Wishing and Hoping

by Mia Dolan

  ‘Ask the blokes who went partying at the Blue Genie, invited there by Michael Jones’ father-in-law.’

  This was the information she needed. On the whole it hadn’t been a bad afternoon.

  Sally let Lenny drop her home then dialled Sam Kendal’s number.

  The woman who was now named Samantha Kendal poured herself a gin from a cut-glass decanter then filled the glass up with tonic water and thought about the last days of her husband’s life.

  She didn’t usually knock her drinks straight back, but she was remembering the doctor’s last visit. His prognosis had not been good. Her husband was dying.

  She wiped a tear from her eye. Leo Kendal had had no idea that his wife had been married before. Neither had he known that she had a kid nor how she’d come to London in the first place.

  Sometimes in her dreams she again found herself at Victoria train station. She recalled looking around her, wondering what she was doing there. She couldn’t remember arriving, why she was there and where she was from.

  A man she’d never seen before asked her if she was lost. She couldn’t remember answering. All she could recall was him buying her a coffee and saying he would take care of her. He’d done that all right; what was more he remembered her from somewhere though couldn’t recall where. Neither could she.

  Needing a job, a place to stay and, most of all, a name, she’d gone with him. What did it matter if she found herself in his bed? She’d lain there like a block of wood as he’d done what he wanted.

  Disappointed that she’d shown so little enthusiasm, he’d shaken her and told her to lighten up. She hadn’t done so.

  He’d decided that she was a junky and told her he was putting her out on the streets and she’d have to earn her keep. On seeing that she did nothing to attract the punters he decided to earn from her another way. He dressed her up and took her to a nightclub. That was where she’d brained him with a beer bottle when he’d got violent with her for being so unresponsive. The manager had noticed her and given her a job as a hostess. That was where Leo had met her.

  It was the anger that had attracted Leo, that and her beauty. As for the sex, well, he was an old man. If it happened at all it wasn’t very often. Besides he liked having a young beauty on his arm.

  He’d told her his name: Leo Kendal. ‘And what’s yours?’ he’d asked.

  ‘Samantha. Samantha Kendal.’

  He’d laughed at her instantly adopting his name and took it as a sign that he should marry her, so he had.

  Sometimes he’d gone on endlessly about his first wife who he’d admitted cheating on but loving all the same. He’d put her up on a pedestal, missed her badly but only spoke about her in any great detail to Sam.

  Sam had never once shown any sign that she was jealous of the other woman in his life. Why should she? Leo made her feel safe. He was more of a father to her than a husband and at that time being with someone who made her feel safe was better than anything.

  She hadn’t needed anyone else. She could not endure a man to approach her with passion. Eventually, she recalled that it was passion that had brought her to London. Alan Taylor, her first husband’s friend, had raped her. The memories had taken a long time to return and by then her first husband had remarried, had more children and her own daughter, the little girl she’d sat with beneath an apple tree, had forgotten her or cursed her for abandoning her at such a young age.

  Marcie turning up in London had come as something of a surprise and Sam finding out was all thanks to Sally Saunders. It was Sally who had told her about meeting her daughter at a home for unmarried mothers.

  Sighing, she closed her eyes and rubbed at her brow. Samantha Kendal was a very different person to Mary Brooks. The old gentle Mary had died long ago when Alan Taylor had raped her. The only part of Mary left was the part that loved and wished to protect her daughter. On one occasion she’d gone back to Sheppey and followed her daughter. To her horror she’d seen Alan Taylor trying to do the same to Marcie as he’d done to her. Luckily, her daughter had pushed him away and ran. He’d fallen back and hit his head. He’d been near dead when she’d found him. She’d made certain of it before she left.

  The phone call from Sally interrupted her moment of outright satisfaction, the best she’d felt all day. Sally told her about the ivory-cased lighter. ‘It’s Michael’s cigarette lighter. I remember it. Marcie thought he’d lost it. I’m thinking it was nicked.’

  ‘And he had it before the arrest?’

  ‘It’s too big a coincidence to lay it at the door of a member of staff. Rafferty has to have had something to do with it.’

  Sam agreed with her.

  ‘Did you want to see Pete?’ Sally asked. Pete was Sally’s long-term boyfriend – a copper.

  Sam nodded thoughtfully. ‘I think the time is ripe.’

  ‘Oh, and Tony Brooks had something to do with the gun, though the poor sap didn’t realise it,’ Sally added.

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’ Sam muttered. Tony was part of her past. The only good thing about him as far as she was concerned was that he was the father of her child. Apart from that he was nothing to her.

  ‘So how did the gun get there?’ she asked, and Sally told her.

  Chapter Thirty-five

  THE SAME GROUP of Irish labourers that Tony Brooks had taken back to his son-in-law’s club were about to set off for the crummy digs they presently called home, when a big sleek Bentley drew up.

  The driver stayed in the car. Mr Rafferty, complete with his entourage of three lesser associates, headed their way. It was noted by the group that two of the big men who accompanied Paddy Rafferty were slipping their hands into some serious-looking knuckledusters.

  ‘Fuck,’ said one.

  ‘Christ save us,’ said another.

  The four of them had come over to England in order to work, save a little to send home to their long-suffering spouses, and have a bloody good time. They didn’t care that all four of them shared a room and that the bathroom was shared with another half a dozen occupants of the same seedy tenement. It was the money and the bright lights of London they were here for. They’d never had so much money in their lives and being away from the bosom of their family and the Catholic Church was an added bonus.

  The biggest bonus of all was when Paddy Rafferty had employed them to take Tony Brooks on a drinking spree followed by a ‘little private drinking party’ at the Blue Genie. He’d specifically told them to suggest the Blue Genie to Marcie’s father. They hadn’t questioned his reasons; they didn’t care where they drank.

  Tony Brooks had taken little persuading. Drunk as a skunk, he didn’t notice one of their number carrying out the other little job Rafferty had asked them to do. One of them had planted the gun, sliding it out of a plastic bag so that their prints wouldn’t be on it.

  ‘It’s wiped clean,’ they’d been told. ‘And I want it to stay that way.’

  They hadn’t had a clue what the outcome was meant to be. Besides, Rafferty had given them ten pounds each to keep their mouths shut.

  Unfortunately, Gerry Grogan, the man who had planted the gun, had read about the owner of the Blue Genie being banged up for murder and had put two and two together. He’d mentioned it to one of the others who had in turn mentioned it to one of Rafferty’s associates, hence the visit.

  There was nobody around on the building site except for the labourers and the enforcers who’d come to visit them.

  Rafferty and his men stood like a human wall between the Irish and the gate, which the new arrivals had thought to close behind them.

  Paddy Rafferty smiled. He took pleasure from watching the fleeting expressions on the labourers’ faces. They knew what was coming and even though they could usually take care of themselves in a pub brawl, they weren’t so fly in taking on the professionals. And that’s what he and his boys were: professional enforcers through and through.

  Paddy tutted disapprovingly and shook his head. He held his gloved hands behind his back
as he did it.

  ‘You know, boys, I have a great love for the old country and my countrymen. That’s why I go out of my way to help out the likes of you, bringing you over here, setting you up with work and somewhere to stay. Come on, lads, you’re rolling in it, but are you grateful?’

  The four men exchanged nervous looks; the one who had shouted his mouth off to the wrong person in a crowded pub looked the most nervous of all.

  One of the men, named O’Hare, nodded. ‘Of course we are, Mr Rafferty. We’re very grateful.’

  Paddy’s eyes were like sharp needles when he narrowed them, turning their full force on the broad-shouldered Irishman. ‘That’s not what I heard,’ said Rafferty, with a cruel sneer. ‘I heard that you’ve been abusing my generous nature by running me down in public – and to think I gave you extra money, cash in hand for you to go out and enjoy yourselves.’

  Gerry Grogan gulped. ‘I said nothing about the gun, Mr Rafferty. Nothing at all.’

  The needle-sharp eyes that had been eyeing all of them now turned on Gerry Grogan. He was a young man with coal black hair and pale blue eyes. Though not as grossly broad as the others, it was easy to see that the beer and the fat-filled food would ultimately make him the same. For now he was relatively lithe and fleet on his feet. In fact he’d been quite an athlete at school, but that was years and a lot of boozing ago.

  ‘So!’ said Paddy Rafferty with a swift nod of his chin. ‘You said nothing about the gun.’

  Grogan nodded. ‘I did not.’

  He became aware of his friends bunching their fists, preparing themselves for what they all knew was bound to come. Their so-called benefactor, Paddy Rafferty, was going to give them a hammering.

  Grogan wanted to run right now, but counselled himself that he didn’t need to. His buddies would stand by him.

  Paddy gave the order.

  Grogan’s three buddies pressed around, doing their best against the thudding metal cracking their cheekbones and their jaws.

  The Irish labourers were no match for the violence of the East End villains. Blood was flying everywhere along with bits of tooth, snot and drool.

  Judging the fight was going against him, Grogan took off, slipping and sliding over the uneven ground and building site gravel.

  ‘Run, Gerry! Run!’ shouted one of his mates.

  They were doing their best to hold off Rafferty’s men, but failed.

  Gerry Grogan heard the thudding of running feet behind him. He went further into the site, climbing the scaffolding hand over hand although the blood from a cut forehead trickled into his eyes, blinding him to the course he was taking.

  He hadn’t thought that his pursuers would climb the scaffolding too, but they did.

  He ran like the wind along a newly laid concrete floor, climbed more scaffolding onto the next floor where he ran yet again.

  Glancing over his shoulder he saw the top of a head appearing at floor level, then a body and knew the others were not far behind.

  The blood from his wound continued to blind him but he didn’t stop running. Again he climbed to another floor, hoping that they’d get breathless and give up. Men on building sites were naturally agile and used to climbing scaffolding and ladders. He hadn’t expected his pursuers to climb so well. Ultimately he came to the obvious conclusion: they too must have been brought over from Ireland as labourers. They too had once worked on these sites – thanks to Mr Paddy Rafferty.

  On coming to the end of the building, he discovered there was no more scaffolding. Instead a stairway of ladders had been tied one to the other, zigzagging down between floors, first one way then the other.

  With only a second’s pause, Gerry was over. Choosing speed over safety, he shunned using the rungs, instead bracing his feet either side of the ladder and sliding swiftly downwards.

  Off that ladder he came and slid down the second one sloping in the opposite direction.

  On coming to the third he slid to the bottom, undid the ropes tying it in place and watched as it clattered downwards taking planking and pieces of protruding pipe work with it.

  The blood clouding his vision, he looked upwards, just about making out three pale faces looking down at him.

  He didn’t hang around. Terrified out of his wits he had to seek safety. The police station was the obvious place to go, but he’d never trusted the police – not even back in Ireland. There were a few outstanding charges he had no wish to face. Oh no, he had no wish to go back to Ireland but he needed to be safe with people who would not betray him.

  The streets were turning dark and the night was turning cold. Keeping to the shadows he made his way through the gloomy streets until he saw the lights of a church. The sign outside declared it to be dedicated to the Sacred Heart. It could only be a Catholic church with a name like that.

  Exhausted and blinded by blood, he pushed open one half of the church door and staggered inside.

  Chapter Thirty-six

  IT FELT STRANGE driving with Allegra in the car beside her. Tonight they were both having a night off: Marcie from going to the nightclub and Allegra from looking after the children, who were asleep in the back of the car. Carla had offered to look after them. All Marcie had to do was drop them off at Carla’s place on the way.

  Marcie couldn’t help taking furtive glances at her friend who was sitting beside her dressed in a plain black dress. A white headband kept her hair back from her face and a large silver cross hung from her neck.

  Marcie couldn’t help stating the obvious. ‘You already look like a nun.’

  Allegra’s smile was as enigmatic as that of a plaster saint, almost as though she knew a secret that nobody else was party to. ‘I’m beginning to feel like one.’

  Marcie was tempted to say that of course she was; she’d had little to do with men since parting with Victor. In fact it was becoming obvious that Allegra was loath to be left alone with male companions, as though not trusting herself or perhaps not trusting them.

  ‘Little angels,’ said Allegra, looking over her shoulder at the sleeping children. ‘Kiss them goodnight for me.’

  Marcie watched as Allegra alighted from the car and made her way up the steps into the church. A shaft of amber light fell out into the darkness immediately reminding Marcie that Christmas was coming. After Christmas Allegra would be gone and, although it saddened her, she comforted herself with the knowledge that her friend was truly committed to the religious life. It had occurred to her that the action might be some form of repentance for falling into sin and giving the resultant child away. Whatever, if Allegra felt it was the right thing for her at this moment in time, then so be it.

  Inside the church Allegra headed for the confessional. A red curtain covered the door halfway up. The bottom half of the door was made of shiny red mahogany. There wasn’t really that much to confess, so little in fact that she was sure that Father Beretti, who was eighty years old if he was a day, had fallen asleep on the other side.

  He needed a little prompting to wake him up. ‘How many Hail Marys was that, Father?’

  She quite often had to shout and more or less declare her own punishment for some very minor sins.

  A gentle snore came from the other side of the fretwork screen.

  Allegra sighed. It seemed such a shame to wake him. And what for? Because she’d been tempted to contact Victor, purely to ask for his help in fingering the people who had got Michael put in jail? Or being annoyed when she’d broken a fingernail when she’d been scrubbing the bathroom floor? She used to have a daily come in and clean for her. Now she did it herself, considering it fitting practice for the convent life to come.

  As she sat there contemplating what to do next, the oak door to the church opened and shut rapidly. Hurrying footsteps tapped over the white marble floor.

  Thinking that some other poor soul was in greater torment than she was, Allegra came out from beneath the red velvet curtain.

  The person who had come in from the cold fell onto his knees. Blood from
a gaping wound dripped onto the floor.

  Allegra gasped. ‘You poor man!’

  His eyes were curtained behind a veil of blood. He tried to open them but could surely see little. ‘Sister! Help me!’

  His chest was heaving. His hands were dirty and, despite the wintry night, he was soaked in sweat.

  She reached out her hands. He grabbed them with as much fervour as a drowning man.

  ‘You’re hurting.’

  He apologised. ‘I’m sorry! I’m sorry! But you have to help me.’ He looked terrified.

  ‘Do you wish to confess? The priest is . . .’

  She was going to say that the priest was already in situ awaiting the next abject sinner in need of forgiveness. She didn’t get the chance.

  ‘I did something terrible and a man was arrested for murder. I did it for money and to impress my pals. Rafferty told me to do it. “Put the gun in the desk drawer,” he said, and I did it. And then I got drunk and told a few people and Rafferty got to her. He’ll kill me, he will that. Will you help me, sister? Will you help me?’

  Allegra’s first thought was to contact the police but the moment she mentioned doing that the man, who gave the name Gerry Grogan, went berserk.

  ‘I can’t go to the police, woman! I’m wanted meself back in Ireland. No way! No bloody way!’

  On flicking the blood from his eyes, he seemed to come to and suspect that he wasn’t speaking to a nun at all.

  Allegra thought quickly. It was imperative that she heard what he had to say. Michael had been incarcerated unfairly, that much was for sure. Now here, within her grasp and in the Holy Mother Church, was the key to everything that had happened.

  ‘Wait,’ she said, glancing swiftly over her shoulder to see if the din had awoken the old priest. ‘Come on. I’ll take you into the presbytery.’

  Once they were alone together, she got him to sit down. She even found a drop of communion wine to loosen his tongue. It wasn’t really meant for such occasions, but she prayed God would forgive her, seeing that it was all in a good cause.