Nameless (19 page)

The fly monster pulled its head off to reveal the plump and pasty face of Hugh Burton. Hugh gave a sly grin. He was wearing a long grubby white apron. ‘Made you jump, didn’t I?’ he said, and it seemed to please him, the fact that he had given a hard nut like Charlie Darke a turn.

Charlie moved inside, shutting the door behind him. Burton gave him the creeps, but he was useful. Crazy, of course, but useful. He’d been a fire-watcher all through the Blitz and now he was also a rubbish man – that is, he disposed of people that gangs wanted rid of. He had the stirrup-pump that he used in his fire-watching work, and with it he transferred sulphuric acid from a bucket into a big vat he kept in the cellar, and it was there that he disposed of his victims. They melted to nothing in that stuff, bones and all.

‘Got a job for you,’ said Charlie, indicating the child in his arms.

Burton looked at the kid, then at Charlie. ‘Cost you,’ he said. ‘Fifty.’

‘That’s fucking robbery,’ said Charlie.

‘No, it’s fucking
murder
,’ smiled Burton. ‘I take the risks, you cover the cost. That’s the way it works. You know that. And it leaves no trace,’ he added. ‘None at all.’

Charlie gave a disgusted click of the tongue and thrust the child into Burton’s pudgy arms. Didn’t he have enough to think about, without all this kid business from Ruby? Neither he nor Joe had seen Chewy, Stevie or Ben for months. They hadn’t even shown up to collect their final payment, and that was worrying. Ben’s wife Moira had been round, shouting the odds, asking what the
fuck
was going on. But the truth was, Charlie didn’t know. His boys had simply vanished.

Charlie pulled out a wedge and peeled off five tenners, and gave them to Burton. He pushed them into his trouser pocket, and nodded. Charlie took one last look at his nephew, then opened the door. He paused there, looked back again.

‘Throttle the poor little bastard first, will you?’ he asked.

Another nod.

The deal was done. Charlie went out of the door, satisfied that the whole thing had been sorted away, neat and tidy. Just the way he liked it.

Jenny Phelps née Burton was whistling under her breath as she walked up the path to her brother Hugh’s place. She was clutching a tea towel in her hands to keep the casserole she carried from burning them. She often did this, popped over to Hugh’s with a morsel left over from her own family’s meagre dinner, because he was useless, unmarried, a bit of a misfit really, the poor sod.

She put her key in the door, calling out ‘Yoo-hoo!’ like she always did.

As she swung open the door, it hit an obstruction. Not expecting it, she was taken off-balance. The casserole dish slipped from her grasp and smashed on the stone step, spilling the precious neck end of beef and gravy all over her stockings, shoes, the door, everything.

‘
Bugger!
’ she cried out. Her legs stung where the hot liquid had splashed them. That messy sod Hugh, he never cleaned, he was always leaving junk all around the place. What had he left here now, right in the way of the door . . . ?

She edged inside and looked down. Hugh was lying on the floor, face-up, wearing a long grubby white apron. His gas mask was nearby. His eyes were half-open. Jenny was a nurse and she’d seen a fair few corpses during the war, and she only had to glance at her brother to see that he was dead.

‘Oh no – oh, Hugh,’ she said, starting to cry.

A whimpering sound made her pause. At her brother’s feet was a bundle. It was moving slightly. She crouched down and pulled back the blanket.

It was a tiny dark-skinned baby.

Having delivered the kid to the rubbish man, Charlie went over to the house where his sister was living. She was still lying in the filthy bed, alone. She looked up dully as he came into the bedroom. Saw that his arms were empty; saw that her child was gone.

‘What did you do with him?’ she asked, sounding numb; without feeling.

‘Took it over to a friend of a friend,’ said Charlie. ‘He’ll be looked after, brought up proper. Don’t worry.’ He looked at her, still lying there, wallowing in her own mess, the lazy cow. ‘Ain’t it time you got yourself tidied up?You can come back home tomorrow morning, it’ll be as if nothing happened. You can go back to the ruddy Windmill, if you want to. Do what you like.’

Ruby turned her head into the pillows. ‘I’m not going back there,’ she said. If she hadn’t been tempted away by all the false glitter of showbiz, she’d never have met Cornelius Bray: and she would never have known the agony of giving up her babies.

‘No? Well, something else then.’

He didn’t even care, she could hear it in his voice. The problem of her and the bastard kids was solved; that was all Charlie cared about. One job finished, on to the next. That was Charlie.

But her heart was shattered into tiny pieces.
One job finished, on to the next.
She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t pretend she hadn’t just given birth. That she had a son, and a daughter; one dark, one fair.

But as usual the men in her life had taken charge, sorted it all out. Her dad had beaten her. Charlie had dominated her. Cornelius had
fucked
her.

Now it was over. That was the end of all that. She would never let a man control her again. Never again let one raise a finger to her. Never, ever, let one inside her. She swore it, on her babies’ lives. Silently, vehemently, she swore that, from now on, things would change.

48

When Charlie left Ruby that night, he went on over to Rachel’s. She was expecting him. He had to stop on the way and take shelter down the Tube when the wailing sirens told of another raid. He sat down there and thought about her. Only Rachel gave him any solace these days. Ruby was a fucking nuisance; couldn’t the daft mare have kept her legs together? And her mate Betsy was no better, pestering for a walk up the aisle now she had his engagement ring on her finger.

Still, there were compensations to be had in Betsy’s house. Her dad had got several of Charlie’s boys into the docks already, and lots of boxes of goodies were falling onto the quayside and breaking open as a result, ruining the fruit and textiles within so that the boys just had to take them home and sell them at a nice profit – what else could they do?

Betsy and her marriage talk! Fucking women, who needed them? But he knew he needed Rachel. He lived for the times when he could go there, just talk to her or bed her, feel her silky skin against his, drown in the sweet hay-meadow scent of her hair.

He knew he was in love with Rachel Tranter, and that he would never give her up. Even if he
did
marry Betsy, and he supposed he would, he would keep Rachel too. That went without saying. And if Betsy found out and kicked off, fuck her. Who was the boss? He was.

When the all-clear sounded he trotted up the steps and walked on to Rachel’s. He turned the corner into her street, feeling happier now he was going to see her, whistling ‘When the Red, Red Robin’ under his breath, and that was when he saw it.

The fire engines.

The crumbling masonry still falling, disintegrating.

A vast crater where the bomb had struck.

Rachel’s house wasn’t there any more. Neither was the whole row of houses that had spanned out on either side of hers.

They were all gone.

Every one of them, flattened as if they had never been.

He ran forward, flung himself at the spot where her front door should have been. There was nothing there but smouldering splinters.

A fire officer was grabbing him, trying to haul him back. ‘Steady on, sir, it’s still burning . . .’

It was. The debris was alight, and there was nothing there, no sign of life, just this awful, blistering
ruination
. He could see a remnant of Rachel’s kitchen curtains, the green with tiny sprigs of yellow, being enveloped by flames. Somewhere in all that mangled wreckage was her bedspread, the one they had made love on, its rose-coloured softness turning to mush under the jets of water. He thought he caught a glimpse, a faint dim sparkle of her hair slide, the one he liked to pull loose from her hair before he caressed it, buried his face in it. He bent and snatched it up.

Somewhere under there was Rachel.

He was surging forward again, shouting her name, and now three reservists joined in. They held him back, preventing him from frying himself on Rachel’s funeral pyre.

‘There’s no one left alive in there, son,’ said an older man among them. ‘There can’t be. It was a direct hit. I’m sorry.’

‘No! She’s there, she’s got to be there!’ He was babbling, hurling himself against their mightier force.

‘
No
. I’m sorry, sir. Very sorry. There’s no one left.’

Charlie stopped struggling and stood there, staring in sick fascination at the devastation.

My God, they’re right. She’s dead under there somewhere.

And then he saw it: the blackened fingers of a woman’s hand, an arm, a shoulder clad in dust-covered cream cotton, the blouse she so often wore. And there were some silken strands of hair,
Rachel’s
hair. There was no head, though; no body. He was looking at part of a corpse, not the whole of one.

They released him, patted his shoulders. Rigid with shock, he stood there, his last living image of her strong in his mind – his Rachel, laughing and indulgent. He looked again at all that remained of her. Then he turned away and walked back, across the street, barely knowing what he was doing, barely caring.

Rachel’s dead.

He could feel tears wetting his cheeks; he hadn’t cried since he was a boy standing over his mother’s grave. But he cried now, silent tears of utter grief.

‘Mr Charles Darke?’ said a voice behind him.

He turned. There were three coppers there, watching him intently.

‘Who wants him?’ he asked, without much interest.

Two of them stepped forward, one on each side of him; they grabbed his arms. He didn’t resist.

‘Mr Charles Darke, I am arresting you on suspicion of armed robbery involving one of His Majesty’s mail vans . . .’

The words went on and on, but Charlie wasn’t even listening. Nothing mattered any more. She was
dead
.

49

Joe was in a state of terror for weeks afterwards. He was waiting for the knock on the door, waiting for the police to come and get him, too. Or something even worse, maybe. There was still no news of Chewy, Stevie or Ben. Ben’s missus Moira was still kicking off, wondering where her meal ticket had got to, the cow.

It felt sinister, somehow, all three going like that with no word. It was like someone had got to them maybe. He thought of Ben, stupidly spending out on flashy coats for Moira, and felt uneasy. Worse, with Charlie gone, for the first time in his life he felt alone. And afraid.

It would make sense to do a runner, but Joe found he couldn’t do it. The rozzers were watching his movements anyway, he wouldn’t get far. And there was trouble right here at home. Ruby was shot away since she’d dropped the sprogs. He knew about Charlie’s involvement, that the girl had gone to the father, that bastard Bray, and the boy had been got rid of. A lot of money had changed hands, a deal had been done.

Now Ruby moved around the place like an automaton, cooking, cleaning, tending Dad, whose health was getting progressively worse every day. The old man had always doted on Charlie. Now Charlie was gone, held under arrest, and Dad seemed to find little else worth living for.

When she wasn’t busy around the house, Ruby just sat at the kitchen table and stared at nothing. Out in the streets, there was noise, laughter. People were stringing up loops of bunting, hanging out flags. The war was over. Now it was VE day, a day of huge happiness, street parties planned, everyone busy and boisterous. Hitler was defeated, dead in his Berlin bunker. The world was delirious with summer and celebration.

Betsy came over to see her. Betsy was in bits too, her dreams of happiness and marriage shattered. Charlie was banged up, awaiting trial.

‘I can’t believe it,’ she kept wailing to anyone who would listen.

‘There’s nothing we can do but sit tight and hope they can’t make the prosecution stick,’ Joe told her.

‘But they will,’ said Betsy dully. ‘Ain’t that the truth? He did it.’

So did I
, thought Joe, his spine crawling with apprehension. But Charlie wouldn’t finger him, not in a million years. Would he?

‘What do you think, Ruby?’ asked Betsy as they sat around the table, their faces as long as a wet weekend.

Ruby looked up. ‘What?’

Betsy sent a quick glance Joe’s way. This was what Ruby was like now. She had disappeared inside herself, withdrawn from them all. It irritated the hell out of Betsy.

‘Don’t you even
care
about Charlie?’ she demanded.

Ruby gave a tight half-smile. ‘Why should I?’

‘For God’s sake! He’s your
brother
,’ said Betsy.

‘He’s a bastard. Charlie’s always been a bastard.’

‘How can you sit there and say that?’ Betsy was aghast.

‘Yeah. Come on, Ruby. Blood’s thicker than water,’ said Joe.

‘Is it?’ Ruby was shaking her head now. ‘Well, I’ll tell you what, Joe. All I know is that he’s not here throwing his weight around the place any more, and I like that. All I know is that Dad’s lying in bed in the parlour and he’s no trouble any more either – because the truth is he’s pining away because Charlie’s not here. And you know what? I’m just glad to be rid of them both. They’ve always treated me like
dirt
.’

Joe looked taken aback.

Betsy, shocked by what Ruby had just said, looked from sister to brother indignantly.

‘Ain’t you going to say nothing about that, Joe?’ she asked, her eyes bright with unshed tears. ‘Poor Charlie’s in prison, and . . .’

‘Don’t be a silly cow all your life,’ said Ruby, standing up. She leaned her fists on the table and looked at them both. ‘All right, Joe, if you won’t tell her, I will.’

‘Sis . . .’ Joe shook his head.