Eve of the Isle

by Carol Rivers

  Peg was asleep by the fire when the sound of the key being drawn through the letterbox woke her.

  She sat up, her eyes wide and staring. Everything came pouring back. Eve, Charlie and Jimmy. Where were they?

  ‘Peg! Peg!’ Jimmy burst in. His spiky brown hair was standing on end over his black eye.

  Peg wondered if she was still dreaming. ‘Christ, lad, what is it?’

  ‘We’ve found her! We’ve found Eve!’ he cried, running towards her. ‘She fell in the old shake and shiver!’

  Peg went ashen and reached out to steady herself.

  ‘But Charlie saved her. You should have seen—’

  Peg gulped in a breath. ‘Slow down, lad. I can’t take it all in.’

  ‘Honest to God I thought she’d drowned, but he got her breathing again!’

  ‘She nearly drowned?’ Peg repeated feeling faint. She slumped back on the chair.

  ‘Here, take a sniff of this.’ He reached for the smelling salts.

  ‘Just tell me this, is she all right?’

  ‘It was touch and go. She must have swallowed half the river. Charlie’s bringing her in. Said I should give yer a bit of warning.’

  Peg pushed herself up. ‘I’ll put some water on and we’ll get her in a hot bath.’

  She stumbled to the kitchen, trying to think what to do first. Eve had nearly drowned. How had it happened? With shaking hands she filled the saucepans and put them on to boil. The tin bath was hung on a nail on the closet door. Peg didn’t have enough strength to bring it in. Her bones felt weak with shock.

  Slowly she lowered the pulley and took off the drying towels. When she returned, Charlie was laying Eve on the couch.

  ‘Out of the way you two,’ croaked Peg, pushing them back. ‘Make yourselves useful and bring in the bath, then bugger off as I want to get these wet clothes off her.’ She looked into Eve’s ashen face. ‘It’s all right, ducks, you’re safe now,’ she whispered as she began to undo the buttons. But she didn’t get far before Eve’s hands reached out to hold her as the tears fell.

  Eve felt as though she was drifting in and out of reality. She lay in bed under the warm covers still feeling cold even though the sunshine was streaming in the window. She couldn’t stop thinking about those mossy green struts sticking up from the river bed as she fell between them and the strange feeling of otherworldliness before the water had rushed up from her lungs. It was as though she had been there, watching the scene as Charlie tried to make her breathe. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to tell him she was all right but then suddenly she was in Charlie’s arms, feeling the cold, and the terror that she wouldn’t see her boys again.

  ‘How are you, love?’ Peg came in with a tray. ‘Look what Joseph’s brought down for you.’

  Eve eased herself up on the pillows as the bowl of steaming stew was placed before her. ‘What day is it?’

  ‘Monday.’

  ‘I’ve lost track of time.’

  ‘Seeing as you was nearly drowned, it’s not surprising.’

  Eve didn’t have much of an appetite but she would try to eat to please Peg as she knew that her old friend was very concerned.

  Peg sat on the end of the bed. ‘I packed the boys off to school this morning although they didn’t want to go. There might be a few visitors later as I kept everyone out till now, so’s you could rest.’

  ‘Do they know what happened?’

  Peg laughed. ‘You can’t keep something like this a secret. Now finish that soup and then we’ll see how you feel about getting up.’

  ‘Peg?’

  ‘What, ducks?’

  ‘I’m sorry to have caused all this trouble.’

  ‘You’re back safe and that’s what counts.’

  ‘Peg, I lost me money bag.’

  ‘Did them buggers take it?’

  ‘I don’t know. But it was all the day’s takings.’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. You’ll soon make it up.’

  When Eve was alone she gazed round the room. Her eyes were hungry for things she thought she would never see again. The boys’ bed that Joseph had given them, the shelves full of her bottles and the photograph of her parents. Why had she gone off alone to Shadwell? Instead of finding Charlie and asking for help she had sat on her high horse and gone her own way. Who was it that had tried to kill her? She remembered voices, a strange language and being roughly carried somewhere. But it was the river she remembered most, the water coming over her . . .

  ‘Eve, Eve!’

  Peg was shaking her.

  ‘What . . . what happened?’ Eve felt as though she had been in that dark river again.

  ‘You must have dozed off, love.’

  ‘Did the tray fall?’

  ‘Yes, I heard the crash and came running up.’

  Eve saw the broken bowl and soup over the floor. She burst into tears.

  ‘Now, now, it’s not the end of the world. You’re still suffering from shock, so you go ahead and have a good bawl. You’ll soon be back to normal.’

  But Eve knew that it was going to be hard to feel normal again.

  Later that morning Eve dressed. Her limbs felt stiff and sore but she was lucky to have only a few bumps and bruises to show for her recent experience.

  ‘Sit in front of the fire, you’re still cold,’ Peg told her after she had walked round the house and into the yard to breathe in the fresh air.

  The warmth went into her chilled bones as she sat in Peg’s chair.

  ‘I’ll make a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘Don’t fuss, Peg, I’m all right.’

  ‘Yes, but a cup of tea always helps.’

  As she went out to the kitchen, Jimmy came in. ‘So Sleeping Beauty has woke up?’

  ‘Jimmy, I’m sorry.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For going off like that.’

  He patted her shoulder and sat down. ‘Yeah, well you did give us all a scare.’

  ‘What’s wrong with your eye?’

  He told her all that had gone on since Friday night. How he had found Charlie and of their drive to Shadwell to look for her. ‘So I knocks on a door and an ugly mush opens it,’ grinned Jimmy. ‘I took an instant dislike as he lands one on me.’

  ‘Oh, Jimmy!’

  ‘Then just as he was about to plant another, Charlie turns up and counter-attacks. Blimey, Eve, you should have seen him.’

  Eve felt distressed that it was because of her.

  ‘Anyway,’ rushed on Jimmy, ‘when we gets back, Peg tells us Archie’s dropped you at the park. So me and Charlie goes off again. This time we strike lucky with the Drunken Sailor.’

  Eve shivered at the memory. ‘I saw these men in the back room. One of them was Singh. The landlord said he wore a jacket with brass buttons. But I must have fainted.’

  ‘Then what?’

  Eve’s eyes filled with tears. ‘They put a cloth over me head and tied my hands. I couldn’t see who it was or where we was going. Jimmy, I thought it was curtains when I fell in the river.’

  ‘If it wasn’t for Charlie it might have been. He jumped in and I thought it was the last I’d see of the pair of you. Then all of a sudden he’s pulling you out of the water onto the foreshore.’

  Eve frowned, shaking her head in confusion. ‘I can’t remember. I thought I was looking over his shoulder.’

  Jimmy laughed. ‘No, gel, you must be a bit confused. You was lying on the mud not standing behind him.’

  Eve didn’t say anything. But she couldn’t forget what she thought she had seen.

  ‘And then Charlie done this artificial res-per-whatsit. Like pressing on yer chest and pulling your arms back.’

  Peg brought in the tea and Jimmy began to tell it all over again. Eve sat with her own thoughts. Something mysterious had happened that night. She didn’t understand what, but she knew that she owed her life to Charlie.

  ‘Peg said you fell in the river.’ Albert sat at her feet and Samuel on the arm of the chair when they arrived bac
k from school. ‘Did you see Old Father Thames?’

  ‘No, ’course not. Now tell me what you did today.’

  ‘Sister Mary gave us a star for our catechism,’ said Samuel, wrinkling his nose. ‘And for going to confession on Saturday.’

  ‘I’m very proud of you. What about those rough boys?’

  ‘Didn’t see ’em today,’ replied Albert. ‘It was Charlie that saved you, wasn’t it?’

  Eve smiled. ‘Yes it was.’

  ‘Jimmy told us he done a rescue. A good one an’ all.’

  ‘It was a very good one,’ Eve agreed.

  ‘He come round yesterday with Jimmy’s bike but we was at Mass.’

  ‘You’ll see him another time.’

  Peg came in with a tray of yet more tea. ‘Well now, all of us together for once. Jimmy you’re early. Did you get the push again?’

  ‘Yeah, but it don’t matter as I’ll soon get something else.’

  Eve sat up in alarm. ‘Was it because of me?’

  ‘’Course not.’

  But Eve wasn’t sure she believed him. Once again the tears pricked.

  As she blew her nose there was another knock at the door. Joseph entered carrying a large pot. ‘Refuah sheleimah, dear Eve. A full and peaceful healing,’ he said lowering the pot so that Eve could smell the delicious aroma. ‘Eat this broth and your recovery will be assured.’

  Everyone was being so kind. But for some reason their actions only made her feel more responsible for the worry she had put them through.

  It was early on Monday morning when Charlie walked into the station. As he pushed open the door, Sergeant Moody stepped out from behind the desk.

  ‘Constable Merritt, take these files into the office and sort them out,’ he boomed. ‘I want every one labelled in nice big black capitals and filed in alphabetical order.’

  ‘Yes, Sarge, but I er . . . wondered if I could speak to you first on a personal matter.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Something happened at the weekend and—’ Charlie began but was cut short.

  ‘Run away from ’ome have you?’ demanded his superior. ‘Your mother gone and packed your sandwiches in a street map, has she?’

  Charlie knew his superior was of the old school, believing that at twenty-seven, a bloke should be married with a wife and kids of his own, not still enjoying a single life.

  ‘And where’s your uniform?’

  ‘I’ve only just arrived, Sarge. I came early to ask—’

  ‘It’s Sergeant Moody to you and don’t you forget it,’ he was interrupted again. ‘And remember it could be this week or the next or gawd knows when, but the top brass will be looking over our shoulder like vultures, even hanging from the bloody ceiling in order to show us how to do our own jobs. In other words how to catch criminals. So, lad, I don’t want a laughing stock made of my patch. The super would hang me out to dry without a second’s thought if it meant a choice between his job and mine, so don’t pass wind or pick your nose without looking behind you first.’

  Charlie’s spirits sank. He had forgotten that Scotland Yard’s special Mobile Patrol, formed only about eight or nine years before, was taking a special interest in the East End and Moody had been treading on hot coals ever since. Now nicknamed the Flying Squad because of their quick appearances on the scenes of armed robberies and professional crime, the elite group of police officers was held in both esteem and fear by the lower ranked officers. Charlie sighed inwardly, realizing it was completely the wrong time to talk about what had happened at the weekend.

  ‘Well?’ Sergeant Moody demanded, his thick eyebrows colliding. ‘What are you waiting for? A flamin’ knighthood?’

  ‘No, Sergeant Moody.’

  ‘Get off with you then. And remember: I want this station running like clockwork.’

  Charlie made his way down the passage to the changing rooms. Now what was he to do? Yesterday he’d tried to see Eve, but had been sent packing by Peg. He had hoped to discover more of what had happened to her in order to decide what to do. Without her consent and cooperation, he couldn’t officially take things further.

  Charlie rubbed his chin thoughtfully as he opened his locker. In talking to Moody first he had hoped to gain his superior’s understanding if not his sympathy. No chance of that now. With the Flying Squad at his heels, Moody would work to the book. He would demand an explanation as to why an officer had continued with enquiries into a closed case. Charlie knew this was a serious breach of the rules.

  As he put on his uniform, the memory of Eve’s deathly pale face kept coming to mind. Whoever had left her in that death-trap of a hut, had to be found and prosecuted. A few seconds more under water and she would have been beyond his help. He would never forget the desperation he had felt as he’d tried to get her breathing again. And the wave of relief when she finally did.

  Why had they done that to her? Had someone overheard her conversation with the landlord? Was there another more sinister motive connected to Singh?

  There were voices along the corridor. Robbie strolled into the changing room with another P.C. ‘Hello there, you old reprobate,’ he called coming over to slap Charlie on the back. ‘Where were you on Saturday night?’

  Charlie looked blank. ‘What?’

  ‘We had an arrangement, remember?’

  Charlie rolled his eyes. ‘Sorry, mate, I forgot.’

  ‘The girl was very upset. She was looking forward to meeting you.’

  Charlie was about to explain what had happened when he thought better of it. The last discussion they had had about Eve hadn’t gone down too well.

  ‘She’s some looker too. If I wasn’t seeing Venetia, I’d fancy her myself.’ Robbie smirked as he opened his locker.

  Charlie shrugged as he pulled on his jacket. ‘I’m sure Johnny stepped into the breach.’

  ‘He did indeed. Good man, Johnny. Knows how to enjoy himself.’

  Charlie wasn’t going to take the bait. He wasn’t at all disappointed to have missed out on an evening that would have ended in having to excuse himself early. Now that the football was over for the summer, Robbie seemed hell bent on living life in the fast lane again. His social life was now wine, women and gambling to excessive degrees. After the Diana Thomas affair, Charlie would have thought his friend had more sense, especially as he’d had the nerve to warn him off Eve.

  ‘Where were you, then?’ Robbie asked, seemingly unwilling to let the subject drop.

  ‘Nowhere special.’

  ‘Come on, man of mystery, own up.’

  ‘Certainly not at the Ritz,’ Charlie evaded. ‘I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in me mouth.’

  ‘Nor was I, but what the hell! Women only go for looks and what you tell them, not for details on your birth certificate.’ Robbie grinned.

  ‘Did you see Moody on your way in?’ Charlie asked quickly.

  Robbie shrugged disinterestedly. ‘I don’t know what all the fuss is about. If you ask me the Flying Squad is nothing more than a glamorized bunch of cowboys.’

  ‘You don’t mean that, surely?’

  Robbie returned a mirthless grin. ‘Oh, pardon me, I forgot, we’re still supposed to believe in heroics, aren’t we?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Charlie, feeling foolish. ‘But the Squad have achieved very impressive results.’

  Robbie looked serious. ‘So you really do believe they’re better than you or me?’

  ‘Not better perhaps, just quicker.’

  ‘I can see stars in your eyes, laddo,’ his friend mocked. ‘I suppose if that’s all you want to do with your time – swan around nicking easy targets . . .’ Robbie began combing his blond hair in the mirror above the washbasin.

  Once more Charlie refrained from speaking his mind. It was a bit rich, he thought, insulting the Flying Squad like that. Robbie’s attitude seemed to be close to cynical now. Was his friend losing interest in his work again?

  As Robbie returned to the subject of Venetia Harrington and the vari
ous clubs they had trawled through on Saturday night, Charlie realized that he could no longer really talk to his one time pal. Robbie had other things on his mind these days.

  And it certainly wasn’t his job.

  Eve was beginning to feel more like her old self by Wednesday. The apple cider infusions that she drank each day and the crushed lavender heads that she rubbed into her joints were working. She wanted to forget about Shadwell and get on with her life.

  But when Archie called round that afternoon, Peg was quick to tell him what had happened.

  He shook his head in disbelief. ‘And I thought you was having a romantic interlude!’

  ‘Knew she wasn’t,’ muttered Peg as they sat in the kitchen.

  ‘I’d have looked for you too, gel, if I’d known.’ He scratched the stubble on his big chin. ‘Come to think of it, I should ’ave turned the cart round when I saw you walk past the park.’

  ‘Wouldn’t have made any difference,’ said Peg, glancing at Eve. ‘Like a dog with a bone she is when she wants something.’

  ‘Don’t I know it,’ Archie agreed. ‘Good thing an’ all as she got herself back into business whereas many would’ve given up.’

  ‘Archie,’ Eve interrupted, ‘would you ask Queenie to send me some stock?’

  ‘You going back to work then?’

  ‘She ain’t this week,’ said Peg, flattening her palms on the table. ‘She’s just back from the brink of death.’

  ‘On Monday p’raps?’ ventured Archie, giving Eve a sly wink. ‘I’ll tell Queenie to sort you out a nice bit of stock.’

  ‘Archie, I lost me money bag.’

  ‘Did those sods take it?’

  ‘I don’t know. But how will I pay Queenie for the stock?’