*
One evening she brought up the subject of marriage. It was something they had never talked about, though it had been in Sterne’s mind. Now it appeared that it had been in hers also.
‘I’m twenty-nine,’ she said, ‘and I think it’s time I had some children.’
It took him rather by surprise. She had never previously mentioned any desire to start a family.
‘So,’ he said, ‘you’re looking for a father for the brood?’
‘That’s about it.’
‘And you’ve picked on me?’
‘Can you think of anyone better?’
‘Now that you mention it, no. Offhand, I can’t.’
‘So it’s settled then?’
‘If that’s what you want.’
‘Don’t you?’
It was something he had never thought much about, but now that she had mentioned it he found that he rather liked the idea. They would need a larger residence of course. You couldn’t raise a family in a one-bedroom maisonette. But that could be arranged. The money was there.
‘Well, yes,’ he said. ‘Come to think of it, I do.’
‘And we’ll get married?’
‘So you want that too?’
‘Of course.’
So it appeared that one failure in that line had not put her off. She was prepared to have another try. And maybe this time it really would work. He hoped so, and believed it would.
‘I think,’ he said, ‘we should go down east tomorrow and break the news to your parents.’
She agreed that this would be a good idea. ‘I wonder how they’ll take it.’
‘They’ll be delighted.’
‘Are you sure of that?’
‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘I’m sure.’
And after a little while he said: ‘There’s likewise a wind on the heath.’
She stared at him. ‘Now what are you babbling about? What wind? What heath?’
‘Never mind,’ he said. And then: ‘Life is very sweet, brother. Who would wish to die?’
Again she stared at him. ‘Have you gone crazy? I’m not your brother.’
‘No, you aren’t,’ he said. ‘And I can’t begin to tell you how glad I am about that.’
*
He was right about the Maggses. He had never seen two people more delighted. Alfie brought out a bottle of champagne he had been saving up for just such an occasion and Queenie laid on a meal to beat anything that Sterne had previously enjoyed in the room above the greengrocery.
‘This is the ’appiest day of my life,’ Alfie said. And then he looked at Queenie and added: ‘Bar one.’
Angela laughed and said: ‘You just saved your skin there, Dad.’
Queenie said: ‘He’s a little bit tiddly, that’s what it is. It’s the champagne gone to his head.’
‘No,’ Alfie said, ‘you’re wrong, old girl. I’m just intoxicated with joy.’
‘See what I mean?’ she said. ‘See what I mean?’
*
It was three days later when Sterne noticed a headline on the front page of the morning paper. It read: ‘MAN ARRESTED ON DOUBLE MURDER CHARGE.’
He scanned the report with growing interest and gathered that a man named Judas Raven, a known gangster, had been arrested and charged with the murder of another man named Les Grannidge and a woman named Annie Siggers. It appeared that Siggers had until recently been living with Raven, but had left him and paired up with Grannidge, a suspected drug dealer who lived in an old house in Bethnal Green. A neighbour had heard shots late at night and had seen a car driving away. He had entered Grannidge’s house and had found the drug dealer dead from shotgun wounds and the woman, Siggers, lying nearby with multiple stab wounds, probably inflicted with a knife. The neighbour was horrified by what he saw. He said there was blood everywhere and it was ‘like a madman had done the job’.
Raven had been arrested at his home some time later. He had made no attempt to get away. He had even taken the sawn-off shotgun and the bloodstained knife back to his house, where they were found by the police.
Sterne passed the paper to Angela, and she read the report. When she had finished reading it she put the paper down and looked at him, wide-eyed, the colour all gone from her cheeks.
‘Oh God,’ she said. ‘It could have been you.’
He knew what she meant. All those years ago in a similar situation. A man named Judas Raven – a madman.
‘And you,’ he said.
‘Both of us.’
‘Yes, both of us.’
They were silent for a while, thinking what might have happened if she had not walked out on him that fateful day in 1939.
Then he said: ‘But it wasn’t.’
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