There’s Always Tomorrow

by Pam Weaver

  Ann frowned. ‘Tea on the windowsill …? Oh, you mean the tramp? Oh yes, I remember him. Haven’t seen him for a while though. He would put the tin on the windowsill and Aunt Bessie would fill it for him. Sometimes she gave him a bit of bread and jam. I never knew his name. Ernest Franks, is it?’ She was conscious that she was babbling but she couldn’t help herself. ‘Why do you ask? Has something happened to him?’

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ said Kipper. ‘At the moment he’s in Worthing hospital.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Ann. ‘But at least he’ll get three square meals a day.’

  ‘He was found a few days ago,’ Kipper went on. ‘In a hedge. He’d been badly beaten and left for dead. It was touch and go. He’s made some improvement but he’s still not out of the woods yet.’

  ‘Why are you telling me all this?’

  ‘I wonder if you would come with me and identify him as the tramp you remember,’ said Kipper. ‘I need to make sure he’s on the level.’

  ‘Me?’ cried Ann. ‘But I hardly know the man.’

  ‘I would have asked Dottie,’ said Kipper, ‘but she’s not here. I’ve come round in my off-duty because I’d rather not make it official unless I have to.’

  She realised for the first time that he wasn’t in his uniform. How silly of her not to notice. Normally he rode a bicycle around the village, not the Austin 7.

  ‘If we could go to the hospital now,’ he went on, ‘we could clear this up very quickly. The poor old fellow took quite a licking. Most likely he’s had his brains scrambled but I need to check on a few things.’

  Ann glanced at the clock. ‘It just so happens that my children are with Mary Prior,’ she began. ‘I’d have to be back here before six.’

  ‘It shouldn’t take that long,’ said Kipper.

  The bungalow turned out to be one of several in a row standing behind a four-foot wall on the edge of The Crumbles, an area of wild, undeveloped and lonely land between Eastbourne and Pevensey. The only thing that marked it out from the others of a similar ilk was a windswept rambling rose clinging to the whitewashed walls. As they walked up the path, Dottie looked up as the net curtain in the next door bungalow was lifted and an old woman peered out. At the same time, an old man looked out of the downstairs window. Despite Reg’s enthusiasm, Dottie could never imagine the area becoming a magnet for visitors. It was too bleak.

  Although it was furnished, the bungalow was musty and damp inside. Patsy ran from room to room exploring every cupboard drawer.

  ‘It needs a bit of work,’ said Reg, ‘but nothing that a lick of paint won’t cure.’

  ‘How much do they want for it, Reg?’

  ‘Nine hundred pounds.’

  Dottie was flabbergasted; yet he’d made it sound as if it were just a few quid. ‘Where are we going to get that sort of money?’

  He turned to her with that dark look in his eye. ‘There you go again,’ he hissed. ‘Always trying to spoil everything.’

  ‘No, no,’ she protested. ‘Believe me I wasn’t, but nine hundred pounds … it’s a lot of money.’

  ‘We’ll get a tidy sum from selling the cottage,’ he said. ‘Add it to your trust fund, we’ll do it easy.’

  Dottie gasped. ‘But I don’t want to sell the cottage,’ she cried. A wave of anger swept over her and she spun round to face him. ‘I won’t do it, Reg. It’s my cottage and I won’t do it!’

  Immediately, he raised his arm to hit her.

  ‘Auntie Dottie … Auntie Dottie, there’s a funny old pump over the sink,’ said Patsy, running back into the room. ‘Come and see.’

  Reg snapped his arm back to his side. ‘Let’s not talk about money now, love,’ he said, giving Dottie a deliberate smile. ‘Go and see what the kid wants … and when you come back, I’ve got another surprise for you.’

  Ann and Kipper pulled up in the car park outside the hospital in Lyndhurst Road. They walked in silence under the clock tower and into the long tiled corridors that smelled of disinfectant.

  Ernest Franks was in a room on his own next to the men’s ward. He lay on his back, with his head slightly propped up. The snow-white sheet was folded neatly over his chest and beneath his unshaven chin. He looked very different. One eye was badly bruised and the eyebrow had been stitched back together again. Ann guessed from the look of him that his nose had been broken.

  As they walked into the room, he appeared to be asleep but as she drew nearer, he opened his one eye and began to cough painfully.

  She sat down on the chair beside the bed. ‘I’m sorry to see you like this,’ she said.

  ‘I remember you,’ he said softly. ‘You lived next door …’ Ann could feel Kipper leaning over her shoulder trying to catch what the man was saying ‘… to the old one.’

  ‘You mean Elizabeth Thornton?’ she said. ‘Everyone knew her as Aunt Bessie.’

  He nodded his head painfully. ‘She helped me.’

  ‘She was a lovely woman.’ Ann agreed.

  ‘I was going to end it all,’ he said. ‘I’d come to the end of my tether. If it wasn’t for her …’ He coughed. ‘I went back and left her a note. I wanted her to know it was because of her I did it.’

  Kipper frowned. ‘Did what?’

  ‘Got my life back together again.’

  Ernest coughed again. Ann offered him some water. He took a small sip and then sank back onto the pillow, apparently overcome by emotion.

  ‘When I saw a newspaper cutting …’ he choked.

  Ann glanced anxiously at Kipper. The poor man wasn’t making much sense, but he was clearly overwrought about something. When he’d recovered a little, he indicated that he wanted his knapsack. They found it stuffed in the bottom of the locker; the sister had wrapped it in a brown paper bag. When Kipper pulled it out, it still stank of ditchwater. They laid it on the bed beside him.

  Ernest had precious few possessions but they included a tattered photograph of a young woman with a small child on her knee, some dog-eared letters, a few items of clothing, his trilby hat and a black tie. At the bottom of the bag they found a faded blue rabbit with floppy ears. He seized the rabbit, pressing it to his cheek. ‘My poor little Bobbie …’

  Ann felt uncomfortable. After the war, there were plenty of people with similarly pathetic little collections of bits and pieces left over from a bombed house. Rubbish to one person, but a treasure collected from the darkness for another.

  ‘Shall we play with bunny? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Bobbie?’ He began to hum.

  Ann couldn’t bear it. Swallowing hard, she bit back her own tears and turned over a few of the other things spread out on the bedcovers. ‘Are you looking for something, Mr Franks?’ she said gently.

  Eventually, Ernest pushed most of the things aside and picked up a page of folded newspaper. Kipper opened it out and they scanned each side of the page. On one side was an article about canal boats, on the other a small article headlined ‘Tragic Fall’.

  Ann recognised it at once as the report on Aunt Bessie’s death. She didn’t need to re-read it to know it said that Elizabeth Thornton had been found dead at the foot of the stairs in Myrtle Cottage, High Street, on February 15th 1949; that Dr Fitzgerald had attended the scene and had pronounced life extinct. The police and the coroner had been informed and at the inquest her niece, Dorothy Cox, had said that her aunt had been in good health when she had left for work that morning. The report went on to say that Mr Reginald Cox had come home to find the doctor and an ambulance in attendance, his wife distraught and his wife’s aunt dead. The newspaper report noted that he was deeply moved as he spoke of Aunt Bessie, describing her as angel in disguise who, since his return from the war, had given him both a welcome and a home. He had last seen his wife’s aunt at 8.30 that morning as he left for work.

  As Kipper refreshed his memory by reading the report aloud, the man became agitated.

  ‘The bloody liar,’ he hissed. He gripped the edge of his sheet and screwed it as he tried to sit up. ‘
He didn’t go to work at 8.30. He was there, I tell you. The bastard was there!’

  Thirty-Six

  The whole bungalow smelled musty and damp. The windows were boarded up and the only light came from between the open cracks. There was no electricity and the wind made an eerie sound as it whistled between the back door and the fence.

  ‘The owner is in a nursing home,’ said Reg. ‘I know it doesn’t look a lot right now but it’ll be really nice once we’ve done it up.’

  His eyes shone with excitement and he was animated in a way Dottie’d never seen before. Patsy ran from room to room, keeping up a running commentary as she went. ‘There’s some old saucepans on the cooker. Ugh, there’s something in this one, it’s all mouldy.’

  Dottie stood at the entrance to the sitting room watching Reg putting down a sheet. Her mind was working overtime. Surely he couldn’t be serious about this?

  ‘I can see paw marks on this floor, Auntie Dottie,’ Patsy’s voice drifted towards them. ‘Is there a dog here? I like dogs.’

  How could she make this into a guesthouse? It would take a month of Sundays to clean it up and then it would need to be redecorated throughout. No one would want to stay in a place with nicotine-stained walls and smelly drains. The garden was a wilderness and it was miles from anywhere. She wondered vaguely how the old couple next door managed to do their shopping.

  ‘Come on,’ said Reg at last. ‘Let’s have our picnic.’

  ‘Reg,’ she began weakly.

  He glared at her stonily. ‘We’ll talk about it later. Now do as I say and sit down.’

  His tone was so belligerent, Dottie lowered herself down at once.

  Patsy bounced into the room. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘We’re having a picnic,’ said Reg.

  ‘But …’ the child began; then seeing Dottie’s expression, she lowered herself beside her, hugging her toy elephant close.

  Reg opened a duffle bag and took out some sandwiches wrapped in greaseproof paper. ‘I asked the old dragon to make us some sandwiches. Hungry?’

  Even the thought of eating made her feel sick but Dottie nodded. She had to get out of this somehow. How could she possibly have her baby in this God-forsaken hole. And where would Patsy go to school?

  Reg threw a bag of crisps at Patsy. The child’s face lit up.

  Reg poured some tea from a flask and handed Dottie a mug. Dottie cupped her hands around it. Did he really want her to give up Aunt Bessie’s comfortable cottage for this?

  ‘I can see the bungalow has great potential but I’m not sure many people would like it here, Reg,’ she ventured cautiously. ‘It’s very isolated.’

  ‘Nonsense. This is just what people want. A nice quiet place.’

  A nice quiet place … her mind echoed with emphasis.

  A dark expression drifted across his face. ‘Eat your sandwiches.’

  She ate but they tasted like cardboard and she was struggling not to cry.

  ‘Can Suzy and me go and look for the dog?’ Patsy asked.

  ‘Course you can, pet,’ smiled Reg.

  ‘I can’t buy this place,’ Dottie said quietly as soon as they were alone.

  His head snapped up. ‘But as soon as your inheritance comes through …’ he began.

  ‘It’ll be tied up until I’m thirty.’

  His mouth became a tight line. ‘Tied up?’

  Dottie explained the terms of her aunt’s will. ‘I can’t do anything without the approval of the trustees.’

  Reg held her gaze for a while and looked away. ‘What a shame.’ His voice was so controlled it chilled her even more. What was he up to? Her head was spinning. She could think straight.

  ‘I don’t feel so good,’ she said. ‘My mouth is very dry.’

  ‘Have some more tea, dear.’ He helped her with the cup and she managed another mouthful. ‘Tell you what. Why don’t you have a bit of a lie down? There’s a bed next door. I can lay the sheet over it for you.’

  She protested but he stuffed everything back into the duffle bag and helped her out of the room. Her legs were like lead.

  The bedroom was cold and the windows were closely boarded up. No cracks here, but she was grateful to see the bed. He spread the sheet over the mattress and Dottie lay down. ‘I’ll be fine in a minute,’ she said.

  ‘Course you will, pet,’ he said.

  Ann gasped in horror. ‘What!’

  But Ernest Franks was seized by a violent coughing fit. They rang the bell and a nurse came. Between them, they hauled him into a more upright position and she re-arranged the pillows.

  ‘You’ll have to put that stuff away, Ernie,’ she said pointing at the old knapsack and its contents scattered all over the bed. ‘If Sister sees it, you know what’ll happen. She’ll have it all in the incinerator as quick as you like.’

  Ann busied herself putting everything back in the brown paper bag. As she pushed in the trilby hat, her fingers touched something sharp and she let out a small cry. She supposed it was his knife but she pulled out a medal. The DSO and bar. She and PC Kipling shared a glance and her respect for the tramp went sky-high.

  Kipper opened his notepad. ‘So you’re saying that Mr Cox was in the house when Mrs Thornton died?’

  Ernest was in a world of his own. Bouncing the rabbit in the air, he began to sing softly. ‘Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run …’

  Kipper glanced at Ann and shook his head. It was obvious that the poor man was a sandwich short of a picnic. As they turned to leave, Ernest looked up sharply. ‘And that isn’t his name either.’

  The full import of his statement was lost as Ann exclaimed, ‘Ernest, if you heard Aunt Bessie fall, why didn’t you go and help her?’

  ‘I wasn’t there when she actually fell,’ he said. ‘She gave me my tea and she let me talk. I liked it when she let me talk.’ His voice trailed. ‘I could never talk to people about Eileen and my boy, nobody except her. She didn’t try to shut me up. She didn’t say, that’s all in the past, time to move on. She’d listen. I could talk to her. I told her about my boy. My little Bobbie.’ His face clouded. ‘But then, he came back,’ he said bitterly. ‘He never liked me being there. Whenever he saw me, he used to shout at her. She always said she wasn’t worried but I didn’t want to get her into trouble so I only went there when he wasn’t around.’

  ‘But he came back that day,’ said Kipper.

  Ernest nodded. ‘He came in the back way, down the garden path, and I scarpered out the front door.’

  ‘Reg always used to come in the back way,’ Ann remarked. She wanted to tell them that he used to stand in the lane and watch her house and that he gave her the creeps, but this wasn’t the time or the place.

  ‘So why didn’t you come to the police when you heard Mrs Thornton had died?’ Kipper wanted to know.

  ‘I didn’t know she was gone until a few weeks ago,’ he said simply. ‘She had given me a rail ticket to go back home, so that’s where I went.’

  ‘Home?’ said Kipper. ‘Where’s home?’

  ‘Liverpool.’ His voice had dropped again. ‘I went back to see where they’d put Eileen and the boy.’ He laid his hand on the top of the brown paper bag. ‘The neighbours saved a few things for me. This is the little rabbit my boy used to take to bed with him, a few photographs and stuff. There wasn’t much left.’

  ‘May I ask you what happened?’ Ann asked gently.

  ‘They were killed in an air raid.’

  They all became very conscious of how quiet it was in the room.

  ‘Mr Franks,’ said Kipper bringing them back to the business in hand. ‘We are very sorry for your loss, but you indicated that Reg Cox wasn’t his name?’ Ernest’s face clouded with anger. ‘That’s because when I called out his real name, he turned around. His name is Daniel Sinclair, and we met in a courtroom in 1942.’

  Ann frowned. ‘That’s not possible,’ she smiled. ‘Reg and Dottie met in 1941 and were married in 1942. Soon after that, Reg went on a special mission.
It was all very hush, hush.’

  The tramp eased himself up on his elbow and looked intently at her. ‘And I’m telling you, Danny Sinclair was a no-good thief and troublemaker,’ he said, with just a hint of the authority he’d once wielded. ‘He’d been had up for stealing army blankets for the black market and then he was done for stealing lead from bombed-out houses. I should know, I was the escort at his trial.’

  A little air escaped from Ann’s lips. ‘Reg always said he was shipped to Burma. He was one of those brave Chindits.’

  Ernest relaxed against the pillows. ‘One of the Chindits, my eye. By the end of 1942, he was in prison.’ He pointed to his face. ‘Why do you think he did this? He knew I could expose him for the rat he is, so he left me for dead.’

  They became conscious of Kipper turning the pages in his notebook in his struggle to keep up with what was being said. ‘Can you prove any of this?’

  Ernest shook his head. ‘Not now. I could have done but when he jumped me in the lane and he took everything off me.’

  ‘That’s a bit unfortunate,’ said Kipper dryly.

  ‘I wrote several times,’ Ernest went on, ‘but of course, she never replied. I knew that wasn’t like her, so I decided to come back. I turned up a couple of months ago but everyone was going to a wedding.’

  ‘Michael Gilbert,’ said Ann.

  ‘I didn’t want to intrude so I bought a few bits for my shop in Liverpool and left.’

  ‘Shop?’ asked Kipper.

  ‘I deal in antiques now,’ Ernest went on. ‘And then I found that wrapped around some trinket.’ He pointed to the newspaper cutting. I was very upset and it niggled me, so I had to come and find out what happened to her.’

  ‘But why didn’t you go straight to the police?’ Kipper asked.

  ‘Because, fool that I was, I wanted to confront him myself.’

  The nurse reappeared. ‘The doctor says Mr Franks has to have his sleeping pills now.’