‘The Minister wishes to convey his deepest sympathy.’
That had been the prologue, but what followed after showed the real consideration of a phone call in place of a telegram.
‘The Minister of course understands the terrible shock this will be to you, the ordeal of losing both husband and father, therefore he thinks it will lift some of the worry from you should the Ministry take on the running of your husband’s factories.’
It had not quite sunk in at the time but later the tremble of shock had become the quake of anger.
Those people thought to appropriate the business, ‘to see to the management of it until hostilities ended.’
Slipping into the black suit she had bought with the last of the clothing coupons her father had given her as he joked he could likely buy a whole new wardrobe in Australia and that without a single coupon, Katrin felt that same anger.
‘Until hostilities ended.’ Nicely put! She stared at her reflection. But once the war ended, how much hostility then? How much wrangling with the government in order to get back what rightly belonged to his widow? Matters had been resolved by Isaac Eldon assuming full responsibility for the maintaining of the level of production combined with a monthly inspection by the Ministry. That official visit would be one of the two changes introduced into the running of Prodor. The other? The other would be the replacement of Isaac Eldon, a replacement she would choose and one who would quickly learn it was Katrin Whitman ran Prodor. There were several suitable candidates in the list she had already obtained.
It had been like an answer to a prayer. One moment she had been searching for a way of solving the problem of Isaac Eldon and the next the answer had dropped into her lap.
One more gift from Fortune’s bountiful cornucopia, and with this visit to the office of Arthur’s lawyer that gift could begin to be enjoyed.
Her glance went to the drawer of the dressing table.
‘I think perhaps you should come with me, Violet.’
She drew the delicate cloth from the drawer and watched it ripple over her fingers, hanging from their tips like soft lavender-hued tears.
‘Yes Violet, you should be there.’
Eyes hard and cold as the feelings inside her, she looped the scarf about her neck, catching it up onto her shoulder with a silver brooch. Then, handbag and gas mask in place, she turned one more glance to the mirror.
‘I would have preferred you were with me, you deserve to see your brother pay the price for what he did to a child. After all, you were a part of the deal, weren’t you, Violet? The deal which robbed a baby of its true identity. Well, now Isaac Eldon is to feel the heel of that child grind him into the ground.’
This would not take long, a quick call at Prodor, satisfy herself all was running smoothly. Nodding to the gatekeeper who touched a finger to his grease-stained flat cap, Katrin had reached the door leading into the office block when the call halted her.
‘Kate.’ Alice Butler ran across the space between the buildings. ‘Kate, I was hopin’ to see you.’
Nose wrinkling at the odour of slurry oil, Katrin answered curtly, ‘I’m sorry, Alice, I do not have time . . .’
‘I knows you be busy,’ Alice intervened quickly, ‘but this wont’ take no more than a moment, it be about Becky.’
Their voices made the gatekeeper glance to where the two women stood, Alice’s grease-marked overall and turban a sharp contrast to the smartly tailored suit and chic veiled hat of her late employer’s wife.
Aware of the man’s interest, Katrin motioned toward the door.
‘No.’ Alice shook her head. ‘Better not come up, Isaac Eldon thinks I be across to the toilet, he’ll have summat to moan about if I’m away from that machine more than two minutes; thinks a woman can whip it out, pee, shake the drips off the end, button it up and that be all there is to it, he should be all fastened up with sanitary belt and pads once a month, that’d change his tune.’
‘Alice,’ Katrin hoisted the gas mask box higher on her shoulder, ‘I really do have to hurry.’
‘Sorry,’ Alice laughed, ‘I went to see Becky last visitin’ and her said you had been to see her the day . . . well, you know what day.’
‘Yes, Alice, I know what day. It was reported Becky had fallen asleep and thinking I was in that room is no more than a dream.’
‘That were my reckonin’ but Becky be firm.’
Becky had spoken of that visit at her trial; the prosecution claimed she had dreamed it and her mother had testified that no visitor had been allowed into the house.
Anxiety stretching to breaking point, Katrin snapped. ‘Had Becky Turner been as firm in saying no to Earl Feldman, had she listened to me then as she listened—’
The look in Alice’s eyes warned of the slip of her tongue, but Alice’s grasp of her wrist prevented Katrin leaving.
‘As her listened to you that day! Don’t deny it, Kate, it be clear in your face, you did get into the Turner house, you talked to Becky just like her says you did. It were you told her of newborns sometimes bein’ stifled to death by mothers too tired to stay awake and rollin’ onto the child. You seen Becky were beside herself yet you told her that. For God’s sake, why?’
‘Why?’ Katrin spat the reply, snatching her wrist from Alice’s grasp. ‘Do you remember four young girls playing hopscotch in a school yard? Of three of those girls turning their backs on the other telling her she was a cheat and liar? There is your reason.’
‘But . . .’ Alice frowned disbelief, trying to come to terms with what she had heard, ‘We were just kids, it didn’t mean anythin’.’
‘It meant something to the girl you snubbed!’
‘And you’ve carried that with you all these years? Just like a kid you wanted to get your own back so much you deliberately fed that idea to Becky? What of us other two, Freda and me, be we to answer to your spite same as Becky has?’
‘Freda!’ she hissed, ‘she has found it did not pay to say what she did.’
‘You shopped Freda!’ Alice glared. ‘You got her five years in jail simply ’cos of what were said all that time ago! First Freda and then Becky! That leaves me. What does that stink hole you call a mind have in store for me?’
‘Quite right, I have not forgotten. You might ask Arthur Whitman who recommended he refuse to release you to the Women’s Auxiliary Forces. But of course he is unfortunately no longer here to be asked.’
‘That were your doin’? You be nothin’ but a snake and like a snake you’ll need find a hole to crawl into when folk learn what you be.’
‘A word of warning!’ Katrin’s smile was pure venom. ‘Freda Evans is serving five years, Becky is serving fifteen years, I don’t know how many are called upon to be served for defamation of character but you will find out if you speak one word against me.’
‘Christ!’ Alice laughed derisively. ‘No wonder that family gave you away, they had no idea the favour they were doin’ themselves. Isaac Eldon should go down on his knees and thank his maker, and if there be any justice in heaven I hope it’ll be visited on you, and may it be as terrible as the sufferin’ you’ve brought to Becky and Freda.’
‘Isaac Eldon should go down on his knees.’
And so he would! Shoes rapping a tattoo Katrin walked quickly along Walsall Street. But it would not be to thank heaven. He would go down on his knees to Katrin Whitman, to beg her not to sack him. Would she refuse with sadness? No. She would not answer at all, but simply turn away from him as he had turned away from a daughter.
‘Ah Mrs Whitman, good afternoon, please take a seat.’
Katrin nodded at the small rotund figure of Thomas Jones, Arthur Whitman’s lawyer.
‘Mrs Briggs you know, of course.’ The lawyer glanced at the seated figure then, as the door opened, added, ‘And you are also familiar with Mr Eldon.’
Isaac Eldon! Katrin watched the man, awkward in Sunday suit, shake hands across a vast desk. Arthur must have named him the recipient of a small sum of money, as he n
o doubt had his cleaning woman. Well let him enjoy the moment, it would not last for long!
Katrin listened to the lawyer begin to read from a document taken from a large manila envelope.
It was over. In the bedroom she had shared with Arthur Whitman, Katrin stared at the clothes strewn across the bed.
‘To Isaac Eldon I give and bequeath . . .’
In the silence of the house, Katrin’s laugh rang out.
37
‘To Katrin Whitman . . .’
Who had been the more surprised at what had followed, Isaac Eldon or that lawyer?
Taking the last dress from the wardrobe, Katrin held it against her, one hand lifting wide the filmy blue skirt. She had thought to wear it to her wedding, then it was to be worn the evening of Arthur’s homecoming and now . . . ?
Katrin sank to the floor beside the bed, the drone of the lawyer’s reading running in her mind.
‘I had my suspicions regarding Harriet Simpson’s accident, these were further aroused when you said Isaac Eldon’s arrest had to be because of those maps, maps which I knew nothing about; but when later Isaac referred to maps leading to trouble, I made it my business to find out what he meant . . .’
‘No, not me.’ Isaac Eldon’s words had halted the reading. ‘I knew who had informed about those maps. Reuben pointed you out one day in the town, he said it was you helped pick his papers up after you bumped into each other but that I kept to myself.’
It had to be a lie; there was no way Whitman could have known it was her unless Eldon had told him. The lawyer had continued reading her husband’s words.
‘During my stay in London, I spoke to a man called Philip Conroy who would only reveal it had been a woman who had telephoned the Local Information Office, that woman had to be you. Then we come to the question of the child.’
The lawyer had droned on. ‘The child you claimed I had fathered on you, that too had to be a lie. Were you indeed carrying a child, then that child could not be mine for as medical records will show I was, and always have been, infertile.’
He had known all along!
‘So why did I marry you? Greed and revenge, my dear, are two sides of the same sword, a sword which can cut the wielder as easily as it cuts the victim, a sword you yourself so often applied; now I apply that sword.’
The lawyer had hesitated, professionalism keeping the look bland on his face.
‘So to Katrin Whitman, to the woman who lied her way into my life, who attempted to ruin the lives of others, I give and bequeath that which had I lived would have been my parting gift: the sum of one month’s salary together with any personal effects.’
A month’s salary! Rage burned like acid in Katrin’s throat. It had been Whitman’s intent to dismiss her as he would any employee! One month’s salary! But that had not proved all of his parting gift.
‘To Isaac Eldon, my long-term friend and colleague, I give and bequeath Woden Place, Prodor New Crown Works and all of my estate in its entirety. Should this bequest be refused, Woden Place is to be converted, at the expense of my estate, into a Rest and Care Home for the treatment of wounded returned from the battlefield and, with the cessation of hostilities, is to remain a Care Home for those people of Wednesbury who may need it. The said properties Prodor and New Crown Works will at the end of the war be sold, the proceeds of which sale to be used for the building and maintaining of a Care Home for the people of Darlaston; but to that same long-term friend I say, the sick and the elderly need care but the young and healthy need work. I ask that you, Isaac, give this Black Country that work, take the factories, carry them forward, make them grow into the worldwide name we both know they can become; build my dream for me.’
Had Eldon expected her to weep? Had he expected her to cry on his shoulder when he had begun to offer help? On the floor beside the bed, Katrin laughed.
‘Don’t pretend concern for me, we both know that emotion has never lived in you!’ Once outside of the lawyer’s office, she had spat the fever of anger built inside her.
‘Katrin—’
She had repeated as he had spoken her name, ‘Even now it is Katrin, not Ellen, not the name my mother gave me, you allowed even that to be taken from me. It was easy for you, wasn’t it? Your son was too precious to part with and you already had a daughter, what use was there in keeping another?’
Eldon had robbed her of her true family, had taken what should have been hers from marriage with Arthur Whitman, but he would not deny her the hatred that had lived in her heart from finding that birth certificate; Isaac Eldon would not deprive her of showing him that loathing.
‘That was it, wasn’t it, father?’
She laughed at the distinct flinch, at the indisputable sadness darkening his eyes.
‘The choice was obvious, the child was something you didn’t want, so why keep it?’
‘It wasn’t what you think,’ he had said quickly. ‘I loved you, but at barely thirteen and Rob not yet twelve months, caring for another child would have been too much for Miriam.’
‘So it was give away Ellen!’
He had looked at her for a long moment, as if searching for something in her eyes, then had said quietly. ‘I loved you, I have always loved you.’
‘Love!’ she had snorted the rebuke. ‘Oh I saw that love the day Arthur Whitman asked you be fetched to his office, I heard it when you said, “Is it Robert, is it my son?” There was no thought of “Is it Ellen, is it my daughter?” But then have you ever once thought of your daughter, the child you gave away?’
Katrin did not hear the tap at the door but looked up to see the woman who had fared better from Arthur Whitman’s will than she.
‘Excuse me, Mrs Whitman – eh! Be you all right?’ A look of concern crossed the cleaning woman’s face as she saw the clothing strewn around the normally perfectly tidy room.
Katrin rose to her feet, saying sharply she would leave the house when she was ready.
‘Ain’t that I come about!’ Huffed at the tartness of her reception the woman’s reply was resentful. ‘Be to tell you there be somebody downstairs a wantin’ to speak wi’ you.’
Clearly understanding the former mistress of Woden Place was no longer in a position to dismiss her for answering without the usual show of respect, the woman added, ‘I’ll tell ’im y’ be comin’ down.’
It must be Eldon! Catching sight of herself in the dressing mirror, Katrin touched the lavender scarf still looped about her shoulders. ‘You know the saying, mother,’ she said grimly, ‘“where there is life,” your brother will find I am not finished yet.’
‘Do you recognise this, Mrs Whitman?’
Katrin stared at the object held in the hand of the Police Inspector who had once interviewed her at the house in Hollies Drive. It had been a surprise to find him to be the ‘somebody’ waiting to talk with her.
‘I would have thought a young child could tell you that is a button!’
‘Yes, a button. Perhaps I should have asked do you recognise the piece of cloth attached to that button?’
Drawing on strengths which had assisted so well in the past, Katrin answered calmly, ‘No, I do not recognise either button or cloth, now I must ask you to leave.’
‘All in good time, but first perhaps you might help with something else.’
Following his nod to the uniformed constable, the cleaning woman entered.
‘Thank you, Mrs Briggs.’ The Inspector nodded again to the constable, who took the folded bundle from the woman’s arms holding it so its full length opened.
‘Please look carefully, Mrs Whitman, do you recognise this garment?’
The coat! Katrin’s brain screamed. The coat she had been wearing the night she had stabbed that bottle into Jim Slater’s neck! She had intended to burn it when chance allowed but then had forgotten it until that day she had been sorting unwanted items to be given to the Welfare Centre. She had found the coat hanging at the very back of the wardrobe and put it aside to get rid of when she was alon
e. Briggs must have thought it part of the clothes put ready for donation and taken it with the rest.
‘Do you recognise the garment, Mrs Whitman?’
He was watching her closely for any sign of recognition. Katrin steeled herself to answer mockingly. ‘Once again, Inspector, a young child could tell you that is a coat.’
‘Precisely Mrs Whitman, it is a coat. Did it belong to you?’
Katrin cast a seemingly unconcerned glance at the coat, then with a brief toss of the head replied. ‘It may have done, but then it could have belonged to someone else. Coats are manufactured in large numbers – unless of course for the very wealthy and they, Inspector, would require a much better quality.’
‘Mrs Briggs, is this the coat you took from this house?’
‘Yes, sir.’ The woman nodded vigorously.
‘Is it the coat you wore when you called at my home to go with my wife to help sort clothing at Wednesbury Welfare Centre?’
‘Yes but . . . well, Mrs Whitman weren’t a wantin’ of it an’ it be a good coat ’cept for that little rip of the pocket so I kept it for m’self, I d’ain’t mean to steal.’
‘It was not stealing,’ the Inspector assured the trembling figure. ‘But tell us, Mrs Briggs, the coat you see the constable holding, the one you brought at my request to the police station, is it the one you brought from this house?’
Assuring the woman once more she was in no trouble, and waiting until she had left the room, the Inspector began again. ‘Mrs Whitman, you say this coat, the coat taken from this house, did not belong to you, is that correct?’
Katrin snapped, ‘How many times do I have to answer that question?’
‘None. However there is one question you might care to answer; how, if this coat did not belong to you, do you explain this?’
He lifted the lining which had been freed of stitching, then folded back the fabric to which it had been attached. Katrin could not prevent a quick indrawn breath. The name tag! Violet always sewed a name tag where no one would expect it to be!
A Step Too Far Page 28
