The Woman From Heartbreak House

by Freda Lightfoot

  ‘Of course she didn’t. This is Lucy we’re talking about. Why would she, when she needs every last penny for herself?’ Kate stepped closer, aware of a quick, indrawn breath from Toby behind her, who was clearly concerned for safety. Kate folded her arms, smiled again and tried not to breathe in too deeply. ‘It must have been harder still for you when the factory went bankrupt. I hope you aren’t expecting any more money from her, because you’ll never get it. Even if she succeeds in marrying poor Bunty off to some rich suitor, no money will come in your direction, you can be sure of that.’

  ‘Why the bleedin’ hell do you think I’m living in this midden? This is all her fault, the nasty piece of shite.’

  ‘So you would not be against getting your own back? Settling a few scores for her ill treatment of you?’

  The silence this time was heavy with tension, Swainson’s eyes narrowed against a thin curl of smoke threading up into his greasy hair from the cigarette butt clenched between his thin lips.

  ‘Well? Wouldn’t you like to see her suffer for a change?’

  He removed the cigarette and tossed it to the dirt floor where it smouldered dangerously for a moment before he finally pressed his booted foot on it. ‘I’d like to string her up meself.’

  The police came for her shortly before breakfast on Monday morning. Lucy was irritated to be so disturbed when she was about to sit down to grapefruit and kippers. A cup of fragrant coffee had already been poured for her.

  ‘Constable Brown, Sergeant, this is remarkably early for you. Whatever it is, it will have to wait,’ she imperiously informed the two policemen. ‘I could call into the station later today, if there are matters still to be discussed.’

  ‘We’d rather you came with us now,’ said the sergeant. ‘I’m sure you’ll be happy to assist us with our investigation.’

  ‘I shall finish my breakfast first,’ Lucy snapped.

  ‘No, Mrs Tyson, I think not. There are a few important questions we’d like answering. And time, as they say, is of the essence.’

  ‘Oh, very well,’ Lucy said. ‘I shall be heartily glad when this whole business is over and done with.’ Turning to the aunts, who were wide-eyed with curiosity, she instructed them to keep Bunty within doors. ‘And do keep my kippers warm. I’m sure this won’t take long.’

  In that surmise she was to be bitterly disappointed. Once at the station, the police calmly informed her that they’d spent the previous afternoon being presented with fresh evidence which had thrown new light on to the entire sequence of events. ‘Your friend, Ned Swainson, has been singing like a canary, probably desperate to save his own neck.’

  Shock registered on Lucy’s face, in a slackening of the muscles around her mouth, a snap of the neck as her chin jerked upward. ‘There must be some mistake. Swainson is no friend of mine.’

  ‘So he informs us. Nevertheless, he has been most helpful with our enquiries, describing certain tasks he carried out for you. Something to do with several dead rats. Do you recall anything of the sort?’

  ‘Absolute nonsense!’

  Constable Brown held up a notepad for her to see. ‘I always keep my old notebooks. You never know when some piece of evidence will come to light. And it says here that there were two rats.’

  ‘Well, there you are then,’ Lucy blustered. ‘Swainson always did love to exaggerate.’

  ‘Ah, so you do remember? You and he are indeed acquainted then?’

  She had begun to shake. ‘No, of course we aren’t. I am simply referring to an unfortunate infestation which upset my sister-in-law, who was quite out of her mind with grief at the time. Whatever else he may have told you is a lie, a lie I say! He has done nothing but make a nuisance of himself. I should have made an official complaint.’

  ‘A nuisance in what way, might I ask?’

  Lucy’s lip curled. ‘Insinuating himself into my life and pestering me.’

  ‘It isn’t true then that you were offering him personal favours in lieu of cash for these certain matters he carried out for you?’ the sergeant blithely enquired.

  Her face bleached of all colour. ‘How dare he suggest such a thing? We had no dealings of any kind.’

  Constable Brown again held up his note pad. ‘Then let us check his evidence, see if we can jog your memory. Item one, repairing of a damaged car wing and headlamp following the fatality on Aynham Road. Item two, disposal of a witness to said accident. Item three - now this one I find particularly distasteful - placing a small amount of rat poison in a child’s milk drink. Flora is, I believe, the girl’s name. That could have turned very nasty indeed, don’t you agree? One grain too much and ... well, it doesn’t bear thinking of.’ The constable shook his head, clicked his tongue and grimaced.

  Panic gripped Lucy, fogged her thoughts. ‘It was him, not me. He’s the guilty party. It was all Swainson’s idea. He drove the car, not me.’

  The sergeant sat up, suddenly alert. ‘Ah, so you are now saying that the driver was not Callum O’Connor, after all, but Swainson?’

  ‘Yes! No!’ Lucy could no longer think straight. Fear and panic had muddled her thought processes. Which man should she blame? Her desire to condemn both, and save herself, was creating total confusion in her head. The questions fired at her over the next half-hour only served to distract and infuriate her all the more.

  Yet the sergeant relentlessly continued, in his calm, matter-of-fact manner. ‘To sum up, we believe you were the driver of said vehicle. It was you who drove the car that day. You who deliberately knocked down your brother-in-law in order to inherit as much of Tyson’s Industries as you could get your greedy hands on. To this end, you also attempted to frighten your sister-in-law by leaving rats about the place and making her child ill, and then by implying that she was mad and having her incarcerated in an asylum for a period of almost a year.’

  ‘She is not my sister-in-law! Kate O’Connor is a dirty little whore from Poor House Lane.’

  Lucy was on her feet, shrieking and screeching her fury. ‘Eliot had no right to marry her, no right to bring her into our house and deprive my children of their rightful inheritance in favour of that brat of hers. I’m glad that I killed him, do you hear? Glad! He deserved to die for betraying us, the stupid man.’

  As the silence lengthened in the room, only then did it dawn on Lucy to what she’d confessed, and she let out a horrified wail.

  She didn’t hear the words of the charge, never felt the handcuffs as they were clicked on to her plump wrists, far too intent on screaming out her innocence to the high heavens. Sadly, no one was listening to her, since her undoubted guilt would take her to the gallows where she would be hanged by the neck until dead.

  ‘I can hardly believe it, but it’s over at last,’ Kate said, on a sigh of relief.

  She and Toby had collected Callum from the police station cells and taken him home to Heversham where there’d been a touching reunion between him and Bunty. Now they were in the garden, enjoying a breath of welcome fresh air after all the trauma.

  ‘Over and done with, at last, except for that dreadful Elvira Crombie of course. I mean to have her defrocked, charged with assault, removed from her post, whatever one does to dragons of her ilk who take pleasure in hurting the innocent. You’ll help me, Toby, won’t you?’

  ‘It will be my pleasure.’

  There was a small silence. ‘And after we’ve slain the dragon, what then? You’ve no other little project in mind?’

  ‘Only a wedding, mebbe,’ Kate said, watching the young couple stroll off together into the evening dusk, a soft smile playing about her lips. ‘Sure, and don’t I adore a wedding? We’ll have a really good do. Irish jigs, the lot. Don’t those two love birds deserve the very best, after all they’ve been through?’

  Toby slid an arm about her waist to pull her close. ‘I don’t suppose you’d consider making it an even more special event, by turning it into a double wedding?’

  She lifted her face to his, eyes bright with love. ‘You know, I ne
ver thought you’d ask.’

  ‘And what have you to say, now that I have?’

  Kate regarded him in silence for a moment, then remembering his own reaction when she’d told him about the shoe shop she planned to open, said, ‘About bloody time.’

  Now Read a Sneak Preview of For All Our Tomorrows

  Chapter One

  The oranges rolled across the narrow street, bouncing on the cobbles and bumping seductively against the feet of the two young women. Children were running helter-skelter in the Cornish sunshine, giggling with excitement, eager to catch one of these glorious golden orbs as they were tossed and rolled with such reckless generosity.

  Gasping in amazement, the younger of the two women snatched one up, to sink her pretty white teeth into the flesh.

  ‘This is wonderful!’

  Juice spurted, running down her chin to leave little orange blobs on the bodice of her print frock as she greedily stuffed segments of fruit into her mouth. Not that she appeared to care one bit, nor that her expertly coiled, soft auburn hair had shaken loose from its pins as she’d run down the steep hill of Lostwithiel Street. All she wanted was to keep pace with the trucks, jeeps, gun carriers and goodness knows what else which were parading through Fowey town, and catch another of these glorious fruits.

  She lifted her face to the grinning man high above her in his vehicle, and laughed.

  Her sister too was laughing as she chased one orange, clearly heading for the town quay, while tossing a second to the child running excitedly beside her.

  Other women were doing exactly the same. After four years of war, many of the children had never seen such a thing in their lives before and their mothers had almost forgotten the delicious, bitter-sweet taste.

  Nor had they ever seen men like these.

  These men didn’t carry the weariness of war on their shoulders, nor were they dressed in utilitarian battle dress that didn’t quite fit. Even their vehicles were blazoned with stars and nicknames such as ‘Just Jane’, ‘Lucky Lucy’ and ‘Cannonball’. These men were fresh and smart and young, bristling with sexual energy which not a girl or woman in the crowd didn’t recognise as such.

  Bette Tredinnick certainly did. Her hazel eyes were teasingly provocative as she tore the skin off the fruit with her teeth. ‘More please. Give me more!’

  ‘What’s it worth, honey?’ the marine mischievously asked her.

  ‘Name your price,’ Bette shouted back.

  ‘Hon, the captain would kill me with his own bare hands if he heard me make such a suggestion in a public place.’

  Bette made a show of innocence as she shielded her eyes against the sun and gazed back along Fore street in the direction of the jeep that was leading the parade. ‘Take a chance. He isn’t listening and I’m open to all reasonable offers.’

  ‘See you later then, sweetheart, down by the quay.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ she called, just as his vehicle swept away to be swamped by the crowd.

  Sara Marrack, having made sure that both her children were each provided with the delicious treat, began to delicately peel her own orange, for once making no comment about her younger sister’s bold flirtatiousness but laughing with her, enjoying this unexpected holiday along with the rest of the flag-waving townsfolk.

  Bette should be in their mother’s hairdresser’s shop, cutting and styling, and herself doing chores at the Ship Inn. But women in curlers were openly joining in the fun and the pub was fortunately closed till lunch time, so here they were, along with everyone else, stealing time off work to witness the arrival of these American marines.

  They’d come by train only days ago, arriving at Fowey station in the pouring rain on a gloomy autumn day. Now the sun was shining and everyone had turned out to give them a hearty welcome.

  There had been times when no one had quite believed that this moment would ever come, in spite of the preparations made in recent months by the Construction Battalion, the Sea Bees as they were called, whose task it was to prepare quarters for the expected friendly invasion. They’d erected rows and rows of Nissen huts up at Windmill, a field high above town, cleared one or two beaches of mines and coils of barbed wire so that training for some operation or other could safely take place.

  No one quite knew what that might be, but it had something to do with all this talk of the Second Front.

  Sara didn’t care that there were jobs she should be doing, floors to scrub, beer pumps to flush out, or that when Hugh returned from his regular weekly trip to the brewery he would take her to task for neglecting them. What did it matter if she got a bit behind for once? This was an historic day for the town. Even the teachers recognised it as such, and had honoured it by closing the school and allowing their pupils to run down the hill to meet these new arrivals who had come to help win the war.

  None of the other businesses in town were doing much trade either. The women who, moments before, had been queuing with their empty shopping baskets outside the greengrocers, hoping for half a cabbage or a turnip or two for the stock pot, were now revelling in the acquisition of much choicer fruit. Children no longer had their noses pressed against Herbie Skinner’s ice-cream shop window.

  Even an elderly man in the process of being fitted for a new suit at Williams the tailors, stood grinning on the pavement, uncaring of the pins holding it in place.

  The townsfolk of Fowey had long since grown accustomed to disruption, to anti-aircraft guns, to the boom across the mouth of the River Fowey which had to be negotiated to allow for the passage of friendly shipping. They no longer paid any heed to Pillboxes and searchlights, and took for granted the activities of the river patrol on constant look-out for spies and saboteurs. They accepted the need for muster points and fire wardens, the ARP and all manner of other defence measures deemed necessary in case the posters plastered all over town warning of the threat of invasion, proved to be correct.

  IF THE INVADOR COMES, screamed the headline. WHAT TO DO – AND HOW TO DO IT. STAY PUT was the chief message, instructing civilians not to block the narrow Cornish lanes which would need to be kept clear for military movement, for OUR OWN BOYS TO COME TO YOUR AID.

  But it was the American marines who had come with their amphibious craft, rolling into their small town as if they owned the place. They were now the occupying force and the people of Fowey couldn’t believe their luck.

  As the last of the trucks disappeared along Fore Street, teachers began the difficult task of shepherding reluctant children back to their desks, shops opened their doors for business again and normal life resumed, at least momentarily.

  Bette returned to the salon and a frustrated Nora Snell, her small round head still tethered to the permanent waving machine which was in turn fixed to the ceiling.

  ‘Did you miss them?’ Bette mischievously enquired, recognising the expression of frustration in the woman’s inquisitive little eyes. ‘What a pity.’

  ‘Not so’s you’d notice,’ said Nora, as ever determined to have the last word. ‘I could see everything through your window here, though a good clean would do it no harm at all. If you can find the time midst all your gallivanting.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, Nora, to be a model citizen, as you and the town council expect, though I can’t promise. My talents lie in other directions, rather than on the domestic front. Isn’t that right, Mam?’ Bette added, as her mother breezed in and reached for her pink, floral overall from its hook behind the door, before getting back to work.

  Sadie gazed upon her daughter with a jaundiced eye. ‘I’d say the day you willingly lift a finger to do a bit of cooking or cleaning, or any sort of hard work for that matter, will be the day pigs start to fly and it rains pink elephants.’

  ‘There you are, what did I tell you?’ said Bette, apparently well satisfied with this damning opinion upon her character.

  Sara too was hurrying back to work. It was as she ran across Trafalgar Square that she slipped. A final vehicle, an army jeep had unexpectedly rounded the c
orner just as she approached the front door of the pub. Sara took a step back, attempting to avoid it but her foot skidded on a piece of orange peel left carelessly about, and she went flying, falling with an uncomfortable and embarrassing bump onto her backside.

  She lay winded for a second, half aware that the vehicle had stopped and the driver was rushing across to her. She put up a hand and managed a smile. ‘I’m all right. Nothing broken. Don’t panic.’

  ‘Here, let me help you. I didn’t see you there. Jeez, I nearly ran you down. You’d have been Spam, for sure.’

  Sara couldn’t help but laugh and then winced as a pain shot through her behind. ‘Oh dear, perhaps I spoke too soon. I do feel a bit sore. Bruised on fragile portions of my anatomy, I should think.’

  ‘And it’s all my fault.’

  ‘Well, you were driving rather fast for these narrow streets,’ she gently scolded him.

  ‘Right. You’re absolutely right, ma’am.’

  With his assistance, Sara managed to get to her feet, saying she could manage very well now, thank you, but he insisted on taking her right to the door, taking her keys to unlock it for her and helping her inside.

  He seemed pleasant enough, for all he was a reckless driver, an officer too, judging by the two stripes and star on his uniform, and earnestly anxious to put things right. He brought her a glass of water, even started to dust down the skirt of her dress but then stopped himself, flushing slightly with embarrassment.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ he kept saying, over and over. ‘Hey, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘If you were late before for the parade, you must be even more so now. Hadn’t you better report to your unit?’

  ‘I guess so, but I hate to leave you like this.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, I’ll be fine. Really!’ when still he showed no sign of moving.

  He had the kind of physique one would expect of a soldier, rather broad and robust, not at all in keeping with the fuss he was making. His hair was dark brown with a slight tendency to curl, dampened slightly from beads of anxious moisture forming on a high brow.