A Mersey Mile (20 page)

Jimmy Nuttall spoke up instead. ‘Just shows he could have killed little Billy, though. If he can kill a man of God, why should he worry about murdering a kiddy? Well, our Colin works on a
farm near Maghull, and he keeps shotguns for when foxes come for the chickens. I’ll try to borrow a couple and some ammo.’

Cal appeared in his wheelchair. ‘You’ll do no such thing, Nutter. We’ve enough on without guns, thanks. You could miss him and hit the wrong person. Do you want more children
in beds down the ozzy? Just leave it, all of you, unless you want to put somebody on a slab in the morgue or in a wheelchair like me. Stop the daft talk.’ He went back to put more bacon under
the grill for second breakfasts. Polly shouldn’t have to deal with all that trouble alone. Frank should be with her. Frank would be with her, preferably sooner rather than later if Cal had
any say in the matter.

The shouting and arguing reduced in volume to near-whispers. Hattie mouthed to Ida, ‘If I had a gun, I’d bloody shoot him, and I wouldn’t miss, believe me. Right between the
eyes, too.’

‘We’ve got our rounders bats,’ Ida replied. ‘Battering him to death would be a lot more satisfying after what he done to that monk. A bullet’s less personal,
isn’t it?’

Hattie grinned. ‘You’re evil.’

‘I know, but I’m lovely with it.’ Ida stood up. ‘Come on, folks, let Polly get on with her second lot of breakfasts. Me and Hattie promised we’d look after the
twins, and we will. So bugger off.’

The two women waited until all customers had gobbled their cold food and gone. ‘There you are, love,’ she said to Polly. ‘Onward and upward, eh?’

Polly, standing in the doorway that separated home from work, smiled weakly. Not without Frank. There could be no upward without him.

Elaine Lewis made her way across Liverpool’s business sector. There was some confusion or delusion regarding a search on a house purchase she was handling. Because she
was a stickler for detail, she needed to check a very quaint clause attached to a property in a suburb where, apparently, anyone could drain land through its garden without permission and with no
duty to make good any damage to said garden. Suspecting that the rule was no longer relevant, fourteenth century at the latest, she intended to investigate immediately before alarming her client
unnecessarily.

In truth, she was very proud of herself for having discovered the ancient law. If it was still applicable, which she doubted, the new purchaser would need to insure his land against all possible
eventualities. She had to visit a firm that held mediaeval law documents in its heavily guarded crypt, after which she intended to inform the vendor’s solicitor regarding the results.

Then she saw him striding towards her, and her mouth was suddenly dry. Oh, he was incredibly handsome. Other women passing by looked at him more than once, and she didn’t blame them. Grey
suit, dazzling white shirt, dark tie, good shoes, the confident, steady walk of a man on a mission. Mum said he had beautiful green eyes. The hair, dark brown, was thick and slightly wavy. She felt
silly, like a blushing schoolgirl who had just at this moment noticed boys for the very first time.

It might be better to introduce herself now rather than standing back to wait for the two mothers to invent an occasion at which they might meet. Anyway, he appeared to have left home, so the
chance of any prepared gathering sat somewhere between remote and impossible. ‘Here goes,’ she whispered before approaching him. ‘Frank Charleson?’ she asked. ‘Son of
Mrs Norma Charleson?’ His eyes were indeed beautiful, a clear and unusual shade of green. The only slight imperfection was a small bump on his nose, which was forgivable.

‘Guilty, though I plead insanity,’ he said. ‘She drove me mad twice over and I’m only just out of treatment.’ He stretched out a hand, making the fingers tremble.
‘See that? Steady as a fractured rock. I am cured.’

She paused briefly. The man was endowed with humour. Used to males who trod the dried-out corridors of justice, she came across levity very seldom in the course of a working day.
‘I’m Elaine Lewis. My mother works for yours. She’s the housekeeper at Brookside.’

‘So you’re the lawyer?’

‘Guilty as charged, but totally sane for the moment.’ She didn’t feel sane; she felt dithery, wrong-footed and slightly alarmed. Control was slipping. Control was vital.

‘Never mind, we can’t all be blessed with lunacy. Yes, I know Mrs Lewis.’ He shook her hand. ‘I don’t want to be rude, but I have an appointment to discuss the
buying of a property, so I must hurry before someone else snaps it up. It’s a bit of a gem.’

She took a card from a pocket. ‘There’s my work address. If you need any conveyancing, I’m your man.’

‘That’s a very pretty dress, sir,’ he said, smiling down at her. ‘But my mother must not know my whereabouts.’

‘A lawyer is like a priest,’ she told him. ‘I guard clients’ secrets with my life. Good luck with the purchase.’ She walked away. He was looking at her; she could
feel the heat of his eyes on her back. According to Mum, Frank was involved with a woman who ran a cafe on Scotland Road. Mum had met Polly Kennedy and seemed to admire her spirit. But Polly hated
Mrs Charleson and had refused to talk to Mum, who was now rent collector for Charleson Holdings. In Elaine’s opinion, Frank could do better if he wanted to play.

She was taken to the crypt, where she was shown the law. F replaced S from beginning to end, and it dated back to when the suburb had been farmland. The house currently being sold had replaced a
pair of farm labourers’ cottages that had been torn down long ago, so the law could be disputed. Yes, Frank might do a lot better, as long as he didn’t get serious.

After returning to the office, she sat for a while and begged her phone to ring. Not her type? Perhaps she should take a look at the competition; Polly was reputed to be pretty. Pretty Polly?
That was parrot-speak. Oh no, here came Lanky Laithwaite. He hung round like a bad smell, and she was fed up with his persistence. Bob Laithwaite was a good-looking chap, six feet and four inches
in height, and he kept asking her for a date. She was excellent at excuses and lies, so maybe she should aim for the bar and wear wig and gown with pride. This chap was definitely marriage
material, but she wasn’t, not yet, anyway. She wanted to play for a while before accepting rings, ball and chain.

‘Doing anything over the weekend?’ he asked, the tone attempting and failing completely to be casual.

Bob was a full partner, and she was mad not to take him on. But he was as dry as the parchment in that crypt. He would keep for a while, she hoped. ‘Sleeping,’ she replied. ‘I
have every intention of courting the rim of coma.’

‘Alone?’

Lord, that was near the bone for him; it was almost funny. ‘Yes, alone. I’ve been feeling rather run-down lately.’

‘Then let me take you out for a pick-me-up. You can’t possibly sleep from Friday night until Monday morning.’

‘Bob, I can do anything I like. There will be patches of wakefulness, I suppose, because one must eat and so forth.’

‘Can’t I be the so forth? I think I make a very suitable so forth. I have the height, the clean-cut looks, hand-sewn Italian shoes, all my own teeth, no tonsils or adenoids, and a
very good car.’

Elaine found herself smiling. There was more to Lanky than had met eye or ear thus far. ‘No. Go away and solicit – that’s how we earn our crust, as you well know.’

‘I’m soliciting you.’

‘Yes, you are. Find something more interesting to do.’

‘I find you interesting.’

‘But not doable.’ That was very near the marrow, never mind the bone, she thought.

‘I shall persevere, Elaine. Take that as a warning. Shall I commit my intentions to paper?’

‘And I shall be looking for work elsewhere.’ She shouldn’t have said that to a partner in the company, even if he was a junior. But he was laughing at her, and his eyes
twinkled when he laughed. Was she about to travel from famine to feast? Did she want a permanent male fixture in her life, or was she simply trying to offload her virginity? Whatever the case, she
could not simply pause and collect two men in one day. Though she wasn’t sure that Frank had been collected . . .

Her telephone rang. ‘Who? Oh yes. Yes, of course. Put him through, please.’ She looked up at the man in front of her. ‘Hello, Frank. Really? So good of you to think of me . .
.’ Bob’s eyes, so recently twinkling with glee, were suddenly cold and flat. ‘What? Oh, I knew you’d get it. Congratulations on that. Yes. All right, I shall pull out all
the stops. See you in the Liver at eight, then.’ She replaced the receiver.

‘One rule for him and another for me, eh?’

‘Pardon? Oh, you mean Frank. No, no. My mother works for his, and he’s buying a business, needs the conveyancing done quickly. We’ve been friends for many years. He has a
fiancée, I believe.’ Yes, she should be a barrister, since she was an excellent conveyor of decorative untruths. Bob’s face was alive again. ‘We’ll have lunch next
week,’ she promised.

‘Lunch is business,’ Bob complained.

‘We are business,’ she reminded him. ‘We work together, so it mustn’t get complicated or messy.’

‘I don’t mind messy,’ he said. ‘Messy can be fun in the right company. We could make mud pies at the Mersey’s edge, go panning for gold in Wales, try potholing.
There are many ways of getting dirty.’ He walked away.

Elaine stared at her blotter. She’d been a wonderfully good girl, such a dedicated student, no boyfriends, no sex, no university societies, few distractions. Her single aim in life had
been to become a lawyer. Well, she’d made it, and it was time to pencil some fun time into the schedule.

Frank might be a pretty toy, but Bob, if she could coax him right out of his shell, was satisfactory husband material. Love? It was for idiots who walked starry-eyed up and down the aisle
towards disaster in both directions. Marriage, managed properly, was a partnership, almost a business. Sex was for discreet recreation; sex with a husband was for procreation. And she disliked
children intensely.

Frank Charleson loved brats. Newspapers had printed his plea for lawyers to specialize in their protection; perhaps she might find someone to help him with that. After all, he wasn’t
marriage fare, so she wouldn’t end up as his brood mare. But she wanted him to be her first, and she was determined to continue to get what she wanted. She wondered briefly whether Bob
‘Lanky’ Laithwaite planned to have a family, since he was the type she intended to marry. Oh, never mind; that could go in the pending tray. Anyway, she might run to one child as long
as someone else reared it.

Bob wandered back. It was clear that he had sod all to do. ‘Did I leave any briefs in here?’ he asked.

‘No. But I always keep a spare pair in my locker.’

‘Double cotton gusset?’ he asked, his tone deadly serious.

‘No. All right, then. Dinner. Time and place to be arranged. Go away.’

He sniffed, shrugged and swivelled.

She watched as he stalked off. Even his back seemed to be smiling. Bob was tall, educated, strong and rich. She would certainly marry someone like him. But first, she wanted excitement, variety,
imagination.

Elaine Lewis knew she would be considered a cold fish by most. Everything came from the head rather than the heart, though there was one exception to that rule. She adored her mother. Nothing
could ever happen to Christine, because Elaine was unable to accept the concept of a world without Mum.

But what Elaine could not know was that she owned an extra flaw, one she had not yet encountered, a major glitch deeply embedded well below her carefully constructed suit of armour. It was a
weakness so profoundly rooted that she had not yet faced it, but it was about to come to the surface and overcome her to the point of no return.

She filled her out tray, emptied the in and left a few non-urgent items in pending. She would go home early, because Frank Charleson wasn’t pending; Frank Charleson was tonight.

Ida closed the shop for five minutes. She went out the back way, ran past the Kennedy yard and entered Hattie’s. With her spine against Hattie’s closed gate, she
stopped to draw breath. Who would have thought it? And just as everything seemed to be going so well, too. Gleeful about her new knowledge, she had come to confide in her close friend.

She edged her way through the kitchen-cum-living area. Hattie was serving in the shop, so Ida was forced to wait. ‘I could be losing custom meself,’ she whispered. Hattie was having
a conversation about which spuds were best for roasting, which to use for scouse, which for chips.

The shop bell tinkled and Hattie came through, visibly startled when she discovered that she was not alone. ‘Blood and guts, Ida, you frightened me halfway to death. It felt like I was
having a heart attack. Who’s serving in your place while you’re here?’

‘Nobody. I’ve had me day’s big run on newspapers and ciggies. But I had to come, cos I seen somebody else, not just Greg.’

Hattie folded her arms. ‘You’ve clapped eyes on Lois at last, then?’

Ida blinked stupidly.

‘Polly knows she’s back,’ Hattie said.

‘Has she seen her? Has she been to the cafe?’

‘No idea. Lois has been back in Liverpool a while. I saw her round about the same time as you gave Greg a room and I told him to bugger off. They probably travelled north
together.’

‘But you said nothing about Lois.’

‘I did. I told Polly and she told Cal. You thought I’d warned her about Greg, but I told her the lot. I believe Cal just carried on reading, wasn’t bothered, so that’s
all right.’

‘But . . . but you didn’t tell me, did you?’

‘No, I didn’t. You keep as many secrets as I keep racehorses, Ida Pilkington. It’s like leaving a baby to be looked after by a shark. People will notice her hanging about, so
they don’t need telling.’

Ida’s face was several interesting shades of red. ‘Oh,’ was all she achieved.

‘You know they all call you News of the World, don’t you? If they want people to know what’s going on, they tell you, because it saves them the trouble of putting folk in the
picture. If they want people not to know something, they tell me or someone else who can be trusted.’