The Cuckoo Child
Also by Katie Flynn
A Liverpool Lass
The Girl From Penny Lane
Liverpool Taffy
The Mersey Girls
Strawberry Fields
Rainbow’s End
Rose of Tralee
No Silver Spoon
Polly’s Angel
The Girl from Seaforth Sands
The Liverpool Rose
Poor Little Rich Girl
The Bad Panny
Down Daisy Street
A Kiss and a Promise
Two Penn’orth of Sky
A Long and Lonely Road
Praise for Katie Flynn
‘Arrow’s best and biggest saga author. She’s good’
Bookseller
‘Few writers have a fan base as wide and varied as Katie Flynn and devotees won’t be disappointed’
Scottish Daily Record
‘If you pick up a Katie Flynn book it’s going to be a wrench to put it down again’
Holyhead & Anglesey Mail
‘A heartwarming story of love and loss’
Woman’s Weekly
Woman’s Weekly
‘One of the best Liverpool writers’
Liverpool Echo
‘[Katie Flynn] has the gift that Catherine Cookson had of bringing the period and the characters to life’
Caernarfon & Denbigh Herald
About the Author
Katie Flynn has lived for many years in the Northwest. A compulsive writer, she started with short stories and articles and many of her early stories were broadcast on Radio Mersey. She decided to write her Liverpool series after hearing the reminiscences of family members about life in the city in the early years of the twentieth century. She also writes as Judith Saxton. For the past few years, she has had to cope with ME but has continued to write, albeit more slowly.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form (including any digital form) other than this in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Epub ISBN: 9781446411193
Version 1.0
Published by Arrow Books in 2005
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Copyright © Katie Flynn 2005
Katie Flynn has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
This novel is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in the United Kingdom in 2005 by William Heinemann
Arrow Books
The Random House Group Limited
20 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, SW1V 2SA
Random House Australia (Pty) Limited
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New South Wales 2061, Australia
Random House New Zealand Limited
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Random House (Pty) Limited
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The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 09 946816 6
Contents
For Maisie Latto, whose memories of the Buster Stalls and their chips and peas took me straight back to my own childhood.
AcknowledgementsMany thanks to Fred Prince for putting me right on cockney rhyming slang and conditions in the East End pre the Second World War – thanks Fred!
Chapter OneMarch 1928
‘Dot! Aw, c’mon, Dot, I knows you’re there!’
The shout came clearly to Dot’s ears, echoing slightly through the tin lid of the dustbin in which she was hiding. She could tell that Fizz was in the jigger which ran along behind these yards, but she could also tell that he hadn’t got a clue as to where she was. How could he? Everyone was scared of old Rathbone, the butcher, in whose bin she thought she crouched, so the last place Fizz would think of looking would be in Rathbone’s yard. She had only gone in there herself because she knew Fizz was hot on her heels.
She cocked her head, listening intently, and heard the patter of Fizz’s plimsolls as he trotted along the jigger. She grinned delightedly, hugging herself at the success of her ploy. She had climbed over the wall which separated the yard from the jigger and had dropped down on to the weedy paving stones, meaning to find somewhere to hide, expecting to see a shed or a handcart, or even a pile of old boxes. Instead, she had seen three large galvanised dustbins. She had raised the lid of the foremost of these and had realised at once that it would make an excellent hiding place – if one was not too fussy, that was. But now that she was in the yard, she did not have much choice. Both the other bins were full to bursting, their lids not fitting properly over the mess of refuse within, but the third bin was almost empty. Then, whilst she had hesitated, she had heard a voice, sounding as though it came from the vicinity of Mr Rathbone’s back door. It was unbelievably bad luck in one way, because she had thought that the butcher, if this was his bin, would be safely ensconced in his flat above the shop, but it appeared she was wrong.
So she had hopped into the bin, pulled the lid into position as silently as she could, and now waited in the noisome dark for silence to come once more. Then, and only then, would she get out of the bin, scramble over the wall and make for ‘home’ which, in this particular game of relievio, was the yard of the Old Campfield public house.
Unfortunately, as the sound of Fizz’s flapping plimsolls faded, Dot heard the back door of the shop squeak open and footsteps entering the yard. She felt the hair rise up on the back of her neck; oh, Gawd, if old Rathbone caught her here there would be hell to pay. He hated kids and had a sharp way with them. When Dot’s Aunt Myrtle sent her to get the messages, she never bought meat off old Rathbone if she could possibly help it, even though he was the nearest butcher to Lavender Court. Aunt Myrtle said he gave short weight on the cheaper cuts and his better stuff was too expensive, but Dot would not have gone to him in any case. She hated his big square red face, the large yellow teeth which showed on the rare occasions when he smiled, and the mean little eyes, almost hidden in rolls of fat. He was spiteful, too; he would deliberately bang your parcel of meat down on your fingers if you were unwise enough to have a hand on the counter, and if you dared ask for a free bone, or a bit of suet for a pudding, he had been known to grab a child by the shoulders and run it out of the shop, saying as he did so that he weren’t a charitable institution and didn’t mean to keep bleedin’ slummies in luxury, not he.
However, the footsteps stopped just short of the dustbins and Dot heard someone inhale deeply, and then begin to speak. ‘Ker-rist, that were a narrow squeak, me old pal. Still, it were a bloody good haul; the best so far, I reckon. We can’t do nothing immediate, of course, ’cos the scuffers will be turnin’ over every fence for miles around – every known villain, too – but they ain’t likely to come to a butcher’s shop in search of a grosh of jewellery.’ Dot, listening intently, was pretty sure that the speaker was Mr Rathbone himself – so she had been right, this was his yard – and crouched even lower in the bin. ‘Yeah, I reckon we done pretty well for ourselves.’
‘Keep yer voice down,’ his companion urged. It was a thin, whiny voice, one which Dot did not recognise, but she could imagine the owner. He would be small, skinny and weaselly, with watery eyes and a loose slobbery mouth. In her mind, she could see him clearly: thinning hair, a pink and whiffling nose, and a tiny, sandy moustache. But now the butcher was speaking again.
‘Don’t be such a fool; who’s to hear me? All the other shopkeepers will be in their flats and not hovering about in their yards.’ Nevertheless, he dropped his voice. ‘No, we’re safe enough here, and we can’t talk in the flat. It’s sheer rotten luck that me old mam came calling. I can’t get shot of her before ten or so, or she’ll get suspicious. She’s not seen you, since she came in through the shop, and that’s just as well an’ all! She’s a rare gossip, so I don’t tell her that I’ve got me fingers in more’n one pie. You know women; she’d blab to some pal or other, an’ our goose ’ud be cooked. No, this is strictly between you an’ me, Ollie old pal. We both teks the risk an’ we teks a half share in the profits an’ all. That’s what we agreed, ain’t it?’
‘Oh aye, I reckon you’re right; least said, soonest mended,’ the whiner called Ollie said. ‘How soon will it be safe to sell ’em on, d’you suppose?’
‘If I could take ’em to London, like I means to do, mebbe we’d get away wi’ a few weeks,’ the butcher said reflectively. ‘But mebbe longer if the old feller croaks; you’re a might too handy wi’ that stick o’ yours, Ollie. There was no need to hit him twice, you know.’
The other man gave a whicker of laughter. ‘I ’ardly touched ’im,’ he protested. ‘Skull like bloody paper, that one, but he were comin’ round afore we were out the door. You don’t want to worry about him; he’ll be tellin’ everyone how he scared us off before we’d found the safe.’
‘I reckon you’re right,’ the butcher said grudgingly. ‘Tell you what, though, we’ll have to get rid o’ that emerald necklace. It’s been the centrepiece of that window ever since I can remember, so everyone who’s ever glanced into the shop will reckernise it at once. Besides, it’s gorra be paste; stands to reason. If it were real it ’ud be worth a king’s ransom an’ no insurance company would cover it. I didn’t mean to tek it, but then I didn’t expect the old feller to pop up from behind the counter like a bleedin’ jack-in-the-box. I shoved the rings, the gold chains and the earrings an’ that into me pockets when he started to speak and the bleedin’ necklace must ha’ got snagged on somethin’ in me hand, so I just shovelled the whole lot away an’ legged it.’
‘Yeah, I reckon you’re right,’ Ollie said, after a thoughtful moment. ‘Pity, ’cos it ’ud look good on any woman’s neck – ’twouldn’t matter if it were paste. I don’t see why we need to tek the other stuff to London, when there’s fences a lot nearer home, but s’pose you took the necklace down there, though? It ’ud be worth a few quid, I reckon.’
‘Didn’t you hear what I said?’ the butcher snapped, almost crossly. ‘Wharr’ave you got for a brain, Ollie? Lard? The scuffers will issue a description of everything we took an’ the only thing which really stands out is that bleedin’ necklace. Diamond rings, gold chains an’ fancy earrings are common to every jeweller in the land, pretty well. Give ’em six months an’ they’ll sell like hot cakes an’ not a question asked. I know what you mean, but we might as well write “robbers” on our foreheads in red ink as try to sell the emerald necklace. It’s gorra go, and it’s gorra go tonight. And I ain’t doin’ nothin’ clever, like takin’ it down to the Mersey, ’cos if I did, some interferin’ scuffer would either stop me on the way an’ search me pockets, or some kid might fish it out o’ the mud an’ run after me to tell me I’d dropped it.’
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