2003 - A Jarful of Angels Page 24

  Dai bellocking.

  Ruby screaming.

  Dai roaring, “Get some water quick, woman! Put it out!”

  “Burn, you fuckin’ bastard, burn!” said Fatty.

  Then the three of them were off down the hill behind Fatty, their hearts bursting.

  “Iffy-O!”

  “Bessie-O!”

  The town clock bonged.

  Fatty and Billy disappeared into the shadows of the gwli. Iffy and Bessie went hell for leather down the steps to Inkerman.

  Marlene poured the tea and handed Will a plate.

  “Welsh cake, Will?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Anything else from the dim and distant past I can help you with?” asked Gladys. “Oh, before I forget, I must get Marlene to make up that herbal brew for you. One of Carty Annie’s old recipes.”

  “The old woman from Dancing Duck Lane?” Will asked.

  “That’s the one. Lived to be well over a hundred.”

  “Going back to the past. You said you did quite a bit of trade with the Medlicotts.”

  “Yes. There was no shortage of money. The girls were all from very well-to-do Spanish families. We made up a lot of dresses for the young ladies there,” said Gladys.

  “I don’t suppose they’d be of any interest to you but we’ve still got records going back to those years,” said Marlene.

  “You have?”

  “Just hold on a second.”

  It took some time before Marlene came back carrying an armful of dusty old red leather books.

  “Here you are. Take your pick.”

  Will leafed through the books until he came to the year he was looking for.

  Marlene looked over his shoulder.

  “There, look, that’s the last order we ever made up for the young ladies.”

  “Now, I can’t remember what I had for breakfast but I can remember the very last time they all came in here. There were three of them. Came to have their measurements taken. Such lovely names the Spanish have,” Gladys said.

  Will read the names, “Maria Garcia Martinez, Elena Maria Rigau, Ekaterina Velasco Olivares.”

  “They were all from a place called Valencia. They pronounced it Vallentheeya something like that. Now that one there was a beauty,” said Gladys squinting through her glasses, pointing at the page.

  Will looked down at the name.

  “She was about Marlene’s age. She was very pale, peaky-looking, and with a woman’s instincts I knew why. Those dark rings under the eyes, a little widening of the hips. About five months gone, I would have said. It was all the talk that it was the doctor’s child.”

  Marlene laughed.

  “You don’t think it was the doctor’s child?” Will asked.

  Marlene said, “Now the answer to that I do know. There was a chap who lived up in the Three Rows, a bit older than her. He was the father of the baby.”

  “Marlene, you never told me at the time.”

  “Mam, I was young. There were a million things I didn’t tell you when I was that age.”

  “Probably just as well I didn’t know,” said Gladys.

  “I got quite friendly with her. She told me, you see, that she was expecting a baby and that she was going to run away with her young man before anyone found out. Only I think someone had already found out.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Maggie Rafferty and me were seeing a couple of chaps who lived up past the rec. We used to meet up under the old bridge. Used to write our names on the roof. One night we heard a hell of a row. The old doctor shouting and a girl crying and then this fellow, the handsome one, came through the bridge. He was in a right state. His eyes all blacked and his two front teeth knocked clean out!”

  “What was his name?”

  “I can’t for the life of me remember. I never saw him or Kat again.”

  “Kat?” Will said.

  “Short for Ekaterina,” said Marlene. “More tea? Or cake?”

  Iffy left the bacon untouched until round waxy spots of fat formed on the plate. It was impossible to eat. Her stomach felt as if it was full of wriggling worms. She wondered if Dai was dead. Was Sergeant Rodwell up in Sebastopol taking fingerprints?

  Nan was cracking eggs into the old black frying pan at the range. One was a double yoker.

  When Grancha killed one of his chickens sometimes there were still eggs inside their guts. It reminded Iffy of those Russian dolls: small, smaller, smallest.

  The double yoker sizzled in the pan. The smell of it cooking turned Iffy’s stomach.

  “Come on, Iffy. Eat up your food. Got to get a bit of meat on them bones. Proper tin ribs you are.”

  She couldn’t swallow.

  When her nan wasn’t looking she slipped the bacon to the cat and then pretended to chew.

  Winnie Jones came in through the back door.

  “Come in, gel. Smelled the tea, did you?”

  “Have you heard?” lisped Winnie.

  “Heard what?”

  Winnie took her false teeth out and put them in the pocket of her pinny.

  Iffy heaved, but there was nothing to come up. Her belly was only full of fear.

  “Last night, mun, there was all hell up! Morning, Iffy.”

  “Morning, Mrs Jones.”

  Iffy slunk into the pantry afraid of what Winnie was going to say.

  Nan poured tea for herself and Winnie.

  “All hell up where?”

  “Up in Sebastopol,”

  “What happened?”

  Winnie took ages to get to the point and for once Iffy was glad.

  Her teeth rattled as she stood on the other side of the pantry door.

  “The police was up an’ all.”

  Her knees joined her teeth in the rattle.

  “Terrible it was.”

  She could hardly breathe.

  “What was terrible?”

  “Ruined his vest into the bargain.”

  “Winnie, what the hell are you going on about?”

  “Haven’t you heard, gel? Someone set fire to Dai Full Pelt last night.”

  Iffy’s heart punched at her ribs. Bomp. Bomp. Bomp.

  “Ay, set fire to him! Lucky not to have killed him, mun.”

  “Who done that then?”

  “They don’t know. No one saw nothing.”

  Thank you, God. Thank you, Saint Francis the Cissy. And Joan of Fark.

  “Didn’t Dai see who done it?”

  “No, he was in the lav.”

  “In the lav! You can’t fit two people in the lav. How the hell did they set light to him?”

  “They opened the door at the back.”

  “You’ve lost me, gel.”

  “The little door in the back of the lav. The ones they used to open years ago when they took the pails out for emptying.”

  “I still don’t get it.”

  “Dai was on the lav! Whoever it was pushed burning papers in through the little door at the back.”

  “Oh right, I’m with you.”

  “Set fire to his arse they did!”

  “His arse?”

  Nan spat tea, a wide arc of tea that hissed as it hit the flames in the grate. Iffy watched through the crack in the door as Nan dabbed her mouth with her pinny.

  “And singed all his doodah into the bargain!”

  “Singed it! Oh stop it, Winnie, don’t talk daft.”

  “Honest to God. Apparently there’s not a hair left on him down there.”

  Nan screeched.

  “Ruby said his clods are like a pair of stewed plums!”

  Nan laughed, a cackle and then a roar.

  “Don’t know what you’re laughing for. It’s dangerous, mun, people going about doing things like that to innocent people.”

  Innocent! Innocent people don’t drown little puppies. Or…Iffy didn’t want to think about what she’d heard under the bridge the night Fatty had stuck the head back on the statue.

  Nan spat out more tea and hel
d on to her belly.

  “Oh my God. Bill? Come and listen to this!”

  Grancha came out of the back parlour and into the kitchen.

  “Tell him, Winnie.”

  Winnie stiffened up with importance.

  “Just telling Nellie about Dai, I was, Mr Meredith.”

  Nan was rocking backwards and forwards, her face in her pinny.

  “What about him? What’s he been up to now?”

  “Been injured,” said Nan, snorting.

  “Got his fingers caught in the till, did he?”

  “Mr Meredith!”

  “Bloody old rogue that he is.”

  “For Christ’s sake, tell him, Winnie.”

  “Last night, Mr Meredith, someone set fire to his arse!” said Winnie, shocked that Iffy’s nan found it so funny.

  “His arse! Did it burn well?”

  “Mr Meredith!”

  “Should have put paraffin on it first.”

  Iffy felt for her eyebrows at the mention of paraffin.

  “Mr Meredith! Don’t be so wicked.”

  “Not a hair left on him!” shrieked Nan.

  Grancha was laughing, first a belly wheeze, then a splutter and on to a deafening roar. It was catching.

  Behind the pantry door Iffy started to giggle. Nan was purple with laughter, her face wet with tears, her pinny splattered with spat tea.

  “Oh God! Not a hair left on him and his clods like stewed plums. Waaaarrrrgg!”

  “Who done that then?” said Grancha.

  “No one knows. Must be a nut case on the loose.”

  “He’s got plenty of enemies, mind.”

  “Want locking up whoever they are!”

  “Kids, I s’pect,” said Grancha.

  The pantry grew icy around Iffy.

  “Was there much damage done apart from his privates?” Grancha’s words creaked with laughter.

  “Ay, ruined his vest, scorched to bits it was. He’s in a hell of a state by all accounts.”

  Iffy snorted into her hand.

  “Did they take him up the hospital?”

  “Yes. But he wouldn’t let none of the nurses look at it. Ruby had to rub lard on it and send to Morrissey for ice from the fridge.”

  “Well, well, well,” said Grancha. “Best laugh I’ve had for years.”

  Iffy struggled to stop laughing behind the pantry door.

  “Mind you,” said Winnie, “Sergeant Rodwell said he’ll catch whoever was responsible, and when he does they’ll swing.”

  Iffy heard the clank of chains, a priest reading the last rites. She felt the hangman’s bag come down over her head and the pantry spun, as her head left her body and she slipped into darkness.

  Will sat up at the desk in his room in the Firkin, leafing through his old notebooks. He had always been a copious note-taker when he was on a case. He was glad of it now, reading through them he was able to conjure up the scenes from the past.

  The boy had had three close friends according to Sergeant Rodwell who had advised Will against visiting Billy Edwards because the boy couldn’t speak. He had told him the story of Billy’s brother’s tragic death. Rodwell had been very cut up about it.

  Rodwell had been working over in another valley and had been called out to the scene of the accident. He’d said it had been the worst thing he’d ever had to deal with. The boy had been mangled to death in the wheel. He’d been the one who had to break the news to the mother. To carry the kid’s shoes back to the parents.

  Will had interviewed the other two friends. Two little girls. Elizabeth Meredith and Bessie Tranter.

  They’d both lived a stone’s throw away from where the clothes had been found, in Inkerman Terrace.

  Chalk and cheese if ever two girls were, Will had thought afterwards.

  He’d talked to Elizabeth Meredith first. She lived with her grandparents. Rodwell had filled him in on her background. The girl had no parents: her dad had committed suicide, he’d left a note and his clothes on a beach down on the coast a few days after the child had been born.

  “And her mother?” Will had asked.

  “Don’t know much about her really. Talk is she ran off and left her the day she was born.”

  Elizabeth Meredith was sitting outside on the front step when Will had walked along the bailey of Inkerman Terrace.

  He was aware of curtains twitching as he passed, doors opening a crack, people coming out of their houses and crossing to the outside lavs as a pretext. He heard the gathering whispers as he walked towards the girl.

  “Hello. You must be Elizabeth Meredith.”

  “Yep. But everyone calls me Iffy.”

  She was a bright, dark-haired, friendly little girl.

  She stood up as her grandmother came out onto the step.

  “Iffy, what are you doing out there without any shoes on? Get them on now before you catch your death.”

  Will had introduced himself to the old woman and asked if he could have a few words with Elizabeth.

  Mrs Meredith was also friendly. A warm, homely woman in her early seventies, he’d guessed. She’d made tea and put a plate of cakes on the table and then diplomatically left him alone with Iffy.

  He’d sat at the table while Iffy had put on a pair of old daps.

  “You know why I’m here…er…Iffy?”

  She’d nodded, tilting her head to one side, the dark curls falling over her forehead.

  “Now, could you tell me if you have any ideas where Lawrence Bevan might have gone?”

  She’d smiled then, a lovely smile that lit her face with a warm radiance.

  “Fatty,” she said. “We call him Fatty. We never call him Lawrence. He isn’t fat though. Just sort of plump, we don’t call him Fatty to be nasty, it’s just a nickname.”

  “Right.”

  He noticed the tense she used; she still spoke of him in the present tense. She was too young to have realised the implications of his disappearance, the fact that everything pointed to him being part of the past. Dead. Gone.

  “So when did you last see him?”

  “Well, I can’t remember exactly. I think it was the day before he disappeared.”

  He didn’t believe her. She didn’t seem the type of kid not to remember things clearly.

  He’d shown her the clothes and she’d been taken aback. Her face had paled, her blue eyes had welled up with tears.

  “Are these Fatty’s clothes. Iffy?”

  She’d bitten her lip, struggling to hold back the tears and nodded.

  “You are sure they’re his?”

  She’d nodded again.

  “Why are you so sure?”

  “I just am. Khaki shorts. Blue T-shirt. Nobody else had clothes like that round here.”

  “What sort of shoes did he usually wear?”

  She looked away again quickly.

  “I dunno. I never noticed. Just ordinary old shoes.”

  “When you last saw him did he say he might be going somewhere?”

  She hesitated for a second. “No.”

  “Do you know where he might have gone?”

  “No, but he’ll be back.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  She looked Will in the eye as she spoke, it was a defiant look but he knew that tears weren’t far away.

  “I just know he will, that’s all. He’s always doing it, going off for adventures. He’s probably camping out somewhere. Once he went for a week.”

  She’d said it so matter of factly as though it were quite the normal thing for a ten-year-old boy to disappear for days on end without anyone worrying.

  “You’re not worried about him then?”

  She’d looked away again, but not before he’d seen the glistening tear that had slipped from her eye.

  “No. He can look after himself. He’s brave. He’s not afraid of nothing, Fatty.”

  “Just one other thing, Iffy. He always wore a belt, didn’t he?”

  “I dunno.”

  For a second. Will
had the feeling that she was again withholding something from him, not telling him the whole truth.

  Elizabeth Tranter lived a few doors along the row. Will had banged on the green-painted door and been kept waiting for an age before the bolts had been drawn slowly back and an elderly woman had come to the door.

  He had been invited in, but with ill-disguised annoyance.

  The house was a shrine to housework. Every surface was polished to a burnished sheen. The smell of bleach and strong disinfectant hung in the air.

  Elizabeth Tranter, dressed as though she were going to a party, sat up at the kitchen table reading a book, or at least pretending to read a book.

  She was as sickly looking as Iffy had been healthy. She was pale-skinned, her fair hair was styled into a mass of bobbing ringlets. Her chest creaked and groaned in the silence of the room. She was a nervous wreck this one, looking across at her mother all the time for reassurance.

  He’d asked her the same questions as he’d asked Iffy but she’d barely spoken, just shaking her head or nodding.

  “My daughter, we call her Bessie, won’t be able to tell you anything. She didn’t bother with the likes of Fatty Bevan,” said the woman.

  “How would you describe the likes of Lawrence Bevan, Mrs Tranter?”

  “Well, he wasn’t from a God-fearing family for a start. He was a rough boy. We wouldn’t like to think Bessie had anything to do with him.”

  “I understand he was a very scruffy boy, by all accounts, dirty in appearance,” said Will.

  Mrs Tranter had nodded and flinched visibly. Will thought she probably, found the word ‘dirt’ extremely offensive.

  When he’d shown the clothes to Bessie, Mrs Tranter had looked as though she might faint.

  “Are these his clothes, Bessie?”

  Bessie had sniffed and nodded.

  Then she spoke, “Except for his cricket belt and shoes.”

  “What sort of shoes did he wear, Bessie?”

  Without hesitation she’d told him that Fatty always wore scruffy old red sandals that should have been put in the bin years ago.

  “That’s all she knows,” said Mrs Tranter firmly.

  She must have been in her late forties when Bessie had been born. A prim, fussy, over-protective type, and she couldn’t wait to get him out of her house.

  Will was recalled unwillingly from the past to the present by a knock at the door.

  When he opened it he was surprised to see a young man in dungarees standing on the landing. He smiled at Will sheepishly. He was, with some difficulty, holding something large, wrapped carelessly about in green tarpaulin.