Christmas Wish (42 page)

Suddenly he was yanked three feet off the ground, his legs dangling, his feet thrashing in a bid to kick the man’s legs from under him.

Struggling did no good. Bradley could smell the man’s sweat, drowned in the stink of his booze-laden breath.

The man was telling him something, crying as he did so, like somebody confessing their sin to a bloody priest.

I’m no priest, he wanted to shout, but not a sound came from his throttled throat.

‘I neglected my daughter. I’ve been looking for a way of making it up to her. You’re it, Fitts. I’m removing you from her life.’

Joe Brodie’s words tripped a light in Bradley’s brain.

‘You can have everything I’ve got in my wallet. Everything,’ he shouted.

His voice was drowned in the sound of the racing water.
He was closer to the water now, the spray flying upwards into his face.

Fear that other people had felt for him was now his. This man didn’t care about his violent reputation and the power of his family and friends.

Panic set in.

‘Put me down! Put me down!’

His shouts went unheard. He cried out as one hip was dragged across the top of the stone wall, a jagged upstanding stone tearing through his top-quality trousers and grazing the skin from his flesh.

For a moment he was suspended over the raging torrent, held by the collar of his coat and the seat of his pants. Below him the water thundered into a narrow culvert, a culvert that would no doubt get ever narrower with no room for air, filled only with an icy torrent.

Nobody saw him go in and nobody heard his cry of anguish and the splash as his body hit the thundering water.

Joseph Brodie stood looking down into that dark water for what seemed like an hour, wondering whether he should follow the body he’d sent down to hell. He deserved to go to hell himself. He’d not done the best for either his wife or his children. Too late now. There was nothing he could do about the past and their future was their own.

At one point he’d thought he could make amends for his shameful neglect and reacquaint himself with the family he’d left behind. Meeting his son Michael was the foretaste of realising it was not possible. The boy had eyed him with outright contempt. Other people, good people, had given him the love and affection that he had failed to give.

As for Magda … well … he’d heard bitterness, even hatred in her voice, but at least he’d done something to make amends. Bradley Fitts would not trouble her again.

He looked up as a light came on in a window of the house where his daughter lived. She’d done well, and he was proud of that.

Pulling his collar up against the cold, he turned his back on his daughter and his past. There was nothing else for it but to keep walking back to the only life he’d ever known, the one he’d chosen for himself.

The sound of a ship’s horn came from the direction of the docks. It sounded twice – moving to port – out onto the river and from there out into the world. A lonely sound, but one he was used to.

Daniel Rossi looked through the contents of the box Magda had given him.

Her heart fluttered when he raised his eyes to meet hers. She saw jubilation and guessed it was linked to potential justice.

‘I’m guessing you know what this contains?’ he said to her.

‘Sort of. Winnie knew Reuben Fitts for a long time. I’m guessing she knew enough to put him behind bars.’

She placed a tray of tea on the piecrust table in front of their chairs.

‘Digestives,’ she said. ‘No custard creams.’

‘Darn.’ He grinned. She’d got to know his tastes and he’d learned that he mustn’t crowd her; that her upbringing had made her wary of depending on others. In time he hoped she would rely on him. He wanted that badly.

Daniel closed the lid of the box. ‘I’ve got enough here to put Reuben Fitts away for years. Not Bradley of course. We fished his body out of the Thames. He’d been drowned, but there were contusions – suggesting someone had forced him into the water. We’ve no idea who. All we
can surmise is that he upset the wrong person.’

‘I’m glad. I shouldn’t be saying that should I? He’s dead. Gone from my life.’

Daniel turned his cup around in its saucer. ‘You haven’t heard anything from your father?’

‘No. But I do have hopes that his guilt might stir things. I had no reply to my letter to Ireland, but even after all this time, he’s more likely to know people there who can help trace my sisters. My brother too come to that.’

Magda noticed Daniel’s fingers nervously tapping the lid of the box whilst looking down into the glowing coals of the fire. Something was wrong.

‘There’s something else in that box, isn’t there?’

He heaved a big sigh. Although for a moment it seemed like he was going to deny that there was, she could tell just by looking at him.

‘I know it’s not custard creams,’ she said playfully. ‘Come on. Give it to me.’

‘I found something. I’ve left it on top,’ he said as she took the box from him.

She turned the small key in the brass lock and lifted the lid. The two notebooks looked expensive and had red silk linings. ‘Harrods’ was printed inside the front covers in gold leaf.

The letter was lying on top of the books. She frowned at him. ‘I didn’t see this when I opened it.’

‘I found it hidden inside the silk lining of one of the notebooks whilst you were making the tea.’

Magda frowned at the postmark. ‘London?’

He knew she’d been expecting an Irish postmark.

She took out the contents, which consisted of a note attached to a letter.

Mrs Patience Armitage
,

Compound 54,

Lee Cheong, Peking, China

7th of February, 1938

Dear Miss Brodie
,

I am the sister of Miss Elizabeth Burton, lately of the Sycamore Lane Workhouse and now with our Lord in Heaven.

Time being of the essence when I last left England to rejoin my husband, a missionary in China, I first had to sort out my sister’s effects. Being in something of a rush, I bundled both mine and my sister’s correspondence together.

Having established where your sisters were placed, my sister was in the process of forwarding your cards and letters to them under the enclosed covering letter. As you can see, the letter remained unfinished.

It was only on my arrival in China that I found the enclosed items amongst her things and posted them immediately to you via a British mail ship.

Best wishes.

‘My sisters were in Ireland! These letters and cards I wrote when I was a child didn’t get to them.’

‘And your brother?’

She bent her head and read the rest of the report sent to Miss Burton from a place called Fair Mount House.

‘He was adopted. They’re not allowed to tell me who by. It was a term of the adoption.’

‘That’s usual.’

Magda slumped back in her chair and shook her head. ‘Why didn’t Winnie give this to me?’

‘She didn’t want you hurt?’

Magda shook her head again. ‘She didn’t want me to go off searching for them. The silly woman. I would have come back.’

‘Would you?’

‘I think so. She did such a lot for me.’

‘Do you hate her for not giving you this?’

She shook her head. ‘I should, but I can’t. Thanks to my father, my life was a mess. I could have ended up in Winnie’s place with the other girls. Easily! I have to thank her for saving me from that. I suppose I almost forgive my father. He couldn’t help being the way he was. Neither could Winnie. She loved ruthlessly. Very much so,’ she said whilst thoughtfully fingering the letter Daniel had found.

Daniel knew her well enough to recognise that something was laying heavy on her mind.

She took out the records of the Fitts’ criminal empire, fingering the lining of each cover. The first one held no secrets, but the second one did.

‘A photo.’ With trembling fingers she slid it free and brought it up to face level.

The girl in the photo had pale skin and big eyes. She was wearing a maid’s uniform and holding a large teapot whilst smiling shyly at the camera. A priest with devilish dark looks was standing next to her.

‘She doesn’t look anything like you,’ Daniel said after studying the photograph.

‘No. That’s Anna Marie. She looks more like our father I think. Venetia looked like me. Very much like me. We took after our mother.’

Daniel suggested she’d been working too hard and took the items from her hands. ‘Leave this to me. I can make enquiries. Bob Barton can go where Doctor Magdalena Brodie cannot.’

‘And in the meantime?’

‘I’m taking you out on the town. A show and a meal. No arguments.’

His insistence amused her.

‘You’re breaking my arm and I like it.’

He cupped her face in his hands.

‘I prefer kissing you.’

‘Don’t let it stop there.’

He paused, a little unsure of what she was saying or if he was interpreting it right. The right answer to the question he’d already asked her.

She felt an urge to explain. ‘I feel as though a chapter of my life has finally closed and another one is about to open.’

He smiled. Kissed her forehead, kissed her nose and finally kissed her mouth.

‘If we were to get married, could you learn to love me?’

‘Physically or emotionally?’

She thought she saw him blush.

‘Both.’

‘We can learn before we get married – if you really want to.’

Magda’s bed was warmer than it had ever been in her life. Their clothes were scattered over the floor. Normally the ceiling would be spangled with the efforts of the gas-lit street lamps, but not tonight. A full blackout was in force.

A shrill sound erupted outside just after midnight.

‘A siren. Only a practice though.’ Danny’s voice was calm, reassuring.

Even though the siren wasn’t for real, they made love for a second time, lost in the intensity of feeling for each other as though they had to confirm they were still alive and the world hadn’t yet blown itself to pieces.

He left her bed sometime after one with a promise that he’d
be back before the end of the week once the shifts worked out. Hopefully he would have news for her.

‘Though we could do with a miracle.’

‘Well, it is Christmas.’

She didn’t add that this would be their first Christmas at war.

Venetia could not believe what was happening to her. Since coming to Bristol just over a year before, and meeting George Anderson, her life had become like a fairy story. She was grateful to him; she loved him, though there was a part of her she failed to share with him.

She knew where her twin sister was and accepted the fact that Anna Marie had married Patrick. It no longer hurt, certainly not since George had come on the scene. But Magda. Where was Magda?

She hadn’t told George that whilst supposedly shopping on their last trip to London, she had taken a taxi to her sister’s last known address with the aunt in Edward Street. There was nothing but rubble and burned timbers to see. She’d stood and stared. It seemed as though she’d reached the end of her search.

‘This ain’t no place for a lady,’ said the taxi driver as she slid into the back seat.

She wasn’t really listening and didn’t hear him ask where he was to go next. Her eyes took in the two women watching them from the doorway of the house immediately opposite the
burned-out wreck. Instinctively, she knew what they were and although it made sense to speak to them, to ask them whether they knew her sister’s whereabouts, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not because she was afraid of tackling them, but more so because she was afraid that what she’d been told was the truth.

The time when they’d been children together seemed a lifetime away. Her thoughts went back to that far-off time, the last time they’d been together. Sycamore Lane Workhouse.

She said it out loud. ‘Sycamore Lane Workhouse.’

‘Not there anymore, miss,’ said the taxi driver, presuming she’d been telling him where to go next. ‘Everything got transferred to Fair Mount far as I know.’

‘Fair Mount? Would they have records there?’ she’d asked feeling a sudden frisson of excitement.

‘Could do.’

‘Take me there.’

A Miss Spangler, a plump woman with thick fingers, looked through their records whilst Venetia sat rigidly, taking in the institutional surroundings of brown walls, brown floors and pale glass lampshades hanging from a high ceiling. The smell of mashed potato and beef stew fought bravely with that of beeswax and carbolic soap.

‘Ah,’ said Miss Spangler. ‘I do have an address for your sister.’

Venetia leapt to her feet. ‘You do? That’s marvellous.’

‘Unfortunately I can’t give it to you. Not without the person’s permission. The correct procedure is that I contact your sister first and inform her that you’re looking for her and I can give her your address.’

‘Gladly! And my telephone number – my agent’s telephone number and my own. Please. If you could pass it on quickly, I would much appreciate it.’

Miss Spangler watched the tall young woman with the striking good looks coming towards her. She could hardly believe that this same young woman had spent some time in Sycamore Lane Workhouse. Who would have thought she could rise so far and so quickly? But there, it helped that she’d acquired a wealthy benefactor who had taken her on as a paid companion; at least, that was the story Doctor Brodie had told her when she’d come making enquiries after finding a letter from Miss Burton, a much respected past warden at Sycamore Lane.

Doctor Brodie extended her hand. ‘Miss Spangler. How nice to see you. Aren’t you a little early for your quarterly check-up?’

Miss Spangler suffered from diabetes and visited the hospital regularly.

‘I have something for you. A lady came to see me who claims to be your sister. I have to say I can well believe it – you look so alike …’

‘My sister?’

Miss Spangler nodded.

‘Did she leave an address where I can reach her?’

‘Yes. That and a phone number.’