by Anne Bennett
‘Well, I do,’ Collingsworth suddenly bellowed. Rage that he had been duped, made fun of, took hold of him. Someone would pay. Molly was unprepared for both the suddenness and the power of the punch that knocked her to the floor and caused blood to pour from her nose.
Collingsworth looked at her coldly. He had promised Ray he wouldn’t hurt her physically, for it was well known that he sometimes liked to rough his woman up, and he would have been banned from many a whorehouse for it if he hadn’t been such an influential man, whom they all depended on. He hadn’t had any intention of hurting Molly when he had arrived that night, but that had all gone by the board now. She deserved all he was prepared to mete out to her and he powered a kick into her side as he said, ‘Get to your feet and let’s get down to it because I always get what I pay for.’
Molly gave a groan as the man’s foot caught her, and she curled up instinctively. Through bloodshot eyes she lay and watched the blood drip from her nose and pool on the carpet, as her assailant said, ‘Get up unless you want some more of the same.’
She heard his voice and saw the foot raised, and then she saw an old woman as if through a window in her mind.
This image was not misty or hazy, though. The old woman’s cold eyes, like Edwin Collingsworth’s, were filled with malice and hatred, and her fists were raised. The image engendered such anger in her that she leaped to her feet and threw herself at Collingsworth with a shriek, like some sort of screaming virago.
Collingsworth was unprepared, both for the attack and for the strength of the girl, who looked as if a puff of wind would blow her away. He threw her against the wall, but as he came towards her, she kicked him between the legs.
She had no shoes on, however, and so, although he doubled up at first, he had recovered enough to be after her as she made for the living room. She wondered where Ray was and how long she had been with this mad man, and knew she had to get out of the place, out into the street and shout for help.
Collingsworth, who had thought Molly would be easily subdued, was taken aback at first and then he seemed to increase in strength. Chairs and small tables were overturned, and vases and lamps crashed to the floor as he crossed the room in pursuit of Molly until he had caught her by the arm and smacked a hard hand across her face so that for a moment she was blinded. In that moment he had her against him, his fingers pulling her knickers to one side. She gave a yelp of terror and punched him to each side of his head with her fists, which were as hard as little hammers. Then she tore herself from his grip, hearing her blouse rip but paying no heed as she made for the door.
But when Collingsworth caught hold of her again, she felt despair fill her being and she knew this was it. She was spent. He would have his way with her and there was nothing she could do about it because she had no strength left.
He kicked her to the floor, and she saw he had the heavy base of a table lamp raised to crash down on her head. She dived under a coffee table. Before her were Collingsworth’s legs, and in a split second she had hold of them and jerked with all her might. Collingsworth had been unbalanced, ready to smash Molly’s skull, and before he was able to recover himself he fell heavily. His head hit the table with a sickening thud as he went down so when he hit the floor he was already unconscious, and blood was seeping from a gaping wound, staining the carpet crimson.
For a moment Molly sat and looked at him. She was petrified and didn’t have a clue what to do, but she knew one thing: if he came to again he would kill her as easily as swatting a fly. She had to get him to the door, bolt and lock it against him and wait for Ray to come home. He would tell her what to do.
Ordinarily, Molly wouldn’t have been able to move even a man of Collingsworth’s stature, but that night she managed it although she was both sweating and crying with the effort when she eventually heaved him outside the door of the flat. She couldn’t leave him there – he was too close – and she rolled him to the top of the stairs, pushed him with her foot, watched him topple down the first couple of steps and then disappear into the darkness. She heard him hit every step.
She gave a sudden shiver and realised that, while she was scantily clad, Collingsworth was naked. She ran into the bedroom, collected up his clothes and threw them down the stairs. Shaking from head to foot, she bolted and barred the door behind her. Then, overcome by nausea, she fled for the bathroom where she vomited over and over into the toilet.
Now that the fight was over, she was aware of aching pain everywhere and she could plainly see why when she stood before the mirror. Her body was a mass of bruises, but her face had borne the brunt of Collingsworth’s anger and she sported two black eyes, her face was smeared with blood from the shattered nose, and her bottom lip was split wide open. She wanted to lie on the floor and weep but she knew that that would achieve nothing, so she forced herself to run a bath. She sank with a sigh into the perfumed waters, knowing everything would sting and throb afresh, but she felt defiled and dirty and she needed to try to wash that feeling away.
EIGHTEEN
Molly tossed and turned on the bed, in too much pain and far too upset to sleep, but as she played the scenes over and over again in her head, she became horrified by what she had done and she began to wonder if it had been her fault in some way and if she could have handled it better. The point was, she had drunk too much to behave in any sort of logical way and that was her fault. And was it really necessary for her to push Collingsworth down the stairs, especially as he had already passed out and had a head wound seeping blood?
She hadn’t been thinking straight. She had just wanted the man as far away from her as possible, where he couldn’t hurt her any more, but what if she had killed him? He was rich and influential, Ray had intimated, and she knew she would never get away with killing or even maiming such a person. What would happen to her when it was discovered what she had done? She ran her trembling fingers around her neck, imagined the hangman’s noose tightening there and felt sick with fear.
Ray would know what to do when he came back, though she faced the fact he might be less than pleased with her at first, because pulling Collingsworth’s legs from under him so that he was knocked unconscious and then rolling him down the stairs could not be construed as being ‘nice’ to him by any stretch of the imagination.
But then when she told Ray what Collingsworth had wanted to do, surely he would see that she had little alternative? When he saw the mess that the man had made of her face, she imagined that he would be incensed on her behalf, because she knew that he couldn’t be involved in any of this, whatever the odious man had said. If he had been, wouldn’t he at the very least have tried to take advantage of her before this?
She had offered for him to share her bed. She was sure she wouldn’t have minded too much, not if it had been Ray, but he had been too much of a gentleman to do that. Instead, he had cared for her and certainly had never laid a finger on her in an inappropriate way.
However, Ray wasn’t there, so it was down to her. She knew she had to find out exactly what she had done to Edwin Collingsworth. Her nerve ends quivered and she wished she could curl up in bed and pretend that the naked man, maybe lying dead at the bottom of the stairs, was nothing to do with her.
She shivered as she pushed the covers back, for the place was like an ice box and her head pounded as she lifted it from the pillow. She felt as if she was going to be sick, but she fought the nausea and slid her feet thankfully into slippers. She wished the silky wrap she tied around herself was a cosy woolly one, for though it looked fine, it was not made for warmth.
She doubted, though, that anything could warm her up properly, for it was terror that was filling her veins with ice. She padded across to the front door and, once there, it took all her reserves of strength to slide the bolts back and ease it open. She had picked up one of the torches Ray always left in a cupboard in the hall, and by its light, dim though it was, she saw there was nothing at the bottom of the stairs. There was no body, no clothes – nothing.
She should have felt relieved, but she wasn’t. What if someone had found him and summoned an ambulance, or maybe he had regained consciousness enough to dress himself before stumbling into the street to get help. Either way, it wasn’t necessarily good news for her.
She went back to the apartment, not bothering to slide the bolts now that Collingsworth was no longer at the bottom of the steps. In the kitchen she made a cup of tea, hoping it might stop her teeth chattering. And that was where a furious Ray found her a little later.
Collingsworth’s chauffeur, Will Baker, had brought Ray and Collingsworth to the apartment the evening before. His instructions were then to take Ray wherever he wanted to go, return to the apartment, and wait outside it until his boss might need him. However, it had been cold sitting in the car, and after an hour, the chauffeur had got out to walk up and down, slapping his arms to his sides and had stepped out of the wind into the entry just below Molly’s window to light up a cigarette.
When he heard the commotion, he had grimaced to himself, for he guessed the little quirk his employer had of occasionally beating up young girls and women had got the better of him again. There could be trouble over this if he had done her harm, because Ray had told him he had warned him not to hurt her in any way. He knew why too: the girl was lined up to go to Vera’s whorehouse the following week. ‘Installed before Christmas and working like a good ’un by the New Year,’ was the way Ray put it, and if she was damaged in any way, he knew full well Vera wouldn’t want her, or pay for her, till she was healed and could be of some use.
The chauffeur moved round to the front door of the house, though he knew that it was more than his life was worth to interfere. That was, until he heard the unmistakable sound of someone falling down the stairs. He knew then that his employer might have killed the girl. It wouldn’t be the first time either, he knew, and it had sickened him when he had heard his heavies boasting about it.
Anyway, he decided, whether Collingsworth liked it or not, he couldn’t leave someone who might well need help at the bottom of the stairs so he waited till all was quiet beyond the door before he cautiously opened it. Mindful of the blackout, he had to shut it behind him before he could turn on his torch and then his heart skipped a beat, for it was no young girl there but the battered and bruised body of his employer, and though he was as naked as the day he was born, his clothes lay in a heap on top of him.
Had the girl done him in? Fought for her honour, like? Dear Christ, she was in one heap of trouble, whichever way it was. Will leant across, felt for the pulse in his employer’s neck and was relieved that he was alive at least, so it wouldn’t be the gallows for that young girl, whoever she was.
But the man was still unconscious and the wound Will saw on the back of his head was bleeding profusely. He tried to stanch that with his handkerchief before shaking him gently and whispering, ‘Mr Collingsworth, sir. Mr Collingsworth. Wake up, sir. Wake up.’
He was relieved to see his employer’s eyes flutter open, even though he did shut them straight away, growling out irritably, ‘Turn that bloody torch away from my face, you fool. Nearly damned well blinded me. And where the hell am I anyway?’
But the chauffeur didn’t have to answer that, because the events of that evening had begun to seep into Collingsworth’s brain and consummate rage filled his entire body. ‘Help me into my clothes, man. Don’t just stand there,’ he commanded.
Will did most of the dressing, for Collingsworth was disorientated and badly co-ordinated. Though the chauffeur thought he should go to hospital to be checked over, particularly for the head injury, which was still seeping blood and matting in his sparse hair, even through the handkerchief, he said nothing. He knew that these people from the underworld seldom visited doctors or hospitals in the normal way. They had their own people to attend them, who were paid well to keep their mouths shut.
Will Baker didn’t like the colour of Collingsworth’s face at all and noted how he had to help him to his feet once he was dressed and then prevent him falling flat on his face as, taking almost all his weight, he semi-carried the man to his car.
‘Where to, boss?’
‘Home. Where else, you bloody fool?’
In Collingsworth’s house, in full light, the man looked worse and the chauffeur was worried enough to say, ‘Shall I ring the doctor, sir?’ knowing that he had a special doctor attend him.
But his employer brushed the suggestion away impatiently. ‘It’s not a doctor I want but that man Morris. Find him and bring him here.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The chauffeur had taken Ray to the casino, so he was likely spending the money Collingsworth had given him that evening.
It had been Ray that had put Will in line for a job with Collingsworth after meeting him in a pub one night. They had been at school together, though not special friends, but that night they caught up with news of one another. Will, feeling very sorry for himself, told Ray of being invalided out of the army after his lungs were buggered up after the rout at Dunkirk.
Ray, on the other hand, never specified what he actually did for a living, or how he had evaded the call-up, but he did tell Will that he might be able to do him a favour.
‘My boss is in need of a chauffeur and general dogsbody since the last one was called up. You can drive, I suppose?’
‘Well, yes, but with petrol rationed I wouldn’t imagine there will be much work in that line at the moment.’
‘Don’t you believe it,’ Ray had said. ‘This man, as well as being incredibly rich, has his finger in so many pies. Rationing of anything doesn’t seem to apply to him. Anyway, no harm in having a chat.’
Will agreed there wasn’t, but when he met Edwin Collingsworth he hadn’t liked him at all. The more he knew about him, the more his dislike and unease grew. Yet a job was a job, and better than no damned thing at all.
His fear, when he had been made aware of the extent of his injuries, was that he’d be unable to provide for his wife, Betty, and he knew she had been frightened of that too. It was even more important now that she was expecting their first child. It always gave him pride when he placed his wage packet into her hand on a Friday night and saw that special smile on her face. He would go to hell and back in order that she and the child would not go short.
Collingsworth paid well, Will had to admit, though sometimes he demanded more than his pound of flesh and his Betty would kick up about it though he never discussed his work with her. He knew she would disapprove of most of it, and if she just had a hint of some of the things he had seen done, the things he had been asked to cover up, or provide an alibi for, she would probably demand he give it up. And just where would they be then? Up the creek without a paddle, that’s where. Anyway, it was far better for Betty, and much safer for her, to know nothing and to think he had a regular sort of job.
Ray was surprised to hear that Collingsworth had returned home before the morning, for it wasn’t even midnight, but ask as he might, Will said he knew nothing about anything.
All he knew was that he was told to fetch him and that was what he was doing. Ray knew he was lying, though he didn’t blame him because it was always safer for a person to keep their head down. He had seen Collingsworth in a temper and it was a frightening spectacle.
In Will’s absence, Collingsworth had called his doctor, who had come round immediately, shaved the hair around the head wound and then cleaned and stitched it so that the first thing that Ray noticed was the large white bandage encircling the man’s head.
&nbs
p; ‘Good God, Edwin! What happened to you?’
‘You might well ask, and the answer is being fool enough to be left in with that she-devil.’
Ray’s mouth dropped agape. ‘Molly?’ he said incredulously. ‘Molly did that to you?’
‘What do you think?’ Collingsworth spat out.
‘But how? I mean, there is nothing to her.’
‘That is neither here nor there,’ Collingsworth snapped. ‘You said she would be ready and waiting, that she knew the score.’
‘She did,’ Ray said. ‘I mean, I told her she had to be nice to you, very nice, and I asked her if she knew what I meant and she said that of course she did.’
Surely, Ray thought suddenly, she wasn’t so naive as to think that being ‘nice’ was offering him a cup of tea and a biscuit or two?
‘Oh, she was nice all right,’ Collingsworth snapped. ‘So nice that not content with knocking me out, she pushed me down the bleeding stairs.’ He went on to recount to Ray what had happened in the apartment. ‘She bloody near killed me,’ he said at the end. ‘She might have succeeded if Will hadn’t found me and brought me home, and I want to know what you are going to do about it.’
‘What do you want me to do?’ Ray demanded. ‘I’ll have a word, put her straight, give her a good hiding if you like, so she will remember.’
‘I have done that already,’ Collingsworth said. ‘And that is not good enough. No one gets away with doing this to me. And I want every penny back from the money I paid you this evening.’
‘I haven’t got it,’ Ray said. ‘I mean, not all of it. I spent some at the casino. I had a bit of bad luck.’
‘That is not my problem.’
‘You have to give me time.’
‘I have to give you nothing,’ Collingsworth snarled.
‘I was going to sell Molly on to Vera,’ Ray said. ‘I would have some cash then all right.’
