The Midwives of Lark Lane

by Pam Howes

  ‘Dougie, stop it, it’s me, Eloisa. Why are you doing this?’ Maybe he hadn’t recognised her. She felt her nose crunch as he punched her in the face, all the while telling her to shut her bloody mouth.

  ‘You’re all the same, bloody women. Alice, Sheila, and that brat Cathy. All needy and bloody useless. And you, you’re no different. None of you are worth doing time for.’

  Eloisa gritted her teeth and with all her strength pushed him as hard as she could. He fell backwards and she struggled to her feet, holding on to a nearby tree trunk to steady herself. She was seeing stars and felt very wobbly from the punch to her face. Why had he mentioned Cathy, and wasn’t her mother called Alice? And that accent – where was the gentle Scottish accent Dougie usually spoke with? A sudden streak of lightning flashed overhead, highlighting the man struggling now to get to his feet. As she stood close to him she saw him raise an arm and push her to the floor. She fell backwards and the last thing she was conscious of before oblivion took over was him fiddling with the foot she lay near and covering it with his long thick sock that had rolled down in the scuffle.

  Jack caught his breath and looked at the crumpled form of Eloisa lying near his feet. There was a pool of blood forming at the back of her head where she’d hit a rock as she’d dropped backwards. Shit, her eyes were closed and she wasn’t moving. Was she dead? Her face was covered in blood from her broken nose and her lips were badly swollen. She was hardly recognisable. He felt a sudden rush of guilt for the mess she looked, but it was her own fault for following him. There was no way she was going to stop him making his escape. With a bit of luck he’d be well away before anyone found her. There’d been loads of punters at the fair today, and any one of them could have been responsible for attacking her. He took a deep breath and limped away as fast as he possibly could. He just hoped Luca’s car was on Lucerne Street and easily accessible.

  He peered down Linnet Lane first but could see no sign of the distinctive black-and-yellow Consul. Good. That must mean the car was at Alice’s. He shuffled along to Lark Lane and, taking a few furtive glances over his shoulder, turned onto Lucerne Street. The houses were all in darkness, just the streetlights casting a glow. The moon was hidden behind clouds again. Lightning flashed, followed quickly by rolling thunder.

  He could see the car parked a few houses down and unlocked the door, sliding onto the driver’s seat. He looked across at Alice’s house but all was dark and silent, as were the next-door neighbours and the houses directly across the street. Hopefully he wouldn’t be seen.

  Jack took a deep breath and started up the engine. It purred to life immediately and he slipped it into first gear and pulled gingerly away from the kerb. He held his breath as he changed gear, pushing down the clutch with his good left foot. Even on the side with the wooden foot he still had feelings in his leg, and he put gentle pressure on the accelerator pedal. The car moved along almost effortlessly. It was almost new and smooth to drive. Once he was out on Aigburth Road he carefully headed for Liverpool city centre and the docks. He checked the petrol gauge and smiled with relief when he saw the tank was half full. He had enough money to put a bit more petrol in if he needed to, but then he’d have to abandon the car and make his way on foot to heaven knew where. Fortunately he’d got a rolled-up sleeping bag tied to his rucksack so at least he wouldn’t be cold at night if he had to sleep rough.

  Maria banged and clattered around the caravan kitchen, muttering loudly to herself, until Luca could stand it no longer. What the hell was wrong with her now? She’d been edgy all day yesterday, muttering on about danger until it had nearly driven him mad. He slid out of bed and joined her.

  ‘Maria, it’s Sunday morning. I was hoping for a lie-in after the busy day we had yesterday. What on earth is wrong with you?’

  ‘Eloisa. She stayed out all night.’ Maria banged a frying pan onto the stove. ‘No doubt with that man, that Dougie. I don’t like him. He’s too old for my daughter. You need to tell him.’

  Luca shook his head. ‘Eloisa is a grown woman. She’s old enough to know what she wants. I’ve no idea how old Dougie really is, he just said in his thirties, but that could mean one end of the scale or the other. He works hard and keeps his head down and doesn’t get under my feet.’

  ‘Well I still don’t like him. I will tell her so when she rolls home later.’

  But by three o’clock Eloisa still wasn’t home and Gianni had arrived with Lucy.

  ‘You were up early this morning, Dad,’ Gianni said. ‘I was quite shocked when I pulled back the curtains and saw the car had gone. Cathy said maybe you’d taken Maria out for the day. We’ve been at Cathy’s gran’s place doing some sorting out and this one has been playing with Rodney—’ He stopped as a puzzled expression crossed Luca’s face.

  ‘Son, I haven’t got the car. You say it’s gone from outside Alice’s?’

  Gianni nodded. ‘Well you’re the only other one with keys, so I assumed you’d taken it.’

  Luca rummaged in his pockets and pulled out a set of keys. The car key was on the ring. ‘Where are yours?’ he asked Gianni.

  ‘Right here.’ Gianni felt in his jacket pockets, then frowned. ‘Well they were there yesterday, definitely. I left my jacket in here while we worked.’ He paused as someone hammered on the door.

  Maria opened it and let in an agitated Lenny and his wife.

  ‘Lenny,’ Luca said. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We’ve been robbed,’ Lenny’s wife Irene said. ‘My Lenny’s wallet has been emptied and the few bob I had in me purse has gone. And them next door said they’ve had stuff nicked from their caravan as well.’

  ‘My car keys were taken from Gianni’s pocket here yesterday,’ Luca told them. ‘And my car has been stolen overnight from outside his mother-in-law’s house on Lucerne Street.’

  ‘Where’s that then?’ Lenny asked.

  ‘Over that way’ – Luca pointed over his shoulder – ‘Just off Lark Lane.’

  Lenny rubbed his chin with his fingers as though deep in thought. ‘So who would have known that car keys taken from inside this caravan would belong to a car parked a few streets away?’

  ‘Only someone who knew that it was,’ Maria said. ‘It has to be family. But there’s only Eloisa, apart from us.’

  Luca grunted. ‘Unless she told someone. I think we’d better go and get her over here.’ He stormed off out of the caravan, leaving the others with puzzled expressions.

  ‘Where is she?’ Gianni asked.

  ‘With that Dougie man. She hasn’t been home all night as far as we know. Please, sit down all of you and I will make us strong coffee.’

  ‘Well that may sort out who took the car, but what about the money?’ Lenny said, handing round cigarettes. Maria and Gianni declined but Irene took one and Lenny held out his lighter. She puffed frantically.

  ‘We ain’t got no money for food now,’ Irene said. ‘It’s downright disgusting. We’ve never had no trouble like this before. We’re all as honest as the day is long on this fairground. Like one big happy family.’

  ‘Luca will see you’re all right for money, Irene. Please don’t worry,’ Maria assured her as Luca came back, shaking his head.

  ‘She’s not there and neither is that Dougie fella,’ he told them. ‘All his belongings are gone and so is Ronnie’s backpack and sleeping bag. Seems they’ve all had money and stuff stolen as well. In fact as I’m walking around people are telling me they’ve all been robbed. Even loose-change jars are empty.’

  Maria’s hands fluttered and she cried out, ‘I told you there was danger in the air.’

  ‘Yes, you did,’ Luca said. ‘Right, we need to call the police, tell them we’ve had several thefts and see what they make of it.’

  ‘But where is my daughter?’ Maria said. ‘She’s a good girl; she wouldn’t steal from her own. Maybe that man made her do it and he’s kidnapped her.’

  Gianni rolled his eyes. ‘Maria, I doubt anyone would kidnap Eloisa. She’d kick up too much
of a fuss. More like she’s gone off with him of her own accord. I saw the pair of them from a distance yesterday and they seemed very close.’

  Luca nodded his head. ‘I think Gianni is right. I’ll go and use the phone box by the park gates. Tell anyone else that comes knocking on the door about the theft that we have it all in hand.’

  Tony, the Ferris wheel operator’s son, shouted his dogs to heel but they ignored him, gambolling on ahead and barking relentlessly in the little copse near to where the caravans were parked. He rattled their leads and called their names again. The barking continued. ‘I suppose I’d better come and see what you’re barking about. I hope you haven’t found another hedgehog or you’ll be covered in fleas again and Ma won’t like that,’ he called after them.

  He ploughed through the fallen branches and brittle pinecones – and stopped dead. One of the dogs was nosing at something on the ground and whimpering. ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph,’ Tony gasped and made the sign of the cross in the air. ‘Come away, boys.’ He grabbed the dogs’ collars, fastened their leads back on and ran as fast as he could back to the caravans, screaming, ‘Help, help! There’s a body in the copse.’

  Twenty

  Leaving Lucy in the care of Irene and Lenny, Gianni hurried back to Lucerne Street to get Cathy and Alice. His garbled story of needing help at the fairground had them throwing all the equipment they could find into Cathy’s nurse’s bag and dashing back with him. He’d told them police and an ambulance had been called but not that the injured person was Eloisa.

  When they arrived Maria was crying, ‘Is she dead? Is my daughter dead?’ and Cathy realised who the young woman on the ground was. Luca held Maria in his arms as Cathy knelt beside Eloisa’s still form.

  ‘There’s a faint pulse,’ Cathy said quietly to Alice. ‘She’s alive, but only just. I’ll clean her face up as best I can, but I’m not moving her as she seems to have a serious head wound.’ The blood was congealing on the ground and matting Eloisa’s thick hair. ‘She’s going to need X-rays to determine the damage, as well as stitches. Looks like she fell backwards and hit her head on that big rock. But her facial injuries tell me she was assaulted first. Whoever did this really went for her.’

  She set to work with Alice’s help and by the time the ambulance and police car arrived, Eloisa looked a bit less bloody. Her eyes were starting to bruise and her nose was crushed. She was still only semi-conscious but had moaned softly as she was lifted on to a stretcher and whisked away in the waiting ambulance with the bells clanging. Maria had gone with her, but Luca was asked by the police to stay behind while they talked to him and took some statements.

  Gianni stayed with his dad while Cathy and Alice took Lucy back home. She was upset; she had clearly realised something was wrong when all the adults had been so worried. ‘I’ll see you later,’ Gianni said. ‘Perhaps Johnny will take my dad to join Maria when we’ve finished here with the police. I’ll bring him home with me.’

  As the two police officers sat in the caravan with them after taking short statements from all the other members of the fair, Gianni and his dad tried to piece together the happenings of the last twenty-four hours. While they were talking, Gianni got up to answer a knock at the door. An agitated Ronnie stood there, clutching the missing sketchbook.

  ‘Gianni, I found this under Dougie’s pillow when we were folding his bed away. It has your name on it. It fell on the floor and I saw a drawing of a lady that looks like your wife.’ Ronnie’s words were garbled as though he was embarrassed. ‘Not that I’ve ever seen your wife without clothes on,’ he added quickly. ‘And I didn’t look no further, honest, mate. I closed it up right away and brought it straight over here. Don’t know how he ended up with it, but that doesn’t sit right with me.’

  ‘Thank you for returning it, Ronnie,’ Gianni said. ‘Please don’t worry. Odd though, like you say, that it should end up on Dougie Taylor’s bed. You don’t have any idea where he is, I suppose?’

  ‘Not a clue. Is it true that they found a woman’s body in the copse?’

  Gianni nodded. ‘It’s Eloisa. She was in a bad way, but still alive, when they took her in the ambulance. I’ll let you know more when we know ourselves.’

  ‘Thanks, Gianni. Me and her were good friends until that Scottish bastard showed his face. He’d better not be the one responsible for doing that to her.’ He turned and walked away but not before Gianni saw his shoulders shaking and him wiping tears away.

  He rejoined the officers and his dad and told them it was the young lad Ronnie who had shared a caravan with the missing hired hand. ‘He just brought back a sketchbook of mine that had somehow fallen into the hands of Dougie Taylor.’

  One of the officers looked up from the notes he was making. ‘So, none of you really knew this man that you say joined the fair in York a few weeks ago. You took him on as a casual hired hand? Yet you tell me he was in some sort of relationship with your stepdaughter, the young lady found injured in the copse, Mr Romano?’

  Luca nodded. ‘That is correct. He was a hard worker and got on well with all the other hired hands that I’ve had for years.’

  ‘Do you know anything of his background?’

  ‘Very little, I have to admit. Said he was from Edinburgh, had lost his job and fancied doing a bit of travelling around the country. He just wanted a bit of casual work to be going on with. He had a bit of a scruffy appearance, longish hair and a beard that could do with a good trim. He’d got a tooth missing from the bottom, one of the middle two.’ Luca tapped his own tooth with his finger. ‘This one. You only noticed the gap when he laughed, which wasn’t that often, actually. He was a bit moody at times. Oh, and he walked with a bit of a limp, said he had a bad foot.’

  The police officers looked at each other.

  Gianni frowned. ‘Did he, Dad? Can’t say I noticed that. Mind you, I’ve had so little to do with him. I’ve been so busy with coming home to help Cathy, and Granny’s funeral and what have you. Our paths rarely crossed. He seemed to keep out of my way.’

  ‘One young man said he heard you arguing with Eloisa yesterday, sir,’ one of the officers said, addressing Gianni. ‘Is that correct?’

  Gianni nodded. ‘It is. We were arguing because I accused her of taking my sketchbook. In fact, the one Ronnie just returned to me that was found in Dougie’s bed.’

  The officer nodded. ‘Someone also said they saw her arguing with Dougie but then she was seen going into the caravan with him all smiles a while later.’

  Gianni shrugged. ‘No idea about that – oh, though Tony, her assistant, did say she was arguing with him. Might be the same argument.’

  Luca shook his head. ‘I don’t wish to speak ill of my stepdaughter while she is so badly injured, but that girl could cause an argument in an empty room, Officer.’

  Both officers hid a smile and continued to question Luca. ‘Now you say many of the fairground people have been robbed of money from their caravans and that also you have had your car stolen? The keys were taken from a jacket here yesterday afternoon, and the car from Lucerne Street. That’s outside your mother-in-law’s house, sir?’ He directed that at Gianni, who nodded.

  ‘Yes, my dad lent me the car a few weeks ago to come home for family reasons, and because it saved messing about finding a parking space here and we’re in easy walking distance of the park, I left it on the street.’

  The elder of the officers scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Your wife’s mother, is that the lady that helped with the first aid earlier?’

  ‘Yes, Alice Harrison,’ Gianni replied.

  ‘I visited Mrs Harrison a few weeks ago but she wasn’t home. I had some news for her. Mrs Harrison was the former Mrs Jack Dawson, wasn’t she?’

  Gianni felt his jaw dropping. ‘She was.’

  ‘Sir, would you mind if we got that sketchbook checked for fingerprints right away?’ the older officer asked. ‘If it’s been kept by this Dougie Taylor fellow then it may have his prints on it. In view of the seriousness
of the attack on the young lady it’s very important that we do this. It will be looked after and returned to you at a later date. We just need the cover, if you’d like to detach it from the contents for me, please.’

  Gianni nodded and removed the staples holding the sketchbook together. He slid out his drawings, handing the cover to the officers.

  The older officer’s radio crackled and he answered it as a disembodied voice spoke. ‘I’ll take this outside,’ he told Gianni and Luca. When he came back he was smiling. ‘Eloisa has come round. She has a fractured skull and a broken nose but she’s going to be all right. This might be a good time to get someone to take Mr Romano to the hospital. We will be making our way in to see her tomorrow. We’ll need to take a statement and with a bit of luck she may recall who her attacker was and then we can put out a search and bring him in. He’s a very dangerous man to do that to a young girl and leave her for dead.’

  ‘That’s really good news,’ Gianni said, breathing a sigh of relief. Although his stepsister drove him mad at times, he would hate anything bad to happen to her. He loved her mother, who had been nothing but kind and loving towards him, and knew she would be heartbroken if she lost Eloisa. ‘And I’m sure my stepfather-in-law will oblige with a lift. You’ve got my dad’s car’s description, haven’t you? It’s a very distinctive Consul in black and yellow.’

  ‘We have. We’ll get this sketchbook cover to the station now and if there are any matching prints on our files we’ll have a name to work with at least. Hopefully it will be the same name Eloisa gives us. We’ll be in touch as soon as we have any further information. It’ll probably be tomorrow before we get any results as our forensics chap doesn’t work on Sundays.’