Dancing in the Moonlight (28 page)

She had trained herself not to think of Jacob when Perce was alive. To do so seemed a betrayal of the man she owed so much to. Now it was harder. The old fear that Tom would do Jacob harm was
back, tenfold, after what had happened to Perce. Not that Jacob would necessarily want anything to do with her, though. He must think she had left Zetland Street not caring if he lived or died, and
had then promptly married someone else and had their baby. He’d probably washed his hands of her. Painful though that was, she hoped it was true. It was the only way he would be safe.

Lucy had expected Matthew to take his father’s death worse than anyone else after the way he’d lost his mother, but although the child was sad and cried a lot, it was Ruby who proved
almost inconsolable. Lucy had kept her suspicions about Tom Crawford to herself, but Ruby’s mind had apparently been working along the same lines. On the evening of the third day following a
visit from Perce’s solicitor, when he told Lucy that Perce had left everything to her, lock, stock and barrel, the two sisters were sitting quietly in front of the fire, the rest of the
household fast asleep. Out of the blue Ruby said, ‘Do you think
he
had anything to do with it?’

Lucy didn’t have to ask who she meant. There followed a stillness, and it was broken by her saying tentatively, ‘Do you?’

Ruby nodded. ‘Mrs Crawford would have told him she’d seen us that time. I think he found out where you lived and decided to do Perce in. You said he’d threatened to do the same
to Jacob the night he – well, you know.’

Lucy looked into her sister’s swollen, pink-rimmed eyes, wondering if Ruby was blaming her for Perce’s death. It was more than possible; certainly she was blaming herself. If Perce
hadn’t taken them in, if he hadn’t married her, he’d be alive now, she told herself wretchedly. And Ruby had loved Perce. She hadn’t realized it before, she’d been too
caught up in running the house and seeing to the family’s needs, as well as working in the shop and starting the soup side of the business, but Perce had become father and older brother and a
knight in shining armour to her sister. And now Ruby was bereft. ‘I wouldn’t have married him if I’d thought for a second anything like this might happen,’ she said, her
voice breaking. ‘I’m so sorry, lass.’

‘It’s not your fault.’ Ruby took her hand. ‘And we don’t know for sure it’s him.’ They sat quietly for a minute or two, each lost in thought, and it was
only when the burning coals shifted in the fire, creating a shower of red sparks, that Ruby roused herself to say, ‘We’ll have to be on our guard from now on. You can’t be here by
yourself with Daisy and Charley when we’re at school. Perhaps we ought to leave after the funeral.’

‘I’m not letting Tom Crawford frighten us from our home for a second time.’ Lucy’s head had shot up and now her chin tilted at a fighting angle. ‘We’re going
to stay here, Ruby. I’m going to run the business, because I know that’s what Perce would have wanted for his boys. He was proud that his grandfather set up the shop with next to
nothing and then his da carried it on. I’m not letting Tom Crawford erase even his memory. The sign out there is Alridge & Son. The only difference will be an “s” added. Oh,
and I’m changing the locks,’ she added grimly. The missing key had begun to play on her mind.

Ruby’s face was a picture.
‘You’re
going to run the business? Lass, you can’t. How will you cope with the shop, and Daisy and Charley and everything, when
I’m at school?’

‘I don’t know, I haven’t thought about the details yet.’

‘You know nothing about the different sorts of fish and what’s entailed. And what about dealing with Perce’s suppliers and the rest of it?’

‘I’ll learn. I learned how to manage the books, didn’t I?’

‘Lass, the books are a tiny part of it.’

‘Tiny part or not, it’s something I already know, so that’s a start. Next year you’ll be leaving school in the summer, so that’ll make things easier.’

‘That’s still a long way off. What about now?’

‘I’ll put a notice in the shop window tomorrow, saying “Assistant required”.’

Ruby stared at her sister. Lucy had insisted that Perce’s solicitor spoke to both of them, saying she had no secrets from Ruby, so she had been party to the details. Mr Bainbridge, a dour
individual, had informed them that, in accordance with the new will Mr Alridge had made when he’d married her, the present Mrs Alridge owned the shop and flat outright, but the nest egg
Perce’s late parents had built up had dwindled away to virtually nothing in previous years.

‘The former Mrs Alridge had expensive tastes,’ the tall, bony man had said thinly, his long, narrow nose quivering with disapproval. ‘I attempted to explain to Mr Alridge on a
number of occasions that it is prudent for inflow to cover outflow, but to no avail. Nevertheless, it was my duty to try.’

Thinking of this now, Ruby said, ‘How will you pay an assistant? There’s no money to tide you over. And think of the hard physical work Perce did and the hours he put in, and
you’re just a—’ She stopped abruptly.

‘A lass? That’s what you were going to say, isn’t it?’ Lucy asked without heat. ‘And I understand what you’re saying, Ruby. I do, really. But I have to do
this.’

Ruby shook her head. This was madness. Women didn’t go into business. They should sell up and get as far away from here as they could. ‘But
why?’

‘For Perce. And Matthew and Charley. The shop’s their name, their birthright. And – and me.’

Lucy bowed her head, biting on her lip to control the welling emotion. She didn’t know if she could explain how she felt in words. ‘After Tom Crawford used me that night, I felt so
dirty and ashamed. And helpless. That was perhaps the worst thing of all. I hadn’t been able to fight him off or stop him. He could do that, he could do anything he wanted, and then just walk
away and carry on, or even come back and do it again.’

She stood up and began to pace the room.

‘I hadn’t thought I was a weak person before that night, but I’ve never been so frightened of anything or anyone as him.’

‘With good cause, lass, and I don’t call that being weak.’

‘But then Perce took us in and, even when I found out about Daisy, he still cared about what happened to me. He made me feel safe again and I can’t tell you what it meant. He was
such a good, good man.’

‘Oh, lass, don’t cry.’

As Ruby made to stand up, Lucy flapped her hand for her sister to remain seated. Wiping her eyes, she composed herself. ‘Since Sergeant Johnson knocked on the door I’ve been
frightened, terrified. And I hate that I’m scared. Last night I dreamt we were back in the alley with the rats, and I even ached in my dream where Tom Crawford hurt me. Then I woke up and I
was so thankful, but the fear was still there. And now Perce can’t protect me. So’ – she took a deep breath – ‘I have to protect myself and Daisy too, and it starts in
here.’ She tapped her forehead. ‘If I leave here, if we run again, I’ll be scared for the rest of my life. Forever looking over my shoulder. I won’t let scum like Tom
Crawford do that to me.’

Ruby nodded, tears streaming down her face.

‘I
will
make a success of the shop. I’ve promised Perce. And I’ve got you and the bairns and my Daisy. I’m going to count my blessings, like Mam always
said.’

Ruby scrubbed at her eyes with her handkerchief and then blew her nose loudly. ‘What if he comes here? To the house? He’s cocky enough. And changing the locks won’t stop
him.’

In spite of herself, a shiver snaked down Lucy’s spine. ‘Like you said, we’ll be on our guard from now on. That’s the most we can do.’ That and wait, she thought
grimly. Because if there was one thing in life she was sure about, it was that Tom Crawford would confront her sooner or later.

She didn’t have to wait long. She had agreed that Ruby and the others could remain at home until after the funeral, which was to take place the following week, and the
morning after her conversation with her sister Lucy rose early. There had been no deliveries of fish to the shop since the day after Perce’s body had been found. She had to go to the docks
and see the fishermen concerned, and tell them she was opening for business the day after the funeral.

After placing the advertisement for an assistant in the front window of the shop, she walked along Long Bank and down into the harbour, where the quays were. Quite a few boats were in, moored
from Low Quay on the left of the harbour right along to Mark’s Quay on the right, with various quays in between. The dockside was heaving with fishwives collecting their fish in great
baskets, boys with barrowloads, trawlermen and the odd customs official in dispute about something or other, and over everything – like a great, thick, invisible blanket – was the
consuming odour of the waterfront. Fishwives gutted and cleaned their wares; eels and crabs and lobsters fought to escape big buckets; and the odd fish flapped out the last few moments of its life
among its dead companions. The noise and bustle could be overwhelming to the uninitiated and Lucy felt conspicuously out of place, but she pressed on to Ettrick’s Quay where Seamus Riley
could be found. She had spoken to this particular fisherman a number of times when he had made deliveries to the shop and had found him to be a friendly and garrulous old man, which would be
welcome in the circumstances.

Seamus and his sons were unloading their catch when she called to him, and after expressing his condolences he agreed to resume his deliveries after the funeral. An idea had been brewing in
Lucy’s mind over the last twenty-four hours. Perce had always bought his supply of seafood from more than one source, saying that he didn’t want to have all his eggs – or, in this
case, fish, as he’d joked with a grin – in one basket, but even before her husband’s demise Lucy had been wondering if this was the best practice. Gathering her courage, she put
the proposition she’d been rehearsing since she had awoken that morning to Seamus. ‘If I agree to buy all my fish and seafood from you from now on, and I’ll guarantee to take a
certain amount, what sort of deal can you do for me?’ she said, hoping she sounded more sure of herself than she felt.

Seamus stared in amazement at the bonny young piece – as he privately termed Perce’s wife – and chewed for a moment on his baccy. ‘I was doing the best price I could for
Perce, lass,’ he said. ‘He never complained.’

Lucy nodded. ‘Perce always said your fish were the best he had, Mr Riley,’ she said briskly, ‘but I’ll be taking more, a lot more, and giving you my undivided loyalty.
That’s worth something, surely? I’m on my own now and I’ve got seven hungry mouths to feed at home. I can’t afford to pay a penny more than I have to.’

Seamus’s mouth gaped for a moment, showing his stained brown teeth. Perce had been easy-going to a fault and not much of a businessman – everyone on the quays knew that and had taken
advantage of it, to a greater or lesser extent. But the slip of a lass in front of him was a different kettle of fish. She had fire in her belly, this one. He’d thought at first, when Perce
had married her, she was a decorative piece who’d reeled Perce in so that she could sit back and have a life of leisure, but he was wrong. Doing a quick mental sum in his head, he named a
price that was reasonable, and such was his surprise at the turn of events that when Lucy knocked him down still further, he surrendered with barely a murmur.

After bidding Seamus a good morning, Lucy made her way back along the crowded dockside, pausing for a few moments to watch one of the River Wear divers being helped into his suit. It was a
heavy, one-piece affair made of canvas, with rubber rings round the wrists and a great copper breastplate and lead weights on his chest and back. The boat was going out to service the buoys in the
river, and she wondered how the diver could do anything, with the weight of the suit to cope with, along with his copper helmet and massive great boots. She looked at the air pump, the handles of
which would have to be turned as long as the diver was under the water, and shivered. Since her father and Ernie had been fished out of the dock, the River Wear had lost any appeal it might have
had, and the river ships, steamships, paddle tugs and paddle steamers no longer held any fascination for her. The dark, deep water was an alien place, an abyss of grim secrets and lost dreams, and
she hated it.

The morning was cold but bright, the March sun holding no warmth, but causing the heavy frost of the night before to twinkle like stardust. Snow had been forecast for the last day or two, but as
yet there had been no sign of it, although the icy blue sky was starting to cloud over. She walked home slowly, taking care not to slip. There was no need to rush. Ruby would have seen to Daisy and
marshalled the others into getting dressed, and before they’d retired the previous evening she had told her sister to give the children their breakfast if they were hungry before she was
back.

She had reached the shop and was about to open the door when some sixth sense caused her to turn before inserting the key in the lock. Tom Crawford was no more than six feet away. They stared at
each other and she found that she couldn’t move a muscle.

‘Hello, Lucy,’ he said very softly.

Still she found she couldn’t respond, not until he took a step towards her, and then she said, ‘Don’t you come near me. You come any closer and I’ll scream – I mean
it.’

‘Don’t be silly, you’d only make a fool of yourself.’ But he had stopped. ‘I only want to say how sorry I am about your trouble. That’s all.’

‘I don’t want your condolences.’

‘Now that’s not very nice, is it?’

Her voice had been shrill with fear. Now Lucy took a deep breath and spoke flatly, saying what she’d promised herself she’d say if she saw him face-to-face. ‘Did you have
anything to do with my husband’s death?’

Her directness threw him, she could see it in his face, but almost immediately he recovered. ‘Me? How could I? No one knew where you lived after you left Zetland Street.’

He’d done it. She knew so without a shadow of a doubt. The truth had been there for a split second in the cold eyes. He’d killed her Perce. Fury blotted out the fear. ‘You
wicked, evil monster.’ She wanted to leap at him, to tear him limb from limb. ‘You killed him, I know you did.’