Beware This Boy (33 page)

“Oh yes, Miss Abbott. Didn’t recognize you for a minute. It’s dark on them steps. The landlord won’t fix the bulb no matter how often I ask him. It’s the blackout as will kill us, if you ask me. Nessie’s upstairs. She’s going to a flick with one of her mates from work. I wish she wouldn’t, but you can’t keep young girls shut up all the time, can you. Especially when we might all be dead tomorrow.” Jane Wainwright had a perpetually disgruntled way of speaking, as if early in her life she’d been given the short end of the stick and felt hard done by ever since.

She stared at Eileen as if she expected some kind of answer. Eileen nodded at her. “Indeed not.”

“I’ll tell her you want her. Hold on.”

She yelled over her shoulder. “Vanessa, Miss Abbott is here to see you. Brian’s aunt.” She stepped back. “Would you like to come in for a cuppa?”

The invitation was given with such reluctance that Eileen wouldn’t have accepted if she were dying of thirst. “Thanks, but I won’t. I don’t want to be out too late. I just want to talk to Vanessa for a minute.”

“Nothing wrong, is there? With Brian I, mean. He’s not dead or missing, is he?”

“No, he’s not.”

Mrs. Wainwright waited for Eileen to deliver more information, but Vanessa appeared in the doorway behind her. She eyed Eileen warily. “Auntie Eileen. This is a surprise.”

“I won’t stay. I just wanted to have a word with you.”

“I was on my way out, to tell the truth. I’m going to the flicks with one of the girls.” She was rather dolled up for a
mere trip to the cinema with a mate. High-heeled shoes, smart frock.

“I did ask her in, but she wouldn’t,” said her mother. The original invitation had been given ungraciously, but now Jane seemed aggrieved that Eileen had turned it down.

“I was ready to leave anyway, Ma. Don’t wait up.”

“Be careful, my girl.”

Vanessa grabbed her coat off the peg in the hall. “You’d better close the door quick. You’re showing a light.”

Her mother went back inside with a flounce.

“Let’s walk to the end of the road,” Vanessa said to Eileen. “Ma can be a right cow sometimes. She always wants to stick her nose in my business. You lead the way.”

At the corner Eileen turned to face her. Vanessa’s blonde hair gleamed in the moonlight. She smelled of violets.

“We have given money to the man who is to bring the passport. As soon as he’s got it, Brian wants to leave for Ireland right away. You’ll have to be on standby.”

“I see.” Vanessa’s voice was as tiny as a child’s.

“Do you intend to go with him?” Eileen asked bluntly.

Vanessa began to shuffle her feet. “Brr. It’s freezing. I need a fur coat.”

“Do you intend to go with Brian to Ireland?” Eileen asked again.

“Bri thinks it’s going to be easy, but it won’t. I don’t want to be on the run. And Ireland, for Pete’s sake. I’ve heard they don’t even have electricity or proper toilets. I don’t fancy it.”

Eileen had expected this and swallowed her impatience. “I don’t think it’s that bad. But you’ve got to make up your mind right away. He can’t stay here. He’ll break down. He’s on the verge now as it is.”

Vanessa’s voice was sullen. “I don’t know why he can’t just turn himself in. They need soldiers. I asked a bloke and he
said as long as he wasn’t on the front line and getting others into danger, he won’t get the full monty. Just a few months in the glasshouse.”

“At the moment even being in jail would be too much. He feels he can’t continue to serve in the army.” Eileen hesitated. “It has a lot to do with you, Vanessa.”

“Me? That’s ridiculous. I’m not to blame if he’s nervy. He always has been. It’s got nothing to do with me.”

“He’s very attached to you. It might help if you talk to him. Persuade him to go back to his regiment. Assure him you’ll still be waiting for him.”

Vanessa bent her head so that her hair curtained her face. “That’s easy for you to say. You can’t take anything for granted these days, can you.”

Eileen knew at that moment that if Vanessa had ever been in love with Brian, she was so no longer. “You’re right about that. Not even marriage vows, it seems.” Eileen knew she was being harsh but she couldn’t help it. Her own pent-up feelings made her impatient. She wanted to shake the girl. “So, am I reading this correctly? You don’t intend to go to Ireland with Brian?”

Vanessa shivered and pulled her coat closer around her. “What would my mum say? I wouldn’t be able to write to her or anything, and who knows how long this sodding war will last. She’d be broken-hearted.”

Vanessa hadn’t demonstrated a great deal of tender feeling towards her mother, but Eileen let that ride.

“I can’t go, Auntie Eileen. I just can’t. He’ll have to go back to the army or go to Ireland by himself.” She caught hold of Eileen’s arm. “I’m scared of him is the truth. He’s changed. I’d be afraid to be with him, just him and me.”

Eileen could feel her stomach knotting. Vanessa was right. Brian
had
changed, and the man he had become was
disturbing. Her anger towards the girl evaporated and she touched her hand. “There’s also the matter of the baby. No, there’s no use denying it … What are you going to do about that?”

Vanessa let go of Eileen’s arm and stepped back. “If there was a kid on the way, which I’m not agreeing there is, it’d be better if he wasn’t here.”

“Easier to make up a story, you mean?”

Vanessa glanced over her shoulder as if she was afraid her mother might be close enough to hear her. “He should just go back to his regiment. He’ll be all right.”

Eileen frowned. And then the penny dropped. How could she have been so thick? She raised the torch so the light was shining in Vanessa’s face. Her eyes were glistening with fear.

“You informed the military police where he was, didn’t you. That’s why they came to us first. They knew where to look.”

Vanessa tried to move out of the light but she had her back to the hedge and couldn’t move. “No, no, of course I didn’t. I’d never do anything like that.” Her nose was running and she wiped away the mucus with the back of her hand. The tough, brash young woman vanished and she became a child, lost and overwhelmed. “Honest, Auntie. Honest I didn’t.”

But Eileen knew she was lying. She lowered the torch. “I don’t believe you, Vanessa. But right now Brian is the top priority. I’ll have to pass along what you just said about not going with him—”

“No, wait,” interrupted Vanessa. “I didn’t say that exactly. I’ve got to think about it. Don’t tell him anything yet. Please.”

“Very well. But if we get another visit from the
MPS
, you are going to be in royal trouble. Do you understand me?”

Vanessa nodded.

Eileen pulled a handkerchief out of her pocket. “Here, wipe your nose. You’d better get going. You’ll be late.”

Vanessa blew into the handkerchief as if she were a child. “I’m sorry, Auntie. I’m so sorry.”

“Not half as much as I am, Vanessa.”

Mary Ringwald-Brown lived in a rooming house a few streets over from the hospital. Tyler walked there, glad of the opportunity to clear his head, not to mention his heart. He’d told Sylvia he was the lucky one to have Janet for a daughter, and he’d meant it. He considered he’d been a bloody failure as a husband, but he thought he’d been a decent father. Most of the time, anyway. Could have done better with Jimmy, he knew that. But it was too late now. He had to push that thought away.

The moonlight was bathing the houses, softening the shabbiness of this stretch of road. Number 220 was a narrow, tall Victorian house squeezed in between two newer houses. He knocked on the door, and after a long time it was opened by Mary Ringwald-Brown herself.

She looked the way she had when Tyler had first encountered her at the hospital, a woman under duress. She was dishevelled, her print frock unironed. However, when she saw who it was, her expression immediately became guarded and hard. “Inspector Tyler. What can I do for you?”

“I’m just following up on a few matters to do with the explosion at the factory. Do you mind if I come in?”

She hesitated. “I’m, er, I’m expecting guests.”

“Nice. I won’t keep you.”

She glanced over his shoulder, then stepped back so he could enter.

“I’m on the third floor. I hope you don’t mind stairs.”

“Good exercise.”

She led the way up the dingy staircase. At the second landing, a door opened a crack and Tyler glimpsed a beady eye looking out.

“It’s all right, Mr. Merrick. Just the meter man,” said Mary.

The door closed at once. “He’s so nosy I wonder he doesn’t get stuck in the crack,” said Mary, not bothering to lower her voice.

Her room proved to be as Tyler might have expected. Ugly furniture, probably belonging to the landlady, no softening pillows or personal touches. The walls were plastered with posters, all of them communist propaganda. Hefty workers with fists raised as they slogged towards their salvation. The air was permeated with the smell of cooking fat. Mary didn’t offer him a chair, nor did she sit down herself. Tyler sat down on the sagging couch anyway.

“Miss Ringwald-Brown, I won’t beat around the bush. There is no doubt in my mind that you were the one who locked the doors to the women’s change room. I can’t charge you with mischief as I don’t have enough proof, but it might help my investigation if you would tell me the truth. One less thing for me to pursue.”

An ugly flush spread across her face. “I’ve already told you I had nothing to do with that incident. How many times must I repeat myself?” Her voice had got higher and even more shrill.

“I don’t think the delay caused by the locked doors directly contributed to the explosion,” said Tyler, choosing his words carefully. “It may have put the workers under pressure, but as far as I’m concerned it was an accident that could have happened at any time.”

Mary sat down on the wooden chair across from him. “Inspector, I have never hidden my involvement with the British Communist Party. I know that many people think it
strange that I, who have been more privileged than most, should feel so keenly for the working classes, but I do.”

“I share your sentiments, Miss Brown. Everyone deserves a break in life.”

She viewed him with suspicion but he revealed nothing. “Sometimes good has to be wrested from evil, even if the cost is high.”

“Sounds like our reason for going to war, if you ask me.”

“I don’t mean that exactly. If you were afflicted with a cancer, for instance, you would endeavour to cut out that cancer before it spread and destroyed your life. The surgery might be painful but it would be worth it, don’t you think?”

“I’m glad to say I’ve never been in that dilemma, Miss Brown. But is that how you justify your actions on Sunday? You were intending to promote the greater health of the factory?”

That struck a nerve, and she got to her feet abruptly and went to the door. “As I said, Inspector, I will not be held responsible for what happened on Sunday. It was an accident. Now if you don’t mind, I am expecting a guest and I should tidy up a little.”

Short of handcuffing her and taking her to the police station, there was nothing he could do. He stood up. “If you do happen to change your mind about helping me to resolve this tragedy, Miss Ringwald-Brown, I would greatly appreciate it. I am at the Steelhouse Lane station.”

She glared at him. “That will not happen, Inspector. I have said all I am willing to say.”

As soon as he was outside on the landing, she slammed the door behind him. He made his way downstairs. The door on the second floor opened a crack and the eye of the unseen occupant followed him on his way out.

Brian was staring at the ceiling. It needed plastering – there was a fine maze of cracks that had been there for a long time. He was playing at make-believe the way he had when he was a boy and had slept in this same room. In those days he was riding on a horse, a tireless black stallion. He’d have to travel along the London Road, gallop on the narrow, twisting path to the castle – top right-hand corner of the ceiling. There he would kill the wicked sheriff, save the princess, and be the hero of the land. He was forcing himself to play that old game, but it wasn’t working. He couldn’t remember when he’d felt calm. Felt normal. He’d forgotten what it was like to sleep.

Robin Hood didn’t kill old ladies who wouldn’t hurt a fly. Robin Hood wasn’t a deserter
.

There was a tap on the door. “Brian, there’s a letter for you.”

He sat up at once. “Come in, Gran.”

Beattie entered. She handed him an envelope. “Somebody dropped this through the letter slot. I don’t know what time. I only just noticed it.”

One look at the handwriting and Brian knew it was from Donny. The large scrawl was like the boy himself: barely literate, rough, aggressive, taking up most of the front of the envelope. He tore open the flap and took out a note, a single sheet of torn-off paper.

Put another fiver in the Kowan house. or the deal is off. I’ll tell you when
.

“Who’s it from?” asked Beatrice.

“The bloke who’s bringing the
ID
papers. He wants another five pounds.”

Beattie’s face crumpled. “Oh no. I don’t know if we can come up with that much more money. Not right away.”