Birdcage Walk (25 page)

George took the back roads home, his head snapping up when someone approached, the muscles in his legs tensed to run. He wished he had bought a set of second hand clothes to wear now. He’d thought it was a good disguise of sorts, with no one in Hoxton knowing of his joining up. As it was, he felt acutely conspicuous turned out so smartly, especially as the streets turned more dilapidated and shabby. It was the clothes he’d worn daily that were the uniform in these parts, not the khaki and shiny buttons the Army had provided.

He approached Wiltshire Row with increasing trepidation. Not only for the very real danger of waiting police constables but his reunion with his family. He hadn’t thought about what he might say to them; only in that instant did it occur to him that they might also suspect him of murder. He wished he was under the cover of rain once more, but the grimy white sky showed no signs of darkening yet.

Instead of walking up Avebury Street, he decided to cut down Imber Street; only the habit formed before he knew Charlotte but wanted to glimpse her made him eschew it usually. It was less a street and more a depressing little lane, chiefly consisting of the stick factory’s gated back yard. Though there were shadowy doorways enough to make him more nervous, the familiarly ugly sounds of the factory’s machinery was strangely comforting. Part of that familiarity was Charlotte, but he refused to think about that just now. There would be time enough in the dark of the barracks later.

Wiltshire Row was deserted. It never got much light and there were still signs of the heavy rains of the previous week in the mulch between the cobbles and the damp-streaked walls. He reached the door and turned the key without raising any alarm, shutting it softly behind him and taking off his private’s cap. Creeping stealthily up the stairs he listened at the door to the Woolfes’ room. Now that he was inside the building he could hear that though the road might look deserted, its tenements were crammed full of people staying in out of the cold. Behind his own door however, there was total silence.

It had never occurred to him that no one would be in. His only fear had been the strong possibility that the police would be here too, lying in wait to trap him. Or perhaps they were. Perhaps that accounted for the quiet within. His heart began to thump as he imagined them there, just behind the flimsy wood of the door. Wracked by indecision, he stayed rooted to the spot for a long minute, unable to simply leave after coming so close to home, but too terrified to knock or turn the handle.

Eventually, a small noise from inside the room behind the door resolved him. Anyone else would have missed it but George’s senses were heightened with his own tension. A slow shuffling sweep that he knew to his marrow was his father crossing the room with the utmost care, as though he were made from glass. George couldn’t remember his father’s easy loping stride disintegrating into that old man’s gait; it seemed to have happened overnight when his mother died.

There was still a chance that the police lurked there with his father, but George couldn’t wait any longer. The room looked just as it always did, crumbs on the table, the lingering smell of last night’s food and Cissy’s pathetic attempts to brighten the place up dotted here and there: a bunch of wilting violets on the windowsill and a blue shawl as an antimacassar on his father’s chair.

He hadn’t noticed George come in, sitting as he was with his back to the door, leaning over his worktable. In his hands, which remained steady, he rolled a long, narrow strand of metal which, as George watched, he began to bend into a perfect arc. George didn’t speak until he’d laid it down.

“Hello, dad.”

Mr.Woolfe paused and half-turned his head.

“Is it you, son?”

George went to him then, before he could turn round, and rested his cheek on his father’s shoulder. They were precisely the same height. His father reached up and round then, and laid his hand gently on George’s head.

“Where’ve you been, lad?”

George stepped backwards to let his father turn round to face him, quickly wiping his face with his sleeve. The older man looked worn out, his skin a papery, almost translucent blue under his eyes. He eyed George’s uniform but didn’t say anything.

“We been ever so worried, me and Cissy.”

George kept silent so he wouldn’t cry again. After a time he trusted himself to speak.

“I didn’t do it, dad. I know how it looks but it weren’t me.”

“I know that, don’t I? I said so to the police as well.”

“You believe me then?” George had expected to have to explain, retell the story, show how it couldn’t have been him.

“I’ve known you all your life, George. Now your mother’s gone I’m the only person left who has. You couldn’t kill a person any more than I could.”

He seemed to stand a little straighter as he said it, and George recognised a vestige of the father he had accompanied to the marshes as a boy, when he still seemed tall and powerful. George sank into his father’s chair, relief making his shoulders sag.

“So, you’ve joined up, I see.”

George smiled ruefully up at him.

“I didn’t know what else to do. I knew they’d think it was me. I saw Char . . . “ He gulped and then forced himself to go on. “I saw her name in the paper at lunchtime with Alf and I came straight back to tell Annie. But the police were already there, I saw them outside her door. I knew they’d come for me next and I just couldn’t stay there. I had to run.”

His father crouched next to him, his knees creaking as he did. He laughed softly to himself.

“Listen to my old bones, will you? You know, son, you’re not the first man with the law after him who’s joined the Army. They’ll check the recruitment lists.”

“I gave them another name, didn’t I? I’ll be posted to South Africa soon. By the time I come back they might have caught whoever really done it. And if they don’t, I won’t come back.”

His father sighed.

“You shouldn’t have come here, though. Someone might have seen you come in. The police were here yesterday again, nosing around, wanting to see your things. I couldn’t stop them. There’s no telling they won’t be back. I hate to say it but you should go. There’s nowhere to hide you in this place if they do turn up.”

George felt overwhelmed, not only by the new reality he was trapped in but by the apparent change in his father. He didn’t look younger but seeing that he seemed it, George felt a fragment of his burden lift from him.

“I couldn’t keep away in the end. A friend of mine from the barracks was going home for the day, in Islington, and he asked me to go with him. He knew I was from round here.”

Mr. Woolfe frowned and got carefully to his feet.

“No, dad, he won’t say anything. He thinks my name’s Slater anyway. I thought it would look queer if I didn’t take my pass day and, well, I couldn’t keep away once I was so close. I wanted to see you to tell you I hadn’t done it. I couldn’t go away if I hadn’t done that.”

George got to his feet, the boy in him wanting more than anything to run to his bed beneath the window next to the canal and pull the blanket over his head. He couldn’t bear to think of all the secure nights he’d spend just like that, all the time wishing himself somewhere else, somewhere better. He took a deep breath.

“Will you give my love to Cissy, dad? I wish I’d seen her.”

“She hasn’t moved from here until today, in case you showed up. I made her go out today, get a bit of colour in her cheeks. I wish I hadn’t now.”

The two men embraced awkwardly, Mr. Woolfe patting George on the back.

“Careful how you go now, son. I’d never forgive myself if you were caught coming back to see your old dad.” He smiled and reached up to touch George’s face briefly. “I’m glad you did though. It hasn’t been right without you here and it won’t be till you’re back. Keep yourself safe until you can come home, do you hear?”

The hall was still quiet, but George lingered on the threshold, sick to his stomach at the thought of being alone again.

“I’m frightened, dad,” he whispered.

The elder George reached up to hold his son’s face firmly.

“Now, you listen to me. You didn’t do it and so you’ll be alright, do you hear? You’ll be off to see the world soon and in the meantime them constables will realise they don’t have anything on you. It’s innocent until proven guilty in this country.”

He gave George a gentle push in the direction of the stairs.

“Remember what I said, mind how you go. Get out of Hoxton as quick as you can.”

Knowing he had no choice, George went down the stairs quickly, not daring to look back. He didn’t hear the door above close, and he knew his dad would wait until he was out on the road. Then he would watch him from the window he had once hung the birdcages in until George was out of sight. Knowing this he felt almost safe, though he walked quickly enough when he was back on the street.

Turning right into Poole Street towards the relative sanctuary of the New North Road, he got the sense that someone was away to his left but he forced himself not to glance round. It could be anyone, he told himself, and someone who knew him would call out, he was sure of it. It wasn’t as though anyone round here wouldn’t have heard all about it. His father had been right; it had been madness to come back. He refused to regret it though, remembering his dad’s words.

* * *

He had only stepped out to get some more tobacco. He didn’t need any, there was plenty left in his pouch, but he couldn’t stand to look at Annie’s mournful face for another minute. It was a good thing he had been there to identify her sister, the shock of it would have killed Annie stone dead. She’d been a mess, Charlotte, with her face bloodied and bruised and a portion of her long hair shaved off by the doctor to expose a rough gash over her ear. The ear that had had a chunk out of it. Ted winced at the memory. It had surprised him how that image had kept coming back to him when he was lying next to Annie in their sagging brass bed. He hadn’t thought of himself as soft like that.

He stopped at the corner of Avebury and Poole Streets to fill up his pipe, his large teeth champing down on the narrow stem as he sucked and puffed to make it light in the cold, dank air. A movement to his right made him glance down the street before returning to the pipe. But then he looked again, the smoke forgotten. He knew that walk, those narrow shoulders. He could even make out the shine of the dark hair showing at the back, beneath the Army cap. It was George Woolfe, there was no doubt in his mind.

When Cissy arrived home, her expression of misery having successfully put off any potential customers at the market and unable to keep away any longer, she found her father sitting very still at his work table. The cage he had been working on when she left looked much the same and she felt a spurt of irritation. It had been bitterly cold at the market, where she had been forced to take one of the worst stalls, not only positioned at the very end of the run but exposed too, so that the wind seemed to blow right through her thin frame.

“Dad? Has anyone been?”

She sat down next to him, her annoyance gone, and placed her hand over his.

“You’re froze to the bone, Cissy. I’ll get you some tea.”

He didn’t speak until he had spooned a meagre measure of the leaves into the pot and set out two cups.

“George come by.”

Cissy jumped up and ran over to the range. She gripped her father’s sleeve.

“Is he alright? When?”

“He’s alright. He’s gone and joined up. That’s where he’s been at all week. He was only here for a few minutes, not long after you’d gone. He was sorry to have missed you. He sent you his love.”

Cissy sat down again and felt the relief melt through her like a hot bath. She didn’t realise she was crying until the tears ran off her chin; their salt making her cheeks itch.

“I can’t believe he came.”

“He thinks they’ll send him to the war. To South Africa. He didn’t want to go without saying goodbye and explaining.”

“Did he say anything about . . . her?”

“He said he didn’t touch her, but we knew that, didn’t we, Cissy?”

Her father looked up from his tea-making, but she didn’t answer.

“Cissy? You’re his sister.” His tone was sharper than she could remember it being.

“I know, I’m sorry. I can’t think straight at the moment. Of course he couldn’t have done it. He still loved her, I know he did.”

She had just risen to help him with the tea things when a knock echoed up the stairs. Both of them stayed perfectly still as they heard someone from one of the ground floor rooms go to open it. Please, Cissy thought so loudly that she wondered if her father heard it, let it be for someone else. The door closed and for an instant Cissy thought her prayer had been answered but then she heard it, the now almost familiar sound of heavy boots ascending the stairs towards them. She didn’t even wait to hope they would continue upwards but went and pulled open the door.

Outside it stood the inspector they had already spoken to, Mr. McArthur. His eyes as he regarded Cissy were kind, a faded blue like old china. Behind him, in the gloom of the hall, stood a much taller man. She stepped back and allowed them in, seeing her father, still holding the teapot, as they would see him, as a frail old man.

It wasn’t just the height of the unfamiliar man that marked him out as a senior officer. His coat was also well-cut and expensive where McArthur’s was slightly creased but it was his manner that told Cissy something important had happened, that everything was about to change again. She shuddered and he looked at her then, his flinty eyes impatient and something else: triumphant. Inspector McArthur looked at the floor as he introduced the stranger as Chief Inspector Charles Pearn.

No one moved to shake hands and Cissy didn’t ask the men to sit down.

“I will come to the point, Mr. Woolfe, Miss Woolfe,” the chief inspector’s voice was too loud for the cramped quarters.

“We have received a report of a sighting this afternoon. A reliable—a very reliable—witness saw George Woolfe in a nearby street this very afternoon.”

Cissy and her father remained silent, the only noises from Inspector McArthur clearing his throat and Mr.Woolfe slowly putting down the teapot.

“If both of you do not want to face charges yourselves, I strongly suggest you tell me what he said to you.”

Cissy raised her chin and clasped her hands together so they wouldn’t shake.

“I’ve been at the market all afternoon, sir. I’ve only just got back a few minutes ago.”

Pearn turned to Mr. Woolfe, who met his gaze.

“Mr. Woolfe? You were here, weren’t you? You saw your son, didn’t you? In his smart new uniform.”

What colour there had been in Mr. Woolfe’s face now drained away but he spoke clearly.

“I wish I had seen him. I’d like to tell him there’s no evidence against him. But he hasn’t been here, I can tell you that. I’ve been here all day, alright, but I’ve been on my own.”

Pearn’s lip curled back into a sneer.

“There’s no honour in protecting criminals, Mr. Woolfe, even if they are family. Our witness knows whom he saw and it was your son. We don’t need your information to track him down. We can simply go through the recruiting lists and see who enlisted on the 26th of December.”

He smiled conspiratorially at McArthur, who continued to stare at the unpainted floorboards.

“And if we don’t find a Woolfe on the lists and, frankly I don’t expect to, then we have enough men to visit every barracks in London where a new recruit fits his description until we light on the right man. Of course, there is still the problem of identification. We have no photograph to be absolutely sure.”

He paused to look at the two Woolfes and both looked defiantly back at him.

“Sadly our witness is unsuitable for this task and so I have come to request your services, Mr. Woolfe. After all, no one knows him better than his own father, no?”

“He can’t go, he’s too weak,” said Cissy. “He couldn’t possibly go.”

“Miss Woolfe, perhaps I misled you both when I said it was a request. I was not asking your father as though it were a matter of choice; I was telling him he must. It is the law. However, I can very well see the strain this nasty business has put on him. There is a solution, however: you can perform the identification yourself. We will be in touch tomorrow.”

McArthur hurried through the door as though he couldn’t wait to be outside again but Pearn took his time putting on his Homberg hat and re-buttoning his long coat. Just before he went through the door, he paused.

“In case either of you are planning an urgent visit to take some sea air or perhaps visit some distant relatives, I must warn you that a constable is installed at the front door and will remain there all night. Goodbye, now.”

He strode out, closing the door smartly behind him.