by Anne Bennett
Finch knew he could do it too because he was angry enough, despite the fact that Finch was a much younger man. When Levingstone had flown at him he had knocked him to the ground. Levingstone was unaware of the stealthy footfall behind him and the arm raised until it was too late. He turned and the karate chop caught him at the side of the neck. With a grunt, he fell forward unconscious.
The second heavy helped Finch to his feet and he looked at the unconscious heap on the floor. He adjusted his clothes, which had become disarranged in the tussle, and said, ‘You know what to do. Deal with him.’
In the end, Aggie had her dinner with Lily at about nine o’clock in the apartment dining room, but she was too worried to feel hungry and just pushed the food around her plate.
‘Try something, Aggie,’ Lily urged.
‘I can’t,’ Aggie said. ‘What can have happened to him?’
‘Nine o’clock isn’t late,’ Lily pointed out.
‘It is for Alan,’ Aggie said. ‘The club has been open for an hour already, and no one knows about this strange meeting he had because Bob Tyler came up to see if everything was all right when Alan hadn’t put in an appearance.’
‘Surely they can run the place without him for the one night?’
‘Of course they can, but you are missing the point,’ Aggie said. ‘Why isn’t he here?’
No one could answer that question, however. The minutes ticked into hours and still there was no sign of Levingstone. Twice more Bob Tyler came up, and eventually he realised that the club would have to do without Levingstone that night.
Aggie became so agitated in the end that Lily was all for fetching the doctor, but she said she would refuse to see him, that it was Alan she wanted to see. Eventually, she was so weary that she lay on the bed in all her clothes except for her shoes, as she had refused point-blank to get undressed, and fell into a doze. Lily didn’t undress either, but resumed her old place on the chair by Aggie’s bed and closed her eyes.
The pounding on the door roused her. As Bob and Jane had gone to bed it was Lily who answered the door, glancing at the clock in the hall as she did so.
‘Four o’clock,’ she said to herself. ‘Almighty God, what now?’
When she saw the policeman outside she wasn’t unduly surprised. Normal mortals didn’t nearly knock doors down at four in the morning, but still she asked, ‘Can I help you?’
‘I have news about a Mr Alan Levingstone.’
‘Bad news?’ Lily asked, and when he nodded her stomach gave a lurch. ‘You had best come upstairs and speak to his fiancée.’ Then once inside the apartment she said, ‘If you wait in the sitting room for a moment, I will see if she is awake.’
Aggie was more than awake. She was up and putting on her shoes. ‘It’s a policeman,’ Lily said. ‘He wants to speak to you.’
Aggie nodded as if she wasn’t surprised, though her mouth was so dry she could hardly swallow. When she entered the room she flew at the policeman crying, ‘It’s Alan, isn’t it? Something has happened to Alan.’
The young policeman recognised Aggie from the photograph found in Levingstone’s jacket pocket. He said, ‘Yes, miss, I am afraid it has. Mr Levingstone was found in an alleyway in the Jewellery Quarter.’
‘Is he badly hurt?’
‘I’m sorry, miss,’ the policeman said. ‘I should have said Mr Levingstone’s body. I am afraid that he is dead.’
The primeval scream that came from deep within Aggie woke Jane and Bessie, and sent them scurrying from their beds to see Aggie on the floor in a dead faint. Lily was tending her, although tears ran down her own face, while she instructed the young and very nervous-looking policeman to fetch the doctor for Aggie, and quickly.
‘What’s happened?’ breathed Jane in an awed whisper.
Lily was so distressed, she could barely get the words out, and then Jane and Bessie wept too. And that is how the doctor found them: one unconscious on the floor and the other three sodden with weeping.
SEVENTEEN
The doctor sedated Aggie because, although she had come round after the faint, she was so overwrought he was afraid that she was going to lose her mind.
‘This is all connected, isn’t it?’ he said to Lily, later. ‘Levingstone should have gone for the police about Aggie in the first place and let them deal with it.’
‘I wanted him to,’ Lily said, ‘but Aggie claimed then that she didn’t know who did beat her up, that it was too dark and that. You know she did because she told you the same. Anyroad, Levingstone weren’t keen on getting the police in either, because they snoop around and ask questions. When a person is in this line of business, it is better to involve the police as little as possible.’
‘Aggie was lying, though, wasn’t she?’ the doctor said. ‘She did know who her assailant was.’
Lily nodded. ‘She told me who it was and the reason she said nothing to Levingstone was to prevent him doing just what he did: go after him, and his death is the result. Point is, whether we wanted to involve the police or not, this time it has been taken out of our hands. But,’ she went on, ‘doesn’t matter who investigates this, the man concerned will get away with it because he won’t have done the dirty on Levingstone himself. He will be high and dry with a cast-iron alibi, I bet.’
‘Couldn’t Aggie go to the police now?’ the doctor asked. ‘Tell them what the man did to her?’
‘D’you think she is up to coping with that?’
The doctor remembered the frail woman he had sedated for her own good. He knew how close she was to breaking point and he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘you are right, she would never cope with that.’
‘And if she could,’ Lily went on, ‘d’you think the police would take the word of a prostitute, for that’s what she was, especially as the man responsible for her attack is influential and powerful? Aggie could easily find that she was the one banged up. But just say by some miraculous chance they did believe her, she’d know as well as I do that if she tried to point the finger, her life wouldn’t be worth tuppence. She hasn’t even got the partial protection of Levingstone any more. In fact I really don’t know what in God’s name she is going to do after all this.’
‘What are you going to do?’ the doctor asked.
Lily sighed. ‘Go back on the streets, I suppose,’ she said. ‘It is all I know. But as I get older it gets harder to get the punters. I did hope that that part of my life was over. Levingstone almost said as much, and I think he intended keeping me on here, but both Aggie and me are completely scuppered by this.’
‘You could always work in one of the munitions factories,’ the doctor said. ‘In fact you both could. The money is good, and they are so desperate for any help they can get, they don’t ask that many awkward questions or even need references at some places.’
Lily thought about the alternative: going out night after night, regardless of the weather. She realised that she had gone soft, living in Levingstone’s place, and she was beginning to feel her age. The more time went on, the less she wanted to go back to her old life.
‘It’s dangerous work,’ the doctor went on, ‘I’ll not deny it, and normally I wouldn’t be recommending it at all, but…’
‘It’s a sight less dangerous than here, believe me, Doc,’ Lily said. ‘The lesser of two evils, I’d say. Jane told me that her sister had gone into it and she said she was earning two pounds and ten shillings a week. I could save a good bit on that sort of money; salt it away, like, for when the war is over. Have a bit of a nest egg for the first time in my bleeding life.’
‘So you will think about it?’
Lily nodded. ‘I will, and it will be a solution of sorts for Aggie, and all. I’ll talk her into it. Not yet,’ cos she ain’t ready, but as soon as I can.’
* * *
Rogers, who felt guilty that he hadn’t done anything to stop Levingstone going for Finch that night, called to see them to offer his condolences, but Aggie was so heavily sedated that only Lily was in a fit
state to see him. When he offered to organise and pay for the funeral, Lily was surprised. Rogers wasn’t known for his acts of charity, but she accepted gratefully.
‘Terrible business,’ he said. ‘Kicked to death was the way I heard it.’
Lily blinked back tears. ‘He was, and left in a pool of blood. Christ, he dain’t deserve to die, but to die like that … It were just plain wicked, that’s what it was. The coppers asked me to go and identify the body. I mean, Aggie couldn’t go. The doctor has her heavily sedated ’cos he says her mind can’t cope with it yet. By Christ, was I glad she was spared that, because the state of him … well, it was enough to turn anyone’s brain. I mean, I had to identify him by the clothes he had on and the gold wristwatch he always wore.’
She looked at Rogers and continued, ‘I have known Levingstone all my bleeding life. We grew up in the same street and I am going to miss him a great deal, but I suppose you will want us out of here as soon as possible?’
‘Yeah. Well, I’m not going to throw you out or anything, but as soon as the funeral is over I am going to put this place on the market,’ Rogers said.
Lily’s eyes opened wide in surprise and Rogers smiled grimly. ‘Been thinking about it for a few weeks now, and this business has knocked me for six.’
‘So what will happen to all the girls?’
‘Well, I hope to sell it as a going concern,’ Rogers said, ‘so the girls will probably be all right, but Aggie – well, she was in a special position, wasn’t she?’
‘Yeah,’ Lily said. ‘In just under a week she would have been Levingstone’s wife.’
‘I know,’ Rogers said in a conciliatory tone. ‘Terrible business.’
‘Don’t concern yourself about us,’ Lily said. ‘I have some irons of my own in the fire. I will see to Aggie and the pair of us will be out of here as soon as possible. I am very grateful for you organising and paying for the funeral, and I know that Aggie will be when she is more herself.’
‘Not at all,’ Rogers said. ‘It is the very least I can do.’ It also went some way to salving his conscience because he knew in his heart of hearts that he could probably have prevented Alan Levingstone’s death. No need, though, to share that knowledge with anyone else.
The next day, Lily tried to tell Aggie about the funeral arrangements. She had got out of bed, but was moving around like a zombie. Since the policeman’s visit she had eaten nothing, but when Lily offered to make her a tincture she had shaken her head.
Since the announcement of her engagement, Aggie had seriously cut down on the amount of gin and opium she had been taking. She knew that Levingstone had been pleased about this because she was well aware how much he hated seeing her getting so drunk and drugged every night of the week. When he praised her cutting back so much and so thoroughly, she had kissed him and assured him that she didn’t need to blot anything out since she was off limits to all the punters. Lily was almost as pleased as Levingstone, because she had been worried at the amount that Aggie had been taking, and guilty too because she had not only started her on the opium and gin, but encouraged her to keep taking it.
Lily had reviewed her own situation, cut down her intake too, and had stopped altogether when she had moved into Levingstone’s place to nurse Aggie. It was no good getting drugged up or drunk and expecting to nurse someone effectively, especially when that person was as sick as Aggie was. Lily had had a few uncomfortable days, when she would have the shakes and sweat profusely, and in the early days she often felt sick and was unable to sleep, but all that had gone now.
‘I don’t want to start taking drugs and booze any more,’ Aggie told Lily now. ‘A lot of the time when I did that before, I wasn’t aware of much some days and yet I had the abiding love of a good, kind man. I don’t think the aching loss will ever go away completely. His funeral is the last service I will be able to do for him and I want to be in full control of myself. I will not besmirch Alan’s memory by doing the very thing he disapproved of.’
‘I am that proud of you, Aggie,’ Lily said, putting her arms around Aggie’s shoulders. She expected tears but there were none, and Lily realised with a start that Aggie hadn’t cried at all, not once. It was as if she were frozen inside.
The following day, the vegetables were delivered to the kitchen. Jane used the sheets of newspaper that lined the box to make up the fire in the sitting room. It was as she left the room to get wood that Aggie crossed to the hearth. She would be glad of the fire because she felt cold inside, yet she knew it wasn’t the sort of cold that any fire would reach. She had always liked to see a cheering fire in the grate, but she doubted anything would cheer her at the moment, for she felt full of misery and despair.
It was as she gazed at the screwed-up newspaper that she caught sight of Alan’s name. She withdrew the sheet of paper from the grate and smoothed it out. She had not seen a paper – she imagined that they had not let her see one – but this paper was a few days old and the headline screamed: ‘Club Manager Kicked to Death in Alleyway’.
Aggie took the paper into the bedroom and there she read of the gruesome end of the man she had loved. She knew the fear and desperation he would have felt, and the agony he would have suffered at the merciless attack until he died in a pool of blood. She felt as if a heavy weight was pushing down on her and a tight band of pain was encircling her waist so that she cried out like an animal in deep distress, and great gulping sobs racked her body as the tears spurted from her eyes.
Lily came running, and though she enfolded Aggie in her arms, and rocked her gently, she thanked God that Aggie had shed those much-needed tears, while Aggie felt as if she were breaking up inside, as though her heart was shattering into a million pieces.
Much, much later, when the tears were spent at last and Aggie was limp and lifeless, Lily tucked her into bed and she slept long and deeply.
‘She’ll do all right now,’ Lily remarked to Jane and Bessie.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Jane.
‘She did what she had to do, and that was mourn and grieve for her man,’ Lily said. ‘She will always miss him and a piece of her heart will be with him for ever, but she will survive this and eventually will be able to look forward again.’
After Aggie had cried for the first time, she seemed unable to stop. It was as if she had opened the floodgates. By the day of the funeral her eyes were red-rimmed and encircled with black. She was glad her hat had a veil attached that would hide her white, ravaged face.
As Aggie and Lily were leaving the apartment to get into the funeral carriage Rogers had ordered for them, Aggie said fiercely, ‘Finch should be the one being laid in a hole in the earth. I would dance on his grave.’
‘And you wouldn’t be on your own,’ Lily said.
‘There will never be another like Alan,’ Aggie said. ‘I feel sort of lost. He has been so much part of my life for fifteen years.’
‘I know that too, and after the funeral is over, you and I must have a talk about where we will go from here.’
‘Lily, I don’t think I want to go on.’
‘What sort of talk is that?’ Lily said sharply. ‘You are a young woman.’
‘Don’t say I have my life before me or I will laugh, ‘Aggie said. ‘Because my life from now on will be spent on the streets and I would rather die than have that prospect dangled before me.’
‘It won’t necessarily be that sort of life, though,’ Lily said. ‘I have got some ideas up my sleeve.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Not now,’ Lily said. ‘There’s not time.’
It was as they were in the carriage, with Witton Parish Church in view, that Aggie suddenly grabbed Lily’s arm and said, ‘If Finch is there I will go for him. I will not be able to help myself.’
‘He won’t be,’ Lily said confidently. ‘He can’t risk being linked in any way.’
Lily was right, Finch was not there, but so many others were, the church was packed solid. Aggie felt proud that she had been asso
ciated with such a wonderful man to whom so many wanted to pay their last respects, and most looked with sympathy at her as she entered the church.
That sympathy sustained her during the service, and kept her upright and on her feet when she really wanted to sink to the floor and let the world go on without her. The worst was at the grave-side, thronged with people to hear the last prayers said, and she had to step forward in front of them and throw the first clods of earth onto the mahogany coffin.
Afterwards, at the reception, her hand was shaken many times by people who told her what a great man Alan was. She didn’t need telling really, though it soothed her a little, but did nothing to lift the huge weight of sadness that seemed lodged inside her.
Lily was at her side, as she had been most of the time, and three hours later Aggie was so weary she sighed and said, ‘Oh, Lily, I know that this is very fine and all, and it was kind of Mr Rogers and everything, but I wish it was all over now.’
‘And me,’ Lily said. ‘But it won’t be long, you’ll see. Now the food is nearly eaten, some have already dwindled off. I’m sure that is what some people attend funerals for, to get a good feed, because they certainly pay more attention to that than to anything or anyone else.’
Lily was right, and soon the party broke up and people went their separate ways. Lily and Aggie were able to leave.
‘I wonder,’ Aggie said as she went into the flat that day, ‘how long I will be able to consider this place home.’
‘Not long,’ Lily said. ‘Rogers is selling the club, and then it might be all change for a lot of people.’
‘And where will that leave us?’ Aggie asked. ‘As if I don’t know.’
‘That is what I wanted to talk to you about,’ Lily said, ‘but are you ready for it today, after the funeral and all?’
‘Lily,’ Aggie said earnestly, ‘if you have a plan to keep me from selling my body on the streets of Birmingham, then I am always willing to listen.’
