Too Many Heroes

by Jan Turk Petrie

  A nearby church clock is still striking the hour when she catches sight of him coming across the grass to her left. He’s wearing the shirt she’d first seen him in – the one that brings out the colour of his eyes. The sun-bleached top of his hair is catching the sunlight. He’s striding along, in his element out in the open; you only have to look at him to know he’s not a city man and never will be.

  She sets off in his direction, intercepts him with the slightest touch to his elbow. Noticing his confusion, she peers over the rim of her glasses. ‘Yes, it’s me. Who did you think it was accosting you?’ And then, ‘Let’s go somewhere quieter.’

  They turn off the main path into a shaded area where it’s cooler.

  ‘How are you?’ His thigh keeps rubbing up against her and she wonders if she should break step with him.

  ‘How do you think I am? The police think Dennis might have been murdered, for pity’s sake.’ A notice tells her that the path they’re on is leading them towards the rose garden.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ he says.

  ‘Why? What have you done?’

  They break apart to go through the narrow gate. The formality of the garden must make most people uncomfortable because, unlike the rest of the park, there’s hardly anyone about. Halfway round, they sit down on a bench next to a white rosebush. Grace makes sure there’s a respectable gap between them. She bends toward the nearest bush to take in the smell one of its blooms. The aroma reminds her faintly of Pond’s cold cream.

  ‘I’ve been going out of my mind with worry,’ he tells her. It’s true he looks anxious; nervous as a rabbit judging by the way he keeps pumping his left foot up and down.

  ‘First things first,’ she says. ‘I found some cash Dennis had squirrelled away amongst his socks.’ She holds out the envelope. ‘It’s the money you’re owed plus the four days in hand from when you started,’ she says. ‘So, we’re all square now.’

  ‘It could have waited.’ He frowns, is reluctant to take it. ‘’Praps you’d better hang onto it.’

  Grace resorts to a lie. ‘There’s plenty more where that came from.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure.’ He seems relieved as he stuffs the envelope into his trouser pocket. ‘Thanks very much – I won’t pretend this isn’t welcome.’

  She looks away to focus instead on the man eating his sandwiches on the bench at the end. ‘The police have bin asking me so many questions,’ Grace says. ‘Especially about you.’

  ‘What sort of questions?’

  ‘About everythin’ really. That’s not the half of it – they’ve bin nosing around, talkin’ to all the regulars. I think they know we’ve –’ She’s uncertain whether the man with the sandwiches might be within earshot. ‘I don’t need to spell it out, not to you of all people.’

  ‘Adultery isn’t a crime,’ he says. ‘If it was, the jails in this city would be overflowing into the streets.’

  She winces at his naming of what they – no, what she’s done; a stark word for something so complicated. It takes a while for her to collect herself again. ‘They wanted to know about money matters – whether Dennis had taken out a life insurance policy.’

  Frank looks startled. ‘And had he?’

  ‘Yes – he fixed it up with Kenny Fletcher from the Pru not long after we got married. I remember him sayin’ he’d got responsibilities to think of now.’

  ‘Shit,’ he says. ‘They’re trying to find a motive and financial gain is an easy one.’

  When she takes out her hanky, Frank puts his arm around her shoulders. ‘Don’t,’ she says. He doesn’t say a word; just takes his arm away and stares down at the palms of his hands instead. She can see him studying those three lines that are meant to tell your fortune.

  ‘I nearly refused to answer,’ she tells him. ‘They were so damn nosey, lookin’ at everything. Then I thought I should show them I’ve nothing to hide. I handed over everythin’ they asked for – all the paperwork from the safe, the whole lot.’

  ‘The thing is,’ abandoning caution, she leans into his ear, ‘they showed me a piece of paper where it says in black and bloody white that I’m entitled to six grand in the event of his death.’

  ‘You can’t be serious?’

  ‘I’m deadly series. Six ruddy grand.’

  ‘Flaming hell’s bells!’ Frank cradles his head in his hands. ‘That’s a ruddy fortune.’

  ‘I know – it’s far too much. I remember tellin’ him at the time it wasn’t necessary, and that Kenny Fletcher was makin’ a small fortune out of everyone round here. I suppose he must have bin thinkin’, at the time, that we might start a family.’ She stops short of describing how, even before the end of their first year together, Dennis never seemed to want her in that way again.

  Frank stands up. ‘Christ, this puts a totally different light on everything.’ He starts walking in circles in front of the bench. It’s making her feel dizzy. Finally, he stops and turns his face up to the heavens. ‘You know the Old Bill – how their minds will be working. They’ve already paid me a visit. Now they’ll think that I had a motive for wanting him dead and out of the way so I could get my greasy hands on your money.’

  He pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘This is all such a bloody mess.’

  ‘Listen, Frank,’ she says, ‘there’s no need to panic; it may not be that bad.’

  Grace gets to her feet. ‘I’ve already told them you knew absolutely nothing about the insurance money. How could you have done him in when those two bobbies saw with their own eyes you’d spent the night with me?’

  She makes sure to stare him straight in the eyes as she spells it out. ‘All you need to do if they ask, is tell them exactly where you were after half eleven on Thursday – when Dennis left home – and when you walked back into the pub on Saturday evening. Simple enough, Frank. I told them I’d just called last orders when you came in so it would have been just before eleven.’

  He turns away. ‘They’ve already asked me and I’ve already told them I was in my bed sick. That I must have eaten something bad. Trouble is, I haven’t got an alibi.’

  ‘So that’s your story, is it?’ She’s so angry she can barely get the words out. ‘If I can tell you’re lying, they’ll certainly be able to work it out.’

  Grace puts out a hand to stop him following her. ‘Don’t,’ she says louder than she’d intended. ‘If you think for one minute the Old Bill are gonna swallow that load of shite you’re a bigger bloody fool than I took you for, Frank Danby.’

  Turning to leave, she almost trips over a chap kneeling to do up his shoelaces.

  Frank gets in front of her, tries to block her path. ‘Don’t you dare touch me,’ she tells him. ‘I don’t want you anywhere near me, d’you hear; not until you’re ready to tell the truth – that’s if you can still remember what that is.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  He leaves the rose garden just behind her, as she walks across the park at a brisk pace, not looking to her left or right and certainly not looking back at him as she heads through the outer gate and disappears out of sight.

  Should he go after her? Frank’s urge to unburden himself is almost – but not quite – overpowering. Instead, he strides off in the opposite direction – towards the north gate. People are everywhere and yet there it is again, a sixth sense that’s telling him he’s being watched. He can’t shake off the idea that he’s being followed. Whenever he looks back – like when you play grandmother’s footsteps – everyone behind seems to be going about their own business and not looking his way for a second.

  Once through the big gates, he turns left onto the main road. If he crosses over, he can take one of the smaller roads that leads down to the riverside. There’s a pub he knows just at the end, right down by the water.

  Lunchtime and he can see they’re doing a roaring trade. His plan is to nip inside where he’ll get a good view of the road he’s just walked down to be certain one way or another.

  Ten minutes go by and no one appea
rs except for a woman in a bright headscarf pushing a pram.

  Feeling calmer, he goes up to the counter. Though he’s pretty much lost his taste for beer these days, he orders a half pint and takes it outside.

  Frank sits down on the low wall that bounds the riverbank. A sharp stench fills his nostrils as he looks across the expanse of shining water. Upriver, a big liner is closing on the bridge. The slaps of her wake reach the black groynes just in front of him and tilts the buoys marking the shallows. Down on the shoreline a group of gulls are squabbling over something that’s washed up.

  He wonders where all these ships and boats are heading. This city, like so many others, was built on this movement of goods and people; it waits here at the start or finish of all those individual journeys. The same giant ship now towering above all those cranes and masts will turn about before long. Once she’s free of the river and then the estuary, she’ll be dwarfed by the vastness of the open sea.

  Since the end of the war, countless men and women have queued up to pay their ten quid and sailed off for a new life in Australia or New Zealand. Ten-Pound Poms they call them out there. He’s read how you only had to be under 45 and healthy enough to be a good grafter. He’s known a fair few who’ve taken up assisted passage and several times he’s been tempted by their enthusiasm to make the break himself. Why not now? All that’s needed is the right bits of paper – and Lord knows that’s never difficult if you can find the cash. Who’d look twice at him boarding the ship along with all those other dreamers heading for a new life?

  He takes a sip of his beer though the reek of the water seems to sour the taste. Observing the strength of the current, he pictures Dennis’s body drifting on this same river at the whim of the tide. In the papers they talk about bodies being fished out weeks or even months after someone’s disappeared, how they can even drift right out to sea on the tide. Might have been the case with Dennis if his corpse hadn’t caught the eye of that passing bargeman.

  A black-backed gull lands on the wall right beside him. It turns its head along with that sharp beak in his direction; the single yellow eye seems to be weighing him up.

  It’s time to make up his mind, do something before others decide his fate. First though, he needs to speak to Grace again. There’s no shirking it – he has to tell her the truth. The truth eh? Well, he could start by admitting that he’s hopelessly in love with her. He stares at the sunlight skipping along on the surface of the dirty water. Ten years of feeling nothing and now this. He shakes his head, smiles up at the sky and his own damned folly. What possible use can he be to Grace now? How can he protect her when he can’t even protect himself? One thing’s for certain – there’s not the slightest chance of them finding happiness together if he stays here and waits for the law to catch up with him.

  Wednesday 2nd July

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘It’s me, Frank. Can I come in?’ It’s a while before she unbolts the door. Without sunglasses shielding her eyes, he can see how red and swollen they are.

  She leads the way into the Weston’s back kitchen. ‘Watch the floor – some of it’s still wet.’

  ‘I hoped you’d be alone,’ he says.

  ‘As it happens, I am.’

  He’s careful not to knock over the mop propped up in its bucket. Grace is wearing a wraparound apron that looks all wrong on her. The wireless is playing a lively big band tune he half-recognises. She turns it off. ‘Dot and Lottie are at work down the biscuit factory,’ she says, ‘and Ralf’s still out on his rounds.’

  Grace folds her arms across her chest. ‘I’d offer you a cup of tea but it’s not my house.’

  ‘Can I sit down, at least?’

  She pulls out a chair for herself and nods him towards the one opposite. ‘So, Frank, now you’re sitting comfortably, I’m all ears. Are you planning to tell me the truth at last?’

  He rubs at his forehead, his fingers chasing the shallow groove of the scar. ‘It’s hard to know where to start.’

  ‘Is it, Frank?’ She picks up the sock that’s on the table and pulls out a darning needle with a grey thread still attached. ‘You can start with where you went off to when you left the pub last Thursday afternoon.’ She keeps turning the needle from end to the end.

  ‘Okay, well, after I locked up, I went for a bit of a stroll round.’

  She aims the sharp end of the needle at him. ‘If you tell me you went off to paddle in that flamin’ lake, so help me I’ll clock you one.’ He’s pleased to see a bit of colour back in her cheeks.

  ‘Will you hear me out at least?’ He waits for her full attention. ‘I popped into the chippy down the road. I’d just left wi’ me chips still in me hands when this car stops and three blokes get out and set on me.’

  ‘Swear to me you’re not making this up?’

  ‘I swear.’

  She stares at him, her expression only half believing. ‘Who were these blokes – did you recognise any of ’em?’

  ‘I’d never seen any of ’em before. Needless to say, I didn’t go without putting up a fight. Anyroad, they forced me into the back of their car and put a ruddy sack over my head so’s I couldn’t see where they were taking me.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Frank.’ She’s frowning like she’s far from convinced. ‘Wait a minute, let me get this straight – you’re saying these four blokes you’d never seen before kidnapped you from right outside the chippy in broad bloody daylight?’

  ‘It was a bit further up the road, but yes, that’s exactly what happened. They waited till there was no one around. I promise you, Grace, every word of this is true.’

  ‘Okay, so supposing I believe you – what happened after that?’

  ‘They drove me somewhere – before you ask, I don’t know where. Then they marched me into this old building. Looked like an empty warehouse – something like that.’

  ‘How could you tell? You just said you had a sack over your head, remember?’ She looks pleased with herself for catching him out in cross-examination.

  ‘Because they took the ruddy thing off when they pushed me into this room.’ He stands up, affronted now. ‘If you’re not even willing to hear me out without doubting every word I say, I might as well bugger off right now.’

  She tugs on his trouser leg. ‘Sit down, Frank.’ He’s slow to oblige. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘it’s just that, if you want to know the truth, it all sounds a bit far-fetched. Why would they do that?’

  ‘They were acting on someone’s orders – their boss. I’m not going to tell you his name because you’ll have heard of him and it’s better if you don’t know who I’m talking about.’

  She sighs. ‘Right, so what happened when they got you into this room?’

  ‘Their boss came in. He told me he knew all about Dennis’s little capers with Cyril Lloyd and none of it was to his liking.’

  ‘Why won’t you tell me this bloke’s name?’

  ‘It’s safer that way; trust me.’ He starts to rub at his forehead again but she stays his hand. ‘Anyroad, the bastard kept me there, locked me up overnight.’ Unintentionally a note of self-pity creeps into his voice. ‘Bastards gave me no food, not even a drink of ruddy water.’

  She stands up; plants her hands on her hips. ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘The next day the boss man came in with a mug of water and enjoyed watching how desperate I was for it.’ The memory of it makes him angry all over again. ‘Then he offered me what he called a bonus if I could get Dennis to sell him the pub. Said he’d been looking for a suitable free house and was prepared to pay a reasonable price under the current circumstances.’

  Grace gets up and walks over to the window, that ruddy needle still poised between her thumb and finger like she’s weighing his words. ‘If this bloke was so desperate to get his hands on the pub, why would he go through you? Why not talk to Dennis directly?’

  ‘That confused me at the time. I reckoned he probably knew Dennis was laid up in bed – in fact he was probably behind th
at beating he had. By kidnapping me and roughing me up, he thought I’d do a good job of convincing Dennis to take his offer.’

  He can see she’s pushing the tip of that needle into her thumb. He gets up to take it out of her hand and puts it back on the table.

  ‘You just said that’s what you thought at the time,’ Grace says. ‘So what do you think now?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ His sigh is long and drawn out. ‘’Praps it might be best if neither of us speculates.’

  ‘I want to know,’ she says. Despite her red eyes and that awful apron, he’s struck by how pretty she is.

  ‘One thing’s for certain – he knew about us.’ He turns away. Should he say more? Was it right to worry her like this?

  ‘Come on, Frank,’ she says, ‘spit it out, for pity’s sake.’

  ‘I reckon he was holding me there to make sure I had no alibi for Thursday night because being your lover makes me the perfect suspect.’

  ‘You honestly believe that?’

  ‘I’ve met his type before. They want to be king of the heap. Can’t abide it if someone’s setting up in competition. They don’t get their own hands dirty – instead they use their henchmen to punish the offender as a lesson to anybody who might challenge them. You know yourself Dennis had been selling knocked off booze.’

  Grace narrows her eyes on him. ‘You’re seriously telling me this bloke calculated that the police would put two an’ two together an’ make five and six? That he went an’ kidnapped you so’s he could set you up as Dennis’s murderer?’ She buries her face in her hands.

  ‘That’s about the long and short of it.’

  ‘Oh, my good Lord.’

  He touches her shoulders but she shrugs him off and instead starts pacing the room. ‘And now with all that insurance money coming my way they might think I went an’ put you up to it. Frank, you have no choice – we have no choice – you have to go to the Old Bill this minute and tell them who this bastard is and what he did to you.’ She grabs hold of his arm. ‘There’s no other way out of this mess.’