The Fight for Lizzie Flowers

by Carol Rivers

  Danny froze as he looked up at the plain-clothes policeman. Did they suspect he had something to do with the dead man’s drowning? ‘How do you know Frank shafted me?’

  Bray smiled as he leaned back on the chair positioned at the table. He threw the packet of cigarettes on its filthy surface. ‘I know all about you. I know everything there is to know. I know because I’ve done my homework. The man you identified as your brother turns out to be one Duncan King, late of Whitechapel. Thief, bookie’s runner, grass, small-time black marketeer, you name it, King tried it. Now, a week or so after you’d given us the nod in the morgue, King’s missus paid us a visit. She was complaining her other half hadn’t shown up for a while. But King was a fly-by-night, a shape-shifter – even she admitted that – so we dismissed it. Then, a couple of months later, she pays us another visit. This time she slaps a tatty black book on my desk, claiming it was her old man’s bible and he never left the house without it. I ask her why she hadn’t found it before. She says it was hidden, that she’d torn up every floorboard in her search for a few bob. King kept his swag well hidden, especially from her. The book, she insists, was his bible with all his punters’ names and how much they owed him. So the good lady is convinced her husband is deep in the shit. And after going through this new evidence, we are convinced too. The man has enemies. Lots of them. He lost more on the gee-gees than he ever made from his life of crime.’

  Danny studied the policeman’s face. The unkempt greasy brown hair, flaky skin and unhealthy pallor of a hard-drinking, hard-living copper who was after a collar. Without lowering his gaze, Danny scraped back his chair and leaned his elbows on his knees. He frowned slightly as he said, ‘I didn’t know the man.’

  Bray nodded slowly. ‘In the week we brought up the body from the river we had five deaths in six days. Four didn’t match our lad. But the fifth, in appearance, height and stature, did.’ Bray grinned showing uneven browned teeth. ‘So we dug him up. And guess what?’

  ‘What?’ Danny steeled himself.

  ‘Our soon-to-be grieving widow identified a birthmark on her husband’s backside. It was the size of a half-crown, the closest our thief ever got to the monarchy’s boat race.’ He paused. ‘So here we are, you and me, having this nice little chat.’

  ‘I was wrong, I’ll admit,’ Danny said.

  ‘That’s good of you,’ Bray sneered sarcastically.

  ‘I don’t know King. I wasn’t his friend or his enemy. I believed the dead man was my brother. It was a simple mistake.’

  ‘A simple mistake to you. Might be the answer for us.’

  Danny nodded understandingly. ‘So I’m up for the frame, am I? You’ve got hassle from your superiors and want to tie up the loose ends. I’m nothing to you, so you ask around and there’s plenty of punters who’ll tell you what you want for a couple of bob.’

  ‘Your brother is alive, as you well know.’

  ‘I didn’t,’ Danny objected. ‘Until this morning. But I have an idea you know about Frank turning up at my wedding.’

  Bray raised his eyebrows speculatively. ‘So how do you feel about that?’

  ‘How do you think?’

  Bray smirked unpleasantly as he stood up and ambled round the table in his crumpled suit. He stubbed his dog-end slowly in the ashtray. ‘So tell me, why shouldn’t I book you for the murder of Duncan King? I say you knew him, owed him, fell out, smashed his face in, ditched him in the river. And when he surfaced, identified him as your brother. Problem solved. Two birds with one stone.’

  ‘Except, you’ll never find my name in that black book.’

  Bray’s eyebrow twitched. ‘Maybe your name didn’t get written down.’

  ‘You just told me Duncan King kept a bible. If I’m not in it, what interest did he have in me?’

  Bray meandered to the door, stuck his hands on his hips and stared at the floor. ‘You think on your feet, Mr Flowers.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  Bray looked up. ‘Why should I believe you?’

  Danny leaned back on the hard chair and licked his lips. His mouth was dry and his arm was really aching. ‘Why would I deliberately misidentify Frank? If I knew it wasn’t my brother, and Frank was to walk back into my life the very next day, I’d have some explaining to do.’

  ‘You might be a gambler, Mr Flowers. One of King’s punters. Being pressed himself, perhaps he came after you for payment. Wanted what was his. And you didn’t have it.’

  Danny swallowed hard. ‘I’m not a betting man, Detective. I’m a businessman. I don’t have a fondness for throwing away hard-earned cash.’

  ‘Ah, yes. You make a few bob on the motors. What kind of business is that?’

  ‘A legitimate one,’ Danny replied coldly.

  The policeman paused. ‘So how much did it cost you to set up this so-called legit business?’

  ‘That’s none of your business, squire,’ Danny answered shortly. ‘But I can tell you that there was a For Sale board on the land and it came down when I bought the freehold. I have papers to prove it and you are welcome to inspect them whenever you like.’

  ‘You must have been desperate,’ Bray commented rudely. ‘Morley’s Wharf ain’t been used in years.’

  ‘That’s right, it’s old marshland and gone to the dogs. The water breaks through the wall in winter and in summer it’s as dry as a bone with no irrigation. But for my purposes it suits.’

  Bray looked at him curiously. ‘So let’s talk about your brother. Did he have any connection to King? And what have you to say to his untimely return from the dead? After all, he’s responsible for making it all go tits up for you today.’

  Danny forced himself to keep calm. Bray was looking to needle him, get a result. And it was almost working. ‘I’ve nothing to say about Frank,’ Danny replied stubbornly.

  ‘You hated him for taking your girl, isn’t that right? And wouldn’t any man get the hump over that? But you swanned off to Australia. It was odds on your brother went after her in your absence.’ Bray glanced slyly at Danny, adding, ‘And had her.’

  Danny could remain seated no longer. Without realizing what he was doing, he sprang from the chair and landed on the surprised policeman. Thrusting Bray against the wall of the interview room, he pushed his face into the copper’s. At the same time two uniformed policemen ran in and caught him by his arms. They dragged him back and pinned him over the table; a fist landed in his side and a boot in the back of his leg. Danny tried to resist, but was landed a punch square in the mouth. Blood trickled warmly from his lips.

  ‘Sit him down.’ Bray’s voice was soft, menacing. ‘Touched a nerve, did I, son?’ He jerked his dirty jacket back into place.

  ‘Leave Lizzie out of this.’

  Bray leaned his palms on the table. ‘Why should I?’

  Danny looked up angrily. ‘Because you think you know it all, but you don’t know anything.’

  Once again Bray’s dark eyebrows lifted. ‘Well why don’t you enlighten me, then? That’s all I’m asking, my friend. A little information and you can be on your way.’

  Danny stared silently at the copper. Short of Bray opening him up with a knife and spilling his guts, Bray wasn’t going to achieve anything. Danny was no grass and even if he had had dealings with King, which he hadn’t, Bray wouldn’t have got another word out of him.

  The detective seemed to recognize this. He irritably snatched the packet of cigarettes and struck a match. He inhaled deeply, blowing the smoke into Danny’s eyes. ‘Bang him up,’ he told his officers. ‘A night in the cells might take the bastard’s smile off his face.’

  Danny watched helplessly as Bray turned and left the room.

  Chapter Eight

  Lizzie pulled back the bedroom curtains and gazed out onto Ebondale Street leading north from the shop to Poplar and east into the greyer, drabber areas of Cubitt Town. The Isle of Dogs opened out like a patchwork quilt of dusty, uneven roofs and back yards, a horseshoe of land jutting out into the Thames, pockmarked b
y factories and warehouses. The river itself was hidden from view, but not the bridges, every one of them alive with early morning traffic, the gateway to the glittering, flotsam-covered docks and wharfs of the island.

  The chimneys of the smoke-blackened houses were belching grey clouds. The day was even greyer. She thought at once of Danny and the long evening she and Bert had spent anticipating his release. But by midnight they had turned in, giving up hope.

  Lizzie shivered in the cold. She wondered if the children were still fast asleep, Polly in her bedroom and Tom in the small box room next to it. The upper floor was silent as she listened for signs of their waking, and heard instead the guttural rumble of Bert’s snoring downstairs in the storeroom at the back of the shop.

  She turned slowly, slid on her dressing gown and trod softly along the landing. Leaning over the banisters she could hear sounds resembling a distant steam train. Bert was sleeping on the battered old couch, just a few feet away from the open door leading up the narrow staircase to Lizzie’s quarters. Quietly she looked in on the children. She was relieved to see each of them snuggled down in their beds. Yesterday had been long and exhausting for a six- and nine-year-old. Tom had tried to hold back the tears when she’d put him to bed. He missed Danny, and the lodgings that he and Danny had moved into on Terrace Street. And though he tried to be brave, he’d fallen asleep in Lizzie’s arms, his cheeks still wet and sticky. As they might have been when he was a baby.

  It was some while later when Lizzie was busy in the long narrow galley kitchen, preparing breakfast, when she heard Bert on the stairs.

  She broke the eggs into a pan, and turned up the gas. Bert would be ravenous as he usually was on waking. Her brother occupied the airey below the shop. Damp basement rooms which many years before had been home to Bill Flowers and his two boys. But Bert was not a cook and often joined her for a meal, together with Danny and Tom. Polly adored her Uncle Bert despite his tremendous size and startling appearance. They made an odd-looking pair, Lizzie often reflected. A giant and a child, peas in a pod.

  ‘Kids still sleeping?’ Bert grunted as he made his entrance. Filling the kitchen almost, he sniffed at the air. ‘Got a thirst on me an’ all, after yesterday.’

  ‘Sit down in the front room and pour the brew.’ Lizzie indicated the large room to the right along the landing. A hatch had been carved out in the wall and through it the dining table could be viewed. A shiny brown teapot stood on its surface, together with china and cutlery, a loaf of bread and a bowl of dripping.

  ‘No news, then. What do you think they’re doing with Danny?’ Bert stood where he was, his clothes unchanged from the previous day. He scratched his head and blinked his sleepy eyes.

  ‘Don’t know. But I’m going to find out.’

  ‘What you gonna do, gel?’

  ‘Go over to the station, of course. On the way there, we’ll call at Gertie’s. Find out if they’re all right.’

  ‘You reckon one of ’em took bad?’

  Lizzie nodded as she fried the bacon. ‘I hope not. But it seems the only explanation.’

  ‘Are you gonna say about Frank?’

  ‘Danny would want me to. Frank is Bill’s son, after all. It’s going to be a shock for him to be told Frank is alive. And I need to tell him first before some other well-meaning soul springs it on him.’

  Bert shrugged. ‘Frank ain’t been nothing but bad news since the day he was born. Bill always reckons Frank lost his marbles when Daisy died. But you’d think a little kid wouldn’t hold a grievance against his own dad for his mother’s passing.’

  Lizzie sighed softly. ‘And against Danny too.’

  Bert mumbled and pushed his hands over his tieless, crumpled white shirt. He licked his lips. ‘I could do justice to that breakfast, kid.’

  Lizzie smiled. ‘Wake the kids first, will you? Then after we’ve eaten, we’ll be on our way.’

  ‘What if Danny turns up and we ain’t here?’

  ‘I’ll leave a note, tell him we called by his dad’s.’

  ‘His motor’s still at Lil’s, don’t forget.’

  ‘Well, my bike’s round the side of the shop.’

  Bert gave a roar of laughter. ‘Danny on a bike? You’ve got to be joking.’

  Lizzie forked the crisp brown bacon onto the plates. ‘It’ll have to be Shanks’s pony, then.’ Smiling ruefully, she couldn’t imagine Danny on a bike either. Two wheels had never been Danny’s style.

  The knot of anxiety in her stomach that she had woken with eased a little as she thought of going to Limehouse. Taking action was better than doing nothing. Danny was an innocent man. What could the policeman want with him?

  Danny wasn’t a law-breaker. He had worked hard all his life and learned a skill in Australia. He’d come back to this country to put his talents to use in the garage. There were few men who would have taken an orphaned boy under their wing, as Danny had. And made a new start for them both on the other side of the world.

  Her smile softened as she thought of Polly’s fifth birthday a year ago. Danny had turned up and it was as if nothing had changed between them. A decade hadn’t altered the way she felt about him. At his side was Tom who she’d at first thought was Danny’s son. Blond and blue-eyed, he certainly could have been.

  The sound of Bert’s laughter as he woke the children brought her sharply out of her thoughts and back to the moment.

  ‘Lord, girl, I’m relieved to see you.’ Gertie Spooner opened the door and stared at them. ‘I was wondering how I could get a message to you. I’m sorry we didn’t turn up yesterday.’

  ‘What happened?’ Lizzie smiled anxiously as she looked at Gertie who stood in her uniform, the one she had worn all her life. A badly knitted navy-blue jumper, its sides tucked into an apron tied around her thin waist. Lizzie had seen the same skirt many times before. Old but not grubby, the hem of which dangled above her laced-up brown shoes.

  ‘Come in and I’ll tell you.’ Now in her mid-sixties, she looked it. Lizzie knew Gertie had always been strong as an ox. But this morning her eyes were tired and her grey hair hurriedly pinned away from her lined face. Lizzie knew Gertie had not had an easy life. She had been Bill’s right-hand man at the shop, and had helped to raise Frank and Danny after Daisy Flowers’s death.

  ‘Hello, rascals.’ Gertie took each child’s forehead and kissed it. ‘You two are growing by the minute.’ She pushed the two children into the narrow passage thick with the smells of camphor and cabbage. ‘Granda is upstairs, Pol. Take Tom with you to say hello and cheer him up.’ Gertie shooed the children up the roughly boarded staircase. Turning back to Lizzie and Bert, she asked at once, ‘Where’s Danny?’

  ‘Can we go in the front room and I’ll tell you?’

  ‘Course. I ain’t had time to tidy, but sit yourselves down.’

  Lizzie and Bert made their way into the house; a three-storey Poplar terrace left to Gertie by her parents. It seemed a large and lonely house to Lizzie, but Gertie loved it. And had finally persuaded Bill to move from Ebondale Street to live with her at Gap End.

  The smells of cooking coming from the downstairs kitchen were blown along the passage together with a trace of Sunlight soap.

  ‘Don’t trouble to take off your boots, Bert,’ Gertie threw over her shoulder. ‘I ain’t house-proud, as you well know.’

  Lizzie had to adjust her eyes in the dim, cluttered front room that was always darkened by heavy drapes. There was just enough space on the button-backed leather sofa stuffed with cushions to sit down.

  Gertie took her place on the armchair by the black-leaded grate. The mantel was filled with small china knick-knacks. A dusty gooseberry-green curtain hung from the dark wood in front of the fireplace. Gertie folded her hands in her lap. ‘I’ll make no bones about it, Lizzie,’ Gertie began before Lizzie could explain about Danny. ‘I’m heartsore sorry to hear you and Danny aren’t wed.’

  ‘You know about that?’ Lizzie said in surprise.

  ‘A visitor landed on the door
step yesterday.’ Gertie shifted uncomfortably. ‘Just as we were about to leave for Lil’s. Needless to say, it was a shock to match no other.’

  Lizzie took a sharp breath. ‘Was it Frank?’

  Gertie nodded. ‘It took the wind from Bill’s sails.’

  ‘If Frank laid a finger on him—’ Bert began, jumping to his feet.

  Gertie was already shaking her head. ‘Sit down, Bert. Frank never touched him.’

  ‘But how did he know Bill was here?’ Lizzie asked.

  Gertie shrugged. ‘He worked it out. Knew his dad was moving in with me once he retired.’

  ‘So what sob story did he give you?’ Bert boomed, still angry.

  ‘He said he’s been in a hospital.’

  ‘Do you believe him?’

  ‘Dunno. But if Frank thought that tale up, it’s an unlikely one.’

  Bert nodded. ‘That’s what we all think.’

  ‘But on the other hand,’ said Gertie, raising a palm as Bert was going to speak, ‘he came with an apology. And saying sorry ain’t in Frank’s nature. Nor is the fact that he freely admits to all the wrong he done you, Lizzie. And his father.’

  Lizzie wanted to say that, wherever Frank had been, apologies had come too late, but she didn’t want to upset Gertie. She knew that Gertie had a soft spot for Frank, always had. And the bond between them had never broken. ‘What else did he say?’ Lizzie asked.

  ‘That he wants to make amends.’

  ‘A bit late for that, on Lizzie’s wedding day, ain’t it?’ Bert demanded.

  Gertie ignored this. ‘Bill heard him out, listened to every word Frank said, but then he took poorly. And Frank went for the doctor.’

  ‘The doctor?’ Lizzie sat up. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing that don’t happen to someone who’s led the hard life Bill has. The old workhorse is wearing out. Doctor told him to rest. But will he? Your father-in-law don’t know the meaning of the word, Lizzie. He’s still up at the crack of dawn. Works like a navvy in the back yard, digging up all me garden. Insists he needs the exercise. That his legs won’t work if he don’t move ’em.’