by Pat Herbert
Before Alice had clapped eyes on Drake, she had been in love with him, or so she had said. He stared out of the bus window as he thought about her. He remembered those furtive moments making love with her in the back of his car or, more often than not, up against back alley walls. They had taken enough risks for the baby to be his, not Howard’s.
He began to think he hated Alice Troy. Even her name made him shudder now. And as long as she persisted in saying the baby was Howard’s, there was nothing he could do about it, anyway. Maybe it was just as well. She had made it quite clear that she wanted nothing from him.
The bus was trundling its way through the depressing roads of Poplar, and his stop was coming up. His thoughts were dark, as dark as the streets he was walking along to his home, the home he had planned to share one day with Alice. Turning the key in the lock, he looked around the small, miserable flat. It was in dire need of a woman’s touch, and that woman was meant to have been her. He sighed. Now that she didn’t want him anymore, he might as well give the place up and go back to his mum and dad in Brixton. It’d save on the rent anyhow, which was one small blessing.
He sat at the large, ugly wooden table by the window and stared out. It was growing dark now, practically as dark as a night in June ever got. The pale moon was in evidence; it was full and looked like it was about to fall out of the sky, in much the same way as the bottom had fallen out of his dreams.
2nd February 1958: Wandsworth
Celia Pargeter was looking her best this evening and she knew it. The man seated opposite to her in the swish West End restaurant was eyeing her appreciatively over his menu. Robbie took in the soft, freshly permed blonde hair, the delicate light blue eyes fringed with the long dark lashes, the flushed pink cheeks, the dimpled chin and, lower down, just a glimpse of the inviting cleavage. A very nice package indeed. The looks some of the men at other tables were giving her backed him up in this opinion. He felt proud that Celia was sharing his table and not one of theirs.
He tried to focus on the menu. What was on it, he wondered, as if he even cared. If it had been tripe and onions instead of duck à l’orange and pâté de foie gras, he would have been just as happy. As long as Celia continued to go out with him, that was all that mattered. The fact that these evenings were costing him arms and legs didn’t even enter his mind. Robbie was head over heels in love with her. What she felt about him he didn’t quite know. Sometimes she seemed as much in love with him as he was with her; other times she seemed distant and preoccupied, almost unaware of his presence.
“I think the steak will do for me,” she said, putting down the menu at last. “Blue.”
“Blue? You want a blue steak?” Robbie was dumbfounded.
“Yes, dear,” she said with a grin. “Very rare.”
“Very rare? I should say it is. I’ve never seen a blue steak before. What sort of cow does it come from?” The only blue cow he’d ever seen was in a Disney cartoon.
“Don’t you know what a blue steak is?” She was laughing at him now.
“I’ll have a blue steak, too.” Whatever it was, he would find out. He only hoped it was edible.
When their food arrived he was dismayed to find that the ‘blue’ steak was ‘very rare’ indeed. In fact, he would have been surprised if it had seen the inside of a frying pan at all.
Celia watched as he tentatively toyed with it, amusement dancing in her eyes. “The French do steaks to perfection, don’t you think?” she said, tucking in with gusto.
“Oh, yes, absolutely. Perfection.” There was nothing for it but to eat the thing, and he cut off a chunk and shoved it into his mouth. It was horrible. He thought he was going to be sick, but somehow managed to swallow it without gagging. How could she eat it, he wondered. He ate his vegetables, leaving the bloody mess at the side of the plate. His tummy rumbled. He would have to fill up with the cheese board.
“Anything wrong, monsieur?” asked the waiter when he came to remove their plates.
Robbie wanted to say ‘yes, there certainly was’. It was very wrong indeed to eat something that probably wasn’t dead yet. However, he refrained from saying this and, instead, mumbled about being on a diet and wiped his mouth with his napkin.
When the waiter had gone, Celia reached out her hand to his. “Oh, you daft, sweet thing,” she said. “You had no idea what a blue steak was, had you?”
“No, sweetheart,” he grinned back.
“I love you,” she said, as if she meant it. He would have eaten raw steak all night if she had kept on telling him that.
“I love you too, darling.” Was it now the time to ask her the big question, the one he had been thinking about for the past week?
“We must get Howard out of prison,” she said suddenly. The romantic mood was broken at once.
“Get him out? What do you mean? Help him escape? Bake him a cake with a file in it? Talk sense, woman.”
“I went to see him again today,” she said, ignoring his sarcastic remarks. “He’s looking so thin and pale. I know he’s innocent. We must do something. Go to the Home Secretary. Start up a petition.”
Robbie sighed. This was the Celia he didn’t love, the Celia who seemed to care more for a probable murderer than himself. “Look,” he said as patiently as he could, “who do you think will sign this petition of yours? The evidence speaks for itself. It was enough for the jury to convict him. Only people who know him will be prepared to sign it, people who know his character. Most people will have read the news reports and assume that the verdict is sound. Don’t you see, you’re fighting a losing battle?”
“But you told me you saw her restless spirit at the graveyard,” she said. “You said you were sure it was her. You only saw her for a moment, but you were convinced. That could mean only one thing, couldn’t it? That she is trying to tell us Howard didn’t kill her. She doesn’t want him to hang and, Robbie, neither do I.”
Robbie suddenly got the feeling he was being watched. Not again, he thought. There was someone there, behind his chair. He swung round. There was no one. As he was about to turn back, out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of something red. It was only for a second, and he wasn’t sure he’d seen it. He scoured the restaurant to see if there was anyone dressed in red. No, not a soul. Plenty of blue and green, but no red. Was he going mad?
“What’s up, doc?” Celia asked. She had been dying to say that to him ever since seeing a Bugs Bunny cartoon the week before. “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.” She gave a tinkling laugh, a laugh that usually enchanted him, but it didn’t this time.
“I think I probably have,” he said. “I keep getting this feeling that I’m being followed. It’s creepy. I’m sitting at home, reading the newspaper or something, then all of a sudden I know I’m not alone. But when I look around, there’s never anyone there.”
“You poor love,” she said, serious herself now. “It’s her. It must be. It’s Alice Troy trying to tell you that they are going to hang the wrong man. You can’t go on denying it, Robbie, or she’ll haunt you forever.”
“Poppycock!” he said, taking a sip of wine. “I have no way of knowing it’s Alice for sure. And neither have you. I’m probably just imagining things. I’ve been working hard lately, and I’m tired these days. Easy to imagine things when one’s overtired. Anyway, we can’t do anything about the man’s fate. And, while we’re on the subject, I wish you wouldn’t keep going to see him. Prison’s no place for you. Can’t you take up knitting or jigsaw puzzles, or some other innocuous pastime instead?”
Celia stood abruptly, nearly spilling her wine. “Showing your true colours now, aren’t you? I suppose I should be chained to the kitchen sink like poor Lucy.” She picked up her handbag.
“Where are you going?” Robbie made to grab her hand.
“Don’t worry. I’m only going to powder my nose. I’ll be back for the pudding. I’m not going to pass up the profiteroles.”
Robbie was left alone to think. He held strongly chauvinisti
c views, but tried hard to see women as more than mere adjuncts to the male population. Celia Pargeter wasn’t like most women; she would never be owned by any man; never be pinned down, like some beautiful, doomed butterfly.
Paradoxically, one of the reasons he liked Celia so much was because she had a mind of her own. He admired her proud, independent spirit but, at the same time, wanted her to be subservient to his wishes. And one of those wishes was for her not to mix with convicts. Was it too much to ask, he wondered.
He waited nervously for her to re-emerge from the powder room. Was she coming back? Or was she going to consign him, as well as the profiteroles, to history?
21st June 1957: Catford
Howard Drake climbed the steps to the door of a neglected, dismal terraced house calling itself ‘Paradise Villa’. He had never seen anything that looked less like its name. He would have laughed if he hadn’t felt so nervous. He walked up the front path and looked at the half-dozen labelled bells beside the peeling front door. He wondered when it had last seen a fresh coat of paint. He saw ‘Troy’ against bell number three and pressed it. It was another hot June day, and he was tired after working longer hours than usual at the bank. He wondered for the umpteenth time what he was doing here when all he really wanted was to be at home with Flora. In his mind’s eye, he saw them together, sitting in the garden, sipping cold drinks and enjoying what was left of the evening. And, most importantly, she was in love with him again.
He thought about Pete, the man he had met the night before, and for whom he had a grudging respect. If he had been in his shoes and another man got his wife pregnant, he felt sure he wouldn’t have been so reasonable. Pete deserved to have the girl he loved, although maybe Alice Troy didn’t deserve him. One way or another, he was determined to have it out with her. Would she never answer the door?
At last he heard footsteps approaching. He cleared his throat. He was determined not to stand any nonsense, and wasn’t going to be wrong-footed by her this time. He had the upper hand now that he knew he might not be the father of her child after all, and he was going to play that card for all it was worth.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said, as she opened to the door. “You better come in.” There was a blank expression on her face. If she was pleased, or even surprised, to see him, she didn’t show it.
Howard was shocked at the change in her. She had, inevitably, put on weight but, unlike lots of women when they were in the family way, it didn’t suit her. Instead of looking the picture of blooming health, her usually immaculate hair looked like it hadn’t been washed for a fortnight, and she had spots on her slightly double chin. She was wearing a pair of worn-out slippers and her stockings were wrinkled around her swelling ankles. All in all, she looked as neglected as her depressing surroundings.
“How are you?” he asked, trying not to sound shocked, as she showed him into her poor, shabby little flat. The wallpaper looked so faded, he couldn’t even see what the pattern was supposed to be. The colour might have been cream once, or even orange. The curtains had the same problem, as did the threadbare carpet. Whatever rent she was paying for the place, it was too much.
She shrugged. “Fat lot you care,” she said, lighting a cigarette. “Want one?”
“No thanks. And you shouldn’t either. Not in your condition.”
“Oh, shut up.” She blew smoke into his face.
“I just came to see how you were. I saw your friend Pete yesterday,” he said.
“Oh him. Always poking his nose in. Hope you told him where to go.”
“No, as a matter I didn’t. He seemed like a decent bloke to me. I liked him. He was concerned about you. Told me I needed to do right by you, if I am the father, that is.” He said this meaningfully. “Am I? Are you telling me the truth, Alice?”
“Don’t know what you mean,” she said, stubbing out her cigarette in the ashtray. “You were there, weren’t you? You had your fun, didn’t you?”
“Look, you know how I happened. I was drunk. I’m not trying to get out of anything, but Pete says the child could be his. Do you still insist the baby’s mine?”
She slumped down into a moth-eaten armchair. There was another one just like it, and Howard sat down in that. “Come on, Alice. Tell me the truth.”
“I told you the truth, how many more times?” she said, lighting another cigarette. “This baby is yours. Not Pete’s nor anyone else’s, before you ask.”
“All right, have it your way,” he sighed, hating the sight of her. How could she persist in her lies? What was wrong with her? “What do you want me to do? And before you say it, there is no question of my marrying you now or ever.”
“But you’ve got to. My baby must have a name. My dad’ll kill me otherwise.”
“I think he’s more likely to kill me,” he said. “You should marry Pete, you really should, if he’ll have you after this.”
“I don’t want to marry Pete,” she growled, coughing as she inhaled smoke the wrong way. “He’s a waste of space.”
“You could do far worse.”
“I probably have.” She looked at him meaningfully. “Anyway, the baby’s definitely yours. You took advantage of me, now it’s pay-back time.” She sounded like something out of an old black-and-white gangster movie.
“Very well, it all comes down to money in the end, doesn’t it? You’ve got me in a corner. So, tell me, what do you need?”
“What do you mean?” She turned pale.
“I think you know. I can’t marry you, and you won’t marry Pete, so I think it would be best all round if you had an abortion.”
She burst into tears. At that moment, Howard could have strangled the life out of her, and gone on strangling her long after there was no need.
3rd February 1958: Wandsworth
Lucy entered the room and saw before her a picture of domestic bliss. There was dear old Annie with her ankle strapped up and resting on a pouffe, a fat black cat purring on her lap, and a log fire blazing in the hearth. She put down a pile of magazines and a basket of fruit on the table beside the invalid. Nancy Harper was busy making tea in the kitchen, and Bernard was in his study.
The weather showed no improvement. The snow had accumulated on the parlour window sill, and icicles dripped from the guttering above. Lucy had trudged through freshly fallen snow to the vicarage and, although it was only a quarter of a mile away, her journey had been treacherous, to say the least. She had almost convinced herself she was going to fall and end up with her ankle bandaged up like Anbolin’s.
“There you are,” said Nancy Harper, bustling in with a laden tea tray. “Get stuck in. I’d better get my lord and master’s elevenses before ’e creates. I can ’ear the floor creaking already so I bet ’e’s about to call out.
“Mrs Aitch, any chance of a cuppa?” called Bernard from the landing, right on cue.
“See what I mean? No rest for the wicked, eh?”
The other two laughed in sympathy. “I wonder if he even knows how to make a cup of tea,” said Lucy. “I’m sure Robbie doesn’t.”
“Lazy articles, both of them,” agreed Anbolin, stroking Beelzebub fondly. “They’d never do a hand’s turn all their lives, if they could get away with it.”
Lucy laughed. “But I suppose they have their uses – sometimes,” she said. “Shall I be mother?”
She lifted the teapot and started to pour. Anbolin helped herself to two rock cakes in the meantime. “So, what have you brought me, love? Gets so boring, sitting here all day. I don’t think much of Bernie’s library either. Not a single romance or thriller among them.”
“I’ve got some nice magazines here. There’s some good stories too. And knitting patterns you might like.”
“Lovely,” said Anbolin, grabbing them with her gnarled hands. “I see you’ve brought some grapes and things. Thanks, love. Most welcome.”
“Not at all. Hope the ankle’s not hurting too much. Can you walk on it?”
“Not very well. I’ve got my walking stick,
which helps, but I just manage to make it to the lavatory and back at the moment.”
“Not much fun. Still, at least it’s not the weather to be out and about. You’re best off here in the warm. And the vicar’s such a nice man, isn’t he?”
“Oh, yes. Salt of the earth. Mind you, he has his head in the clouds most of the time. Doesn’t know what day it is. He’s preoccupied with this murder at the moment.”
“You mean the man who’s going to be hanged in a couple of weeks? Robbie has mentioned it too. Says Bernard thinks he’s innocent. Do you?”
“I’m sure of it,” said Anbolin, tucking into her fourth rock cake. “But we have no way of proving it. Bernie keeps looking through all the newspaper cuttings to see if he can find a clue to who the real murderer is, but so far no luck. I’ve looked too, but I’ve drawn a blank. It looks very much like a miscarriage of justice will occur if we don’t find some evidence soon.”
“Robbie doesn’t agree, does he? He thinks if the jury found him guilty, then that’s it, as far as he’s concerned.”
“That man is a stubborn, blinkered fool,” said Anbolin. “Bernie is fond of the Drakes, they were always in church on Sundays, he said. Two of his most regular parishioners. Mrs Drake’s had a little boy, and he wants to christen him, but she doesn’t want it done yet, not without her husband there. It’s very sad.”
“It is,” Lucy agreed. “But, he did sleep with that girl when he shouldn’t. That’s bad enough, even if he didn’t murder her.”
“Just a moment of weakness, I’m sure. Who amongst us can say they’ve never given in to a moment of weakness? I wouldn’t want to cast the first stone. People have been hanged for adultery in the past, my girl,” said Anbolin gravely. “Remember the Thompson-Bywater case?”
“No, it doesn’t ring a bell….”
“Never mind, it’s not important. Tell me, how’s the man in white coming along? Have you met him yet?”
“Not so’s you’d notice it. No men wear white, do they? I think you made a mistake, Annie.”
