Dead to Me (33 page)

He tied the parcel up firmly with string. He had done this trick many times before, even a sharp-eyed concierge wouldn’t think a guest with a brown paper parcel under his arm was jumping ship without paying his bill.

All his papers and his toothbrush went into his briefcase, and he put the torch and penknife in the pockets of his overcoat. With his shaving gear left on the washbasin, and yesterday’s shirt slung over a chair, it didn’t look like he’d gone for good.

It was heavy going, taking the steep hill up to Clifton in the snow, but it looked as if the buses had stopped running. Archie cheered himself with the thought that cold weather was good for something: unoccupied houses had no smoke coming out of their chimneys.

He went into a chemist’s and bought an eye patch and a tin of sticking plasters. Not a perfect disguise by any means, but he hoped all anyone would remember about him was that he looked like he’d been in a bad accident.

Last time he’d come to Bristol and had walked from the centre up to the Downs, it had seemed just a short stroll, but then it had been in summer. It seemed endless this time, his face stinging with icy snowflakes, his shoes already leaking, and he had to stop every now and again to brush snow off his hat and tuck his parcel more securely under his arm.

He stopped at a cafe at the top of Whiteladies Road to get a hot drink and some breakfast, knowing there were no shops near the big houses on the other side of the Downs. A fried egg, fried bread and a very small portion of baked beans barely touched his sides, but at least the tea warmed him through.

A newspaper had been left on the table, and he read how German Field Marshal Paulus had surrendered to the Russians at Stalingrad. It was a good sign that the Germans could be defeated, but ironic that it was more to do with extreme cold than superior soldiery. Glancing out of the cafe window at the driving snow, he could almost sympathize with the Germans. But the young, blonde girl behind the cafe counter made him think of Verity, and he felt a surge of anger that it was she who had brought him to this. No home, everything he owned in a brown paper parcel, and the police on his tail.

He was going to make her pay for this! He might as well get hung for a sheep as a lamb.

‘Psst! A letter has come!’

Ruby was
just attempting to use her parallel bars when Wilby hissed at her from the hall.

‘Addressed to me or her?’ she whispered, guessing Verity was in the kitchen and could hear.

‘You. But I’ve hidden it for now.’

Ruby realized Wilby was taking this precaution because Verity might recognize Miller’s handwriting. And if the letter wasn’t what they hoped, she would just get upset for nothing.

‘Okay, later,’ she whispered back. ‘Now I’m going for six steps, turn, and six steps back. Possibly doing it twice,’ she added in a loud voice.

‘Bully for you,’ Wilby said. ‘Want me to stand and cheer?’

‘No, I don’t,’ Ruby said. ‘You put me off.’

Wilby went back into the kitchen with a couple of bills in her hand.

‘What were you two whispering about?’ Verity asked, looking up from the breakfast table.

‘I was just teasing her, she claims I shout at her for not exercising enough,’ Wilby said. ‘So I whispered.’

‘She seems to have bucked up a bit,’ Verity said. ‘Maybe the spring-like weather has helped?’

They’d had a lot of bad weather in February and early March, including some snow, unusually for the south
coast. But for the last few days the sun had shone, making the crocuses in the garden open up at last and even some of the daffodils.

‘Yes, I do believe she is brighter,’ Wilby agreed. ‘Sunshine makes us all feel better.’

‘Well, I must get off to work,’ Verity said, getting to her feet. ‘Shall I go up and wake the boys first?’

‘Don’t worry, I’m going up there now anyway. If I don’t bully them, they’ll forget to wash.’

Verity smiled, getting the boys to wash and clean their teeth was an ongoing battle. ‘I’m working down in Plymouth today, so I might be late back this evening.’

Wilby went to the door with her, and watched her wheel her bicycle out of the garden, then leap on to it in the road, turning her head just briefly to wave. She looked so pretty; she’d plaited her blonde hair and wound the plaits around her head like a crown. With a bright pink scarf tied around her neck, even the threadbare old coat she wore for work looked good.

Wilby scuttled back indoors, snatching up the letter from its hiding place under some papers in the hall. ‘Right,’ she said as she rushed back into the dining room to see Ruby.

Ruby was standing by the bed, wearing a smile of triumph. ‘I did both ways, twice,’ she said. ‘Just wondering if I can manage a third.’

‘That’s absolutely wonderful, but you mustn’t exhaust yourself,’ Wilby said, handing over the letter. ‘Now sit down and read this letter to me.’

Ruby lowered herself gingerly into an armchair. ‘I hope you are prepared for disappointment,’ she cautioned,
playing with the envelope in her hand. ‘I think if it was good news he’d have written back by return. It’s been nearly four weeks.’

‘That’s true. But he’s a good-mannered lad to write anyway.’

Ruby smiled. Wilby set great store by good manners.

She opened the envelope, pulled out the single page and began to read.

Dear Miss Taylor,

I was very surprised to get your letter, in fact so much so I found it hard to think about anything else for several days, and the delay in replying is partly that, and also because it’s a very busy time felling trees at the moment.

Verity often talked about you, I knew she was very saddened by you becoming estranged. So I am very glad you are friends again now, but was very shocked to hear how and why this came about.

I can’t even begin to tell you how horrified I was to hear Verity was badly treated by her stepfather. I did know he was something of a rascal, and he had, after all, left Verity and her mother in financial difficulties, but I had thought he was her real father. Perhaps I was mistaken about that?

To backtrack, yes, your assumptions/suspicions are correct. Mr Wood did write to me, and told me that Verity had met another man, and indeed was expecting his baby and planning to marry as soon as it could be arranged. Whatever I’d heard about him from Verity, he did sound absolutely genuine, a caring father who was trying to sort out a mess without anyone getting hurt even more.

I didn’t consider for one moment that it might not be true, and his request that I let Verity off the hook gently seemed so very
thoughtful. He said she was sick with worry about admitting the truth to me, she thought I would be devastated. As I was, of course. Yet we all know now that this war has thrown all kinds of problems at people. So how could I judge Verity for not waiting for me, when I’d never even admitted I loved her?

So the upshot was I wrote to her, doing just what her stepfather asked, even though it hurt to make out I had another girl. Verity was, and still is, the only girl for me …

Wilby’s sharp intake of breath made Ruby break off and look at the older woman. Tears were cascading down her cheeks.

‘Don’t cry, Wilby,’ she said. ‘Everything will be alright for them now.’

‘Will it?’ Wilby said. ‘That beast of a man is responsible for so much pain and humiliation. She may seem to be alright to us, but she learned to cover things up at a very early age.’

‘Maybe so, but I have every faith in her self-healing powers,’ Ruby said staunchly. ‘Now am I going to finish reading this letter?’

‘Yes, go on,’ Wilby sniffed, wiping her eyes on her apron.

Ruby read on.

So what do I do now? My heart tells me to get the next train down, but what if you are wrong and her feelings for me have died? I’d only cause her more embarrassment, wouldn’t I? I know if I’d been a real man I should have gone straight to her when I got Mr Wood’s letter to have it out with her, and been prepared to fight for her if necessary.

I need a couple of days to sort things at this end anyway. As I said at the start, we’re felling trees at the moment and I’m needed.
So if it’s alright with you, please say nothing to Verity for the moment. I suppose the sensible thing is to write to her and leave her to decide if she wants to see me again. But I took the sensible option last time, and look how that turned out.

So if I decide to just come, I’ll telephone you or send a telegram when I’m about to board a train. I can’t thank you enough for intervening. And if all goes well, I shall be meeting both you and Wilby soon.

Yours with high hopes,

Miller

‘He sounds such a nice, sensitive lad,’ Wilby sniffed, still wiping her eyes on her apron. ‘Bevan is going to be upset, though!’

‘He’ll be fine,’ Ruby said. ‘I think he’s always known Verity was only ever going to be a friend. Now what do we do? It’s going to be torturous waiting until Miller appears.’

‘You can practise walking,’ Wilby said with a smile. ‘If I could see Verity happy in love and you walking again, I would be one happy lady.’

While Wilby and Ruby were talking about happiness, Archie was seething with resentment at being cold, hungry, penniless and wanted by the police. His luck had left him as he arrived in Bristol. It seemed no one had left their homes here to stay somewhere safer.

He had prowled the area beyond Bristol’s Downs, up and down every wide avenue of gracious-living detached houses, and it seemed all of them were full of people. Some, it seemed, had been requisitioned by the government for
civilians involved in war work, because he noted domestic help going in early in the mornings and coming out at dusk. If it wasn’t for the blackout, he had no doubt he’d see people dancing in drawing rooms, warming their backsides at roaring fires, and lounging in well-stocked libraries.

He had found a semi-derelict house, boarded up, but he’d had to resort to sleeping in the garden shed for one night, because he had no tools to prise off a board and get inside. It was so cold that night, he thought he would freeze to death. The next day he managed to get into the house, but there were no pleasant surprises for him there. A mattress on a bed was a nest for hundreds of mice. He just touched it and dozens ran out; it stank and was wet with their urine. He couldn’t light a fire, because the smoke would give him away, and although he did find some old blankets in a tin trunk that the mice hadn’t managed to get into, this didn’t cheer him because he was too hungry to sleep.

With only the suit he stood up in, and nowhere to bathe, wash his shirts or underwear, he knew that before long his neglected appearance would make people suspicious of him. Each morning he walked to the library to warm himself up in the reading room, and so far he hadn’t seen anything about Pearl’s murder in any of the national newspapers.

Yet he couldn’t be complacent; it didn’t mean her body hadn’t been found. With the paper shortage, newspapers concentrated on big stories, and while the Eighth Army had captured Tripoli and the RAF were bombing Berlin in daytime, a woman’s body in a cellar in Ipswich wasn’t that newsworthy.

Yet for all he knew every police station in England could have been alerted about Stephen Lyle; they possibly knew now that was an alias, and he was really Archie Wood. Furthermore, the manager at The Grand had almost certainly reported to the police that a guest called David Close had disappeared without paying his bill. The police would immediately have asked for a description, and so it was possible, even probable, that the hunt for him was centred on Bristol now. Even with his eye patch and the newly grown beard and moustache he knew a sharp-eyed detective would see through the disguise.

Having no money meant he was not only hungry and dirty, but he couldn’t catch a train to another town. He was so desperate that he stole a woman’s purse one day in broad daylight. She had left it on the top of her shopping basket, and he snatched it without even checking if anyone was watching.

There was nearly three pounds in it. It kept him from starving for a few days, but it wasn’t enough for a few nights in a guest house so he could clean himself up and buy a train ticket.

He blamed Verity for his present plight. If she hadn’t been so sneaky, going off to meet that friend of hers, he wouldn’t have hit her and they’d still be in Weardale Road and doing fine. Why couldn’t she have appreciated that she owed him for bringing her up and sending her to a private school? They could have made a great team, if only she hadn’t kept coming out with that mealy-mouthed whinging about it being wrong to steal from people’s homes.

He blamed Cynthia too. He told her when she said she was pregnant that he’d never wanted children, that he
didn’t even like them. But she twisted his arm into marrying her, and as soon as they were married he found out it wasn’t even his.

Looking back now, he didn’t know why he ever got involved with her. The Great War had taken so many young men, and a tall, handsome man from a good family, like him, could have found a society girl with money. But Cynthia was pretty and sexy, and he liked her drive, the fact that she aspired to the middle classes. But perhaps what endeared her to him most was that she didn’t turn a hair when she found out he’d been cashiered, dismissed from the army for suspected theft from another officer.

Of course he insisted to her that he had been set up, and that the reason he wasn’t court-martialled was because there was no proof. But the truth of the matter was that he had stolen money several times, and although there was no absolute proof, such as catching him with marked notes in his wallet, he was the only man who had the opportunity to do it. So he was cashiered, and he got a vicious beating from his fellow officers. It could have been prison, if there had been a trial. But the war had just ended, and perhaps no one had any stomach for something which would only sully the regiment’s name.

It turned out Cynthia hadn’t actually believed he was innocent, but she had few morals herself, and perhaps was even too dumb to understand what a disgrace being cashiered really was.

But they made a good team in those early years. For three years they ran a hotel in St John’s Wood for the owner, who lived in South Africa. By not declaring a good half of the bookings, and skimping on the guests’
breakfasts, domestic staff and redecoration costs, they bought the house in Daleham Gardens. Finally, they had the status they both felt was owed to them.

At the hotel Verity was usually left with one of the staff, so Archie had little to do with her, but there was something about the way she looked at him and tried to get his attention that really irked him. In front of guests he’d always tried to play the loving, affectionate father, and this obviously confused her when he switched it off.

When they moved to Daleham Gardens, he got taken on by a new construction company who were building large estates of new housing, part of the plan for ‘a country fit for heroes’. He set up and ran their accounts department, and he worked long hours, so Verity was mostly in bed by the time he got home. But at weekends and holidays there she was, trying to get close to him in any way she could. And the harder she tried, the more it annoyed him. He wanted to hurt her, and although he mostly controlled himself, sometimes he did slap her far too hard.

If he had just stuck to syphoning off small amounts of money from the construction company into his bank account, he might never have been found out. He had, after all, devised the system, and knew how to play it. The directors of the company were really just builders, they knew everything about construction, but not bookkeeping and accounts.

But as his gambling habit grew, Cynthia’s need for smarter clothes and jewellery grew too, and there were Verity’s school fees, the housekeeper, and quite often he had a mistress who he wined and dined. So he was taking larger and larger amounts from the company.

He still often thought of that day when the whole thing came out. He had come back from a long, late lunch with his lady friend to spot auditors in his office with the company books spread all over his desk. He knew immediately what this meant and panicked. He fled home, intending to pack a bag, grab money he had stashed away there, get his passport and be on his way to France before the auditors conferred with the company directors and called in the police.