Frankie's Manor

by Frankie's Manor (retail) (epub)

  Frank, his expression inscrutable, said flatly, ‘I asked her, and she said yes. That’s all you need to know. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go and see if my wife’s all right. You can find your way out, can’t you, Constable? Oh, I nearly forgot,’ he snapped his fingers mockingly, ‘it’s Sergeant now, isn’t it? And I forgot to congratulate you.’ The levity in his voice disappeared. Moving closer until their faces were only a few inches apart, he snarled, ‘Don’t come back, Adams, ’Cos if you do, you’ll be sorry. Now get away from my house.’

  Jack gave him a withering smile. ‘You don’t frighten me, Buchannon. Oh, I’ll go, but not because you told me to, for Rose’s sake. I’ll be back though, from time to time. Just to make sure she’s all right. ’Cos you know something, Buchannon, you’re up to something. I don’t know what, but Rose wouldn’t have just suddenly decided to marry you – not without a good reason. And I’ll find out what that reason was. I’m very good at finding things out – it’s my job.’ Clapping his hat firmly over his unruly dark curls he sauntered from the garden and out into the tree-lined street.

  Once out of view of the house, his composure crumpled. She was gone. His Rose was gone from him and, despite his brave words, there was nothing he could do about it.

  Numb with grief he hailed a passing cab and asked to be taken to Victoria station. There was nothing left for him in London. Nothing but memories.

  * * *

  Back at the house, Frankie stood by the large bay window looking out on to the street from his study, a glass of whisky in his hand. Seated behind him in a brown chesterfield armchair was a large, jittery man. ‘Bloody hell, Frank, that was close. If Adams had seen me here, he’d have put two and two together, and I’d have been—’

  Frank rounded on him. ‘And you’d have what, Mitchell? You’re just having a drink with an old pal. There’s nothing wrong with that, not unless you lose your nerve.’

  Inspector Brian Mitchell, Jack Adams’s previous superior, mopped his perspiring face. For years now he had done his utmost to keep Frankie out of prison, for a hefty inducement, of course, and it had been a profitable partnership. He was aware that many of his colleagues had their suspicions about him but, without proof, there was little they could do. Yet if Jack Adams had seen him here, under Frankie Buchannon’s roof, it might have set him thinking about his hasty promotion and the unexpected new posting out in the backwaters of Southampton. And if Adams started to ask awkward questions…

  Frankie looked at the sweat glistening on the fleshy cheeks and jeered, ‘Bleeding hell! Look at the state of you, you spineless bastard!’ Walking easily to a glass-fronted cabinet, he took out a crystal decanter and carried it over to a polished mahogany desk. Setting it down on a mat he prised out the stopper and poured himself another drink, adding harshly, ‘I’ll tell you something, Mitchell. I might have hated Adams’s guts, but he had balls – which is more than can be said of you. Oh, bollocks! Here, take your money and get out.’ He flung an embossed white envelope contemptuously on the table. ‘Go on, Mitchell, piss off. In future, I’ll get one of me boys to drop it off. Oh, don’t worry,’ he sneered, as he saw the Inspector’s face blanch in sudden fear, ‘I’ll make sure they’re discreet. Well! What you waiting for?’

  The man made a hasty escape, silently cursing Buchannon but too scared to make any protest.

  Left alone, Frankie remained staring out of the window on to the street below. He was glad Adams had been. He had known he would turn up one day. Now he had, and Frankie didn’t have to worry about him any more. It was over, and he, Frank Buchannon, had won – as he had always known he would.

  Raising his glass he made a silent toast to himself. To a new life. A new, respectable life. With a new, respectable family. A disarming smile lit up his handsome face, then, savouring his triumph for a few delicious moments, he threw back his drink and went in search of his wife.

  Chapter Nineteen

  By the time Frank Buchannon was forty-two, he had achieved his aim to become one of London’s top businessmen. The one-time petty thief, turned racketeer and extortionist, was no more. In his stead was a highly respected, and very wealthy, man. His fortunes had climbed steadily since he had stepped out from the prison gates for the last time, nine years previously. The steadfast resolution to rise in the world had intensified after his marriage. From that day on, he passed into a new phase of his hitherto stormy, chequered life.

  His meteoric rise up the ladder to success was aided by his beautiful, intelligent wife who, with her husband, had slipped effortlessly into their dazzling new world.

  They made an arresting couple. Frankie was now considered a pillar of society, hosting dinner parties for important men and their wives while Rose played hostess with a natural grace and wit that charmed all who came into contact with her. It soon became obvious that Rose Buchannon wasn’t just a pretty face as she discussed business projects, money matters and world news across the elaborate dining table with her distinguished guests. Not for her the idle chit-chat so common among the women with whom she now found herself in company. It was Rose who had first initiated her husband into the world of stocks and shares, thereby greatly adding to his already substantial wealth.

  Stories about Frankie’s wild days in the East End were openly told – in fact, the man himself actively encouraged such talk. For, after all, he was often heard to say, there was nothing in his past that he was ashamed of. He admitted to his former shady dealings, careful to omit the harsher aspects of his early days, speaking of those times in such a way as to invoke laughter, and even, on occasion, admiration and envy from staid, overfed men, who had never known danger or excitement in their comfortably dull lives.

  During the years following the birth of his daughter, Frankie had slowly but determinedly shed every unsavoury link with his past. Thriving businesses now stood where there had once been stinking sweat shops. The vicious protection rackets were in the hands of former employees of Frankie Buchannon, given in lieu of severance pay by their former governor.

  Those who had the astuteness and ability rose to greater things alongside the dynamic Frankie; those who didn’t come up to scratch were left behind. Few dared complain.

  A new clothing factory and various large offices and shops, all overseen by Frankie’s boys, as he still called them, had created a multitude of much-needed jobs in the poverty-stricken East End, thereby earning Frankie Buchannon the undying gratitude of hundreds of men and women.

  And what could make any man more popular than to see him so lovingly paired with his child? To say that Frankie Buchannon doted on his daughter would have been an understatement. From the moment Victoria Anne Buchannon could walk, her besotted father took her with him everywhere. He could be seen regularly taking the enchanting child on outings to the park, and in his carriage around the shops and streets of Bow and the surrounding area when Rose was busy elsewhere in her charity work with the less fortunate of Stoke Newington. It was a role she undertook with much pleasure and little recognition. And from time to time, her affluent husband dipped willingly into his own pockets, in answer to a plea from the beautiful wife he adored.

  The angel-faced little girl, who was the spitting image of her mother, was even allowed to accompany her prestigious father on his business rounds, where eager employees were allowed to down tools temporarily and coo over the copper-haired youngster.

  On Victoria’s fourth birthday, Frankie took his family to Paris for a month’s vacation, the outcome of which was the birth of a son, Benjamin Buchannon, delivered eight months after their return. Many speculated that the arrival of the new baby would put the little girl’s nose out of joint but, if anything, Frank showered his daughter with even more love and attention, as if anxious to ensure Victoria wouldn’t feel slighted by all the fuss over her new baby brother. But he needn’t have worried, for the engaging, strong-willed Victoria, who took after her Great-aunt Mary in temperament, was immediately captivated by her new sibling and took great pains
to let everyone know that Benjamin Buchannon was firmly under his big sister’s protection.

  Those who were privileged to be invited into the family home in Grantham Avenue for social occasions spoke about their visit for days afterwards. Women gushed over the children and their charming hosts. And who could overlook the redoubtable Mary Miller, that tempestuous woman who seemed positively fearsome when it came to her East-End roots and voiced the most risqué and loud observations whenever possible, regardless of who might be visiting at the time. Yet the Buchannons openly adored her, and so, of course, did their guests. It seemed to those who knew them that the Buchannons had everything anyone could wish for – but life is never that simple, or that kind.

  There were many who remembered the old days, people who hadn’t been able to better themselves, and others who hadn’t been offered the opportunity.

  Such a person was Sally Higgins.

  If life had seemed to smile on Frankie and Rose, it had overlooked Sally completely. The day she had learned of Frankie’s marriage to Rose her world had collapsed around her. For years Sally had nurtured a secret hope that Frankie would come back to her one day and that things would be as they had once been. Even when he was openly hostile, and often violent towards her, Sally had clung to the forlorn hope, and when all hope was gone, her dreams irrevocably shattered, a part of Sally simply gave up. Gradually, she turned to drink, first for comfort, then to blot out a life that had become unbearable.

  Her long-time landlord and friend, Henry Dixon, tried his best to stop her drinking, but when her craving reduced her to stealing from the takings and turning up for work blind drunk, he reluctantly threw her out.

  Still an attractive woman, Sally plied her trade in the streets, implementing her earnings by picking the odd pocket when the opportunity presented itself. She made a decent living for a while, but the ravages of drink finally reduced her to prowling the gutter in search of men she would once have crossed the road to avoid.

  During the lean, desperate years, Sally had followed Frankie’s success avidly in the local newspaper. And when, one sickening, desperate morning, she awoke to find herself on a filthy mattress between two equally foul-smelling, lice-riddled men, she crawled out into the street and wept copious tears of shame and loathing that she should have been reduced to such depths of depravity. Her self-abasement was made worse by the knowledge that, come the evening, she would do the same again in return for a bottle of drink.

  It was later the same day when a despondent Sally, having guzzled a portion of chips, was about to screw up the newspaper her dinner had come wrapped in, when a familiar name caught her bleary eye. Wiping greasy hands down the sides of a matted, ripped skirt, her eyes, suddenly alert, raked the article. It was nothing sensational, just a short passage concerning yet another new shop the East-End entrepreneur Frank Buchannon had opened, thereby creating half a dozen new jobs to add to his increasing workforce. Instead of throwing away the paper, Sally clutched it to her chest as if it was a prized possession, her alcohol-clouded brain, dulled by years of abuse, beginning to germinate a plan.

  With a look of resolve that hadn’t been evident for many years, Sally walked slowly along the litter-strewn pavement deep in thought. Up ahead a smartly dressed man was emerging from a run-down terraced house, as if anxious not to be seen coming from such a disreputable place.

  Sally sneered at the departing figure. They were all the same: keen enough to get their leg over at night when they’d had a few too many, then up and running the next day when they found themselves in unfamiliar, squalid surroundings.

  Quickening her step, Sally caught up with the man as he hailed a passing cab. With practised ease, she bumped into him, her slim fingers, although somewhat shaky, expertly extracting a leather wallet from the inside coat pocket. Then she slipped down a side alley to count her spoils. Her face crumpled in disappointment as a solitary sovereign stared up at her. Stuffing the wallet down the front of her dress to pawn later, Sally fought down the temptation to go to the nearest pub. With a monumental show of will-power, she trudged half a mile to a second-hand clothes shop and haggled over the price of a blue serge dress and a black woollen shawl, both of which had seen better days, but still seemed new when compared with the rags Sally was wearing. Her next stop was the Hackney baths, where, for sixpence, she was shown into a small cubicle containing a cast-iron bath half filled with warm water, and given a sliver of soap and a threadbare towel. Twenty minutes later, clean and tidy for the first time since she could remember, Sally asked directions to Grantham Avenue in Bow.

  Once at her destination, she stood on the corner of the street, her throat raw for want of a drink, her heart hammering painfully against the breast of her newly acquired dress, wondering if the grand house opposite was the one she was looking for. Years earlier, the local paper had printed an article about Frankie, giving his address, which Sally thought she had remembered, but now she was here she wasn’t so sure. She paced up and down the tree-lined avenue as she fretted over what course of action to take.

  She had just made up her mind to come back another time when she heard women’s voices, mixed with those of excited children, coming from over the road. Ducking behind an impressive oak tree, she looked furtively at the house. Then a cunning smile appeared at the corners of her mouth as she recognised Rose at the door of number sixteen, chatting amiably with two prim-looking women in charge of three small children. Five minutes later, another woman arrived and left with a small child in tow. It was obvious, even to Sally’s muddled brain, that a children’s party was in progress. Sally settled in to wait. Instinct had told her to bide her time to see if Frankie was at home.

  Craftiness, inbred in most alcoholics, warned her that he wouldn’t be pleased to see her. Oh, no! And she wasn’t so pickled that she’d risk her former lover’s wrath. She continued to wait with a grim determination not to falter at this stage of her hastily devised plan. If Rose turned her away, then Sally didn’t know what she would do next. She had already hit rock bottom: there was nowhere else to go but the morgue.

  It seemed to Sally that she had been waiting for hours, and she was beginning to worry that she was attracting attention from the occupants of the other salubrious houses that adorned the avenue, but she gritted her teeth and stood her ground. Finally, when her courage was about to desert her, the front door of number sixteen swung open and three men walked jauntily down the path and got into a waiting carriage. As it passed her, Sally turned away her head, but not before she had seen Frank, the front and sides of his dark hair now sprinkled with grey, at the window, and felt her whole being react to his appearance as forcefully as if she had been struck a physical blow. And still she waited in the growing dusk of the October evening, trembling, eyes bright with tears at memories of happier days. Perhaps she would have returned the way she had come, if an irate woman, her cultured voice ringing with superiority, hadn’t enquired haughtily, ‘I say, you there. I’ve been watching you for the past hour. Be off about your business at once before I send for a constable.’

  Sally’s head reared up, but she cautioned herself to stay calm. Gathering her shawl around her shoulders she turned to the woman and replied, grandly, ‘There’s no need for that, missus, I was just leaving. Sorry to have bothered you,’ and the woman retreated indoors.

  ‘Stuck-up bitch!’ Sally swore at the closed door. Then, gathering up the dwindling remnants of her strength, she crossed the road to number sixteen.

  * * *

  Earlier that day, the garden of number sixteen had rung with the cries and shouts of numerous children as the Buchannons celebrated the third birthday of their son Benjamin. Rose had hired a magician and a lanternist to entertain the children. Both men had done their jobs admirably, but the festivities had turned sour when the lanternist, displaying his slides to the hushed children, had shown Hop O’ My Thumb, a gruesome tale, which while it enthralled Victoria and her friends, had frightened the wits out of Benjamin and the younger ones, w
ho had screamed for their mothers.

  The terrified children had dashed to the security of Mary Miller’s well-cushioned body, shuddering and pressing deep against the rolls of comforting flesh. Those who weren’t quick or lucky enough to be enfolded into Mary Miller’s plump embrace were comforted by a concerned Rose and Frank.

  It was now four o’clock and the party was over, but from the kitchen, where Rose and Mary were enjoying a quiet cup of tea after the noisy afternoon, they could hear Victoria and Ben shouting excitedly, ‘It’s my turn, Papa. It’s my turn! Lift me up, Papa. Give me a piggy-back, Papa. Come on, Papa!’

  ‘Bleeding hell! They’ll kill the poor sod, if they’re not careful. Here, you two, leave him alone for five minutes.’ Mary banged on the glass pane, and was rewarded by two pink tongues stuck out in defiance, followed by a squeal of laughter as the two over-excited children ran down the garden, their small legs pumping furiously, with the tall figure of Frankie in hot pursuit.

  ‘Gawd help us! He’s as bad as them, the daft bugger,’ Mary said affectionately, as she waddled back to the enormous scrubbed table and eased her girth on to a stout wooden chair.

  Opposite her, Rose, her shining curls flattened into a neat bun at the base of her neck, chuckled. ‘You don’t have to tell me, Auntie. Goodness! Can you imagine what his big business friends would say if they could see him now? And did you see his face when that lanternist was showing the slides? Honestly, I swear Frank enjoyed them more than the children.’

  Mary gave a grunt of displeasure. ‘Silly bugger. Oh, not Frank. I mean, fancy showing them pictures to the little ones! Gawd Almighty, I thought they was gonna die of fright, poor little mites.’