Charlie

by Lesley Pearse

  Charlie put her drink down on the bar and stood up. ‘Is it Rita?’ she asked. That was the only person she could imagine phoning her in Salcombe.

  ‘No, at least not unless she’s got a gruff voice and calls herself Hughes,’ Beryl said with a smirk.

  ‘Hughes the policeman?’ Charlie gasped. ‘What can he want me for now?’

  ‘Oh, I expect it’s only a loose end or two,’ Beryl said soothingly. ‘You’d better take it up in my sitting room, you won’t be able to hear over the noise down here.’

  ‘Hullo, Charlie,’ Hughes said as she picked up the phone upstairs. ‘Sorry to interrupt your holiday, but I had some news for you that couldn’t wait.’

  ‘That sounds bad,’ she replied, her heart sinking. ‘Has the Dexters’ lawyer got them out?’

  ‘No, it’s not that,’ he said. ‘And with what we’ve discovered there’s no chance of that either. We’ve found a body, love, and we believe it’s your father – we will of course be checking dental records.’

  Charlie sank into the chair by Beryl’s desk as her legs seemed to give way beneath her. ‘Where was it?’

  ‘In the Thames,’ he said. ‘Ironically, quite close to the river police’s station at Wapping. If it hadn’t been for a witness coming forward we would never have found it, as it was in a stretch of deep water and heavily weighted, but fortunately this witness was able to pinpoint almost the exact spot. Divers brought it up early this morning, the pathologists are examining it right now.’

  ‘How long had he been there?’ she asked, her voice cracking with emotion.

  ‘We can’t say yet, not accurately. But the witness claims he was killed on the 20th June back in 1970. As everything else he told us has proved to be true, for now we are accepting that as correct.’

  ‘So he had been dead for over three weeks when Mum was crippled,’ she said in a whisper.

  ‘It looks that way,’ he said. ‘We’ll be charging Daphne Dexter with his murder and her brothers as accomplices. According to our witness, she shot him several times in the head and chest, and then the brothers disposed of his body.’

  All at once the comical image of the Dexters which had grown funnier all week departed. They were savage, ruthless, and cold-blooded killers. Charlie began to sob. She had always thought that firm proof of her father’s death would be better than living with uncertainty, but instead she found it was devastating.

  ‘I’m so very sorry,’ Hughes said in a soft voice. ‘I know you’d never given up hope he would turn up alive and well one day. I wish too I could have found a gentler way to break it to you. But you can take heart in the fact he didn’t run out on you and your mother, Charlie. I have firm evidence he was on his way back to you both. Those goods you saw at The Manse were his, the Dexters took them. As I see it, your father was stitched up in every possible way.’

  ‘What happens now? Can he have a funeral?’ She tried to stop her tears, to pull herself together to ask the right questions, but instead of seeing her father as he was the last time they were together, all she could imagine was a gruesome, weed- and mud-covered skeleton lying on a marble slab in a mortuary.

  ‘Yes of course, sweetheart. Once all the formalities are over.’

  Charlie couldn’t speak, overtaken by a burst of sobbing. She could hear Hughes trying to soothe her, but his kind words didn’t help.

  ‘This witness. Why didn’t he come forward before?’ she asked eventually.

  ‘For very similar reasons to your friend Rita,’ he said. ‘He’s a very sick man, he might not even make it as far as the trial, but when he heard the Dexters had been arrested he felt compelled to speak up.’

  ‘Who is he? Did he know my dad? I mean, before he saw him killed?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’ Hughes sounded hesitant. ‘Very well, and admired him. That’s what has been preying on his mind, and I think what finally gave him the courage to come to us.’

  ‘Could I meet him?’

  There was a sudden silence at her impulsive question. ‘You can’t, Charlie,’ he said eventually. ‘You must know the police can’t allow witnesses to collude with one another.’

  ‘I don’t want to collude with him about anything, I’d just like to hear first-hand his views on my father. What harm could that do?’

  ‘No, Charlie,’ he said firmly.

  All at once anger pushed back her grief for a moment. ‘Look here, Mr Hughes,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve been robbed of both my parents because of those Dexters. Don’t you think I’m entitled to at least know the whole story?’

  ‘But you’ll get that at the trial.’

  ‘Oh, will I?’ she said sarcastically. ‘You’ve already said this man might not make it that far. What if all I get to hear is a dry statement about the actual murder? That’s not what I want to know. I want to be able to see the whole picture, about what my dad was doing, before it all happened, where he was going, what he was thinking about, how he looked. Can’t you understand that? I need to have something to hold on to after I’ve buried him.’

  Silence fell again, and Charlie gripped the telephone receiver tightly, willing him to agree. ‘Just slip me his address,’ she pleaded. ‘No one ever need know about it. Please.’

  Ozzie Hughes found himself in a moral dilemma. Should he shield his key witness, or support the one truly innocent person in this whole case?

  His witness was dying of stomach cancer. In his time he’d been one of the biggest rogues in the East End. His silence about Jin’s death had been bought with threats to his only daughter. But she was now married and living in Australia.

  Charlie, on the other hand, was young, honest and with her whole life ahead of her. If she could get Kent to tell her about her father, his relationship with Daphne and exactly how she plotted her revenge on Jin, then maybe the girl could put the tragedy of losing her parents behind her.

  It seemed to Ozzie that the dice was loaded in Charlie’s favour. Even if it might mean he would face disciplinary procedures if it ever got out.

  ‘Okay,’ he sighed. ‘I’ll give you the man’s name and address. But don’t harass him, and don’t ever let on to anyone that I gave it to you.’

  ‘Not even Andrew?’ she said.

  ‘Especially Andrew,’ he said firmly. ‘Promise me?’

  She promised, and took down the East London address of a man called Dave Kent.

  ‘I’ll be in touch one evening early next week,’ Hughes said finally. A few hours ago he’d been jubilant that he now had enough evidence to make sure none of the Dexters ever walked London’s streets again. Now he felt only sadness that his triumph was won with this girl’s pain. ‘I’m really sorry about your dad, Charlie. He was a good man.’

  It was only after Charlie had put the phone down that it occurred to her that Hughes must have known Jin. She wondered why he hadn’t admitted it before.

  That evening was the strangest Charlie had ever known, so many different emotions, love, hate, sorrow, bubbling up from within her, and yet a kind of odd relief too that the uncertainty was over. She could give her father a funeral. The Dexters’ reign of terror was finished.

  But as Ivor, Beryl and Andrew all talked around her and at her, grief was the emotion she felt most keenly. There was no faint hope now that her father was alive and well somewhere, perhaps waiting for the right moment to come back into her life. Anger welled up within her at what her mother had endured, their beautiful home gone forever. She wanted revenge. To stand by and gloat as that fiend of a woman was slowly tortured. Prison, even if she got a life sentence, wasn’t barbaric enough.

  She drank a great deal that evening, silently and grimly, refusing to go upstairs with Andrew and allow herself to be comforted. She needed to keep the flame of hate burning inside her for now. Tears were for the weak. Until she finally laid her father to rest she would remain dry-eyed.

  Charlie didn’t remember Ivor and Andrew taking her home to the cottage. The next thing she knew it was morning and Ivor was standing by her be
d holding out a mug of tea and a couple of aspirin.

  ‘I think you might need these,’ he said gently. His eyes were bleary and he smelled of drink.

  ‘I don’t feel too bad,’ she said as she sat up gingerly to find she was fully dressed apart from her shoes. ‘But I suppose I ought to feel terrible if I couldn’t even take my clothes off. I hope I didn’t behave too badly?’

  ‘You were a silent drunk,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘That’s the kind I’m always most wary of, and why Andrew and I didn’t attempt to undress you. But then we were all three sheets to the wind, Beryl included.’

  Minnie came padding in and sloped up on the bed. Somehow her mournful expression and her cheek at getting on to the bed, even in front of her master, said she sensed something momentous had happened to Charlie and she wanted to offer comfort.

  ‘I think I’d better take you for a walk,’ Charlie said, stroking the dog’s ears tenderly. ‘I’m not fit company for humans, but a bit of fresh air and you might make me better.’

  Ivor sat down on the bed too, his eyes as sad as his dog’s. ‘I’m so sorry, Charlie. For once I can’t think of anything else to say. You were having such a good time too, before you got this news.’

  Charlie turned to look out of the little window beside her bed. The harbour was hidden by the roof of the shack in front of the cottage, but the sea beyond was azure blue, and a stiff wind was whipping up white horses.

  ‘Perhaps it’s best I heard here, with all the people I love most around me,’ she said with a sigh. ‘But I think I’ll have to go back to London later today. I’ll get my head together quicker on my own. Andrew can stay on for a day or two.’

  When she got back later from her walk with Minnie, Andrew was in the cottage, talking to Ivor. He hadn’t shaved, his hair was tousled and he looked a bit fragile. His eyes widened in surprise to see her rosy-cheeked and clear-eyed.

  ‘Ivor says you want to go back to London on your own,’ he said. ‘Are you sure?’

  Charlie nodded. Although her first thought this morning had been purely to have a quiet Sunday alone before going back to work on Monday, while she’d been out walking it had occurred to her it might also be a golden opportunity to visit Dave Kent. She knew it was going to be very hard keeping it from Andrew, she had always told him everything. But if she could just see the man, before Andrew got back, maybe she could do it.

  ‘I need time alone, and the police might want to see me. You could come back on Monday or Tuesday. I’ve got to go back to work anyway, and you haven’t got anything on until Wednesday when you go to sign the agreement for that house.’

  ‘You could give me a hand, Andrew,’ Ivor suggested, making them both a mug of coffee. ‘That’s unless you’ve got other plans. The roof on the shack needs a bit of attention and I’m too old to be leaping about up there.’

  Charlie had expected Andrew would protest, and when he didn’t she realized Ivor must have had a word with him before she got back. As always Ivor was very intuitive and after a brief chat he went out leaving them alone.

  ‘How are you really feeling today?’ Andrew asked, pulling her on to his lap and cuddling her into his shoulder. ‘You look fine, but are you?’

  ‘I feel as if I’ve just run through a minefield,’ she said. ‘Can you understand what I mean? Imagine running and hearing mines exploding all around you and thinking you’d had at least one limb blown off. Then suddenly you are safe. You find you are all in one piece. But then you look back and find everything else is destroyed.’

  ‘Not everything. I’m still here,’ he said, holding her tightly. ‘And Ivor and Beryl. We’ll wipe it all out for you between us.’

  Charlie just let him hold her for a while, loving him for always being so caring, and it struck her that he was the really important person in her life, and that she must keep that in the forefront of her mind. ‘At least it’s resolved now,’ she said softly. ‘I can give Dad a proper funeral. That’s something.’

  ‘You ought to contact a solicitor pretty soon,’ Andrew said thoughtfully. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but now they’ve found your dad’s body, it puts a different light on everything. He shouldn’t have been made bankrupt for one thing, his life assurance would have paid off all his debts. That insurance company must be made to pay up.’

  ‘I hadn’t even thought of that,’ she said in some surprise. ‘Who will they pay it to?’

  ‘Well, you, of course,’ he said, smoothing her hair. ‘You are his heir and you’re entitled to it. I expect they’ll take forever, mind you. When my grandfather died they spun it out for a year. That’s all the more reason to put the wheels in motion soon.’

  It did seem terrible to think of insurance money at such a time, worse still to think she might benefit from her father’s death. But Charlie sensed Andrew was thinking more of entirely clearing her father’s name than anything else.

  ‘I don’t fancy speaking to Mr Wyatt. I still haven’t forgiven him for rushing off after Mum’s funeral,’ she sighed. ‘But I suppose I’ll have to.’

  ‘No, you don’t, you can use any solicitor, a London one if you like. They’ll get all the papers from Wyatt. It’s a good way of teaching him a lesson.’

  ‘Or getting a bit of revenge,’ she smiled, suddenly feeling a whole lot more optimistic. ‘I think I could really get into that.’

  On Sunday morning Charlie set off to the East End to see Dave Kent. She had arrived back from Salcombe around eleven at night and she and Rita had stayed up till late talking about the latest developments. Charlie wished she was able to confide in her friend about seeing this new witness, but fortunately Rita had already planned to go home to Essex the next day to see her family, so there was no need to tell any lies.

  Finding the right clothes for the occasion had been difficult. Jeans appeared much too casual, her one and only suit too formal to visit a sick man in the East End. Finally she settled on the same maroon wool maxi-skirt and jumper she’d worn on her first night with Andrew, and as it was very cold, a short brown fur jacket Beryl had passed on because it no longer fitted her.

  Her heart sank as she came out of Stepney Green tube station and saw a sign for the Ocean Estate straight across the road. She had somehow expected it to be small houses, but in fact it was a series of giant blocks of flats, even more forbidding than the ones Angie had lived in at Mornington Crescent.

  As she got closer, she was heartened to see this estate was better maintained, the grass was a lush green, surprisingly rubbish-free, and the children’s playgrounds were freshly painted. Children rode past her on bikes, and one directed her to the second block along and informed her she needed the third floor.

  It was only as she walked along the long landing to his front door that she was suddenly frightened. She had no way of knowing if Hughes had warned Kent she might call. As he was a sick man he might still be in bed. And of course there was always the possibility that he’d be antagonistic at finding her on his doorstep.

  The door finally opened just as she was about to ring the bell a second time.

  ‘Mr Kent?’ she asked timidly. He was a big man, probably in his fifties. Completely bald, wide shoulders but with a chalky white flabby face. He was dressed in a stained blue sweater and jeans that looked much too big for him.

  ‘Who wants him?’ he asked in a curt, gravelly voice.

  ‘My name is Charlie Weish,’ she said. ‘I believe you knew my father, Jin.’

  He just stared at her for a moment. The whites of his eyes were very yellow and the irises pale brown, which gave him an odd, cat-like appearance.

  ‘You’re Charlie?’ he said eventually. ‘I didn’t expect you to be so grown up.’

  Although his expression showed neither surprise, pleasure nor wariness, she was encouraged. His remark suggested he’d known her father for a very long time. ‘Can I come in?’ she asked. ‘I promise I haven’t come to make trouble, just to talk to you.’

  He hesitated for a moment, then nodd
ed and opened the door wider. ‘You’ll have to excuse the state of the place,’ he said. ‘I don’t get many visitors.’

  As he led her into the living room Charlie saw that he had been living alone for some time. The room was dusty and tired-looking. All the furniture – a large three-piece suite, a dining table with matching chairs around it – looked expensive, but worn. An artificial flower arrangement on the table was faded almost white by sunlight, perhaps put there many years ago by a woman in his life.

  Photographs of children had still more smaller ones tucked into the frames, a well-loved teddy bear sat on the television like a reminder of happier times. The large Westminster clock on the mantelpiece had stopped at ten past two. The room was tidy, no cups, plates or full ashtrays lying around, yet there was evidence of Dave Kent’s ill-health, many bottles of pills and medicine on the coffee table and a faint smell of sickness in the over-warm room.

  ‘How did you find me?’ he asked, and sat down heavily, then apologized for his rudeness and said he couldn’t stand for long.

  ‘I persuaded a friend in the police force to give me your address,’ she said, gingerly sitting down opposite him. ‘I know I shouldn’t really be here. But I had to see you. I need to know about my father.’

  He looked puzzled, even confused. Charlie had no way of knowing if he knew anything at all about her, so she quickly ran through the important points of her story.

  ’So you see I know now that he was killed and by whom, the police told me that. But that isn’t enough for me, Mr Kent. In the two years since Dad disappeared I’ve pondered and thought about him all the time. I’ve been angry with him and felt betrayed because I loved him and couldn’t understand why he ran out on us.

  ‘Now they’ve found his body, thanks to you coming forward, I just want to know why, and how it happened. I know the police could probably tell me most of it eventually. But they are strangers, aren’t they? They didn’t know him, and they weren’t there.’

  He looked at her silently for what seemed ages.

  ‘Please,’ she begged. ‘I could cope with his funeral so much better if I knew exactly what happened. I promise you I won’t tell anyone.’