Lottie swallowed, found her throat to be as dry as sandpaper. ‘I’m sorry, Sally. There’s no way I can put right what were done wrong all them years ago. But I sent for you to tell you that I mean no harm. That bad bugger up yon had some scheme for frightening Ivy to death, I think. Oh, we’d not have got you away from your gran, but he’d have made enough noise if I’d stuck by him. Ivy’s safe now.’
‘Thank you.’
Lottie frowned. ‘I’m a bad woman, Sally.’
‘Oh.’ It was impossible to achieve any reply.
‘I’ve been with men . . . for money. I went with that bastard Worthington because he paid me. Then . . . well . . . you’re too young for talking about this kind of caper.’
Sally bit her thumbnail. ‘I know about all that stuff, Mother. Worthington might have been the one who started me off, but my dad was a wonderful man. You were too busy going out to notice what a nice man my dad was. He was kind and gentle and . . .’ The words dried up when Sally saw her mother’s shoulders shaking. She hadn’t realized that the woman could cry. ‘I’m sorry.’
Lottie jumped up, dragged a handkerchief from her sleeve and spun around to face the window. ‘I can’t look at you no more, I can’t! You don’t have to tell me what sort of a man Derek Crumpsall used to be. I treated him as if he were soft, but he weren’t. It were me. I’m bad inside, rotten right through to me bones. Go away, girl. Get the hell out of this place before you catch whatever bloody disease I were born with.’
Sally decided that this mother of hers had an odd voice, because she spoke ‘Lanky’ and American at the same time. But the tears crossed all language barriers. ‘I don’t want to leave you crying.’
‘Why not? I left you and him bloody skriking, didn’t I? I’ve got what I deserve now, ’cos I’ve got nowt at all. No daughter, no job, no home and no money. You’ve to go, do you hear? I don’t want you. I never wanted you in the first place. I drank enough gin to stock a pub, and I lived at the slipper baths in near-boiling water for a fortnight trying to get shut of you. Go on, bugger off out of it!’
Sally got up, walked to the door, opened it, closed it loudly. With her back pressed hard against the jamb, she watched while her mother sank to the carpet in a heap of despair.
Lottie sobbed hysterically, made no attempts to raise herself from the floor. ‘Jesus . . . that kid . . . deserved . . . What kind of a woman . . . am I?’
Sally’s thumbnail was suddenly very short. Having pretended to leave, she lingered now and bore witness to something she was never meant to see. This was like spying, like looking through someone’s curtains at night. A knowledge was rooting itself in her mind, a seed whose capillaries responded quickly to the water from Lottie’s eyes. Whatever Sally’s mother was, whatever she had been, there was a bond, a link that kept them tied.
‘Oh God,’ moaned the woman. ‘I’ll not see her . . . no more.’
Sally crossed the room and dropped down next to Lottie.
The tears slowed. ‘What the bloody hell do you want now?’
‘Nothing.’ That was what being related meant, thought Sally. You didn’t want anything except just to say . . . hello, how are you?
‘I’m no good, Sally. I’m warning you now—’
Sally placed a hand over Lottie’s mouth. ‘You’re not bad, Mother. Most people aren’t bad, you know. You just took a long time to grow up, that’s all.’
Gert and Lottie dragged Bert’s bits and pieces down the driveway. Mucky Singleton, a rag-and-bone collector, had been hired to cart the stuff, and his disgraceful appearance did little to enhance a situation that was already awkward.
In the doorway of the Bromwich Street house, a fat man with a low-hanging beer belly counted notes and coins. ‘I should think so and all,’ he called after the two women. ‘I’d have charged interest if I’d known he were going to do a midnight flit.’
Lottie, who had had more than enough of the landlord, dumped a box in front of Mucky’s bedraggled horse. ‘Get down off that wagon, you lazy swine,’ she told Mucky Singleton. ‘You’re supposed to be helping.’
Mucky pulled the clay pipe from between yellowed teeth. ‘Yer said nowt about carrying. All yer said were as you wanted me and Montgomery.’ He pointed to the horse.
Lottie threw a handful of coins onto the cart. ‘Here you are, Judas.’ Then she went up the path to tackle the landlord. ‘Listen, fairy cake,’ she said sweetly. ‘My sister’s had enough harassment without you chucking in your ten penn’orth. Bert’s gone missing. He has not done a flit. Any more lip from you and I’ll stick a pin in you, see if you pop.’
Gert lifted her husband’s things from the pavement, passed them to Mucky. Because of the nature of his work, Mucky came into contact with a lot of women, so he knew when they meant business. The one who talked a bit Yankee was in a mood. He would sooner meet his Maker than contend with a woman of such sharp humour. ‘Loaded up, missus,’ he told Lottie. ‘Where now?’
‘Vernon Street,’ snapped the ‘Yankee’ one. ‘I’ll keep his things at my place,’ she told Gert. ‘Save you messing Ivy’s house up.’
Gert, who wasn’t feeling or saying much, nodded her agreement.
‘Well?’ said Mucky. ‘Are you climbing on, or what?’
Lottie bridled. ‘I’d not ride on your rotten wagon behind that flea-bitten nag for all the cotton in Lancashire. Just get gone and we’ll meet you in Vernon Street.’
Gert pulled at her sister’s arm, was suddenly glad that Lottie was with her. They’d never got on, had disliked each other even as children. But now, Lottie was . . . she was all right. ‘Thanks, Lottie,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t know what I would have done without you.’
Lottie, who had cheered up considerably since getting her own room and landing a cleaning job in an office building, squeezed Gert’s hand. ‘He’ll turn up, love. They always do, same as tin pennies. There’s not one man to mend another, is there? Always piking off and saying nowt, always getting home drunk and disasterly, no bones in their legs and no bloody front door key. See. You come to my little room in Vernon Street. We’ll make some toast and have a cuppa, see what we can sort out. He’ll not be far away. They don’t shift without money for a pint and a ciggy.’
‘He’s dead,’ mumbled Gert.
Lottie, who agreed with her sister, dragged her along Bromwich Street. ‘Don’t be saying that. He might have won a fortune at the dogs, might have gone off to spend it in Monte Carlo.’
Gert sniffed, said no more. Her Bert was a goner. She knew it in her head and felt it in her heart. Why hadn’t they found him, though? Why did the police keep giving her these lectures about Bert being forty-nine and old enough to fettle? ‘He’s not a creature of regular habits,’ the desk sergeant had said. ‘With no employer for us to interview, where do we start?’ She shivered, wondered when the bobbies would come to their senses and start dragging the waterways.
In spite of bewilderment and grief, Gert followed her sister across the centre of town to Chorley Old Road. After all, there was nothing else she could do, was there?
Alan Westford walked down the narrow hallway and picked up the evening paper. He read a few lines about the nationalization of the railways, poured himself a pint of bottle brown ale, lit a Senior Service. He was glad she’d gone. If she’d stayed, she would have been no use, the state of her. Who on earth would have granted custody of a fourteen-year-old girl to a woman like Lottie? If only she’d returned looking half-decent, the Westfords might have pleaded that Lottie had been abroad to make money and had returned to give the child a good life. But, tramp that she was, no-one could have taken Lottie seriously. Even so, her continued presence in his house might have been sufficient to frighten the Crumpsall hag out of her skin. Still, it was all spilt milk now.
He dragged hungrily at the tobacco, swallowed the beer in one draught, opened another bottle. There was some whisky in the sideboard, blended, but not a bad scotch. In about half an hour, he would make himself a plate of eggs and bacon, and there was some fresh bread and a nice pat of butter.
But when he unfolded the paper properly, all thoughts of food left his brain. They had found him. At last, the police had discovered the remains of a man in that little-used passageway behind the Kippax Mill. By now, there would be sparse physical evidence left, he reassured himself. He need not worry, because no-one would connect the incident with him. All the same, his appetite remained poor, so he dined on whisky and Senior Service.
‘In the opinion of the examining doctor the body had been in the alley for several weeks. In spite of the cold weather, there has been some deterioration. In view of this, the cause of death has not yet been established, though foul play is suspected due to chest wounds.’
Foul play. He drank two fingers of scotch, poured another dose. Bloody foul play, eh? Oh, he could tell a few tales on that subject. What about a chap who had worked his fingers to the bone only to finish up in a weaver’s cottage with no company except scotch and brown ale? What about a chap whose wife had taken all his money to set up a business with an Austrian Jew, a lord of the realm and a load of idiots from the slums?
Perhaps the dreams would stop now. Perhaps he could enjoy the sleep of a just man, because Bert Simpson was no longer hidden under piles of paper and cotton waste. Westford was all right until he went to bed, seldom gave a conscious thought to the disloyal creature whose life he had ended. But he could have done without all those nightmares full of clicking bones and empty eye sockets. Bert Simpson hadn’t been worth all this bother. In his present condition, the stupid man certainly did not merit the trouble and expense of coroner’s court, police wages, murder investigation.
He scrutinized the report again, made sure he hadn’t missed anything. No, no, he was in the clear thus far. The clothes he had worn on that day had been reduced to ashes in a garden bonfire; he had even destroyed a pair of good shoes. There were those people who knew about the return of the renamed Andrew Worthington, but nothing could be proved, because he had no connection with Bert. Did he?
Through a fog created by best Virginia and drunkenness, Westford remembered the letters. ‘Destroy this’, he had written at the end of each missive. Had those papers been burnt? Had they? Bromwich Street. Yes, Simpson had taken a room in a house there after separating from his wife. The clock ticked loudly, but Westford’s heartbeat drowned the noise. If one single letter from London remained, he would be connected to Bert Simpson.
Westford jumped up, staggered into the kitchen. What could he do? Bromwich Street. That was in the Haulgh area, down Bridgeman Place and along the Bury Road. The police would be there, of course. The police would be sifting through every bus ticket, every scrap of refuse, every letter, because Bert’s disappearance had been reported by his slut of a wife, no doubt.
He was suddenly tired. In fact, the adjective did not serve adequately, because tiredness would have been easy compared to the weakness that seemed to pervade his body. Bed. He must get himself upstairs for a nap.
When the door-knocker clattered, he pressed a hand to his heart, half-expecting the final attack that would remove all need to worry about Bert bloody Simpson. But no, his heart had been mended after the pitchfork business, though he had been warned against alcohol and tobacco . . . Whoever stood on the path had no patience. There were lights burning, so he could not pretend to be out. He made a small attempt to straighten his tie, wished he’d had that shave, shambled off to the front door.
Relief flooded his veins, mingled with the ale and whisky, made him attempt a smile. ‘Oh,’ he said to his only legitimate son. ‘Come in.’
Gert was beyond consolation. She fled from the over-populated room, ran upstairs, locked herself in the bathroom. His hands. She had recognized those small hands, though the rest hadn’t looked much like Bert. That lady policeman had tried to be nice, but Gert had still screamed like a cornered animal. And the pills the doctor had supplied weren’t much use. ‘Go away,’ she yelled when someone tapped on the door.
Downstairs, Ivy sat near the window, her eyes fixed on the near-blackness outside. Poor little Gert. There was no harm in the woman, though Ivy had feared her all those years ago when she had first come for Sal. Someone touched Ivy’s shoulder. ‘She’s shut herself in the bathroom, Ivy.’ It was Ruth Heilberg’s voice. ‘Leave her,’ said Ivy. ‘There’s times when folk just has to be by theirselves.’
Tom and Joseph stood in front of the fireplace, the former towering over the latter by at least nine inches. ‘For this man, Gert always had love,’ said Joseph.
Tom glanced across at Maureen, noticed that she was plucking vacantly at the sleeve of her jumper. ‘He was murdered, Joseph.’
‘Yes, this much we know.’
‘Do you think . . . ?’ Tom could not bring himself to verbalize the thoughts.
‘I should not be surprised.’ Joseph placed his Homburg on the side table where Ivy’s store of medicines sat. The wonderful woman was now confined to the house, spent most of her time in this very room. Gert was the one who cared for Ivy. Gert cooked for her, washed her, took her to the bathroom. ‘Where is Sally?’
‘Next door with Prudence and Cora. Red’s there, too, so she’ll be all right.’ Tom spoke to Ruth. ‘Go back upstairs, if you don’t mind. You will be able to listen. I don’t suppose Gert will do anything silly, but we must be sure of her safety.’
‘What can we do, Tom?’ Joseph touched the taller man’s arm. ‘Come, we shall talk in the kitchen.’
The two men went into the hall, but their progress was halted by a frantic banging on the front door. Tom opened it, found Lottie white-faced and shivering on the step. ‘You’re not wearing a coat. You must be freez—’
‘Gert!’ screamed Lottie.
Tom drew the newcomer to one side. ‘She’s in the bathroom. Bert has been found murdered, you see, and—’
‘I know that! I bloody know!’ Lottie was no more than a hair’s breadth from hysteria. ‘Get my sister. Get my sister now, this minute.’
Gert appeared on the landing with Ruth hovering in her wake. ‘Lottie?’ shouted Gert. ‘Is that you? I knew his hands straight away, Lottie. He had these little hands. So cold, he looked, stretched out on that tin table. They gave me pills, but I can’t stop seeing his hands, Lottie. He never gave over loving me, you know. He never stopped wanting me back, but there was that fire and Maureen’s hands. Now his hands. His poor little hands all blue, all dead. Maureen’s went red and purple, you know. I never forgave him. Do you think God’ll let him in, Lottie?’