Midnight on Lime Street (22 page)

They entered the chapel. Both found it difficult to concentrate; fortunately, the
Tantum Ergo
and the
O Salutaris Hostia
were deeply ingrained, so their delivery was automatic.
At supper, they sat together. ‘We’ll have to work on the station as completely separate units until we befriend each other gradually,’ Helen said. ‘I’m Smelly Nellie,
and you’re Holy Mary.’

‘Plus one,’ Mary said.

‘What?’

‘The local police are giving us a dog. He wags his tail and growls when he smells drugs. Dogs have been used to find drugs in France since 1965, so a constable read all about it and
trained up his own dog. The poor man died, and his dog needs a kind owner and a job. A bedraggled article, he is, so he will look the part. The good thing is that he doesn’t leap on a carrier
of drugs, but hackles rise in time with the wagging and the growling. We’ll still be working with the police, Helen. Mother Superior has agreed to it.’

‘My heart overfloweth with joy.’ Sister Helen clapped a hand to her brow. ‘A dog? I know nothing about dogs.’

‘Joy indeed, because you’ll be adopting him. You found the poor thing wandering the streets – that’s the official line. It’s a boy, a mongrel, and his name is
Nelson.’

‘Oh, Lord.’

Mary nodded. ‘That’s the chap – Admiral Lord Nelson.’

‘Who was a tremendously clever seafaring warrior with a questionable personal life.’ Helen paused. ‘Lady Hamilton. Between them she and the admiral broke his wife’s
heart.’ She stared hard at her companion. ‘What?’ she asked. ‘I can tell you’re up to something. You’ve gone red along the cheekbones.’

Mary almost squirmed under Helen’s steady gaze. ‘He’ll be living with you.’

‘What?’

‘The dog. He will get to know you, and he’ll work for you.’

‘I smell like the bottom of a chip shop dustbin.’

‘Dogs don’t mind smells.’

‘An answer for everything, Mary, have you not? I don’t understand dogs.’

The younger Veronica sister shrugged. ‘Holy Mary can’t have a dog, because she’s always in and out of church. When I’m Holy Mary, I’m a double agent with no
dog.’

‘Talk to St Francis of Assisi. He took animals everywhere with him.’

‘No, I’ll have a word with my friend St Jude, ask him to knock some sense into you. You know that station like the back of your own hand. I have to get used to it, so you’re
the leader when it comes to Lime Street, because I’ve been a roving reporter or minister without portfolio thus far. If I’m seen on Lime Street regularly, drug dealers will come to me,
so I don’t need the dog.’

They ate their meal, prayed with the rest of the sisterhood, then went downstairs to Helen’s cellar. The resident of this level made cocoa. A dog. Didn’t she have trouble enough
without a dog? ‘Ah well,’ she murmured, ‘the good Lord sends these things to try us.’

Mary rattled the biscuit barrel. ‘Have you no custard creams, Helen?’

The older nun glanced heavenward. The Lord sent things to try her, but Sister Mary Veronica was a trial too far.

By the time they reached the East Lancashire Road, Babs was certain that gentlemen, in the good old Victorian sense, no longer existed. Lippy Macey was discussing with Gordy
the possible methods of harnessing the gas that emerged frequently from the back end of a horse. ‘One horse could possibly fuel a domestic cooker,’ he said.

‘And that would smell lovely with sausage and chips,’ Babs mused aloud.

‘It would be converted,’ Lippy said.

‘What to?’ she asked. ‘Catholicism, Buddhism, socialism?’

‘She always has either an answer or a difficult question, and she knows a couple of big words, too.’ Gordy laughed. ‘Are we nearly there?’ he asked Babs.

She nodded. ‘We’ll have to do a you-ee, cos it’s on the other side.’

‘A you-ee?’ asked the gentleman at the wheel.

‘She means a U-turn,’ Gordy explained. ‘Turn right at the next set of lights—’

‘Not the next set; the ones after the next.’ She prodded Gordy’s neck. ‘I’m the navigator, not you.’

He grinned. Little Madam would always be the navigator; in fact, she would probably draw maps to be followed through life by most within her sphere. Sometimes, he thought he liked her because
she was one of the few women who were shorter than he was. But lately he had come to realize that there was a lot more to Babs than her small frame. Like Murdoch, she was a clever nuisance. Like
Murdoch, she promised to alter the shape of the future. And for an ex-prostitute, she was extraordinarily bright. Gordy kept to himself the secret of her provenance; Mr Macey thought she and Sally
were Don Crawford’s nurses/housekeepers, and that was fine by Gordy.

Lippy performed the necessary manoeuvres, and they slid gently off the carriageway, coming to rest on the road’s shoulder at the end of the rough track that led to Meadowbank Farm.

‘I won’t be long,’ Babs said as she bent to leave the vehicle.

‘True,’ replied Mr Macey, ‘I doubt you’re more than five feet tall.’

‘Listen, Lippy Longshanks, good things come in small packets and they’re easier to wrap.’

‘Shouldn’t one of us go?’ Gordy asked. ‘It’s getting dark, and the—’

‘They know me,’ Babs snapped. ‘They’re frightened, hungry and worn out to the back of next Wednesday. I know what I’m doing.’

‘She says she knows what she’s doing,’ Longshanks whispered.

‘Perhaps she does,’ Gordy replied.

Babs left them to chatter among themselves. She crept up the uneven path and called in a stage whisper, ‘Ian? Are you there? It’s Babs.’

Privets moved, and she turned to her right. ‘Ian?’ she repeated.

But bushes to her left were suddenly disturbed. ‘We’re here,’ Ian hissed.

‘All of you?’

‘Yes. Hang on a minute while we get through a hole in the hedge.’

She looked again to her right, but all was still. There was no wind, so who the hell was hiding? Was it police, or some of Boss’s people? Boss would be keeping his distance, as would his
workers if the cops were at the hut. She stepped closer to the now stilled privets. Whoever it was could sod off, because she had more serious matters to deal with.

They arrived by her side, three young lads with blackened faces, hands and arms. Babs shone a torch over them. ‘Buckets of blood,’ she exclaimed, ‘who got you ready? You look
like blooming chimney sweeps from about a hundred years back. And I swear you’ve all lost weight. Come on. We’ve got a van waiting for you.’

‘We pong a bit.’ Ian’s tone was apologetic.

‘So do horses and donkeys, but I got used to them.’ Knowing there was an audience, she whispered. ‘Now, let me explain. There are two men in the camper, and they’re both
OK. There’s Mr Philip Macey – he’s famous for looking after folk,’ she said, winking at Phil, ‘and Mr Gordy Hourigan, an Irish trainer of racehorses. They know you had
to run away from bad monks. Mr Macey will drop me and Gordy off at Wordsworth House and Dove Cottage, then you might go with Mr Macey to his house. His lawyers will talk to you tomorrow and
they’ll help you to make a plan about the next move.’

Ian cleared this throat. ‘We heard the women talking in the kitchen when I got in the cellar tonight,’ he told her, ‘and that Boss man’s been arrested in Manchester. We
were worried in case he came and found us, cos we left his drugs, didn’t we? And another lad got killed. It’s scary.’

‘Shush,’ she warned. She felt as if she could put out her hand and touch the heat emanating from this boy, the leader, the one responsible for most decisions – including the
original plan to escape the abusers. He was so taut that she could almost feel his aura as it crackled like static electricity, born of fear and hope and hunger. The lad was reaching out, but he
was too tired to find the words, so he just stood there burning internally, the whites of his eyes glowing in a dirty face, his worldly possessions in a bag at his feet, two friends behind him
waiting, trusting.

Gordy and Mr Macey arrived just as Babs broke down. She never cried. Even when digging a shard of glass out of her leg at the age of seven, she’d managed to contain herself.
‘No!’ she screamed when Gordy tried to hold her. ‘I’m just furious. I’ll be all right in a minute. Get this lot in the van. There’s wet flannels and dry towels
in my green shopping bag and food in the blue one. They need to clean their hands before they eat.’

While the men took the boys away, Babs dried her eyes and turned her torch on the privets opposite those from which the three had emerged. ‘I know you’re there,’ she spat, her
voice still fractured by emotion. ‘And I do hope you’re enjoying yourself, you sneaky, twisted bastard. If you need a whore, try Lime Street.’ She parted the privets. The creature
had gone.

Neil Carson could scarcely remember his journey into the stark outback of the Mersey plain; it was as if the bike had set its compass to arrive here, while he had been no more
than innocent cargo. What was he doing in this place at this time? Angela wasn’t available; nobody was available due to circumstances beyond the control of the fat mamma, Eve Mellor. She
didn’t like Neil, and the antipathy was reciprocated.

He was restless to the point of scarcely being aware of his own actions. Preparations for his proposed move needed to be made, and he needed to reclaim his senses and start to imitate normality,
at least. Oh, why had they come that night and why had they chosen him? There were millions of Catholics and millions of fireplaces . . .

And who was the harridan in the lane, the one who had berated him so rudely? Where was Jesus when He was needed? Oh, how he wished his mind would stop or slow down a bit, at least. Tired and
jumpy, he wondered who was pulling his strings. Perhaps Judas had a grim sense of humour – after all, he had drunk Neil’s beer. And if Judas was hanging around with Jesus, did that mean
he was now a saint?

Neil sat near bushes a bit further away from that rude woman, listening while the vehicle on the shoulder started up and pulled out onto the road. At last, he breathed. For how long had he held
his breath without knowing it? Clearly, he must have taken in oxygen, but not all the way to the bottom of his lungs. That woman had scared the living daylights out of him.

There was no safe place, not for him. Although things had quietened along the Dock Road, the police were doubtless continuing the search for the killer or killers of Jean Davenport and Dolly
Pearson. Now it seemed that the mystery of the runaway schoolboys was about to be solved, though that was none of his business and was of no interest to him.

‘I have to see her, even if it’s only for a minute,’ he muttered, wondering whether it was possible for a man to fall in love with a whore. The girls lived in the kitchen at
the back of the house – he had learned that much during visits to the farm. Leaving his bike where it was, he crept up the pitted dirt track and round the side of the house, his body in close
contact with the building. Autumn was truly on its way, because it was almost dark by eight fifteen.

She was at the sitting room end with some others. Without makeup and the special clothing she used for her role play, Angela looked like an ordinary woman. The whole group chattered and laughed
while he, the outsider, eavesdropped through a slightly open window and read lips as best he could when laughter drowned a speaker’s words. She was leaving Meadowbank. Why hadn’t she
told him she was going? But he must not get angry; perhaps she had discovered only recently a new place to live.

The old woman who cooked shouted from the other end of the huge room, ‘Where is your sister’s wool shop, Ange?’

‘East Prescot Road, Knotty Ash,’ was the reply. ‘I’m having the upstairs flat. It’s not big, but it will do, I suppose. Beggars can’t be choosers, can
they?’

Neil knew Liverpool well, as did most who worked with mail. West Derby, Old Swan, Broadgreen, Knotty Ash – yes, he could find his way to that cluster as long as he had an address. And he
had an address. After all, there wouldn’t be more than one wool shop along that stretch. So his journey had not been wasted, then.

He stared hard at Angela, who had taught him that pain was the mirror of pleasure, that a collar and lead could make physical freedom so much sweeter, that flesh sensitized by a whip was always
alive and eager for more. She reduced him to slavery, chained and cuffed him before allowing him to dominate her only during the final act, during which she appeared to experience such pleasure.
Though he could never be sure, since it was part of her job, wasn’t it? Laura had never even groaned, had never said a word. His wife had done her duty, no more than that. ‘I want
you,’ he mouthed silently. ‘And I’ll find you, because I know Knotty Ash like the back of my own hand.’

One stark fact remained: Neil Carson missed his children. Lucy was quite the little lady, always prancing about wearing Laura’s jewellery and Cuban-heeled shoes, forever borrowing
handbags, lipstick and scarves. She sang and put on plays in which she played all the parts, because her brother wouldn’t join in, since mucking about dressed up was only for girls.

Neil allowed himself a tight smile. Matt was a clever boy, doing well at school, but mad as a hatter when it came to football and cricket. They were lovely kids, they were his, and he missed
them. He remembered days in the park: the see-saw, the roundabout, a slide, the swings. He’d taught them to throw and catch, to swim at the baths, to ride bikes.

But the reality was that he needed Angela more. He dared not tap on the window, could not entertain the idea of ringing the doorbell. And there she sat in jeans and a pale blue blouse, her hair
loose and flowing, her attitude relaxed as she chattered to the rest of the . . . of the prostitutes. They were pretty; it was clear that Fat Mamma chose
la crème de la
crème
.

He backed away slightly into the shadows. The fact remained that he was supposed to be clearing away people like Angela and her colleagues, yet he was operating on the other side of the business
altogether. He was a client. Enlivened by close contact with a clever if somewhat brutal woman, Neil was fast becoming addicted. But he wasn’t on the streets, was he? Nothing had been said
about women who plied their trade indoors; the emphasis had been placed on the cleaning up of pavements where ‘ladies of the night’ sold their wares.