I found the rent book, all paid up to date, nothing owed until next month. My own place. It’s an end of terrace, too, and the people next door are deaf as posts, bless them both. They’re old; I’ll do their shopping. My brain’s running at top speed. There’s nobody to arrange the double funeral, so I’ll have to see McManus and get that biscuit tin with all Maude’s papers in it. There are policies. Sideboard, left hand cupboard behind the willow pattern plates.
I’ll talk to the landlord. I wonder if Angela would come here instead of me going there? I could buy a bit of stuff, I suppose. We could improvise. I’ll phone the farm later when I’ve sorted through Maude’s paperwork.
*
Eve slammed down the receiver. She was displeased, and the fuse leading to her temper had suddenly been shortened by . . . She shivered. What an arrogant, selfish son of a bitch Carson was. In her large hands, she twisted a handkerchief, wishing it were his bloody neck. He wanted house calls. He wanted Angie to visit him. He needed massage, too. Both his housemates were barely cold, and all he could think about was his own pleasure and relief. Where the hell did people like him come from? A mating between a devil and a witch?
Kate came through the door. ‘What’s up with you now, missus?’
‘Don’t ask.’
Kate sat. ‘Too late – I’ve asked.’
‘Give me a minute – I’m boiling over.’
Kate raised an eyebrow. ‘Shall I turn you down to slow-cooking?’
‘No. Let me sweat this one.’ She took a few deep breaths.
While waiting, Kate wrote out the greengrocery order and the butcher’s list. The cost of meat was ridiculous, and with Trevor Burns having ceased to be a customer, there was no longer leeway on that side of catering. She crossed out rump and wrote in braising steak. ‘Have you calmed down?’
‘About gas mark seven, I’d say.’
Kate shook her head. ‘Let me know when you’re on simmer.’
‘I will.’
Kate continued with her shopping lists, wishing Jesus could come along and pass a hand over a few pairs of kippers and some large white sliced. If she mixed a bit of marge in with the butter, would the girls notice? Angela would. Angela could probably smell Stork through the walls of a lead casket, so mixing was out. Bramley apples weren’t dear; Kate would make apple pies and a crumble.
Eve spoke. ‘He won’t be coming here again, love.’
‘Oh?’
‘I told him to bugger off.’
Kate said nothing.
‘I said if he wanted blood drawing, he could do it himself with a razor.’
‘You didn’t.’
‘I did. He told me he’d blow us up to the police, so I said he should feel free, because he’s been a client, and I would say so. Then he threatened to do it anonymously, and I said the same – I’d name him as our chief customer. He started screaming at me loud enough to puncture an eardrum. So I slammed the phone down.’ She paused. ‘There’s something about Mr Postman, Kate.’
‘I know. You said that before.’
‘He’s devious,’ Eve mused aloud. ‘And a deviant.’
‘You’ll be calling him the Mersey Monster next. Who doesn’t like liver?’
‘Judy,’ Eve replied automatically. ‘He could be.’
‘Eh? Who? What?’
‘Carson could be the killer.’
Kate put down her pen and sat back. ‘Him? He’s too weedy.’
Eve disagreed. ‘The shock element, Kate. I’ve heard he uses a garrotte made from wire. Detective Constable Eddie said that. Eddie’s mate got shot, you know – that PC killed on Lime Street Station on the stroke of midnight. They mustn’t have known which date to put on his certificate. Eddie’s taken time off, and I’ll bet I can guess why – he’s looking for Dave’s killer.’
Kate nodded sagely. ‘Aye, and he’s trained for it. You’re not.’
‘Don’t try to stop me, Kate.’
‘What? I’d stand a better chance of stopping a Trident that’s just taken off from Manchester. But take somebody with you.’ Kate left to check her store cupboards. All the way along the hall, she mumbled to herself. ‘Murder first, suicide next – she’ll be damned for all eternity.’ She entered the kitchen. ‘I can’t do pastry while I’m in this mood – me hands’ll be too sticky.’
Eve remained in the office. She’d better eat well today, because she was going to find and follow Mr Carson. If she didn’t catch sight of him today, she’d be on his tail some time soon. For some unknown reason, she felt sure there was more to him than met the eye. And none of the more was good.
Fourteen
For Laura Carson, life had become an odd melange of joy and fear, a cocktail whose components did not mix well, though she occasionally suspected that terror might be adding a certain frisson to her relationship with Andrew Martindale. As a Catholic, she laboured under commandments from both God and Church, yet her Father Confessor remained lenient. ‘I don’t know what it is about Neil, Laura, but he was clearly an unsuitable marriage partner for you. Is your new man Catholic?’
From the tone of the priest’s voice, Laura could tell that he hadn’t liked Neil, so she wasn’t the only one. ‘Yes, he is Catholic, Father. His wife’s dead.’
‘Requiescat. Then bide your time and pray. I shall pray, too. In nomine Patris . . .’ He dismissed her from the confessional box with a blessing and penance of one decade of the rosary.
Smiling to herself, she sat on a hard pew while searching for her beads. There was no such luxury as anonymity here, because both priests recognized voices of regular penitents. Laura blessed herself, delivered the decade to Our Lady, then went to pick up her children from Coronation Park.
Standing at the gate, she watched Lucy, Matt and Andy. Andy had drifted into their lives gradually and without fuss. An avuncular figure, he played games with them, took them and Laura to the cinema, and today they were going into another part of Liverpool to look at the smallest of his shops, the original jewellery outlet created by his grandfather, whose affection for valuable metals and stones had now reached a third generation.
As she lingered near the gate, Laura pondered her situation. She loved this man. Yes, he sometimes acted as if old enough to be her father, but he was real. Neil had been almost two-dimensional, a flat person with no fun in him, always correct, predictable and . . . and boring. Was she a bad person? No. Andy loved her, but nothing untoward had taken place thus far, though the regret she felt about the lack of physical contact was possibly sinful. But oh, Andy was so very handsome, she thought as she watched him watching her children.
He noticed her and awarded her a smile that was almost dazzling. Two children, each wrapped up against the November chill, raced towards their mother while Andy followed at a more sedate pace. He was such a beautiful man, and he loved her. Laura felt the heat in her cheeks as she returned the smile.
They piled into his car, two giggling children in the back, a pair of would-be lovers in the front. They were going to Smithdown Road, a busy thoroughfare on which Jacob Martindale had planted the first seeds of a now burgeoning empire.
Laura closed her eyes and walked in her mind down a well-worn path that had been visited by many over the centuries. It was a cul-de-sac, and there was no escape from the fact that love hurt. Neil had been a habit, someone she had known for years and, like a pair of gloves, they had simply stayed together. Yet they’d been separate, divided by the lack of love. ‘The left hand didn’t know what the right was doing,’ she whispered.
Andy glanced at her.
‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘that wasn’t meant to be spoken aloud.’
‘Stop worrying,’ he advised gently. ‘Take life one day at a time like they do.’ He pointed a thumb over his shoulder at Matt and Lucy.
‘What if that gold cross was—?’ Laura cut herself off.
‘Stop it.’ Andy had already offered to accompany her to a police station, though she was having trouble plucking up the courage.
&
nbsp; ‘Mummy, Matt’s pulling my scarf.’
Laura turned and shook her head. ‘Behave yourselves. You’re going to meet a nice little girl called Lisa. She’s younger and smaller than you, so start practising gentleness from now, this minute. Matt, I knitted that scarf, and the stitches will break if you pull too hard. Oh, and stop trying to strangle your sister.’ Could she put her children through a mess involving their father? Was Neil capable of . . . She couldn’t bear to think about those women.
‘I’m only messing,’ the child replied.
‘Then don’t. Strangling your sister is not a good thing.’
Laura faced front again. ‘He does that,’ she said softly. ‘The Mersey Monster strangles. Oh, Andy – what if . . .?’
He nodded. ‘Well, we know that the victim was Jean Davenport. You know what I think should be done. If the cross he had bore the initials JD, then yes, he could have bought it from a market trader who, in turn, bought it from the perpetrator. If he’s innocent, there’s no problem—’
‘If who’s innocent?’ Matt wanted to know.
Laura inhaled deeply. ‘Stolen jewellery. Andy gets offered stolen stuff in his shops.’ She couldn’t remember the inscription on the cross. She shouldn’t put her children through all the stress of having a father charged with murder. She mustn’t carry on allowing women to be killed just to keep her own little family safe. No matter what she did or didn’t do, the results promised to be harmful.
After a journey along Queens Drive and Menlove Avenue, they turned right into Smithdown Road. Laura straightened her spine; just as Andy had advised, she needed to live in the moment, because no one on earth could predict what the next hour or the next day might bring. For Laura, the next thirty minutes would find her talking openly for the first time to a woman with a trustworthy face. But she couldn’t know that yet.
After the shooting of PC Dave Earnshaw on Lime Street Station, Smelly Nellie disappeared with her dog Nelson and her friend Holy Mary. The occasional kerfuffle ensued, since many hungry and homeless people missed the food and drink provided at Lime Street Station by Nellie, but remaining police officers did what they could by collecting from the nuns in Magdalene House. At every level from traffic bobbies all the way upward through the ranks, the force now recognized that Nellie, Mary and Nelson were volunteer detectives/police informants.
Eddie Barnes, secretly in cahoots with the two nuns, had taken ‘extended leave’, though his bosses knew what he was up to and had given their permission. The women, smartly dressed in suits and blouses, travelled with him in several borrowed cars. It wasn’t going to be easy, since Albert Shuttleworth, tall and weighty, would be very well hidden because he was so easily recognized.
They carried with them the blanket that had been on Shuttleworth’s legs when he’d fired the first two shots at Dave, and Nelson was familiar with the scent. But even Nelson could not identify a person behind closed doors, so three humans and one dog were searching for Boss’s emissaries. As most were locked away and maintaining a long silence, it looked like a needle-in-a-haystack job, yet three people and one dog didn’t give in; they concentrated on the boss’s mother’s house. Dave Earnshaw’s killer would be brought to justice, and that would be an end to it.
Neil Carson’s frame of mind was wildly inconsistent. He was happy when the landlord allowed him to take over the house, scared when he was inside the end of terrace, furious because of the dressing down he’d suffered over the phone when he’d talked to Eve. Having a place all to himself was liberating, but sometimes, just occasionally, he caught peripheral sight of movement, though it always disappeared when he turned his face to look full on. It might be Jesus or Judas, or both. It might be Maude or Joe’s tormented spirit . . .
He clung to his notebook as if it collected the remnants of sanity.
I carried Maude in her coffin at the double funeral. Didn’t go to the wake afterwards, couldn’t face it. The house is empty, echo-y. Her bed’s in the back yard, dismantled. I miss her. I sit on the couch with the tray I made, the one with three different tops, and I eat my meals. I say meals, but I have very little appetite. My stomach’s in knots.
The anger. It won’t go away. Who does Fat Mamma think she’s talking to? She said Angela’s had enough of me because I ask for more punishment than she’s willing to give. Old Fatso’s dying. Putting her out of her misery might be a kindness. I wish I could eat; I wish I could sleep. Something is coursing through my veins and urging me on to . . . To what? Is it now? Do I go out and do the thing Jesus asked of me? I need to be stronger . . .
*
‘It’s your bloody fault any road.’ Babs stood with arms akimbo, her bright eyes flashing with something that was no stranger to white-hot fury. ‘You can’t be going out with one lad on a Friday and another on the Saturday. Have you lost your mind? Cos if you have, you’d best find it smartish. The way you’re carrying on, you’d need one more brain cell to catch up with a daffodil.’
‘Well, how am I supposed to work out which one I want?’
‘Fast,’ Babs snapped, ‘you do it fast, because the three scout hut lads aren’t supposed to go off this estate, and well you know it. They’re younger than Bill, and he gets picked up in a morning by the builder and brought home most afternoons, so he’s safer. It’s drugs, you idiot.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Course I’m sure, you soft bitch. You’re sure, too, so stop asking stupid questions. The big boss is on the loose only twenty miles away, so Ian shouldn’t be gallivanting down Lord Street just to please you. Sort yourself out pretty damned quick, because if you don’t, I’ll put a stop to your shenanigans.’
Sally left the kitchen.
‘Don’t walk away from me while I’m talking to you.’
‘You’re not me mother,’ came the cry from the hall.
‘Don?’ Babs yelled.
The master of the house appeared on the landing. He was dressed in a silly patterned smoking jacket and striped pyjama pants. ‘You called?’ he said. ‘Or did you scream? What’s going on now?’
Babs pointed an accusatory finger at her friend. ‘It’s her. She’s courting two lads, and there’s going to be a big fight any day now.’
Don Crawford frowned. ‘Hang on a minute, Sally. Who said you could go out with boys?’
Babs stood in the hall, arms folded, a toe tapping the floor to demonstrate the diminishing level of her patience.
Sally, halfway up the stairs, stopped climbing; she had Don in front of her and Babs below on the ground floor. ‘Nobody said,’ she answered defiantly, ‘because nobody owns me.’
‘Careful,’ Babs warned in a near whisper.
Sally spun round. ‘Why? Why have I got to be careful?’
The older girl saw herself in Sally; she remembered being defiant, furious, confused and beyond control. Baby Sally, although just turned eighteen, was acting like a thirteen-year-old, and it wasn’t her fault. Her mother’s second husband was responsible for this delay in his stepdaughter’s development. Babs spoke to Don. ‘It’s not her fault. I shouldn’t have disturbed you, Don, because I can deal with this. Sorry.’
The old man returned to his room, muttering darkly about the stupidity of females, a bad heart and what the world was coming to.
Babs wagged a finger. ‘Kitchen. Now,’ she spat ominously.
Sally knew she had lost. Breathing slowly and deeply, she descended the flight of stairs. She really needed to learn to control herself. On entering the kitchen, she saw that Babs was seated at the table. Seated meant a meeting, whether the gathering consisted of two or twenty-two people.
‘Sit,’ Babs snapped.
Sally sat. ‘Sorry,’ she said.
‘I should bloody well think so, too. Supposing that boss man fancied a day in Southport? Supposing he worked out that nineteen or twenty miles was enough distance from the middle of Liverpool? What then? What if he took lodgings here, huh? There you’d be, strolling up the main street with either Ian or Bill.’ She
lowered her voice. ‘Bill refused to deliver or produce drugs for him, said he was going to work with his dad, so now the family is split up and afraid of being found by that bad swine. Bill’s best friend was killed. As for Ian – has he not suffered enough at that bloody school? And he was supposed to stay in the scout hut under Boss’s orders. Also, do both boys know you’ve been a working girl? Gordy does, because Don told him he’d bought two Baby Dolls.’
Sally’s head drooped. ‘I didn’t think.’
‘No, you didn’t. The last of the drugs were in the scout hut, and those three boys were ordered to guard the stash. So you go strolling about with Ian, no sense in your head, no thought for anybody but yourself and what you want. I’ve a good mind to send you packing. And you have to tell the boy you choose where we’ve come from, because you’ll get found out, mark my words. Mind, Ian knows already, because we looked after him and the other two.’
The younger girl hung her head.
‘Right,’ Babs said, ‘that’s better. So tell me.’
‘What?’
‘About your stepdad.’
‘You what?’
‘You heard me.’
Sally snorted. ‘He’s no kind of dad, step or otherwise. He married Mam to get to me.’
Babs waited before speaking again. ‘And what hurt most was that your mother let it happen.’
Sally nodded.
‘Ditto, Sal. So I fixed Uncle Charlie all by myself. He stuck part of his ugly body in my mouth, and I bit down. Hard. I just had time to throw bleach at it before he ran out screaming. I don’t know what he said to the docs in the hospital, but they found out he had TB as well as a withered willy, and he died of the TB about a year later. I had to go for tests.’
Sally snapped her mouth shut. ‘Bleach?’ she whispered.
‘Yes, bleach. I kept a cup of it under my bed. Just had to wait for my chance. See, we’re quicker than they are even when we’re kids. The way we’re made – well, part of it is to manage men. Think about some animals that give birth and spend the first few days or weeks stopping the father animal from killing the young. If you get a rogue male, he needs isolating. I isolated him good and proper, babe.’
Midnight on Lime Street Page 30
