Queen of the Mersey (54 page)

‘Then how do you live if not by writing?’ she asked curiously.

‘I’m a postman. Where do you live? I might deliver post your way.’

‘Crosby.’

‘I cover Seaforth, well part of it.’ His brown eyes twinkled. ‘If you want your letters delivered by a writer, you’ll just have to move house.’

‘You could always change your route.’

‘I might well do that.’ He sat at the table. ‘I’m starving,’ he announced, sniffing pathetically.

‘I won’t be a minute.’ She hurriedly buttered four rounds of bread and sliced a couple of tomatoes. ‘Would you like salt and pepper?’

‘Both, ta. Is there any tea going?’

‘I’ll make some. Is there anything else you want while you’re here?’ she asked sarcastically. ‘Shoes cleaning? Shirt washing? A five-course dinner making?’

‘Not just now, Miss Oliver. But if you’d like to come round our house tomorrow, you can do all of them things.’ He gave her a leery wink while taking a huge bite of sandwich. ‘I can think of one or two other things you can do while you’re there,’ he said through a mouthful of bread.

‘I was always taught not to speak with my mouth full.’ Hester couldn’t help it, she burst out laughing.

‘You were obviously brought up better than me. Where do you work, Hes?’ he asked chattily.

She put the kettle on and sat opposite him at the table, rather enjoying herself. ‘I work for a detective agency; Quigley Investigations. I’m Sam Quigley’s secretary.’

‘Honest! I bet that’s interesting.’

Hester was about to tell him how interesting it was, when Queenie and Mary came into the kitchen together. ‘Our Flora’s looking for you everywhere, Ned,’ Mary said. ‘I never dreamt you’d be out here with the old folk.’

Queenie choked. ‘Old folk! Do you mind!’

‘Well, none of us are exactly young.’

‘None of us are exactly old, either, Mary.’

‘Whatever your ages, you are three enchanting and most desirable ladies.’ Ned Cunningham stuffed the final sandwich in his mouth, got to his feet and gave a little bow. ‘Particularly you,’ he said in a low voice when he went past Hester.

Quigley Investigations operated from a drab, entirely featureless building above a travel agency in Exchange Street East. The name was painted on the door of the second-floor office, along with, in smaller letters, ‘Surveillance, Matrimonial Enquiries, Process Serving, Insurance Claims, Missing Persons Traced, Confidential and Caring Service, Store Detectives Supplied’.

Once, Hester had spent the afternoon as a store detective, but hadn’t so much as glimpsed a thief, and a member of staff had reported her for ‘lurking suspiciously’. It was when Sally, Sam Quigley’s wife, who usually did that sort of thing, had been indisposed.

Sam Quigley, sixty-one, and a retired police sergeant, was the type of private detective seen in films, an impression gained because he modelled himself on Humphrey Bogart. Sam was too old, too small and too stout to look much like his hero, but he wore the same heavily studded, tightly belted mack, the same dark trilby hat with the snap-brim tipped over one eye.

Business was good. As well as Hester and Sally, Sam employed two investigators to deal with dodgy insurance claims, keep a watch on individuals whose spouses suspected they were having affairs, and track down missing persons. If a case involved travelling far, Sam usually went himself.

When Hester had started eight years ago, Sam had said, ‘I don’t care how well you type, luv, or how fast, as long as you’re sympathetic to me clients when they come in. For some, a private detective’s their last resort. What they really need is a shoulder to cry on. Can you do that, luv?’

‘Yes,’ Hester had promised. So, if Sam was out or had a client in his office, she would often spend ages on the phone listening to a desperate voice explaining that someone close to them had disappeared and the police couldn’t do anything about it, or they were worried their husband or wife was cheating on them. Sometimes, people came without an appointment and she would treat them gently, make them a cup of tea.

The job was interesting, as Ned Cunningham had surmised. It could also be very sad and occasionally very funny.

Five days after Flora’s party, Hester was in the office alone with nothing to do except read the novel lying open on her desk. Instead, she stared wistfully out of the window at the crisp, sunny April day and the cloudless blue sky. Working in a shabby little room lined with metal filing cabinets full of yellowing paper wasn’t so bad in winter, it felt warm and cosy. But the sun always made her discontented, wanting to be somewhere else; Hollywood, for instance, where the sun seemed to shine all the time.

I’ve never lived, she thought miserably. There was just that one, single year when I had a good time. She told herself she was being ridiculous. She’d had a perfectly good time before she’d gone to America, not counting that business with Duncan, of course, and she’d had a reasonable time since. She enjoyed her job and had a boyfriend – well, a boyfriend of sorts. Andy Michaels was more a companion, someone to go to the pictures with, the theatre, accompany her to parties or if she was asked to dinner. Hester did the same for him. Andy was a nice-looking man in his early forties, divorced. It had all been rather unpleasant and he had no intention of having a serious relationship with another woman. They’d met four years ago and all he’d done so far was kiss her cheek, which suited Hester down to the ground as she had no wish for him to go further.

‘The trouble with you, darling,’ her father had said loads of times, ‘is you have too kind a heart. There’s no need for you to stay home any longer. I can manage all right on my own. Go back to America – go anywhere – before it’s too late.’

‘I’m quite happy here, Daddy,’ Hester always replied. There was no way she’d leave him on his own after what had happened.

She remembered the day as clearly as if it were only yesterday. She was still working part-time at Freddy’s, but had taken a few days off because Agnes had gone to Brighton with some friends and there was no one else to look after Mummy.

During the five years since Vera’s funeral, Laura had hardly set foot outside the house, leaving when only absolutely necessary; to see the dentist or an optician. Some of the time, she seemed perfectly content, spending ages in the kitchen preparing that night’s meal, or sitting in her chair, a needle in her hand, bent over some exquisite embroidery. She never read a newspaper, refused to watch the television news, had no idea that Harold Macmillan was the British Prime Minister, that Britain had just exploded its first hydrogen bomb, or Russia had sent a satellite into space. If there was a knock on the door, she would go up to her room and refuse to come down until the person had gone, even if it was someone like Queenie or Mary. Inevitably, they stopped coming. Queenie was terribly upset, feeling she was letting her friend down and being no help at all to Roddy and Hester. Agnes was the only outsider Laura would tolerate.

She had switched herself off, created her own secure, private little world where nothing, no one, could touch her. She had bad times, when she would weep that she wanted to kill herself, that life wasn’t worth living. These times often occurred in the middle of the night and Roddy would help soothe away the tears and the horrible thoughts, give her a tablet, sit with her until she slept.

Hester had more or less got used to the way things were. She was twenty-seven, and had long ago given up all thoughts of Hollywood or of leading even a faintly interesting life. She couldn’t imagine things ever being any different. Her main concern had been for Gus. It wasn’t a very healthy environment for him to grow up in, but by then Gus had happily settled at Durham University, much to Hester’s relief.

The day it happened, Laura had woken up in one of her worst moods, groaning, wailing that she wanted to die. Hester could hear Roddy speaking to her when she went downstairs to make breakfast. Not long afterwards, he had gone to work, refusing anything to eat, his face dark with grief or possibly some sort of impotent rage at what their lives had become. Hester took her mother a cup of tea, her heart heavy at the thought of the day ahead. Laura was sitting up in bed. She looked shocked, as if she’d just seen a ghost.

‘Are you all right, Mummy?’ Hester asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Laura said vaguely. ‘Oh, is that the post?’ The letterbox had just rattled and there was a thud of letters on the mat. ‘I wonder if there are any Christmas cards?’ She leapt out of bed, suddenly as happy as a lark, went downstairs in her nightdress, and opened the cards, oohing and aahing over each one, saying how pretty it was before putting it on the sideboard with the ones that had already come.

It could happen in a flash, the change between wanting to die and running excitedly downstairs to collect the post.

‘What shall we have for Christmas dinner, sweetheart?’ she asked. ‘Do you fancy duck for a change? Oh, I do love Christmas,’ she said with a breathy sigh. ‘I think I’ll make the mince pies today, save a last-minute rush.’

Hester hadn’t yet bought a jar of mincemeat, but Mummy had seemed so well that, after lunch, she didn’t think it would do any harm to go to the shops and buy it now.

But, despite the evidence of the morning, she had actually forgotten how quickly things could change. When she got back, her mother was dead. She was lying in the bath, wrists slashed, the blood pumping into the water, so that it looked as if she was lying in a bath of blood. Her clothes were neatly folded on the cork-covered stool.

How could Hester possibly leave Daddy after that?

The front door of the office opened and Sam shouted, ‘It’s only me, luv.’ He came along the corridor into her room, bundled in his Humphrey Bogart mac, the hat perched on the back of his head for a change. ‘You’re looking a bit under the weather, girl. What’s up?’

Hester sighed. ‘I was just thinking how nice it looked outside.’

‘Off you go, then,’ Sam said brusquely. ‘It’s nearly dinner time. Take an extra hour. There’s not much to do, and I’ll be here till three.’

‘You’re a lovely man, Sam Quigley. I’ll take you up on that.’

‘You’d better get going quick before I change me mind.’

She wandered down to the Pier Head where the air smelt salty and a fresh, sharp breeze blew. The Seacombe ferry had not long docked and a small queue of passengers was waiting to get on. On impulse, Hester ran down the pontoon and bought a return ticket. The short journey would only take about half an hour both ways. She had plenty of time to get back for one o’clock when she was meeting her father for lunch.

The water was a greeny-grey, quite smooth, with scarcely a ripple. A few minutes after she’d boarded, the boat gave a series of creaks and groans and started to move. She leaned over the rail and watched the curls and waves of creamy foam spurt from the stern. Flora’s party had unsettled her, made her feel terribly old and past it. The music hadn’t helped. She loved rock ’n’ roll, but had never seen the Beatles and had only managed to get to the Cavern twice, both times with Gus. That wonderful, crazy time when Liverpool had seemed to be the centre of the universe, had passed her by – or perhaps she had passed it by, one or the other.

Never before had she met anyone like Ned Cunningham. If only she was ten years younger or he ten years older! They’d sort of‘hit it off’, as people said nowadays. She’d liked him, but was unlikely ever to see him again, unless things got serious between him and Flora. If Flora had set her sights on him, he was unlikely to escape. She usually got anything she wanted.

Back in Liverpool and on dry land again, feeling better for the little voyage across the Mersey, Hester walked up Water Street, turned into North John Street, and came to the pub where she had arranged to meet her father. They rather clung to each other these days and often met for lunch. They were the only Olivers left. Gus had stayed in Durham and married Isobel whom he’d met at university.

Perhaps it was the bad memories he had of the house in Crosby that stopped him from coming home to see them more than once a year. Isobel was expecting their third child in June.

Daddy was already there. He jumped to his feet, smiling, though the smile hadn’t reached his eyes in a long while. He was only fifty-seven and still devastatingly attractive, at least so Hester thought. It seemed such a shame that he hadn’t remarried.

‘Darling!’ He kissed her cheek. ‘You look incredibly healthy. Your cheeks are glowing.’

‘I’ve been for a ride on the ferry, all the way to Seacombe and back. Sam let me have an extra hour off.’

‘Sam is an angel in disguise.’ Since Hester had gone to work for him, Roddy’s firm Glyn & Michaelson had engaged Sam a few times on some rather delicate matters. ‘What shall I get you?’

‘Just a sandwich, any sort, and an orange juice, please.’

‘Coming up.’ He went over to the bar. Hester glanced around the crowded pub.

There were few women there, the rest were businessmen, dressed like her father, in dark suits, dark ties, highly polished shoes. They all looked quite happy, quite normal, as they loudly discussed their work, their families, the headlines in that morning’s papers. She supposed she looked happy and normal too. No one would have guessed the tragedy that lay behind her. But who knew what other tragedies might be hidden behind some of these happy, normal faces?

‘Here you are, darling.’ Daddy had returned. He’d bought a whisky for himself.

He drank an awful lot of whisky, usually picking up two bottles off the supermarket shelves when they went shopping on Saturday morning. ‘I got you a cheese sandwich. Is that OK?’

‘Fine.’ The mention of cheese sandwiches reminded her of Ned Cunningham. Hester smiled, but at the same time felt just a little bit sad.

Two days later, on Friday afternoon, Hester was typing away on the ancient, clanky typewriter that Sam kept promising to replace with a more modern machine, but always forgot. She was too busy to look out of the window. Sam had just dictated about a dozen letters that she wanted to finish before she went home.

Sam came out of his office and shouted, ‘I’m off now, luv. See you Monday. Have a nice weekend.’