidence had grown in step with the growing success of her business until now she had no reservations about sharing the great secret with all and sundry. The secret was: Women aren’t soft. They’re strong.
    Ennis frowned, plainly bewildered. “I’m sorry – what are we talking about?” So she told him what had happened.
    George Ennis heard her out but the anger behind his eyes was mounting. Not at her – he’d been threatened before, lots
of times, by people who intended him much worse – but at the direction events had taken. “Those damned idiots!” he exploded when she’d finished. “I can develop their muscles, I can increase the capacity of their hearts and lungs, I can get them to the peak of physical fitness. But I can’t knock any damn sense into them. Your friend: is he all right?”
    Mollified slightly, Brodie nodded. “He’s holding a pack of frozen peas to his eye, but otherwise he’s fine.”
    â€œThank God for that at least,” said Ennis. “Mrs Farrell, you have my absolute assurance there will be no repetition of this. I can guess who your visitors were: I’ll have them down here within the hour and they won’t leave until they’ve written an apology. If Mr Hood will accept that I’ll be very grateful. But if he wants to involve the police I’d understand.”
    Brodie had marched in here ready for battle. His immediate surrender left her room to be generous. “There’s no need for that. When it happened I was angry enough to call the police but Daniel wasn’t. I think he feels that nobody’s at their best today. Chris’s friends have every right to be upset. If some of them were distraught enough to strike out at the first person they could find, well, it was a heat-of-the-moment thing and there’s no great harm done. If you’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again we can draw a line under it.”
    â€œThanks,” said Ennis. “You’re right, we’ve all been turned inside out by this. They’re good lads, they’re not thugs, in the normal way of things they don’t go round threatening people. I dare say they’re feeling pretty ashamed of themselves already – by the time I’ve seen them they’ll be feeling a great deal worse. I’ll point out that they could have found themselves in court for their stupidity. And also that your friend risked his life trying to save Chris.”
    He saw her to the door. The business between them disposed of, Brodie unbent enough to say what she should probably have said at the start. “I am terribly sorry about what happened to Chris. Murder is always a monstrous thing, but
it’s worse when it’s someone with his whole life ahead of him. I didn’t know him, but it’s obvious he’s going to leave a big gap in a lot of lives.”
    Ennis nodded.