Dot sat herself down on the edge of the bed and took her aunt’s hot, damp hand in hers. ‘It’s all right, Auntie,’ she said gently. ‘If it’ll ease you to tell me, then go ahead, but if you’d rather not, I reckon I’ll understand.’
Her aunt grinned. It wasn’t much of a grin but there was definitely mischief in it and it cheered Dot up considerably, because it made Aunt Myrtle seem more like herself. ‘It all happened a long time ago,’ her aunt said. ‘It’s a common enough story; God knows it happens all the time, I’m told. But it – it explains things, like; things that must ha’ puzzled you.’
Dot said nothing. So many things puzzled her: why her mother had never returned, why her uncle disliked her so much, why her mother had left her in the first place. But she said nothing, allowing her aunt to take her time.
‘Give me a sip of water, queen,’ her aunt said, after a long pause. Dot complied, then stood the glass back on the bedside cabinet as her aunt began to speak. ‘The truth is, chuck, that when I moved you an’ your mam in wi’ us, your Uncle Rupert . . . well, he took a considerable shine to your mam. She were young and very pretty, recently widowed and still heartbroken, if you ask me. Your dad were a fine chap and Letty couldn’t think of anything, apart from him. I’m sure she never even noticed, at first, how Rupert hung about her. She had a job in a dress shop on the Scottie, and he’d hang around outside so’s he could walk her home. On Sundays, he’d take her off for a bus ride or a long walk in the country, telling me it was to distract her mind from her troubles, which no doubt it did, though not in the way he intended. Often your mam insisted on taking you along and I do believe it was that, originally, which set your uncle agin you.’
‘I don’t remember any of that,’ Dot said, rather helplessly, when her aunt had been staring down at her hands for some moments. ‘But if that were all, Aunt Myrtle . . .’
‘Well, it weren’t,’ Aunt Myrtle said, her voice trembling. ‘Everything fell apart when Rupert tried – tried to make love to her. He – he followed her into her room late one night – he had told me he was doing the late shift at the factory – and – and started gettin’ . . . well, passionate. Your mam told me that she didn’t want to wake you but she was scared for her life. There were a real struggle, for though your mam was young and strong, she weren’t really a match for Rupert. Gawd knows where it might have ended if she’d not grabbed the chamber pot and broke it over his head. She knocked him cold and – and went.’
‘Went? You mean left for ever?’ Dot said, her voice small with shock. ‘But – but what about all her things, and me? And what about you, Aunt Myrtle? You’d been good to her, I reckon.’
‘Oh, she come back after a couple o’ days, when she judged your uncle would have recovered from the crack on the head and got back to work,’ her aunt reassured her. ‘I had a pretty good idea of what had happened, that same night. I went through to her room ’cos you was bawling your head off, and found Rupe unconscious on the floor, the bed streaked with blood and your mam missin’. When he came round, Rupert pretended he’d lost his memory, said an intruder must have crowned him with a stick or the butt of a gun. But he were terrified you’d seen more than you’d let on. He began to dislike you, good and proper, an’ was always trying to get you into trouble, to persuade me to turn you out, put you in an orphanage.
‘O’ course, when your mam explained what had happened, I knew I ought to confront Rupert, kick him out, but . . . oh, dammit, Dotty, in those days I suppose I was still in love with him, and anyway, I had the boys to consider. I couldn’t bring them up on me own without a wage comin’ in. Your mam swore she’d never live under the same roof as Rupert, said she’d starve sooner. In fact, she didn’t mean to stay in Liverpool in case Rupert found where she was, so she went to London. She meant to come and get you, but all her jobs were live-in – they had to be – so no place for a child, d’you see? She wrote regular for a whole year, but she never gave me an address, and then the letters just stopped coming. In her last letter, she’d said as she’d got a nasty dose of ’flu but would write again as soon as she was fit. She never did.’
There was a long silence, then Dot spoke. ‘She died, didn’t she? Otherwise, nothing would have stopped her getting in touch again,’ she said flatly.
‘I think you’re right; she would have written if she’d been alive to do so. Remember, she never sent us her address so I couldn’t find anything out for certain. I reckon she were afraid that Rupert would find out where she was and follow her. Me and your mam weren’t just sisters, we were pals an’ all. It took me a long time to forgive Rupert for what he did.’
‘Thanks for telling me, Aunt Myrtle. I’m glad I know what happened; it explains a lot.’
‘It’s all right, chuck, but don’t let it make you turn even more against your uncle, ’cos I’m goin’ to speak to him when I get out of here. I’m goin’ to tell him that unless he changes his ways, acts decent towards you, then I’ll kick him out, wages or no wages. I’ve been weak not doin’ something before but this has made me think. I ain’t sayin’ us Brewsters have treated you right, but at least we’ve fed and clothed you and I’ve kept you out of an orphanage. And now you’d best be goin’, queen, ’cos I don’t deny I’m fair worn to the bone.’
‘I’ll stay with you for a bit, Aunt,’ Dot said softly, and was still sitting by the bed when her aunt began to snore gently.
Satisfied that she could now leave, Dot got to her feet and was making her way back along the hospital corridor when she came face to face with her uncle. He grabbed her arm, his face for once expressing concern, his usual malevolence missing. ‘Dot! Where’s your aunt? How is she? Is the kids awright?’ he said hoarsely. ‘The doc said he’d send an ambulance but he didn’t say which hospital she would go to so I’ve been searchin’ the city. But they said at the desk she were here.’
‘She lost the babies,’ Dot said briefly, carefully detaching her uncle’s clutching fingers from her arm. ‘She’s sleeping right now but I expect she’ll be glad to see you. Go in through the next lot of swing doors to your left, and she’s in the little cubicle at the end.’
‘Right,’ her uncle said. ‘And you’d best go straight back to Lavender Court and start getting something for us suppers. Need some money?’
Dot almost gaped. Her uncle often demanded that she run messages for him but had never offered her money before. He expected his wife to pay for all his needs, apart from those he purchased for himself. Dot, however, did not mean to go back to Lavender Court until she had found Corky and discovered what had happened to Emma, but it would not do to say so to Uncle Rupert. ‘We can have fish and chips, so I won’t need the money until this evening,’ she told him. ‘If you aren’t home, I’ll take the money from the tea caddy on the mantelpiece, all right?’
‘Awright,’ Uncle Rupert said, after a pause. Dot grinned to herself as she left him. She had seen from the expression on his face that Uncle Rupert did not at all like the thought of the rest of the family feasting on fish and chips if he was still tied to the hospital. Well, he would have to put up with it, she told herself, hurrying along the busy street, and anyway, she doubted that the hospital authorities would encourage him to hang around once he had greeted his wife and seen her comfortably settled. There was nothing he could do so he might as well go back to the factory. No doubt his boss would understand his absence when he explained that his wife had had a miscarriage, but they would not expect him to take more than an hour or two off work.
As she walked, Dot wondered where she should go first. Virgil Street was out of the question; neither Corky nor Nick would return there until they knew Emma was safe, and though she could go and hover outside the butcher’s shop, she did not much fancy doing so. She was still convinced that Ollie, and now the butcher, suspected her involvement in their affairs and would do their best, by one means or another, to see that she did not talk. She could still remember vividly the sharp push between her shoulder blades which had nearly sent her under the train.
Finally, she decided to head for Church Street, and almost as soon as she reached it was fortunate enough to see Nick and Corky striding purposefully towards the shop. She shouted and they turned at once and came towards her. ‘Well I’m damned; if you aren’t the answer to a prayer, young Dot,’ Nick said, beaming at her. ‘We’ve just come from the
Echo
office; I’ve spoken to Emma and she’s all right, though that swine McNamara did his best to add another victim to his list.’
Dot stared from one to the other. Corky nodded confirmation. ‘That’s right,’ he agreed. ‘She told Nick he threw her over a railway bridge into the path of an express train only he misjudged, or something, and she fell into the coal tender. We’re going to fetch her – she’s in Crewe – just as soon as Nick’s seen McNamara safely locked away.’
‘In Crewe?’ Dot squeaked. ‘That’s miles away. Whatever’s she doing in Crewe?’
Corky began to explain but Nick cut him short. ‘You can tell Dot everything as we walk, but right now we’re going to the police station,’ he said firmly. ‘I know we were afraid that we might confide in the very person who was Butcher Rathbone’s confederate, but that was before we knew Ollie’s true identity. Now I think we must act immediately, because I don’t want Ollie and Rathbone to have a chance to put their heads together and concoct a tissue of lies which might be difficult to disprove. We know Ollie did a double shift last night, so he’s still in bed, which means if we can convince the police to pick him up at once he won’t have a chance to speak to Rathbone first. So step lively, young Dot.’
When Emma had begun to tell her story to the policemen who had come to the hospital, she had thought she might have difficulty convincing them, but as it happened one of the men – a detective sergeant – was familiar with the spate of burglaries which had taken place in central Liverpool over the past couple of years. He had talked to brother officers who had been involved and said that more than one of them had suspected either an inside job or someone in authority’s turning a blind eye. He knew Constable McNamara slightly and said the fat policeman was known to accept bribes and did not seem at all surprised when Emma told her story, though when she got to her grandfather’s death he whistled beneath his breath. ‘I don’t suppose he meant to kill the old man though,’ he said, rather doubtfully. ‘I read in the reports that both men were muffled to the eyebrows, so unless he thought the shop was empty and pushed aside his disguise, he had no reason to do anything other than stop Mr Grieves giving the alarm.’
Emma did not argue, but when she got to her own story, to how McNamara had treated her, and had added her inadvertent admission that Dot knew McNamara’s true identity, the detective sergeant clearly changed his mind. ‘If you’re fit enough, miss, I think we ought to get you back to Liverpool,’ he said. ‘The man’s a double murderer – or thinks he is – so he won’t hesitate to silence your young friend, if he gets the opportunity.’ He glanced at her doubtfully. ‘Only we can’t take you in a hospital dressing gown and the sister said the stuff you were wearing when you were admitted was just rags covered in coal dust, so it’s been burnt. But I dare say one of the nurses will lend you something.’
Emma thought this an excellent idea. ‘I am afraid for Dot,’ she admitted. ‘She told me once that someone had tried to push her in front of an underground train when she was taking a basket of laundry across to Birkenhead. Then, I thought she might have been mistaken, but now . . .’
‘I’ll go and get you something to wear,’ the younger policeman said at once. ‘And I’ll organise the car, shall I, sarge? If we get a move on, we can be in Liverpool in an hour or so.’
When Nick, Corky and Dot arrived at the police station Nick immediately assumed control, asking to see the senior officer present and saying that it was a matter of considerable urgency. The desk sergeant remembered him and cocked a knowing eyebrow. ‘Found out something about them burglaries, have you?’ he asked, and when Nick nodded, he added: ‘The chief inspector will want to know all about it, then.’ He depressed a switch. ‘Front desk here, sir. Will you ring me back when you’re free? I think it’s important.’ He let the switch spring back and turned to Nick. ‘But what’s these two youngsters got to do with it, eh?’ He grinned at Corky and Dot. ‘A couple o’ desperate characters if you ask me – oh aye, I can just see ’em wi’ scarves wrapped round their faces and pistols in their hands.’ He looked harder at Corky. ‘I reckernise you, young feller-me-lad,’ he said slowly. ‘You were in earlier, askin’ for Constable McNamara. Got anything to do with the case in question? ’Cos o’ course, all them burglaries took place on Ollie’s beat, or near by.’
Corky opened his mouth but Nick cut in before he could speak. ‘That’s right, sergeant,’ he said cheerfully. ‘I need Mr McNamara to corroborate what I’ve discovered; has he reported in for duty yet?’
The sergeant turned to gaze up at the big clock hanging on the wall behind him. ‘Not yet; he’s not due in till two o’clock,’ he told them. The instrument at his elbow buzzed and he pushed down a switch. ‘Mr McGovern, sir? The young reporter who were interested in the Church Street burglaries has got some information for you. Shall I send him up?’
The voice the other end barked what must have been an affirmative and Nick, Corky and Dot prepared to tell their story once more.
Dot had been dreading this moment because it was she, they had agreed, who would have to start the narrative. Once she began, however, the words simply tripped off her tongue and to her relief – and considerable surprise – Chief Inspector McGovern did not interrupt her once. He was a big, thick-set man in his forties, with close-cropped sandy hair, a neat sandy moustache, and very bright, very dark eyes. In repose, his face was severe, but when he smiled he looked both younger and friendlier. He smiled when Dot described her hasty descent into the dustbin, and from then on she found herself thinking of him as an ally, not an enemy. He did not frown when she said Archie Rathbone was much disliked by the neighbourhood children, and when she got to the bit she was most nervous of repeating – the involvement of Constable McNamara – he looked neither shocked nor disbelieving, but simply nodded gravely and Dot realised that, of course, he must have guessed the man’s identity since he, and every other policeman in the Liverpool force, would have known the constable’s nickname.