Last Rights (22 page)

‘What?’

‘Lay off me and leave Velma alone. She’s just a kid.’

‘A kid with a murderer for a mother and a grandmother,’ Johnny said.

So the Dooleys knew. Everyone knew.

‘You don’t know Pearl killed anyone,’ I said. ‘Just like I don’t know whether you, your wife or Father Christmas killed your
brother. We’re all in the dark, Johnny, so none of us should threaten people or point any fingers. Leave Velma alone, leave
my family alone, and let’s all see if we can find out who really killed your brother and let the
court decide. You do want to catch the real killer, don’t you? Want to be certain?’

I felt his grip on my collar slacken at the same time as his face came even closer to my own. Now I could see him, his little
drink-blurred eyes filled with fury, his few crooked teeth set into a snarl that made it look as if he was about to eat my
face.

‘I loved my brother! He was family.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Beat up his missus, put her in the family way every five minutes and then, just to prove to everyone what
a big man he was, had any other bit of skirt lying around too – including your wife.’

I thought he was going to hit me again, but Johnny only grunted his fury this time.

‘But Kevin was a human being who has been murdered and whose memory deserves the truth. So let’s just leave each other alone
and let justice take its course, shall we?’ I said. ‘That way none of us gets hisself involved in explaining something he
doesn’t want to.’

Neither Johnny nor his brother did or said anything else after that. They just walked off, from what I could see in the direction
of Poplar.

As soon as they’d gone, Hannah came rushing over. ‘Are you all right?’ she said. ‘Christ, H, I thought that bastard broke
your jaw!’

I took her in my arms and held her close for a moment while the shock of it left our bodies. Where I’d got the courage to
say all that, I didn’t know. On just a rumour, really. But Johnny had been shaken. Could it be that he had a guilty conscience?
Something had definitely taken
place between his wife and Kevin, but whether Johnny had done anything violent to Kevin or Martine because of it was another
matter. Johnny and the rest of them had an alibi but, from what I could gather about the Dooleys, they could easily have organised
that, using those who feared them. Johnny had been a bit too scared for a fellow with a snow-white soul. And it was probably
that and his knowledge about Martine and Kevin, rather than hatred of Pearl, that made him want her to be guilty. After all,
if it all came out about Kevin and Martine, that would automatically put Martine and maybe Johnny, too, in the frame and he
didn’t want that.

‘You’re bleeding,’ Hannah said, as she reached up and touched my chin.

‘Are you?’ I asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ Hannah said. ‘I don’t think the bastard hit me hard enough for that.’

‘Come on,’ I said. ‘Come back to the shop and let’s get cleaned up.’

‘I can’t do that,’ she said. ‘What’ll your mum and them think?’

‘I actually think I’ve got very good taste in women,’ I said, ‘so I’m going to take you home and look after you now, and nuts
to what anyone else thinks. And that includes my mother and my sisters!’

She’d been there, for me. Not all actual wives will do that for a bloke, as I was increasingly sure Johnny Dooley would know.
But then the sirens went and new priorities took effect. Some people out and about that night looked surprised, but a second
raid wasn’t any news to me. War
doesn’t stop to let you take a breather. It’s a close pal of Death, who never has taken time off and never will.

I
’d reorganised yesterday afternoon’s half past two funeral to half past ten the following morning, if the Jerries allowed.
And, fortunately for the family of the late Sidney Whitehouse, Adolf Hitler couldn’t be bothered to send his Luftwaffe boys
back out that morning. Old Sid, like a lot of people in this manor, had been Catholic so we had the pleasure of Father Burton,
who came up for a few words with me afterwards.

‘You know it’s Kevin Dooley’s funeral tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Thank the good Lord.’

‘Been to see the family, Father?’ I asked.

Father Burton gave me one of his acid looks. After all that business with Kevin Dooley’s ‘first’ funeral and my involvement
with it, the priest wasn’t very well disposed towards me. There was something else, too, something I didn’t know until he
spoke once again.

‘You know,’ he said, on a sigh, ‘I was never very comfortable about that business with Pearl.’

‘Yes, I know you—’

‘No, not the funeral,’ the priest said tetchily. ‘Pearl, the woman herself.’

‘What do you mean?’ I said. It was really quite cold for the time of year and I was aware that very soon the Whitehouses would
be wanting to get on home for Sid’s wake. There is, after all, only a small amount of time you can spend looking at two bunches
of flowers that were probably nicked anyway.

‘Whatever other sins she may have committed, Pearl didn’t kill Kevin,’ Father Burton said.

‘Why do you say that, Father?’

‘Because of something she told me,’ he said. ‘You know, out of all the Dooley family, it was only Pearl ever came to mass
or confession.’

So she’d told him something, maybe something vital, in confession. I felt myself groan inwardly. Whatever it was, neither
I nor anyone else would ever get at it unless Pearl wanted us to. All the more reason to get Velma, who would, surely, be
allowed to visit her mother, in to see Pearl in Holloway. Maybe the child could ask her mum about what she’d told the good
Father. Although quite how I was going to persuade her to do so, I couldn’t imagine. How do you ask someone about their confession?
I thought about Blatt’s card in the pocket of my other jacket at home and wondered what the situation was with the telephone
now.

‘You know they say that blood will always out?’ Father Burton said, as he made his way with me back towards the Whitehouse
family. ‘Well, that doesn’t work in the case of Pearl Dooley.’

I put my hand on his shoulder to stop him and said, ‘What do you mean?’

Father Burton held up a steadying hand. ‘I can say no more than that, Francis.’

‘Yes, but—’

‘No, my son, there are some things we have to work out for ourselves. I’ve said as much as I can.’

The only thing I could think he might mean was that maybe Pearl wasn’t Victorine Reynolds’s daughter. It would certainly make
sense from a ‘bad blood’ point of view. And it’s well known that girls on the streets, like Victorine, do sometimes take in
other women’s nippers. It would explain Pearl looking so very different from Ruby, even taking into account their different
fathers.

But whether Pearl was Victorine’s daughter or not wasn’t going to help her or Ruby right now and, in spite of the fact that
I probably knew more than most about these women, I realised I needed some help. Ruby was missing, after all, and as for Pearl,
well, surely if she had been to Dot Harris and had the abortion, that needed following up. The old girl had, of course, denied
that she’d done it, but I wondered how much the coppers had questioned Velma about the time she’d said she’d spent in Dot’s
place. Maybe, I thought, if Velma could give them some details about the place, that might help to establish whether or not
she and her mother had been telling the truth.

‘I told the coppers everything I could remember,’ Velma said, when I got back to the shop and asked her about it. ‘I even
told them the colours of the curtains at
the street door. But they said I could’ve got them details any time.’

‘But was your mum friends with Mrs Harris?’

‘No, not really.’

‘So . . .’

‘As soon as the coppers realise or even imagine that two women are or have been “working girls”, it’s just natural they think
they know each other,’ Hannah said. Although she’d still been sleeping on the parlour settee when I left to see to Sid Whitehouse,
I hadn’t thought she’d be at home when I got back. But she’d been talking to Velma who, I could see, was becoming rather fond
of my lovely girl.

‘My mum never done anything like what her mum used to do for work,’ Velma said. She gazed at the floor, ashamed, as she spoke.
But then she looked up sharply. ‘I know Vi Dooley thinks she was bad. I know she thought Mum was never married to my dad,
but she was. He was just a lot older than her, that’s all. He died and left us with nothing, so Mum always says.’

It was the first time Velma had ever mentioned her father. But he must have died when she was so young, she had no memory
of him. Poor kid, her dad dead, her mum in prison and a dead murderess for a grandmother, if Victorine was her grandmother
. . .

‘You’ll never get Dot to own up to helping girls out,’ Hannah said. ‘Not at her age.’

No. Dot Harris had to be seventy if she was a day and, as everyone in Canning Town knew, she’d already been inside twice for
getting rid of unwanted babies. This time,
at her age, she probably wouldn’t get out again.

Doris knocked on the parlour door then and I told her to come in. She wanted to check on a funeral booking and, as she was
explaining it to me, I noticed that she and Hannah smiled at each other. Because it had been Doris who had told me about Hannah’s
history, I had been nervous about their meeting up some time. But as soon as Doris left, Hannah told me everything was all
right. Apparently Doris had come straight out and introduced herself when she first saw and recognised Hannah. My girl, although
not recognising Doris, knew her family so it wasn’t a big step for her to work out who had told me about her past. But the
two of them had got on so I was relieved about that at least.

But now I needed to think about getting in contact with Pearl. I was troubled by what Father Burton had said, as well as the
way that Velma’s evidence was seemingly being ignored. It is difficult for the law with evidence from kiddies, I know. I turned
to Velma and said, ‘How’d you like to go and see your mum, love, ask her a couple of things for me?’

She said she’d like that very much, so I went downstairs and tried out the telephone. It was working again so I got hold of
my other jacket and took Blatt’s card out of the pocket.

He said he’d get back to me as soon as he could, but the telephone went down again just afterwards so we didn’t hear anything
from Blatt until the following day. Velma, having had her hopes raised, was all right until it started to
get dark, but then, when she still didn’t know any more, she went down fast. Silent and, after a while, unmoving, she looked
more lost than I’d ever seen her. But then, as I know only too well, there’s no way of predicting when a person’s going to
crack. It just comes, that moment when it’s all too much, and the only thing those around the person can do is watch, most
of the time helplessly.

Aggie was due to work the night shift and left at the same time as Doris. I did have a little twinge of fear as they both
took off in the twilight, imagining Johnny Dooley and his brother, out there somewhere, angry and full of vengeance. But then
I remembered what had been said at our ‘meeting’ and how he’d gone away with his tail between his legs – in the end. Still,
just the memory of it made my lip throb again. Bastard Dooley!

Once Doris and Aggie had gone, Nan started peeling veg for supper. Velma turned to when she was asked, silently, but she did
it anyway, while I went out the back to fill up the coal bucket. As I came back in I heard the hand-bell ring from inside
the shop. Of course I hadn’t locked up after Doris. I had thought I might do a bit of paperwork down there. I put down the
bucket, wiped my hands on the old towel Nan keeps by the back door, then picked up my jacket off the banisters. It was late,
but when did Death keep sociable hours? I went back through the crêpe curtains into the shop.

‘Are you Mr Hancock?’

‘Yes.’

I’ve always found it difficult to tell how old nuns are, especially when they wear the wimple really close round
the face. With no hair to help identify the person, the face just sort of looms out at you, like something completely neutral,
neither male nor female.

‘Can I help you, Sister?’

She sat down in one of the chairs beside the desk. Normally people ask, but she didn’t: she just sat down.

‘I won’t beat about the bush,’ she said, in what seemed to me a most un-nunly fashion. ‘I’ve come from Nazareth orphanage
in Southend. I’ve travelled all day and I need somewhere to stay.’

The voice hadn’t the clipped tones of Sister Joseph, and yet who else would come to see me from there, I couldn’t imagine.
Anyway, that the tight-lipped Sister Joseph should come had never crossed my mind. As far as I’d been concerned, my involvement
with the Nazareth orphanage had drawn a blank and was at an end.

‘My name’s Sister Teresa,’ she said, wringing her hands. ‘Back in the world I was someone else, which is what I’ve come to
talk to you about.’

I frowned.

‘You’ve been asking my sister, Joseph, about me,’ she said. ‘Amber Reynolds.’

She didn’t get round to telling me much before the sirens went. I’d asked her if she wanted to be introduced to her niece,
but she said no and so, when the warning did go, I just took all the women down to the shelter, then went back to Sister Teresa.
She never used shelters, so she said. Apparently quite a number of people in Southend feel they are generally a waste of time.
But they haven’t had
what we’ve had. I agreed to stay with her for as long as it lasted. I would rather have gone out, but I could hardly leave
a woman, a nun no less, alone in the house.

I think it only lasted a few hours, that raid, but because I was neither out nor talking it seemed like it went on for ever.
Of course, I didn’t talk because I couldn’t, but the nun didn’t know that which made her own silence all the more strange,
really. And so in a sense it was as if I was alone, which meant that my brain did what it usually does: gibbered and boiled,
throwing pictures of men ripped to ribbons on first the pitch dark and then the red and gold explosion-filled sky. I don’t
know whether Sister Teresa knew or suspected she was sitting with a madman, but some time later she said, ‘I think this is
coming to an end now.’