Kitty Neale 3 Book Bundle

by Kitty Neale

  He was going to die – he knew he was going to die and seconds later, John fainted.

  Nora had been terrified when she woke to find a man wearing something over his face roughly binding her wrists. She had thrashed, but he had hit her, telling her to lie still and to keep quiet. He’d taken his gloves off to pull a piece of stuff from a roll to stick over her mouth and she’d seen his hands. They looked funny, scary, and she’d cringed from them, but then he went away and she was so frightened that he’d come back if she wasn’t a good girl, that she hadn’t moved.

  Nora didn’t know when she fell asleep again, or what time it was when she woke up. For a moment she was confused to find that her arms had been pulled together in front of her and her wrists tied, but then she remembered. The bad man! The bad man had come!

  She lay still, listening, but could hear only noises outside in the High Street. When she had fallen asleep it had been dark, but now it was light, so it must be morning. The bad man only came in the dark. He must have gone now and she dared to sit up.

  Nora wanted to tell Pearl about the bad man, and though her wrists were bound she managed to pull off the nasty stuff over her mouth. Ouch, it hurt, and her cheek was sore where the bad man had hit her. ‘Pearl … Pearl!’ she called.

  Pearl didn’t come so she tried again. ‘Derek! John!’

  Nobody came, so Nora bent forward and tried to untie her ankles. It was so hard and it took ages to loosen the knot, but at last she did it and stood up to stumble from the room.

  ‘Pearl,’ she whimpered, finding that nobody was up yet.

  A familiar voice in her head said, Go upstairs, and Nora nodded at the command. She went into Pearl’s room, her eyes rounding like saucers. Dead! Bad man had made Pearl dead!

  John was making funny noises, blinking rapidly, and she bent down to pull the sticky stuff from over his mouth. ‘Help … get help …’ he croaked.

  She just stared at him, but then he said, ‘Go, Nora … run outside. Find someone.’

  Eddie White was wondering why Derek hadn’t turned up to open his stall. He was fussy about his display of china, taking great care to show it to the best effect, and was always one of the first to arrive. Eddie looked up at the flat above the shop, but the curtains were still drawn across all the windows.

  When another half-hour had passed with no sign of Derek, Eddie walked across to Harry, but he couldn’t offer any explanation, saying that Derek hadn’t said anything to him about not opening up that day.

  For some inexplicable reason Eddie had a bad feeling about it. Something was wrong – he was sure of it and he headed for the shop to see if he could rouse anyone.

  Eddie wasn’t aware that at the same time, Nora had run downstairs, or that she couldn’t open the locked door. He thumped on it with his fist, then bent down to look through the letterbox, shouting, ‘Pearl! Derek! Are you in there?’

  A pair of eyes suddenly appeared to meet his and Nora cried, ‘Help! Pearl dead!’

  Eddie reeled back in shock, but then he swiftly recovered and urged, ‘Let me in, Nora.’

  ‘Can’t. Door locked.’

  ‘Where’s Derek?’

  ‘He on the floor,’ Nora sobbed.

  Eddie knew he had to get in, and quickly from the sound of it. ‘All right, Nora. Stand back, there’s a good girl.’

  Eddie ran back, then forward to put his shoulder to the door. Nothing happened, so he tried again, and this time it crashed open. ‘Nora, where are they?’

  ‘Uppastairs. Pearl’s room.’

  He ran past her, thumping up the stairs, and for a brief moment paused, shocked. Pearl was covered in blood but somehow Eddie held it together as he ran forward to crouch beside her, sure at first that she was dead until he found a faint pulse.

  ‘Is she … is she …?’ John cried.

  ‘It’s all right, she’s alive,’ Eddie broke in as he quickly checked John and then scrambled across to Derek. He was alive too, but barely conscious, and Eddie rose hurriedly to his feet. ‘I’m going to call an ambulance,’ he told John. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

  The call made, Eddie turned to see Nora watching him, her face streaked with tears as she stuttered, ‘P … Pearl … Pearl.’

  ‘She’s hurt, but she’ll be fine,’ he told her, hoping he was right.

  Nora followed him up to the bedroom, watching ashen-faced as he again checked on Pearl before he untied them all. ‘John, what happened?’ he asked.

  ‘Two men, they … they must have broken in,’ he said, his limbs shaking. ‘Thirsty … I … I’m thirsty.’

  ‘Nora, can you get John a glass of water?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, scuttling off.

  John looked a little better after gulping it down, but he was frantic about Pearl, and Eddie willed the ambulance to arrive. If they didn’t get here quickly, he feared she wouldn’t make it.

  ‘Is everything all right up there?’ someone shouted and Eddie recognised Harry’s voice.

  He went out onto the landing, calling out, ‘Pearl’s been shot and Derek’s unconscious. We’re waiting for an ambulance. Can you keep an eye out for it?’

  ‘Bloody hell! Yeah, all right.’

  At last it arrived and they carried Pearl out first, followed by Derek. Though both John and Nora were able to walk, the paramedics said that they should be looked at too.

  Eddie watched the ambulance drive away, and then did his best to secure the door while Harry and other costermongers plagued him with questions. One bloke who had a hardware stall offered him a padlock and between them they managed to affix it to the door.

  Left holding the key, Eddie didn’t know what to do next. He knew that Lucy was going to be in a right old state when she found out, but better to tell her before she turned up for work.

  Eddie asked Harry to keep an eye on his stall and then set off for Bullen Street, the image of Pearl looking so close to death remaining in his mind. He wasn’t one for religion, but found himself inwardly praying that it wasn’t too late for the doctors to save her.

  Though concussed, Derek was desperate to find out how Pearl was, and struggled to sit up. ‘I want to see my wife.’

  ‘Mr Lewis, I’ve told you,’ the nurse said, ‘she’s undergoing surgery and you won’t be able to see her until she comes out of the operating theatre.’

  Derek didn’t know what had happened, why Pearl had been shot. His only memory was waking up to see her on the floor before he’d passed out again. The next thing he was vaguely aware of was being loaded into an ambulance. ‘Where’s my son? Is he all right?’

  ‘He’s fine and in the waiting room. If you behave yourself I’ll fetch him in to see you.’

  Derek scowled at being talked to as though he was a child, but the movement had made him feel nauseous again and he flopped back onto the pillows.

  ‘Good,’ the nurse said. When she went to the waiting room, Derek kept his eyes on the door until John appeared.

  The lad looked awful, his face pale and eyes red-rimmed, but seeing him he rushed up to the bed. ‘Dad … Dad! Are you all right?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine, what about you?’

  ‘I’m not hurt,’ John said.

  ‘Have you heard anything about your mother?’

  ‘No, they … they won’t tell me anything,’ he said as fresh tears filled his eyes. ‘All I know is they rushed her straight to the operating theatre and that was over an hour ago.’

  ‘Come on, son, don’t cry. She’s in good hands,’ Derek consoled, hoping against hope that he was right. ‘John, what happened? Who shot your mother?’

  ‘I … I don’t know, only that he was a tall man wearing a balaclava. But … but he was aiming the gun at me, not Mum. She shielded me, put herself in front of the man and took the bullet. It’s my fault, isn’t it? My fault Mum was shot!’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t your fault. I don’t know who that evil bastard was, but he was the one who pulled the trigger.’

  John then pu
t his head onto the bed, crying in earnest. Derek felt ineffectual as he stroked the lad’s hair, while trying to work out why the man had broken into the flat. He had to wait some time before John pulled himself together and then said gently, ‘John, the bloke who broke in. Do you know what he was after? Did he say anything?’

  ‘There were two of them, and when the one with the gun pointed it at me, he said something about Dolby spawn.’

  Derek frowned. ‘Is that all?’

  John thought for a moment, but then said, ‘Af … after he shot Mum, he spoke to the other man, said something about having to drive somewhere. He told him to tie us up, and then I think he went to do the same to Nora.’

  ‘Blimey, I’d forgotten Nora. Is she all right?’

  ‘Yes and when she found us I told her to get help. The police tried to talk to her, but you know Nora and it was a waste of time. All she kept going on about was a bad man with funny hands. She isn’t here now. Lucy turned up and took her home.’

  Derek tried to make sense of it all. Two men had broken in, one it seemed intent on killing John. He’d called the lad Dolby spawn and that surely meant it had something to do with Kevin. Who had Kevin upset enough to want a revenge killing? The man had failed, he’d shot Pearl instead, but would he try again? ‘John, have the police spoken to you?’

  ‘Yes, and they want to talk to you too. The doctor told them they’d have to wait.’

  Derek didn’t want them to wait any longer. The sooner he told them about the danger John was in, the better.

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Lucy had taken Nora back to her own flat and was doing her best, but placating her was proving almost impossible.

  ‘Told you!’ she cried. ‘I told you bad man coming.’

  ‘I know you did, love, but I thought you meant Kevin.’

  ‘No! It bad man!’ she wailed, tears again filling her eyes. ‘He made Pearl dead, Lucy.’

  ‘No, no, Pearl isn’t dead. She’s in hospital, you know that. You went with her in the ambulance, and they’re going to make her better,’ Lucy said, hoping desperately that she was right.

  ‘Not dead?’

  ‘No, darling.’

  ‘Go see her,’ Nora appealed. ‘Go see Pearl.’

  ‘Not yet, love. She’s having an operation.’

  ‘I go now!’ Nora insisted. ‘I go see Pearl.’

  ‘I told you, not yet, but maybe later.’

  ‘Not later! Now!’

  Nora was beginning to behave like a petulant child, but Lucy managed to remain calm. ‘Darling, listen to me, we’ll go to the hospital as soon as we can, but before that we have to make everything nice for when Pearl comes home. Would you like to go to the flat now and help me to clean it up?’

  ‘Yes, yes, we do clean.’

  ‘Come on then, let’s go,’ she said, relieved that Nora was quiet now.

  ‘Is there any news?’ Eddie asked, hurrying up to her when they approached his stall.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t got a telephone, but I’ll use Pearl’s to ring the hospital.’

  ‘Do you want a nice banana, Nora?’ one of the costermongers called.

  She trotted over to him, while Eddie said, ‘You won’t be allowed in Pearl’s place yet. The police are in there, probably searching for fingerprints or something.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of that. What am I supposed to do with Nora? She won’t settle at my place and I need to keep her occupied.’

  ‘From what you’ve told me, if you give her your vacuum cleaner it’ll keep her happy.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose I can find some housework for her to do at my place, but she might play up when I try to take her back. Oh, Eddie, I just can’t believe this has happened to Pearl and Derek.’

  ‘None of us can.’

  ‘Do … do you think Pearl’s going to make it?’ Lucy asked.

  ‘To be honest, love, I don’t know. She looked really rough, but I did find a bit of a pulse so cling on to that. Where there’s life, there’s hope, Lucy.’

  She nodded, but as Nora came back clutching her banana, Lucy was fighting tears. She had to remain strong for Nora’s sake, but Pearl had come to mean so much to her and it was hard not to crack.

  Derek was thankful that the two men from CID had taken him seriously. Without a description of the men, Derek doubted they’d be found, but as John had been the target they were going down to Dolly’s cottage to interview Kevin.

  In the meantime, Derek didn’t want John to be left alone, and he would make sure he remained at the hospital until the police could arrange protection. Yet even if he’d been able to leave, Derek knew that John would refuse to go until they had news of Pearl’s operation.

  Another six hours of almost unbearable anxiety passed before they were told that Pearl had survived the operation. The bullet aimed at John had been on a downward trajectory that missed her heart by a fraction, but this uplifting news had been tempered when the surgeon went on to explain his concerns about her spine. Pearl would remain in intensive care, immobilised and sedated, and at the moment they weren’t allowed to see her.

  They had both been so relieved that she’d survived, John crying again with emotion, and it was some time later before they considered the ramifications of the surgeon’s words. John was the first to voice his thoughts. ‘What did that surgeon mean about Mum’s spine?’ he asked.

  ‘He said something about the bullet causing some sort of damage, but to be honest I was so over the moon to hear that she was all right that I hardly took it in.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘I’m sure someone will come to talk to us again and then we’ll ask more questions,’ Derek said.

  ‘Mr Lewis, this really can’t go on, you know,’ the ward sister complained as she came up to his bed. ‘You are only supposed to have visitors during set hours. Your son will have to leave now.’

  ‘He isn’t going anywhere without me,’ Derek said. ‘John, find my clothes.’

  ‘Dad, you’ve only got your pyjamas.’

  ‘They’ll have to do then.’

  ‘Mr Lewis, you can’t get up,’ sister protested. ‘You’ve had a severe blow to your head and you’re concussed.’

  ‘Try and stop me. In fact, I’m going to discharge myself.’

  ‘I’ll get the doctor,’ she said, huffily bustling away.

  Nothing was going to keep Derek in bed now and he wasn’t worried about wearing pyjamas. They weren’t going to leave the hospital yet so he’d hardly be an uncommon sight. He’d find the intensive care unit, and there was sure to be a waiting room where they could sit until allowed in to see Pearl.

  At the moment Derek’s head was pounding too much to think beyond that.

  At five o’clock the same two men from CID, one called Riley, the other Shaw, found them in the waiting room. Thanks to a sympathetic nurse Derek now had a hospital dressing gown over his pyjamas. She’d also lent him a few bob so they could go to the canteen for something to eat – the nurse was a proper angel in Derek’s eyes. He’d pay her back as soon as he got hold of someone to fetch him some clothes and money, but he also intended to buy her the biggest box of chocolates he could find.

  ‘Sorry, son, but would you mind waiting outside?’ Riley said.

  John didn’t look happy, but he went off without argument. Both men sat down, but Derek was the first to speak. ‘Well, did you talk to Kevin Dolby?’

  Riley again did the talking. ‘No, it wasn’t possible. A fire gutted the cottage last night, and the fire brigade have found the remains of a body. I don’t think there’s any doubt that it was Dolby, but positive identification hasn’t proved possible yet. The brigade investigation team have indicated that the fire was set deliberately.’

  ‘Do you think it was the same two blokes?’

  ‘Yes, and this makes it a murder enquiry. We have little evidence to go on yet, but they’re the focus of our enquiry.’

  Derek frowned. ‘They only found one body in the cottage?’
/>
  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘But I’m sure I told you that Dolby had a young woman staying there with him.’

  ‘You did, but there are indications that she escaped the fire. The local police had a report in the early hours of the morning about a young woman seen stealing garments from a clothes line. When it was daylight, they found a charred nightdress close by that she must have left behind.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘There haven’t been any further sightings of her, so at the moment, we don’t know,’ Riley told him.

  Derek found that his thinking was still a bit muzzy and it was hard to take it all in. Kevin had died in a fire, and though the police asked him questions about Adrianna, there was little he could tell them. He didn’t know how John was going to react on hearing that Kevin was dead, but as the police were going to question him again too, there was little he could do to prevent him finding out.

  John had been through so much lately and Derek feared the lad would fall apart. With Pearl in intensive care John would need him. Struck by a sudden thought, he rubbed a hand over his face. Had anyone been in touch with Emily? Did she know that Pearl was in hospital?

  ‘I think that’s all, sir. We’ll talk to John now.’

  ‘Not without me sitting in you won’t, but do you know if anyone has been in touch with my wife’s mother?’

  ‘Not that we know of, sir.’

  ‘Then before you talk to my son, I’ve got to make a phone call.’

  Emily was called to the headmaster’s office, and after listening to Derek on the telephone she was close to fainting. She found herself sitting on a chair and a glass of water had been put in her hands, then she became vaguely aware that Mr Chapworth was talking to Derek.

  He replaced the receiver and came to speak to her. ‘I’ve assured your son-in-law that you’re all right. You are, aren’t you?’

  ‘I … I think so. It was just such a shock.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll find someone to take over your class, but is there anyone I can call to take you home?’