The Liverpool Trilogy

by Ruth Hamilton

  In spite of dawdling, Seamus reached the Co-op before the last customers had completed their shopping. He sat on the wall and waited until his dad appeared at the door and ushered out the stragglers. ‘Dad?’

  ‘Hello, son. Here.’ Tom threw half a crown which Seamus caught deftly. He needed no instructions. He was to go to the Fat Ladies’ Chippy and buy fish, chips and peas, which he and his dad would share. The favourite times in his life thus far had been Dad days. He loved going out with Granddad, loved all his family, but sharing a meal with Dad was Seamus’s idea of bliss. Well, it would be bliss if he didn’t have to spoil it all with … By the time he got back, Dad’s staff had all gone home, so there were just the two of them.

  They sat at Tom’s desk in the office and ate from the paper with their fingers.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Tom asked.

  Seamus shrugged. He didn’t know where to start.

  ‘I can tell there’s something bothering you. I’ve eaten more than my fair share of these chips already.’

  Seamus opened his mouth. ‘It’s a funny name for a chip shop. They’re fat, and they don’t care, do they?’

  ‘It’s called marketing, Seamus. They turn a negative into a positive and sell more chips.’

  ‘Right.’

  Tom studied his son. The lad couldn’t sit still at the best of times, but he was a bag of nerves today. ‘I haven’t much to do here this afternoon, so I’m ready when you are.’ He paused, waited for a reply, got none. ‘You’d best get on with it, because your mam and your gran are going to need help down yonder.’

  Seamus swallowed audibly. ‘It’s bad. If I tell you, there’ll be trouble. And if I don’t tell you … well … I have to tell you.’ He took a deep breath. ‘Thursday midnight, Gran’s getting on a coach in town and travelling to London. She’s got a ticket hidden with pictures of our Michael and our Finbar in that big chest of drawers in her bedroom. If you tell Mam, there’ll be murder. They’ll be like two cats in a dustbin.’ His shoulders dropped slightly as the tension left his body. Dad was in charge now.

  Tom stopped eating. ‘How the blood and sand did you find out?’

  ‘Mooching and rooting when I was off school. I didn’t know what to do or who to tell. Gran – well – she’d hit the roof. Mam would start on Gran, then they’d both hit the roof. Granddad’s a bit old, Reen’s daft—’

  ‘So that leaves me.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hell’s bells.’

  ‘I know,’ Seamus said. ‘But with me having an imagination, I’ve got an idea. Will you listen to it, Dad?’

  ‘Course I will. All contributions received with gratitude, son.’

  So the plan poured from Seamus’s troubled mind and into a room in which the aroma of cured bacon flitches mingled with the heavenly scent of ground coffee.

  Silence ruled for several seconds. ‘You’re quite a clever boy, aren’t you?’ Tom asked.

  Seamus nodded. ‘See, if you tell Mam before Thursday, you’ll be stymied. She’ll go for Gran’s throat, and that’ll mean war. So you have to get Friday and Saturday off work, and pack some of Mam’s stuff and yours without her noticing. That won’t be easy. I’ll help if I can.’

  Tom’s fingers drummed on the desk behind which he sat. ‘So, suitcase in the boot, take your mam out to the pictures, then for a meal—’

  ‘Yes, and make sure it’s gone eleven before you leave the restaurant.’

  ‘Which gives me just about an hour to tell your mother and calm her down. Then we follow the coach.’

  ‘Yes. Because if you bought tickets and rode on the same bus, there’d be murder on a moving vehicle.’

  Tom blew out his cheeks and exhaled. ‘Like the Orient Express. Then we get to Victoria Coach Station and wait for a man to pick her up. And we follow him—’

  ‘To the Kray house, yes.’

  Tom couldn’t eat any more. Three shots from a tiny gun, three bodies, three machine guns, three helpers when it came to disposal, three months in his own silent, crazy world. Roy helping him. Roy with the girlfriend who looked like Maureen, the girlfriend who’d almost died at the hands of a serial rapist and murderer. He hadn’t visited Roy for ages, because life was packed to the brim with work and with helping his mother-in-law at Scouse Alley. Scouse Alley, scene of his crime.

  ‘Dad?’

  Tom pulled himself together. ‘You’ll have to stay with your granddad or our Reen.’

  ‘I’m not stopping with her. Jimmy got her some secondhand furniture, but all she goes on about is wanting new. It’s either that or babies. She’s like a record with the needle stuck. Anyway, Granddad will need me. Because you can’t tell him, either. He’s going to be upset when you all go – if you do it my way. So he will definitely need me.’

  It occurred to Tom in that moment that he had an extraordinary son. The poor boy must have lived with his ill-gotten knowledge for several days, and he’d taken it upon himself to find a feasible solution. ‘I’ll have to do what you’ve done, Seamus. I’ll have to think. But it seems as if you’ve worked out the only sensible solution. Let’s just hope I can keep that coach in sight for two hundred miles.’

  Seamus nodded. ‘It stops a few times at all-night cafés. If you have to leave the car, be careful in case Gran notices you. Take food. If you need the lav, be extra careful, or you could come face to face with her. It won’t be easy, Dad.’

  ‘I know. And another thing I know is that I’m proud of you. No, you shouldn’t be rooting in Gran’s bedroom, but on this occasion, I’m glad you did. And thanks for working it out, son.’ He wrapped the cooled food and took it to an outside bin. It was a bitterly cold day. By Thursday, life might well become hotter than hell.

  On the same Saturday, Don Compton walked into Injun Joe’s tepee. In reality, it was an office, but it was made smaller today by a rack from which hung many of Joe’s disguises. Three overalls covered in paint, mud and oil were separated from the rest at one end of the rail. Cleaner items, including suits, shirts and ties, were arranged at the opposite end of the metal rod.

  A table against one wall was covered in wigs and hats. ‘Heck, Joe. What’s this? A fancy-dress hire shop?’

  Joe raised a hand. ‘How,’ he said gravely.

  Don removed his hat and sat down. The walls were covered in feathered headdresses, photographs of people termed Red Indians, lengths of cloth hand-woven by the same people, wise sayings translated into English, hundreds of peace pipes and some paintings produced by Navajos. ‘How,’ he replied eventually. ‘Is that what I say when I answer the phone? How?’

  ‘No. We work as white men.’

  ‘And speak with forked tongue?’

  Joe laughed. ‘You taking the urine?’

  ‘No. Why are all these clothes here?’

  ‘Your missus will collect them Monday for cleaning. The rest are still in the walk-in wardrobe. I often disguise myself when following people for clients. Sometimes I’m a window cleaner, sometimes a painter – whatever, I try to blend. So, are you ready to start?’

  ‘I am. But you know what you said about training me up for field work?’

  ‘Yes?’

  Don studied the man across the desk. He had what might be best described as a lived-in face with a big nose, big ears, skin like tanned leather and thinning hair scraped back in a ponytail. He spent a month of every summer with natives, moving round American settlements in a hired car. No wonder he looked weather-beaten.

  ‘Yes?’ Joe repeated.

  ‘I’ve got a limp from Dunkirk. I’d get noticed if I followed somebody.’

  Joe shook his head. ‘No. People would never suspect a man with a limp. It’s called a double bluff. If they think they’re being followed, and if they catch sight of you, no way will they believe anybody in their right mind would send somebody with a limp. So not only are they being watched, they’re being watched by a man they’ll dismiss immediately from their thoughts. After a few minutes, they won’t even see you. Then, when
you come back and tell me where and when, I take over.’

  ‘Right.’ It was all as clear as mud, but Don had to go along with it. ‘I want to hire you,’ he said.

  Joe’s eyebrows travelled up his lined forehead. ‘Divorce?’

  ‘No. Quite the opposite, if I’m honest.’

  ‘So you’re looking for somebody else’s wife or husband? Because I know you’re still with Tess.’

  ‘I’m looking for a lot of wives. And brothers, uncles, nieces, second cousins, first cousins, cousins twice removed—’

  Joe held up a hand and stopped the flood. ‘Right, that’s it. This calls for a stiff drink. Will you join me in a single malt?’

  ‘Would we both fit in the glass?’

  Joe stood up. ‘If I leave out the ice, we might just manage.’ He poured two hefty measures and passed one to his new recruit. ‘Cheers. Start again, please.’

  Don passed an envelope across the desk. ‘It’s all in there. Rileys. Started coming over early this century – many will be second or third generation by now. Somewhere in County Mayo originally. And don’t tell Tess. I don’t want her to know what I’m up to. She had an unhappy childhood, and she’s never let it go. There’s one in Waterloo, I think. She survived Clive Cuttle’s final attack.’

  Joe stood up and paced about in the narrow space between desk and window. ‘I remember that. Glad he got killed. But if Tess doesn’t want to see her family, why—’

  ‘Because they’ll be different now. To get rid of her past, to stop the nightmares, she needs to see them as they are now. It’s all written down in the envelope. Some slept in gypsy caravans. There was an orchard, there were horses. The old man made poteen and sold it all over the place. Some will remember that, and younger members of the family will have been told the stories.’

  ‘Are they all in the Liverpool area?’

  ‘No idea. Some may have emigrated to America, Canada, Australia—’

  ‘Hang on. Are you suggesting I go abroad?’

  Don reassured him. ‘Just find as many local ones as you can.’

  So it was all agreed. Don would take a cut in pay, and Joe would find Tess’s missing links. Not all of them. But, with luck, enough to put an end to many years’ disturbed sleep. She deserved some peace, didn’t she? Between them, they polished off half the bottle. And it was a twelve-year-old single malt Scotch …

  Fourteen

  ‘Where the blooming heck have you been till this time? It’s gone seven o’clock. Ten hours? Who works a ten-hour day? I’ve been worried sick.’ Tess could see the pain etched into her husband’s face. He was pale, too. Don wasn’t one who allowed his hurts to show, because whatever he went through nothing could ever be as bad as Dunkirk, where he’d been among the luckier men. One of the many good things about Tess’s husband was his refusal to sulk. This was pain, real pain, and it was upsetting her.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he muttered. ‘Don’t fuss.’ She worried about him. He mattered to her. Even in a state of exhaustion, he managed to experience a dart of elation. Tess was a beautiful woman with a frightened heart. For better, for worse, and for all points between, she was his. ‘I’m just tired out, love.’

  ‘Have you been walking on that leg?’ she asked. He looked terrible, and she hated seeing him in such a state. Injun Joe should have more sense than to run her Don into the ground like this. Already disabled by war, he needed more damage as much as he needed smallpox.

  Don achieved a tight smile. What did she expect him to do with that leg? ‘Legs are for walking on, Tess, and I’ve only the one pair. And I can’t leave the bad one at home. My other leg might be quite lonely without its twin. How would I screw it back on again, anyway? I’ve a feeling it got cross-threaded way back in 1940 when I hit the ground so hard that I dented the beach and nearly caused an earthquake—’

  ‘Stop the clever talk, Gordon Compton. Your dinner was nearly in the squizzles, because the greedy little beggars will eat just about anything. And our Sean’s wearing that hungry look he collects at work every day. I had to tell him no when he asked if he could eat yours, so he’s upstairs with two salmon sandwiches and a plate of jam tarts. I sometimes wonder whether that lad has a tapeworm. Sit.’ She pointed to Don’s usual place. ‘And don’t moan at me if it’s gone a bit claggy in the oven. Wait till I see Injun Joe – I’ll crown him with one of his totems, and I shan’t tell you where I’ll stick his peace pipe, because I’m a lady.’

  He sat. It occurred to him that the lady no longer existed in the bedroom, and he was very pleased about that. He glanced down at claggy gravy. Claggy was a word she’d picked up from her mother way back. Did she remember her mother and dad? Would she know any of her brothers and sisters if she passed them in the street? Would she even want to know them? Tess was such a complicated soul. She’d always been difficult, but he understood her at last. He should have tried harder and earlier, because she was a woman worth knowing.

  A ‘ta-ra’ was followed by the slamming of the front door. Sean must have eaten his fill at last.

  ‘And your eyes look funny,’ Tess said as she left the kitchen.

  Alone, he stared bleakly at a couple of chops that looked as if they’d seen better days about a hundred years ago. He didn’t know whether to eat them, or to have a go at soling his shoes with them. God, he was tired. His eyes looked funny? So would hers if she’d been forced to endure what he’d been through. Anne-Marie followed her brother. Thank goodness for that; there’d be no rock and roll pouring down the stairs this evening. A diet of Elvis Presley and Bill Haley was probably worse than these blinking chops. If he didn’t shape, Don would fall unconscious right here in the kitchen, his face resting on two pieces of dead sheep. In fact, if Tess pegged him out on a clothes line, he might sleep a full eight hours.

  Injun Joe was … enthusiastic and in disgustingly rude health. Within a matter of days, he had located every male Riley from Liverpool, the Wirral, Chester and Warrington. There were dozens of them. Each real candidate unearthed and visited today knew another whose surname changed when she married a man called … What had been his name now? Endless phone calls, ages spent poring over electoral registers and baptismal records – it was hard work.

  Those located were checked thoroughly regarding a white house with a black door, exploding sheds, an open-fronted barn with four gypsy caravans parked side by side, orchards, potato fields, valuable horses and a granddad who was said to have died with a ticket for Liverpool in a pocket. It had been a bloody long hell of a day, but thank God for Tess’s memory and her ability to describe her childhood home.

  House calls. Always children in the mix, sometimes a gran who remembered vividly being in Mayo, often a parent whose dead progenitor had spoken about the wild days. So many tales, so much vivid description. From time to time, they weren’t the right Rileys, and those occasions were easier, because there was no calling over the shoulder, ‘Mary, come and tell about the day when the granda caught on fire and you all beat him half to death with rugs and blankets.’ Endless cups of tea, pieces of cake, slices of buttered soda bread, the odd tot of Irish whiskey. In the end, Don had become an automaton, nodding and shaking his head as appropriate, grateful for the journeys in Joe’s car from one Riley address to the next. If he’d heard that name one more time, he might have ended up in a mental hospital with rubber walls.

  He pushed away his plate. He felt as if he would never eat another meal in his life. This Irish lot seemed to be of the feast-or-starve school of thought, as most Rileys had gone from nothing to plenty, and they shared their plenty with visitors, all but nailing them to their chairs until they’d consumed a variety of offerings. Eating was compulsory; the refusal of food and drink constituted an insult against the cook of each establishment. Insult the provider of sustenance, and you annoyed a whole family, so going with the flow had been their only option. That was another thing about Injun Joe – he clearly had a bottomless appetite.

  Tess returned. ‘I’m sorry, love. Are you ill?
’

  Don shook his weary head. ‘Just weary-worn. I’ve been learning my new trade in case he wants me out on field work.’

  She tutted. ‘You’re not fit for field work. Did he not give you a tractor?’

  Knowing that his wife was being deliberately daft, he shook his head sadly. ‘They’re not used to agricultural doings down the Dingle and in Sefton Park. We were looking for somebody who’s gone missing. I mean, most of the time, I’ll be in the office taking details and booking appointments, but Joe says I need to know what the business is about. He’s quite right, I suppose.’

  Tess sat opposite what was left of her poor husband. ‘Who’s gone missing?’ she asked.

  And he wanted to tell her that she was the missing person, that he and Joe had been searching for her huge clan. At this rate, they’d need to book St George’s Hall for the reunion. ‘Erm … a bloke with three kiddies and a young wife. He went to the shop for bread and milk last week, never came back.’

  ‘I wonder why he did that?’ she pondered aloud.

  ‘His wife’s a mitherer. He was probably escaping from prison.’

  Tess pursed her lips. ‘Are you saying I’m a mitherer, Don Compton?’

  ‘I wouldn’t dare. You’d only batter me with the nearest weapon, and there are too many knives and rolling pins in this kitchen for my liking.’

  She jumped to her feet. ‘Right, let me have five minutes. I’ll run you a nice, hot bath, then I’ll give you a massage.’

  Alone again, Don closed his eyes. So many of them. Siobans, Oonaghs, scores of Marys, several Theresas, Maureens, Kathleens, Eileens. There were half a dozen Josephs, a few Johns, some Jacks, one Malachi, a Finn, a shedload of Michaels – was it time to stop? Padraigs, then the English version, Patrick, and some fellows who knew other folk who’d married Rileys and moved on to America. A Jean and a Joan were twins in Canada, while a Stella had gone to Australia on the ten-pound ticket and now owned thousands of sheep. Though according to the tale-teller, she was having a bit of trouble with rabbits and a giant kangaroo … Oh, how he needed sleep.